Chapter 2

The lanky form of Diane Woodrow lay stretched out on her bed on her side turned away from the partially-open door. One hand was tucked under her pillow, the other thrust under her panties and jeans. She stared at the dark square that was her window, watching the first fluffy snowflakes of the evening flutter down.

All her attempts to calm her racing heart had failed. It still hammered in her chest, a constant low drone in her ears amplified by the mattress and pillow. Her mind remained clamped around the link, waiting for any sign that Heather would lash out once more. She wanted to be ready this time. Her fingers operated as if of their own accord, stroking wet flesh, her breath a soft pant.

She had already failed once; she had pushed and pushed but could not reach Heather. In her mind, it had to be her fault. She had been negligent in keeping her own energy up, and when the crucial moment came, she did not have enough to spare for her lover.

Suddenly, her back arched and her eyes closed. She uttered a quavering sigh as her hips trembled with her nearly silent orgasm, her pussy throbbing uncomfortably in the tightness of her clamped thighs. She bit her lip as she frantically stroked herself in a desperate bid to keep her climax going. It had already faded, and she was forced to pull her hand from her sex with a long, tired sigh.

Her pussy ached in the wake of her third self-induced orgasm that evening. She wasn't sure she was up to another one, as she was still too upset with her mother. Yet with as much anger as she felt, guilt had come in equal measure; she was only assuming Heather would be let go for the Thanksgiving holiday, and she had no guarantee of any private time with Heather even if she were.

The floorboards of the hallway outside creaked. She swiped her fingers on the pant leg of her jeans just as she heard the squeak of the door hinge. "Diane?"

Diane let out as quiet a sigh as she could, knowing how much her mother hated the gesture. "Yes, Mother?" she said without turning around, trying to use as neutral a voice as possible.

A pause, and then the door gently closed. Janet Woodrow stepped forward, her frame almost as slim as her daughter's, her wavy hair the same dark shade. She sat down on the edge of Diane's bed. "Diane, I think we need to talk."

Diane turned over onto her back. "Mother, if this is about Heather and tomorrow, I understand. I'm not going to mention it anymore."

"I just want you to understand why I said no, and I want to understand why you needed to ask."

Diane gave her mother an odd look and sat up in bed.

Janet hesitated. "Diane ... this year, Thanksgiving is very important to me."

Diane drew her knees up to her chest. "It always is. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I like seeing the family."

"Yes, but I feel it's even more important this year."

"Why's that?"

Again, Janet hesitated. Her eyes darted to the side for a moment, and she gave her daughter a vague look of embarrassment. "I feel like so much has happened this year, and not all of it good ... that I need to find my center again, and that center is always with family."

Diane's eyes widened. "Mother, the 'not good' stuff, you don't mean me telling you I'm a les--"

"No, " Janet said in a firm voice, giving her daughter an earnest look. "And I mean that. I accept who you are, Diane. Me telling you 'no' to your request to see Heather tomorrow has nothing to do with that, or I would have told you long before this to stop seeing her. I just want all of us together tomorrow. I want to ... to remind myself that we're a family, and that we will support each other no matter what."

Diane gave her mother an odd look. Janet was doing it again, acting as if she were frightened. "Why would you think we wouldn't?"

Janet opened her mouth, but paused without any sound emerging. She ran a hand through her hair, a gesture Diane witnessed only in those rare moments when her mother was really flustered. "Maybe that wasn't the right choice of words. I feel maybe we've drifted apart somehow. I want tomorrow to be just for us, for the family. Do you see? Do you understand?"

Diane heard a desperate edge to her mother's voice. When Diane had first encountered it some days ago, she had assumed it was stress. Her mother always threw herself into Thanksgiving Day preparations, leaving her a little harried. Diane had felt bad for having to make her request in the first place.

"Yes, I think I understand," Diane said, telling only a partial truth.

"Which brings me to my second point," said Janet. "Why did you feel the need to see her tomorrow of all days?"

Diane shook her head. "I'm sorry? I don't understand."

"You had all week to go out with her, but you didn't."

Diane felt a knot growing in her stomach. She clutched her knees more tightly to her bosom.

