Bethany's Sin Page 20

  “You’re an utter fool,” she told the man who stood before her. “All men have closed their eyes to the truth I’ve uncovered, and that is a very dangerous thing.”

  “Dangerous?” Blackburn almost smiled. “How?”

  Evan was looking around at the ring of women. Some of them he’d seen before, in the village; others he didn’t know. But on all their faces there was now an eerie, shared expression: in the flickering light of the torches around the patio, Evan could see their cold hatred. Their eyes glittered darkly, and the flesh seemed to be stretched tight over their facial bones. And when he glanced to the side he realized Kay was staring at the back of Blackburn’s head with the same intense, barely restrained ferocity. He turned his head, caught another man’s gaze across the patio. The man seemed to be transfixed, and as Evan’s eyes met his, he immediately stared down into the glass he held. Evan felt the hate rising from these women, streaming from their eyes, from the pores of their flesh, quickly, quickly, directed toward Dr. Blackburn. Suddenly he was afraid to move, as if he were standing amid a pack of savage animals.

  A freezing wave had washed over Kay, numbing her brain and her reactions. She wanted to call out to Evan but found her voice paralyzed. Fear welled up in her when she realized she was no longer in control of her own body. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t grasp Evan’s arm and say let’s go home something’s wrong something’s terribly wrong. It was if someone else, some one strange and terrible, had slid into her skin and even now clutched at her soul with ancient hands. She wanted to scream. Couldn’t. Her eyes—were they her eyes now? or someone else’s?—measured the size of Dr. Blackburn’s skull. The width of the neck. And in the next moment she’d realized she—or the thing inside her, wearing her flesh like robes—was thinking of murder.

  Her right hand came up slowly.

  Reached out. Slowly.

  Evan stared at her, opening his mouth to speak.

  And suddenly Dr. Drago was reaching out toward Blackburn as well, and firelight flamed in the crystal glass she held. Her long-fingered hand seemed to tense, and then there was a sharp crack! that made Blackburn blink and jerk his head back.

  “Jesus!” he said, startled.

  Kay’s hand was still raised just behind his neck. She had felt the hate within her rage out of control, throwing sparks like a live electric cable blown in a wind. In the image that had seeded itself in her brain and grown to bitter fruition, she was cupping her extended hand around the base of his head and squeezing until there was the brittle cracking of bone and the brains slithered out onto the ground. But now, with Drago’s movement, the power that had thrashed within her seemed to be ebbing, leaving a cold emptiness behind, as if it had torn away a section of her soul in greedy, dripping claws. Suddenly she remembered where she was—Dr. Drago’s party—and who she was—Kay Reid I’m Kay Reid—and that the man who stood beside her was watching her with sharp, probing eyes. She slowly brought her hand down and stared into the palm, at the crisscrossed lines dotted with pin pricks of perspiration.

  Dr. Drago opened her hand and let the glass clink down onto the stones. Wine had sprayed her dress and dripped down her chest into the cleavage between her breasts like thick blood droplets. Liquid dripped from the tips of her fingers to the ground, and Evan could see several cuts in her palm, slivered with glass.

  “Jesus,” the man said again, staring at her. “You’ve…hurt yourself.”

  Her expression hadn’t changed. She was half-smiling at him, though her eyes were still hard, allowing no quarter. “I’m afraid…discussions of this nature get the better of my temper. Forgive me.”

  Blackburn stood still for a minute; then he seemed to realize how close the ring of women were around him, because he turned his head from side to side like an animal seeking a way out of a trap. But Evan had seen a change come over them, just as he’d seen a change come over his wife; their expressions were placid now, no longer mirroring Drago’s hatred of Blackburn. Mrs. Giles came toward Dr. Drago and took her arm. “Please,” she said, “allow me to get a bandage for you.”

  “No,” Drago said, pulling her arm free. Blood spattered the stones at her feet.

  “We…we’d better be going, I think,” Blackburn said; he held his wife’s hand and she nodded quickly, her eyes still wide with shock. “I’m sorry if I…if I caused you to…do that. I didn’t mean to…”

  “It’s nothing,” the woman said.

