The Power Page 0,4
matter what it cost her." He stopped and his mouth turned grim. "If I'd known she was being blackmailed by this snake - "
"I beg your pardon," Faye interrupted, golden eyes flashing dangerously.
Adam returned the look, just as dangerous. "That's what it was, wasn't it, Faye? Blackmail. Your little spies saw us that night - when we were saying good-bye, and swearing never to see each other alone again, and you decided to make the most of it. I knew there was something going on with you and Cassie after that, but I could never figure out what it was. Cassie was scared to death all of a sudden, but why she didn't just come to me and tell me what you were up to . . ." His voice trailed off and he looked toward Cassie.
Cassie shook her head mutely. How could she explain? "I didn't want you caught up in it too," she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "I was afraid you'd tell Diana, and Faye said if Diana found out..."
"What?" Adam said. When Cassie shook her head again he gave Faye's arm a little shake. "What, Faye? If Diana found out it would kill her? Wreck the coven? Is that what you told Cassie?"
Faye smirked. "If I did, it was only the truth, wasn't it? As things turned out." She wrenched away from Adam.
"So you used her love for Diana against her. You blackmailed her to make her help you find the skull, right? I'll bet it took some persuading."
Adam was only guessing, but his guess was dead on target. Cassie found herself nodding. "I found out where it was - "
"But how?" Diana interrupted, blurting it, speaking for the first time directly to Cassie. Cassie looked into the clear green eyes with the tears hanging on the dark lashes and spoke directly back.
"I did what Faye said," she said tremulously. "First I looked in the walnut cabinet - remember when I stayed overnight and you woke up with me in the room? When the skull wasn't there I thought I'd have to give up, but then I had a dream. It made me remember something I'd seen in your Book of Shadows, about purifying an evil object by burying it in sand. So I went and searched the beach and finally found the skull under that ring of stones."
Cassie paused, looking at Faye, her voice growing stronger. "Once I had my hands on it, though, I realized I couldn't give it to Faye. I just couldn't. But she had followed me and she took it anyway."
Cassie took a deep breath, making herself meet Diana's eyes again, her own eyes begging Diana to understand. "I know I shouldn't have let her have it. I should have stood up to her, then and afterward, but I was weak and stupid. I'm sorry now - I wish I'd just come and told you in the beginning, but I was so afraid you'd be hurt..." Tears were choking her voice now, and making her vision blur. "And as for what Adam said - about it all being his fault - you have to know that isn't true. It was my fault, and at the Halloween dance I tried to make him kiss me, because I was so upset by then and I thought that nothing really mattered, since I was evil anyway."
There was wetness on Diana's cheeks, but now she looked taken aback. "Since what?'
"Since I was evil," Cassie said, hearing the terrible, stark truth in the simple words. "Since I was responsible for killing Jeffrey Lovejoy." The entire coven stared at her, appalled. "Wait a minute," Melanie said. "Run that by me one more time."
"Whenever anybody used the skull, it released dark energy, which went out and killed somebody," Cassie said carefully and clearly. "Faye and I were the ones who used the skull before Jeffrey was killed. If it wasn't for me, she couldn't have used it, and Jeffrey would still be alive. So, you see, I'm responsible."
Animation was returning to Diana's eyes. "But you didn't know," she said.
Cassie shook her head fiercely. "That's no excuse. There's no excuse for any of it - not even for doing worse things because I thought I was evil anyway and what did it matter? It did matter. I listened to Faye and I let her bully me." And I kept the hematite, she thought, but there was no point in getting into that. She shrugged, blinking more