The crowd erupted in panic.
Everything was happening at once; Thea couldn't sort out the different impressions. Half the people in front of her were running. The other half were yelling.
"Call nine-one-one-"
"It got Eric-"
"I told you to kill it!"
The red-headed boy was darting forward with his stick. Other kids were rushing around, looking for rocks. The group had become a mob.
The snake was rattling wildly, a terrifying sizzling sound. It was in a frenzy, ready to strike again at any moment-and there was nothing Thea could do.
"Hey!" The voice startled her. It came from Eric, the boy who'd been bitten. "Calm down, you guys. Josh, give me that." He was talking to the redhead with the forked branch. "It didn't bite me. It just struck."
Thea stared at him. Was this guy crazy?
But people were listening to him. A girl in baggy shorts and a midriff top stopped hefting her rock.
"Just let me get hold of it... then I can take it out into the brush where it won't hurt anybody."
Definitely crazy. He was talking in such a matter-of-fact, reasonable way-and he was going to try to pin the snake down with that stick. Somebody had to act fast.
A flash of ruby-color caught Thea's eye. Blaise was in the crowd, watching with pursed lips. Thea made her decision.
She dove for the snake.
It was watching the stick. Thea grabbed for its mind before grabbing its body-which kept it immobilized for the instant she needed to seize it just below the head. She hung on while its jaws gaped and its body lashed.
"Grab the tail and we'll get it out of here," she said breathlessly to Eric the crazy guy.
Eric was staring at her grip on the snake, dumbfounded. "For God's sake, don't let go. It can twist in a second...."
"I know. Grab it!"
He grabbed it. Most of the crowd scattered as Thea wheeled around with the snake's head held tightly at arm's length. Blaise didn't run, she just looked at the snake as if it smelled bad.
"I need this," Thea whispered hastily as she passed her cousin. She snatched at Blaise's necklace with her free hand. The fragile gold chain broke and Thea's fingers closed around a stone.
Then she was heading out into the scrub brush, the weight of the snake dragging on her arm. She walked fast, because Eric didn't have much time. The grounds behind the school sloped up and then downward, getting wilder and more gray-brown. When the buildings were out of sight, Thea stopped.
"This is a good place," Eric said. His voice was strained.
Thea glanced back and saw that he looked pale. Brave and very, very crazy, she thought. "Okay, we let go on three." She jerked her head. "Throw it that way and back up fast."
He nodded and counted with her. "One... two... three."
Giving it a slight swing, they both let go. The snake flew in a graceful arc and landed near a clump of purple sage. It wriggled immediately into the brush without showing the slightest hint of gratitude. Thea felt its cool, scaly mind recede as it thought, That smell... that shade... safety.
She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Behind her, she heard Eric sit down abruptly. "Well, that's that." His own breathing was fast and irregular. "Now could I ask you a favor?"
He was sitting with his long legs straight out, his skin even paler than before. Perspiration beaded on his upper lip.
"You know, I'm not really sure it didn't bite me," he said.
Thea knew-and knew Eric knew-that it had. Rattlers did sometimes strike without biting, and did sometimes bite without injecting venom. But not this time. What she couldn't believe was that any human would care enough about a snake to let a bite go untreated.
"Let me see your leg," she said.
"Actually, I think maybe you'd better just call the paramedics."
"Please let me see." She kept her voice gentle, kneeling in front of him, reaching slowly. The way she'd approach a scared animal. He held still, letting her roll up his jeans leg.
There it was, the little double wound in the tanned skin. Not much blood. But surrounded by swelling already. Even if she ran back to the school, even if the paramedics broke every speed law, it wouldn't be fast enough. Sure, they'd save his life, but his leg would swell up like a sausage and turn purple and he'd have days of unbelievable pain.
Except that Thea had in her hand an Isis bloodstone. A deep red carnelian engraved with a scarab, symbol of the Egyptian Queen goddess, Isis. The ancient Egyptians had put the stones at the feet of mummies; Blaise used it to heighten passion. But it was also the most powerful purifier of the blood in existence.
Eric groaned suddenly. His arm was over his eyes, and Thea knew what he must be feeling. Weakness, nausea, disorientation. She felt sorry for him, but his confusion would actually work to her advantage.
She pressed her hand to the wounds, the carnelian hidden between her tightly closed fingers. Then she started to hum under her breath, visualizing what she wanted to happen. The thing about gems was that they didn't work on their own. They were just a means of raising psychic power, focusing it, and directing it to a certain purpose.
Find the poison, surround it, dispel it. Purify and eliminate. Then encourage the body's natural defenses. Finally, soothe away the swelling and redness, sending the blood back where it belonged.
As she knelt there, feeling the sun on the back of her head, she suddenly realized that she'd never done this before. She'd healed animals-puppies with toad poisoning and cats with spider bites-but never a person. Funny how she'd known instinctively that she could do it. She'd almost felt that she had to do it.
She sat back on her heels, pocketing the bloodstone. "How are you feeling?"
"Huh?" He took his arm away from his eyes. "Sorry-I think I sort of blanked out there for a minute."
Good, Thea thought. "But how do you feel now?"
He looked at her as if he were struggling under pressure to be gentle. He was going to explain to her that people who got bitten by rattlesnakes felt sick. But then his expression changed. "I feel... it's weird... I think maybe it's gone numb." He peered doubtfully at his calf.
"No, you were just lucky. You didn't get bitten."
"What?" He scrambled to roll his jeans leg up higher. Then he just stared. The flesh was smooth and unmarked, with just the slightest trace ot redness left. "I was sure..."
He lifted his eyes to hers.
It was the first time Thea had really gotten a chance to look at him. He was a nice-looking guy, lean and sandy-haired and sweet-faced. Long legs. And those eyes... deep green with gray flecks. Just now they were both intense and bewildered, like those of a startled kid.
"How'd you do that?" he said.
Thea was shocked speechless.
He wasn't supposed to respond like this. What was wrong with him? When she could talk again, she said, "I didn't do anything."
"Yes, you did," he said, and now his eyes were clear and direct, full of an odd conviction. Suddenly his expression changed to something like wonder. "You... there's something so different about you."
He leaned forward slowly, as if entranced. And then... Thea experienced an odd duality. She was used to seeing herself through the eyes of animals: a big, hairless creature in false skins. But now she saw herself as Eric saw her. A kneeling girl with yellow hair falling loose over her shoulders and soft brown eyes. A face that was too gentle, with a very worried expression.
"You're... beautiful," Eric said, still wondering. "I've never seen anybody... but it's like there's a mist all around you. You're so mysterious...."
A huge quivering stillness seemed to hang over the desert. Thea's heart was beating so hard that it shook her body. What was happening?
"It's like you're part of everything out here," he said in that wise, childlike voice. "You belong to it. And there's so much peace...."
"No," Thea said. There was no peace at all in her. She was terrified. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew she had to get away.
"Don't go," he said, when she shifted. He had the stricken expression of a heartbroken puppy.
And then... he reached for her. Not roughly. His fingers didn't close on her wrist. They just brushed the back of her hand, sliding away when she jerked.
But it didn't matter. That light touch had raised all the hairs on Thea's forearm. And when she looked back into the gray-flecked green eyes, she knew he'd felt it, too.
A sort of piercing sweetness, a dizzying exhilaration. And-a connection. As if something deeper than words was being communicated.
I know you. I see what you see....