It swept across the half mile of lake like the V-shaped blade of a plow, churning the water to a high boil. Trees whipped violently to and fro, as if suddenly endowed with articulating spines, and the long-bladed grass crouched flat.
Flung on bracing airblasts, rain pelted the land in shifting, billowing sheets, stinging wherever it fell. Waves lashed the shoreline in explosive succession, sending up spumes of foam; cresting them bravely, Danny's bobber listed and keeled. The crackly, metallic taste of electricity permeated the air.
Momentarily stunned by this abrupt fury, Danny lay utterly still. He was already soaked to the skin. His penis had drawn back like the retiring head of a turtle, and now his hand closed loosely around nothing.
A faint ripping sound snapped him out of it.
"No!" he bellowed against the suddenly ferocious howl, turning in time to see Karen's face tumbling away, first brown-eyed then blue, smiling then leering. "No!" He clambered wildly to his feet, his boots skidding out from under him on the rain-slicked grass. "No!" he roared again. "Come back!"
But the wind grabbed the soggy fold-out and whipped it away. It rose against the gunmetal sky, looping, dipping, glinting like chrome in a lightning-glare before vanishing over the lashing heads of the trees.
Around him the sky fell.
And the cry he uttered, a mad mingling of anguish, fury, frustration, and pain, was lost in an ear-splitting knell of thunder.
That was when his fishing rod splintered, loosed itself from its niche, and slid like a petrified snake into the water.
With feline agility Danny darted to the lake edge and plunged in an arm, snaring the cork handgrip of his rod a heartbeat before it was lost in the fray. For a moment a child's instincts took over, and in awe he wondered what kind of a prize he had hooked. He'd pulled in a couple of big ones down here in the past—pike, pickerel, and once a twelve-pound muskie.
But whatever this was, it had cracked his fiberglass pole. And it fought like a demon.
Danny edged backward up the slippery shingle, away from the churning lake. His father's voice barked a command in his head—Give him slack, damn it!—and Danny obeyed, paying out line at an alarming rate. Whatever he'd snagged, it cut through the water like a torpedo.
Excitement flared darkly inside of him, fueling the heat of his already seething emotions. He was going to land this cocksucker. He was going to land it and gut it right here, in the furious face of God.
As he tripped the anti-reverse lever and began reeling in, the first spits of hail struck Danny's face. To breathe, he had to tilt his head to one side, away from the fist of the wind.
He braced himself and reeled as a cold gray luminosity replaced the last shreds of sunlight, and the sky split to shreds above him.
It was running crazy now, diving, zigzagging, veering back toward shore, and it was all Danny could do to take up the slack in pace. At one point he thought he'd lost it. . . then it struck out again, shallow and close, stressing his line to the limit.
And when it broke the surface not ten feet away, when it burst furiously skyward, black and sleek in an icy-white missile spray, Danny gaped at it in horror, filled with the insane certainty that he'd snagged some winged denizen of hell. . . because it did have wings, and as it twirled madly against the hook in its gullet it spread those wings, began beating them in lunatic four-foot arcs.
Then it screamed, a sound born low and guttural, then soaring in shrill, curdling cycles. . . until in the purple eye of the storm Danny thought he was losing his mind.
In the next shutterflash of lightning he saw what it was.
The loon!
The loon had taken the bait.
A thin, lethal smile split Danny's face as he jerked back hard on the rod, setting the hook and strangling the creatures cries.
"Laugh at me," he sneered, jerking again. "You fuck."
And with its ruby eyes, rimmed now in the luminous white of absolute terror, a mortal understanding was conveyed—it was fighting this hulking, leering man—thing for its life. Danny saw that look but misread it. In it he saw Karen, clapping eyes on him that first time out by the, woodpile.
The bird twisted and dove out of sight.
Pea-sized pellets of hail fell now in a solid, stinging fusillade, rapping painfully against Danny's skull and hunched-over back. Gale-force gusts bit at his clothing, plastering his shirt to his chest and flapping his pantlegs, snapping the material like sailcloth. Clouds like skyships with overfull holds dragged their keels just yards overhead, and Danny flinched each time one of them ran aground, split hulls spewing thunder and fire at once.
