The Secret Circle: The Captive Part II and The Power (6 page)

“Help!” Cassie shrieked, half laughing, so that she accidentally drank some salt water. But there was no help in sight. Laurel and Deborah were heading an assault on the Henderson brothers, and Adam and Diana were far away, their sleek heads bobbing side by side.

Nick tossed wet hair—blacker than onyx in the moonlight—out of his eyes and grinned at her. Cassie had never seen him smile before. “Surrender,” he suggested.

“Never,” Cassie said, with as much dignity as she could muster while wavelets slapped her. Nick
was
handsome—but she didn’t want him to get hold of her out here. He made another grab at her and Cassie shrieked for help again, and suddenly there was a heaving wave between them.

“Go on! Get out of here!” Faye said. Her eyes gleamed wickedly under long, wet lashes. “Or do we have to
make
you? Cassie, grab him around the neck while I get his trunks!”

Cassie had no idea how to grab a guy as strong as Nick around the neck, especially when she was laughing so hard, but she surged forward. Faye dove like a dolphin, and Nick twisted and made a hasty retreat, swimming away as fast as he could.

Cassie looked at Faye and found Faye smiling sideways at her. Cassie grinned.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Any time,” Faye said. “You know I’m glad to do anything for my friends. And we are friends, aren’t we, Cassie?”

Cassie thought about that, treading water in the silver-glinting ocean. “I guess,” she said, finally, slowly.

“That’s good. Because, Cassie, there’s a time coming up when I’m going to need all my friends. This Tuesday, when the moon is full, the Circle is going to have a meeting.”

Cassie nodded, not getting it for a moment. Of course they were going to have a meeting. And another party; it was Faye’s and Diana’s birthday. They were both seventeen—

“The leadership vote!” Cassie said, taking an involuntary gulp of salt water again. She stared at Faye with a sudden terrible apprehension. “Faye . . .”

“That’s right,” Faye said. In the moonlight she looked like a mermaid, staying afloat effortlessly. Her glorious mane of hair hung soaking-wet down her back like twining seaweed. Her eyes held Cassie’s. “I want to be leader of this coven, Cassie. I
will
be leader. And you’re going to help me.”

“No.”

“Yes. Because this time I’m serious. I’ve been going easy on you, letting you have your way, not making you play by the rules. But that’s over now, Cassie. This is the one thing I want more than anything else in the world, and you
are
going to help me. Otherwise . . .” Faye looked over her shoulder to where Adam and Diana were still bobbing, far away. Then she turned back.

“Otherwise, I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll tell Diana—and not just about that little cuddling session on the bluff. I’ll tell her about the way you and Adam were kissing at the Homecoming dance—did you think nobody would see that? And the
real
reason Adam went through four circles of protection to save you at Halloween. And”—she floated closer to Cassie, her hooded golden eyes as unblinking as the eyes of a falcon—“I’ll tell her about the skull. How you stole it from her and gave it to me, so we could kill Jeffrey.”

“That’s not what happened! I’d never have let you have it if I’d known—”

“Are you sure, Cassie?” Faye smiled, a slow, conspiratorial smile. “I think, deep down, that you and I are just the same. We’re . . . sisters under the skin. And if you don’t vote for me on Tuesday, I’ll let everyone know the truth about you. I’ll tell them what you really are inside.”

Evil
, Cassie thought, staring out at the ocean. It reflected the moonlight back like a mirror, like a piece of hematite, and it surrounded her. She couldn’t say a word.

“Think about it, Cassie,” Faye said pleasantly. “You have until Tuesday night to decide.” And then she swam away.

It was Tuesday night.

The full moon was directly overhead, the circle had been cast. The members of the Club sat around it. Diana, who was wearing all the symbols of the Queen of the Witches, had called on the four elements to protect them, but now she was silent. It was Melanie who was calling for the vote, from oldest to youngest.

“Nicholas,” she said.

“I told you before,” Nick said. “I won’t vote. I’m
here
, because you two insisted”—he glanced from Faye to Diana—“but I abstain.”

With a strange feeling of unreality, Cassie watched his handsome, cold face. Nick had abstained, why couldn’t she? But she knew that would never satisfy Faye, unless Faye had already won. And Cassie was no closer to knowing which way to vote tonight than she had been three days ago. If only she had a little more time—

But there was no time. Melanie was speaking again.

“Adam.”

Adam’s voice was firm and clear. “Diana.”

From a pile of red and white stones in front of her, Melanie put forward one white. “And as for me, I vote for Diana too,” she said, and put out another white stone. “Faye?”

Faye smiled. “I vote for myself.”

Melanie put out a red stone. “Diana.”

