Dark Waters (13 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

R
ACHEL STOOD OUTSIDE
the diner’s back door in her running shorts and T-shirt. It was past midnight, and the air was hazy with humidity. Insects swarmed the security light, and she knew that if she didn’t get moving, the ones drawn to blood would then swarm to
her
. But she couldn’t quite make herself move yet.

She put her hands on her hips and closed her eyes. The old woman from her … dream, vision,
whatever
, had said: “
He has severed their connection to you.
” And the spirits had avoided her when she sought them after her tryst with Stillwater. But surely they were strong enough that they could still come to her if they wanted.

Her head still buzzed from the beer, and the off-kilter feeling had grown. What did she truly hope to find at the park? Her lake spirits, Ethan Walker, or Kyle Stillwater?

She knew what her
body
wanted to find. Despite everything, the thought of how Stillwater had felt beside her filled her with an unexpected longing. Not even Ethan inspired this. But there was no tenderness to it, no sense of love, only pure lust of the most degenerate kind. He’d been a millimeter away from possessing her intimately, and her body desperately wanted to close that gap.

And that’s what held her in place. Shouldn’t she be craving the comfort and tenderness of Ethan, the man who’d risked his own life to save hers? Shouldn’t she fucking
call him back
? Why couldn’t she?

She sighed and set out down the street. Maybe nonsexual physical exercise would help clear her head. A lone taxicab passed her, and the driver waved lazily. She recognized him but couldn’t dredge up his name.

Her joints felt stiff and awkward, and she wished she’d stretched more beforehand. But she forced herself through the discomfort, and soon her muscles were sliding with their usual smoothness beneath her damp skin.

“
Soon he will be able to trap and destroy the spirits,
” the woman had said.

Rachel felt a tingle of warning as she approached Hudson Park and stopped a block away. She drew deep breaths as she took in the familiar view: the streetlamps swarming with insects, the grass glittering with dew, and the shape of the lake-spirit effigy mound, the weeds and grass atop it uncut out of respect.

Bad things had happened to her here before, of course. Arlin Korbus had kidnapped her, for one thing. She could’ve chosen a different spot for her nightly swim after that, since the spirits waited for her wherever she entered the lake. But Hudson Park was
her
sacred space, and she refused to be chased away.

Still, she ducked into the shadow of a tree and peeked around it, studying the small park in more detail. Nothing moved. All was silent, except for the expected noises.
You’re paranoid
, she scolded herself.

Then she heard something else. It was too soft to identify at first, and then it grew louder. Someone in the park was
laughing
. A woman.

Rachel clutched the tree trunk so hard that one of her fingernails bent.

Faint but clear, the chuckles came out of the humid night like the echoing call of a ghost. The contempt and triumph in the sound made Rachel grit her teeth.

At last a female silhouette came up the hill from the water’s edge. At first Rachel couldn’t say what was odd about it, and then she realized: The woman was wet from swimming, and
nude
. Her skin glistened the way Rachel’s always did, sparkling as the droplets ran down. She clutched something like a small football in one hand.

The stranger picked up a robe from the ground, pulled it on, and cinched it tight. Rachel gasped. Now she recognized her silhouette. It was the woman who’d spied on her following her tryst with Stillwater.

The woman paused by the effigy mound’s head. She paused at the circle of stones. “Thank you for holding them for me, Artemak,” she said. “It made catching them so much easier.”

Rachel recalled the strange word from the ceremony at the park. Was this the woman she’d also glimpsed that day?

Still chuckling to herself, the woman walked to a small car parked in the darkness beneath a tree. She drove two blocks before turning on her lights, then disappeared around a corner.

Rachel stayed in the shadows. Her stomach was knotted not with the usual sensual anticipation but with an uncertainty so strong it paralyzed her. She felt absolutely no tug toward the water. She watched the surface of the lake sparkle in the night, but nothing happened within her. Her clothes did not grow uncomfortable, and her body did not tingle with slow arousal. She took several deep breaths and tried to force the feeling that had sustained her for so many years, but nothing happened.

With a sigh of resignation she turned and started home. Every few steps she glanced back, hoping to see—or was it dreading to see?—Kyle Stillwater loom out of the night and beckon her into his embrace. She imagined running to him, crushing herself against his hard body, falling to her knees before him to worship him with her mouth. My God, she wanted that, and the realization filled her with self-loathing and loneliness. But he didn’t appear, and eventually she turned the corner and lost sight of the park.

KYLE STILLWATER SAT
in his bathtub as his shower rained weakly down on him. The water was no longer hot, but he did not move. Henry Hawes had told him he was possessed, and Henry knew about such things. There was something inside Kyle now that delighted in causing others to suffer.

