The Secret Circle: The Captive Part II / the Power Read online

  Behind her was a gaggle of hall monitors, on their way to the meeting, apparently. There were maybe thirty of them. Cassie’s heart was suddenly beating hard and fast.

  “And it’s her fault,” Portia went on, looking down her aristocratic nose at Cassie. “I heard her initiate it. Let’s take her in.”

  “That’s right, the little flirt,” Sally said. Cassie remembered Sally’s voice in the bathroom; the anger in it, the viciousness. This one had every guy at Homecoming dance following her around with his tongue hanging out—including my boyfriend. She’d come to think of herself so differently since she’d overheard Sally talking about her that day.

  Nick was looking at the group of monitors, his face cold—like the old Nick, the one Cassie had first met. Cold as ice. “Take her where? The penalty for a Type-A offense is supposed to be detention. Or don’t you read your own rules?” he said.

  “We decide what the penalties are—” Portia began, but Sally interrupted.

  “She was refusing to cooperate with a hall monitor at lunchtime,” she said. “That’s what we’re taking her in for. Mr. Brunswick gave us special instructions. We’re going to take her to the office—she can talk to him.”

  “Then you can take both of us,” Nick said. His arm tightened on Cassie.

  There were too many of them. Cassie’s eyes skimmed over the crowd of hall monitors, seeing not a friendly face among them. All seniors, all kids who hated witches. And Faye wasn’t here now.

  “Nick,” she said, her voice soft and careful over the thumping of her heart, “I think I’d better go with them.” She glanced back at Sally. “Can I just say good-bye to him?”

  Looking sardonic, Sally nodded. Cassie put her arms around Nick’s neck.

  “Get the others,” she whispered in his ear. “The monitors will be in their meeting—you’ll have to find a way to get me out.”

  As he drew back, Nick’s mahogany eyes met hers in acknowledgment. Then, with an expressionless look at Sally, he stood aside.

  The group of monitors surrounded Cassie and escorted her down the hall, treating her like a mass murderer. She had a wild impulse to giggle, but as they reached the office the urge disappeared in a flood of sheer dread and anxiety.

  He planned this, she thought. Maybe not this specifically, today. But he knew he’d get us somehow, one by one. She tried to ignore the little voice whispering, he knew he’d get you. It’s you he’s after.

  Because she was an outsider—or because she didn’t fit in with his plans. A vision of Kori flashed through her mind: Kori lying stiff and motionless with a broken neck at the bottom of the hill. She’d seen what happened to people who didn’t fit in with Black John’s plans.

  “Maybe if you bat your eyes at him he’ll let you off,” Sally whispered spitefully and pushed her in the office door.

  Cassie didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

  She hadn’t been in this office since she’d gone to Mr. Fogle to complain that Faye was persecuting her. It looked the same, except that there was a crackling fire in the fireplace now. And the man behind the desk was different.

  Don’t look at him, Cassie thought, as the door swung shut behind her, but she couldn’t help it. Those black eyes held hers from the instant she glanced toward the desk. That hawklike face betrayed no sign of surprise that she was there.

  The principal put a slim gold-plated pen on the desk with a barely audible click.

  “Cassandra,” he said.

  Cassie’s knees felt weak.

  It was the voice of the shadow. A dark, liquid voice. So quiet, so insidious—so evil. Under his hematite-black eyes she felt naked, exposed. As if he were looking at her mind. Looking for a crack to get in.

  “Mr. Brunswick,” she said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. Polite, but distant.

  He smiled.

  He was wearing a black turtleneck and a black jacket. He stood, resting his fingertips on the desk.

  “So brave,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

  It was the last thing she expected. Cassie just stared at him. Her fingers flew automatically to the bump of the amethyst pendant under her sweater.

  His eyes followed the movement. “I wouldn’t bother,” he said, smiling faintly. “That crystal is much too small to be effective.”

  Cassie’s hand dropped slowly. How had he known? She felt so confused, so off-balance. She stared at the man in front of her, trying to connect him with the burned creature that had crouched over her grandmother in the kitchen, with the seventeenth-century wizard who had led a frightened coven to New Salem. How was he here at all, that was the question. What was the source of his power?

