Bethany's Sin

SIXTEEN

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-storyed 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 eyes 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?"

"I'm a writer," he told her.

"He's had. quite a few stories published," Kay said, taking her gin and tonic as the bartender offered it.

"I see." Again Dr. Drago's eyes moved, very quickly, to Evan's tie. Then back to his face. She was smiling, but Evan could sense a very definite power behind her eyes; now he knew what Kay had been talking about. It seemed that this woman was trying to pick his brain with her gaze. And nearly succeeding, because Evan felt the sudden urge to tell her about his Bethany's Sin project. But he resisted. And imagined for an instant that he saw something flicker in Dr. Drago's gaze - something very brief and sharp, like the dancing of deep blue flames across a gas stove. Evan blinked in spite of himself, and then that strange illusion vanished. The noise of the music seemed louder, more irritating to his senses.

"I didn't realize until recently that you're the mayor of Bethany's Sin," Kay said. "How in the world can you handle that and your duties at George Ross, too?"

"Not without much effort, I promise you," she said, looking at Kay now. "But I suppose that, in all honesty, there's not that much difficulty in managing the affairs of a village the size of this one.

And the villagers are all so willing to help, as well." She smiled. "I delegate ninety-nine percent of the work to others."

"What about the historical society?" Evan asked. "That has to take up a lot of time, too, doesn't it?"

She slowly turned her head toward him. Her eyes suddenly seemed heavy-lidded, as if she were regarding him with disdain. She was still smiling, but the smile now appeared cold and calculated.

"Ah," she said quietly. "You know more about me than I thought."

Evan shrugged. "Just information I've picked up here and there."

She nodded. "Yes. That's part of your profession, isn't it?

Digging, I mean? The historical society...takes care of itself."

"I went to the museum a few days ago," Evan continued, watching for this woman's reactions, "but it was locked. Neither Kay nor I have had a chance to tour it. I'm very interested in historical artifacts."

"Are you?" That's Wonderful. History's a fascinating subject.

My life, as a matter of fact. After all, what would the present and the future be without the foundation of the past?"

"I agree. But exactly what kind of relics are inside there? From what period of history?"

She gazed into his eyes for no more than a few seconds. But to Evan it seemed like an eternity. Again he thought he saw that electric flame dance, and mental fingers seemed to be clawing at his skull.

The scorching intensity of this woman's gaze caused a pain behind his own eyes. "Very old and valuable artifacts from an archaeological excavation I supervised in 1965, on the southern shore of the Black Sea. They're on extended loan from the Turkish government"

"Archaeology? I understood you were a professor of history."

"Quite so. But archaeology was my first love. When I left field work I drifted more into the study of history." She looked over at Kay for a moment. "Kay, wouldn't you like another drink?"

Kay paused for a few seconds, blinked, then said, "Yes. I would." She gave her glass, still half-filled, to Dr. Drago, who turned away from them to the bar.

"Mr. and Mrs. Reid!" someone said behind them. "How nice to see you!"

They turned to face Mrs. Giles, wearing a flowing gown with golden threads running through it; behind her there was a dark-haired man of medium height in a light brown suit. "This is my husband, David," Mrs. Giles said, making introductions all around.

Evan reached out to shake the man's right hand, and David Giles offered his left, turning it around to clasp Evan's hand firmly. It was then that Evan realized, with an icy rush through his veins, that the sleeve of David Giles's right arm was pinned up just below the elbow. He stared at that sleeve for a few seconds dumbly, hearing his heart beat within him like a distant pagan drum of warning.

"Your gin and tonic," Dr. Drago said, giving the glass back to Kay. "Hello, Marcia, David," she said, nodding to them. "I suppose you know the Reids."

"Yes," Mrs. Giles said, "we do."

"Help yourself to whatever you want at the bar," Drago told them. "If you'll excuse me, I'd better make the rounds of my guests.

Enjoy yourselves." And then she had gone out onto the patio, leaving that lingering odor of musk around Evan like an invisible, sweet-scented noose.

