"Get out of here before any of them see us," the voice said tersely. Cassie could smell the acridity of sweat.
Jordan, she was thinking. The one with the gun. The one in the Pistol Club. The other one was Logan, who was on the MIT debate team, and was younger than Jordan - or was he older? Cassie never had been able to keep Portia's brothers straight, even when Portia was telling her about them, back on Cape Cod.
Her mind was working very calmly and clearly.
They drove her out of New Salem, onto the mainland, keeping her squashed on the floor of the backseat the whole time. Jordan kept his feet on her and kept something cold and hard pressed against the back of her head. As if I were a dangerous criminal or something, Cassie thought. Good grief. What do they think I'm going to do, turn them into toads?
The other pair of feet resting on her was feminine. Portia, Cassie guessed. No, Sally. Portia was too aristocratic to tromp on somebody's legs.
Cassie heard the thudding of the tires as they drove over the bridge to the mainland. After that there were a lot of turns, and then a long ride on a bumpy road. When they finally stopped, it was very quiet.
They were in the middle of a forest. Birch and beech and oak, the native trees of Massachusetts, grew thickly all around. They let Cassie out of the car, and then the guys marched her into the woods. Cassie could hear the lighter footsteps of the girls following. It seemed like a long walk, farther and farther away from the road and any semblance of civilization. As dark fell, they reached a clearing.
Somebody had been here before. Logan's flashlight showed a fire pit, and ropes hanging from a tree. Portia and Sally - Cassie had been right, it was Sally - made a fire in the pit, while the guys tied Cassie to the tree. They used a lot more rope than Cassie thought necessary.
And she didn't like the look of that fire.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked Logan as he stepped back from tying her. When she could see their faces she could tell Logan from Jordan - Jordan was the one with shark's eyes.
"Because you're a witch," Logan said briefly.
"That's a reason?"
Portia stepped forward. "You lied," she said accusingly. "About the boy on the beach, about everything. All the time, you were a witch yourself."
"I wasn't then," Cassie said, trying to keep her voice steady. "I am now."
"Then you admit it. Well, we're going to do now what we should have done then."
A hard fist of fear clenched in Cassie's stomach, and she looked at the fire again. Jordan was putting something in it, something long and metal.
I'm in trouble, Cassie realized. I am in very, very bad trouble.
She needed help. She knew that, and knew of only one way to call for it. Her only weapon was her power.
All right, she told herself; do what you did to call to Sean. Get ready, stay calm - now.
Adam, she tried to call to him with her mind. Adam, it's Cassie. I'm in trouble. She wished she had the chalcedony rose to hold while she called; Adam had told her it would help make contact with him. But the chalcedony rose was Diana's.
Don't think about that now. Think about Adam. You need to make Adam hear you.
Adam, she called again, putting all her strength behind it. Strange that the ability to push with her mind, to do whatever she did to send the power lancing out, didn't seem to deteriorate with use. Instead, it was like a muscle, getting stronger as she exercised it. Adam, she called again, keeping the message simple and clear. It's Cassie. I need help.
He'll come, she told herself. He'll find this place somehow; he'll come if I can just stay calm and wait. It was the thought of what might happen before Adam came that chilled the blood in her veins.
So here she was, stuck in the middle of nowhere with four witch hunters. And the silence was getting on her nerves.
"The least you can do," she said slowly, speaking to Logan and Sally because she didn't think Jordan or Portia would answer, "is explain yourselves. You've got me out here, and the least you can do is tell me why you hate witches so much. Because I don't understand."
"Are you crazy?" Logan said, as if it should be perfectly obvious. Then, as she continued to stare at him, he said simply, "Because they're evil."
"Logan ..." Cassie searched his face in the firelight. "We're just like you. We're more - in touch - with nature, that's all. We study it and we celebrate it, and sometimes we can get it to do things for us. But we're not evil. Look," she said, as Logan turned away, "we have our faults like everybody else, but basically we try to be good."
"What about Faye Chamberlain?" Sally snapped, joining the conversation suddenly. "Is she good?"
"There's good in Faye," Cassie said, even more slowly. "Diana said that once to me, and it's true. Faye just has to find it. But anyway, you can't judge all of us by one person."
"How about what they did to the entire school for years? You're calling that good? They treated everybody like slaves!"
"That was wrong, I admit it," Cassie said. "But Diana didn't do that - if people treated her like a princess, it wasn't her fault. Faye was the one treating people like slaves. Some of the others went along because they didn't think about it. And whatever they did, this isn't the way to solve it!"
"Mr. Brunswick is going to solve it," said Portia briefly.
