Bethany's Sin Read online

  The head toppled into the bloody sand, mouth still open, rolled a few feet, then lay still. At her feet the body began a death-dance trembling, the neck stump still pumping blood. Until slowly the heart ceased beating. Kay stepped across the corpse, picked up the head by the hair, and lifted it high above her. Blood dripped down onto her shoulder, making an old spear scar appear fresh again. She held the head up before the others and opened her mouth, and from her mouth there came a scream that both terrified and thrilled her, a long, wild, piercing scream that echoed off across the plain. The others took up the war cry until the earth shook with it and there was no other noise in the world. Then she whirled the head above her and flung it to the ground with a force that shattered the skull, making the brains ooze out like brown jelly.

  Her horse, huge and lean-flanked, was waiting for her. She reached it in a few strides, swung onto it, and slipped the ax into a lion’s-skin pouch that hung across her mount’s shoulder. Ahead there was a pall of dust against the horizon. The three point riders were approaching from the horizon, the hooves of their horses throwing up spirals of sand and stepping nimbly, with experience, amid the clutter of war. The riders drew up their mounts, their eyes glittering with excitement and blood lust, and one of them, Demondae the Dark, pointed to the west and said the last of the enemy were crawling on their bellies in the heat now, gnawing sand between their teeth and crying for the touch of death. We can give them death in a single shadow of the sun, Demondae said, her face still splattered with gore from the ax blow that had cleaved an enemy warrior to the spine. Under her the black, gleaming horse moved excitedly, senses still keened by the clash and bellow of battle.

  They began to track the enemy into the west, their approach frightening the vultures, which immediately took to the sky, wheeling about the half-eaten corpses of men and beasts.

  Kay felt the singing blood and knew it was not her blood that sang. Through eyes slitted against the harsh rays of the sun she looked disdainfully down upon shattered bodies and knew it was not her eyes that saw. A long, jagged scar ran down her left thigh to the knee, the mark of earlier battle, but she knew it was not her flesh that bore the scar. No, no. The blood and eyes and flesh of another. Someone fierce and terrible and hungering for destruction as one hungers for food and drink. Someone who had hacked off a man’s head and shouted a war cry ages old. Someone else within her.

  Now hunting down prey in the red, streaming rays of the sun. Looking from side to side like an animal scanning the wilds for danger. Drawing a breath: sweet breath, sweet stench of decay and men’s blood. Feeling the raw power of the steed between her smooth-muscled thighs. Kay could read this entity’s mind, could hear its thoughts and feel its blood flowing through her veins like rivers of carnage. Perhaps I shall take one of them. I shall claim the strongest and drag him back behind my horse like baggage. And then I shall slowly strip the flesh from him as one would strip the flesh…

  No. Kay heard her own voice as if through a distant, time-lost tunnel. No…from a piece of rotted fruit. Until he screams…

  Please. No. Please. I want to…I can’t breathe…I want to wake up I want to wake up…

  …for mercy, and then I shall split his skull…

  Please. Please. Let me go. Let me go.

  …and eat the warrior’s brains from the cup of bone.

  I can’t breathe I can’t…I want to…I can’t…please…

  “Please…” Kay heard her voice echoing echoing echoing within her head, and suddenly the field of battle and the searing sun began to melt like an oil painting that had started to run together, the colors merging into a grayness unlike either life or death, and she was coming through a cold, cavernlike place. Something clicked. An orb of light. Not the sun. No more bodies. No field of carnage. Where am I? I don’t know I’m lost I’m lost I don’t know where I am or who I am or why…

  “Kay?” Someone spoke softly. A man. The enemy is here, the destroyer of all things good and beautiful. Men. “Kay?”

  She tried to focus on him, tried to bring the picture fragments together. For an instant she saw him with a dark beard and eyes widened in horror of her, and a cold, pure, lightning-like hatred ripped through her, but then she heard herself say I’m Kay Reid and I’ve been sleeping and I’ve awakened. The dream feeling rippled within her, leaving a tenuous heat in her blood, and then was gone.