Kay and Marcia Giles made small talk about the village for a few minutes while Evan studied David Giles; the man seemed ill at ease, his shoulders hunched up as if he were expecting a blow across the back of his neck. He looked to be in his late forties, with dark brown eyes and cheeks that were almost gaunt. He never allowed his gaze to be held by Evan's; always he evaded Evan's eyes, as if fearful of looking at the other man. But it was that pinned right sleeve that disturbed Evan. He remembered the armless figure he'd seen silhouetted against window curtains, and he felt a cold finger, like the touch of steel, along his spine.

"What do you do for a living?" Evan asked the man Giles looked up at him as if he hadn't heard. "Pardon me?"

"Your work. What do you do?"

"I...sell insurance for Pennsylvania State Equity. We're the company with the big umbrella that covers everything."

"Right," Evan said, and smiled. "I've seen the television commercials. Do you have an office in the village?"

"No, I work out of my home." He paused for a moment, looking around the room. "Marcia's told me about you and your wife. You moved into a house on McClain Terrace?"

"That's right."

"A fine neighborhood," he said. Another pause. "I hope you've found the village to your liking."

"It's an interesting place," Evan said. "Of course, for me any place with secrets is interesting." He said it calmly and slowly, watching the man's face. It showed no reaction, though from the comer of his eye Evan saw Mrs. Giles's head tum slightly toward him.

"Secrets?" Mrs. Giles asked, smiling pleasantly. "What kinds of secrets?"

"I've been doing some research for an article on the village,"

Evan explained. "There seems to be a secret behind the village's name. Or let's just say it's damned difficult finding out anything about it."

Mrs. Giles laughed softly. What kind of insect does she remind me of? Evan wondered. Something cunning and aggressive. Yes. A praying mantis. "I'm sorry if you've found that to be so," she said. "I could've saved you some bother, I suppose. In the fifties there was nothing here but a few clapboard houses and a general store. But there was one important resident: his name was George Bethany, and he owned a...well, lets just say he was a self made businessman with an eye for the ladies. Some of those ladies he put to profitable labor.

On their backs."

Evan raised an eyebrow. "Prostitution?"

"I'm afraid so. His ladies served the farmers and woodsmen in the Johnstown area until the police ran him out of the state. Someone

-  - I don't know who - came up with the name Bethany's Sin in dubious honor of the man. The name stuck, though we've been trying to get it changed for some time now."

Evan shrugged. "Why change it? I think it's very interesting."

"Not quite the image we'd like the rest of the state to see, though." She smiled her praying-mantis smile. "And certainly not what we'd want all Pennsylvania to read about."

"It was just an idea he was working on," Kay said defensively.

"An idea I am working on," he corrected her. Then looked again at Mrs. Giles. "How did you find out about all this?"

"Property is my business. I was searching for some old records of ownership in Johnstown when I came across some of the man's...professional records. They're stored in the basement of the Johnstown municipal building. At least they were there three - no, four years ago. Might not be there now."

"I'll have to have a look sometime.'

"Well, good luck." Mrs. Giles reached over for her husband, touched the stump of his severed arm. and began to caress it.

"Though I must say I hope your article remains unwritten. I'm afraid the villagers aren't as open~minded as you might think."

Meaning what? Evan wondered, looking into her flat, stony gaze. That Kay and I might be tarred and feathered and run out of the village? That we'd become social outcasts? Whatever the penalty, the veiled threat was there. Interesting in itself. Evan took Kay's hand. "I think we'll mix and mingle," he told the woman. "It was very good to see you again. And good to meet you." He nodded to ward David Giles and saw in that man's eyes an unfathomable and disturbing darkness. He'd seen that empty stare before, and he searched his memory. Yes, of course. The eyes of Harris Demargeon.

And the eyes of the men who'd been caged behind bamboo bars in a Vietcong POW holding camp. What could they possibly have in common?

Evan led Kay toward the patio. "What's wrong?" she asked him as they stepped outside. "You're acting strange."