  “Yes. Well…”—he paused, looking from Drago to Evan and back again—“I…thank you for inviting us. Thanks very much.”

  “Marcia,” Dr. Drago said, “will you show the Blackburns to the door?”

  “Good-bye. Nice meeting you,” Blackburn said to Kay and Evan, and then he and his wife were gone, following Marcia Giles to the front of the house.

  The ring of women had melted away. Lights glinted off glasses. Across the patio someone laughed. Conversation swelled.

  Drago lifted her hand and seemed to be examining the gashes. Another woman—a slender blonde Evan thought he’d seen at the village drugstore—brought her a white hand towel soaked in cold water. Drago began picking out the glass. “Foolish of me,” she said. “That man goads me too easily.”

  “What…was all that about?” Evan asked her.

  “His stupidity.” She turned her gaze on him and then smiled. “His fears. But fortunately nothing to upset my party. I’d rather not talk about it anymore. Kay, there are some others I want you to meet. Evan, will you excuse us?”

  He nodded. “Sure.” Then, to Kay, “Are you all right?” She stared at him, nodded.

  “We’ll only be a few minutes. There are other professors from George Ross here that Kay should know.” She took Kay’s arm with her unbloodied hand. “Come on,” she said, and they disappeared across the patio.

  Evan felt like a drink. A strong one. Scotch, maybe. He went back to the bar and ordered it. He realized his pulse was pounding. What had happened out there seemed like some kind of strange dream, something beyond his control or understanding. And what had happened to Kay? What was she going to do? That look of pure hatred in her eyes still burned in his brain. I’ve never seen her look like that before, he thought. She looked wild and savage and…yes, deadly. He shook his head and sipped at his Scotch.

  And looking across the room, saw what those carved figures were on the fireplace.

  Warriors in armor, astride huge, rearing horses. Bearing battle-axes, some with spears and quivers of arrows about their shoulders.

  He stepped toward it.

  Then stopped.

  The music played on. Someone behind him laughed. A female voice, light and high and free.

  But he didn’t hear.

  Because he’d seen that those warriors were women.

  17

  * * *

  After the Party

  ON THE DRIVE back to McClain Terrace, Evan asked Kay what had been wrong.

  “Wrong?” she asked. “What do you mean? Nothing was wrong.”

  “Oh, yes, it was. I saw the way you were staring at Dr. Blackburn. I saw you reaching for him. What were you going to do?”

  She was silent for a long while; beyond the headlights the many layers of darkness swept by. She took a deep breath, let it out. How to make sense of what she’d been feeling? How to explain it to him? And to herself?

  “Well?” he prompted, waiting.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “I didn’t know there’d be so many people there.”

  “Kay,” Evan said quietly. “You’re keeping your feelings from me. I want to know because it’s important!”

  She glanced at him quickly, then averted her eyes. “Important? How?”

  “You recently told me about a nightmare, something about…killing a man. Do you remember? You said you were on a battlefield, and you were riding a horse, and you carried a battle-ax…”

  “I remember,” she said dully.

  “Since then I’ve heard you whimper in your sleep more th
an once. You never awakened, and I never talked to you about it. But I want to know now. Have you had anymore of the same kind of nightmare?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, realizing immediately she’d said it too quickly. Liar. Liar. Liar. There had been other nightmares, but she could recall only disjointed fragments. The last one had been particularly bad. She’d been fighting with spear and battle-ax against hordes of dark-bearded, armored warriors. There had been others of her own kind all around her, and as they struck left and right with their axes, chopping flesh, splintering bone, crushing skulls, she’d heard the war cry rising, rising, the most terrible and powerful sound she’d ever heard. The warriors had fallen back for a while, heaps of mutilated bodies everywhere, but then they’d flooded forward against swords flashing red in the harsh sun, screams and shouts and wild cries of pain echoing off into the mountains to startle the wary eagles from their clifftop nests. At that moment she’d wanted to wake up, to fight her way out of this nightmare, but she seemed trapped in it, forced to finish this frenzied, blood-soaked battle as if it were truly a part of her own memory. Fragments of faces, battle blows, ringing weapons, swept past her. She remembered lifting her gore-slick ax, and, screaming in rage and hate, she’d brought the weapon whistling down to cleave the shoulder of a warrior. Then darkness, darkness, the noise and clamor of the battle fading, darkness claiming all. And she’d known she’d gotten away from that terrible place once again, and dear God, dear God, she didn’t want to have to return there when sleep overcame her once more.