  “Oh, my God,” she heard herself say, and realized she was staring fixedly at the lamp he’d switched on.

  “Hey,” Evan said, his eyes swollen with sleep. He nudged her lightly. “Where have you been?”

  “Where have I…been?”

  “Yes,” he said. “What were you dreaming about? You started thrashing around there, and you were saying something, but it was too low for me to hear.”

  Kay suddenly reached out for him and held to him tightly. He could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

  “Was it a nightmare?” he asked her, genuinely concerned now.

  “Oh, God, yes,” Kay said. “Just hold me for a minute. Don’t say anything, just hold me.”

  They lay together quietly for a long while. The silence was broken when that dog down the street began to bark. “Damn dog,” Evan said irritably. “Whoever owns it should muzzle the thing at midnight. Are you feeling better now?”

  She nodded, but was lying. She felt very cold inside, as if part of her soul had remained in the cavern that had opened for her when she’d first fallen asleep. She felt weak and drained; the same feeling, she realized, that had overtaken her when she’d met Kathryn Drago in the amphitheater. Stop it! she told herself harshly. That doesn’t make any sense! It was a nightmare and that’s all! But for the first time in her life a sliver of her brain refused to believe that totally, and fear flooded through her like waters that have been swelling behind a dam for years until the dam begins to crack. Just a little bit, but enough to weaken the concrete of reason.

  “I thought nightmares were my department,” Evan said, trying to cheer her up but realizing at once that he’d said the wrong thing. Her face clouded over with doubt. He was silent awhile longer, still holding her, still feeling the beating of her heart. Whatever it had been had frightened the hell out of her. He said, “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not yet. Please.”

  “Okay. Whenever you’re ready.” He’d never seen her so disturbed about a dream, for God’s sake, because she wasn’t like him, and seeing her this way bothered him a great deal because she had always been so strong and logical before.

  “You…asked me where I’d been,” Kay said. “And it seemed like I was really somewhere…very different. Or part of me was. I don’t know; it’s so strange I don’t know how to explain it.” She paused. The dog barked. Barked. Barked. “I was on a…battlefield of some kind. There were bodies and swords and shields lying on the ground. The bodies were…mutilated. Headless.” She shuddered, and he began to stroke the back of her neck to calm her. “I even…killed a man.” She tried to smile, but the muscles wouldn’t respond; her face felt frozen. “I cut his head off. God, it was so…real. Everything was so real.”

  “Just a dream,” he told her. “Not real at all.”

  “But I could even feel the heat of the sun on me. My body was different; my voice was different. I remember…” She pushed back the sheets suddenly to look at her left thigh.

  “What is it?” Evan asked, his eyes narrowing.

  Her thigh was smooth and unmarked except for a few freckles near the knee. “I had a terrible scar on my leg in that dream. Right there.” She touched the leg. “It was so real, so very real! And we were hunting down other men to kill them.”

  “We? Who else?”

  “Some others.” She shook her head. “I can’t remember now. But I do know that part of me…wanted to find those men. Part of me wanted to destroy them because I hated them as I’ve never hated anyone in my life. Not just to kill but to tear them to pieces. To…oh, it’s just too terrible to think about!”

&nb
sp; “Okay, okay. Then don’t think about it. Come on, lie back on the pillow. That’s right. Now. I’m going to turn out the light, okay? And we’ll go back to sleep? It was a dream, that’s all.”

  “Funny,” Kay said softly. “I remember saying that to you so many times.”

  Fragments of his own dreams came back to him in a flurry of hideous shapes, like things crawling out of a murk. He shoved them back, closed a mental door against them. Behind that door they roiled malevolently. “Light’s going out,” he said, and turned it off. Kay drew nearer to him, afraid of that vast empty space between them.

  Down McClain Terrace that dog barked on, its voice rising. Then abruptly stopped.

  “Thank God for small favors,” Evan muttered.

  “It was so real!” Kay said, unable to shake the dream images. “I could feel the weight of that ax in my hand! And I could feel the horse moving beneath me!”