But he never let go of his prize.
He had her now. She was his. And not even the fury of the gods could make him let go.
This time it came out of the water with its back to him, checkerboard wings glimmering in the luminous air. Spinning to face him, the loon began flapping and reeling in a desperate waterdance, backpedaling over the surface like an off-balance clown. Just as suddenly, it lurched to one side, its shock-white breast a beacon in this tumultuous marriage of earth and sky.
Danny's line whined as he let it run slack. The bitch was trying to get airborne now, flap-stomping across the roiling surface of the lake, dagger beak gaping, long neck stretched to the limit.
Let the cunt fly, he thought tauntingly. Can't, get too far. Let her think she's got free—
A hailstone the size of a chestnut cracked off the bridge of Danny's nose with such stunning force, he nearly let go of the rod. He tasted blood, hot and free-running.
"You fucker!" he roared. The blood he wanted to taste belonged to a dead man, the rotten fuck who had given her sight. "You whore!"
He yanked on the line again—and in a rip-glare of lightning so close the hairs on his body grew stiff, Danny watched the loon trip over its own webbed feet. It flipped beak-over-tail like a living tumbleweed—Danny counted six separate rolls before the bird righted itself and tried again. And the whole time it fought, it yowled around the hook in its throat, making a sound that was chillingly human.
Blood ran in rivulets over Danny's lips, shredding off his chin to drizzle his shirt and jeans. He spat clotted gouts of it from the back of his throat.
It was easy to bleed, and in the hellborn howl of the storm he thought it would be easy to die, too. Easy to kill, easy to die.
Kill her if she tries to run. Kill her. I'll kill her and then do myself. . . I could do that, I could. . .
The loon was in the air now, low at first, skimming the surface like a bullet, then steeply climbing. Looping, flapping, diving, shrieking an unheeded plea.
Danny let it climb, paying out line until the doomed, bird was little more than an M-shaped squiggle, high in a funnel of light.
Then, ignoring the pummeling hailstones, he heaved abruptly downward. The loon fell for an instant, recovered, then swept skyward again.
Grinning with blood on his lips, Danny jerked downward again.
You bastard, he thought bitterly, cursing Karen in the same breath as the dead man who had given her sight. "You bastard!"
He wrenched again on the line, forcing the bird into an inverted spin. When it was perhaps sixty feet off the water, Danny rapidly gathered in slack. It hung directly overhead now, trying to cut inland as the hail turned to rain. He could almost hear it thinking Into the trees! To oppose it, he reeled in faster, shrinking the loon's efforts to diminishing circles. He thought he could see blood coursing in ropes from its beak, which gaped open constantly now.
He continued reeling in, dragging the bird down by jerky degrees. . . until suddenly the line went slack, and the loon fell earthward under the full weight of death. It landed with a rustling thud at Danny's feet, its ruby eyes already dully filmed over.
"What d'ya see now, big bird?" Danny said, nudging its flaccid neck with the toe of his boot. "Nothin' much, I bet."
A freak column of sunlight caught him in a spot a hundred yards wide. In its embrace, the land around him seemed to gl
ow with a mystic effulgence, an eldritch light of its own.
Like stage props no longer required, the rain ceased falling; the wind drew away. Far off in the pattering woods a bird chirped tentatively, then another.
Bending forward, Danny removed his pigsticker from its belt-sheath. With the blade he cut his line free, then touched the tip to one dead eye. Razor-sharp, the steel indented the fine ocular membrane, but under Danny's steady hand it did not push through.
No, it wasn't the life he wanted to remove. That was too final.
It was only the sight.
With a short, decisive jab Danny ran the knife-tip into the dead loon's eye. There was a tiny jet of clear amber fluid. . . and with a limber twist the eye came free. It clung to the tip of the knife like an oversized fish egg.
That easy, Danny thought, a thrill of surprise trickling through him.
The eye slid free and fell onto Danny's boot. With the edge of the blade he scraped it off. He stood there awhile, dripping with rainwater, his mind a blank, his nose still trickling blood. . . until the warmth of the sun brought him back.
