by L. J. Smith
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.
Faye snatched up the covered skull and held it cradled in her two hands. “You had your chance,” she said. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Faye, just stop a minute and think,” Adam said. “Black John isn’t your friend. If he’s really communicated with you, whatever he’s told you is lies—”
“You’re the liar!” Faye shot back.
“Chris, Doug—that skull killed Kori. If you let that dark energy loose again—”
“Don’t listen to him!” Faye shouted. She looked like some barbarian queen as she stood there, long legs apart, silver glinting against the black of her shift and the darker black of her hair. Cassie realized that while Adam was talking to her, Laurel and Melanie were circling, one on either side.
Faye realized it, too. “I won’t let you stop me! This is the beginning of a new Circle!”
“Please, Faye—” Diana cried, desperately, seeming to wake up at last.
“By Earth, by Air, by Fire, by Water!” Faye shouted, and she jerked the cloth off the skull and held it in both hands over her head.
Silver. The full moon shone down on the crystal and seemed to blaze there, and it was as of another face were suspended above Faye’s; a vivid, unnatural, skeletal face. And then—darkness began to pour forth from it. Something blacker than the sky between the stars was streaming out of the skull’s eyesockets, out of its gaping nose-hole and between its grinning teeth. Snakes, thought Cassie, staring hypnotized at what was happening. Snakes and worms and the old kind of dragons, the kind whose heavy scales scrape the ground and who spit poison when they breathe. Everything bad, everything black, everything loathsome and crawling and evil seemed to be flooding out of that skull, although none of it was real. It was only darkness, only black light.
There was a sound like the humming of bees, only higher, more deadly. It was growing. Faye was standing under that dreadful cascade of darkness, and the sound was like two ice picks driving into Cassie’s ears, and somewhere a dog was barking . . .
Someone has to stop this, Cassie realized. No—I have to stop this. Now.
She was getting to her feet when the skull exploded.
Everything was quiet and dark.
Cassie wanted it to stay that way.
Cassie sat up slowly, looking around, trying to piece together what had happened. The cemetery looked like a killing field. Bodies were strewn all over. There was Adam, stretched out with one arm reaching toward the circle and Raj beside him. There was Diana with her shining hair in the leaves and dirt. There was Nick, getting to his hands and knees, shaking his head.
Faye was lying in a pool of black silk, her dark hair covering her face. Her hands with their long red nails were cupped, open—but empty. There was no sign of the skull.
Someone groaned again, and Cassie looked to see Deborah sitting up, rubbing her face with one hand.
“Are they dead?” Deborah said hoarsely, staring around.
“I don’t know,” Cassie whispered. Her own throat hurt. All those bodies, and the only movement was the fluttering of Diana’s hair in the wind. And Nick, who was stumbling toward the circle.
But then there was a stirring—people were starting to sit up. Sean was whimpering. Suzan was too. Deborah crawled over to Faye and pushed Faye’s hair back.
“She’s breathing.”
Cassie nodded; she didn’t know what to say. Adam was bending over Diana—she looked quickly away from that. Melanie and Laurel were up, and so were Chris and Doug, looking like punch-drunk fighters. Everyone seemed to be alive.
Then Cassie saw Laurel gasp and point. “Oh, my God. The mound. Look at the mound.”
Cassie turned—and froze. Her eyes went back and forth over the scene without believing it.
The mound her grandmother had told her was for storing artillery was broken open. The rusty padlock was gone, and the iron door was jammed against the piece of concrete. But that wasn’t all. The top of the mound, where the sparse cemetery grass had grown, was cracked like an overripe plum. Like the cocoon of an insect that had burst free.
And all up and down the line of graves by the fence, tombstones were tilting crazily. The ones nearest the mound, the ones with the names of the parents of Crowhaven Road, were split and shattered. Riven, Cassie thought, the old-fashioned word coming from nowhere, singularly appropriate.
Something from inside the mound smelled bad.
“I’ve got to see,” Deborah muttered. Cassie had never admired anyone so much as she did Deborah just then, making her staggering way toward the open mound. Deborah had more physical courage than anyone Cassie had ever known. Dizzily, Cassie got up and lurched beside her, and they both fell to their knees at the edge of the evil-smelling fissure.
The moon shining inside showed that it was empty. But there was a coating like slime on the raw earth down there.
Then light and motion caught Cassie’s eye.
It was in the sky, the sky to the northeast. It was something like the aurora borealis, except that it flickered intermittently, and it was entirely red.
“That’s above Crowhaven Road,” Nick said.
“Oh, God, what’s happening?” Laurel cried.
“Looks like fire,” Deborah muttered, still hoarse.
“Whatever it is, we’d better get there,” Nick said.
Adam was holding Diana, trying to revive her. Suzan and Sean were huddled, and Chris and Doug still looked punchy. But Melanie and Laurel were on their feet, if shaken.
“Nick’s right,” Melanie said. “Let Adam take care of things here. Something’s happening.”
Cassie glanced at Faye, her fallen leader, lying on the ground. Then she turned and followed Melanie without a word.
It didn’t matter that the five who started unsteadily toward the road had just recently been on opposite sides of a fight. There was no time to think about anything that petty now. Cassie got on the back of Deborah’s motorcycle, and Melanie and Laurel jumped into Nick’s car. The others would have to follow when they could—and if they wanted to.
Wind roared in Cassie’s ears like the sound of the sea. But the feeling of power she’d had earlier, the connection with the elements, was broken. She couldn’t think—her mind was fuzzy and cloudy as if she had a bad cold. All she knew was that she had to get to Crowhaven Road.
