Helen had more to lose.
The soles of her sneakers shredded under the pressure of her feet
as she pushed off. She took one step, and then another, walking
right out of her ruined shoes as she dragged the woman along with
her. Then Helen heard a thump, a gasp, and she pitched forward
violently as she was released.
Struggling to get the black velvet bag off of her head, Helen heard
a rapid succession of slaps, thuds, and the quick huffs of stunned
breaths. There was a draft of air and the staccato sound of
someone sprinting away just as she yanked the hood off and
pushed her hair out of the way.
Lucas Delos stood over her, his body tense, his eyes scanning the
distance for something that Helen couldnt see from her position
on the ground.
Are you injured? he asked in a low, unsteady voice, still looking
out over her head. There was blood on his lip and his shirt was
torn. Helen had a bare moment to say she was fine before she
heard the sobbing sisters start to whisper.
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He looked down at her, and when his icy blue eyes met her warm
brown ones, a thrill ran down her legs. Helen jumped up into a
fighting crouch. The whispers turned to wails and Helen saw the
bent heads and shivering white bodies of the three sisters blink in
and out of her field of vision. She backed up and scrunched her
eyes shut by force of will alone. The anger was so intense she felt as
if her organs had caught fire.
Please go away, Lucas, she begged. You just helped me, and
Im grateful. But I still really, really want to kill you.
There was a short pause, and Helen heard his breath catch.
This is hard for me, too, you know, he replied in a choked voice.
A skipping, scuffing sound from where he stood, a rush of wind,
and then Helen dared to open her eyes. He was gone, and thankfully
the miserable poltergeists had gone with him.
Helen crouched next to Kate, trying to see if she was bleeding
anywhere. She got down on her hands and knees to inspect every
visible inch, but strangely there were no cuts, bruises, or scrapes of
any kind. Kate was breathing evenly but she was still unconscious.
Helen risked picking her up and hoped she was doing the right
thing by moving her. She gently laid Kate down in the back of the
car, and then ran around to the drivers seat as she dialed her dads
cell number. She started up Kates car as the phone rang.
Dad! Meet me at the hospital, she blurted as soon as he
answered.
What happened? Are you . . . he began in a panicked voice.
Its not me, its Kate. Im on my way to the emergency room now
and I cant talk and drive. Just meet me, she said, pushing END CALL
and tossing the phone onto the passenger seat without waiting for
a response.
Now she had to think up a really good lie, and quick, because the
hospital was only a few minutes away.
She called the police as she pulled to a stop at the emergency
room entrance, saying nothing more than that her friend had been
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attacked and that they were at the hospital. Then she dithered
around in the driveway for a second, not knowing how to get Kate
into the actual emergency room. Helen didnt want to leave her,
but she couldnt very well pick Kate up and reveal her freakish
strength in front of so many people, so she finally went inside
alone.
Help? she mumbled timidly to the admitting nurse. That didnt
work, so she raised her voice and hopped up and down. Help! My
friend is outside, and shes unconscious! That got people running.
Once her dad got there and they both knew that Kate was going
to be fine, Helen made a statement to the police. She told them
that a woman shed never had the chance to see had made Kate
pass out with a blue flashy thing. When Helen saw Kate fall, she
went out into the alley and that must have scared the woman off
because she ran away. Of course, Helen didnt mention anything
about the near abduction, the wrestling match, or the fact that Lucas
Delos had appeared out of nowhere to fight the superstrong
woman off. The last thing she needed was to complicate this situation
any more or tie Lucas Delos to herself in any way. What was
he doing there, anyway?
What happened to your shoes? the police officer asked. Helens
heart started pounding. How could she have overlooked the fact
that she was barefoot?
I didnt have them on from before, she stated in a rush, and
then continued haltingly. Before, earlier, they had torn . . . while I
was stocking in the back. And I had taken them off. When I saw
that Kate was hurt I just dropped them, and came straight here.
Worst lie ever, Helen thought. But the officer nodded.
We found a pair of ripped sneakers in the alley, he said as if
Helen had told him exactly what he expected. He went on to explain
that Kate had been Tasered, and that since the assailant had
used up the charge on Kate, she was forced to run off when she saw
another person arrive.
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One more thing, the officer said, just before turning away.
How did you lift her into the car all by yourself? Both the officer
and her father stared at her for a moment with puzzled looks on
their faces.
Willpower? Helen said lamely, hoping they bought it.
