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it back-now."

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-"

"Chris, Doug-that skull killed Kori. If you let that dark energy loose again-"

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.

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.

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.

Something from inside the mound smelled bad.

"I've got to see," Deborah muttered. Cassie had never admired anyone so much as she did Deborah just

then, making her staggering way toward the open mound. Deborah had more physical courage than

anyone Cassie had ever known. Dizzily, Cassie got up and lurched beside her, and they both fell to their

knees at the edge of the evil-smelling fissure.

The moon shining inside showed that it was empty. But there was a coating like slime on the raw earth

down there.

Then light and motion caught Cassie's eye.

It was in the sky, the sky to the northeast. It was something like the aurora borealis, except that it

flickered intermittently, and it was entirely red.

"That's above Crowhaven Road," Nick said.

"Oh, God, what's happening?" Laurel cried.

"Looks like fire," Deborah muttered, still hoarse.

"Whatever it is, we'd better get there," Nick said.

Adam was holding Diana, trying to revive her. Suzan and Sean were huddled, and Chris and Doug still

looked punchy. But Melanie and Laurel were on their feet, if shaken.

"Nick's right," Melanie said. "Let Adam take care of things here. Something's happening."

Cassie glanced at Faye, her fallen leader, lying on the ground. Then she turned and followed Melanie

without a word.

It didn't matter that the five who started unsteadily toward the road had just recently been on opposite

sides of a fight. There was no time to think about anything that petty now. Cassie got on the back of

Deborah's motorcycle, and Melanie and Laurel jumped into Nick's car. The others would have to follow

when they could-and if they wanted to.

Wind roared in Cassie's ears like the sound of the sea. But the feeling of power she'd had earlier, the

connection with the elements, was broken. She couldn't think-her mind was fuzzy and cloudy as if she

had a bad cold. All she knew was that she had to get to Crowhaven Road.

had a bad cold. All she knew was that she had to get to Crowhaven Road.

Dark houses flew by-Diana's, Deborah's. The empty Georgian at Number Three. Melanie's, Laurel's,

Faye's. The vacant Victorian. The Hendersons', Adam's, Suzan's, Sean's . . .

"It's at your house, Cassie," Deborah shouted.

Yes. Cassie knew it would be. Something inside her had known even before they started out.

A maple tree showed up like a black skeleton against the red light that engulfed the house at Number

Twelve. But the red wasn't fire. It was some witch-light, a crimson aura of evil.

Cassie remembered how much she had hated this house when she'd first seen it. She'd hated it for being

huge and ugly, with its peeling gray clapboards and its sagging eaves and unwashed windows. But now

she cared about it. It was her family's ancient home; it belonged to her. And more important than

anything, her mother and grandmother were inside.

FIFTEEN

Cassie jumped off the motorcycle and ran up the driveway. But as soon as she entered the red light, she

slowed. Something about the light made it hard to move through it, hard even to breathe. It was as if the

air here had thickened.

In slow motion, Cassie fought her way to the door. It was open. Inside, the ordinary lights, the lamps in

the hallway, looked feeble and silly against the red glow that pervaded everything, like flashlights in the

daytime.

Then Cassie saw something that made her breath catch.

Footprints.

Something had tracked mud across her grandmother's pine-board floor. Only it wasn't mud. It was black

as tar and it steamed slightly, like some primordial muck from hell. The prints went up the stairs and then

back down again.

Cassie was afraid to go any farther.

"What is this?" Nick shouted, coming in behind her. His shout didn't go very far in the thickened air; it

sounded muffled and dragging. Cassie turned toward him, and it was like turning in a dream, where every

motion is reduced to a crawl.

"Come on," Nick said, pulling at her. Cassie looked behind her and saw Deborah and Melanie and

Laurel in the doorway, also moving in slow motion.

Cassie let Nick guide her and they fought their way up the stairs. The red glow was dimmer up here; it

was hard to see any prints. But Cassie followed them more by intuition than by sight down the hall to the

door of her mother's room, and she pointed to it. She was too frightened to go in.

Nick's hand grasped the doorknob, turned it. The door slowly flew open. Cassie stared at her mother's

empty bed.

"No!" she screamed, and the red light seemed to catch the word and draw it out endlessly. She forgot to

be frightened then and ran forward-slowly-into the middle of the room. The bed was rumpled, slept-in,

but the covers had been thrown back and there was no sign of her mother.

Cassie looked around the deserted room in anguish. The window was closed. She had a terrible sense of

loss, a terrible premonition. Those black and steaming footprints went to the side of her mother's bed.

Some thing had come and stood here, beside her mother, and then . . .

"Come on! Downstairs," Nick was shouting from the doorway. Cassie turned to him-and screamed.

The door was swinging slowly shut again. And in the shadows behind it was a pale and ghostly figure.

Cassie's second scream was cut off as the figure stepped forward, showing a drawn white face and dark

hair falling loose over slender shoulders. It was wearing a long, white nightgown. It was her mother.

"Mom," Cassie cried, and she launched herself forward, throwing her arms around her mother's waist.

Oh, thank God, thank God, she thought. Now everything would be all right. Her mother was safe, her

mother would take care of things. "Oh, Mom, I was so scared," she gasped.

But something was wrong. Her mother wasn't hugging her back. There was no response at all from the

upright but lifeless body in the nightgown. Cassie's mother just stood there, and when Cassie pulled back,

she saw her mother was staring emptily.

"Mom? Mom?" she said. She shook the slender white figure. "Mom.' What's the matter?"

Her mother's beautiful eyes were blank, like a doll's eyes. Unseeing. The black circles underneath

seemed to swallow them up. Her mother's arms stayed limp at her sides.

"Mom," Cassie said again, almost crying now.

Nick had pushed the door open again. "We have to get her out of here," he told Cassie.

Yes, Cassie thought. She tried to convince herself that it was the light, that maybe outside of the red glow

her mother would be okay. They each took one of the limp arms and led the unresisting figure into the

hallway. Melanie, Laurel, and Deborah converged from different directions.

"We looked in all the rooms on this floor," Melanie said. "There's no one else up here."

"My grandmother-" Cassie began.

"Help us get Mrs. Blake downstairs," Nick said.

At the bottom of the stairs, the black prints turned left and then crossed and recrossed. A thought flashed

into Cassie's mind.

"Melanie, Laurel, can you take my mom outside? Out of the light? Will you make sure she's safe?"

Melanie nodded, and Cassie said, "I'll be out as soon as I can."

"Be careful" Laurel said urgently.

Cassie saw them leading her mother to the door, then she made herself stop looking. "Come on," she

said to Nick and Deborah. "I think my grandma's in the kitchen."

A line of footprints led that way, but it wasn't just that, it was a feeling Cassie had. A terrible feeling that

her grandmother was in the kitchen, and that she wasn't alone.

Deborah walked like a stalking huntress, following the black marks down the twisting hallways to the old

wing of the house, the one built by the original witches in 1693.