  Evan lay motionless. “What?”

  “I was riding a horse,” she said. “A large one. I could feel that strength underneath me…”

  “A horse?” he whispered.

  She looked at him, hearing something in his voice that she didn’t understand. His eyes were open; he was staring blankly at the ceiling.

  “Were the others…riding horses as well?” Evan asked after what seemed to Kay like long minutes.

  “Yes.”

  He was silent.

  “Why does that particularly interest you?” she asked.

  “It’s nothing. You did know that Dr. Kathryn Drago raises horses, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “There you go, then,” he said. “That explains your dream. Or at least part of it. Maybe you’re overanxious about attending that party or something; was Dr. Drago in your dream?”

  Kay thought for a moment. “No, she wasn’t.”

  “Well, anyway, that explains the part about the horses.” He yawned and glanced over at the night-table clock. Ten minutes after four.

  Overanxious? Kay wondered, her brow knitting. She had to admit she was nervous about Saturday night; nervous about meeting those people, and nervous, strangely, about being so close to Kathryn Drago again. It was the aura of power that woman radiated, she decided, that unsettled her so much. What would it be like to possess that much power? To have that much influence over other people? She wondered what Dr. Drago’s husband would be like. A large man with a powerful, imposing personality? Or the opposite of her: rather small and mild? Certainly wealthy, in either case. It would be interesting to see.

  The terror and revulsion of her dream had faded now, and she was sleepy again. Evan hadn’t moved for a long while, and Kay assumed he’d fallen asleep. She moved as close as she could to him and let herself drift.

  But in the darkness Evan’s eyes were still open.

  Every so often they moved, as if at the ceiling could be found the way out of a hideous and closing cage.

  16

  * * *

  Dr. Drago’s House

  LONG BEFORE THEY reached the wall between the Drago property and the highway, Kay and Evan could see the reflection of lights in the night sky. The wrought-iron gate with the scroll D stood open, and Evan turned into the private drive that led through the woods to the house. Ahead, rainbow-colored lanterns were strung through the lower branches of the trees, sparkling like fireflies. And then, where the drive curved slightly, the house came into full view.

  The size of it stunned them. They’d seen only the roof that first day on the road, and the view had been misleading: the stone-columned house reminded Evan of some kind of sprawling Greek or Roman fortress, with four two-story towers at each corner. he’d never seen anything as large before; his first thought was how much money had been put into it. A million dollars? Two million? More than that? Lights blazed like fires from a myriad windows, reflected again and again from the many cars parked along the drive. Kay felt the ants in her stomach start dancing the two-step. She wondered if it was right for her to have accepted the invitation. There were going to be important people here, influential people who dressed well and spoke the language of stocks and bonds, people of intelligence and ambition with a grip on the turnings of the world. She didn’t think her hair looked right, though she’d combed it until it absolutely shone; she didn’t think the new beige pantsuit she’d bought the day before at the Westbury Mall did anything for her complexion, though Evan had told her again and again how stunning it looked on her; she didn’t think she would fit in with these people, and she was afraid of imagined disasters: perspiration spots beneath her arms, bad breath (the Lavoris bottle in the bathroom, three days old, was already half-empty), ill-chosen remarks in the effort to be charmingly witty.

  Evan had told her to relax, that these people wouldn’t be any different from them, but she refused to believe it. Evan had bought a new tie to go with his navy blue blazer, gray slacks, and light blue shirt. he’d searched all over Westbury Mall until he’d found one with small gray horses on a field of dark blue.

  At the last minute Kay had thought they wouldn’t be able to make the party because they hadn’t found a suitable sitter for Laurie. Kay had called Mrs. Demargeon to ask if she knew anyone, maybe a teenager who might like to earn ten dollars, but Mrs. Demargeon had insisted on sitting with Laurie herself, and nothing Kay could say would dissuade her. Go ahead and enjoy your party, Mrs. Demargeon had said cheerily. Laurie and I will get along just fine.

  And now Evan pulled the station wagon to a halt and cut the engine. “Okay,” he said, and squeezed her hand reassuringly, “here we are.”

