Secret Circle - The Captive Part 14

Reluctantly, Ca.s.sie turned and waited. She was braced as if for a blow.

Deborah came up quickly, her step light and controlled as always. Her dark hair was tumbling in waves around her small face and falling into her eyes. Her chin was slightly out-thrust as usual, but her expression wasn't hostile.

"I'm leaving too. You want a ride?" she said.

Instantly memories of the last "ride" she'd accepted flashed through Ca.s.sie's mind. But she didn't exactly like to refuse Deborah. After Faye's parting words, Ca.s.sie was feeling small and soft and vulnerable-like something that could be easily squashed. And besides . . . well, it wasn't often Deborah made a gesture like this.

"Okay, thanks," Ca.s.sie said after only a moment's hesitation. She didn't ask if they should be wearing helmets. She didn't think Deborah would appreciate the question.

Ca.s.sie had never been on a motorcycle before. It seemed bigger when she was trying to get on it than it had looked just standing there. Once she was on, though, it felt surprisingly stable. She wasn't afraid of falling off.

"Hang on to me," Deborah said. And then, with an incredibly loud noise, they were moving.

It was the most exhilarating feeling-flying through the air. Like witches on broomsticks, Ca.s.sie thought. Wind roared in Ca.s.sie's face, whipped her hair back. It whipped Deborah's hair into Ca.s.sie's eyes so she couldn't see.

As Deborah accelerated, it became terrifying. Ca.s.sie was sure she'd never gone this fast before. The wind felt icy cold. They were racing forward into darkness, far too fast for safety on a rural road. The houses on Crowhaven were far behind. Ca.s.sie couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. Everything was the wind and the road and the feeling of speed.

I'm going to die, Ca.s.sie thought. She almost didn't care. Something this electrifying was worth dying for. She was sure Deborah couldn't take this next corner.

"Relax!" Deborah shouted, her voice s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the wind. "Relax! Don't fight the way I'm leaning."

How can you relax when you're plunging at practically a hundred miles an hour into darkness? Ca.s.sie thought. But then she found out how: you give yourself up to it. Ca.s.sie resigned herself to her fate, and let the speed and the wind take her. And, magically, everything was all right.

She was aware, eventually, that they were heading back up Crowhaven Road, past Diana's house, past the others. They overshot Ca.s.sie's house and stormed around the vacant lot at the point of the headland.

Dust sprayed up on either side. Ca.s.sie saw the cliff whip by and buried her head in Deborah's shoulder. Then they were leaning, they were slowing, they were spiraling to a stop.

"So," said Deborah, when the world was still again, "what'd you think?"

Ca.s.sie lifted her head and made her fingers stop clutching. Every inch of her was as icy as if she'd been standing in a freezer. Her hair was matted and her lips and ears and nose were numb. .

"It was wonderful," she gasped. "Like flying."

Deborah burst into laughter, jumped off, and slapped Ca.s.sie on the back. Then she helped Ca.s.sie off. Ca.s.sie couldn't stop shivering.

"Look over here," Deborah said, stepping over to the edge of the cliff.

Ca.s.sie looked. Far below, the dark water crashed and foamed around the rocks. It was a long way down.

But there was something beautiful, too. Over the vast gray curve of ocean, an almost half-full moon hung. It cast a long wavering trail of light along the water, pure silver on the darkness.

"It looks like a road," Ca.s.sie said softly, through chattering teeth. "Like you could ride on it."

She looked at Deborah quickly, not sure how the biker girl would take to such a fancy. But Deborah gave a short nod, her narrowed eyes still on the silver path.

"That would be the ultimate. Just ride till you fly straight off the edge. I guess that was what the old-time witches wanted," she said.

Ca.s.sie felt a warmth even through her shivering. Deborah felt what she herself had felt. And now Ca.s.sie understood why Deborah rode a motorcycle.

"We better go," Deborah said abruptly.

On the way back to the motorcycle Ca.s.sie stumbled, falling to one knee. She looked back and saw that she had tripped on a piece of brick or stone.

"I forgot to tell you; there used to be a house here," Deborah said. "It got torn down a long time ago, but there're some pieces of foundation left."

"I think I just found one," Ca.s.sie said.

Rubbing her knee, she was starting to get up when she noticed something beside the brick. It was darker than the soil it was resting on and yet it shone faintly in the moonlight.

She picked it up and found that it was smooth and surprisingly heavy. And it did shine; it reflected the moonlight like a black mirror.

"It's hemat.i.te," said Deborah, who'd come back to look. "It's a powerful stone-for iron-strength, Melanie says." She knelt down suddenly beside Ca.s.sie, tossing tangled hair out of her eyes. "Ca.s.sie! It's your working crystal."

A thrill which seemed to come from the stone rippled through Ca.s.sie. Holding the smooth piece of hemat.i.te was like holding an ice cube, but all the things that Melanie had said would happen when she found her own personal crystal were happening now. It fit her hand, it felt natural there. She liked the weight of it. It was hers.