"And the week before it was like nothing could keep you two apart. Then the week before that, nothing. It seems to be feast or famine for you two lately."

Oh no, Diane lamented in her head. Mother, please, don't make me lie to you, I'm terrible at it!

"Is there something wrong between you two?" Janet asked. "Are you two having ... well ... relationship issues?"

In a way, the answer was yes. Diane had stated as such Halloween night after Victor had been defeated. But she still cared for Heather -- and she was coming to the conclusion that she loved Heather after all -- but that was not an answer she could give her mother. "Well, no, not really," Diane finally answered.

Janet tilted her head. "Not really?"

Diane started to sigh, then bit her lip to cut it off. She wrapped her arms around her knees. "Mother, it's not what you think. She's just not available to me all the time."

"I don't understand."

"Mother, please, can't you let this go? Heather and I are working this out, and--"

"Diane, I don't normally pry into your personal life, and certainly not your love life, but you were so upset when I told you 'no' earlier. I've never seen you act so peevishly when you don't get what you want. Can you at least explain what you mean by 'not available' to you?"

Diane stared at her mother, her mind attempting to conjure a suitable lie, but the words would only spin in her head and never settle to something which sounded remotely convincing or which would not prompt her mother to suggest she rethink the relationship. "Heather just gets busy, that's all," she finally blurted.

"Too busy for your relationship?"

Dammit, Diane thought, and once more struggled to find the right words.

"I had asked you from the start if this was a mutual attraction and not just an infatuation on your part. You assured me it was mutual, but you have yet to even let me see the two of you together."

"It is mutual."

"Are you sure of that, honey? I just don't want to see you get hurt."

"Yes, I'm sure," Diane declared, her voice rising.

"So what is she so busy doing every other week that she can't see you?"

A dozen different excuses tumbled through her head: Heather is part of some club at school which meets nightly every other week; her parents are not as accepting of a lesbian relationship, and they have to cool it down now and then; she has relatives visiting who just happened to come in every other week.

Diane abandoned all of them. "She's ... she just ... away from home."

"Away from home?"

"Yes. Every other week. So I can't get to see her those weeks."

Janet paused, and her eyes took on a haunted look. "Diane, do you know where she is staying during those weeks?"

No, she did not know. That was the right answer. Let it be a mystery. Just leave it at that. Get through the holidays and then worry about it.

"Yes," Diane answered in a small voice. "Ms. Bendon's house."

Her mother's reaction was not what she had expected. Instead of inquiring further, Janet looked away, raising a hand to her cheek and slowly standing. As Diane stared, the hand trembled, and her mother let out a quavering sigh.

Diane swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Mother, what's wrong? Are you all right?"

Janet waved a hand over her shoulder and nodded once without turning around, but a shudder wracked her body, and she covered her eyes with her hand. She clenched her free hand at her side into a trembling fist.

"What is it?!" Diane cried.

"I-I'm okay, Diane," Janet said.

But to Diane's ears, her mother sounded anything but okay.

Janet turned around, her eyes glistening. "Diane, I need to ask you something. Please answer me honestly."

Diane nodded, staring.

"Did ... has Ms. Bendon ... has she ever ... t-touched you in any way?"

Diane felt her stomach flip. "What?"

"Did she?" Janet demanded. "Did she touch you in the least way? Please, answer me!"

"No, never! But why did you--?"

"Never mind why, I just..." Janet trailed off.

Diane's heart thumped. She had always suspected Ms. Bendon had done something to her mother about the time Nyssa was around. She had even overheard her mother masturbating in the bedroom at odd times of the day.

"You can have an hour," Janet said in a weak voice.

Diane's eyes widened. "You mean with Heather?"

"Yes. But just one hour, then get right back here."

Diane leapt to her feet and threw her arms around her mother. Janet hesitated, but when she returned it, she embraced her daughter fiercely. "Thank you, Mother," Diane whispered. "Thank you so much."

Janet squeezed her eyes shut and just nodded, her throat too tight for words.

Debby Radson felt no small measure of relief when she shepherded her two charges to the pantry and cast her circle of protection around them. Until the events of Halloween night, she had begun to doubt if her form of magic actually accomplished anything, and now she clung to it as a final bulwark against the Darkness.