"Mr. Brunswick is a murderer! He is not your friend, Portia. He's the one who killed Kori Henderson, Chris and Doug's sister. He killed her because she didn't fit in with his plans. And he killed Mr. Fogle, the old principal, because he wanted to take his place. And," Cassie said, "he killed Jeffrey, Sally! Yes. He did it out of spite as far as I can see - or else to drive the witches and the outsiders farther apart. He wants us to hate each other."
"That's ridiculous," Logan said. "Why would he want that?"
"Because," Cassie said, shutting her eyes, knowing it was probably useless, "he is a witch. The bad kind. The only completely bad one I've ever met. And I think he wants us to wipe you out. Or maybe he just wants to take us somewhere else and wipe out the people there. I don't know what he wants," she said, opening her eyes, "but whatever it is, it isn't good. It isn't something that's going to make you happy."
"Oh, forget this crap. Let's get started," Jordan said.
"No, wait, I want to get something clear." Sally stood in front of Cassie, eye to eye. "You said Brunswick killed Jeffrey - but he couldn't have. He wasn't even in New Salem that night, or when the other murders were committed, either."
"Oh, he was here, he just wasn't up and around," muttered Cassie. She looked at Sally. "He didn't need to be there. He's a witch. He sent out power - dark energy - to do it. Or else maybe he took over somebody's mind and made them do it."
Like Faye, Cassie was thinking grimly. When it came right down to it, Faye could have pushed Kori down the steps to break her neck, and could have dislodged a boulder to start a rock slide on Mr. Fogle. She could even have gotten Jeffrey down to the boiler room on some pretext and then strangled him. All it would take would be sneaking up on him from behind and then somehow getting the rope around his neck. The police doctors had said one person could do it.
"What difference does it make, how?" Cassie asked tiredly. "He did it, that's all that matters.
And he did do it, Sally, I promise you. He killed Jeffrey."
Sally was staring hard into her eyes, her pugnacious face inches from Cassie's. She shook her head and turned away.
"I'm sorry," Cassie said to the back of her rusty head. "I liked Jeffrey too. I know what you think, that I was trying to steal him or something. But I wasn't. I was just - I was so excited that night at Homecoming. It was the first dance I'd ever been to when guys wanted to dance with me."
"Oh, I'm sure!" Sally snapped without turning around.
"It was. It's the truth, Sally," Cassie said passionately. "Back in California I didn't know any guys at all. I was just too shy. I don't even know why they wanted to dance with me at Homecoming. Sally . . ." She gazed at the red-haired girl's tight shoulders helplessly.
Sally turned slowly. "I guess you don't ever look in a mirror," she said, but there was less animosity in her voice.
Cassie blinked away the tears that threatened. "I do, but I don't see anything special," she said. "And I didn't want to steal Jeffrey; I was just so flattered that he asked me. It was a beautiful night, and everything seemed enchanted, and then . . ." She looked from Sally to Logan, blinking again. "You don't know how I felt when I realized he was dead. I would have done anything to catch the person who did it."
Logan took a step toward her, but Portia's voice, sharp as a wasp sting, stopped him. "She's doing it! She's using her witch powers on you, right now. Don't be stupid, Logan."
Cassie looked at her. "Portia, for God's sake . . ."
"Portia's right," Jordan said brutally. "If we listen to her, she'll trick us. She's been a liar from the start." He pulled the metal thing out of the fire.
"What is that?" Cassie asked.
"A cattle brand."
Cassie thought about that, and tried to keep her fragile grip on control. Jordan stepped in * front of her, holding the long rod which was red-hot at the end. That didn't surprise Cassie. What surprised her was what he said.
"Where are the Master Tools?" he asked.
Cassie was dumbfounded. "What?"
"Mr. Brunswick told us," Portia said, her voice thin and hard. "He told us that they're the source of your power, and that if they're destroyed you lose it all. He wants to destroy them himself and stop you forever."
Cassie had the wild impulse to laugh, but she knew that would only bring more trouble. So he'd put them up to this. And he knew she'd found the Master Tools. Right now, he must be expecting her to tell Jordan to save herself. Or maybe he was around here, hoping Cassie would call on him for help.
I won't, Cassie thought. No matter how bad it gets, I won't do it. I don't want to be saved by him.
She looked around the clearing, especially at the shadows that flickered on the edges of the firelight.
"He wants the Master Tools, all right," she said distinctly. "But not to destroy them. He'd use them to destroy you, and us, too, if he can't get us to knuckle under."
Jordan looked unsurprised. "You'll tell us in a while," he said. "I expected you to lie at first."
Cassie's entire body tightened as he brought the glowing brand closer to her. I am brave, she thought, trying to calm her heartbeat. I am as strong as I need to be. But when she smelled the hot metal, sheer black fright swept through her.