TWENTY-TWO

WYSINGER, AFRAID, AND EVAN SEEKING

The patrol car with BETHANY'S SIN POLICE on the driver's door rolled to a halt before the massive black gate with the large D in it.

Wysinger left the car and walked over to a speaker imbedded in the wall beside the gate; he pressed a button and waited.

A metallic voice, female: "Yes?"

He cleared his throat nervously. "It's Sheriff Wysinger. I'd like to see Dr. Drago."

"On what business?"

"It's personal."

There was a long pause, and Wysinger shifted his stance several times. Then, "Very well. Return to your car and drive through." The speaker clicked off, and the gate came open, slowly, with the hum of concealed machinery. Wysinger did as he was told, then drove toward the house. Unease always crept into his bones like a disease when he came here; he avoided the place as much as possible, though sometimes he found it necessary to speak to Dr. Drago in person. He disliked her, even hated her, because she had money and land, because she was well-educated and had traveled so much, because she was intelligent and powerful.

But far beyond the boundaries of his hate was a fear that now gnawed at him, slowly eating away whatever semblance of courage remained inside him, until when he reached the door to the house he would be so much walking, breathing, blood-filled jelly. He always wished he'd had a drink before he saw her; he wished he carried a pint of Beam in the glove compartment. But no. She'd smell it. Shit, she could smell the odor of a man a quarter of a mile away, couldn't she? She could smell his fear, too; he knew it, knew the way she -

and all of those others who were like she was - could sharpen her senses by releasing that strange and terrible power lying deep within her soul.

His fears were heightened now by the fact that evening was fast falling into limitless night. Through the trees he could see the shadowy hulk of that huge house waiting ahead. His skin crawled beneath the sweat stains on his shirt. He craned his neck, scanning the sky. No moon tonight; it had waned away to blackness. God in Heaven, he thought, I dread going inside that woman's house!

Stepping across her threshold was like stepping into a different, terrifying world where her word was law, over and above the laws of men. The house was dark and seemed deserted, but as Wysinger parked his car before it and walked slowly toward the door, a light came on in a front window. The door came open, and a slender young blond woman in violet robes awaited him. Wordlessly, he followed her inside, along the dim corridors with their earth hued murals, toward the rear of the house.

"Wait here," the woman told him when they reached a pair of gleaming oak doors. She went inside; Wysinger took off his hat, his heart already beating fast, and glanced up and down the corridor. A herd of horses, muscles straining, raced along one wall.

The blond woman reappeared and held the door open for him.

He moved past her into the room, and the door swung closed behind him. Instantly he felt trapped.

He stood in Dr. Drago's study, a room of rough stone walls with a huge fireplace and ghost-eyed, life-size statues standing in the four corners. Beside a large picture window that looked out across the pasture was a highly polished walnut desk adorned with intricately carved human figures; Dr. Drago, in black robes, sat there, writing on a sheet of pale blue stationery. A single lamp burned beside her shoulder. "What do you want?" she asked coldly, without looking up.

Wysinger approached her desk. When he got within six feet of it the woman's head came up and her eyes froze him where he was.

"I want to...to talk to you about...the others," he said quietly.

And carefully."

"What about them?"

"I hadn't said anything...before, but the hunting time's coming soon, and I..."

Her eyes narrowed. "What have you got to do with hunting time?"

He paused a moment, seemed about to give way. "It's not safe,"

he said. "That workman, Ames, saw them on the King's Bridge Road. He's the only one who ever saw them and lived. They attacked him too close to the village. I don't like that."

She was silent. She put down her pen and folded her hands before her. "I'm not concerned with what you do or don't like, Wysinger. It's of no importance."

"Yes it is, by God!" he said, his voice whipping out of control.

"I've had to deal before with state police nosin' around here looking for people! Somebody finds another truck or another body out in the woods near the village, they're going to start putting it together!"

"As you did?"

"Like I did!" Wysinger said. "I took a real personal interest in it because I found the first ones, the Fletchers; but somebody else, some smart son of a bitchin' trooper, is going to put it together sometime too!"

"That's part of your job," Drago said quietly. "To keep them away."

"Sure, I know that's my job, but if there's too many questions, I won't be able to handle the situation."

"What are you suggesting?"

He took a deep breath. "Keep them off the King's Bridge Road.

Keep them off all the country roads. Let them do their hunting in the woods, or on the back roads, far away from the village."

"I was unaware that the workman was involved," Drago said.

"He was chosen for a purpose, not for the pleasure of the others."