Kyle looked at his hand. The tiny scar on one knuckle was still there. He’d gotten it as a child riding his bike, and his mother had bandaged it with a piece of paper towel and some duct tape, since they couldn’t afford real Band-Aids.
My sweet little boy
, she’d said to him, and held him while he cried. Could a man with that memory of kindness really be possessed by something evil?

At last he stood up and turned off the water. He toweled off his hair and body, ignoring the body spray he usually wore. Then he stepped out of the tub and grabbed the edge of the sink as a wave of nausea hit him.

When he looked up and saw his face in the mirror, he screamed.

It was him, and yet it
wasn’t
him. Instead of his own light blue eyes, there were round black orbs bigger than they should have been. His strong nose had elongated to a sharp point, as had his chin. He would’ve looked, in fact, like the Christian devil if his skin wasn’t suddenly bone-white.

His upstairs neighbor stomped on the floor. “Shut up!”

He turned away from the mirror, his heart thundering in his chest. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked back.

His face was normal. But now his
hair
was snowy white.

He pulled a strand in front of his face. It wasn’t a hallucination or mistake. What the
hell
?

And then he blacked out.

———

DARIUS DID A
double take as his neighbor came outside. The older man slept only in short bursts, and since he couldn’t afford to run the air conditioner, he sat out on his patio even in the middle of the night. He knew the young Indian was trying to be an actor, but he’d never seen him in costume before. “Whoa, that’s quite a look. What’s up with that?”

Kyle turned and gazed at the older black man. “What do you mean?”

“That white hair. You going to an audition or something? Gonna play an old man?”

Kyle smiled, and the look made Darius nervous. “No,” Kyle said. “I’m going … for a swim.”

“At this time of night?”

“Oh, yes. And I don’t think I’ll be back.”

“Before morning?”

The smile widened. It made Darius think of the wolves he’d seen on the Discovery Channel. “Ever,” Kyle said, and strode away down the street.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

R
ACHEL?” HELENA SAID
a second time.

Rachel looked up. She was alone in the diner’s tiny, genderless restroom; Helena’s voice had come through the door from outside. Rachel said, “Huh? What?”

Helena was obviously trying to mask her concern. “Just wondered if you were about done in there. We’re getting a line.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Rachel turned off the tap and dried her hands. Her fingertips had pruned; how long had the water been running?

She dried her hands and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She saw something different in her face but couldn’t identify it. Did she look older somehow? More worried and stressed? Were there lines on her face that hadn’t been there before?

She opened the door. Almost before she could get out, a slender college girl slithered past her. Her sigh of relief was audible through the door.

Helena tried to meet her eyes, but Rachel ignored her. She also ignored Patty, seated at the counter, watching with blatant concern. She went into the kitchen, where Jimmy was finishing an order of hash browns. His sleeves were long today, pushed halfway up his forearms. That meant he either had fresh needle tracks to hide or needed to do laundry because all his short-sleeved shirts were dirty. Rachel didn’t have the energy to determine which. If he was using again, she’d have to fire him.

Jimmy saw her and volunteered, “It’s laundry night tonight.”

She smiled weakly. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Jimmy.”

“I know. I just don’t want you thinking badly of me when there’s no reason.”

Helena touched Rachel’s arm and said quietly, “You’re sure spacing out today. Are you getting sick?”

“No, I’m just a little out of sorts.”

“Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down? I can handle this until the lunch crowd starts. I’ll call in one of the other girls. Hell, Patty can help out, after all the free coffee we’ve given her.”

“No, don’t be silly. It’ll pass.”

When she returned to the dining room, Patty waved her over. “I really need to talk to you,” the girl said eagerly.

“What about?”

Patty looked around, then leaned close. She whispered, “It happened again.”

“What did?”

Still whispering, she said, “Remember that boy Dewey Raintree? Well, I don’t think he was … I mean, I know he was
real
, but I don’t think he was … 
human
.”

“I don’t understand,” Rachel said.

“I think your lake spirits sent him.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because of the way he smelled. I know how it sounds, but he smelled like lake water. Not like he’d been swimming in it, but like … he was made of it.”

Rachel put all her energy into focusing on this. “Okay, but … you said it happened again. Did he come back?”

“Not him,” she said with a blushing giggle. “Someone else. Someone else so perfect, he just
has
to be from them.”

Rachel felt a chill at what this could mean. The old woman had said Rachel’s “spirit sister” was also in danger; had Stillwater also come to Patty? And if so … “Who was it?” Rachel asked.

