The Hunt

by L. J. Smith

  “I know we want to keep an eye on Max,” Adam said. “But this is ridiculous.”

  Cassie noticed Adam’s jaw tighten as he watched the couple dance. Diana was laughing, squeezing Max close, having what appeared to be a pretty good time. Cassie wouldn’t dare say so to Adam, but she couldn’t help but sense Diana wasn’t thinking about the Circle anymore.

  A few minutes later, Chris, Doug, and Sean turned up at Cassie’s side.

  “Do you see what I see?” Chris asked, and Cassie followed his gaze to the opposite side of the gym.

  It was Mr. Boylan, standing with his arms crossed in a finely cut dark suit, his gaze locked on Max and Diana on the dance floor.

  “He looks like he’s about to kill someone,” Doug said. “What should we do?”

  Just then Mr. Boylan turned the other way and stormed out of the gym.

  “Follow him,” Cassie said.

  The three of them—Chris, Doug, and Sean—bolted toward the exit without a moment’s hesitation. Cassie saw from the look on his face that Adam was anxious to join them.

  “This is my chance to search Mr. Boylan’s office,” he said. “For his relic.”

  So much for a night off, Cassie thought. But if Adam could steal Boylan’s relic from him it would be the equivalent of robbing him of his power. He couldn’t perform the killing curse without it.

  Cassie grazed Adam’s cheek with her hand and nodded. “It’s a good idea, but you shouldn’t go alone. You’ll need a lookout.”

  “We’ll go,” Deborah said. She and Suzan stepped forward, a little too anxiously. “We’ve been itching for something interesting to happen all night. Or at least I have.” She acknowledged Suzan, who was still sulking about being pulled from the dance floor.

  “Be careful,” Cassie said, as if it were an order. She was still a Circle leader, after all. “I’ll keep an eye on Diana and Max.”

  Adam gave Cassie’s hand a squeeze and then took off. Deborah and Suzan followed him toward the hallway that led to Mr. Boylan’s office. Cassie allowed herself a moment to breathe, to remind herself that though everything was suddenly happening so fast, it was all under control. Her control. Then Nick materialized from the crowd with another glass of punch for Cassie.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not spiked,” he said. “But at this rate I think we can both at least count on a sugar high.” Then he noticed the expression on Cassie’s face. “What’s going on?” His dark brown eyes darted back and forth. “Where is everyone?”

  “Chris, Doug, and Sean are tailing Boylan. Adam, Deborah, and Suzan are searching his office.”

  “I thought we were here to take it easy,” Nick said.

  “Change of plan.” Cassie scoped the gymnasium for Diana’s blond hair and Max’s broad shoulders, but they’d gotten lost in the swarm of students. “Do you see Diana anywhere?”

  Nick inspected every couple on the dance floor then shook his head. “It’s too crowded. But I have an idea.” He ran to the punch table and, to the dismay of the servers, climbed up on top of it for a better view. He scanned the room back and forth and then he froze in place. His sharp features turned deathly serious.

  “Cassie,” he whispered, and jumped down. But before he could utter another word, Cassie caught sight of a wild mane of dyed-red hair. It was no hallucination this time. No paranoia. Right in the center of the crowd was Scarlett.

  Nick looked ready to pounce, but he didn’t move a muscle. “She’s casting a spell,” he said.

  Scarlett’s arms were rigid at her sides and her eyes were as black as marbles. She was muttering something under her breath, obviously some kind of dark magic.

  “We have to get you out of here,” Nick said. “Right now!”

  Cassie was smart enough not to argue. She and Nick rushed toward the nearest exit, but suddenly everyone around them started to act odd. Their necks went soft and their heads drooped down. Their classmates had all fallen into a stupor.

  Nick shot a look at Cassie. “What the heck is going on?” He positioned himself between Cassie and the nearest group blocking the exit.