  “And amethyst is a weak stone, a stone of the heart,” he was going on softly. “Purity of purpose, Cassie; that’s the secret. Purity and clarity. Never forget your purpose.”

  She had the strange feeling he was answering her question. Oh God, why didn’t Nick come? Her heart was pounding so hard . . . she was frightened.

  “Let me demonstrate,” the dark man said. “If you would give me that pendant? For a moment only,” he added, as Cassie stood motionless.

  Slowly, Cassie reached around the back of her neck. With cold fingertips she undid the silver chain and removed it. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Slowly, precisely, he took it.

  Suddenly, wildly, Cassie thought of a magician about to do a trick. Nothing up those sleeves, she thought. Only flesh that shouldn’t be there in the first place.

  Still holding the necklace in the air, the principal turned away from Cassie. The fire leaped and crackled and Cassie felt her pulse in her throat and fingertips. I can’t stand much more of this, she thought. Nick, where are you?

  “You see,” the principal said, in a voice that seemed oddly distorted, “amethyst is a stone riddled with impurities. For power, quartz is always my choice . . .” He began to turn around.

  No, thought Cassie. Everything had gone into slow motion, as if she were watching one frame after another of a video. A video played on a very superior machine, each frame crisp and bright and sharp-edged, with no blurriness. Cassie didn’t even know where the No had come from, except that something deep in her own brain was screaming in protest, trying to warn her. Don’t look, oh, don’t look.

  Cassie wanted to stop the action, to freeze the frame. But she couldn’t. It was taking forever, but the dark man was still turning. He was facing her.

  She saw the elegant black jacket, the black turtleneck sweater. But above the turtleneck was a monstrosity that forced tears from her eyes and clogged the scream in her throat. The man had no face.

  No hair, no eyebrows, no eyes, no nose. No mouth, only a grinning outline of clenched teeth. Even that, even the stark bones which faced her, were as clear as water.

  Cassie couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. Her mind was out of control.

  Oh God, oh God the skull isn’t gone no wonder we couldn’t find it, it didn’t explode at all because it’s in his head, oh Diana oh Adam it’s in his head . . .

  “You see, Cassandra,” came the inhuman voice from behind those clenched teeth, “purity plus clarity equals power. And I have more power than you children have ever dreamed of.”

  Oh God I won’t believe this I won’t believe this is happening I don’t want to see any more . . .

  “My spirit is not confined to this body,” the voice went on calmly, with terrible lucidity. “It can flow like water wherever I direct it. I can focus its power anywhere.”

  The hollow eyesockets tilted down, toward the amethyst pendant which hung from a perfectly normal-looking hand. Firelight flickered deep inside the crystal. Then Cassie felt it—an outrush of power like the one she’d sent to scare the dog and to warn Sean and to light the match. Only this was much stronger, much more concentrated than her feeble bursts had been. She could almost see it, like a blaze of light.

  The amethyst pendant shattered.

  The silver owl swung, but nothing hung from its claw
s now. The crystal was gone.

  Cassie’s ears caught the tinkle as bits of it fell. But she didn’t really notice the sound consciously. She was blind and deaf with panic.

  “Now, Cassandra,” the voice was beginning again, and then it was interrupted by a noise so loud that even Cassie couldn’t ignore it. A roar was coming from the front yard of the school, a sound like a pep rally, only angry. Shrill screams rang out against the background of deep shouting.

  The principal dropped the silver chain and strode over to the window which overlooked the front of the school.

  And Cassie’s brain woke up. It wanted only one thing, to get out of here. With the dark man’s attention distracted, she dove for the door.

  She ran straight through the office without looking at the secretaries. There was chaos in the second-floor halls. Everyone was flooding out of classrooms. “It’s a fight!” some guy on the stairs was yelling. “Come on!”

  It’s like a riot; they can’t control everybody at once, Cassie realized dimly. She was still running. She ran down the stairs and then down a hallway, instinctively heading for the center of the confusion.

  “Cassie, wait!”

  Not a man’s voice, but a threatening one. Faye. Cassie paused for an instant, looking around desperately for Nick or Diana or Adam.

  “Cassie, stop, for pity’s sake. No one is trying to hurt you. I’ve been running after you all the way from the office.”

