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. It was growing. Faye was standing under that dreadful cascade of darkness, and the sound was like two ice picks driving into Cassie's ears, and somewhere a dog was barking...
Someone has to stop this, Cassie realized. No-I have to stop this. Now.
She was getting to her feet when the skull exploded.
Everything was quiet and dark.
Cassie wanted it to stay that way.
Somebody groaned beside her.
Cassie sat up slowly, looking around, trying to piece together what had happened. The cemetery looked like a killing field. Bodies were strewn all over. There was Adam, stretched out with one arm reaching toward the circle and Raj beside him. There was Diana with her shining hair in the leaves and dirt. There was Nick, getting to his hands and knees, shaking his head.
Faye was lying in a pool of black silk, her dark hair covering her face. Her hands with their long red nails were cupped, open-but empty. There was no sign of the skull.
Someone groaned again, and Cassie looked to see Deborah sitting up, rubbing her face with one hand.
"Are they dead?" Deborah said hoarsely, staring around.
"I don't know," Cassie whispered. Her own throat hurt. All those bodies, and the only movement was the fluttering of Diana's hair in the wind. And Nick, who was stumbling toward the circle.
But then there was a stirring-people were starting to sit up. Sean was whimpering. Suzan was, too. Deborah crawled over to Faye and pushed Faye's hair back.
"She's breathing."
Cassie nodded; she didn't know what to say. Adam was bending over Diana-she looked quickly away from that. Melanie and Laurel were up, and so were Chris and Doug, looking like punch-drunk fighters. Everyone seemed to be alive.
Then Cassie saw Laurel gasp and point. "Oh, my God. The mound. Look at the mound."
Cassie turned-and froze. Her eyes went back and forth over the scene without believing it.
The mound her grandmother had told her was for storing artillery was broken open. The rusty padlock was gone, and the iron door was jammed against the piece of concrete. But that wasn't all. The top of the mound, where the sparse cemetery grass had grown, was cracked like an overripe plum. Like the cocoon of an insect that had burst free.
And all up and down the line of graves by the fence, tombstones were tilting crazily. The ones nearest the mound, the ones with the names of the parents of Crowhaven Road, were split and shattered. Riven, Cassie thought, the old-fashioned word coming from nowhere, singularly appropriate.