Cassie listened for voices but heard none. In the eerie silence, the fear that Scarlett had already been killed raced through her mind. An image of her dead body hanging from the ceiling, swinging back and forth, like the arm of a clock
- tick tock, tick tock - haunted Cassie. But she couldn't step through this door with the slightest bit of distraction.
She'd have seconds to cast the curse, less than that in fact.
Cast the curse, rescue Scarlett, and then get the heck out of there. That was the plan.
Carefully, Cassie placed her hand upon the rotted softness of the door. To her surprise, it wasn't locked. In fact, it didn't even appear to be fully closed. She pushed on its damp surface gently with the palm of her hand, and it swept open effortlessly. She was already chanting the witch-hunter curse under her breath, ready for anything that came at her, but when she stepped inside, the scene was nothing like what she saw in her dreams.
The main room was large and tidy. Its walls were painted an oceanic blue and were finished with bright white crown molding. The hardwood floors were freshly waxed, and the air inside the room was warm and cedar-scented with the heat of a wood-burning fire.
Scarlett was there, by herself, lounging on a faded sofa in front of the fireplace. Her dyed-red hair cascaded in healthy waves onto her shoulders, framing her rosy-cheeked smirking face.
"Finally," she said. "I've been getting so bored up here waiting for you."
Instantly Cassie knew she'd made a terrible mistake.
This was all a trap.
Chapter 27
"Come have a seat by the fire," Scarlett said. She was smiling, in a twisted kind of way.
Cassie tried to run back out the door, but she found her feet planted in place once again, just as they had been outside on the perimeter of the property. "What's going on?" she asked.
"You can come in closer, you just can't leave." Scarlett's smile brightened.
"Where are the hunters?" Cassie asked.
Scarlett shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know."
"Are they even real?"
"Oh, the hunters are very real," Scarlett said. "They killed my mother and they followed me here. They just never caught me."
She tapped the empty space on the sofa beside her, indicating Cassie to sit. "Your Circle has no idea what they're in for with the hunters. But they offered the perfect setup while I practiced my mind-invasion spells." So all this time Cassie thought she was having visions, communicating across space and time to her sister, it was all just a trick. The Circle had been right all along. Cassie hadn't been thinking clearly.
Cassie couldn't turn around and run away, but she still had the Tools, and they were quivering with energy. She could protect herself.
could protect herself.
She touched each relic and called on their power.
Immediately, the Tools became hot - this time, too hot.
They singed her skin like they'd turned against her.
"Feel the burn?" Scarlett asked.
She had somehow gotten the Tools to backfire on Cassie. They became angry and restless, sizzling with torment.
"I'll take them off your hands," Scarlett said.
Effortlessly, with one snap of her finger, the Master Tools obeyed her call. Like metal to a magnet, they unhinged themselves from Cassie's body and flew at Scarlett's outstretched hands.
But how? How did Scarlett have so much influence over the Tools that she could beckon them? She must have been a more powerful witch than Cassie could have ever imagined.
"It really is a shame you've never dabbled in the dark arts," Scarlett said, sensing Cassie's amazement at her abilities.
Suddenly Cassie felt cold and naked, wearing nothing but the white shift. Powerless and bewildered, she shivered.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Black John's daughter. Isn't that obvious?" Scarlett said, gesturing at the Master Tools.
"So we really are sisters."
"Oh yeah," Scarlett said. "That part was real." Scarlett, now wearing the Master Tools over her black T-shirt and jeans, reached for a poker from the fireplace.
shirt and jeans, reached for a poker from the fireplace.
Cassie stiffened, but then relaxed when Scarlett leaned over the side of the couch to an open bag of marshmal ows.
She skewered one with the black metal poker and held it over the fire.
"These Tools were meant for me," Scarlett said. "Your whole life was meant for me."
"I don't believe you," Cassie said, trying her best to come off sounding strong and controlled. "I have no reason to believe anything you say."
Scarlett laughed. "You have every reason to." She watched the marshmal ow reluctantly brown over the flame.
She seemed to enjoy the way it struggled to maintain its exterior before succumbing to the heat.
"I was the one he intended to be in the Circle with the rest of them," she said. "I was born in November, like the others.
Not you. Everything you've enjoyed since you arrived in New Salem - all of it rightfully belongs to me."
"No," Cassie said. It couldn't be true.
"Yup. You were just an afterthought, a backup plan." Cassie felt sick. And the sugary scent of burning marshmal ow wasn't helping.
Scarlett rotated the pointer in her hand like a rotisserie.
"And now I'm here to claim my rightful spot in the Circle. But I'm going to have to kill you to get it." She turned her shining black eyes onto Cassie. "Isn't that a bummer, sis?"
Scarlett gripped the metal poker with both hands, and Cassie realized just how much danger she was in. Scarlett did seem just crazy enough to kill her. She had to try to talk did seem just crazy enough to kill her. She had to try to talk her way out of this.
"Why kill me," Cassie asked, "when we could lead the Circle together?"
Scarlett widened her eyes. "Really?" Her voice came out sounding childlike. "You'd be willing to do that?" Cassie nodded energetically. "Of course," she said, trying to sound believable. "We'll kick someone else out to make room for you as the twelfth member. Trust me, there are plenty of weak links."
Scarlett's dark red lips curled into a vicious smile, and she laughed with her whole body. "You really are pathetic," she said. "You don't know much, but even you know it doesn't work that way."
She pulled the pointer out of the flames. The burnt marshmal ow on its tip was now on fire, burning red like a hot coal.
"Someone has to die to break the Circle's bond," Scarlett said. "And whichever member dies, they're immediately replaced with someone of their own bloodline." She shoved the flaming tip of the pointer under Cassie's nose. "Didn't you know that? Or had you and your little friends not gotten to that lesson in witch school?