The Initiation Page 0,63

corrected. "I wish Adam had found any of the other Master Tools instead of this one. This one was his, Black John's favorite, and I think he might have used it to get rid of people. I'm afraid that tonight - I don't know. But I'm afraid something awful is going to happen."

"We won't let it," said a new voice at the door. Cassie's heart began to pound dully and blood rushed to her face.

"Adam," said Diana. She relaxed visibly as he came over to the window seat to kiss her and sit beside her. She always seemed both more tranquil and more radiant whenever he was around.

"We'll keep the ceremony under strict control tonight," he said. "And if anything dangerous starts to happen, we'll just stop it cold. Did you get the garage ready?"

"No, I was waiting for you. We can take it down now." Diana unlocked the large cabinet, and Cassie saw the crystal skull resting in a Pyrex baking dish full of pink rose petals.

"Looks like John the Baptist's head," she murmured.

"I've used salt and rainwater to try and clear it," Diana said. "But what it really needs is a full course of crystals and flower essences, and then to be buried in moist sand for a few weeks."

"We'll take every precaution," Adam said. "A triple circle of protection. It'll be all right." He picked up the skull, with a few rose petals still clinging to it, and he and Diana left for the garage. Cassie watched him go.

"Don't be nervous," Melanie told her. "You won't really have to do anything at the ceremony. You won't be able to; it takes a long time to get the hang of scrying - years, usually. All you have to do is sit there and not break the Circle."

Cassie tried not to mind the condescending note in her voice. "Listen, do we have time for anybody to drive me over to my house?" she said. "There's something there I'd like to pick up."

Diana's garage was empty - of cars, at least. The floor was clean and bare, except for a circle drawn in white chalk.

"I'm sorry to make us all sit on concrete," Diana said, "but I wanted to do this inside - where I can be sure the wind won't blow out one of the candles."

There were a number of white candles lying at the center of the circle. They formed a smaller ring. In the very center of that, something draped with a piece of black cloth sat on a shoe box.

"All right," Diana said to the rest of the group, who had arrived in small clusters and were now standing in the garage. "Let's get this thing over with."

She had changed into her white shift and jewelry. Looking at them now, Cassie suspected that the diadem and cuff bracelet - and maybe even the garter - had some mystic significance. She watched Diana "cast" the circle, going around it with the dagger and then with water and then incense and then a lit candle. Earth, water, air, and fire. There were also some incantations, which Cassie tried to follow. But when they all filed into the circle and sat down knee to knee as Diana instructed, any interest in the actual ceremony flew right out of her mind.

She had ended up between Faye and Adam. She didn't know how it had happened. She had been in line to sit next to Sean, but somehow Faye had gotten in front of her. Maybe Faye didn't want to sit by Adam. Well, neither did Cassie, although for a very different reason.

Adam's knee was pressing against hers. That was how Diana had told them to sit. She could feel the warmth of it, the solidity. She could think of nothing else.

On her other side, Faye smelled of some heady, tropical perfume. It made her slightly dizzy.

Then all the lights went out.

Cassie didn't see how it was done; she was sure no one left the seated circle. But the overhead fluorescent panels had abruptly gone off.

It was pitch-black in the garage. The only light now was the flame of the single candle Diana held. Cassie could see her face illuminated by it, but nothing else.

"All right," Diana said quietly. "We're just going to be looking for the last imprints left. Nothing more than that; nobody goes in really deep until we know what we're dealing with. And I don't have to tell anybody that whatever happens, we don't break the circle."