She was lucky to have you there. That was very brave of you.
The officer gave her an approving smile. Helen couldnt handle being
praised for lying. She looked down at her bare feet, and they reminded
her of how dumb she had been not to take care of that detail
from the start. She was going to have to learn to be more
careful.
When the police were done questioning Kate, Helen and Jerry
went in to check on her. Unlike Helen, Kate had gotten a quick
look at the woman before she got zapped.
She was olderin her late fifties at least. Short salt-and-pepper
hair. She looked totally harmless, but I guess she wasnt, Kate said
ruefully. What the hell? Since when did little old ladies go around
Tasering people? She was trying to make a joke out of it, but
Helen could tell she was really shaken up. Kates face was pale and
her eyes were big and shiny.
Jerry decided to stay the night with Kate and bring her to her
house when she was discharged. The doctors told Kate she probably
shouldnt drive for a few days, so Helen offered to take Kates
car and bring it over to her on Sunday. Kate thanked Helen for the
favor, but Helen had her own reasons for wanting Kates car. There
was one more detail she had to take care of before she headed
home.
She had just enough time to get scared as she drove across the island
on Milestone Road to the Delos compound in Siasconset. The
closer she got, the more she found herself shaking, but she had no
choice. She had to make sure Lucas kept his mouth shut about the
attack or she could get into s
erious trouble. She didnt think he
would tell anyone. The Delos family worked very hard to appear
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normal when Helen knew they were anything but. No one of regular
human strength could have stopped Helen from strangling him
if she set her mind to it. Lucas was like her.
The thought made her stomach heave. How could she be anything
like someone she hated so desperately? First, she had to
make sure he never mentioned his involvement to the police, but
after that she was determined to hate him from as far a distance as
she could without falling into the ocean.
Helen had to concentrate to see through the fog. In the dim predawn
light, way the heck out on private property, she wasnt sure
where the turn onto the long driveway started. She pulled the car
over and got out, heading on foot toward the sound of the ocean.
She had only seen this particular compound from the beach, and
she was trying to scour her memory for any landmark she could recognize
from the opposite direction. Then she heard a stumbling,
thudding sound behind her. She spun on her heel and saw Lucas
walking steadily toward her with long, forceful strides.
Helen took a couple of steps back and then made herself stop and
hold her ground. In the gray light she could see the white bodies of
the three sisters dragging themselves through the sandy grass,
crawling up the soft rises, shivering with sobs.
How did you get behind me? Were you following me? she asked
in an accusing voice.
Yeah, I was, he spat out, still coming toward her. What the hell
are you doing on my familys land?
Too late Helen realized that by coming to his house she had
crossed some line. Where there had been hatred, Helen could now
see violence. It distorted his features and added menace to his
stance. He was still graceful, but almost too cruel to look at. Good,
she thought. Lets do this.
She lowered her shoulder and closed the distance between them,
barreling into his chest and tumbling onto the ground with him
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under her. She reared up to drive her fist into his face, but he
grabbed her arms. She was on top and should have had the upper
hand, but she had never hit anything and she could tell from the
way he never wasted a movement that he had been fighting his entire
life. Helen felt him do something with his hips and then he was
on top. Her arms were pinned above her head and her heels were
left to scrape uselessly at the ground. She tried to bite his face, but
he jerked his head away.
Lie still or I will kill you, Lucas warned through gritted teeth.
He was panting, not because he was winded, but because he was
trying to control himself.
Why did you come here? he asked, almost begging.
Helen stopped struggling and looked into his infuriating face. He
had his eyes closed. He was trying the trick she had used in the alley,
she realized. She shut her eyes as well, and felt a tiny bit better.
I lied to the police. I didnt tell them you were there tonight,
Helen grunted, the unbelievable weight of him pressing the air out
of her. Youre crushing me!
Good, he said, but he shifted his weight, seeming to get lighter
somehow so she could fill her lungs. Do you have your eyes
closed, too? he asked, sounding more curious than angry.
Yeah. It helps a little, she replied quietly. You see them, too,
dont you? The three women?
Of course I do, he replied in a baffled voice.
What are they?
The Erinyes. The Furies. You really dont understand. . . . He
stopped abruptly when a womans voice called his name from what
Helen assumed was his house. Damn it. They cant find you here
or youre dead. Go! he ordered. He rolled off of her and jumped
up into a run.
