Diana led them straight down the middle of the cemetery. Most of the stones were small, scarcely reaching higher than Cassie's knees. They were shaped like arches, with two smaller arches on either side.
"Whoever carved these had a gruesome sense of humor," she breathed. Many of the stones were etched with crude skulls, some of them winged, others in front of crossbones. One had an entire skeleton, holding a sun and moon in its hands.
"Death's victory," Faye said softly, so close that Cassie felt warmth on the nape of her neck. Cassie jumped, but refused to look back.
"Oh, terrific," said Laurel as Diana slowed.
The light was dying from the sky. They were in the center of the graveyard, and a cool breeze blew over the stunted grass, bringing a faint tang of salt with it. The hairs on the back of Cassie's neck were tingling.
You're a witch, she reminded herself. You should love cemeteries. They're probably your natural habitat.
The thought didn't really make her feel less frightened, but now her fear was mingled with something else-a sort of strange excitement. The darkness gathering in the sky and in the corners of the graveyard seemed closer. She was part of it, part of a whole new world of shadows and power.
Diana stopped.
The silver chain was a thin line in the gloom, with a pale blob below it. But Cassie could see that the peridot was no longer swinging like a pendulum. Instead it was moving erratically, round and round in circles. It would swing a few times one way, then slow and swing back the other way.
Cassie looked at it, then up at Diana's face. Diana was frowning. Everyone was watching the circling stone in dead silence.
Cassie couldn't stand the suspense any longer. "What does it mean?" she hissed to Laurel, who just shook her head. Diana, though, looked up.
"Something's wrong with it. It led here- and then it just stopped. But if we've found the place, it shouldn't be moving at all. The stone should just sort of point and quiver-right, Melanie?"
"Like a good hound dog," Doug said, with his wild grin.
Melanie ignored him. "That's the theory," she said. "But we've never really tried this before. Maybe it means..." Her voice trailed off as she looked around the graveyard, then she shrugged. "I don't know what it means."
The tingling at the back of Cassie's neck was getting stronger. The dark energy had come here-and done what? Disappeared? Dissipated? Or ...
Laurel was breathing quickly, her elfin face unusually tense. Cassie instinctively moved a little closer to her. She and Laurel and Sean were the juniors, the youngest members of the Circle, and witch or not, Cassie's arms had broken out in gooseflesh.
"What if it's still here, somewhere... waiting?" she said.
"I doubt it," Melanie said, her voice as level and uninflected as usual. "It couldn't hang around without being stored somehow; it would just evaporate. It either came here and did something, or-" Again, though, she could only finish her sentence with a shrug.
"But what could it do here? I don't see any signs of damage, and I feel..." Still frowning, Diana caught the circling peridot in her left hand and held it. "This place feels confused- strange-but I don't sense any harm the dark energy has done. Cassie?"
Cassie tried to search her own feelings. Confusion-as Diana said. And she felt dread and anger and all sorts of churned-up emotions-but maybe that was just her. She was in no state to get a clear reading on anything.
"I don't know," she had to say to Diana. "I don't like it here."
"Maybe, but that's not the point. The point is that we don't see any burns the dark energy could have left, or sense anything it's destroyed or hurt," Diana said.
Deborah's voice was impatient. "Why are you asking her, anyway?" she said with a jerk of her dark head toward Cassie. "She's hardly even one of us-"
"Cassie's as much a part of the Circle as you are," Adam interrupted, unusually curt. Cassie saw the arch, amused glance Faye threw him and wanted to intervene, but Diana was agreeing heatedly with Adam, and Deborah was bridling, glaring at both of them. It looked as if an argument would break out.
"Be quiet!" Laurel said sharply. "Listen!" Cassie heard it as soon as the voices died down; the quiet crunch of gravel at the roadside. It was noticeable only against the deathly quiet of the autumn twilight.
"Somebody's coming," Chris Henderson said. He and Doug were poised for a fight.
They were all hideously on edge, Cassie realized. The crunch of footsteps sounded as loud as firecrackers now, grating against her taut nerves. She saw a dim shape beside the road, and then saw Adam move forward, so that he was in front of both Diana and her. I'm going to have to talk to him about that, she thought irrelevantly.
There was a pause in the footsteps, and the dim shape came toward them. Adam and the Henderson brothers looked ready to rush it. Quarrel forgotten, Deborah looked ready too. Sean was cowering behind Faye. Cassie's heart began to pound.
Then she noticed a spot of red like a tiny burning coal floating near the figure, and she heard a familiar voice.
"If you want me, you got me. Four against one ought to be about fair."
With a whoop, Chris Henderson rushed forward. "Nick!"
Doug grinned, while still managing to look as if he might jump the approaching figure. Adam relaxed and stepped back.
"You sure, Adam? We can settle this right here," Nick said as he reached the group, the end of his cigarette glowing as he inhaled. Adam's eyes narrowed, and then Cassie saw the daredevil smile he'd worn at Cape Cod, when four guys with a gun had been chasing him. What was wrong with him, what was wrong with everybody tonight? she wondered. They were all acting crazy.