"Oh? How?"

"Preoccupied. And you were a little rude to Mrs. Giles, weren't you?"

"I wasn't aware of it," he said. "If I was rude, I'm sorry."

"And you stared at her husband's arm as though you'd never seen an amputee before."

Evan grunted. "That's the trouble," he said quietly. "I have."

She looked at him, not understanding. His gaze had darkened, and she quickly looked away so she wouldn't see those strange, haunted things surfacing from the hiding places in his soul. Not here! she told him mentally. Please, for God's sake! Not here!

He put his arm around her. "I'm okay," he said, as if he'd sensed her growing fear. "Really I am." It was a lie. The clockwork mechanisms in his brain had begun to turn around the angles of questions, vague premonitions, feelings he was unable to shake.

Can't let her see it, he said to himself. Got to keep myself under control.

And suddenly, from out of the throng of people on the wide, wrought-iron railed patio, another couple stood before them. The man was shorter and stockier than Evan, and perhaps a few years older, with longish sandy brown hair and alert, intelligent-looking blue eyes. A briar pipe was clenched between his teeth, but it didn't seem to be lit. Beside him stood a pretty, petite woman with honey blond hair and attractive green eyes that reflected the lanterns' light from the trees. Somehow they seemed to fit together, though Evan could tell with one glance that they were opposites: he gregarious and outspoken, she more sensitive and thoughtful.

"don't I know you?" the man asked, looking at Kay quizzically.

"I don't think so...."

"Oh, yes, I do! You're the new math teacher at George Ross, aren't you?"

She nodded, thinking that his face looked oddly familiar. And then, seeing that patched pipe, she remembered. "Of course! You're the man who lost money in the Coke machine in the teachers' lounge one day. You're a professor of - "

"The classics," he said, and smiled, turning to Evan and thrusting out a hand. "I'm Doug Blackburn, and this is my wife, Christie." Evan shook hands with him and introduced Kay and himself. "They still haven't given me my money back yet," the man told Kay. "Cheap bastards pick your pockets over there. Have you eaten in the cafeteria yet? If you haven't, let me warn you about it.

Don't go without a physician at your side. And make sure he brings a stomach pump Better still, bring your own lunch from home!" They laughed, and the man looked around at the other people on the patio.

"So many people here, but not very many we know." He put his arm around his wife. "Where do you two live?"

"Bethany's Sin," Evan said.

"We've driven through there a few times," Christie said. "it's a very beautiful village."

"Do you live near here?" Kay asked them.

"In Whittington/' Blackburn said. "Boring as all hell over there.

They roll the sidewalks up at five o'clock. So" - he paused for a few seconds while he lit his pipe with a match - "are your classes all right?"

"It's still touch and go," she explained. "If I can make it through August, I think everything will be fine."

"Let's hope we all make it through August. Little bastards in my eight o'clock class are driving me crazy. Never do their outside reading, never answer questions in class; they wouldn't know a Gorgon if Medusa herself gave them the eye. I'm going to flunk every damned one of them. No, I'd better not do that. At least, not for spite." He struck another match and held it above the pipe's bowl.

"Mythology?" Evan asked. "'Ìhat's one of your subjects?"

"That's right. Mythology, Roman history, Latin, Greek. Are you interested in it?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. I saw an etching over at the library in Bethany's Sin; it shows a woman with a bow and arrow in a forest setting. She's some sort of Greek deity, and I was wondering..."

"Artemis," Blackburn said. "But she's recognized by other names as well: Diana, Cybele, Demeter."

"Oh. What's she the goddess of?"

Blackburn smiled and shrugged. "A little of everything. Those Greeks had a tendency to complicate things, including the powers of their deities, you know. Artemis was the goddess and protector of women, overseer of the harvest, and goddess of the moon. But she's most commonly known as the Huntress."

"The...Huntress?" Evan asked quietly.

Kay took his arm. "What's all this about?" she asked. "I didn't know you were so interested in mythology."

