Secret Circle 03 - L.J.Smith - The Power.pdf - SecretCircle - Betah

ONE

"Diana, I have a little surprise for you," Faye said.

Diana's emerald eyes, with their thick sooty lashes, were swimming already. She still

hadn't recovered from the shocks of tonight, and her face was strained as she stared at

Faye.

Well, there was worse to come.

Now that it was finally going to happen, Cassie felt a curious sense of freedom. No more

hiding, no more lying and evading. The nightmare was here at last.

"I suppose I should have told you before, but I didn't want to upset you," Faye was

saying. Her eyes burned golden with a savage inner fire.

Adam, who wasn't stupid, glanced from Cassie to Faye and obviously came to a quick, if

shattering, conclusion. He swiftly cupped a hand under Diana's elbow.

"Whatever it is can wait," he said. "Cassie ought to go and see her mother, and—"

"No, it can't wait, Adam Conant," Faye interrupted. "It's time Diana found out what sort

of people she has around her." Faye whirled to face Diana again, her pale skin glowing

with strange elation against the midnight-dark mane of her hair. "The ones you've

chosen," she said to her cousin. "Your dearest friend—and him. The incorruptible Sir

Adam. Do you want to know the reason you couldn't make it as leader? Do you want to

know how naive you really are?"

Everyone was gathering close now, staring. Cassie could see varying degrees of

bewilderment and suspicion in their expressions. The full moon shining from the west

was so bright that it cast shadows, and it illuminated every detail of the scene.

Cassie looked at each of them: tough Deborah, beautiful Suzan with her perfect face

marred by a puzzled frown, cool Melanie, and graceful, elfin Laurel. She looked at Chris

and Doug Henderson, the wild twins, who were standing by the slinking figure of Sean,

and at icily handsome Nick behind them.

Finally she looked at Adam.

He was still holding Diana's arm, but his proud, arresting face was tense and alert. His

eyes met Cassie's and something like understanding flashed between them, and then

Cassie looked away, ashamed. She had no right to lean on Adam's strength. She was

about to be exposed for what she was in front of the entire Circle.

"I kept hoping they would do the decent thing and control themselves," Faye said. "For

their own sake, if not yours. But, obviously—"

"Faye, what are you talking about?" Diana interrupted, her patience splintering.

"Why, about Cassie and Adam, of course," Faye said, slowly opening her golden eyes

wide. "About how they've been fooling around behind your back."

The words fell like stones into a tranquil pool. There was a long moment of utter silence,

then Doug Henderson threw back his head and laughed.

"Yeah, an' my mom's a topless dancer," he jeered.

"And Mother Teresa's really Catwoman," said Chris.

"Come on, Faye," Laurel said sharply. "Don't be ridiculous."

Faye smiled.

"1 don't blame you for not believing me," she said. "I was shocked too. But you see, it

all started before Cassie came to New Salem. It started when she met Adam down on

Cape Cod."

The silence this time had a different quality. Cassie saw Laurel look quickly at Melanie.

Everyone knew that Cassie had spent several weeks on the Cape last summer. And

everyone knew that Adam had been down in that area too, looking for the Master Tools.

Cassie saw the dawning of startled understanding on the faces around her.

"It all started on the beach there," Faye went on. She was obviously enjoying herself, as

she always enjoyed being the center of attention. She looked sexy and commanding as

she wet her lips and spoke throatily, addressing the entire group although her words

were meant for Diana. "It was love at first sight, I guess— or at least they couldn't keep

their hands off each other. When Cassie came up here she even wrote a poem about it.

Now how did that go?" Faye tilted her head to one side and recited:

"Each night I lie and dream about the one Who kissed me and awakened my desire I

spent a single hour with him alone And since that hour, my days are laced with fire."

"That's right; that was her poem," Suzan said. "1 remember. We had her in the old

science building and she didn't want us to read it."

Deborah was nodding, her petite face twisted in a scowl. "I remember too."

"You may also remember how strange they both acted at Cassie's initiation," Faye said.

"And how Raj seemed to take to Cassie so quickly, always jumping up on her and licking

her and all. Well, it's very simple really—it's because they'd known each other before.

They didn't want any of us to know that, of course. They tried to hide it. But eventually

they got caught. It was the night we first used the crystal skull in Diana's garage—

Adam was taking Cassie home, I guess. I wonder how that got arranged."

Now it was the turn of Laurel and Melanie to look startled. Clearly they remembered the

night of the first skull ceremony, when Diana had asked Adam to walk Cassie home, and

Adam, after a brief hesitation, had agreed.

"They thought they were alone on the bluff—but somebody was watching. Two little

somebodies, two little friends of mine . . ." Lazily, Faye worked her fingers, with their

long, scarlet-tipped nails, as if stroking something. A flash of comprehension lighted

Cassie's mind.

The kittens. The damned little bloodsucking kittens that lived wild in Faye's bedroom.

Faye was saying the kittens were her spies? That she could communicate with them?