  “Have you?” Evan asked her. They were driving through the village, nearing Blair Street.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “A couple of times.”

  He was quiet for a while. They turned onto McClain. Lights were on in their house and in the Demargeon house. “Do you know what Dr. Drago and Blackburn were arguing about tonight?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  “Neither do I. But I’m going to find out. I’m going to call Blackburn tomorrow.”

  “Why?” Kay asked. “I don’t see that it’s any of our business.”

  “Maybe not, but there’s something going on around here that I can’t figure out. And it has to do with—”

  “Evan, please…” Kay began.

  He turned the car into the driveway, cut the engine, and switched off the headlights. “It has to do with that damned museum,” he continued, “and with Bethany’s Sin itself.”

  “Evan…”

  He looked at her full in the face. “Listen to me!” he said, more harshly than he’d intended. “At the party tonight, when those women began to surround Blackburn like wolves gathering around a sheep, I saw a glimmer of hatred in their eyes unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. As if they…wanted to protect Kathryn Drago. And if they could’ve torn that man limb from limb, I believe they would have.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Evan! You’re not making any sense!”

  “I could feel the hate in them,” Evan told her, trying to grasp the emotions that now writhed wildly within him. “And for a moment I felt the hate in you.”

  She looked at him, openmouthed. “Hate?” she said. “I don’t…hate anyone.”

  “But you wanted to hurt him, didn’t you? Because you reached out for his throat, and God knows what you were trying to do, or what you were thinking of, but I saw in your face the same thing I saw in the others!”

  “Oh, Christ!” Kay said. Anger had flamed within her, and she knew she was purposely trying to cover over that seed of violence in her that Evan had seen taking root. She reached for the door handle, opened the door. “I don’t want to listen to any more of these…dreams of yours.”

  He got out of the car and followed her toward the house. “My dreams are one thing. What I see is something else. And I see something happening here that…I can’t understand.”

  “It’s your imagination!” she said, turning toward him when they reached the door.

  “It’s not my goddamned imagination!” Evan’s voice was raw and shaken.

  “Keep your voice down! Mrs. Demargeon is—”

  “I don’t care!” They stared at each other apprehensively for a moment. Evan ran a hand across his face; that Drago woman’s gaze haunted his brain, making it feverish and setting his senses on the knife edge of frenzy. “God,” he said after he’d regained control. “God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you. But what I’m feeling now, what I’m seeing, is not my imagination. I know it’s not!” When he looked back into her face, her eyes were glazed and distant, and he knew she’d blocked him out again. She waited for him to open the door; he fumbled with the keys.

  He was about to slip the key into the lock when the door came open. Mrs. Demargeon stood there, her eyes slightly puffed, looking as though she’d just awakened. “Oh,” she said. “You’re home. I thought I heard someone out here.” She put a hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. “How was the party?”

  “Fine,” Kay said, moving past her into the house. Evan followed and closed the door. In the den there was an indentation on the sofa where Mrs. Demargeon had sat, and a stack of Redbooks and House Beautifuls on the coffee table. A half-cup of coffee, an open potato-chip bag, a few of Laurie’s books and toys, lay around the room.

  “Oh, me,” Mrs. Demargeon said, rubbing her eyes. “I fell asleep. And when I sleep, I’m like a dead woman.”

  “Is Laurie upstairs?” Kay asked.

  “Yes. I put her to bed around eight-thirty.”

