The Captive Page 0,59
flashed pale, showing the garter on her thigh and a black-handled dagger tucked in the garter. When the ground began to rise, she stopped.
Cassie stopped, too, clutching the skull to her chest with both arms, frighteningly aware of where they were standing. In a row here, broken only by a mound in the earth, were the graves of Faye's father, Sean's mother, and all the other dead parents from Crowhaven Road. Sean was sniveling now, and only Deborah's grip on him was keeping him from running away.
Faye turned to face them. Even in the worst of times, the tall, dramatically beautiful girl had a natural authority, an ability to intimidate people. Now that seemed enhanced by the symbols of the Queen of the Witches: the diadem, the bracelet, the garter. An aura of power and glamour surrounded her.
"It's time," Faye said, "to take back the energy that belonged to the original coven, and that Black John stored in the skull. Black John wants us to have that power, to use against our enemies. And we can get it back-now."
Taking the black-handled dagger out of her garter, Faye unsheathed it and drew a quick, imperfect circle in the dried-up grass. "Get in,"
she said, and the others took their places.
She's got them moving so fast they're not thinking about what they're doing, Cassie thought. No one questioned Faye; everyone seemed caught up in the driving urgency Faye was creating. Even Sean had stopped whining and was staring, rapt.
And Faye made a stunning sight as she held the knife up and rapidly called on the elements for protection. Too fast, Cassie was thinking- such slight protection when all their efforts on Halloween hadn't been enough. But she couldn't speak either; they were all caught on a roller-coaster ride and nobody could stop it. Least of all Cassie, who was so numb and cold...
"Put the skull in the center, Cassie," Faye said. Her voice was breathless and her chest was rising and falling quickly. She looked more excited than she had ever looked about Jeffrey, or Nick, or that guy from the pizza place she'd taken upstairs.
Cassie knelt and placed the cloth-wrapped thing in the middle of Faye's flawed circle.
"And now," Faye said, in that queer, exultant voice, staring down at the sandy lump between her feet, "we can reclaim the power that should have been ours all along. I call on all the elements to witness-"
"Faye, stop!" Adam shouted, appearing running between the gravestones.
The rest of the coven was behind him, including Diana, who still looked as if she were moving in her sleep. Even Nick, silent and watchful as always, was in the rear.
Faye snatched up the covered skull and held it cradled in her two hands. "You had your chance," she said. "Now it's my turn."
"Faye, just stop a minute and think," Adam said. "Black John isn't your friend. If he's really communicated with you, whatever he's told you is lies-"
"You're the liar!" Faye shot back.
"Chris, Doug-that skull killed Kori. If you let that dark energy loose again-"
"Don't listen to him!" Faye shouted. She looked like some barbarian queen as she stood there, long legs apart, silver glinting against the black of her shift and the darker black of her hair. Cassie realized that while Adam was talking to her, Laurel and Melanie were circling, one on either side.
Faye realized it, too. "I won't let you stop me! This is the beginning of a new Circle!"
"Please, Faye-" Diana cried, desperately, seeming to wake up at last.
"By Earth, by Air, by Fire, by Water!" Faye shouted, and she jerked the cloth off the skull and held it in both hands over her head.
Silver. The full moon shone down on the crystal and seemed to blaze there, and it was as if another face were suspended above Faye's; a livid, unnatural, skeletal face. And then- darkness began to pour forth from it. Something blacker than the sky between the stars was streaming out of the skull's eyesockets, out of its gaping nose-hole and between its grinning teeth. Snakes, thought Cassie, staring hypnotized at what was happening. Snakes and worms and the old kind of dragons, the kind whose heavy scales scrape the ground and who spit poison when they breathe. Everything bad, everything black, everything loathsome and crawling and evil seemed to be flooding out of that skull, although none of it was real. It was only darkness, only black light.
There was a sound like the humming of bees, only higher, more deadly.