The girls sat on a patch of gra.s.s in the middle of the pools. Candles shone around them, and they held hands, chanting quietly. They barely seemed to register our arrival. I wanted to cry. They might not have come for me, they might have only come because of the pools and the Convergence, but they were here and that's what mattered.

"Kayla, hi!" Brooke squealed with excitement and waved frantically. Kayla's total lack of response did nothing to perturb her.

Bulldog started forward and suddenly rebounded back. "What the h.e.l.l?"

For the first time, Riley left my side. I felt the s.p.a.ce he'd left like an empty chasm beside me. I didn't want to feel that way, he was my enemy now, but I couldn't help myself.

He reached out into the s.p.a.ce Bulldog had bounced back from. Laid his palm flat, as though pressing against a pane of gla.s.s. "They must be creating some kind of protective spell to keep us out."

Bulldog's eyes narrowed. "Can you fix it?"

Riley gave a curt nod. "Of course."

He placed both hands against the invisible surface and lowered his head as though in prayer. I stood watching, part in fear, part in fascination. Riley began to speak, though I was unable to pick up on the words, his voice was too low. My eyes darted between him and the group of girls sitting on a patch of gra.s.s between the pools.

As I watched, the leaves in the trees overhead began to rustle, and those on the ground gently lifted and flipped and swirled across the forest floor. The ferns began to bend, and the water stirred in ripples. Dana's long hair blew back from her face, and all of their clothing billowed.

Bizarrely, standing on the outskirts, I barely felt a breeze. I checked out Brooke and noted that her hair wasn't moving either. The wind was directed purely at the circle.

The force of the gusts grew stronger, causing the water to lift in waves, splashing on the surrounding ground. I've seen this before, I realized. The night Flynn brought me here. Had that been Riley then, too, sending us a warning? Or had it only been Flynn he'd been chasing off?

The wind had become a low moan, quickly rising to a howl. The candles flickered and spurted, before extinguishing completely.

The circle of witches clung tightly to one another's hands. Their hair whipped from their faces, Dana's red curls threatening to strangle her. Their clothing blew back from their bodies. The noise was tremendous, a shriek I'd only ever heard during a storm. The girls' chanting grew louder, trying to be heard over the wind, until their voices became a chorus of shouts.

"Hang in there," I willed them under my voice.

But they were starting to lose it. I caught Melissa shooting Dana a look of sheer panic, her skin pale. I hoped she wasn't about to have another fit.

I glanced up at the sky. The moon was blood red, the stars beginning to slip in line.

"Riley, quit it!" I yelled. "Leave them alone."

Bulldog glanced back at me and then turned to Russ. "Get her to shut the h.e.l.l up."

Russ stalked toward me and lifted his hand. I saw it coming, but didn't get the chance to move. I still wasn't up to my normal strength. His hand came down in an arc, the palm catching my cheek and jaw, knocking me sideways. Pain exploded up one side of my face. I struggled to keep my balance, staggered to one side, and dropped to my knees.

"Hey!" Riley yelled, glaring with fury at Russ.

A cl.u.s.ter of pinecones flew toward Laurel. Instinctively, she lifted her hand to protect her face, and broke the circle. The girls fell silent, looking around themselves in confusion, unsure what to do next.

Riley dropped his hands, and the wind immediately fell away. He ran back to me and skidded to a halt beside me. He reached down to pick me up.

"Leave me alone."

He must have picked up that I wasn't kidding and turned his attention to Russ, instead. "Don't you ever lay a hand on her again!"

"Shut it, Riley," snapped Bulldog. "Have you forgotten whose side you're on?"

It didn't matter. The protective spell had been broken.

Bulldog pointed toward the circle. "Get the girls."

Mitch and Russ didn't need to be told twice. They stormed past the pools, toward the circle of witches.

Dana saw them coming and tried to regroup her circle. "Link hands. We have time to do something-"

But she was stopped in her tracks.

Melissa's eyes rolled, flashing the whites, and she fell backward, landing on the ground with a crack that made me wince. Her body jerked and juddered as she fitted in the dirt.

"What's happening to her?" I called out to the circle.

"It's the alignment of the stars," Laurel cried. "Her fits have been getting worse ever since the Convergence started."

Unsure, Mitch and Russ glanced back toward Bulldog. "What are you waiting for?" he roared.