She was relieved it was Ned with Cassie this time and not Jason. While Jason gave all the appearance of presenting an open mind, she sensed his doubt, even after all he had experienced himself. Ned, on the other hand, was the equivalent of a blank slate. He was open to anything; she saw it in his psychic aura.

"I am most glad you decided to talk to me, both of you," Debby said as she closed her robe around her large but shapely form. She sat down at the other end of the small table.

"Mrs. Radson, I'm really sorry," Cassie said in a forlorn voice. "I feel like I'm abusing your hospitality."

Debby uttered a tiny sigh, but her lips curled into a gentle if uneasy smile. "I do admit, it's been a bit of a strain convincing my husband Bill of the merits of this arrangement. I think it's why he's been taking more evening shifts at the construction site."

Cassie's eyes clouded, and she exchanged a despairing look with Ned. Ned shrugged and said, "We gotta keep doin' this, babe."

"Yes, you do," Debby said firmly. She extracted a set of matches from her robe and lit the candle in the center of the table. "And I made a promise to allow you to continue using that bedroom. Now, just a moment please."

Debby dutifully peered at each through the top of the candle flame, but the gesture was no longer necessary. Her ability to see psychic auras had dramatically increased in the past week or so. She could almost see them in broad daylight. Here in the subdued light, they glowed so bright they had lost most of their spectral appearance. She felt she could reach out and touch them.

She looked at Ned first, who fidgeted. She smiled slightly. She wondered if he thought of this as some sort of test. She admitted she did look for any sign of the Darkness, though the other Harbingers could do as such far more easily than she.

She saw no change in Ned, and slid the candle over to view Cassie's instead. Her eyes widened at once. "Oh my."

"Wh-what is it?" Cassie said in a quavering voice.

"The bands associated with your Dream Gift have expanded again. And there is a new sub-band in it I cannot identify. I've never quite seen anything like it!"

Cassie let out a small sigh of relief, as Debby sounded more excited than worried. "I know. It's ... well ... let me tell you what I just told Ned..."

In a halting voice at first, she recounted her tale of influencing her mother into letting her see Ned again, and explained about her frightening urges and her worries over the scope of her powers. "I don't know what to do, Mrs. Radson," Cassie said, sniffling. "It's like everything is falling apart, and I feel like I should be doing something. But I'm afraid of what might happen to me if I tried using this new power."

"I'd like ta see her try it, but, yeah, I'm kinda worried what might happen ta her, too," Ned said. "Like is she gonna lead the Grand Poobah of Evil right ta the doorstep of her mansion?"

Cassie shivered. Debby could only imagine Cassie's burden since she had learned about the line of force which passed directly under her mansion. "I know only a little about astral projection, which is what this most closely resembles," Debby said. "It's not something many Witches can achieve."

"I'm not so much afraid of bringing something back as I am about n-not coming back at all," Cassie said in a small voice.

"The link between the spirit and the body is very powerful, Cassie. It's why Elizabeth had to generate an enormous amount of energy to tie Mara's spirit to the House. It's not something which can be broken easily except by the death of the body."

"Okay, that's great and all," Ned began. "Well ... don't mean no disrespect to ya or nuthin', Mrs. R., but ya didn't really answer my question. Mebbe Cassie's not worried about it, but I am."

"The Darkness is trapped at the node, Ned," Cassie said.

"Yeah, fer now. But remember the Rite of Power that Melissa chick tried? So we know there are ways ta get outta there. I don't want it ta be cuz it hitched a ride on ya. And remember, it got more energy from that Book."

Cassie forced a small smile. "I thought you were the one who wanted to be more proactive."

Ned paused and smirked, though there was little humor to it. "Yeah, right, throw my own words back at me. Yeah, okay, I did say that. But mebbe I wasn't thinkin' it through, ya know?"

"I can't tell you what to do, either of you," Debby said in a low voice. "You know why."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Ned grumbled. "Underage an' all that."

"No, it's not that. The use of any psychic ability is a private thing. Cassie has to decide for herself whether she should use it or not."

