Cassie let out her breath, leaning back against the couch, her eyes meeting Diana's.
"Jack Brunswick is Black John." It was a flat statement.
"I know," Diana said grimly. "After you went down we all saw the ring. I don't think he expected us to recognize him so fast."
"What happened? What did he do?" Cassie was envisioning chaos at the cemetery.
"Not much. He left as we were carrying you to my car. Adam and Deborah went after him, but they weren't obvious about it. They're going to try to follow him. Nobody else - none of the adults - realized anything was wrong. They just figured you were exhausted. Mr. Humphries said maybe you'd better take some time off from school."
"Maybe we'd all better," Cassie whispered. Her head was spinning. Black John in charge of the school. What in the name of God was he planning?
"You said Adam went after him?" she asked, and Diana nodded. Cassie felt a pang of anxiety - and frustration. She wanted Adam here, so she could talk to him. She needed him....
"Hey, everything okay in there?" Chris and Doug were hanging in the doorway, as if it were a lady's boudoir that they weren't allowed inside of.
"She's all right," Diana said.
"You sure, Cassie?" Chris asked, venturing a few steps in. Cassie nodded wanly, then suddenly thought of Sally's words in the bathroom. She's the kind guys are just dying to take care of. That certainly wasn't true . . . was it? Sally had warped everything; she'd had it all wrong.
"Come on, you two, there's double-fudge cake in the kitchen," Diana said to the brothers. "Everybody in the neighborhood's been dropping food off, and we need help eating it." Cassie thought it was strange that Diana was leaving her, then she saw that Chris and Doug hadn't been alone.
Nick was standing in the hallway outside the living room. When Diana ushered the Henderson brothers out, he came in, walking slowly.
"Uh ... hi, Nick," Cassie said.
He gave her an odd, fleeting smile and sat on the arm of the couch. His customary mask of stone was gone today. In the dim room, Cassie thought he looked a little tired, a little sad, but maybe that was only her imagination.
"How're you doing?" he said. "You had us scared for a minute there."
Nick, scared? Cassie didn't believe it. "I'm fine, now," she said, and then she tried to think of something else to say. It was the same as it had been with Portia: when she really needed it, her mind wouldn't work.
The silence stretched out. Nick was looking at the scrolls and flowers on the upholstery of the couch. "Cassie," he said finally, "I've been meaning to talk to you."
"Oh, have you," Cassie said faintly. She felt very strange; hot and embarrassed and at the same time weak. She didn't want Nick to go on - but some part of her did.
"I realize this isn't exactly the perfect moment," he said ironically, transferring his gaze to the wallpaper. "But the way things are going we may all be dead before the perfect moment comes." Cassie opened her mouth, but no sound came out, and Nick was going on, relentlessly, inevitably, his voice low but perfectly audible. "I know you and Conant were pretty attached to each other," he said. "And I know you thought a lot of him. I realize I'm hardly the perfect substitute - but like I said, the way things are going maybe it's stupid to wait for perfection." Suddenly he was looking directly at her and Cassie saw something in his mahogany eyes she'd never seen before. "So, Cassie, what do you think about it?" Nick said. "About you and me?"
Chapter Five
Cassie opened her mouth to speak, but Nick was going on.
"You know, when I first saw you I thought you were just ordinary," he said. "Then I started noticing things about you - your hair, your mouth. The way you kept on fighting even when you were scared. That night when Lovejoy was killed you were scared to death, but you were the one who suggested we look for the dark energy, and when we were out at the burying ground you kept up with Deborah." Nick stopped and grinned ruefully. "And with us guys," he said.
Cassie felt an answering smile tug at her own lips; quickly suppressed it. "Nick, I ..."
"Don't say anything yet. I want you to know that I - felt bad about how I treated you when you came to ask me to the dance." His jaw was tight, and he looked steadily at one particular flower on the upholstery of the couch. "I don't know why I did it - I've just got a lousy temper, I guess. I've had it so long I don't even think about it anymore." Nick took a deep breath before continuing, "See, I've always hated living with Deb's parents; I always felt like I owed them something. It put me in a permanent bad mood, I guess. I felt like my mom and dad screwed up somehow, getting themselves killed in a hurricane so their kid had to be supported by other people. It made me hate them - and my aunt and uncle, too."
Nick stopped and shook his head thoughtfully. "Yeah, especially Aunt Grace. She talks about my dad all the time, goin' on and on about how reckless he was, how he didn't care who he left behind, that kind of crap. It made me sick. I never figured it could be because she missed him."
Cassie was fascinated. "Is that why you don't like magic?" It was a blind guess, but he looked at her, startled.
"I don't know - I suppose it could have something to do with it. I resented the rest of the coven because I felt like they all had a better deal than me. They all had at least a grandparent, and I just had my dead parents that screwed up. And they were all so damn cheerful about it - like Conant. He - " Nick paused and glanced up at Cassie wryly. "Well, maybe the less said about him, the better. Anyway, I know the truth now. My parents didn't screw up, and if I screw up I can't blame them anymore. I've got only one person to blame - me. So I'm sorry about the way I acted."