by L. J. Smith
She and Absolom simultaneously hurled a spell at Cassie, or at the book—it was difficult to tell which—because the book immediately heated in Cassie’s arms. But it wasn’t burning her. It was reacting. And whatever spells they had cast had no other effect.
The book suctioned itself to Cassie’s chest. She clasped it close and sensed its attachment, its energy. The book, she felt, was empowering her like a battery.
Absolom’s brow wrinkled with confusion. He tipped his head at an angle, unable to comprehend how his power was being deflected.
Alice and the other ancestors stood in similar disbelief.
“Run!” Cassie screamed out to Adam and Diana, suddenly understanding that the book wanted to be with her—that she would be able to safely escape with it in her arms, but they might be held captive.
Adam and Diana did as Cassie said. But the ancestors weren’t concerned with them or their escape. They moved in on Cassie with blackened eyes. Samuel had his hands raised and stared, expressionless, at her. Charlotte and Thomas whispered evil chants beneath their breath. But nothing could touch her. The book acted as Cassie’s shield.
“Just let her go,” Scarlett called out to them. “She can have the dumb book. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’ve got what we need.”
The ancestors ignored Scarlett. Absolom attempted the same spell Cassie had used to bring the book to her arms, but coming from him they were just empty words.
The book wasn’t leaving Cassie.
Beatrix screamed at the others, “Don’t let her get away!”
But Cassie was quick to turn around and jump through the window, then sprint toward the road. A few paces ahead of her in the shadowy distance, she could see Adam and Diana running safely through the dark night toward home.
Back on Crowhaven Road, Cassie, Adam, and Diana finally stopped running. “We’re alright,” Cassie said, trying to calm herself as much as them. “We’re safe.”
“Thanks to the book,” Adam said, trying to catch his breath. “Otherwise we would have been finished.”
Diana kneeled over with her hands on her knees, gasping for air. “But you did it, Cassie, you got it back!”
Cassie stuffed the still-warm book beneath her shirt, securing it under the belt around her waist. She wanted to feel victorious, but Scarlett’s voice still echoed in her ears. The ancestors had already gotten what they needed from the book: whatever spell Absolom had mentioned during their dinner.
“But they’re planning something,” Cassie said. “By the next full moon. With or without the book.”
Adam put his arm around Cassie, and she didn’t resist him. “You should be proud of yourself,” he said, trying to keep her morale up as best he could. “For today at least, we won.”
Still, as the three of them continued the walk home, a sense of defeat descended upon them. Adam became lost in thought, kicking up pebbles with each step. Diana hopelessly watched the tranquil night sky. For Cassie, running away from a battle never felt good. Even if it was her only option, and even if she’d gotten what she wanted—it still didn’t feel dignified.
Cowardly. That was how Alice or Beatrix would have described her retreat. Shameful.
Diana came to a stop when they reached the turnoff that led to Max’s house. “I’m heading this way,” she said.
Cassie offered her a grin. At least Diana had Max back in her life, her one and only soul mate. That was one joyful thing Cassie could focus on.
“You’ve earned it,” Cassie said. “We’ll regroup tomorrow and figure out our next move.”
Diana trudged off alone, quickening her pace a bit, Cassie noticed, but still watching the sky.
Adam took Cassie’s hand and walked her the rest of the way to her house. When they climbed up the porch steps, Cassie invited him in, even though she didn’t need to. Neither of them had to say aloud that they, too, didn’t want to be alone.
Cassie led Adam right up to her room, closed the door, and lay down on her bed.
“I’ve never seen Diana so head over heels for a boy before,” Adam said.
Cassie smirked. “Not even you?”
“Not even me.” He laughed, pulling Cassie in for a kiss.
For some reason the silver cord flashed through Cassie’s mind—not the cord between her and Adam but the one between Adam and Scarlett. The fear it instilled in Cassie had been overshadowed lately by all the other more immediate threats she faced, but it never ceased to exist somewhere in the background.