They approached again. Dana lifted her hand up at one of the trees lining the clearing, and yelled a couple of words I didn't understand. A flash of light and a burst of flame forked across one of the branches. The branch severed from the tree and flew through the air toward where Mitch approached her. The wood smacked him square in the back, knocking him off balance. He went down heavily, smacking his head on one of the boulders surrounding the edges of one of the smaller pools. He lay there, unmoving.

Not letting the fall of his friend get to him, Russ attacked from the other side. He produced the weapon he'd been concealing, and pressed the muzzle at Dana's temple. "If any of you try anything witchy," he told Laurel and Kayla, "your leader gets it."

"The time's almost here, Riley," Bulldog yelled. From his belt, he produced the knife he'd threatened me with earlier. "You'd better get your vampire ready."

Riley reached out and took me by the arm, pulling me close to his body. He whispered in my ear, "I'm sorry."

"You will be," I hissed back, though my threats were unsubstantial. Unless I regained most of my strength in the next few minutes, I didn't know how I was going to get out of this alive.

I could feel the eyes of Laurel's circle on me, horror and a question in them. Vampire. Of course they'd heard Bulldog call me a vampire.

I glanced up at the sky. The stars were barely visible on either side of the moon now, the moon almost completely obscuring them. It would only be a matter of minutes, and the Convergence would begin.

And so would the h.e.l.l cycle.

"Do your thing, Riley," Bulldog commanded.

Still with one hand holding me, he lifted out his other hand toward the water. A new wind whipped up, lifting leaves and dirt and branches from the ground, whipping our hair and clothes. But the main focus of the wind was the pool. It stirred its surface, creating only a circle of ripples at first, but those ripples quickly became waves, though they seemed to have no direction. Then I realized they did have a direction. It was up.

Riley created a spiral of air, lifting the water from the pool into the sky.

A tornado. He'd created a tornado to remove the water from the pool.

I could see the edges of the pool now, the water pulling away from the sides as it lifted higher. The sides were made of rock and dirt, but the lower it got, the more the material changed-a substance I didn't think I'd ever seen before. Black gla.s.s, but not. Gla.s.s which seemed to ripple and stir. Gla.s.s which seemed alive.

Something moved down there, and I gave a shriek and leaped back. Had I imagined it? No, I didn't think so. Something humanoid, with long skeletal arms and legs, and a pale, naked scalp, appeared to be scaling the walls of the pool.

It wanted into Sage Springs, and I doubted it would be alone.

"Riley! Stop it! Stop it now!" I wrenched out of his grasp and took hold of him instead, shaking him. But he didn't lose control of his spell.

"You need to kill her now if this is going to work," said Riley, addressing The Bull. Then he pulled me back to him and spoke fast and low in my ear. "Don't be afraid. He can't hurt you."

Bulldog took a couple of steps toward me. I hesitated, looking between everyone here-Riley, Laurel's circle, even Brooke-and knew I couldn't run. I couldn't just leave them all here to face whatever was coming.

Bulldog took hold of my arm. Though I knew I couldn't escape, I couldn't resist swinging my elbow back and giving him a satisfying whack in the gut. He coughed and yanked me back harder, hurting my shoulder. "Little b.i.t.c.h," he said in my ear.

He could insult me all he wanted. It made no difference to me.

Across the pool, a figure stepped from between the trees. Broad shouldered, blond haired.

My heart jumped with happiness. "Flynn!"

"I told you he was trouble, Beth," he yelled at me. "You didn't listen."

"Do something and then lecture me," I shouted back. "You're supposed to be the protector of the pools. Where the h.e.l.l were you?"

Bulldog gave my arm an extra yank. "Shut it, both of you. There's nothing you can do now. You'll both be dead in a matter of minutes."

Russ took the gun away from Dana's head and waved it in Flynn's direction. "Should I shoot him, Boss?"

Bulldog shook his head. "No, keep the gun on the girl."

The funnel of water grew higher. Almost all of the water from the pool was now suspended in the air. The creature I'd spotted before had made it halfway up the inside of the pool, and more movement came from below. I knew without a doubt that these were the things that would start the h.e.l.l cycle.

"Do something, Flynn!" I cried.