"I don't care what happens to that little bastard, but he saw them and can describe them. And he's been spending time up at the Cock's Crow, probably shooting his mouth off to anybody who'll listen."

"No one will believe him."

"I wouldn't be so certain about that," Wysinger said. "From what I hear, someone else has been asking a hell of a lot of questions about the museum and - "

"Yes," Drago said. "I know. Mr. Reid."

"He may know something," Wysinger said. "If he does, what's going to happen?"

Drago's eyes glittered. "Patience," she said. "Mr. Reid is a curious man, but he's groping in the dark."

"I think you ought to get rid of him," Wysinger said.

"I'll decide that!" Drago said sharply. "When the time is right.

Mrs. Reid is undergoing the transformation now. Soon she'll be ready for the rite, but until that time she'll be unstable, slipping back and forth from what she is to what she will be. Killing her husband now would be...unwise."

Wysinger ran a hand over his face. "He's dangerous. He's asking too many questions."

"Mr. Reid is being taken care of. Mrs. Hunt satisfied his curiosity about the museum, and Mrs. Giles gave him a perfect story about" - she smiled slightly - "Bethany's Sin. Did you know that Mr.

Reid was a military man? He served in the Marines. That makes him a much more interesting opponent."

"That man's trouble," Wysinger persisted. "I found him hammering at the museum door one day, like he was in...a damned trance or something."

"Strange," the woman said, darkness lying in the hollows of her eyes. "Several days ago he ran a stop sign and almost struck my horse. I caught a glimpse of his eyes through the windshield. They were...distant, unfocused. A trance? Interesting. Very interesting."

She picked up her pen and tapped it several times on the blotter before her. "Perhaps there's more to Mr. Reid than I've suspected."

She raised her eyes to the man before her. "I'll take your suggestion into consideration. Now leave."

He nodded and turned toward the door, his heart still beating fast; no matter what the damned bitch decided, he thought, he'd be glad to get behind the safety of his own walls tonight.

"Wysinger," Drago said. The man shivered involuntarily and looked back. "We have two new arrivals in the village. Mrs. Jensen and Mrs. Berryman had baby girls last week at the clinic. Mrs.

Gresham had a baby boy on Wednesday night; I want you to look in on Mr. Gresham from time to time to make certain...everything remains in control. Now you may go." She returned to her correspondence

In the police car, with his hat back on his head and his heartbeat slowly returning to normal, Wysinger drove along the road to the gate, waited for it to swing slowly open, then turned toward Bethany's Sin. In his rearview mirror he saw that gate begin to close again, like a barrier between worlds. He breathed an almost audible sigh of relief at getting away from that damned place. Of course Dr.

Drago paid him well, and had given him the house on Deer Cross Lane, but he knew all too well that she could easily have him killed.

And God, what a horrible way to die that would be! Like Paul Keating, or like any of the dozens of others. Like the Fletchers, mutilated in the gray dawn hours just before they were going to sit down for breakfast. They voted him in as sheriff term after term, but he knew that in their hearts they despised him; he knew that in their hearts they wished they could get their hands on him and tear him into grisly, dripping pieces. That scrapbook of murders had become a good insurance policy. Now, if he sensed any threat, he could seal it up and hide it somewhere safe, maybe in a Johnstown bus locker, even; or he could send it to his cousin Hal in Wisconsin, with strict orders not to open it unless something happened to him. That way he'd have an edge over them. He wondered what they'd do if that scrapbook were found. Kill him? No, probably not. They needed him for the sake of appearances. All's well in Bethany's Sin; no dark deeds in this village. Bullshit.

Night had fallen over the village. Stars glittered in the sky. No moon tonight. No moon. Thank God. He was approaching the Gresham house; it was dark, but he knew Mr. Gresham sat inside, staring at a wall or ceiling. There would be an empty bottle on the floor beside him, and the television or the radio would be on, filling those rooms with phantom figures, phantom voices. Mr. Gresham would be drunkenly mourning the death of his infant son. Perhaps contemplating suicide? No. Gresham didn't have the courage.

Wysinger left the Gresham house behind. Suddenly a pair of headlights rounded a curve and passed him, fast but within the posted speed limit. He watched the red taillights recede in his rearview mirror, then disappear, A station wagon? Whose? Except for that car the streets of Bethany's Sin were deserted; in the forest the insects began to whine, louder and louder, and the heat had already settled to ground level, like a steaming fog. Wysinger turned onto Deer Cross Lane, then into the driveway of his house. For him the day was over.