Adam was still kissing her, and Cassie was kissing him back, but her mind drifted to Nick, and the incessant questions began rolling in: How can you ever know for sure that you’ve found your one true love? Is there even such a thing, silver cords aside? Can you have more than one soul mate?
Adam pulled back a moment. “You okay?” he asked.
Cassie took his face into her hands.
For tonight, she had to push all the questions and anxiety out of her mind. There weren’t always going to be clear answers. She had to accept that.
Gently, she drew Adam’s face toward her own.
Sometimes bodies could communicate in a way language couldn’t. Adam’s mouth on Cassie’s said all there was to say.
CHAPTER 18
Cassie climbed into Adam’s car the next morning wishing he would drive them anywhere but school. She’d woken up exhausted, like she could sleep away the whole day and still be tired.
Adam reached affectionately for her hand. “I know,” he said. “I’m kind of dreading this day too. There’ll probably be a retaliation coming our way.”
Cassie barely had the energy to respond. But that was exactly what she’d been thinking. The book was safely hidden in her house, where no demons could cross onto the property, but she and her friends were fair game—especially at school. And after being showed up yesterday, Cassie was sure the ancestors were primed to flaunt their power.
Adam let Cassie zone out for a few minutes and focused on the road, but when they were nearing the Cup, he slowed the car. “You want to stop for a quick coffee?”
“I already had some this morning,” Cassie said.
“It looks like you could use another,” Adam replied, and then he immediately backpedaled. “I meant that in the nicest way possible.” He smiled weakly.
Cassie sighed and gazed out the window. “Okay,” she said. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
Then she saw something that snapped her right awake. “Wait,” she said. “Is that Faye? With Beatrix?”
Adam squinted his eyes until he spotted them. “We have to follow her,” he said, jerking the steering wheel sharply to the right.
He parked the car, and they made their way to the coffee shop’s alternate entrance, a side door from which they watched Faye and Beatrix get their drinks and search for a place to sit.
Cassie strained to hear their conversation, but the shop was loud and bustling with the morning rush. Faye and Beatrix found an empty table near the front, too far away for Adam and Cassie to make out anything they were discussing. Slowly she and Adam inched nearer, but it was no use.
Adam thought for a moment. “I have an idea,” he said. “An eavesdropping spell.”
Cassie hated the idea of doing even the simplest spell in public, but she agreed.
Adam grasped her hand, closed his eyes, and whispered a chant:
Echo and hum, racket and din,
Clamor and clatter, outside and in
Hush to silence, heed our call
To tacit peace and quiet do fall
Adam opened his eyes to recite the final line: “Voices we seek, rise above all.”
The sensation was similar to the moment just before passing out, or diving under water. Every sound blended into a quiet mumbling hum. Then two distinct voices emerged crystal clear.
Faye asked, “You want me?”
It was just as Cassie had suspected. Beatrix was tempting Faye to join the dark Circle, and Faye was taking the bait.
“Of cour
se.” Beatrix’s skin shimmered, pale and smooth and new. Her voice was equally smooth but aged with experience.
She focused her flat, level eyes on Faye. “We have a very specific mission for you. We need you to steal the Book of Shadows from Cassandra. Now that Scarlett was stupid enough to let it slip away.”
Faye made no immediate response, but she seemed to be mulling this challenge over.
Beatrix continued talking in a low, steady tone. “If only she weren’t so pathetic,” she said. “You understand what I mean, don’t you, Faye? Haven’t you always felt deep down that you’re smarter than everyone else around you? You’ll never reach your full potential in that Circle. They’re all cowards but you.”
Beatrix was the ancestor who had possessed Faye’s body, which meant she was aware of the best way to win Faye to her side. She knew what Faye was unhappy about, and every pet peeve she had with the Circle.
Faye was looking down, faintly nodding.
“Haven’t you always felt different, like the black sheep of your own Circle?” Beatrix asked.
