Secret Circle - The Captive Part 5

bent forward and lightly kissed the grinning quartz teeth.

Then she put the skull in the center of the ring of gems.

Ca.s.sie swallowed. The sinking feeling was getting worse and worse; she felt sicker and sicker. "Faye,

shouldn't you have a ring of candles, too? What if-"

"Don't be silly. Nothing's going to happen. I just want to see what this fellow's all about," Faye murmured.

Ca.s.sie didn't believe it.

"Faye . . ." She was starting to panic. This was a bad idea, this had always been a bad idea. She wasn't

strong enough to stop Faye from anything. She didn't even know what Faye was doing.

"Faye, don't you need to prepare-" "Be quiet," Faye said sharply. She was hovering over the skull, gazing down into it, half reclining on the bed.

It was all happening too fast. And it wasn't safe. Ca.s.sie felt sure of that now. She could feel a darkness

welling up inside the skull. "Faye, what are you doing with it?"

More darkness, rising up like the sea. How could Faye be this powerful, to raise it from the skull so quickly? And all by herself, without a coven to back her up?

The star ruby at Faye's throat winked, and for the first time Ca.s.sie noticed matching gems on Faye's

fingers. All these red stones-to heighten the energy of the ritual? To enhance the power of the witch-or the skull?

"Faye!"

"Shut up!" said Faye. She leaned farther over the skull, lips parted, her breath coming quickly. Ca.s.sie could almost see the darkness in the skull, swirling, rising like smoke.

Don't look at it! Don't give it any more power! the voice in her head cried. Ca.s.sie stared instead at Faye, urgently.

"Faye, whatever you're doing-it's not what you think! It's not safe!"

"Leave me alone!"

Swirling, rising, higher and higher. The darkness had been thin and transparent at first, but now it was

thick and oily. Ca.s.sie wouldn't look at it, but she could feel it. It was almost at the top of the skull, uncoiling, wheeling.

"Faye, look out!"

The black-haired girl was directly over the skull, directly in the way of the rising dark. Ca.s.sie grabbed

her, pulling at her.

But Faye was strong. Snarling something incoherent, she tried to shake Ca.s.sie off. Ca.s.sie threw oneglance at the skull. It seemed to be grinning wildly at her, the smoke corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g inside it."Faye," she screamed, and wrenched at the other girl's shoulders.They both fell backward. At the same instant, out of the corner of her eye, Ca.s.sie saw the darkness break free.

FIVE.

"You stupid outsider," Faye screeched, twisting away from Ca.s.sie. "It was just getting started-now you've ruined everything!"

Ca.s.sie lay on her back, gasping. Then she pointed shakily, sitting up.

"That's what I ruined," she said, her voice soft from lack of breath, and from fear. Faye looked up at the ceiling, at the dark, charred circle on the white plaster.

"It was coming right at you," Ca.s.sie said, too unnerved to yell, or even to be angry. "Didn't you see it?"

Faye just looked at her, black lashes heavy over speculative golden eyes. Then she looked at the skull.

Ca.s.sie leaned over and covered the skull with the cloth.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking it back," Ca.s.sie said, still breathless. "Diana was right. 1 was right, if I'd listened to myself. It's too dangerous to handle."

She expected Faye to explode, possibly even to fight her. But Faye looked up at the stain on the ceiling and said musingly, "I think it's just a matter of more protection. If we could capture that energy-channel it. . ."

"You're crazy," Ca.s.sie told her bluntly. "And," she added, "our deal is finished. I did what you asked: I brought you the skull. You used it and you almost got killed. So now it's over."

Faye's lazy expression disappeared. "Oh, no, Ca.s.sie," she said. The hint of a smile curved her lips, but her eyes were predatory. Ruthless. "It's only starting. Don't you see?" She began to laugh. "You're more my captive now than ever. It's not just Adam anymore-now I can tell Diana about this. How do you think the Princess of Purity is going to feel when she finds out her 'little sister' stole the skull? And then brought it to me to use?" Faye laughed harder, seeming delighted. "Oh, Ca.s.sie, you should see your face."

