Night Tides (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

R
ACHEL PRECEDED
Korbus down the basement steps. Her hands were bound in front, her mouth taped, and the choke collar again encircled her neck. She felt the strap bounce between her shoulder blades.

She stumbled on the last step and fell to her knees, then forward onto the concrete. With her wrists tied in front, she was able to stop herself from landing on her face. Still, her elbows and forearms scraped painfully on the cement.

Korbus grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. He swiped at the dirt clinging to her oiled skin. She pressed her arms against her nipples and glared over the tape.

“Don’t get any dirt on that while it’s still bleeding,” he said. “Wouldn’t want an infection or anything, would we?”

He guided Rachel to the back wall and gestured that she should sit against it. When she did, he pulled her legs out straight and put a plastic tie around her ankles, binding them across each other. Only then did he take the choke collar from her neck.

His bald head gleamed with sweat as he looked at the others. Their eyes were wide above their gags. Faith and Carrie still huddled together, while Patty remained far back in the corner. They waited to see who he’d pick for the next session, but instead he yawned, went back upstairs, and closed the door. The bolt slammed home on the opposite side. Then, unlike before, the single dangling bulb went out, leaving them in darkness.

Faith and Carrie began to scream through their gags. Rachel awkwardly got to her knees, sat back on her heels, and tried not to hyperventilate. The room was close, hot, and damp, and the darkness made it completely unbearable. She twisted her wrists uselessly; the plastic ties were unbreakable. And there would be no way of working her ankles free.

She closed her eyes and tried to ground and center, to fight the panic. The pain from the tattoo made it easier than she thought. Instead of adding to her fears, it helped change them to anger. She had been defiled in the worst possible way, permanently marked by the will of a man who treated her body as nothing more than a canvas. How
dare
Korbus think he could force his precious designs on the flesh of unwilling victims? His captives weren’t even people to him, just tools to be used like paint and needles. Their feelings meant nothing.

As her eyes adjusted, she realized some light was actually seeping in from a small window overhead, where the basement ceiling met the wall. The glass had been painted black, but in spots the edges had flaked off. The illumination was weak but definite, sending narrow beams of faint light—moonlight? sunlight?—that, combined with her memory of the room, allowed her to see enough to move around.

Rachel crawled uncomfortably on her hands and knees over to Patty. The girl was absolutely wide-eyed with terror, her face sweaty and streaked from crying. She looked soft and achingly vulnerable; Rachel could not imagine anyone being aroused by the pitiful, slightly plump body normally hidden by clothes, now brutally displayed against her will.
I’m so sorry I failed you
, she thought.
I should’ve done more. Then I might not be here either
.

She lightly touched Patty’s face. The girl whimpered and jumped. Fresh tears sparkled in the dim light.

Rachel couldn’t just let this go on. These were
kids
, unprepared for this and entirely unable to cope. They might have read about brutal things, seen online videos of cruelty, but they’d never experienced it firsthand. They could never extract themselves from this, and she had no illusions that Korbus would release them once they were covered with his obscene art. He would bind them, photograph them one last time, and then probably masturbate to the pictures. Or, as she suspected, die quietly in bed of whatever illness racked him, leaving his body and theirs to be found only when the smell of decomposition grew too great.

There was no time to lose. She reached up and peeled the duct tape from her face. It hurt even worse on the already-raw skin. Then she leaned close and whispered, “Patty, can you hear me?”

She felt the girl’s greasy hair brush her cheek when she nodded.

“We can’t wait for someone to find us, we have to rescue ourselves. Do you understand?”

This time the ends of Patty’s hair slapped her face as she rapidly shook her head
no
.

Rachel grabbed the girl’s hair roughly and yanked it tight. “He’s using us as his damn
canvas
, Patty,” she hissed. “And he won’t be able to let us go when he finishes. Is that what you want? You have to be
stronger
than this!”

By now Rachel’s eyes had adjusted so she could see Patty clearly. The black tips of Korbus’s new design curled over her shoulder. The girl’s expression changed subtly from helpless to the first glimmer of anger. She still had some courage left, Rachel realized, with a rush of sisterly pride.

Suddenly Rachel felt a chill unlike anything she’d ever experienced. The black tips on Patty’s shoulder began to
move
, becoming spindly black extremities that climbed out of the darkness and reached for Patty’s face.