Cassie's eyes shimmered as she looked from Ned to Debby.

Debby reached across the table and took Cassie's hands. "Cassie, you're looking for me to guarantee your safety. I can't. I can only tell you what I know. You and the other Harbingers are doing things I can only dream about."

"Yeah, mebbe, but whatever ya got ya gotta give us, cuz we're startin' ta run on empty," Ned snapped. "What's the deal with us not being able to give any energy ta Heather and Melinda?"

Debby drew back. "Wait, what is this?"

"Ned, please," Cassie admonished gently.

"No offense ta ya, Mrs ... well, ya know, mebbe I don't care if ya get offended."

"Ned!"

"But all I keep hearin' from ya is how much ya can't do or ya don't know. And ya claimed ya read Elizabeth's journal frontwards and backwards an' yer still lettin' Jason flap in the wind tryin' ta understand it himself. So what the hell gives, Mrs. R.?"

Cassie looked stricken, but Debby squeezed her hands and said, "It's okay, Cassie, he deserves an answer," she said in a low voice. She withdrew her hands and turned towards Ned. "I'll answer your question about the journal first. The painful truth is, while I've indeed read Elizabeth's journal, I don't understand all of it. Or... " She heaved a sigh. "I didn't want to understand it."

"Huh?" Ned said, a look of genuine confusion on his face.

Debby stood, drawing her robe about her, and padded over to the shelves near the door. From between a crystal orb and bags of dried herbs she withdrew a sheaf of papers tied with a ribbon. "When my daughter Susan was born, I had several readings taken."

"Readings? What kinda readings?"

"Oh, you mean readings of the future?" Cassie asked, her interest piqued.

Debby returned to the table. She tugged the bow in the ribbon loose and placed the papers before Ned. Ned gave her a dubious look before he directed his gaze downward. He looked over the first and then the second. "I don't get it. These look like drawings of a buncha cards."

"The first is a Mahjongg reading," said Debby. "The next is Tarot. The others are various other techniques for reading the future."

"This stuff's all Greek ta me. An', well, mebbe I can believe Heather's got some future-time peepers, but card decks? I dunno."

"None of those techniques are precise, Ned. They can only give you a general sense. But every one told me the same thing, that I had to be careful or ... or I'd lose my daughter somehow."

Cassie uttered a small gasp. Ned still looked doubtful, but when he witnessed the cloudy look in Debby's eyes, some guilt crept into his own.

Debby took a deep breath. "And I almost did, to Melissa." She reached for the sheaf of papers and pulled out the one on the bottom of the pile, the only one not crinkled or faded with age. "I had this one done after Melissa was defeated. It said the same thing. My daughter is still in danger."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Radson," Cassie said in a tiny voice. "Maybe we shouldn't even..."

Debby shook her head, but needed a moment to compose herself before she could speak again. "I have chosen to help you and I will keep doing it. As well as you have been doing on your own, you need an adult as an ally. If the last month has taught us anything it's that you can't rely on Cassie's status and riches as much as you could before."

Ned stared down at the final page. "Huh. If I understood this mumbo-jumbo more, I could understand what kinda dickhead I jus' acted like."

Cassie squeezed his arm and lay her head against his shoulder, whispering words of reassurance.

"Please, Ned, don't be so hard on yourself," Debby said. "Anyway, the key to everything is sexual energy. That is best done by the young."

"Aw, c'mon, Mrs. R., ya still got it," Ned blurted. When Cassie gave him an odd look, his cheeks colored. "Ah ... I mean ... ya can still ... ya still look ... er..."

Debby gave him a soft smile. "I'll consider that a compliment. Yes, I'm less inhibited than most adults about sex, and I do believe I'm still attractive for my age, but that's not the point. I cannot generate nearly as much energy, nor sustain it as long. I feel anything I try to do will pull in Susan and ... and she's already been having trouble."

Ned frowned. "Wait, what kinda trouble?"

"Was it anything we--?" Cassie began.

"Absolutely not, Cassie," Debby said. "No, you have nothing to do with this. Susan has been having disturbing dreams for the past week. Not just disturbing, but darkly erotic as well. Like the ones she got when Melissa had control over her."

