Dark Waters (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

E
THAN SQUINTED UP
at the sign over the door. “Art Waves, huh?”

“She does a lot with water imagery,” Rachel said. Betty had invited Rachel over immediately, apparently anxious to brainstorm a solution to their mutual problem, only no lights showed anywhere. Rachel used the brief time to tell Ethan about Kyle Stillwater, the old woman in her vision, and her missing lake spirits. He had listened calmly, and when she finished gave no sign he thought she was a lunatic. She loved him more than ever.

“It looks closed,” Ethan said.

“I’m sure the door’s open. She’s expecting us.” But Rachel made no move to try the handle. The darkness, the empty street, and the lifeless building made her nervous.

“And you think she can help you?”

“She understands what’s happened to me. That makes us sisters, of a sort.”

He put a hand on her arm. “I’ll be here no matter what, you know.”

She felt tenderness for him on a scale she never knew possible. She patted his huge, strong hand. “I know. But it’s not just about me. My spirits must truly be in danger, because they’d never just abandon me like this. They wouldn’t punish me for being tricked.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I can’t explain why, but I am. It’s … a feeling. So I have to help them if I can, just as they’d help me.”

He nodded. “I’ve had to trust my feelings sometimes too. Even when there’s no logical reason for it. It’s saved my life.”

“So I’d make a good soldier?”

“No. You’re
already
a good warrior.”

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. Then she tried the door. Once again it was open, and she led him inside. She said loudly, “Betty? It’s Rachel.”

The track lighting came on, bathing the room in ambience and spotlighting the various artworks. Ethan stopped dead at the sight of the huge self-portrait.

“That makes me feel … inadequate,” he said quietly.

“It would make Milton Berle feel inadequate,” Rachel agreed.

“Where in your house would you even put that?” he asked.

“The game room, of course,” Rachel shot back, trying not to giggle.

They stopped when another door opened somewhere and Betty emerged from the shadows at the back of the gallery. She wore a tank top and jeans, both of which could barely contain her curves.

She paused when she saw Ethan. “I didn’t know you were bringing company.”

“This is Ethan,” Rachel said.

“We’ve met,” he said curtly.

Rachel looked surprised. “You have?”

“Yes,” Betty agreed. Then she turned to Rachel. “I should speak with you alone.”

“Ethan can know—”

“Then you can tell him when we’re done. But I’d feel more comfortable discussing this in private up in my apartment.”

Rachel turned to him. “Would you mind waiting down here?”

“Try not to touch anything,” Betty said, masking the snide words beneath a tone of extreme politeness.

Rachel gave Ethan a last look and what she hoped was a reassuring little smile before she followed Betty upstairs.

ALL THE DOORS
to the other rooms in Betty’s apartment were closed, so Rachel could see only the living room. It was enough.

It looked like some Asperger’s sufferer’s idea of sophisticated homoerotica: Garish nude men were everywhere, from strange statues to black-velvet paintings. She noticed that on the inside, the doorknob was even the head of a brass penis. She tried to find someplace to focus her eyes that didn’t involve parts of the male anatomy.

“I got your notes,” Rachel said, intently studying the couch. “What do we need to do?”

“It should’ve been clear,” Betty said. “He killed that man Bloom and used the dead man’s heart to trap the spirits of the lake. They were already weakened by you, after all.”

Rachel flushed angrily. “Stop saying that. I didn’t make them do anything. But I do want to help them.”

“Why? So you can get off again, and then you can run home to your boyfriend? Is that all they mean to you?”

“No! They’ve been kind to me and helped me, and they do good for people. They don’t deserve to be sent into limbo for all eternity. And if it’s in my power to save them, I want to do it. You should want to as well. It might show them that you’re worth helping too.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Betty snapped. “You have no idea what I’ve gone through because of them. All right, so you want to help. It’s pretty straightforward. We have to summon Kyle Stillwater and force him to give up the heart. Then we can release the spirits.”

“Can we do it anywhere?”

“ ‘It’ what?”

“Release the spirits.”

“No, it has to be in the water. If I’m right about what lives inside that man, he won’t be far away from the water either.”

“So how do we find him when no one else has?”

“No one else knows what they’re looking for.” Betty smiled. “And how do you catch something? With bait.”

