The Pagan Stone Page 0,4

gestured to the cards.

"Everybody's got something."

"We kicked our Big Evil Bastard in the balls a few days ago. We have to expect him to kick back."

"Nearly got ourselves incinerated for the trouble," Gage reminded her.

"Nearly works for me. We put the three pieces of the bloodstone back together, magickally. We performed a blood ritual." She studied the healing cut across her palm. "And we lived to tell the tale. We have a weapon."

"Which we don't know how to use."

"Does it know?" She busied herself getting out plates, cream cheese for the bagels. "Does our demon know any more about it than we do? Giles Dent infused that stone with power more than three hundred years ago in the clearing, and-theoretically-used it as part of the spell that pulled the demon, in its form as Lazarus Twisse, into some sort of limbo where Dent could hold it for centuries."

Handily, she sliced an apple, arranged the pieces on a plate while she spoke. "Twisse didn't know or recognize the power of the bloodstone then, or apparently hundreds of years later when your boyhood ritual released it, and the stone was split into three equal parts. If we follow that logic, it doesn't know any more about it now, which gives us an advantage. We may not know, yet, how it works, but we know it does."

Turning, she offered him his plated bagel. "We put the three pieces into one again. The Big Evil Bastard isn't the only one with power here."

Just a bit fascinated, Gage watched Cybil cut her half bagel in half before spreading what he could only describe as a film of cream cheese over the two quarters. While he loaded his own half, she sat and took a bite he estimated consisted of about half a dozen crumbs.

"Maybe you should just look at a picture of food instead of going to all the trouble to fix it." When she only smiled, took another minuscule bite, he said, "I've seen Twisse kill my friends. I've seen that countless times, in countless ways."

Her eyes met his, dark with understanding. "That's the bitch of our precog, seeing the potentials, the possibilities, in brutal Technicolor. I was afraid when we went into the clearing to perform the ritual. Not just of dying, though I don't want to die. In fact, I'm firmly against it. I was afraid of living and watching the people closest to me die, and worse, somehow being responsible for it."

"But you went in."

"We went in." She chose an apple slice, took a stingy bite. "And we didn't die. Not all dreams, not all visions are... set in stone. You come back, every Seven, you come back."

"We swore an oath."

"Yes, when you were ten. I'm not discounting the validity or the power of childhood oaths," she continued, "but you'd come back regardless. You come back for them, for Cal and Fox. I came for Quinn, so I understand the strength of friendship. We're not like them, you and I."

"No?"

"No." Lifting her coffee, she sipped slowly. "The town, the people in it, they're not ours. For Cal and Fox-and now in a very real sense for Quinn and Layla-this is home. People go to great lengths to protect home. For me, Hawkins Hollow is just a place I happen to be. Quinn's my home, and now so is Layla. And by extension, by connection, so are Cal and Fox. And so, it seems, are you. I won't leave my home until I know it's safe. Otherwise, while I'd find all this fascinating and intriguing, I wouldn't shed blood for it."

The sun beamed in the kitchen window, haloed over her hair, set the little silver hoops at her ears glinting. "I think you might."

"Really?"

"Yeah, because the whole thing pisses you off. Wanting to kick its ass weighs on the side of you staying, seeing it through."

She took another tiny bite of bagel and smiled at him. "Got me. So here we are, Turner, two pairs of itchy feet planted for love and general pissiness. Well. I want my shower," she decided. "Would you mind staying at least until Quinn and Cal get back? Ever since Layla had her 'snakes in the bathroom' event, I've been leery about showering when I'm alone in the house."

"No problem. You going to eat the rest of that?"

Cybil pushed the untouched quarter bagel toward him. As she rose to go to the sink to rinse out her coffee mug, he studied the black-and-blue cloud on the back