He gathered his gear, only vaguely aware of the voice of the storm, south of him now, over the village.
Before leaving, he kicked the loon's body into a shallow gully. It landed on its back in a loose shroud of wings, its one bloody socket gazing skyward seeing nothing.
Chapter 23
The sun set in a blaze of color that night, sweeping brushstrokes of cinnamon and gold, lemon and ochre, vermilion and deepest magenta. The buzzing neon out front of the Twin Palms Motel, rising against this unearthly backdrop, enjoyed a brief kind of pagan profundity. Later, when the wild colors faded, it would become once again what it was—a rusted hulk with two dead letters—but for now, it inspired awe, like some flickering monument to a forgotten god. The moon was full tonight, and in the wake of the storm a brisk breeze was blowing. Enlivened by the gusts, scraps of paper cartwheeled across the puddled lot, which was abandoned but for a single car, an aging Chrysler, parked with its tailgate to the room its owner now occupied.
A mangy, rust-colored mutt, a stray from a nearby farmhouse, zigzagged across the lot, shaggy tail wagging, snout slung low to the ground, tracking scents all muddled by the gusts. Moving at a trot, it started past the nose of the Chrysler—then skidded to an abrupt halt. Its ears shrank back, and the thick fur cresting its spine splayed into menacing spikes. It advanced on the Chrysler warily, lips wrinkled back in a challenging snarl. The scent it had caught was coming from—
The door to room seventeen flew open with a bang, pinning the mutt in a glaring oblong of light. Before it had time to react, a fast-moving shadow consumed it, and a well-placed boot struck agony into its ribs. The dog went airborne from the force, landing on its haunches and toppling backward. When it recovered, it cut full-bore across the lot, hind paws kicking up gravel. Without looking back, it lit out across the highway, narrowly avoiding the humming wheels of a transport before vanishing into the brush.
Eve's fury settled into a satisfied grin. She patted the trunk lid, as if mollifying a fussy child. In the distance a train droned past, trumpeting like a wounded behemoth.
With a last glance at the western horizon, she melted back into the room.
Behind her, the neon buzzed in the deepening night.
This rundown motel was a Godsend, Eve thought later (but then, God had had His vengeful Hand in this from the outset, hadn't He). She'd come close to causing an accident this morning, skidding to a reckless stop when she spotted it. Set well back from the highway, it offered the double advantage of convenience to the city—the outskirts of Ottawa were less than five minutes away—and almost total privacy.
Eve flipped open the phone book to the yellow pages. She scanned under Physicians until she found what she was after. Grinning, she dialed the number.
"Dr. Harrington's answering service."
"I'm a patient of Dr. Harrington," Eve said, her tone urgent, "and it's vital that I speak with him."
"I'm sorry," the nasal voice replied, "Dr. Harrington is away on holidays. He won't be back until the end of the month. Dr. Sloane is coveri—"
Eve hung up.
With a curse, she returned to her sewing.
Chapter 24
It was midnight.
The wind, bracing and high, whooped down mightily from the north. In the gusts, the weathervane on the crest of the barn spun jerkily, and nightshadows writhed as if tortured. In the wooden bones of the house, old joints complained.
Karen lay in bed, floating near sleep, striving with the lingering shreds of her conscious mind to ward off the dreams, which now seemed so inevitable. She tried to insinuate brighter images, pictures of the daytime things she had seen and had marveled over.
But the donor's dead face hovered in front of her. . .
And now its lips were moving—
"No!"
Karen sat up in bed. For an instant, heat lightning drenched the room in its ghastly white glare.
"No more dreams. . . please."
Dragging her blankets like a bridal train behind her, Karen crossed to the vanity and sat heavily before it. She flicked on the lamp and stared into the mirror. A haunted shell returned her gaze.
The hunger for sleep hounded her like an addiction. She glanced at the pills Dr. Smith had given her, on the vanity top in front of her. The bottle had one of those childproof caps, and she had some difficulty prying it loose. When it was free, she removed the cotton batting, feeling a moment of irrational revulsion as its wadded softness relaxed between her fingertips. She dropped the cotton and tipped the bottle into her palm.