Faye’s nodding grew less restrained. She met Beatrix’s gaze head on, barely able to resist her fixed stare.
“That’s exactly how I’ve felt all my life,” Faye said.
“She’s weakening by the second,” Adam whispered.
“It’s because you are different,” Beatrix said. “You’re much smarter than Scarlett and Cassie.”
“So is this a test?” Faye asked. Her voice came out with a tremble. “If I get the book, will I be chosen as your twelfth member?”
Beatrix grinned, and not a single wrinkle appeared around her mouth or eyes. “You’ve already been chosen. It’s up to you now to choose us, and prove your loyalty.”
“And then I’ll have black magic,” Faye said.
“I can’t stand to watch this anymore.” Adam stood up. “We have to stop her.”
Before Cassie could say otherwise, Adam barged in on Faye and Beatrix’s conversation, interrupting them mid-sentence.
“Faye, what a surprise to see you,” he said, much too loudly.
Faye sat back with a jolt, and Beatrix’s expression soured.
“Good thing I ran into you or else you’d be late for school.” Adam took Faye by the arm and tried to pull her from her seat. “Come on.”
Beatrix stood up briskly, her chair falling back behind her. She took hold of Faye’s other arm.
Cassie remained still and straight. “Both of you, let go of her,” she said.
Faye was standing up now between Adam and Beatrix, each of them reluctant to release their grip.
Faye eyed Cassie and then wrenched both her wrists free. “I should be going,” she said to Beatrix. “I don’t want to be late for homeroom.”
“We can pick up right where we left off,” Beatrix said, completely ignoring Adam’s and Cassie’s presence. “You know where to find me.”
Faye turned on her heel, leaving all three of them standing there, and pushed her way to the door. Cassie and Adam followed after her.
“Hey!” Adam yelled. “We need to talk about what just happened. You have to be stronger than that, Faye. Beatrix had you eating out of her hand.”
Faye got to her car and, ignoring Adam, fished through her bag for her keys.
“Faye, we saw you.” Adam was still yelling, despite Faye’s indifference. “We heard you.”
Faye climbed into the front seat of her car and slammed the door closed. She gunned her engine and screeched out of the parking lot.
Adam pursed his lips and looked at Cassie. “She’s impossible.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Cassie said halfheartedly, trying to calm Adam down.
“Are you kidding me? If we hadn’t stopped that conversation, how do you think it would have ended up? She would have followed Beatrix’s carrot wherever she dangled it, straight to hell.”
Cassie knew Adam was right. “We’ll keep a closer eye on her,” she said. But she knew the real challenge would be keeping Beatrix at bay. And figuring out what key Black John’s book contained to destroying the ancestors once and for all.
CHAPTER 19
As Mrs. Walker paced the front of the classroom, giving a lecture on the bubonic plague, Cassie thought about her family. Concentrating became difficult when the brutal historical facts she learned in school could be taken personally. Her ancestors’ role in spreading the plague was not an association she was proud of, to say the least. But Mrs. Walker persisted through her lecture nonetheless.
“Circulated by rodents and their fleas,” she said, “the bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, killed an estimated twenty-five million people.”
She fiddled with a marker as she walked in figure eights at the front of the room. “Once bitten,” she said, “symptoms would appear rapidly. Seizures. Delirium. A blackening of the fingers and lips. Vomiting blood and, in some cases, bleeding from the ears.”
Cassie cringed. It was a gruesome picture, worsened by the knowledge that the Black Death was actually the Blak Death. The scientific-minded argued that the plague was spreading through rats, Timothy had told her. That was true—but the rats had been bespelled by your ancestors.
“It was the worst human disaster in history,” Mrs. Walker continued. “Society became increasingly violent as more and more people died. Crime was rampant; there was revolt, and persecution.”
But what started it all? Cassie had asked Timothy. What did the Blaks want?
