The Captive Page 0,5

poised for a fight.

They were all hideously on edge, Cassie realized. The crunch of footsteps sounded as loud as firecrackers now, grating against her taut nerves. She saw a dim shape beside the road, and then saw Adam move forward, so that he was in front of both Diana and her. I'm going to have to talk to him about that, she thought irrelevantly.

There was a pause in the footsteps, and the dim shape came toward them. Adam and the Henderson brothers looked ready to rush it. Quarrel forgotten, Deborah looked ready too. Sean was cowering behind Faye. Cassie's heart began to pound.

Then she noticed a spot of red like a tiny burning coal floating near the figure, and she heard a familiar voice.

"If you want me, you got me. Four against one ought to be about fair."

With a whoop, Chris Henderson rushed forward. "Nick!"

Doug grinned, while still managing to look as if he might jump the approaching figure. Adam relaxed and stepped back.

"You sure, Adam? We can settle this right here," Nick said as he reached the group, the end of his cigarette glowing as he inhaled. Adam's eyes narrowed, and then Cassie saw the daredevil smile he'd worn at Cape Cod, when four guys with a gun had been chasing him. What was wrong with him, what was wrong with everybody tonight? she wondered. They were all acting crazy.

Diana put a restraining hand on Adam's arm. "No fighting," she said quietly.

Nick looked at her, then shrugged. "Kind of nervous, aren't you?" he said, surveying the group.

Sean emerged from behind Faye. "I'm just high-strung."

"Yes, you ought to be-from a tree," Faye said contemptuously.

Nick didn't smile, but then Nick never smiled. As always, his face was handsome but cold. "Well, maybe you have a reason to be nervous-at least some of you," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean? We came here looking for the dark energy that escaped last night," said Adam.

Nick went still, as if struck by a new idea, then his cigarette glowed again. "Maybe you're looking in the wrong place," he said expressionlessly.

Diana's voice was quiet. "Nick, will you please just tell us what you mean?"

Nick looked around at them all. "I mean," he said deliberately, "that while you've been scurrying around here, a crew's been up at Devil's Cove, pulling rocks off old Fogle."

Fogle? Cassie couldn't place the name. And then suddenly she saw it in her mind's eye-on a brass plate in a wood-paneled office. "Our principal?" she gasped.

"You got it. They say he got caught in an avalanche."

"An avalanche?" demanded Laurel in disbelief. "Around here?"

"How else do you explain the two-ton chunk of granite that was on top of him? Not to mention all the smaller stuff."

There was a moment of shocked silence.

"Is he..." Cassie couldn't finish the question.

"He wasn't looking too good when they got that chunk off him," Nick said, and then, with less sarcasm, "He's been dead since last night."

"Oh, God," Laurel whispered. There was another silence, just as shocked and even longer this time. Cassie knew they were all seeing the same thing: A crystal skull surrounded by a protective ring of candles- and one of the candles going out.

"It was Faye's fault," Sean began in a whine, but Faye interrupted without looking at him. "It was his fault."

"Wait, wait," said Diana. "We don't know the dark energy had anything to do with it. How could it have, when we know it came here and then stopped?"

"I don't think that's much comfort," Melanie said in a low voice. "Because if it wasn't the dark energy, who was it?"

There was a sort of strange shifting in the group, as if everyone was standing back and looking at all the others. Cassie felt a void in the pit of her stomach again. The principal was-had been-an outsider, who hated witches. And that meant they all had a motive-especially anybody who blamed the outsiders for Kori Henderson's death. Cassie looked at Deborah, and then at Chris and Doug.

Most of the rest of the coven was doing the same. Doug glared back, then gave a wild, defiant grin.

"Maybe we did do it," he said, eyes glittering.

"Did we?" said Chris, looking confused.

Deborah just looked scornful.

There was another silence, then Suzan spoke in a petulant voice. "Look, it's too bad about Fogle, but do we have to stand here forever? My feet are killing me."

Adam seemed to shake himself. "She's right; we should get out of this place. There's nothing we can do here." He put