“What sort of bait?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“He came to you once but didn’t finish what he started, did he? He didn’t really
have
that tight little body of yours, did he?” Betty tapped Rachel’s behind, and Rachel reflexively slapped her hand away. She glared at the older woman, who shrugged and laughed. “He’ll want to do that. He’ll
need
to do that, to complete his dominion over his enemies. These spirits are as sex-mad as any man of flesh and blood, and the temptation of the one who got away will be too strong for him to resist.”

Rachel hated the excitement that coursed through her at the thought of Stillwater touching her again.
It’s not me
, she thought.
It’s not really me
. “So how do I go about letting him know I’m available?”

Betty laughed. “You really are having a hard time thinking. Your mind’s settling down to that one track, isn’t it? The answer is obvious. Go for a swim.”

“And he’ll just show up at the park again?” Rachel said, annoyed at how easily this woman could read her.

Betty stepped close, into Rachel’s personal space. It felt as weird as it had before, maybe even weirder. “I don’t mean at
your
usual place. I mean at his. Lake Wingra.”

AS SOON AS
he heard the door close above him, Ethan petulantly touched about a dozen pieces of artwork. He knew it was childish, but it was late and the woman annoyed him. Then he wandered through the gallery, idly examining the other artwork. He knew enough to judge good art from bad, and most of this was mediocre at best. But the huge self-portrait kept drawing his eye, and he was glad no one was there to see him examine it minutely. Marty and Chuck had a single piece of homoerotic art—a small brass statue that was barely noticeable—in their home. Yet it had taken months before Ethan was able to stop concentrating on not looking at it, which of course amused Marty to no end.

Seeing Betty’s face, her full lips and vaguely Asian eyes, above a nude male body with an erect penis the size of his own forearm puzzled Ethan. What sort of woman was this Betty McNally? She didn’t really seem like a lesbian, and certainly she had the voluptuous form most men would relish. She could be bisexual, he supposed. Madison
was
a college town, after all. Yet when he’d met her at the diner, she’d looked him over like …

Like another guy
, he thought suddenly. That was it. He
knew
that look, that belligerent chest-first pose, all too well. From junior high through his tour in Iraq, he saw it practically every day of his life. Betty’s impressive breasts distracted him so he didn’t recognize it at first, but now he did.

And that puzzled him even more. Was she a transsexual? It seemed unlikely, but whatever else she was, every instinct honed during the war warned him that she was trouble.

The ceiling squeaked as either Betty or Rachel moved around upstairs. He wished he could make out their murmuring voices more clearly.

———

“SO WHEN DO
we do this?” Rachel said.

“No time like the present. How about later tonight? Say, two a.m.? We’ll meet where the spring comes out from beneath the tree. There’s an observation deck there. Know where I mean?”

“The Arboretum’s closed then.”

“Come on. You skinny-dip in the middle of town, don’t you?”

“So should we pick you up?”

Betty noticed Rachel staring, and smiled. “No, I’ll meet you there. I have to gather some things to help us break the spell. You do understand that’s what this is, right? A spell? You’re under one, and we’re going to use one to summon him.”

“I’m not worried about the terminology, just that it works.”

“Good.”

“But my friend downstairs will be with me.” At the outrage in Betty’s eyes, Rachel said, “He knows all about me, and I want him there. It’s not open to discussion.”

“Then I won’t waste my breath on it, except to say he may not like what he sees. Is he willing to watch you make love to another man—or at least something that
looks
like another man—in order to save yourself?”

Rachel didn’t answer. She hadn’t thought of that. In the presence of Kyle Stillwater, how would she behave? Was it fair to Ethan to make him watch that?

Betty smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

“Yes,” Rachel answered suddenly. “Yes, he is. If that’s what I need to do.”

Betty’s smile widened. It was a cold, malicious smile, filled with contempt. “We’ll see, won’t we? In two hours, then.”

RACHEL HELD ETHAN’S
hand in silence as they left Betty’s gallery. He followed her around to the driver’s side and held the door open for her. “Since you’re the passenger, shouldn’t I do that for you?” she said.

“Next time,” he said. Then he climbed into the other seat and buckled his seat belt. The drive to the diner took only a couple of minutes, and then he walked her to her door. As she unlocked it he said, “Now what?”

“Wait for two a.m., I suppose,” she said. “Kill an hour and a half watching infomercials.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

“You sound tired.”

“Well, we did just exert ourselves before we left your place.”

“That’s true. Do you want to lie down and rest?”