The pills were small and blue. Karen hesitated, recalling the doctor's warning. . . then took a whole one, dry-swallowing its bitter hardness.
One night. If she could have just one oblivious night.
But try as she might, she could not shake her thoughts of the donor—nor the image of that staring woman. That scowling face had lodged itself in her mind like an arrow shot from a crossbow.
Where do I know her from?
It was in the eyes, so much like—mine!
A preternatural certainty gripped Karen's, heart: the woman at the meeting was the donor's mother! Why hadn't she thought of it sooner? That indefinable spark of familiarity had lurked in her eyes, the same striking blue as Karen's, the same lustrous wells in whose depths Karen had tried, and failed, to detect something of herself.
But how did she know me?
The answer glared in its simplicity. She had done the same detective work as Karen: she had read the papers, put two and two together. And Karen had confirmed it for her by calling her at home in Sudbury.
But that look. . . why that hateful look? It fit the voice Karen had heard over the phone like a bloody glove—
Oh, God, does she blame me?
Frightened and confused, Karen gazed into the mirror again. At her eyes.
Like ice, she thought, and a cold finger traced the length of her spine. So clear, so blue. . .
Insistent fingertips touched her eyelids, weighting them down. Facing the mirror, Karen forced them open again. Softly, she spoke their owner's name: "Eden," she said. "Eden's eyes."
Now his sockets are empty—(and stuffed with cotton)
Crazy thoughts, Lockhart.
Drugged thoughts.
Utterly drained, Karen drifted over and sank into bed.
And for a while it seemed that the pill was working, that the healing limbo of dreamless sleep would open its arms and embrace her. . .
But then she was up and moving, rushing headlong through a black and soundless night.
Branches parted and a field sloped away, its farthest boundary a steep railway embankment. The moon, whitely gravid in the star-pocked sky, daubed the silence in silver, blotting up with its light the black ink of shadow. Over the field the pace heightened impossibly—
And in her bed Karen gasped at the featherlight feeling of flight, low to the ground and quick as a s
wallow, that blossomed in the pit of her stomach. She was a questing leopard, crazed by the sweet scent of blood. . .
And in the last lit recess of her waking mind she was both awed and deeply afraid.
Three long strides carried her up the gravel embankment. Swinging left, she hurdled the parallel ties, gliding through a night both vivid and silent, that airborne sensation reaching a giddy zenith.
Ahead, light hung somberly over a toothed horizon, a glowing parabola of artificial radiance, the uncountable kilowatts of a slumbering city; in the near distance, yellow rectangles marked its dreaming outskirts.
Soon, houses materialized below the embankment, and by the first of these Karen slowed, her gaze jerking from one to the next before settling on a half-lit shape a quarter-mile distant.
She ran to it flat out. . . a bungalow, neat and white, with pale blue shutters and dark blue trim. A hinged gate let her into the backyard, which she crossed with animal stealth, passing on her way a child's swing, a barbecue pit, a kicked-over trike with a missing pedal.
Then she was deep in the shadow of the house, trying the back door, finding it locked—
And kicking it open with an unseen foot, unfelt force, unheard bang. Without hesitation she slipped inside, into a kitchen lit dimly by a range-top lamp.
Alarms clanged harshly in her mind—Turn around! Get out! This is wrong!—but she could no more act on them than she could fly.
She peered around in darkness.
Moonlight flecked off the chrome legs of a table and two chairs. A spider plant, cradled in macrame in front of the room's single window, cast thick, tentacular shadows over the floor and stark walls. To the right a hallway opened into deeper darkness. . .
She entered that hallway at a run.
At its extremity, a closed door became suddenly, visible in a pale wash of light, light from beyond another door, slowly opening across from it, revealing a ghostly face contorted with fear.
Then she was there, butting the door against that face, sending it blurring backward, forgotten.
She nudged open the door opposite, watching in horrified awe as the details of the room unfolded in the bloodmist glow of a maroon-colored night light.
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