"She doesn't have an Aura," Cassie declared. "I saw her at school just yesterday."

"An' I saw her today," Ned said. "She's so un-Aural she pract'ly glows."

Debby nodded and forced a small smile. "I-I know, I've done my own psychic reading on her. But something is disturbing her psyche."

Ned narrowed his eyes. "Hold yer horses. A week? Is that what ya said?"

"Yes, why?"

Ned exchanged a look with Cassie. Cassie gasped and her eyes widened. Ned nodded. "Yeah. Okay, I'm convinced. Somethin's goin' down. Somethin' big."

Debby looked to both with concern. "What's happened? Ned, you mentioned something about Heather and Melinda? Good Goddess, are they okay?"

Debby regretted the last question even before Ned snorted in response. Of course they were not okay. She knew Heather had been enslaved by the school Principal, and Melinda was being influenced by her mother. But the link they shared was supposed to help them hold on to some part of their will and their sanity.

"So do ya got any bright ideas as ta what's the hell's goin' on?" Ned asked.

Debby paused, glancing at the sheaf of papers before responding. "The only thing I can think of is a surge in the line energies," Debby bolted from the chair. Her robe caught on the edge of the seat, flashing a view of her bare pussy before she could yank it closed. "Here, let me get the map."

"The map? I thought ya gave all that ta Jason."

Debby jogged to another shelf and retrieved a single page. "I photocopied it before I gave it to him," she said as she returned. She moved the candle to one side and placed the map in the center of the table. The town of Haven circa 1965 sprawled across the page. Four gray lines had been written over the original map, all centered around the Li'l Missy Inn just south of the center of town.

Debby placed a finger on the map and traced one of the lines. "Here, look at this one."

Cassie followed it with her eyes towards the northeast corner of town. "That's the one that was under the House, right?"

"Yeah, I think it was," Ned said. He tapped the map with his finger. "Right here. But Jason, Heather, and Melinda, hell, even Richie, almost the whole crew, live just near it."

"What about you, Mrs. Radson?" Cassie asked.

Debby followed the line south and west, through the Inn, just past Haven High School, and stopped. She then slid off the line to the southeast, below the line. "This is where we are now, my house."

"Huh," Ned said. "That's kinda aways from it, compared ta Jason and crew."

"We don't know how far the influence from the lines extends," Cassie said.

"No, Ned has a point," Debby said. "It doesn't go very far. That's why the most powerful magicks and rituals have to be done right on the lines. Melissa had to do it on the line, and Victor's cult did their rituals in an abandoned church right on one of the other lines."

Cassie's eyes flicked over the map. "Where is Diane's house on this map?" She recited Diane's address.

Debby drew her finger further down the southwest corner of town, and pointed to a spot above the line, just past Fairview Drive.

"Crap, she's a lot closer to the line than you are," Ned drawled. "Babe, can ya give her a jingle on yer cell phone? I wanna know if she's been seein' anything strange with her parents. Better hurry, it's gettin' close to her eight o'clock phone curfew."

Cassie nodded quickly and reached into her purse.

"Why do you think Diane's parents would be involved, Ned?" Debby asked.

Ned frowned. "Let's jus' say when a certain demon nurse was hauntin' Haven High, she had her lackey Bendon dance her fingers through the valley of Diane's mother's shangri-la ta make her think nothin' but happy thoughts about the bogus medical program."

Richie Gardner meandered along Green Avenue where it turned almost due north just short of the Sovert household. His half-numb hands were thrust into the pockets of his faded jacket, his breath fogging the air before his face. He frowned at the dimly glowing sky as flakes fluttered down, but did not quicken his pace.

He found a thin patch of ice upon the sidewalk and slid down it after a short running start, stumbling when he caught bare concrete at the end. Gonna break your stupid neck doing that, the thought came into his head suddenly.

Richie frowned and gave a vicious kick to a pile of old snow long since compacted by snowplows and covered in dirt and road salt. He worked a small piece of ice loose, which he catapulted into his hand with a flick of his foot. He hurtled it across the street, smashing it into the trunk of a tree, exactly where he intended to put it.

Baseball isn't for another four months, dumbass, came another thought.

