The Power Page 0,1

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