She laughed. “I don’t think that’s possible right now.”

“It’s that bad?”

The humor left her voice. “It’s all I can do not to scream, Ethan.”

He nodded sympathetically. “I can go away, if it’s what you want. I don’t want my presence to make things any worse. I’ll meet you back here a little before two.”

He was so sincere, so utterly earnest in his solicitous care of her, that she wanted to cry. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him with unmistakable ardor, pressing her body against his. “No. Come upstairs with me.”

“Can you—”

“I can do anything I want, Ethan Walker. And if I want to spend the evening as a slave to your every wish, no matter what, then I can do that. The question is, after what we already did, can
you
?”

She felt his manhood swell. “I think I can rise to the occasion, as James Bond would say. Is it what you want?”

“I want to do whatever you tell me to do. Nothing’s off the table. Or the bed,” she added with a little grin.

“Won’t it make things worse?”

She smiled. “You let me worry about that. You worry about what you’re going to make me do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

R
ACHEL AND ETHAN
arrived at the gate to the Arboretum at one-thirty. It was closed, so they parked in the lot just outside it. They might get a ticket, but it was unlikely that Rachel’s car would be towed before morning.

The huge preserve—1,200 acres of forest and carefully restored prairie in the middle of the city—was popular with hikers, joggers, and bicyclists. In the winter, the trails were given over to cross-country skiers. Ethan didn’t know how often it was patrolled, but Marty had mentioned several times that the place needed a greater police presence. He hoped that meant they wouldn’t get busted for trespassing.

Both of them were exhausted, running on adrenaline and tension. For Ethan it was the same uncertainty he’d experienced in the army, when he was unsure where the danger would come from, or what form it would take. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and scanned the shadows for movement—a task made more difficult by the wind that made everything in the darkness move. It also made the air cooler than it had been in weeks.

“Her car’s not here,” he observed.

“Maybe she parked somewhere else.”

“There aren’t that many places to park, and the other end of the Arboretum is much farther from the place we’re supposed to meet. You think she stood us up?”

“She has as much reason to be here as I do,” Rachel said.

“There’s something weird about her, Rachel. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t trust her.”

“Neither do I,” she admitted, “but I have to see this through.”

Ethan pulled Rachel’s gun from the glove box. It was a short-barreled .45 revolver, and he spun the cylinder to make sure the action was clean. When Rachel had suggested bringing it, he insisted on being the one to use it. She protested, but he pointed out the obvious: He’d shot people before. She hadn’t.

He stuck the gun in the waistband of his jeans and let his T-shirt hang over it. Then they went around the gate and followed the two-lane road through the preserve. City noises surrounded them, yet with the trees and wind it was impossible to see anything except the next pinkish streetlight ahead. Their footsteps were loud against the pavement.

Ethan looked back over his shoulder. He had the sense of being watched and followed—something he was unerringly accurate about. It had saved his life more than once, and he felt it now almost like a physical hand on his back. No one was on the road behind them, and nothing was visible in the thick woods. He knew that on the right was thick forest, while across the road to their left stretched a marshy area crisscrossed with walkways for tourists and nature lovers. Hiding would be a cinch; following them, either through the swamp or undergrowth, almost impossible. And yet he was certain someone was.

“We’re being followed,” he said softly to Rachel.

He was impressed that she didn’t look around. “By whom?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure of it.”

She sighed. “Not much to do about it, is there?”

“Not really.”

THEY REACHED THE
trail that led down to the observation deck where they were to meet Betty. The woods were dark and impenetrable—so thick that even the moonlight didn’t penetrate.

“Spooky,” he said quietly.

Rachel took his hand. They had made love for almost an hour back at her place. She’d teased him and held him back as long as possible. She never imagined she’d hear a man like him beg for anything, but he had, and at last she’d allowed it. He’d clung to her so tightly that she worried he was having a breakdown, but he’d merely been overwhelmed by the sensation. They both dissolved into laughter and kisses when it passed.

“Don’t worry, big guy,” she said now. “I’ll protect you.”

He grinned. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

Rachel picked her way down the trail. It was tricky enough during the day, when you could see the mud and exposed roots that tried to trip the unwary. At night it was even more dangerous, and a turned ankle would leave her helpless in a way she definitely didn’t want. A flashlight was out of the question, since technically they were trespassing. Her lithe runner’s body was more suited to this than Ethan’s bulkier form, so she led the way. His grip on her hand was firm but not crushing, and she sensed the trust in it.