Richie responded by chucking two more pieces of ice before giving the pile one last kick. Shards of ice and compacted snow sprayed across the sidewalk. In one smooth motion, he scooped up one and jumped atop the base of a street lamp. He rapped the ice against the metal until the pole reverberated and a neighbor's dog began barking and snarling at him from behind a fence.

And you're really just being an asshole, now.

"Fuck you!" Richie declared as he jumped off the pole. He threw the ice at the pole, which rang with the impact as he stomped away. He clenched both his teeth and his mind, and for the moment the mental voice quieted. He did not halt his heavy, frustrated walk until the road began a gentle curve towards the northwest, right where the Sovert house sat.

Richie glared at the house and lay one of his hands against the large round bulge in one of his pockets. Just like every time he had passed it on his nightly excursions, he envisioned himself yanking out the baseball and letting it fly towards the Soverts' master bedroom. Maybe it would distract their mother just enough so Melinda would be spared for one night.

The voice in Richie's head suddenly surged back, as if it had stayed away only out of deference rather than his will. Yeah, you're the one to talk. How many times have you fucked your mother this week?

Richie ran up to a large block of snow which had rolled off a drift, hoping to send it flying down the street. Instead, it was soft enough to explode on impact into a fine spray which struck face like icy needles when the wind suddenly rose.

"Just shut up," Richie growled. "For once, just shut the fuck up."

The voice obliged. Richie was left in silence, and only then could he hear his own panting. Richie thrust his hands into his pockets and resumed his heavy pace down the street, hunching his shoulders against the cold and snow.

He didn't know what to call it. Cassie thought Richie shared some sort of link with his father, yet he could not see it like he could the one to the Harbingers. He only heard it. Though of late, he sometimes wished he could not, as it had become increasingly biting and critical.

Richie stopped within sight of his house. He stared at it through the whirling flakes until snow encrusted the strand of hair which had fallen before his eyes. You're scared, chump, the voice said. Admit it.

Richie refused to admit anything, even in his own head, for the least of his thoughts could be turned against him.

And you still want it, you fucking pervert.

Richie clenched a hand into a fist, but it quivered and unclenched seconds later. He felt a tingling in his loins despite the cold and despite the contempt in the voice. Every tryst was a battle. The Darkness tried to get into his head every time, and lately it was getting harder to resist. The sudden surge in aggressiveness of his father's voice had been welcomed at first as a means to fend it off, but lately even that seemed too little too late.

Richie gritted his teeth and ran for the house. The moment he was inside and shaking snow from his jacket, the irate voice of Sandra Gardner called out from the top of the stairs, "About fucking time you got home."

Richie looked up, and for just a moment he could look past the Aura, past the skimpy black underwear hugging her voluptuous body, and see his real mother. Eyes flashed anger at him, and he returned it with a glare of his own, daring her to pick a fight, to yell at how irresponsible he was to be out this late at night, to be a real mother.

Instead, the Aura surged, and the anger was swallowed up by dark desire. She left the railing and started down the stairs, swinging her hips with each step. "I mean ... you must be cold from being outside for so long. Perhaps I can help warm you up?"

Richie thrust his jacket into the coat closet and slammed the door closed with a kick. He wanted to tell his mother to go to hell and stay away from him. Instead, he stood and stared as she approached, his eyes flitting between the raised nipples of her jiggling boobs and the crotch of her panties plastered against her already damp pussy.

Richie swallowed. The transformation seemed more complete each time. He saw less and less resistance from his mother, as if she had finally given up.

Oh, no, Richie, not at all. She's simply embraced everything she knows she wants to be.

Richie's eyes widened, and he shuddered before he could repress it. His mother was barely halfway down the stairs and he could already hear it. The air felt oppressive, far more than could be accounted for by her jacking up the thermostat to compensate for her state of undress.

His father's voice had fallen silent, as it always did when the Darkness encroached. Yet he still felt a presence, which he clung to out of desperation. He stood his ground as Sandra approached, resisting the urge to go to her and follow her back into the bedroom.

Really, if you could truly resist, you would retreat. You would leave. You would run away.

Chapter 3 »