  “I hope she wasn’t any trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. She’s such a sweet child. We had quite a good time just reading and watching television.” She turned her head and looked at Evan. “I hope your evening went well.”

  “It was a crowded party,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Most of the people were teachers over at George Ross. Christ, I’m tired!”

  “Can I make you a sandwich?” Kay asked Mrs. Demargeon. “Something to drink?”

  “Oh, God, no! I drank enough coffee to float a battleship!” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I’d better be getting home.”

  While Kay talked with Mrs. Demargeon, Evan climbed the stairs wearily and took off his coat and tie in the master bedroom. He could hear the women’s muffled voices from downstairs. It was going to be a bad night; he could feel it. The bed waited for him, a place where horrific dreams and twisted memories would scuttle spiderlike through his mind. And also through Kay’s? he wondered. Weeks ago he’d felt certain that some terrible force in Bethany’s Sin, a presence beyond his understanding, was slowly stalking him. Now that force seemed nearer; much, much nearer. And nearer to Kay as well? he asked himself. Manifesting itself in her dreams just as it did in his own? He started to unbutton his shirt. Voices through the wall. Kay speaking. Then Mrs. Demargeon. He took his shirt off and then decided to look in on Laurie.

  A sliver of light from the hallway fell upon the little girl as she lay snuggled in the covers of her bed; Evan stood looking down at her, saw her line golden hair spread out on the pillow like a beautiful Oriental fan. He sat on the side of the bed, very carefully so as not to disturb her, and softly touched her cheek. She stirred very slightly and smiled. He felt a warm glow begin to spread through him, chasing away the fears of the night. “My princess,” he whispered, and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.

  But there was something lying on the bed beside her.

  It took him a moment to realize what it was, but when he did, he picked up the object and rose to his feet as slowly as a man trapped in the terrifying half-speed of a still-unfolding nightmare.

  A toy. That’s all. Just a toy. A little bright blue bow, strung with a white cord. Something bought at a dime store. Plastic. His heart thumped. On the night table, below a Snoopy lamp, smaller objects. Three little arrows with those harmless suction-cup tips. Lying on the floor, at his feet, a cardboard target with 100, 200, 300, 400, around the rings, and 500 at the bull’s-eye. He gripped the bow in his h
and, tightly, turned away from the bed, and found himself walking back downstairs, toward the sound of Mrs. Demargeon’s voice.

  “…just any time,” Mrs. Demargeon was saying, yawning again as she stood with Kay at the front door. “Really. I enjoy being with children, and Laurie’s not one bit of trouble. So the next time you—” She stopped speaking suddenly because she’d seen the shirtless man coming up behind Kay. Her eyes widened slightly, and Kay whirled around.

  “Evan?” Kay said softly, her eyes moving from that terrible plain of scars to his hollowed-out, haunted gaze and back again.

  Evan held out the bow. “What is this?” he asked. “Where did it come from?”

  Mrs. Demargeon tried to smile, faltered, glanced quickly over at Kay. “I…well, we drove over to the Westbury Mall around eight. We had some ice cream, and we went into the toy store, Thurmond’s Toys. She saw that little bow-and-arrow set, and she said she liked it, so—”

  “So you bought it for her,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, I did. It’s nothing, really. Only cost a couple of dollars.” She dropped her eyes to his chest, to the scars that ran like a ragged tapestry across the flesh. Evan saw her eyes glisten. Her tongue darted out, licked her lower lip, then disappeared.

  “I don’t want it in this house,” he told her, trying to keep his voice steady. “I don’t want anything like it in my house.”

  “Evan!” Kay’s voice. “It was a gift for Laurie!”

  He shook his head. “I don’t care. Here. Take this thing back.”

  “Really,” Mrs. Demargeon said, backing away a step, her gaze still fixed on his scars, as if she were transfixed by them. “I meant no harm. It’s just a toy. Just a toy.”

  “It’s a toy, for God’s sake!” Kay echoed.

  “No. it’s more than that. Please, Mrs. Demargeon. Take it back.”

  “I don’t see what you’re so upset about, Mr. Reid.”