Elated, she lifted her head to smile up at Deborah, and in the chilly moonlight Deborah smiled fiercely back.

It was when she was dropping Ca.s.sie off at Number Twelve that she said, "I heard you came to see Nick yesterday."

"Oh-um," Ca.s.sie said. That meeting with Nick in the garage seemed like centuries ago, not yesterday. "Uh, I didn't come to see him," she stammered. "I was just walking by . . ."

Deborah shrugged. "Anyway, I thought I'd tell you-he gets in bad moods sometimes. But that doesn't mean you should give up. Other times he's okay."

Ca.s.sie floundered, completely amazed. "Uh-well-I didn't mean-I mean, thanks, but I wasn't really . . ."

She couldn't find a way to finish, and Deborah wasn't waiting anyway. "Whatever. See you later. And don't lose that stone!" Dark hair flying, the biker girl zoomed off.

Up in her room, Ca.s.sie's legs felt weak from tension, and she was tired. But she lay in bed for a while and held the hemat.i.te on her palm, tilting it back and forth to watch the light slide over it. For iron-strength, she thought.

It wasn't like the chalcedony rose; it gave her no feeling of warmth and comfort. But then the chalcedony rose was all mixed up in her mind with Adam and his blue-gray eyes. Diana had the rose now, and Diana had Adam.

And Ca.s.sie had a stone which brought a strange coolness to her thoughts, a coolness that seemed to extend to her heart. For iron-strength, she thought again. She liked that.

"And so that's what Ca.s.sie believes, that each of the deaths-even Kori's-is connected to the skull, and to Puritan ways of killing people," Diana said. She looked around the circle of faces. "Now it's up to us to do something about it."

Ca.s.sie was watching Faye. She wanted to see the reaction in those hooded golden eyes when Diana explained about the dark energy that had escaped during the skull ceremony, killing Jeffrey. Sure enough, when Diana got to that part, Faye shot a glance at Ca.s.sie, but there was nothing apologetic or guilty about it. It was a look of conspiracy. Only you and I know, it said. And I won't tell if you won't.

I'm not that stupid, Ca.s.sie telegraphed back angrily, and Faye smiled.

It was Sunday night and they were all sitting on the beach. Diana hadn't been able to find out much from her own Book of Shadows about dealing with evil objects like the skull, and she was calling for everyone's help.

It was the first full meeting of the Circle in three weeks, since the day after Mr. Fogle had been found dead. Ca.s.sie scanned the faces above thick jackets and sweaters-even New Englanders had to bundle up in this weather- and wondered what was going on in each individual witch's head.

Melanie was grave and thoughtful as usual, as if she neither believed nor disbelieved Ca.s.sie's theory, but was willing to test it out scientifically. Laurel just looked appalled. Suzan was examining the st.i.tching on her gloves. Deborah was scowling, unwilling to give up the idea that outsiders had killed Kori. Nick-well, who could tell what Nick thought? Sean was chewing his fingernails.

The Henderson brothers were agitated. For a terrible instant Ca.s.sie thought they were going to turn their energy on Adam, blame him for Kori's being killed. But then Doug spoke up.

"So how come we're still sittin' around talking? Let me have the skull-I'll take care of it," he said, teeth bared.

"Yeah-let Doug have it," Sean chimed in.

"It can't be destroyed, Doug," Melanie said patiently.

"Oh, yeah?" Chris said. "Put it in with a pipe bomb-" "And nothing would happen. Crystal skulls can't be destroyed, Doug," Melanie repeated. "That's in all the old lore. You wouldn't even scratch it."

"And there's no really safe place to store it," Diana said. "I might as well tell you all, I've got it buried somewhere, and yesterday I set up a spell to tell me if the place is disturbed. It's vital that the skull stays buried."

Ca.s.sie had a sick feeling in her stomach. Diana was looking around the group, focusing on Deborah, Faye, and the Hendersons. It would never occur to her to look at me, Ca.s.sie thought, and somehow this made her feel sicker than ever.

"Why can't we take it back to the island?" Suzan said, surprisingly, showing she was listening after all.

Adam, who had been sitting quietly, his fine, humorous face unusually moody, answered. "Because the island won't protect it anymore," he said. "Not since I took the skull."

"Sort of like one of those Egyptian tombs with a curse on it," said Laurel. "Once you break in, you can't undo what you've done."

Adam's lip quirked. "Right. And we're not strong enough to cast a new spell of protection that would hold it. This skull is evil," he said to all of them. "It's so evil that burying it in sand won't do anything but keep it from being activated at the moment. There's no way to purify it"-he looked at Laurel-"and no way to destroy it"-he looked at Doug and Chris- "and no place to keep it safe." He looked at Suzan.

"Then what do we do?" Deborah demanded, and Sean squeaked, "What do we do?"