“It’s not fire,” Deborah shouted as they approached. “No smoke.”
Dark houses flew by—Diana’s, Deborah’s. The empty Georgian at Number Three. Melanie’s, Laurel’s, Faye’s. The vacant Victorian. The Hendersons’, Adam’s, Suzan’s, Sean’s . . .
“It’s at your house, Cassie,” Deborah shouted.
Yes. Cassie knew it would be. Something inside her had known even before they started out.
A maple tree showed up like a black skeleton against the red light that engulfed the house at Number Twelve. But the red wasn’t fire. It was some witch-light, a crimson aura of evil.
Cassie remembered how much she had hated this house when she’d first seen it. She’d hated it for being huge and ugly, with its peeling gray clapboards and its sagging eaves and unwashed windows. But now she cared about it. It was her family’s ancient home; it belonged to her. And more important than anything, her mother and grandmother were inside.
Chapter 7
Cassie jumped off the motorcycle and ran up the driveway. But as soon as she entered the red light, she slowed. Something about the light made it hard to move through it, hard even to breathe. It was as if the air here had thickened.
In slow motion, Cassie fought her way to the door. It was open. Inside, the ordinary lights, the lamps in the hallway, looked feeble and silly against the red glow that pervaded everything, like flashlights in the daytime.
Then Cassie saw something that made her breath catch.
Footprints.
Something had tracked mud across her grandmother’s pine-board floor. Only it wasn’t mud. It was black as tar and it steamed slightly, like some primordial muck from hell. The prints went up the stairs and then back down again.
Cassie was afraid to go any farther.
“What is this?” Nick shouted, coming in behind her. His shout didn’t go very far in the thickened air; it sounded muffled and dragging. Cassie turned toward him, and it was like turning in a dream, where every motion is reduced to a crawl.
“Come on,” Nick said, pulling at her. Cassie looked behind her and saw Deborah and Melanie and Laurel in the doorway, also moving in slow motion.
Cassie let Nick guide her and they fought their way up the stairs. The red glow was dimmer up here; it was hard to see any prints. But Cassie followed them more by intuition than by sight down the hall to the door of her mother’s room, and she pointed to it. She was too frightened to go in.
Nick’s hand grasped the doorknob, turned it. The door slowly flew open. Cassie stared at her mother’s empty bed.
“No!” she screamed, and the red light seemed to catch the word and draw it out endlessly. She forgot to be frightened then and ran forward—slowly—into the middle of the room. The bed was rumpled, slept-in, but the covers had been thrown back and there was no sign of her mother.
Cassie looked around the deserted room in anguish. The window was closed. She had a terrible sense of loss, a terrible premonition. Those black and steaming footprints went to the side of her mother’s bed. Some thing had come and stood here, beside her mother, and then . . .
“Come on! Downstairs,” Nick was shouting from the doorway. Cassie turned to him—and screamed.
The door was swinging slowly shut again. And in the shadows behind it was a pale and ghostly figure.
Cassie’s second scream was cut off as the figure stepped forward, showing a drawn white face and dark hair falling loose over slender shoulders. It was wearing a long, white nightgown. It was her mother.
“Mom,” Cassie cried, and she launched herself forward, throwing her arms around her mother’s waist. Oh, thank God, thank God, she thought. Now everything would be all right. Her mother was safe, her mother would take care of things. “Oh, Mom, I was so scared,” she gasped.
But something was wrong. Her mother wasn’t hugging her back. There was no response at all from the upright but
lifeless body in the nightgown. Cassie’s mother just stood there, and when Cassie pulled back, she saw her mother was staring emptily.
“Mom? Mom?” she said. She shook the slender white figure. “Mom! What’s the matter?”
Her mother’s beautiful eyes were blank, like a doll’s eyes. Unseeing. The black circles underneath seemed to swallow them up. Her mother’s arms stayed limp at her sides.
“Mom,” Cassie said again, almost crying now.
Nick had pushed the door open again. “We have to get her out of here,” he told Cassie.
Yes, Cassie thought. She tried to convince herself that it was the light, that maybe outside of the red glow her mother would be okay. They each took one of the limp arms and led the unresisting figure into the hallway. Melanie, Laurel, and Deborah converged from different directions.
“We looked in all the rooms on this floor,” Melanie said. “There’s no one else up here.”
“My grandmother—” Cassie began.
“Help us get Mrs. Blake downstairs,” Nick said.
At the bottom of the stairs, the black prints turned left and then crossed and recrossed. A thought flashed into Cassie’s mind.
“Melanie, Laurel, can you take my mom outside? Out of the light? Will you make sure she’s safe?” Melanie nodded, and Cassie said, “I’ll be out as soon as I can.”
“Be careful,” Laurel said urgently.
Cassie saw them leading her mother to the door, then she made herself stop looking. “Come on,” she said to Nick and Deborah. “I think my grandma’s in the kitchen.”
A line of footprints led that way, but it wasn’t just that, it was a feeling Cassie had. A terrible feeling that her grandmother was in the kitchen, and that she wasn’t alone.
Deborah walked like a stalking huntress, following the black marks down the twisting hallways to the old wing of the house, the one built by the original witches in 1693.
Nick was behind Cassie, and Cassie realized vaguely that they were protecting her, giving her the safest place in line. But there was no safe place in this house now. As they crossed the threshold into the old wing, the red light seemed to get stronger, and the air even thicker. Cassie felt her lungs laboring.