But for Evan the most important part of it lay ahead. He was on his way out of Bethany's Sin, past the Drago property, and along Highway 219 toward Whittington where Dr. Blackburn was expecting him. He'd almost called the man to postpone their conversation because Kay wasn't feeling very well, but he'd decided that talking to Blackburn was vital. Kay had missed two more days of school; that disturbed him deeply because it wasn't like her to take time off from work. She certainly wasn't a hypochondriac, nor was she especially prone to illnesses barring an occasional bout with the flu. But now she was staying in bed most of the time, eating very little and practically living on those damned Tylenols. Evan wanted her to go to the Mabry Clinic for a checkup, but she said she didn't have time right now, she'd do it as soon as the term ended. It seemed to Evan that in just the last couple of days her face had begun to change; she'd paled, and purplish shadows had crept beneath her eyes and into the hollows of her cheeks. At night she cried out in her sleep but refused to talk about what was haunting her. Evan had brought her some vitamins from the drug store, thinking that perhaps she wasn't eating well enough, but those bottles sat unopened in the bathroom medicine cabinet. He felt ineffectual, helplessly watching his wife...yes, waste away before his eyes. She'd been sleeping when he'd left home for Whittington.

Evan found 114 Morgan Lane in the quiet little community of Whittington; Blackburn's house was smaller than his own, of weathered red brick with a white picket fence. When Evan rang the doorbell a dog began to bark inside. Blackburn's voice, nearing the door, said, Be quiet, Hercules!" and the dog stopped. The door opened and Blackburn, in jeans and a casual pullover shirt, smiled and said, "Come on in!'

The house was decorated well, if inexpensively; in the living room were a brown plaid sofa and a couple of chairs, a dark gold carpet, a glass-topped table with National Geographic s and Smithsonian magazines arranged on it. Christie, also in casual clothes, looked up from the sofa and smiled; at Evan's feet a small brown bulldog sniffed, sniffed, sniffed.

"Good to see you again," Blackburn said, shaking Evan's hand.

"Here you go. Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? A beer, maybe?"

He sat in one of the chairs. "No, thank you."

"We've got wine," Christie said. "Boone's Farm."

"That sounds good."

"Fine. Doug, do you want a glass?" She rose from the sofa.

"A small one." Christie left the room, and Blackburn took her place on the sofa; the bulldog jumped up beside him, still eyeing the stranger. "Well," he said, "how are things in Bethany's Sin?"

"It's still there," Evan said. "Other than that..." He shrugged.

Blackburn stroked the bulldog's back, and it stretched out lazily.

"You can see what goes on in Whittington. Seven o'clock and lights out, by municipal decree. No, really, it's a nice little place. Christie and I prefer peace and quiet. And Hercules does, too." He scratched the dog's head.

Christie came with a strawberry wine; Evan took a glass from her, and she settled herself on the other side of her husband. "I'm sorry your wife couldn't come with you, Mr. Reid. I'd like to see her again."

"She's not feeling too well these days."

"Oh, that's too bad," Christie said. "What is it? A virus or something?"

He sipped at the wine. "To tell you the truth, I don't know what it is. I think perhaps she's overworking." That lie stung him.

"Probably so," Blackburn said. "This is her first term; I suppose she's breaking her back to do a good job."

"Yes," Evan said, "I guess that's it."

Blackburn drank from his glass and then put it down on the table before him. He reached into his shirt pocket for that briar pipe and began to fill it from a tobacco pouch. "Now," he said after he'd gotten it lit, "what exactly's on your mind? I'll tell you, you sounded very anxious over the phone. And concerned. I hope I can help you with whatever your problem is."

"I hope you can, too." Evan leaned forward slightly. "At Dr.

Drago;s party you and she...well, you got into an argument over her museum exhibit. I didn't quite understand what was going on, but I saw clearly how disturbed Dr. Drago was. Since then, I've been through the museum myself; I've seen the artifacts from Themiscrya and now I have a question."

"Shoot," Blackburn said.

"Why all the disagreement between you and her over a three-thousand-year-old farming community?"

Blackburn stared at him, blinked, smiled slightly. Then the smile broadened. "Oh, come on! Who told you Themiscrya was a farming community? Not Dr. Drago herself, surely!"

"No. A woman at the museum, a member of the historical society."

"I don't understand that," Blackburn said, his brow knitting.

"Maybe some of those ladies in that so-called society have got some common sense after all."