“I vote for myself too,” Diana said quietly.

A third white stone. Then Melanie said, “Douglas.”

Doug grinned one of his wildest grins. “I’m voting for Faye, naturally.”

“Christopher.”

“Uh . . .” Chris looked confused. Despite Faye’s frown and Doug’s frantic coaching, he was squinting into nothingness as if searching for a lost decision. Finally, he seemed to find it and he looked at Melanie. “Okay; Diana.”

Everyone in the circle stared at him. He glared back defiantly. Cassie’s fingers clenched on the piece of hematite in her pocket.

“Chris, you feeb—” Doug began, but Melanie shut him up.

“No talking,” she said, and put out a fourth white stone next to the two red. “Suzan.”

“Faye.”

Three red, four white. “Deborah.”

“Who do you think?” Deborah snapped. “Faye.”

Four red, four white. “Laurel,” said Melanie.

“Diana’s always been our leader, and she always will be,” Laurel said. “I vote for her.”

Melanie put a fifth white stone out, a trace of a smile hovering on her lips. “Sean.”

Sean’s black eyes shifted nervously. “I . . .” Faye was staring at him relentlessly. “I . . . I . . .
Faye
,” he said, and hunched up his shoulders.

Melanie shrugged and put out another red stone. Five red, five white. But although her gray eyes remained serious, her lips were definitely curved in a smile. All of Diana’s adherents had relaxed, and they were flashing smiles at each other across the circle.

Melanie turned confidently to the last member of the coven and said, “Cassandra.”

Chapter 6

T
here was silence under the silver disk of moon.

“Cassie,” Melanie said again.

Now everyone was looking at her. Cassie could feel the heat of Faye’s golden eyes on her, and she knew why Sean had squirmed. They were hotter than the pillar of fire Diana had summoned up to protect them at Halloween.

As if compelled, Cassie glanced the other way. Diana was looking at her too. Diana’s eyes were like a pool adrift with green leaves. Cassie couldn’t seem to look away from them.

“Cassie?” Melanie said for the third time. Her voice was tinged with the slightest note of doubt.

Still unable to look away from Diana’s eyes, Cassie whispered, “Faye.”

“What?”
cried Laurel.

“Faye,” Cassie said, too loudly. She was clutching the piece of hematite in her pocket. Coldness from it seemed to seep through her body. “I said Faye, all right?” she said to Melanie, but she was still looking at Diana.

Those clear green eyes were bewildered. Then, all at once, understanding came into them, as if a stone had been tossed into the tranquil pool. And when Cassie saw that, saw Diana really
understand
what had just happened, something inside her died forever.

Cassie didn’t know any longer why she was voting for Faye. She couldn’t remember now how all this had started, how she’d gotten on this path in the first place. All she knew was that the coldness from her hand and arm was trickling through her entire body, and that from here on, there was no turning back.

Melanie was sitting motionless, stunned, not touching the pile of red and white stones. She seemed to have forgotten about them. It was Deborah who leaned forward and picked up the sixth red stone, adding it to Faye’s pile.

And somehow that act, and the sight of the six red stones beside the five white ones, made it real. Electricity crackled in the air as everyone sat forward.

Slowly, Melanie said, “Faye is the new leader of the coven.”

Faye stood up.

She had never seemed so tall before, or so beautiful.

Silently, she held out a hand to Diana.

But it wasn’t a gesture of friendship. Faye’s open hand with the long crimson nails was
demanding
. And in response to it, very slowly, Diana got to her feet as well. She unclasped the silver bracelet from her upper arm.

Adam had been staring, thunderstruck. Now he jumped to his feet. “
Wait
a minute—”

“It’s no use, Adam,” Melanie said, in a deadened voice. “The vote was fair. Nothing can change it now.”

Faye took the silver bracelet with the mysterious, runic inscriptions, and clasped it about her own bare, rounded arm. It shone there against the honey-pale skin.

Diana’s fingers trembled as she undid the garter. Laurel, muttering something and brushing tears out of her eyes with an angry gesture, moved forward to help her, kneeling before Diana and tugging at the circle of green leather and blue silk. It came free and Laurel stood up, looking as if she wanted to throw it at Faye.

But Diana took it and placed it in Faye’s hand.

Faye was wearing the shimmering black shift that she’d worn to the Halloween dance, the one slit up both sides to the hip. She buckled the garter around her left thigh.

Then Diana put both hands to her hair and lifted off the diadem. Fine strands of hair the color of sunlight and moonlight woven together clung to the silver crown as she removed it.

Faye reached out and almost snatched it from her.

Faye held the circlet up high, as if showing it to the coven, to the four elements, to the world. Then she settled it on her own head. The crescent moon in its center gleamed against her wild black mane of hair.

