SEVENTEEN

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 than 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 Redbook s and House Beautiful s 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 hand, 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."

"Take it back, I said!" He thrust it out at her, and Kay grasped his wrist. Her eyes shone with anger.

Mrs. Demargeon didn't take it. She said, "I meant no harm. It's just a toy." And she began backing away, still tracing those scars with her eyes, as if physically caressing them. "Keep it for her, please," she said. Her voice lower, something harsher in it. Strained.

"Keep it. I've got to go. I've got to - " And then she'd quickly turned away and was hurrying toward her own house, and they both stood where they were until they heard Mrs. Demargeon close her door in the night's stillness.

"Evan!" Kay said sharply. "What's wrong with - " She stopped, stared.

He had begun to twist the bow in his hands. The plastic whitened, cracked. The bow snapped into two pieces, and Evan flung the broken toy out into the street. Then he looked at her with a wild, hot gaze. "I don't want that thing in my house!" he told her, as if daring her to contradict him.

Abruptly, her face flushing, she turned her back on him and went up the stairs. The bedroom door closed. Hard. He slammed his hand against the wall. Damn it to hell! he breathed, and shook his head from side to side. What's happening to me? Am I losing my mind? He could see the pieces of the plastic bow, still connected by the cord. He closed the front door and turned the lock, his nerves tingling. A child's toy, that's all it was. Just a toy. No. No. A toy. No.

Because nothing was simple in Bethany's Sin; everything was complicated and secretive and connected by a darkness that seemed to be grinning just beyond the windows. Coincidence? Imagination?

When he'd seen that bow, he'd immediately recalled the etching of Artemis, with her bow and arrows, and the carved frieze of warriors on Dr. Drago's fireplace, some of them bearing quivers of arrows.

Coincidence? Or something strange and savage and merciless, reaching from the core of Bethany's Sin toward him, and Kay, and even Laurie?

By God I'm going to get into that museum and see for myself, he said, his hands clenched into helpless fists at his sides.

But not tonight; Tonight I've got to rest. And to think.

After a while, Evan climbed the stairs to the master bedroom.

Where Kay was dreaming fitfully of blood-dripping slaughter.

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