Cassie felt a chill at her core as she looked at the tall, darkly beautiful girl, sensing

something alien and deadly behind those hooded golden eyes. She'd wondered all along

who Faye had meant when she talked about her "friends" who saw things and reported

back to her, but she'd never imagined this. Faye smiled in feline satisfaction and nodded

at her.

"I have lots of secrets," she said directly to Cassie. "That's only one of them. But

anyway," she said to the rest of the group, "it was that night they got caught. They

were—well, kissing. That's the polite way to put it. The kind of kissing that starts

spontaneous combustion. I suppose they just couldn't resist their lustful passions any

longer." She sighed.

Diana was looking at Adam now, looking for a denial. But Adam, his jaw set, was

staring straight ahead at Faye.

Diana's lips parted with the quick intake of her breath.

"And it wasn't the only time, I'm afraid," Faye continued, examining her nails with an

expression of demure regret. "They've been doing it ever since, stealing secret

moments when you weren't looking, Diana. Like at the Homecoming dance—what a pity

you weren't there. They started kissing right in the middle of the dance floor. I guess

maybe they went somewhere more private afterward ..."

"That's not true," Cassie cried, realizing even as she said it that she was virtually

confirming that everything else Faye had said was true.

Everyone was looking at Cassie now, and there was no more jeering from the

Hendersons. Their tilted blue-green eyes were focused and intent.

"I wanted to tell you," Faye said to Diana, "but Cassie just begged me not to. She was

hysterical, crying and pleading—she said she would just die if you found out. She said

she'd do anything. And that," Faye sighed, looking off into the distance, "was when she

offered to get me the skull."

"What?" said Nick, his normally imperturbable face reflecting disbelief.

"Yes." Faye's eyes dropped to her nails again, but she couldn't keep a smile from curling

the corners of her lips. "She knew I wanted to examine the skull, and she said she'd get

it for me if I didn't tell. Well, what could I do? She was like a crazy person. I just didn't

have the heart to refuse her."

Cassie sank her teeth into her lower lip. She wanted to scream, to protest that it hadn't

been that way . . . but what was the use?

Melanie was speaking. "And I suppose you didn't have the heart to refuse the skull,

either," she said to Faye, her gray eyes scornful.

"Well ..." Faye smiled deprecatingly. "Let's put it this way—it was just too good a chance

to miss."

"This isn't funny," Laurel cried. She looked stricken. "I still don't believe it—"

"Then how do you think she knew where to dig up the skull tonight?" Faye said

smoothly.

"She stayed over at your house, Diana, the night we traced the dark energy to the

cemetery. And she snuck around and figured out where the skull was buried by reading

your Book of Shadows—but only after she stole the key to the walnut cabinet and

checked there." Gleeful triumph shone out of Faye's golden eyes; she couldn't conceal it

any longer.

And nobody in the group could deny the truth of Faye's words any longer. Cassie had

known where to dig up the skull. There was no way to get around that. Cassie could see

it happening in face after face: the ending of disbelief and the slow beginning of grim

accusation.

It's like The Scarlet Letter, Cassie thought wildly as she stood apart with all of them

looking at her. She might as well be standing up on a platform with an A pinned to her

chest. Helplessly, she straightened her back and tried to hold her chin level, forcing

herself to look back at the group. I will not cry, she thought. I will not look away.

Then she saw Diana's face.

Diana's expression was beyond stricken. She seemed simply paralyzed, her green eyes

wide and blank and shattered.

"She swore to be loyal and faithful to the Circle, and never to harm anyone inside it,"

Faye was saying huskily. "But she lied. I suppose it's not surprising, considering she's

half outsider. Still, 1 think it's gone on long enough; she and Adam have had enough

time to enjoy themselves. So now you know the truth. And now," Faye finished, looking

over the ravaged members of the Circle, and especially her deathly still cousin, with an

air of thoughtful gratification, "we'd probably better be getting home. It's been a long

night." Lazily, smiling faintly, she started to move away.

"No." It was a single word, but it stopped Faye in her tracks and it made everyone else

turn toward Adam.

Cassie had never seen his blue-gray eyes look this way before—they were like silver

lightning. He moved forward with his usual easy stride. There was no violence in the

way he caught Faye's arm, but the grip must have been like iron—Cassie could tell that

because Faye couldn't get away from it. Faye looked down at his fingers in offended

surprise.

"You've had your turn," Adam said to her. His voice was carefully quiet, but the words

dropped from his lips like chips of white-hot steel. "Now it's mine. And all of you"—he

swung around on the group, holding them in place with his gaze—"are going to listen."

TWO

"You've told the story your way," Adam said. "Some of it's been close to the truth, and

some of it's been just plain lies. But none of it happened exactly the way you told it."

He looked around the Circle again. "I don't care what you think of me," he said, "but

there's somebody else involved here. And she" —he glanced at Cassie, just long enough

for her to see his blue-gray eyes, still shining like silver— "doesn't deserve to be put

through this, especially not tonight."