Timothy’s answer had been vague. Very early on, the man who began your family’s Book of Shadows was determined to attain eternal life. He sold his soul, but it backfired. When he died, his bloodline was cursed. And so was his book.
Mrs. Walker halted her pacing for a moment. “Some people blamed supernatural causes for all the denigration. They’d carve crosses on the front doors of their houses to ward off evil spirits. But we know better today.”
Cassie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She tried to fit the differently shaped pieces of this story together.
“I have a question,” she called out as her hand shot up. “How did it all start?”
Mrs. Walker wrinkled her brow at the interruption. “The rats,” she said. “Haven’t you been listening?”
“But who, and where?” Cassie stuttered. “The origin. Who was the first?”
Mrs. Walker tossed the marker she’d been holding onto her desk. “The first recorded epidemic was as far back as the sixth century, the Byzantine Empire. At the time they called it the Plague of Justinian after the emperor, Justin the first, commonly known as Justinian the Great. The records show he’d been infected, but miraculously survived. His wife succumbed and most of his children, but he lived on for some time, perfectly healthy.”
“So he started it?” Cassie said.
Mrs. Walker scowled. “Cassandra, what’s gotten into you? You know better. A pandemic can’t be blamed on one man.” She chuckled condescendingly. “The Plague of Justinian was simply the first outbreak of a disease that would return for generations, in waves. It was most likely brought to the city of Constantinople by infected rodents on grain boats arriving from Egypt. That was the original source of the contagion—not a person.”
Cassie tapped her pencil on the surface of her notebook.
Was Justinian the Great the man responsible not only for the Black Death but for her bloodline being cursed?
Was her father’s Book of Shadows the book Justinian started?
Was his desire for eternal life still driving him, even now?
A few of the pieces clicked into place in Cassie’s mind. But the rest would require an expert.
Cassie tuned back in to the lesson just in time for its conclusion. “It was an age of unprecedented regression,” Mrs. Walker pronounced. “A halt on progress that we’re not likely to ever see again.”
Wishful thinking, Cassie thought. If Faye crossed over and Cassie’s assumptions about the ancestors were correct, they would become impervious
to destruction. There would be no telling how dark the days ahead would be—forever.
The bell rang, startling Cassie from that final reflection. She dashed for the door, feeling like she was literally racing against time. She had to find Adam and Diana, and they needed to leave immediately, for a quick road trip—to see Timothy Dent. He might be their last hope.
Adam, Diana, and Max all grew quiet at the sight of the library’s crumbly gray mortar. “We’re going inside there?” Adam asked, shifting gears into park.
“That building looks like it’s about to tip over,” Max said.
Cassie got out of the car, and the others reluctantly followed behind her.
“Are you sure this place isn’t abandoned?” Diana asked, struggling over the uneven ground in her thin ballet flats. She held Max’s hand for support. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s here.”
“He’s here,” Cassie said. She pushed open the creaky door, revealing the dimly lit foyer and tall wooden bookcases she remembered from her last visit.
Timothy was standing behind the same tall countertop, but unlike the previous time, his head shot up immediately.
Cassie could tell he’d been expecting her.
“Mr. Dent,” she said from across the long hall of stone-gray squares.
“Who is this stranger?” he asked defensively.
“Two members of my Circle,” Cassie said. “Adam Conant and Diana Meade.”
“No. Him!” Timothy shouted, cutting Cassie off. He was pointing his long, wrinkled finger at Max.
Max held his breath. He backed away toward the door they’d entered through. Cassie understood that Timothy must somehow sense that Max was a witch-hunter.
She reached out and grabbed Max’s wrist to keep him from going back to the car.
“He’s one of us,” she said to Timothy. “He’s a former hunter, but he’s proven his loyalty to our Circle. Without him, it wouldn’t have been possible to get my friends back from the demons.”
Timothy eyed Max for a few seconds, then the three of them as a group. “Well, I’m glad to know the exorcism spell worked,” he said, letting his guard down for the first time since they’d arrived. “For what reason are you here?”