Chapter 20 — End of Holidays
Salvatore paced his cave nervously again. Johann was sitting in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief.
"I was sure it was more than a charm. I should be able to tell it apart." he said as if to himself.
"Maybe you're even right about it, but Alistair won't believe you, especially since he saw a change in Damon's behavior when they emerged him from the water. However, in my opinion, he did some theater there. It wasn't honest... It looked as if the water had no effect on him, and Damon was just pretending to Alistair otherwise." Salvatore replied.
"It had to work on him. It works on everybody." Johann interjected.
"Maybe not on the hybrids?" his brother suggested, still pacing back and forth through the cave.
"It works even on Fallen Angels, so it should do on all sorts of hybrids too. The Lake of Darkness has too much power for any creature to resist its effects." Johann replied.
"Well, I don't understand any of it anymore. That's why we need to keep an eye on Damon anyway, which means you have to go back to the surface again, my brother." Salvatore said, stopping suddenly in the middle of the room.
Johann only sighed heavily and nodded his head to show that he understood.
~~~~~~
After about fifteen minutes, Alice returned to the garden, leading Rita behind her.
"Alice said that demons dipped Damon in the Lake of Darkness, but he still loves Selene. Is that true?" she asked.
"That's how it is." Damon replied, still looking at this sorceress with a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. She was much older than Alice, so if she wanted to drive him away, Damon would have a much smaller chance of defending himself..
"Do you know how and why this could have happened?" Selene asked her.
"I would have to think about it. I've never seen a situation like this before," Rita mused, frowning slightly. For the next twenty minutes, there was a deathly silence, broken only by the rustle of leaves blown by the wind. Selene, Damon, and Alice waited tensely, staring at Rita's focused face.
"I think I know what could have been the cause of this turn of events." she spoke up finally. "As we all know, the waters of the Lake of Darkness can wash away any magical charm. And I emphasize the word "magic", which means that it works on everything that was made of magic." she pointed out.
"What are you getting at?" Alice asked, looking at her with left eyebrow raised slightly.
"I don't think Damon is under the "magic" charm of Selene, but he really loves her without any powers involved. And that's why the waters of the Lake of Darkness had no effect on him, because there was no magic to interfere with the love that connects Selene and him." Rita replied, smiling radiantly.
Selene and Damon looked at each other in surprise. Moments later, they hugged tightly, very happy about the news.
"I can't believe it." Alice was almost speechless.
"In fact, that's nothing surprising, and it's perfectly normal for mortals. It seems strange to us, because when we live with magic and therefore tend to forget about the real world, all real feelings within it, so we associate everything with magic. Yet it does not have to manifest itself in every aspect of our lives. All wizards and sorceresses are half human, and like mortals, can be touched by such feelings. I've been sure about it for a long time, but only your example confirmed my theory." Rita said, pointing to Selene and Damon.
"Really? Are you serious?" Selene stammered at her words.
"I have no doubts about that." Rita replied.
"Well, that makes sense. That's probably the most logical explanation." added Alice.
"I've never thought that demons can fall in love." Damon spoke up.
"Believe me, every creature in the world can be touched by this feeling, even as bad as a demon. Love is so powerful that no one can resist this power, its much stronger than magic, both white and black." Rita explained.
"That's wonderful." Selene almost whispered, her heart filling with immense warmth. She took Damon's hand and squeezed it lightly. Damon, on the other hand, had no words to express the joy that filled his heart.
"Selene, Meredith wants to go out and look for us." Alice broke this wonderful moment with her warning.
"Ah, then we must go back." she replied, but sadness filled her heart at the thought of parting with her beloved, especially now.
"We will meet tomorrow for sure. This time I'll be waiting for you here." Damon brushed a hand over her cheek and disappeared into the darkness among the trees.
Rita had gone earlier towards house to calm Meredith down. Soon after, Alice and Selene headed that way as well.
~~~~~~
When the summer holidays ended and the new school year began, Selene and Damon only met on the weekend. Aunt Meredith also limited her magic and mastery over the Elements lessons to Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Selene tried to focus on her studies, and surprisingly she was doing quite well, and of course was seeing Sara and Jennifer more often now. Selene told them about Damon, apart from the fact that he was not human.
"Aunt hired him as a gardener and that's how we met." she said. Selene felt a little bad for lying like that, but she had no choice but not to reveal her secrets to them.
"Gee, you're so lucky, my girl." Jennifer replied with delight.
"Even though I have Michael, I envy you anyway. Such a guy." Sarah added, looking at the photo Selene showed them.
"I recently met this Stephen. Nice guy and handsome." Jennifer boasted, showing photo of her new boyfriend.
"Yes, yes. You met and took care of him when that Eleazar disappeared and left you alone in the club." Sarah spoke up.
"Did you meet him? Eleazar?" Selene asked, looking at Jennifer.
"You could call it that. Michael invited Sarah to the club and said Eleazar would be there too, so I went with her. I had a little chat with him, we even danced, had a drink and then he disappeared somewhere." Jennifer shrugged. "Even Mike didn't know when or where he went. About fifteen minutes later, Steve appeared on the horizon and I was so crazy about him that I completely forget about Eleazar." she added with a smile. They all burst out laughing at once.
~~~~~~
The school year passed quickly; it was summer again before Selene could look back. Since she was too often confined to a large group of people while attending school, the demons had given up on their plans to eliminate her altogether, at least for now. Alistair wanted Damon to stay longer in the Underworld, but he said that still had to keep an eye on the "chosen one" because who knows, there might be an opportunity to deal with her quickly. Of course, in the end it turned out that Damon hadn't found an opportunity to complete his mission, or at least said it like that, but Alistair still trusted him strongly and didn't push, giving him a free hand as to when and how to get rid of the "chosen one". The most important thing was that he should do it before this girl turns eighteen, and there was still a lot of time left for this event.
Damon knew very well that Johann was following him again, but this time he was aware of it, so could hide what was most important from him. It was also easy for Damon to escape from Johann, who had far too rarely left the Underworld and did not like being around people. Losing such a tail was child's play for him, and after a while Damon found some strange pleasure in escaping Johann and watching his nervous reaction from hiding. This game of cat and mouse filled his time perfectly, especially when Selene was in school and they weren't able to see each other very often. Damon missed her very much and counted the days, hours, minutes, even seconds until their next meeting. However, it made every moment with Selene very precious to him. Their love bloomed like a wonderful flower, filling both hearts with bliss, so much that at times they forgot that, after all, were committing a great sin against their worlds. Fortunately, having allies in Alice and Rita helped them a lot. And so the time until the next vacation passed without any major problems, however many could say that it might be a veritable silence before the huge, devastating storm.