Before Patty could answer, the bell over the door rang. A tall woman with unruly jet-black hair entered, looked around, and took a seat at the counter. Her dark hair and eyes made her look like a Gypsy. She had a theatrical quality that drew every eye.

Patty stood, bouncing with excitement. “I have to go. We’ll talk about it later, okay?” Before Rachel could protest, the girl was out the door, almost dancing away down the sidewalk.

On her way out of the kitchen with a tray full of orders, Helena said, “Can you get that woman that just came in? I’ve got my hands full right now.”

“Sure,” Rachel said, still gazing after Patty. She would have to pursue this, but for now, she had a customer. Rachel took silverware and a glass of water to her and said, “Hi. Welcome to Rachel’s. You’ve got about five minutes left on breakfast, or you can go ahead and order from the lunch menu.”

The woman looked at her closely, with a kind of scrutiny that made Rachel nervous. The woman wasn’t trying to place her but seemed to be looking for something in her face.

“Just coffee for the moment,” she said at last. Her voice was deep and throaty. She rested her hands flat on the counter. The nails were bare and ragged, and what looked like pinpoints of paint stained her dark skin. “You’re Rachel, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“I’m Betty McNally,” she said, and offered her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

They shook. Betty’s hand was long-fingered, heavy-veined, and warm. When their skin touched, Rachel felt a strange, almost erotic, tingle. She pulled away as quickly as possible.

“Is there something I can help you with, besides coffee?” Rachel asked.

“I think you and I may have something in common.”

“Really? What’s that?”

She put a business card facedown on the counter. “It’s something we should discuss in private. Can you come by my place this evening?”

“I don’t know, I’m awfully busy tonight,” Rachel demurred. She had to talk to Patty, and Betty was giving her the creeps.

Betty leaned over the counter and said quietly, “It has to do with the lakes.”

Rachel’s mouth went dry. As casually as she could manage, she said, “What about them?”

“What lives in them,” Betty said. Then, so quiet even Rachel could barely hear, she added, “What they do to you.”

Helena appeared beside Rachel with a cup on a saucer. “I heard you say you’d like some coffee,” she said brightly. “Would you like cream with that?”

“No, thank you,” Betty said to Helena, although she continued to look at Rachel.

Helena said nothing but waited to get Rachel’s attention. The two women seemed to be locked in a staring contest, and when another customer called, Helena sighed in exasperation and left.

Betty said, “Like I said, we have something in common, and I have information you need to know.”

It took Rachel three tries to pick up the card with her trembling fingers. It advertised Art Waves, a gallery and tarot salon. It was no stretch to imagine Betty laying out cards and peering into a crystal ball. “I’ll try,” Rachel said.

“It would be in your best interest to talk to me.”

The haze cleared for a moment. “Is that a threat?” Rachel asked.

Betty smiled. “No, honey. It’s a warning.” She kissed the tips of her first two fingers and touched them to Rachel’s lips. “I hope to see you soon.”

She stood, put a five-dollar bill down beside the untouched coffee, then left. Rachel stared after her until Helena said, “Who was
that
?”

Rachel handed the card to Helena. “She owns an art gallery, apparently.”

Helena looked at it. “Never heard of it. Or her.”

Rachel tucked the card into her jeans pocket, went back to work, and tried unsuccessfully to put the woman out of her mind.

ETHAN WEARILY CLOSED
the door to his inner office. Ambika was busily shutting down her computer and filing things in appropriate cabinets. He reached the office door, stopped, and leaned forward until his head rested against the wood. “Damn,” he muttered.

Ambika looked around. “Forget something?”

“No.” He tossed his briefcase contemptuously onto the guest couch. “I’m just disgusted with life at the moment.”

She crossed her arms, displaying her immaculate white nails. “How so?”

“I just want to build things, you know? Houses, apartment buildings, whatever anyone wants. I don’t need to be rich, and I’m not using this as a stepping-stone to politics. So why do I feel like everyone I talk to is trying to put something over on me?”

“Because most of them are.”

“I know. I just wish it didn’t have to be so complicated.” He sighed as he retrieved his briefcase. “Wouldn’t it be a great world if people just said what they meant?”

Ambika smiled wryly. “That world doesn’t exist. People are so invested in their own realities that they’ll protect them at any expense. The truth, to them, is a threat.”

He laughed. “Are you a philosopher too?”

“Goodness, no. I’m simply amused by what I see around me.”

“Is it different in India?”

“The details are different. The underlying motivations are the same.”

He smiled, patted her arm, and left the office. On his way down the stairs, the urge to call Rachel was so overwhelming it was like physical hunger.