Ca.s.sie felt as if she were smothering. What Faye said was true. If Diana found out that Ca.s.sie had dug up the skull-that Ca.s.sie had lied to her-that the whole story last Sunday about being too scared to go home had been a trick . . .

Just as it had the last time she'd stood in this room, Ca.s.sie felt her spirit, her will, draining away. She was more trapped than ever. She was lost.

"You take the skull back now," Faye said, as if it had been entirely her idea. "And later- well, I'll think of something else I want from you. In the meanwhile, you just keep yourself available."

I hate you, Ca.s.sie thought with impotent rage. But Faye was ignoring Ca.s.sie completely, bending to pick up the bristling kittens, one gray and one orange, which had crawled out from under the dust ruffle. The vampire kittens, Ca.s.sie remembered distractedly-the ones with a taste for human blood. Apparently even they hadn't liked this business with the skull.

"What about that?" Ca.s.sie said, pointing at the dark stain on Faye's ceiling. "Don't you feel at all responsible about letting it loose? It could be out killing somebody-"

"I doubt it," Faye said, and shrugged negligently. "But we'll just have to wait and see, I suppose." She stroked the orange kitten and its fur began to lie flat again.

Ca.s.sie could only stare at her, tears rising to her eyes. She'd thought she could control Faye, but she'd been wrong. And right now the new dark energy could be doing anything, and she was helpless to stop it.

You could tell Diana, an inner voice, the core voice, whispered, but Ca.s.sie didn't even pretend to listen. She could never tell Diana now; that chance was over. Things had gone far too far with Faye.

"Ca.s.sie, are you nervous about something?" Laurel had paused with the white-handled knife in her hand.

"Me? No. Why?" Ca.s.sie said, feeling every moment as if she might jump out of her skin.

"You just seem kind of jittery." Laurel gently snicked the knife through the base of the small witch-hazel bush. "Now, this won't hurt a bit... you've got plenty of roots down there to grow back from . . ." she murmured soothingly. "It's not about Homecoming, is it?" she asked, looking up again.

"No, no," Ca.s.sie said. She hadn't even thought about Homecoming this week. She couldn't think about anything except the dark energy. Each day she expected to hear about some new disaster.

But today was Thursday, and nothing had happened yet. No avalanches, no bodies found, n.o.body even missing. Oh, if only she could let herself believe that nothing would happen. The energy she and Faye had released had been small-she felt sure of that now-and maybe it had just evaporated. Ca.s.sie felt a delicious peace steal through her at the thought.

Laurel had moved over to a clump of thyme. "It's not too late to change your mind about coming," she said. "And I wish you would. Dancing is very witchy-and it's Nature. It's like one of our incantations: "Man to woman, woman to man, Ever since the world began.

Heart to heart, and hand to hand, Ever since the world began."

She added, looking up at Ca.s.sie thoughtfully, "Wasn't there some guy you met over the summer that you were interested in? We could do a spell to pull him here-" "No!" said Ca.s.sie. "I mean, I really don't want to go to Homecoming, Laurel. I just-I wouldn't be comfortable."

"Thank you," Laurel said. For an instant Ca.s.sie thought it was addressed to her, but Laurel was now talking to the thyme. "I'm sorry I needed part of the root, too, but I brought this to help you grow back," she went on, tucking a pink crystal into the soil. "That reminds me, have you found your working crystal yet?" she said to Ca.s.sie.

"No," Ca.s.sie said. She thought of the jumble of crystals in Faye's box. She'd liked handling them, but none of them had stood out as hers, as the one she needed as a witch.

"Don't worry, you will," Laurel a.s.sured her. "It'll just turn up one day, and you'll know." She stood up with the thyme plant in her hand. "All right, let's go inside and I'll show you how to make an infusion. n.o.body should fool around with herbs unless they know exactly what they're doing. And if you change your mind about Homecoming, thyme soup helps overcome shyness."