Rachel awkwardly jumped back and, forgetting that she was no longer gagged, shrieked.

The sound rang through the basement. The other girls echoed it with their muffled cries. Then her mind interpreted the tableau and told her what she was seeing. It was no alien creature or hell spawn emerging from the depths; it was a
spider
, black and shiny, now crawling down Patty’s shoulder toward her chest.

A wave of nausea driven by stress and discomfort swept over Rachel. The spider wasn’t
that
big; she just had a natural aversion to crawly things, and its sudden appearance had surprised her. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, trying not to vomit what little remained in her stomach as the sudden adrenaline rush faded.

Then, just as Rachel began to relax, the arachnid slipped on Patty’s sweaty skin and tumbled momentarily into a tiny sliver of direct light. Rachel caught a glimpse of the distinctive red hourglass on the spider’s hard, smooth body.

A
black widow
.

New horror rose in her. She recalled the family stories of her uncle Speck in Ohio, bitten by one of these in a tractor shed. Since no one, including him, actually saw the spider bite him, the doctors were hesitant to start treatment; using the wrong antivenin could simply speed the fatal process along. By the time the doctors decided it was now or never, her uncle’s chest was swollen and hard as a barrel due to the toxin’s effect on his muscles. He was treated at the very last minute and ultimately survived, but he was never the same.

Now an identical creature righted itself and crawled delicately back up the curve of Patty’s bare breast, which jiggled as she trembled. Rachel looked around for something to swat the spider away, but the basement was as bare as its captives. “Don’t move, Patty,” she whispered, “Just be as still as you can.”

Patty was rigid, eyes wide above her gag, her body arched and pressed back against the wall as much as her bonds allowed. The spider scrambled for purchase on her collarbone, and she rolled her eyes downward desperately, trying to see it. It tapped its long front legs against her vibrating flesh in an unmistakable sign of belligerence.

Rachel tried to slap it away, a moment too late. The creature’s legs waved just at the edge of Patty’s vision, and her composure fled. She screamed again and tried to buck it off by convulsing her whole body.

The spider rolled forward, the tips of its legs now arched inward to pin itself to the spot, and Rachel saw the striking motion even as she swung her clasped hands at it. She hit Patty instead, startling the spider even more and causing it to bite a second time. Rachel’s next blow finally managed to knock it to the floor, where it lay with its legs curled into its belly, stunned.

Knowing she risked a bite herself, Rachel balled her fists and smashed them down as hard and fast as she could. She felt the spider’s body crumple and spurt beneath the blow, and pain shot up her arms from hitting the concrete. She looked frantically through the spider’s gooey remains on her hands for evidence of a bite but found none. Finally she glanced over at Patty.

The girl was sobbing, mucus trailing from her nose down onto the gag. Rachel crawled back and ripped the tape from Patty’s face. For a moment the crying stopped and she stared; her face sported a red splotchy rectangle where the tape had adhered. Then she screamed.

Rachel again grabbed her by the hair. “Stop it!” she hissed, staring at the bites. They were small red bumps, barely noticeable, but she knew worse would come soon. How long, though? “Listen, you have to calm down. Panic will make it worse.”

“That was a black widow, wasn’t it?” Patty sobbed. “They’re poisonous, aren’t they? I’m going to die! Oh, God, I’m really going to die like this, down here, no one’s going to rescue me—”

“No, you’re not!” Rachel snarled. “He’s counting on us being too scared to fight back, and so far he’s been right, but we can’t just lie here and
take
it anymore.”

Growling with frustration, Rachel turned toward the door. She writhed in slow motion to the stairs and then wriggled her way up them. It was tedious going, and she repeatedly banged her knees on the edges of the steps. Her panties snagged and tried to roll down her legs as she moved, and the ragged wood left tiny jagged splinters in her bare skin.

Exhausted, she reached the top and banged weakly on the door. “Mr. Korbus!” she called. “A black widow spider bit one of us! She needs a doctor!”

She waited for a response, but there was nothing. No creak of floorboards, no annoyed muttering. Had he gone out? Or, worse, had he
died?

“Korbus!” she yelled again, her voice suddenly breaking as the strain took its toll. “Please, she’s really in trouble!”

There was still no response. She looked down at Carrie and Faith. “Come on, you two, get those gags off and help me yell!”