She stopped. He did as well, remaining a step behind her. She heard water lapping at the shore ahead of them. There was a break in the trees, and beyond it they saw the waters of Lake Wingra. Its odor rode the wind, different in subtle ways from the friendlier lakes Monona and Mendota. She’d avoided this lake for most of her life; one swim in it had convinced her that it was fundamentally different from its fellows. It hadn’t felt dangerous exactly, just disorienting and out of synch. Now she understood why.

“This place gives me the willies,” Ethan whispered. “I can believe an evil spirit would come out of it.”

I just hope we can put him back
in
it
, Rachel thought.

They continued on until they saw a small concrete platform with a solid metal railing imbedded in it, looking out over a shallow channel. To one side rose a tall, ancient oak tree. Beneath it, as if emerging from it, a spring bubbled up and flowed down the channel to the lake.

Rachel leaned against the rail and looked out at the quietly churning water. She saw no sign of Betty. “What time is it?” she whispered.

Ethan checked his watch. “Exactly two o’clock.”

“Don’t worry, I’m here,” Betty said.

Rachel jumped and let out an involuntary yelp. She felt Ethan start as well.

Betty emerged from the darkness dressed in a long black sundress and carrying a satchel. She clicked on a flashlight beneath her chin. It made her face look long and angular. “Boo,” she said. Then she turned off the light.

Rachel fought to control her surge of anger at the woman’s cavalier tone. “We’re here. So what do we need to do now?”

Betty looked down at the water streaming from beneath the tree. “You know this is the spot, don’t you? Where the spirits all originated? That’s the spirit spring.”

“I thought they were the spirits of good men and women granted immortality,” Rachel said as casually as she could.

Betty frowned. “Now where did you hear that?”

“I think I read it somewhere.”

Betty shrugged. “Anyway, let’s get to work. Take off your clothes.”

Rachel’s eyebrows rose. “What, just … like that?”

“Are you shy all of a sudden? I assume he’s seen you naked, and I’m another woman.”

Who’s also seen me naked
, Rachel thought,
because you were spying on me
.

Betty continued, her tone mocking, “Plus, we all know Kyle Stillwater has seen you without your clothes on, right?”

“Why don’t you just explain the overall strategy here?” Ethan said quietly.

“They won’t come to her unless she’s naked,” Betty said in exasperation. To Rachel she added, “You know that as well as I do.”

“It’s okay,” Rachel said to Ethan. She glanced back at him, but his face was hidden in the darkness. Taking a deep breath, she quickly undressed, leaving her clothes in a pile beside her. She felt a rush of embarrassment at her nudity, and shivered as the wind suddenly gusted over her skin. Goose bumps rose, and her nipples tightened painfully.

“Nice,” Betty said admiringly. “Even by moonlight.”

“Get on with it,” Rachel said, crossing her arms.

Betty knelt by the satchel and opened it. There was a smell from it that Rachel couldn’t identify, but it nauseated her, and she stepped back involuntarily. She winced as a twig poked into the sole of her bare foot.

Betty stood with a long feather in her hand. “We have to ritually cleanse you before you set out. It’ll make your allure more powerful. Follow me,” she said, and nodded for Rachel to step around the railing, down to the spring tree.

Rachel picked her way over the rocks, wincing when a sharp edge dug into her tender feet. In her lake everything was soft grass and gentle mud; even the stones were smooth and easy to traverse. It seemed like everything in Lake Wingra was out to inflict pain.

Betty impatiently waited for her beside the tangle of roots. The sound of the spring was loud, and the water looked like quicksilver in the moonlight filtering through the overhang.

“Hold up your hands,” the woman said, and Rachel raised her arms as if she was being robbed. “Clear your mind of everything but what you want. What you
really
want.”

Betty whispered something in a language Rachel didn’t understand, then began to caress her with the feather. Its touch was so delicate and insubstantial that Rachel began to tremble. Betty started at Rachel’s forehead, then moved down her cheeks and neck. The strokes touched the tips of her already erect nipples, the soft undersides of her breasts, the gentle slope of her belly. As it threatened to go lower she thought she might burst.

She felt rather than saw Betty’s lascivious smile as the feather brushed her nether hair. “Oh,” Rachel sighed. By the time the feather stroked her shins and the tops of her feet, she was weak-kneed with arousal.