  Whatever Scarlett was doing seemed to be affecting everyone but Cassie and Nick. But it soon became clear that their classmates were simply collateral damage. With them out of the way, Scarlett now had a clear shot at her intended target. She redirected all her wicked mumbling straight at Cassie:

  Spirant ultimus spiritus

  Ultimus spiritus vitae

  Suddenly all the air rushed out of Cassie’s lungs and she couldn’t inhale any more in. It was like a clamp had fastened around her throat, blocking her breath. She brought her hands to her neck and turned to Nick. There was no breath to enable a scream.

  Nick ran to her as if it were a simple piece of food lodged in her throat, as if the Heimlich maneuver could save her—but there was nothing he could do. And with their stupefied classmates crowding every exit, there was no way to escape.

  Cassie’s head spun from the lack of oxygen. She reached out for Nick as she fell to the gymnasium floor.

  CHAPTER 8

  Nick screamed Cassie’s name. He was bent over her, trying to get her to breathe, but Cassie could feel herself losing consciousness with each second that passed. The yellow gymnasium light, their comatose classmates, and even Scarlett’s wicked voice had blended into a soft, shadowy haze. Then Nick stood up and raised his arms with outstretched hands.

  No! Cassie tried to cry out—the worst thing Nick could do right now was perform magic out in the open—but no sound escaped her gaping mouth.

  Nick centered his energy, closed his eyes, and made his voice deep:

  I call on the Power of Air, the element from the East, I call you from the atmosphere to Cassie’s lungs.

  He repeated the spell three times, louder each moment, but Cassie continued to fade out of consciousness. The whole world diffused; sound ceased. There was nothing. And then all at once she gasped like a drowned woman resuscitated, reclaiming her life with one greedy breath after another.

  Her vision sharpened with each inhalation, and she climbed to her feet just as Nick raised his hands to call out another spell—this time not at Cassie, but up at the ceiling:

  Motion of heart, current of soul, spark to my hands, at the speed of light.

  His face took on a lustrous glow and electricity seemed to pass through him, up from his feet and out of his fingertips.

  The overhead bulbs flashed and then burst, raining down spectacular long-tailed sparks like fireworks. Then the gym went black as night.

  “Run,” Nick said, grabbing Cassie’s hand.

  Their stupefied classmates panicked in the sudden darkness. Cassie could no longer see them, but she could hear them grunting and groaning. Their elbows and knees knocked against the gym floor as they tumbled over one another in a massive stampede.

  Cassie and Nick raced through the maze of bodies, heading for the emergency exit, without once looking back to see what had become of Scarlett. They stormed through the fire door out to the side parking lot, where they ran straight into the rest of the Circle.

  “Are you all right?” Diana asked in alarm. “What just happened in the gym?”

  Nick and Cassie hurriedly explained the situation and Diana’s mouth dropped open. “Scarlett’s here?”

  Both Henderson brothers bolted back to the gym to find her. Cassie screamed for them not to, but they were already gone.

  “Someone has to stop them,” she cried out. “They’ll get themselves killed.”

  “I’ll go,” Deborah said, taking off in the same direction as the Hendersons. Suzan followed just behind her.

  Diana searched Cassie for any sign of an injury. “Are you sure you’re okay? You aren’t hurt?”

  Cassie nodded. “I’m fine. I think we got out just in time. Where’s Adam?”

  “Right here.” Adam walked up to the group, looking pale. His hands were trembling slightly and they were empty of Mr. Boylan’s relic. “Cassie,” he said. “Have you been out he
re long?”

  “I’m okay,” Cassie said to reassure him.

  Adam appeared more shaken than she was. His breathing was heavy and his forehead was soaked with sweat. He scanned the surrounding area with apprehension.

  “Scarlett’s nowhere to be found,” Chris called out as he and Doug exited the gym to rejoin the group. Deborah and Suzan were alongside him.

  “The lights are still out, but everyone in the gym is back to normal,” Doug said. “Which is too bad, really. I kind of liked the idea of them all being zombified.”