He lifted his hands above his head, as if he was about to dive, but he didn't jump. Instead, he began to push his palms down in an arch. He appeared to be pressing against a force I couldn't see, but when I glanced up, I saw the funnel of water Riley had created beginning to get lower. Somehow, he was forcing the water back down.

Riley's concentration increased, his face taut with focus. With every bit of downward pressure Flynn applied, Riley's efforts doubled back. They were fighting each other. A battle I could only see by the elements involved.

Riley risked breaking his concentration for a moment to yell over an instruction to Bulldog. "Move closer. You need to hold her over the edge, so when her blood is spilled it pours into the pool. Her blood can't be spilled on our dirt."

Bull pushed me forward, the knife held against my throat. He leaned me closer over the edge, so I stared down into its vast, black depth. Dizziness spun over me. Feeling like I was falling already. Was that what he planned? He would slit my throat, and I would die plummeting into those depths. The last things I would ever experience were those strange gla.s.sy black walls and the feeling of falling.

I thought of my parents, how they'd kissed me goodbye, never knowing it was for the last time. I thought of the people of Sage Springs, and possibly even the rest of America, how their lives would change forever after this night. How the h.e.l.l cycle was about to begin.

Several tons of water swirled above our heads. I felt as though I was looking up into an ocean. It was both overwhelming and terrifying. The pool was an empty black hole now, or not so empty. From its depths, more of the creatures emerged, their fingers long and spindly, with long, curled nails, or perhaps claws, protruding from the ends.

The creatures were getting closer, a couple of them only a matter of feet from the top. One reached up, its claws curling around the edge, digging into the gra.s.s and soil.

I tried one last time. "Please, Riley. Don't let him do this."

But the boy I'd fallen in love with ignored me.

His attention was focused on someone else.

Riley and Flynn exchanged a glance. I had enough time to think, What's going on there?' Then Riley shouted, "Now!"

My survival instinct kicked in. I shoved away from Bulldog, diving for the ground. The edge of the blade sliced across my throat with a sharp sting, but I didn't have time to worry about it. A roar came from above and suddenly ten tons of water collapsed on top of Bulldog's head.

He floundered, his arms spread out as though thin air could help him, and then the force of the water pummeled him down, his feet flying up into the air.

The water was back in the pool, sloshing from side to side from the motion.

His hand reached out of the surface for help, only for a black claw to reach up out of the water beside him and drag him back under.

"Never trust anyone," Riley said, addressing the water as he stood over the pool Bulldog had vanished into. He shook his head, sadly. "You taught me that, Bull."

Chapter.

24.

I lifted my hand to my throat, expecting at any moment to start choking on my own blood from where the blade had punctured my windpipe. But when I brought my hand away, my palm was clean, and the choking never came. I frowned, confused. I'd felt the blade slit my skin and enter my flesh. Why wasn't I hurt?

Then I noticed the symbols Riley had drawn on me, all glowing in the dark, just like the time I'd seen them on Brooke in our room.

Riley crouched beside me and took the hand which I still stared at, perplexed. "I did a protective spell on you back at Bulldog's trailer," he said. "I didn't use the symbols to prepare you for the afterlife."

I managed to tear my eyes away from my palm and looked up at him. "You didn't?"

He gave a small smile. "You can't actually think I would ever let anyone hurt you?"

I opened my mouth and shut it again. I didn't know what to say. I had thought he was going to let someone hurt me. I'd thought he'd served me up and handed me to Bulldog Mackenzie on a platter.

A groan caught my attention, and Mitch started to shift, coming around. Russ reached down to help his friend to his feet. He tucked the gun back in his belt and lifted his hands in defense.

"We don't want no trouble," he said. "We were only doing what Bulldog told us. We ain't got no beef with all of you."

My first instinct was to kill the pair of them. They deserved to go the same way as Bulldog. Anger built within me, the familiar red haze descending on my vision. All of my muscles tightened, and I realized the herb they'd fed me had completely worn off.

I started forward, but Riley's hand on my arm stopped me. "Leave them," he said. "They're not worth it." He raised his voice. "Get out of here, or we'll get the cops onto you for abducting a college girl."

"You ain't no innocent in this either, Riley," Mitch yelled back. "What proof have you got that you weren't involved?"

Riley glanced to me, and I nodded.

"Witnesses," he replied. "I've got witnesses. What have you got?"