The two girls looked at each other, then reached up to remove their gags. Carrie peeled hers slowly, while Faith yanked hers off in one quick move.

“Help!” Carrie said, her voice thin and hoarse.

“Help us!” Faith echoed.

“Help!”
Rachel called, balancing enough to raise her hands and pound higher on the door. She drew back for another blow, then felt her center of balance shift. She tumbled backward and slid down the stairs, the momentum driving splinters into her back and buttocks.

She landed with a sob at the bottom. Even the agony from the fresh tattoo paled next to this. She rolled onto her side and saw Patty still crying, while Carrie and Faith mechanically cried, “Help,” over and over. Rachel felt her own tears swell behind her eyes.

Then she spotted something in the darkness beside Patty, something she’d noticed before but forgotten. She reached her bound hands toward it and felt a shiver of hope.

She crawled toward it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

L
AKE
M
ONONA WAS
large enough that, after dark, many parts of its shoreline were hidden from casual view. Ethan had scouted this particular lakeside lot for a bid several weeks earlier, so he knew there was enough overgrown shrubbery to hide his truck. Now, shielded by the trees and bushes, caught between an incomprehensible urge and the common sense he’d always prided himself on possessing, he crept carefully down to the water.

Marty had called and left a message telling Ethan to stay at home. Julie had
not
called, thank God. The evening news showed a picture of Rachel when it mentioned the case, and the sight made his heart throb in his throat. But there was no real news, and not even
The Lady of the Lakes
had any information. Like the others, Rachel had fallen down a rabbit hole and vanished from this universe.

He’d taken a cab from the police station and retrieved his truck from the street outside Caleb Johnstone’s house. Then he’d gone home until dark, when he could come to a spot that he knew afforded privacy.

A car drove down the street behind him, its thumping stereo Doppler-shifting as it passed. He waited to make sure it was gone. He’d already removed his shirt, shoes, and socks and was now unfastening his belt. He was almost dizzy with a combination of worry, fear, and something very like eagerness. He wasn’t the lake’s “chosen one,” though; would he do anything other than get soaked?

He stepped out of his jeans and Jockey shorts, then removed the bandages from his jaw and hand. Naked, he faced the lake, watching the waves smack against the big gray stones. He would have to climb down those to reach the water—climb down nude and barefoot. The thought was suddenly daunting.

When he felt the first touch of liquid on his toes, he stopped. He knelt at the edge of the water and opened the bottle of Heineken Dark. It was his favorite beer, the one he saved for special occasions, and it seemed an appropriate offering. He said quietly, “This is a gift, because I need your help.” He poured the dark liquid slowly into the water. When the bottle was empty, he put it aside on the rocks. He took a deep breath, glanced one last time through the trees to make certain no one was around, and stepped out into the night.

He felt incredibly vulnerable—more so than in the middle of a war with bullets and shrapnel flying at him. He scowled at his mincing, uncertain steps as he negotiated the rocks and sighed gratefully when the hard surface gave way to silken mud. When the water was kneedeep, he slid forward on his stomach, ignoring the water’s bite at his fresh injuries. Then he drifted forward toward the drop-off, kicking his feet against the bottom. Every inch of his skin was alive with anticipation.

Suddenly his feet found nothing to kick against. He had a brief, odd thought that, since the lake spirit or ghost or whatever it was had taken Rachel, it might be a totally male spirit, uninterested in him. Or, more awkwardly, it might be a male spirit that
was
interested in him. This made him smile; Marty would certainly find this amusing.

He put his face under the water and looked into the darkness but saw nothing. From here on, it would be literal blind faith. He took a final breath, closed his eyes, and let himself slip beneath the surface.

R
ACHEL CAREFULLY
dipped a fingertip into the water that had seeped in along the floor’s edge. As soon as she did so, the intimate tingle that shot through her assured her that this was no leaky pipe. This was groundwater seeping into the basement; this came from
the lakes
.

Fresh sweat popped out all over her. She hoped the dim light hid the flush across her shoulders and neck from her fellow prisoners. Even in this crisis, there was no denying or resisting the water’s effect. And if her plan worked, she’d be a lot more embarrassed than she was right now.

Just touching the water might be enough; for all she knew, the spirits were aware of her already. But she couldn’t take that chance. The strongest connection she felt with them was always at the point of orgasm, when she could almost sense their thoughts, just as she knew they could read hers. She needed to reach that moment of abandon, and she had to do it fast.