A few of the coven members, notably Laurel and Melanie, looked away, slightly

ashamed. But the rest simply stared, angry and mistrustful.

"So what's your side of the story?" Deborah said, scowling. Her expression said she felt

she'd been taken in, and she didn't like it.

"First of all, it wasn't like that when Cassie and I met. It wasn't love at first sight . . ."

Adam faltered for a moment, looking into the distance. He shook his head. "It wasn't

love. She helped me, she saved me from four outsider guys with a gun. The witch-

hunting kind of outsiders." He looked hard at Chris and Doug Henderson.

"But she didn't know—" Deborah began.

"She didn't know what I was, then. She didn't know what she was. Witches were

something out of fairy tales to her. Cassie helped me just because I needed help. These

guys were after me, and she stashed me in a boat and sent them all off running in the

wrong direction down the beach. They tried to get her to tell where I was, they even

hurt her, but she didn't give me up."

There was a silence. Deborah, who admired physical bravery above all other qualities,

looked quizzical, her scowl smoothing out a little.

Faye, though, was squirming like a fish trying to get off a hook, and her expression was

unpleasant. "How sweet. The brave heroine. So you just couldn't resist fooling around

with her."

"Don't be a jerk, Faye," Adam said, giving Faye's arm a little shake. "I didn't do

anything with her. We just—" He shook his head again. "I told her 'thank you.' I wanted

her to know that I wouldn't forget what she'd done—remember, at the time I still

thought she was an outsider, and I'd never known an outsider who did anything like

that for one of us. She was just this nice outsider girl; sort of quiet and pretty, and I

wanted to say 'thanks.' But when I was looking at her I suddenly felt—as if we were

connected somehow. It sounds stupid now, maybe, but I could almost see this

connection..."

"The silver cord," Cassie whispered. Her eyes were full, and she wasn't aware she'd

spoken aloud until she saw faces swing toward her.

Melanie's eyebrows went up and Diana looked startled too, maybe just at hearing

Cassie break the silence she'd kept so long. Suzan's rosebud lips were pursed into an O.

"Yeah, I guess that was what it looked like," Adam was saying, staring off into the

distance again. "I don't know—it was just this confused impression. But I did feel

grateful to her, and I would have liked her for a friend—how about that, an outsider

friend?" There were murmurs of amusement and unbelief. "And," Adam said, looking

straight at Diana, "that's why I gave her the chalcedony rose you gave me."

No murmurs this time. Grim silence.

"It was a token of friendship, a way to repay a debt," Adam said. "I figured if she ever

got in trouble, I could sense it through the crystal and maybe do something to help. So

I gave it to her—and that was all I did." He looked at Faye defiantly, and then even

more defiantly around the group. "Except—yeah, right—I did kiss her. I kissed her

hand."

Laurel blinked. The Henderson brothers looked at Adam sideways, as if to say he was

crazy but they guessed it was his own business what bits of girls he kissed. Faye tried to

look scornful, but it didn't come off very well.

"Then I left the Cape," Adam said. "I didn't see Cassie again until I came back up here

for Kori's initiation—which turned out to be Cassie's initiation. But there's one other

important thing. In all the time I talked to Cassie I never told her who I was or where I

was from. I never told her my name. So whatever she came up here and did—whatever

poems she wrote, Faye— she didn't know who I was. She didn't know Diana and I were

together. Not until that night when I showed up on the beach."

"So I suppose that's a good reason for pretending you didn't know each other, for

sneaking around behind everybody's back and meeting each other," Faye said, on the

offensive again.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Adam said tightly, looking as if he'd like to

shake Faye again. "We didn't sneak anywhere. The first time we ever talked alone was

the night the skull ceremony in Diana's garage went wrong. Yeah, that night on the bluff

when your little spies saw us, Faye. But d'you know what Cassie said to me in our first

conversation alone since we'd met? She said she was in love with me—and that she

knew it was wrong. Ever since she'd found out it was wrong, ever since she realized

that I wasn't just some guy on the beach, but Diana's boyfriend, she'd been fighting

against it. She'd even taken an oath—a blood oath—not to ever show anybody, by word

or look or deed, how she felt about me. She didn't want Diana to find out and feel bad,

or feel sorry for her. Does that sound like somebody who's trying to sneak around?"

The Circle looked back at him. Soberly, Melanie said, "Let me get this right. You're

saying there's nothing at all to Faye's accusations?"

Adam swallowed. "No," he said quietly. "That's not what I'm saying. That night on the

bluff . . ." He stopped and swallowed again, and then his voice hardened. "1 can't

explain what happened, except that it was my fault, not Cassie's. She did everything

she could to avoid me, to keep out of my way. But once we were alone we were drawn

together." He looked at Diana without flinching, although the pain was evident in his

face. "I'm not proud of myself, but I never meant to hurt you. And Cassie is completely

innocent. The only reason she was speaking to me at all that night was that she wanted

to give me back the chalcedony rose— so I could give it back to you. In all of this, she's

never been anything but honest and honorable. No matter what it cost her." He stopped

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