  Cassie looked at Nick, happy he was okay. He was so quick to react, and he’d saved her life, but she never intended for him to be in danger like that. Especially with Mr. Boylan and Max around.

  Nick returned her gaze. He seemed to understand exactly what she was thinking and he smiled reassuringly for her. It was just then that Cassie saw something glisten on the sleeve of his leather jacket. It was dim at first, but once she noticed it, it appeared to shine more clearly. It was the hunter symbol.

  “Nick,” she said, but that was the only word she could get out.

  He registered Cassie’s expression and then watched everyone else’s face fall into the same shock.

  “What?” he asked. “Why do you all look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

  “Your sleeve,” Diana said. “You’ve been marked.”

  Cassie went to him, but Nick shook her off. He searched his jacket and located the mark. He concentrated hard on it, squinting as if trying to understand it, but had no other reaction.

  “So I have,” he said, in a voice as still and cold as stone.

  Adam barely said a word the whole car ride home to Cassie’s. Cassie didn’t take it personally; she didn’t feel much like making conversation either. What was there to say after an evening like this? But when Adam parked in front of her house, he cut the engine and turned to her like he had something to get off his chest.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay on your couch for the night?” he asked. “Scarlett might still be coming after you.”

  There was a chill in the air that made Cassie shiver. “Thank you,” she said. “But I’ll be okay. Faye and Laurel are there, and Faye wouldn’t miss the chance to act on some of her anger if Scarlett showed up.”

  “That’s true, I guess.” Adam tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

  Cassie was wearing his suit jacket draped over her shoulders to keep warm. She went to take it off and give it back to him, but he stopped her.

  “Keep it on a little longer,” he said. He made no motion to restart the car’s engine. Something else was obviously on his mind.

  Cassie feared she knew what it was. Adam was concerned that Nick being marked would mean he’d have to start spending the night in Cassie’s basement. The two of them would be sleeping under the same roof.

  She decided to help him along. “Adam,” she said. “About Nick staying here …”

  Adam stared straight ahead. “It’s not that,” he said. “Can I ask you one more time what happened when the lights went out in the school?”

  “I told you,” Cassie said. “Nothing happened with Nick while you were gone that you need to worry about.”

  “I just need to hear it again.”

  Cassie had already given Adam a detailed account of her and Nick’s every move from the moment they spotted Scarlett to their escape. But she repeated the story anyway.

  “It’s just so strange,” he said, unable to look at her.

  “Adam, what are you freaking out about? I know if you had been there when Scarlett showed up, you would have protected me, just like Nick did. I don’t doubt that for a second.”

  Finally Adam turned to Cassie, allowing her to see his tearful eyes. “I felt something,” he said. “An arm brushed up against mine in the chaos.”

  “What?” Cassie was confused.

  “When the lights went out. I had just come out of Boylan’s office and everyone started running. I was making my way toward the gym when someone grabbed my hand, and it felt like … I don’t even know.” Adam could barely continue, and Cassie began to understand just how upset he was.

  “It’s okay,” she said, trying to coax the full truth out of him. “What did you feel?”

  “I thought it was you leading me to safety, but then we got separated. I could have sworn it was you. Because of the sparks I felt.”

  “But I was already out of the gym and in the parking lot by that point,” Cassie said. “It wasn’t me.”

  There was a moment of silence as it all sank in.

  “Oh,” Cassie said, finally comprehending what this meant. Neither of them wanted to say it out loud, but it was obvious. It was Scarlett who’d grabbed Adam’s hand. The sparks he felt were for her.

  “It’s you that I love, Cassie. I swear it.” Adam’s voice rose. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It means the cord between you and Scarlett must be real after all,” Cassie said. “That’s the only explanation.”

  “I shouldn’t even have told you.”

  “Of course you should have told me!”

  “This doesn’t change anything.” Adam persisted. But the more he swore and pleaded, the more obvious it was to Cassie that he was just as shaken by this as she was, if not more.

  “My hand just got confused,” he said. “That’s all.”