There was a collective release of breath from the Circle.

Cassie didn’t know how she’d gotten to her feet, but suddenly she was running. She bolted out of the circle and ran beside the ocean, her feet sinking into wet sand. She ran until something caught her from behind and stopped her.

“Cassie!” Adam said. His eyes looked straight into hers, as if he was searching for her soul.

Cassie hit out at him.

“Cassie, I know you didn’t want to do it! She made you, somehow, didn’t she? Cassie, tell me!”

Cassie tried to shake him off again. Why was he bothering her? She was furious, suddenly, with Adam and Diana and their everlasting
faith
in her.

“I know she made you,” Adam said forcefully.

“Nobody made me!” Cassie almost shouted. Then she stopped fighting him and they stood and stared at each other, both breathing hard.

“You’d better get back there,” Cassie said. “We’re not supposed to be alone—remember? Remember our oath? Not that I guess you
need
to think about it much anymore. It’s pretty easy to keep these days, isn’t it?”

“Cassie, what’s going
on
?”

“Nothing is going on! Just go, Adam. Just—” Before Cassie could stop herself she had grabbed Adam’s arms and pulled him forward. And then she kissed him. It was a hard, angry kiss, and the next moment when she released him she was as stunned as he was.

They stared at each other speechlessly.

“Go back,” Cassie said, hardly able to hear her own voice through the pounding in her ears. It was over, it was all over. She was so cold . . . not just her skin, but inside her, deep in her core, she was freezing. Freezing over like black ice. Everything was black around her.

She pushed Adam away and made for the distant glow of the bonfire.

“Cassie!”

“
I’m
going back. To congratulate our new leader.”

It was chaos back at the circle. Laurel was crying, Deborah was shouting, Chris and Doug were glaring like a couple of tomcats about to fight and calling each other names. Sean was hovering behind Faye to keep his distance from a disdainful Melanie. Suzan was telling Chris and Doug to grow up, while Faye laughed. Of all of them, only Nick and Diana were utterly still. Nick was smoking silently, away from the rest of the group, watching them with narrowed eyes.

Diana was just standing there, exactly where she’d been when Cassie left. She didn’t seem to see or hear any of the disturbance around her.

“Will you all just shut up?” Deborah was yelling when Cassie reached them. “Faye’s the one in charge now.”

“That’s right,” Suzan said. Chris and Doug were shoving each other now. Suzan saw Cassie and said appealingly, “
Isn’t
that right, Cassie?”

It was strange, how quickly the silence descended. Everyone was looking at Cassie again.

“That’s right,” Cassie said, in a voice hard as stone.

Chris and Doug stopped shoving. Laurel stopped crying. No one moved as Cassie walked over behind Faye. From that position she might have been supporting Faye—or she might have been about to stab her in the back.

If Faye was afraid, she didn’t show it. “Okay,” she said to the others. “You heard it. I’m leader. And now I’m going to give my first order.” She turned her head slightly to address Cassie. “I want
you
to get the skull. As for the rest of you—we’re going to the cemetery.”

“What?”
Laurel screamed.

“I’m leader and I’m going to
do
something with my power instead of just sitting on it. There’s energy trapped in that skull, energy that we can use. Cassie, go get it.”

Everyone was talking now, arguing, bellowing at each other. Things had never been like this when Diana was leader. Adam was yelling at Faye, demanding to know if she had gone crazy. Only Nick and Diana remained still, Nick watching, Diana staring at something only she could see.

Melanie was trying to restore calm, but it was doing no good. Some distant, clinical part of Cassie’s mind noted that if Diana were to interfere now, if Diana would come forward and take over, the coven would listen to her. But Diana did nothing. And the shouting just got louder.

“
Get
it, Cassie,” Faye was snarling between clenched teeth. “Or I’ll get it myself.”

Cassie could feel Power building around her. The sky overhead was stretched tight as a drum, tight as a harp string waiting to be plucked. The ocean behind her throbbed with pent-up force. She could feel it in the sand under her feet, and see it in the leaping flames of the bonfire.

She remembered what she’d done to the Doberman in the pumpkin patch. Some power had burst out from her, focused like a laser beam. Cassie felt as if something like that was concentrating in her now. She was connected to everything and it was all waiting for her to unleash it.

“Black John will let us have his power—he’ll
give
it to us if we just ask the right way,” Faye was shouting. “I
know
; I’ve communicated with him. But we have to go and ask him.”

Communicated with him—when? Cassie thought. When she, Cassie, had let Faye take the skull the first time? Or at some point later?

“But why the
cemetery
?” Melanie was crying. “Why there?”