"I wasn't until just recently."

"Then you've probably been talking to Kathryn Drago,"

Blackburn said. "She's cornered me more than a few times, too. And since you live in Bethany's Sin, I'm not surprised you're curious about Artemis."

Evan paused for a few seconds. "I don't understand," he said finally.

"The museum in Bethany's Sin!" Blackburn said. "Artemis was the goddess of the - "

"Here you are," someone said, a figure moving alongside Evan and taking his arm. "I've been looking for you." Dr. Drago nodded toward Blackburn and his wife. She held a cut-crystal glass filled with a thick-looking red wine. "Dr. Blackburn. I see you and your wife have met the Reids?"

"Yes, and we were talking about a subject you should be interested in," he said offhandedly. "Mr. Reid was asking about the goddess Artemis. I don't suppose you've given him the grand tour of your museum yet?" He smiled thinly.

Dr. Drago was silent for a moment as she swirled the wine around in the glass. Ominously silent. Evan could feel a hostile tension building between her and the other man, and he knew Kay could feel it too, because Kay's muscles seemed to have tightened.

"You're mocking me," Drago said quietly. "I'm not sure I like that."

Blackburn stood perfectly still, as if transfixed. Perhaps he felt the same thing that Evan did: the presence of something dangerous within the woman that might suddenly leap without warning.

"Your private opinions are, of course, your own," the woman said calmly. "But when you choose to make them public, in my house, you tread on dangerous ground. Dr. Blackburn, for a man of intellect you are surprisingly...myopic. Perhaps this autumn we'll schedule that debate we've been considering?"

"I have the feeling our debate's already begun," Blackburn said, glancing uneasily at a few of the guests who'd moved in a circle around them.

Drago smiled. Her eyes were like blazing blue bits of glass, seconds out of the kiln, still glowing with unrestrained power. But there was no heat from them; only a numbing cold. "I'll destroy you," she said. "You'll stand on your opinions, and I'll stand on my evidence."

"Evidence?" Blackburn shook his head incredulously. "What evidence? Those fragments and weapons you've put under glass in your museum? Surely not!"

A group of people had gathered, drawn by the man and woman standing like combatants beside Kay and Evan. Kay found herself staring at Blackburn's head as if she could see the skull.

"I have truth," Drago said.

"No. Only myths. And dreams."

Drago leaned toward the man. Evan thought for an instant that her hand, still clutching his arm, had begun to tighten its grip. He could feel the strength behind it, as if her fingers were flesh-covered bands of metal. "In a cavern on the shores of the Black Sea," she said very quietly, but all ears could hear her because her voice had taken on a. low, threatening quality, "I found what I'd been searching for all my life. Not dreams. Not myths. But reality. I touched the cold stone walls of that tomb, Dr. Blackburn. And no man on earth can mock what I know to be true." Her eyes glinted.

It seemed to Evan that the circle of people around them had become larger and tighter. When he looked up, he saw that, oddly, they were all women.

"I'm not mocking your beliefs," Dr. Blackburn persisted, though his wife was gripping his sleeve now, "and of course your Black Sea excavation was important by anyone's standards. But I'm telling you as a professor of classics, you have no basis on which to  - "

"No basis!" The woman spoke sharply and, Evan thought, bitterly. He sensed raging emotions within her, and he sensed also that she was holding herself back with tremendous willpower. "For over ten years I've been trying to prove my beliefs," she said. "I've gone back to both Greece and Turkey several times to follow whatever threads of information I could uncover - "

"Well, I'm afraid you'll follow those threads right into the ground. There's simply no hard evidence."

A chill skittered down Evan's spine. Of course he didn't understand what the man and woman were arguing about, but he now had a feeling of deep dread and sudden, inexplicable panic. The music was still playing from the house, but it sounded distant now, worlds away. The group of women who had ringed them out of mere curiosity now seemed threatening. Beside him, Kay trembled. Dr.

Drago released his arm, and he was certain her grip had left bruises.

"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.