“I think you’re ready,” Betty said.

Rachel glanced up at Ethan, standing silently at the railing. Did he know how she felt? Could he sense it on the wind still coming off Lake Wingra? Did he understand that this might be her life, caught at this feverish level of desire with no chance for either lessening or resolution?

WHAT IS IT
about this woman?
Ethan thought as Betty wafted the feather over Rachel. There was something erotic in the two women’s actions but not in the usual way. Like most men, he didn’t necessarily mind the idea of two women together, but Betty set off all his interior alarms.

The wind shifted a little, and he froze. A strange, vaguely familiar smell reached him, but he couldn’t quite place it. He concentrated to find the source. It seemed to come from the satchel Betty had left on the concrete. He edged discreetly toward it, glad for the comfort of the gun tucked into his pants.

BETTY STOOD BEHIND
Rachel, her hands on Rachel’s shoulders. She could also feel the other woman’s body against her own. It felt strange and uncomfortable. “Call him,” Betty said softly, so close to her ear that Rachel jumped.

“Should I tell him to bring the heart?”

“What?”

“The dead man’s heart, where the spirits are kept.”

“Oh. No, that’s for later. We have to get him here first.”

Rachel had to lick her dry lips and swallow hard. “Kyle,” she said.

Betty pushed her lightly forward. “Not that way, honey. He won’t hear you. You have to be in the water.”

Rachel turned and stepped down into the stream coming from beneath the tree. It was barely ankle-deep, but it would be enough. If the spirits wanted her, they could find her. The waters were all connected, especially here at the source.

She looked out at the lake. The dark waters of Wingra seemed more like a gulf that would pull her in than a welcoming place where spirits might dwell. She felt a rush of terror, and her physical exposure only added to it.

“Kyle,” she said again. “Kyle Stillwater.”

“Keep going,” Betty said.

Rachel swallowed hard and continued out toward the open water. Each step across the rocky channel bottom seemed to grow more difficult.

When the water reached her waist and touched her intimately, she froze in fear and revulsion. The wind increased, and she hugged herself for warmth.

ETHAN SLOWLY KNELT
beside the satchel, his eyes never leaving Betty. He knew how to move in silence and how to keep his movements slow and steady to avoid drawing attention from the corner of someone’s eye. He seemed to still have the knack. She was oblivious to him, focused entirely on Rachel’s form easing out into the darkness.

The wind gusted in the treetops. The weather said nothing about a storm, but the air seemed charged nonetheless.

Rachel was a slender, feminine silhouette moving down the channel toward open water. She looked small and vulnerable, her narrow waist and broad shoulders emphasizing her femininity. He felt all the intangible warnings of danger, and he wanted more than anything to scoop up Rachel and carry her to safety. But he also knew that a warrior had to fight his, or her, own battles. And in her way, Rachel was a formidable warrior.

The satchel was halfway unzipped, enough for his hand to slip inside. He went slowly, feeling for anything sharp; he didn’t want to cut open a finger on a knife. First he encountered what felt like a plastic grocery bag. As he pressed harder, it crinkled, and he froze. But the wind masked the sound, and Betty had not noticed him.

Rachel, the water now to the middle of her back, was almost to the open lake. His heart thudded with anxiety.

He pushed harder. Whatever was inside the bag was solid yet spongy. His fingers slid over it, establishing its shape as vaguely round and about the size of his fist. He reached the bottom of the bag and felt something wet and sticky.

Suddenly the smell resolved in his mind.
Blood
. Not fresh but definitely blood. He continued to explore, working his hand into the bag and feeling the wet, tough, sticky object it contained. With a shock, he comprehended what was in the bag.

A human heart. Garrett Bloom’s heart.

But Betty had said the evil spirit, Kyle Stillwater, killed Bloom and used his heart to trap Rachel’s spirits. If that was true, then why did she have it?

And if it
wasn’t
true …

RACHEL WAS CHIN-DEEP
in the water now, and so scared tears ran freely down her cheeks. How could she have let this happen? Whatever lived in this lake, whatever she was approaching at her most open and vulnerable, it was not the kind, loving spirits she’d known in the other lakes. She felt them swirling around her, malicious and cruel, biding their time. But for what?

Then she froze. Hands touched her waist. A presence loomed up behind her, no spirit but flesh and blood.
Definitely
flesh and blood; she felt his erection press against the small of her back.