The Captive Page 0,51

out safely, either.

Shakily, Diana walked over to sit down in her place between Nick and Faye. "Okay," she said, almost in a whisper. "Now we all concentrate on the fire. Look into it and let the night do the rest. Let's see if anything comes to talk to us."

Cassie's eyes shifted to Melanie, beside her. "But if we're protected from everything outside, who's going to be able to come talk to us?" she murmured.

"Something from here," Melanie whispered back, looking down at the barren earth inside the circle. Inside the foundations of the house.

"Oh."

Cassie gazed into the flames, trying to clear her mind, to be open to whatever might be trying to cross the veil between the invisible world and this one. Tonight was the night, and now was the time.

The fire began smoking.

Just a little at first, as if the wood were damp.

But then the smoke got darker-still transparent, but blacker. It streamed upward and hung in a cloudy mass above the bonfire.

Then it began to change.

It was twisting, swelling, like thunderheads rolling together. As Cassie stared, her breath clogging in her throat, it began to mold itself, to form a shape.

A man-shape.

It seemed to develop from the top down, and it was wearing old-fashioned clothes, like something out of a history book. A hat with a high crown and a stiff brim. A cloak or cape which hung down from broad shoulders, and a wide, severe linen collar. Breeches tied below the knees. Cassie thought she could make out square-toed shoes, but at times the lower legs just dwindled into the smoke of the fire. One thing she noticed, the smoke never actually detached from the fire, it always remained connected by a thin trail.

The figure floated there motionless except for eddies within itself.

Then it drifted toward Cassie.

She was the one who seemed to be facing it straight on. A sudden thought came into her mind. When Adam had first taken the crystal skull out of his backpack on the beach, it had seemed to be looking directly at her. And again-at the skull ceremony, she remembered. When Diana had pulled the cloth off the skull then, those hollow eyesockets had seemed to be staring right into Cassie's eyes.

Now this thing was staring at her in the same way.

"We should ask it a question," Melanie said, but even her usually calm voice was unsteady. There was a feeling of menace about the cloudy shape, of evil. Like the dark energy inside the skull, only stronger. More immediate.

Who are you? thought Cassie, but her tongue was frozen, and anyway, she didn't need to ask. There was no doubt at all in her mind who the shape in front of her was.

Black John.

Then came Diana's voice, clear and carefully calm. "We've invited you here because we've found something of yours," she said. "We need to know how to control it. Will you talk to us?"

There was no answer. Cassie thought the thing was moving closer to her-but maybe it was just an illusion.

"There are terrible things going on," Adam said. "They have to be stopped."

No illusion. It was coming closer.

"Are you controlling the dark energy?" Melanie asked abruptly, and Laurel's voice blended with hers: "You're dead! You've got no right to be interfering with the living."

"What's your problem, anyway?" Deborah demanded.

Too fast, Cassie thought. Too many people asking questions. The shape was drifting steadily closer. Cassie felt paralyzed, as if she were in danger that no one else saw.

"Who killed Kori?" Doug Henderson was snarling.

"Why did the dark energy lead us to the cemetery?" Deborah jumped in.

"And what happened to Jeffrey?" Suzan added.

The trail of smoke connecting the shape to the fire was stretched out thin, and the shape was right in front of Cassie. She was afraid to look into that cloudy, indistinct face, but she had to. In its contours she thought she could recognize the face she'd glimpsed inside the crystal skull.

Get up, Cassie.

The words weren't real words, they were in her mind. And they had some power over her. Cassie felt herself shift position, begin to rise.

Come with me, Cassie.

The others were still asking questions, and dimly Cassie could hear barking far away. But much louder was the voice in her mind.

Cassie, come.

She got to her feet. The swirling darkness seemed to be less transparent now. More solid. It was reaching out a formless hand.

Cassie reached out with her own hand to take it.

Chapter Thirteen

"Cassie, no!"

Later Cassie would realize it was Diana who had shouted.