As soon as she was free, Helen bolted and didnt look back. She
could almost feel the three sisters reaching out with their clammy
white arms and bloody fingertips to touch the back of her neck. She
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ran in a panic for Kates car, dove behind the wheel, and drove
away as fast as she dared.
After half a mile she had to pull over and take a few deep breaths,
and as she did, she noticed that she could smell Lucas on her
clothes. Disgusted, she took her shirt off and drove home in her
bra. No one would see her, and if they did they would just think
she was out for a dawn swim. At first she left her shirt on the passenger
seat, but the scent of him kept wafting up, smelling of cut
grass, baking bread, and snow. In a fit of frustration she screamed
at the steering wheel and tossed her shirt out the window.
She was exhausted to the point of collapse when she got home,
but she couldnt lie down in her bed without taking a shower. She
had to scrub Lucas off or his scent would chase her around in her
dreams. She was filthy. Her elbows and back had grass stains on
them and her feet were a black mess.
As she watched the dirt melt off her shins and ankles under the
water she thought of the three sisters and their perpetual suffering.
Lucas had called them the Furies, and no name could have suited
at some point, but for the life of her, she couldnt remember what
story they were in. For some reason Helen was picturing armor
and togas, but she couldnt be sure.
She picked up a pumice stone and rubbed off every last speck of
dirt before shutting off the taps. Afterward, she stayed in the steam
to put on sweet-smelling lotion, letting it soak in, obliterating every
last trace of Lucas. When she finally tumbled into bed, still
wrapped in a damp towel, the sun was long up.
Helen was walking through the dry lands, hearing the dead grass
crackle with each step she took. Little clouds of dust puffed up
around her bare feet and clung to the moisture running down her
legs, as if the dirt she walked on was so desperate for water it was
trying to jump up off the ground to drink her sweat. Even the air
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was gritty. There were no insects buzzing around in the scrub, no
animals of any kind. The sky was blazingly bright with a tinny
blue light, but there was no sun. There were no wind and no
cloudsjust a rocky, blasted landscape as far as Helen could see.
Her heart told her that somewhere close there was a river, so she
walked and walked and walked.
Helen woke a few hours later with heavy limbs, a headache, and
dirty feet. She flopped out of bed, rinsed off the increasingly familiar
nocturnal grime, and threw on a sundress. Then she sat down at
her computer to look up the Furies.
The first website she clicked on gave her chills. As soon as she
opened it she saw a simple line drawing on the side of a pot. It was
a perfect depiction of the three horrors that had been haunting her
for days.
As she read the text under the illustration it gave a nearly
exact physical description of her sobbing sisters, but the rest confused
her. In classical Greek mythology there were three Erinyes,
or Furies, and they wept blood just as they did in Helens visions.
But according to her research, the Furies job was to pursue and
punish evildoers. They were the physical manifestation of the anger
of the dead. Helen knew she wasnt perfect, but she had never
done anything really wrong, certainly not anything that would have
earned her a visit from three mythological figures of vengeance.
As she read on, she learned that the Furies first appeared in the
Oresteia, a cycle of plays by Aeschylus. After two solid hours of untangling
what had to have been the firstand bloodiestsoap opera
in history, Helen finally got her head around the plot.
The gist of it was that this poor kid named Orestes was forced to
kill his mother because his mother had killed his father, Agamemnon.
But the mother killed the father because the father killed their
daughter, Orestes beloved sister Iphigenia. To make it even more
complicated, the father had killed the daughter because thats what
the gods asked for as a sacrifice to make the winds blow so the
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Greeks could get to Troy to fight the Trojan War. Poor Orestes was
bound by the laws of justice to kill his mother, which he did, and
for that sin he got chased halfway across the earth by the Furies
until he was nearly insane. The irony was that he never had a
choice. Right from the start he was damned if he did and damned if
he didnt.
After Helen got the tragedy straight, she still had no idea how it
could relate to her own circumstances. The Furies wanted her to
kill Lucas, that was clear, but if she did would they then chase her
for having committed murder? It seemed to her that the Furies had
no idea what justice was if they both demanded you commit
murder and then punished you for doing it. It was a vicious cycle
that didnt seem to have any end, and Helen didnt know how or
why it had all started. The Furies had simply appeared in her life
one day as if theyd moved to Nantucket with the Delos family.
She felt a shot of adrenaline rush into her bloodstream. Was it
possible that the Deloses were murderers? Something in her didnt
quite buy it. Lucas had had several opportunities to kill her, but he