  There was a long walkway between immaculate hedges to the large, imposing front door. Evan put his arm around Kay, worked the gleaming brass knocker, waited. They could hear the noise of conversation, laughter, music. A movement behind the door. On the driveway a set of approaching headlights flickered, and a slight breeze made wind chimes tinkle merrily.

  The door came open, letting out the chatter and mirth. A figure filled the opening. “Ah, so there you are!” it said. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming. Please…” The door opened wider; the figure motioned them in.

  Kay and Evan stepped past the woman into a large, high-ceilinged foyer with a beautiful green-and-blue-tiled floor. Evan could see chandeliers glowing through a series of magnificent rooms filled with obviously expensive furniture and much greenery. There were a few guests milling about in the foyer, all with drinks in hand, but most seemed to be congregating toward the rear of the house.

  “Dr. Drago,” Kay was saying, “I’d like you to meet my husband, Evan.”

  And Evan turned toward the woman.

  She wore a black floor-length gown and golden bracelets on her wrists; her hair was swept back from her face, and Evan found himself staring with frank fascination into the depths of the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. They were unblinking and held his gaze steadily until the woman smiled and held out a red-nailed hand. “Kathryn Drago. Very nice to meet you.” He took her hand, felt his bones grind in her grip, but he kept his expression pleasant. Kay realized then how very large a woman she really was: her shoulders were square and almost as broad as Evan’s, and she seemed at least an inch taller than he. Now she released Evan’s hand, and Evan, still smiling, rubbed the knuckles.

  “I’ll show you back to the patio,” Kathryn Drago said, and led them along a tiled corridor. “Kay, how were your classes this week?”

  “Fine,” she said. The noise of conversation was nearer.

  “They haven’t driven you crazy yet, I hope?”

  “I think I’ll make it.”

  “Yes,” the other woman said, and smiled. “I think you will indeed.”

  Evan had noticed something strange about the house. There were no framed pictures on the walls; instead, the walls and most of the high ceilings were covered with brightly colored murals depicting pastoral scenes, ruins that might have been ancient Greek temples, sleek flanked horses running in herds. He’d seen Drago’s eye
s flicker down briefly to his tie, narrow just a fraction, then move back to his face. And though the woman had been smiling pleasantly enough, Evan imagined he’d caught just a glimmer of something counter to her smile. Something cold and foreign. He watched her as she moved gracefully ahead of him; she was a beautiful woman, there was no doubt about that. But it was more than her beauty that Evan found attractive: from the first he’d sensed a raw sensuality underlying her cool composure. It was something he could almost reach out and touch, and he thought for a moment that he could smell a sexual musk enveloping him there in the mural-walled corridor. He realized suddenly that he was aroused, his senses sharp and alert.

  “It’s a beautiful house,” Kay told the other woman. “Did your husband buy it or have it built?”

  Drago laughed huskily. “Husband? No. I’m not married. I had this house built myself.”

  They came into a wide, stone-floored room with marble columns. There was a bar, behind which a professional looking bartender in a white jacket was mixing a drink in an electric blender. A few well-dressed couples stood talking around the bar like satellites around a planet, hardly noticing Kay or Evan as they came out of the corridor. But Evan noticed all eyes flickered respectfully toward Dr. Drago. Over in a corner, near a huge fireplace with insets of carved human figures, a trio of musicians—mandolin, guitar, flute—played a foreign-sounding melody—perhaps Spanish or Greek, Evan decided. The music seemed to give life to the forest murals that adorned the walls. Glass doors opened out onto a flagstone patio, where Evan could see forty or fifty other guests; around the perimeter of the patio, torches flickered in the wake of a sudden breeze, their light adding to the ethereal glow of the tree-strung lanterns.

  Drago guided them over to the bar. “A drink?” she asked. Evan shook his head no; Kay asked for a gin and tonic. The other woman gazed across the room for a few seconds, and then her eyes met Evan’s. “What’s your occupation, Mr. Reid?”