  Warily, Cassie edged backward. The hall was deserted now. Everyone was outdoors.

  “Cassie, just listen to me. He’s not trying to murder you, I promise. He wants to help you. He likes you.”

  “Faye, you’re insane!” Cassie’s control broke, and she screamed the words. “You don’t know what he is! Everything you see about him is an illusion. He’s a monster!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s one of us—”

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” Cassie said. Reaction was setting in and her knees were shaking so badly that she had to lean against the wall. She slid down, tearing a poster about the Thanksgiving football game. “You didn’t see him. You don’t know.”

  “I know you’re being a baby. You didn’t even stay to listen to what he had to say to you. He was going to explain everything—”

  “Faye, wake up!” Cassie cried. “For God’s sake, will you please wake up and look at him? He’s nothing that you think. You’re completely blind.”

  “You think you know so much about it.” Faye stood back, arms crossed over her chest. She tilted her chin up and looked down at Cassie with heavy-lidded, queerly triumphant eyes. Her blood-red lips curved in a smile. “You think you know everything—but you don’t even know what his name was when he was here last. When he came to our parents and he lived at Number Thirteen.”

  The strength of terror Cassie had felt moments earlier was gone, and the ground suddenly felt very unstable. She pressed a hand against the floor. Faye was still looking at her with those strange, triumphant eyes. “No,” Cassie whispered.

  “‘No’ you don’t know? Or ‘no’ don’t tell you? But I want to tell you, Cassie, and it’s time you did know. The name he used last time was John Blake.”

  Chapter 10

  Cassie stared, beyond speech, beyond thought. Not believing—but inside her, something knew.

  “It’s true. He’s your father.”

  Cassie just sat.

  “And he wants you to be happy, Cassie. He wants you to be his heir. He’s got a lot planned for you.”

  “And what are you?” Cassie cried, outraged, pushed

  beyond the limits of her endurance. “My new stepmother?”

  Faye chuckled—that infuriating, lazy, self-satisfied chuckle. “Maybe. Why not? I’ve always liked older men—and he’s only about three centuries older.”

  “You’re disgusting!” Cassie couldn’t find the right words. None were bad enough, and she didn’t want to believe that any of this was actually happening. “You’re—you—”

  “I haven’t done anything yet, Cassie. John and I have a—business relationship.”

  Cassie felt as if she were gagging. For herself, for

  Faye . . . “You call him John?” she whispered.

  “What do you think I should call him? Mr. Brunswick? Or what he called himself the last time he was here, Mr. Blake?”

  Everything was spinning around Cassie now. The pale green cinderblock walls were whirling. She wanted to faint. If only she could faint she wouldn’t have to think.

  But she couldn’t. Slowly, the spinning steadied, she felt the floor solid beneath her. There was no way to escape this. There was no choice but to deal with it.

  “Oh, God,” Cassie whispered. “It’s true. It’s really true.”

  “It’s true,” Faye said quietly, with satisfaction. “Your mother was his girlfriend. He told me the whole story, how she fell in love with him when he went over to Number Twelve to borrow some matches. They never did get married, apparently—but I’m sure he didn’t begrudge her his name.”

  It was true . . . and that had been what Cassie’s grandmother was trying to tell her when she died. “I have one more thing to tell you,” she’d said, and then Laurel had come in. The last words had only been a whisper, “John” and something else Cassie couldn’t make out. But she could recall the shape of her grandmother’s lips trying to make it. It had been “Blake.”

  “Why didn’t she try to tell me before?” Cassie whispered raggedly, hardly aware she was speaking aloud. “Why wait until she was dying? Why?”

  “Who, your grandma? She didn’t want to upset you, I suppose,” Faye said. “She probably thought you’d be—disturbed—if you knew. And maybe”—Faye leaned forward—“she knew it would bring you closer to him. You’re his own flesh and blood, Cassie. His daughter.”

  Cassie was shaking her head, blind, nauseated. “The other old women—they must have known too! God, everybody who knew him must have known. And nobody told me. Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “Oh, stop sniveling, Cassie. I’m sure they didn’t tell you because they were afraid of how you’d react. And I must say it looks as if they were right. You’re falling apart.”