Evan shook his head., "I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean."

"Since l965," Blackburn said, a wreath of pipe smoke above his head, "Kathryn Drago has maintained that the city of Thermiscrya was the capital of the Amazon nation. A center of warfare, not a damned settlement of farmers!"

"Amazons?" Evan smiled slightly. "Like Wonder Woman?"

"No." Surprisingly, Blackburn's voice was grave. "That's pure fiction, and ludicrous at that. The Amazons were glorified in Greek mythology; if they ever existed - and that's a huge if - they were bloodthirsty female killers who looked upon battle as recreation.

Men were their sworn enemies; those they didn't slaughter on the battlefields, they mutilated and kept as sexual slaves - "

"Wait a minute!" Evan said. That word had thudded into him with the force of a blow, ripping the smile off his face and exposing the raw nerves beneath. "What do you mean 'mutilated'?"

"Crippled them in some way. They held the barbaric belief that cutting off an arm or a leg would strengthen the male's sexual organs. Of course, they didn't particularly crave the attentions of men, but they needed female babies to keep their tribe strong.

Usually the Amazons slaughtered the men after they weren't needed any longer." He paused for a moment, seeing something odd in Evan's eyes. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No," Evan said. "Nothing's wrong." Silhouette behind a curtain. Reaching for a hand that wasn't there. Legs falling away from a torso. Nothings wrong nothings wrong....

"Mythologically," Blackburn was saying, "Dr. Drago's correct.

Throughout the fables that have come down from the Greeks, the city of Themiscrya was a massive Amazon fortress, from which the female warriors planned their marches on the Greek state.

Realistically, it just simply wasn't the case, much as it would thrill me and countless other mythologists if it were. Oh, Themiscrya existed, all right; that's a historical fact. The Romans attacked and destroyed the city in 72 B.C., but no Amazons were found in the ruins. Only men. So..."

"What about the earlier inhabitants of Themiscrya?" Evan asked. "The ones those artifacts in the museum belonged to?"

"Ah!" Blackburn said, the pipe clenched in his teeth now.

"That's where it gets a little tricky. Historians don't really know that much about the beginnings of Themiscrya; that's why Dr. Drago's finds were so important. Since 1965 a picture of the early Themiscryan civilization has been slowly emerging: they were a warlike culture who raised horses and some staple crops, and who worshiped the deities Ares and Artemis. There's evidence in some remaining wall paintings that it was at one time a very beautiful, well-planned city. But somewhere through the ages it gradually began to decay, as most cities did and still do; when the Romans attacked, there probably wasn't much left of it."

"And there's no evidence at all to support Dr. Drago's belief?"

Blackburn smiled. "Inconclusive evidence. And that's not good enough."

"Such as?"

"Pottery adorned with Amazon-like figures. Fragments of wall paintings showing figures that might be female warriors standing over their fallen foes. That sort of thing. But at that time, you see, the Amazon legend was very popular; a great many sculptors and painters of the period used them as subjects. Amazons popped up on drinking cups, vases, pots and pans, even the Parthenon. So why shouldn't they be depicted at Themiscrya as well? But Dr. Drago found something that's made the historians wonder a little bit. She crawled through a tunnel of fallen rock into a cavern, and there she found a primitive statue of Artemis over an altar of black stone. This Artemis was covered. with what were clearly female breasts. Dozens of them."

Evan raised an eyebrow.

"There's speculation among mythologists, mostly unfounded, that the Amazons may have seared off their right breasts with either a heated sword or some kind of branding-iron-like thing. It was done as a test of courage and as a sacrifice to the goddess. Also, some say, the right breast might have interfered with the drawing back of the bowstring." He traced a star on the right side of his chest. "Scar's supposed to have looked like that. That statue's over at the museum in Bethany's Sin. didn't you see it?"

Evan shook his head, remembering a black door that cut off his progress. Remembering a black altar stone in a vision, and women waiting.

"One interesting thing," Blackburn said as he struck another match to his pipe. "Themiscrya was rumored to be haunted."

Evan locked eyes with the other man. "Haunted?"

"Right." The tobacco fired; he exhaled smoke. "There was a village called Caraminya near the dig site; from what I've gathered, the villagers thought the area's earthquakes were caused by the wrath of the slain Amazons. Soon after the excavations began, some of the Caraminya women...went off the deep end, I guess you'd say."

"How?"

"Tried to kill their husbands, ranted and raved in a language nobody could understand. Anyway, Caraminya isn't there anymore.