Ca.s.sie cast a look around the great wide world, as she always did now, checking for the dark energy, then she followed Laurel.

The next day, in American history cla.s.s, Diana sneezed.

Ms. Lanning stopped talking and said, "Bless you" absently. Ca.s.sie scarcely noticed it at the time. But then, at the end of cla.s.s, Diana sneezed again, and kept sneezing. Ca.s.sie looked at her. Diana's eyes were pink and watery. Her nose was getting pink, too, as she rubbed it with a Kleenex.

That night, instead of going to the Homecoming game, Diana stayed at home in bed. Ca.s.sie, who knew nothing about football and was only yelling when everybody else yelled, worried about her in some back corner of her mind. It couldn't have anything to do with the dark energy, could it?

"Applaud," Laurel said, nudging her. "For the Homecoming Queen. Sally really looks almost pretty, doesn't she?"

"1 guess," Ca.s.sie said, applauding mechanically. "Laurel, how come one of us isn't Homecoming Queen? Instead of an outsider?"

"Diana didn't want to be," Laurel said succinctly. "And Deb and the others think it's too goody-goody. But from the way Jeffrey Lovejoy's looking at Sally, I'd say Faye made a mistake. She told Jeff to come to the dance with her, but he'd already asked Sally and he's a fighter. It'll be interesting to see who gets him."

"You can tell me all about it," Ca.s.sie said. "I saw the last fight between Faye and Sally; this one I can miss."

But it didn't turn out that way.

Ca.s.sie was in the herb garden when the phone call came. She had to go through the kitchen and into the new wing of the house to get to the telephone.

"h.e.l.lo, Ca.s.sie?" The voice was so muted and stuffed-up it was almost unrecognizable. "It's Diana."

Fear crinkled up Ca.s.sie's backbone. The dark energy . . . "Oh, Diana, are you all right?"

There was a burst of m.u.f.fled laughter. "Don't panic. I'm not dying. It's just a bad cold."

"You sound awful."

"I know. I'm completely miserable, and I can't go to the dance tonight, and I called to ask you a favor."

Ca.s.sie froze with a sudden intuition. Her mouth opened, and then shut again silently. But Diana was going

on."Jeffrey called Faye to tell her he's going with Sally after all, and Faye is livid. So when she heard I wa.s.sick, she called to say she would go with Adam, because she knew I would want him to go even if I couldn't. And I do; I don't want him to miss it just because of me. So I told her she couldn't because I'dalready asked you to go with him.""Why?" Ca.s.sie blurted, and then thought, Ask a stupid question . . ."Because Faye is on the prowl," Diana said patiently. "And she likes Adam, and the mood she's in tonight, she'll try anything. That's the one thing I couldn't stand, Ca.s.sie, for her to get her hands on Adam.I just couldn't."Ca.s.sie looked around for something to sit down on."But Diana ... I don't even have a dress. I'm all muddy. . . .""You can go over to Suzan's. All the other girls are there. They'll take care of you."

"But . . ." Ca.s.sie shut her eyes. "Diana, you just don't understand. I can't. I-""Oh, Ca.s.sie, I know it's a lot to ask. But I don't know who else to turn to. And if Faye goes after Adam .. ."

It was the first time Ca.s.sie had ever heard such a forlorn note in Diana's voice. She sounded on the verge

of tears. Ca.s.sie pressed a hand to her forehead. "Okay. Okay, I'll do it. But-"

"Thank you, Ca.s.sie! Now go right to Suzan's-I've talked with her and Laurel and Melanie. They'll fix you up. I'm going to call Adam and tell him."

And that, Ca.s.sie thought helplessly, was one conversation she thought she could miss too.

Maybe Adam would get them out of it somehow, she thought as she drove the Rabbit up Suzan's driveway. But she doubted it. When Diana made her mind up about something, she was immovable.

Suzan's house had columns. Ca.s.sie's mother said it was bad Greek Revival, but Ca.s.sie secretly thought it