The Captive Page 0,52

At the time the words came to her only through a fog, and they sounded slow and dragging. Meaningless, like the continued mad barking that was going on somewhere far away. Cassie's fingertips brushed the transparent black fingertips before her.

Instantly, she felt a jolt like the thrill that the hematite had given her. She looked up, shocked, from her own hand to the smoky, swirling face, and she recognized it-

Then everything shattered.

There was a great splash and icy-cold drops of water splattered Cassie from head to foot.

At the same instant there was the hissing sound of red-hot embers being suddenly drenched. The smoky man-thing changed, dwindling, dissolving, as if it were being sucked back into the fire. A fire that now was nothing more than a sodden black mess of charred sticks.

Adam was standing on the other side of the circle, holding the cooler, whose contents had doused the fire. Raj was behind him, hair bristling, lips skinned back from his teeth.

Cassie stared from her own outstretched hand to Adam's wide eyes. She swayed. Then everything seemed to go soft and gray around her, and she fainted.

"You're safe now. Just lie still." The voice seemed to come from a great distance, but it had a note of gentle authority. Diana, Cassie thought vaguely, and a great longing swept over her. She wanted to hold Diana's hand, but it was too much trouble to move or try to open her eyes.

"Here's the lavender water," came another voice, lighter and more hasty. Laurel. "You dab it on, like this..."

Cassie felt a coolness on her forehead and wrists. A sweet, clean smell cleared her head a little.

She could hear other voices now. ". . . maybe, but I still don't know how the hell Adam did it. I couldn't move-felt like I was frozen." That was Deborah.

"Me, too! Like I was stuck to the ground." That was Sean.

"Adam, will you please sit down now so Laurel can look at you? Please? You're hurt." That was Melanie, and suddenly Cassie could open her eyes. She sat up and a cool damp cloth fell off her forehead into her lap.

"No, no-Cassie, lie still," Diana said, trying to push her back down. Cassie was staring at Adam.

His wonderful unruly hair was blown every which way. His skin was reddened, like a skier with a bad case of windburn, and his clothes looked askew and damp. "I'm all right," he was saying to Melanie, who was trying to sit him in a chair.

"What happened? Where are we?" Cassie said. She was lying on a couch in a shabby living room she knew she should recognize, but she felt very confused.

"We brought you to Laurel's house," said Diana. "We didn't want to scare your mom and grandma. You fainted. But Adam saved your life."

"He went through the four circles of protection," Suzan said, with a distinct note of awe in her voice.

"Stupid," Deborah commented. "But impressive."

And then came Faye's lazy drawl: "I think it was a tremendously devoted thing to do."

There was a startled pause. Then Laurel said, "Oh, well, you know Adam and duty. I guess he is devoted to it."

"I would've done it-so would Doug-if we could've got up," Chris insisted.

"And if you could've thought of it-which you couldn't," Nick said dryly and a little grimly. His expression was dark.

Cassie was watching as Laurel dabbed with a damp towel at Adam's face and hands. "This is aloe and willow bark," Laurel explained. "It should keep the burns from getting worse."

"Cassie," Diana said gently, "do you remember what happened before you fainted?"

"Uh... you guys were asking questions-too many questions. And then-I don't know, this voice started talking in my head. That thing was staring at me..." Cassie had a sudden thought. "Diana-at the skull ceremony in your garage, you know how you had the skull under a cloth?" Diana nodded. "Did you have it facing any particular way under the cloth?"

Diana looked startled. "Actually, there was something about that that worried me. I put the skull facing the place where I'd sit in the circle-but when I took the cloth off, it was facing the other way."

"It was facing me," Cassie said. "Which means either somebody moved it or ... it moved itself." They were looking at each other, both puzzled and uneasy, but communicating. Cassie felt closer to Diana than she had in weeks. Now was the time to make up, she thought.

"Diana," she began, but just then she noticed something. Adam's mask of horns and