She lay down on her side, her back to the others. Then, eyes closed tight against embarrassment, she slid her wet fingertips inside her panties.

She moaned softly at the touch, her fingers’ destination already hypersensitive and ready. She tried to keep her thoughts focused on calling for help, but her body’s response soon had her engrossed in more-immediate concerns, one hand working, the other opening and closing in response.

E
THAN SURFACED
,
treading water. He looked back at the shore, then out across the water.

Nothing had happened. Nothing unusual, erotic, or even a little bit strange. Apparently the spirits didn’t care for Dutch beer. Or they simply didn’t like men.

He was about to swim for the shallows when, abruptly, with no warning, he felt something touch him
there
.

R
ACHEL WHIMPERED
as the tension built within her. She knew she might not be able to reach orgasm, that this could be yet another time when she got right to the edge, right
there
, but couldn’t make it all the way. But she’d passed the point of no return and could barely have stopped if their captor had opened the basement door. All her noble, desperate goals of saving Patty and rescuing herself and stopping Korbus had faded into the hot, damp desire to
come
.

E
THAN FROZE
,
thinking absurd thoughts like gar, snapping turtles, or even trout. He sank slowly until the water closed over him again. He kicked his feet enough to stop his descent and waited. His lungs throbbed with the tail end of his last breath.

He remembered he’d once read that the emperor Caligula kept small boys around to swim with him and nibble like minnows at his genitals. But this touch was light, and knowing, and played along his growing erection with an intent no natural lake denizen would share. It felt unmistakably like
fingertips
, and he grew hard under their ministrations.

He fought the urge to surface. The spirits kept Rachel from drowning, and he could only hope for the same. The watery fingers encircled him, then solidified into something that surrounded and engulfed him—a familiar sensation that allowed him the resistance he needed to penetrate… whatever it was.

It felt incredible, and he gasped reflexively. When he realized his lungs had actually expanded and filled, he looked up at the twinkling stars through the surface distortion.
I should be drowning
, he thought, but he had no difficulty breathing. He looked down, but his body was hidden by the darkness.

Something slid around his waist, strong and muscular like a woman’s lean thighs. He felt the swell of firm breasts against his chest. The tingles of his orgasm began, and he fought to hold it back until… until what?

Suddenly his perceptions changed. He smelled the distinct odor of sweat and another scent it took him a moment to classify: the musk of female desire. He could not only smell it, he could
taste
it, and knew it was some evocation of the previous night, as he supplicated himself to Rachel’s needs. He closed his eyes, and then vividly, as if right there before him, he saw the flat plain of her belly, her navel a dark pit on the sweat-glistening surface, the dark tattoo beneath it, above the delicious curls… .

At that moment two things occurred simultaneously. First, he realized the tattoo was in fact the clue he’d been seeking, although he had no idea what it meant. And second, he came with a rocketing intensity second only to the way he’d come the night before in this same lake.

A
CROSS TOWN
,
in the dark and damp basement, Rachel gasped and her eyes opened wide. She felt someone inside her, the unmistakable sensation of a male organ filling her, moving and responding. It was uncannily like Ethan, and with that realization she climaxed, clenching her teeth against the sound, muscles trembling with the effort not to thrash. The moment hovered, spread, and engulfed her, until it finally faded to a dull roar.

It was nothing like she’d experienced before. She could almost feel Ethan’s body against hers, his weight pressing into her, his erection filling her even as her own fingers did.
Ethan, help me
, she wanted to scream.
It’s the tattoo man. Ask Helena about him. She was there!
She knew no real words had left her lips but prayed that the magical, sensual connection was real and that the lake spirits would function as a conduit.

Then it was over. She fell limp, hands between her thighs, gasping and sweating. Something had happened, she knew, but she wasn’t sure what. She could only wait.

Patty moaned—not like Rachel had, but in pain. Rachel sat up and turned as much as she could. If the poison was working, time was running out.

She glanced at Carrie and Faith. Both stared at her with expressions that mingled contempt and disgust, and Rachel felt herself flushing. But she ignored them as she got to her knees. “Korbus!” she yelled furiously. “Goddammit, Korbus, get down here! Do you hear me?”

Again there was nothing, the house above them as silent as the proverbial grave that might await them all.