  Great-aunt Constance, Cassie was thinking. She must have known. How could she stand to look at me? How can she stand to have my mother in her house?

  And Mrs. Franklin had been going to tell her, she realized suddenly. Yes. That had been what that last-minute scene in Aunt Constance’s parlor had been all about. Adam’s grandmother had been about to tell, about to say something to Cassie about her father. Granny Quincey and Aunt Constance had stopped her. They were all in a conspiracy of silence, to keep the truth from Cassie.

  Probably not the parents, Cassie thought slowly, feeling very tired. They probably didn’t remember anyway. They’d made themselves forget everything. But Aunt Constance had warned the Circle against stirring up those old memories, and her gaze had settled on Cassie when she did it.

  “Just think about it, Cassie,” Faye was saying, and that husky voice sounded reasonable now, not gloating or triumphant. “He only wants the best for you; he always has. You were born as part of his plans. I know you and I have had our problems in the past, but John wants us to get along. Won’t you just give it a try? Won’t you, Cassie?”

  Slowly, painfully, Cassie made her eyes focus. Faye was kneeling in front of her. Faye’s beautiful, sensual face seemed lit softly from within. She really means it, Cassie thought. She’s sincere. Maybe she’s in love with him.

  And maybe, Cassie mused dizzily, I should think about it. So many things have changed since I came to New Salem—I’m not at all the person I used to be. The old, shy Cassie who never had a boyfriend and never had anything to say is gone. Maybe this is just another change, another stage of life. Maybe I’m at the crossroads.

  She looked at Faye for a long moment, searching the depths of those amber eyes. Then, slowly, she shook her head.

  No.

  Even as she thought it, chill wh
ite determination flooded her. That was one road she would never take, no matter what happened. She would never become what Black John—what her father—wanted.

  Without a word, without looking back, Cassie got up and walked away from Faye.

  Outside, the melee was still going on. Cassie scanned the front entrance of the school and saw the weak November sun shining on a cascade of fair hair. She headed for it.

  “Diana . . .”

  “Cassie, thank God! When Nick told us you were alone in his office . . .” Diana’s eyes widened. “Cassie, what’s wrong?”

  “I have to tell you something. At home. Can we go home now?” Cassie was holding on to Diana’s hand.

  Diana stared at her for another moment, then shook herself. “Yes. Of course. But Nick will be looking for you. He had the idea that we should start a fight on the first floor as a diversion; just grab a bunch of people and start swinging. All the guys did it, and Deborah and Laurel. They’re all looking for you.”

  Cassie couldn’t face any of them, especially Nick. Once he knew what she really was—what he’d held in his arms, what he’d kissed . . .

  “Please, can’t you just tell them I’m okay, but I need to go home?” Suzan was standing nearby; Cassie nodded at her. “Can’t Suzan just tell them?”

  “Yes. All right. Suzan, tell everybody I’ve taken Cassie home. They can stop the fight now.” Diana led Cassie down the hill to the parking lot. They had barely reached Diana’s car, though, when Adam appeared, running.

  “The fight’s breaking up—and I’m coming with you,” he said. Cassie wanted to argue, but she didn’t have the strength. Besides, Diana might need Adam there when Cassie told her the whole story.

  Cassie nodded at Adam and he got in the car without further discussion. They drove to Diana’s house and went up to Diana’s room.

  “Now tell us what happened before I have a heart attack,” Diana said.

  But it wasn’t that easy. Cassie went over to the bay window, where sunlight was striking the prisms hanging there so that wedges of rainbow light bobbed and slid over the walls. She turned to look at the black and white prints on either side of the window; Diana’s collection of Greek goddesses. There was proud Hera, queenly with her mane of pitch-black hair and her hooded, untamed eyes; there was Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, with her soft bosom exposed; there was fierce Artemis, the virgin huntress afraid of nothing. And here, on the other side, was Athena, the gray-eyed goddess of wisdom, and Persephone, fresh-faced and elfin and surrounded by blooming flowers. Last of all, in color, was the print of a goddess older than the Greek civilization, the great goddess Diana, who ruled the moon and stars and night. Diana, Queen of Witches.