After the quake of 'sixty-live, and after Themiscrya began to reappear out of the earth, those villagers packed up their belongings and left."

"This cavern that Dr. Drago found," Evan said quietly. "What else was in it?"

"Scorched statues. Evidence that a huge fire had burned there at one time. A lot of ashes; mounds and mounds of ashes that everyone at first thought were only dust. That cavern had been closed up for God knows how long; the quake broke it open again."

Evan sipped thoughtfully at his wine. "Ashes? Of what?"

"Bones," Blackburn replied, watching Evan's eyes. "The cavern had been used as a huge funeral pyre, ages ago. The historians are still working on that one."

Evan ran a hand across his forehead, finished his wine, set the glass aside.

"Would you like more, Mr. Reid?" Christie asked. Evan shook his head.

"Now, how about explaining to me what this is all about?"

Blackburn asked.

Careful, Evan cautioned himself. Careful. "Do you believe the Amazons ever existed?" he asked the man. "Anywhere?"

Blackburn smiled again, but the smile wasn't reflected in his eyes. "If you want to believe, then yes, they did exist. Homer says they did. Arrian says they did. Herodotus does, too. Historical records say Amazons attacked and almost overcame the city of Athens around 1256 B.C. The last great Amazon queen, Penthesilea, is supposed to have been killed by Achilles at Troy. And Troy did exist. Who knows? The only thing that endures is the legend - of wild, cunning female fighters who came out of the mists and returned to the mists. But imagine if you can, Mr. Reid, hearing across the plain of battle the long and fierce war cry that would freeze the marrow in your bones; in the distance you could see the dust boiling as their horses approached, and long before they reached your ranks, the skies would sizzle with arrows. Then it would be hand-to-hand combat, sword and spear against the bipennis, the Amazonian double-bladed battle-ax; their horses would twist aside from spear thrusts, or a bipennis would shatter the arm that gripped a blade. And during the terrible din of bloodletting, their eyes would be wild and shining; their senses would sing with the stimulation and tumult of war, as necessary for them as breathing. There would be no end to the fighting until the last man had been beheaded or dragged back to camp to be mutilated. That would be a horrifying way to die, Mr. Reid; and I thank God that, if the Amazons did live, our destinies never met." He raised his wineglass, drank, returned it to the table.

Evan rose from his chair. There seemed to be an abyss inside him, somewhere between the soul and the physical body; within that cold darkness, terror churned, about to break free and flood like bile from his lips. He moved toward the door.

Blackburn stood up. "You're not leaving, are you? I imagine there's most of a bottle of Boone's Farm left."

"I've got to go," Evan said; he placed his hand on the doorknob.

"You know, I still don't understand what's going on," Blackburn said. "I assume you're not going to tell me?"

"What happened to the male babies?" Evan asked him. "Surely some of the Amazons did have baby boys?'

"Of course." Blackburn took the pipe from between his teeth and examined Evan's face, not certain precisely what he was seeing.

"That couldn't be helped. The Amazons kept some of the males, to be used as breeding stock later on. Most of the male infants they killed. Why are you so interested in the Amazon civilization? I want to know."

"Sometime I'll tell you. For now, let's just chalk it up to curiosity." Evan opened the door; stale heat waited to embrace him.

Hercules yipped once, twice, and Christie put a hand on him to quiet him. "Thanks for having me over," Evan said. "And thanks for the wine."

"Bring Mrs. Reid next time," Christie said.

"Yes, I will. Good night."

"Good night," Blackburn said.

Evan drove toward Bethany's Sin, his mind working furiously, sheering away from the terrible truth, but always, always coming back because there was no other way out of the labyrinth.

And at the Reid house on McClain Terrace the thing moved in the dark, down the stairs, through the den, toward the kitchen. Where the knives were. It could smell the fetid stench of man in these rooms; the man this pitifully weak woman named Kay lived with, slept with, allowed to touch this mansion of flesh. The girl-child, sleeping upstairs. A sheet wadded under the door to jam it shut and muffle noise. The thing moved into the kitchen, senses tingling.

Almost able to see in the dark. Almost. Glasses, dishes stacked on the counter next to the sink. An arm swept through them, scattering most of them to the floor. Opening drawers, wrenching them out, spilling their contents. And then it found what it sought. A large bladed butcher knife, hardly used. The blade was so keen it drew a thread of blood from a testing finger.

In the darkness the thing waited for the man to come home, as the cheery yellow kitchen clock showed three minutes into August.