  “Your hand got confused?” Cassie took an immediate breath to recalibrate her emotions. If she wasn’t careful, her hurt and anger would blow up right in Adam’s face.

  “You don’t have to feel guilty,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic. “It’s not your fault. It just is.”

  Adam got quiet then. “But I don’t want this.”

  Cassie reached over to give Adam a kiss good night. She needed to get out of his car as quickly as possible. “I know,” she said. “Don’t worry too much about it. We’ll be okay.”

  “That’s it? Don’t you think we should talk about this?” Adam asked.

  Cassie slipped Adam’s suit jacket from her shoulders. It smelled like him, like autumn leaves and ocean wind. She gently folded it and placed it on his lap. Then she put her hand on the door handle.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said, knowing she had to appear strong for Adam in this moment. Adam could always be relied on to reassure Cassie. Now it was her turn.

  “Cassie, please don’t go.”

  “Let’s sleep on it,” she said, as sweetly as she could. And then borrowing a favorite phrase of her mother’s, she added, “Everything will look brighter tomorrow.”

  She got out of the car and almost made it to the front door before tears filled her eyes and began running down her face. But Adam couldn’t see them, and that was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER 9

  After her encounter with Scarlett at the dance, Cassie’s sleep was fitful—nightmare after nightmare plagued her mind. As she woke up, she knew what she had to do to make it stop. She pulled the gunmetal chest out from under her bed and unlocked its clasp. She’d wanted to wait for Adam to be with her before she tried to open the book again, but time was running out, and things with Adam had just gotten a whole lot more complicated. She couldn’t allow a potential love triangle to trip up her search for answers.

  Plus, she had an idea. In the jewelry box where she kept all her precious stones, Cassie had an obsidian crystal. It was the same crystal she’d once used to disable a guarding spell Faye had placed on one of the Master Tools. Cassie squeezed the sharp-edged black rock in her hand now. It was known to purify dark matter. Why not give it a try?

  She glided the crystal over and around her father’s Book of Shadows while whispering the chant that had been successful last time:

  Darkness be gone, no shields are needed, purity enters and leaves here unhindered.

  Then she pulled on the book’s leather string and fanned its cover open. She touched the first page hopefully, but it immediately grew hot, singeing the tip of her pointer finger.

&n
bsp; Cassie drew back, but before the book flapped closed she thrust the obsidian crystal between its pages. At first the book struggled against the stone, rattling and thrashing, and the crystal shook over its pages like a kernel of corn in hot oil. But then the book seemed to tire. Slowly, each page grew calm and quiet beneath the crystal until they were still. The book’s darkness had been tamed just enough to allow the rock to hold it open like a simple paperweight.

  The words scrawled upon the first two pages still looked like an ancient language of lines and symbols. Viewing them this closely made Cassie’s eyes feel strange and off kilter, like staring at an optical illusion. But at least now she could get to researching and translating. And if she maneuvered the obsidian just so, she could even use it to turn the book’s pages. Wait till Adam saw this.

  Just then her doorbell rang and Cassie realized what time it was. The Circle meeting to go over the events of the night before was set to begin in a few minutes. Cassie removed the obsidian and the book flapped closed. She quickly locked it back in its hiding place before running down to answer the door.

  On her front porch was Nick, carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder. He didn’t look happy, for obvious reasons, but Cassie was glad to have a moment with him before the rest of the Circle arrived.

  She led him inside and asked him to have a seat on the living room sofa. “I’ll show you downstairs in just a minute,” she said. “But first I was hoping we could talk.”

  Nick dropped his bag on the floor and sat down. “Okay.”

  Cassie sat beside him. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I feel like it’s my fault you got marked.”

  “Scarlett was trying to kill you. You weren’t exactly asking for it,” Nick said.

  “I know, I just … you saved my life. And I can’t bear to think what might happen to yours now.”

  Nick shook his head. “It’s not your fault, Cassie. I knew the chance I was taking, and I chose to risk it. Besides, I can handle this.”