“Because that’s what he
says
,” Faye snapped back impatiently. “Cassie, for the last time! Get the skull!”

The elements were ranged behind her . . . Cassie stared at the back of Faye’s neck. But then she remembered something. The look in Diana’s eyes when Cassie had voted against her . . . oh, what good would it do to kill Faye now? Everything was over.

Cassie spun around and headed for the place where the skull was buried.

“How does she even know—?” Melanie was beginning, and Faye’s laughter cut her off. So that was over, too, the secret about Cassie stealing the skull was out. Diana hadn’t told anyone
exactly
where the skull was buried, not even Adam. Cassie ran so she wouldn’t have to hear more.

She dug in the center of the blackened stones until her fingernails scraped the cloth that wrapped the skull. Then she dug around it and pulled it out of the sand, surprised, as always, by how heavy it was. Cassie staggered as she picked the skull up and started back to Faye.

Deborah ran to meet her. “This way,” she said, diverting Cassie before she could reach the group. “Come on!” They climbed the bluff and Cassie saw Deborah’s motorcycle.

“Faye planned this,” Cassie said. She looked at Deborah, her voice rising slightly. “Faye had this planned!”

“Yeah. So what?” Deborah looked perplexed; a good lieutenant used to taking orders from her superior. What did Cassie care if Faye had it planned? “She figured she would have a hard time getting all the others to come, but she wanted to make sure we got there,” Deborah explained.

“I don’t see how she’s going to get
any
of the others to come,” Cassie said, looking down at the group below. But a strange madness seemed to have taken hold of some of them; whatever Faye was saying was whipping them into a frenzy. Suzan was heading for the bluff, and Doug was half dragging Chris. Faye was pushing Sean.

“That’s seven; Faye said that’s all we need,” Deborah said, turning from the bluff. “Come on!”

This motorcycle ride was like the last, in that the speed was as great, the moon even brighter. But this time Cassie wasn’t afraid, even though she could only hold on to Deborah with one arm. The other was hugging the skull to her lap. They reached the cemetery and a minute later heard engines. The Samurai was arriving with Chris and Doug and Suzan. Behind it was Faye’s Corvette. Faye got out of the driver’s side and Sean tumbled out of the passenger door.

“Follow me,” Faye said. Long hair switching behind her, she made for the northeast corner. With every step she took, her bare, shapely legs flashed pale, showing the garter on her thigh and a black-handled dagger tucked in the garter. When the ground began to rise, she stopped.

Cassie stopped, too, clutching the skull to her chest with both arms, frighteningly aware of where they were standing. In a row here, broken only by a mound in the earth, were the graves of Faye’s father, Sean’s mother, and all the other dead parents from Crowhaven Road. Sean was sniveling now, and only Deborah’s grip on him was keeping him from running away.

Faye turned to face them. Even in the worst of times, the tall, dramatically beautiful girl had a natural authority, an ability to intimidate people. Now that seemed enhanced by the symbols of the Queen of the Witches: the diadem, the bracelet, the garter. An aura of power and glamour surrounded her.

“It’s time,” Faye said, “to take back the energy that belonged to the original coven, and that Black John stored in the skull. Black John wants us to have that power, to use against our enemies. And we can get it back—
now
.”

Taking the black-handled dagger out of her garter, Faye unsheathed it and drew a quick, imperfect circle in the dried-up grass. “Get in,” she said, and the others took their places.

She’s got them moving so fast they’re not thinking about what they’re doing, Cassie thought. No one questioned Faye; everyone seemed caught up in the driving urgency Faye was creating. Even Sean had stopped whining and was staring, rapt.

And Faye made a stunning sight as she held the knife up and rapidly called on the elements for protection. Too fast, Cassie was thinking—such slight protection when all their efforts on Halloween hadn’t been enough. But she couldn’t speak either; they were all caught on a roller-coaster ride and nobody could stop it. Least of all Cassie, who was so numb and cold . . .

“Put the skull in the center, Cassie,” Faye said. Her voice was breathless and her chest was rising and falling quickly. She looked more excited than she had ever looked about Jeffrey, or Nick, or that guy from the pizza place she’d taken upstairs.

Cassie knelt and placed the cloth-wrapped thing in the middle of Faye’s flawed circle.

“And now,” Faye said, in that queer, exultant voice, staring down at the sandy lump between her feet, “we can reclaim the power that should have been ours all along. I call on all the elements to witness—”

“Faye, stop!” Adam shouted, appearing running between the gravestones.

The rest of the coven was behind him, including Diana, who still looked as if she were moving in her sleep. Even Nick, silent and watchful as always, was in the rear.