"Forget about it?" Faye suggested with a lazy smile. Adam shot her a dark look. Diana intervened.

"Adam had the idea of searching for the dark energy again with a pendulum, seeing if there are any new trails," she said. She turned to Ca.s.sie. "What do you think?"

Ca.s.sie dug her fingernails into her palms. If they traced the dark energy and it led them straight back to Faye's house, the place where it had most recently escaped . . . Faye was looking at her sharply, wanting her to veto the suggestion. But Ca.s.sie had an idea.

"I think we should do it," she told Diana evenly.

Faye's stare turned menacing, furious. But there was nothing she could say.

Diana nodded. "All right. We may as well start now. It's a long walk to the graveyard, so I thought we might try picking up the trail around here. We'll go out on Crowhaven Road and see if there's anything to follow."

Ca.s.sie could actually feel her chest quivering with the beating of her heart as they walked off the beach. She thrust one hand into her pocket to feel the cold, smooth piece of hemat.i.te. Iron-strength, that was what she needed right now.

"Are you crazy?" Faye hissed as they climbed the bluff and headed for the road. She caught Ca.s.sie's arm in a punishing grip, holding her back from the others. "Do you know where that trail goes?"

Ca.s.sie shook the arm off. "Trust me," she said shortly.

"What?"

Ca.s.sie whirled on the taller girl. "I said, trust me! I know what I'm doing-and you don't." And with that she began to climb again. Iron-strength, she thought dizzily, impressed with herself.

But she still found it hard to breathe when Diana stood out in the middle of Crowhaven Road-near Number Two, Deborah's house- and held up the peridot crystal.

Ca.s.sie watched it, feeling the concentration of all the minds around her. She waited for it to spin in circles.

It did-in the beginning. The chain twisted first one way and then the other, like a woundup swing on a playground. But then, to Ca.s.sie's horror, it began to seesaw, pointing up and down Crowhaven Road. Down, the way they'd traveled the first time, the way that had eventually led to the cemetery, and up, toward the headland.

Toward Faye's.

Ca.s.sie's legs felt as if they were sinking into cotton as she followed the group. Faye had no trouble holding her back now. "I told you," she said vehemently out of the side of her mouth. "Now what, Ca.s.sie? If that trail leads to my house, I'm not going down alone."

Ca.s.sie clenched her teeth and choked out, "I thought we couldn't trace it at ground level. That energy came out through your bedroom ceiling on the second floor, and it was going straight up. I thought it would be too high to track."

"You obviously thought wrong," Faye hissed.

They were pa.s.sing the vacant house at Number Three. They were pa.s.sing Melanie's house. Laurel's house was in front of them; they were pa.s.sing it. Faye's house was just ahead.

Ca.s.sie thought she actually might faint. She was almost unaware that she was clutching Faye's arm as hard as Faye was clutching hers. She waited for the peridot to turn aside and lead them all to Faye's doorstep.

But Diana was walking on.

Ca.s.sie felt a violent surge of relief-and of bewilderment. Where were they going? They were pa.s.sing Number Seven, another vacant house. Pa.s.sing the Hendersons', pa.s.sing Adam's, pa.s.sing Suzan's. They were pa.s.sing Sean's-oh, my G.o.d, Ca.s.sie thought, we're not going to my house?

But they were pa.s.sing Number Twelve as well. Diana was following the pendulum's swing, leading them out onto the point of the headland.

And there the crystal began to spin in circles again.

"What's going on?" Laurel said, looking around in astonishment. "What are we doing here?"

Adam and Diana were looking at each other. Then they both looked at Ca.s.sie, who came slowly forward from the rear of the group. Ca.s.sie shrugged at them.

"This is the place where Number Thirteen used to be," Diana said. "Right, Adam? The house that was torn down."

"I heard it burned down," Adam said. "Before we were born."

"No, it wasn't that long ago," said Melanie. "It was only about sixteen or seventeen years ago-that's what I heard. But before that it was vacant for centuries. Literally."

"How many centuries?" Ca.s.sie said, too loudly. For some reason she found her fingers clenched around the piece of hemat.i.te in her pocket.

The members of the coven turned to her, looking at her with eyes that seemed to shine slightly in the moonlight.

"About three," Melanie said. "This was Black John's house. n.o.body ever lived in it after he died in 1696."

The hemat.i.te burned against Ca.s.sie's palm with icy fire.

ELEVEN.

"This is all too weird for me," Laurel said, shivering."But what does it tell us?" Deborah challenged."It's another link to Black John," Adam said. "Other than that, nothing.""So it's a dead end, like the cemetery," Faye said, looking pleased.Ca.s.sie had the feeling they were wrong, but she couldn't explain why, so she kept her mouth shut.

Something else was worrying her, worrying her terribly. The piece of hemat.i.te that right now felt as heavy as a bit of neutron star in her pocket ... it had come from the ruins of Black John's house. It might even have belonged to him. Which meant that she had to tell Diana about it.