Trey looked at the masked dancers, who were no longer dancing. Twelve masked faces and three more hooded ones turned to face him. The bodies of the women were even more astonishing in their utter perfection up close. Though he knew he was in mortal danger, his hormones compelled a quick inspection. He saw stiff nipples and pubic thatches glistening with moisture. Maybe the chant they’d been doing was some sort of sexual spell. That would account for Myra’s otherwise inexplicable behavior. And his own.

Myra.

“Myra!” he screamed. “Run! Get the fuck out of here!”

The man tugged him into the center of the campfire circle and tossed him to the ground. The heat of the nearby flames baked his skin. Trey reached for his jeans, meaning to pull them up, but the guard kicked him in the stomach, making him curl into a tight ball on the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. When he opened them, he saw the night’s most shocking scene yet.

Myra, nude, strode into the clearing.

The masked women bowed as she stepped through their circle.

Trey rolled onto his back and stared up at her. She stood over him, a strange, small smile touching the corners of her pretty mouth. “Trey, darling?”

A tickle of nausea touched the back of his throat. The only response he could manage was a moan.

Myra’s eyes glittered in the firelight.

“Remember when you told me how you wanted me from the moment you laid eyes on me?” Her voice mocked him, a tone of sadistic amusement that tore at his heart, pulverizing the love he felt for her. “Be careful what you wish for, idiot.”

Trey finally managed to speak. “What…what is this?”

Myra threw her head back and laughed heartily. Then she leered at him again. “This, baby, is the night you surrender your worthless fucking soul to me.”

A new chant, low and murmuring, arose from the still-bowing women.

Myra grinned.

A grin that grew wider and wider, impossibly wide, as her face began to…change.

Raymond Slater, principal of Rockville High School for this past decade, was in his office at the school. It was midnight, an hour at which the school was thought to be deserted. But Principal Slater was often here at odd hours. He and the night watchman had an understanding-an understanding reinforced with a generous weekly outlay of cash.

It was important that his nocturnal activities at the school remain a secret for one very simple reason-the activities in question would be considered perverse by just about any objective set of community standards.

Principal Slater was not alone in his office. Penelope Simmons, a ravishing young Senior English teacher, was slumped in a recliner opposite his big oak desk. The way she was dressed would shock her students, who were used to seeing her wear far more conservative clothes. She wore black, knee-high boots with stiletto heels and laces up the sides, black crotchless panties, a black bikini top with conical, bulletlike cups, and a black cap with a shiny brim that resembled the kind worn by Hitler’s SS. The hat was tilted low over her pale face. Her full lips, painted a whorish bright red, looked blowjob ready. The middle finger of her right hand pushed through the open slot of her panties and slipped into her sex.

Her hand flexed.

And she writhed minutely on the leather recliner, her red lips forming a wide O of ecstasy.

Principal Slater sported an enormous erection, which strained the fabric of his trousers. He would use it on Penelope when the time was right, but that time had not yet arrived. He turned away from her and faced the little mirror above the display case of his various plaques and awards for community service. The image in the mirror showed a man with short black hair shellacked in place. His dark eyes were hard and pitiless. He smeared a dab of spirit gum above his upper lip and affixed a fake mustache. Once he was satisfied with the way it looked, he stepped back and snapped off a stiff-armed salute.

“Heil!”

He spun away from the mirror on the heels of his vintage jackboots, glared at Penelope, and barked, “Achtung! Activate the boombox, wench!”

Penelope leapt off the recliner and stood ramrod straight. She looked sleek and delectable, a dazzling Aryan goddess. “Ja, mein principal!”

She pushed the play button on the boombox, which was on Slater’s desk. The recorded voice of a dead German dictator filled the room. Penelope leaned against the edge of the desk and watched Principal Slater goose-step back and forth.

She imagined ranks of Third Reich troops marching around a town square. The image sent a shiver of delight down the length of her trim body. She closed her eyes, lifted one long, sleek leg, and placed the sole of a boot on the edge of the desk.

Then she reached between her legs again.

And her mouth formed another O.

Outside, perched on a low-hanging tree branch, a crow as black as the night itself observed the decadent scene through the principal’s office window. Principal Slater often neglected to close the blind when indulging his secret lusts. His office window was not visible from a street, and there was no one around at this time of night to bear witness to his Third Reich fetish.

It would not trouble him to know the crow was watching.

The crow flapped its wings and took to the air. Had Principal Slater been able to track its flight path, he would’ve cursed his carelessness. The crow flew high over the small town, leaving the school and the nearby main drag far behind. It flew past a residential area and over a wooded area, homing in on a flickering campfire in a clearing.

It began to descend.

Sensing its approach, its mistress turned her face skyward and smiled.

The crow landed on her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

No one noticed the blue Camry parked outside the Good Times Bar & Grill, which was fine with the man slouched behind the car’s steering wheel. He rolled what appeared to be a coin between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, a shiny gold-plated disc roughly the size of a quarter. Engraved in the middle of the coin on each side were the words “One Year.” The AA chip was the ultimate symbol of the new life the man had built for himself in St. Paul. A new life that had effectively ended a day ago, when he got the call that had brought him back here to Rockville. The last thing in the world he’d ever wanted was to come home, but there was just no way around this. This was duty.

But Jake McAllister couldn’t face what he had to face sober. He flipped the chip through the Camry’s open window and heard it strike the pavement. It rolled under a pickup truck parked at the bar’s entrance, then disappeared down a storm drain. Jake reached into the plastic Kroger bag on the passenger seat, pried a Bud tall-boy can from its plastic ring, and popped the tab. The beer felt good in his mouth, refreshing, like a reminder of something sweet from his youth, a salve for the psyche, and he felt a sense of immense relief. Getting that first swallow out of the way had been hard, but now it was done. Now he could walk into this bar without feeling like a condemned man walking into the gas chamber. He finished the contents of the tall boy, crushed it, and tossed it into the back seat, a reflex left over from the bad old days.

He got out of the car and walked into the bar.

Stepping through the door, he smelled beer, meat on a grill, and cigarette smoke. Jake slid onto a stool at the bar and ordered a shot of tequila and a Grolsch chaser. He threw back the tequila, winced at the familiar burn, and savored the Grolsch.

The burly bartender had shaggy blond hair and a thick mustache. The sleeves of his white button-up shirt were rolled halfway up bulging forearms. Jake felt a spark of recognition, but he couldn’t quite place the guy. “I haven’t set foot in this town in ten years, but I’m sure I know you.”