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by Unknown

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 couldn’t 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

  I’m 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 driver’s seat as she dialed her dad’s

  cell number. She started up Kate’s 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.

  “It’s not me, it’s Kate. I’m on my way to the emergency room now

  and I can’t 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 didn’t want to leave her,

  but she couldn’t 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 didn’t

  work, so she raised her voice and hopped up and down. “Help! My

  friend is outside, and she’s 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 she’d 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 didn’t 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. Helen’s

  heart started pounding. How could she have overlooked the fact

  that she was barefoot?

  “I didn’t 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 couldn’t 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 older—in her late fifties at least. Short salt-and-pepper

  hair. She looked totally harmless, but I guess she wasn’t,” 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. Kate’s 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

  shouldn’t drive for a few days, so Helen offered to take Kate’s

  car and bring it over to her on Sunday. Kate thanked Helen for the

  favor, but Helen had her own reasons for wanting Kate’s 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 serious trouble. She didn’t think he
<
br />   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 wasn’t 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.

  “What are you doing here?” he half barked, half whispered.

  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 family’s 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. Let’s 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 didn’t tell them you were there tonight,”

  Helen grunted, the unbelievable weight of him pressing the air out

  of her. “You’re 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,

  don’t you? The three women?”

  “Of course I do,” he replied in a baffled voice.

  “What are they?”

  “The Erinyes. The Furies. You really don’t understand. . . .” He

  stopped abruptly when a woman’s voice called his name from what

  Helen assumed was his house. “Damn it. They can’t find you here

  or you’re dead. Go!” he ordered. He rolled off of her and jumped

  up into a run.

  As soon as she was free, Helen bolted and didn’t 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 Kate’s 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 couldn’t 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

  them better. She vaguely recalled hearing Hergie saying the word

  at some point, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what

  story they were in. For some reason Helen was picturing armor

  and togas, but she couldn’t 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

  clouds—just 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 Helen’s 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 wasn’t 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 first—and bloodiest—soap 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 that’s 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 didn’t.

  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 didn’t seem to have any end, and Helen didn’t know how or

  why it had all started. The Furies had simply appeared in her life

  one day as if they’d 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 didn’t

  quite buy it. Lucas had had several opportunities to kill her, but he

  hadn’t. He’d even fought someone else to save her. Helen had no