Chad blew on his deadened fingertips in an effort to revive some feeling.

"Stop being such a wuss," she grumbled.

He hunched over, holding his numb hand to his chest. He stared at the floor, unable to look her in the eye. Chad didn't really understand any of the black magic they dabbled in. She just told him what to do, and he did it. It'd started with naked chanting which he had thoroughly enjoyed, even if it did involve memorizing long strings of tongue-twisting syllables. And it just kept getting weirder and weirder. None of which bothered him too much as long as he and Tammy got to spend time together. Although the s.e.x had a lot to do with it, it wasn't the only reason. He liked her. Or, at least, he had at one time.

He still did, he had to admit to himself. Even if she did scare the c.r.a.p out of him more and more every day as the darkness in her soul grew with her unnatural powers. She had a knack for burying that darkness beneath a schoolgirl's facade, but either it was beginning to overwhelm her or he was just better at spotting it. Either way, he didn't know how much longer he could pretend he didn't see it.

And there was that whole end-of-the-world dilemma to add to his problems. He wasn't a big fan of the world, and the part about becoming living G.o.ds sounded cool enough. But he had doubts.

"What if it doesn't work?"

"It will."

"But you said that this ritual thing we're gonna do will bring these bada.s.s demons to Earth."

"Old G.o.ds," she corrected. "Not demons."

"Whatever. So these old G.o.ds come to Earth, and they're gonna be so grateful that they'll give us all this power 'cuz we freed them."

"That's right." She grinned a thin, patronizing sneer.

"But you said that they'll also destroy the world."

She rubbed her eyes with her palms. She was tired of explaining it to him. "They shall remake it, undo the corruption of man, and forge it in their image."

Chad struggled to find a distinction. "No more Vegas?"

"No more Vegas."

"And these old G.o.d guys, they're, like, evil, right?"

"Good and evil are mortal constraints. The old G.o.ds are beyond morality."

"Uh . . . right. So, I guess what I'm trying to ask is, if these G.o.d dudes are so powerful and so unconstrained, then how do we know they'll carry out their end of the deal?"

"They will."

"But how do you know for sure?"

Her voice dropped to a rough whisper.

"Because I know."

Chad hardly felt rea.s.sured.

Tammy could sense his doubt. She had little patience for unbelievers. Her abridged Necronomicon had a brief chapter on cult maintenance. It laid out a simple and effective method of dealing with skeptical followers.

It is inevitable that any cult will eventually find itself beset by the occasional disciple of questionable faith. These lost children should be herded gently back into unswerving loyalty. If this does not work, experience tells us that while a loyal follower is preferred over a dead follower, a dead follower is preferred over a skeptic. One bad apple spoils the bunch. Using a lost soul in a ritual sacrifice, particularly one involving the rest of the cult, can not only squeeze one last drop of usefulness out of a discarded member, but can also serve to bring about a unity to your happy family and dissuade any more skeptics from emerging.

It was good advice, but she couldn't afford to sacrifice Chad. Not yet. He was her only follower. And, though she was slow to admit it, she'd actually grown a little fond of him. He was handy to have around at times, and she was saving his death for a special occasion.

She was left with only one other alternative. She swallowed her revulsion and put forth the soft smile she saved for these moments.

"Baby, come here."

She patted the spot beside her on the bed. He hesitated. She crossed and uncrossed her legs to help him along. When that didn't work, she ran her fingers along the inside of her thigh. That did the trick. He sat beside her, and she took his jolted hand.

"I'm sorry, baby. Did I hurt you?"

"It's okay."

"I shouldn't have done that." She gently kissed his fingertips, one by one. "Do you forgive me?"

He stuck out his lower lip and kicked his heel against the bed. "I don't know. Maybe." He still refused to look at her.

She leaned close to his ear and called upon the sultry voice she'd honed through hours of practice. "C'mon, Chad. Don't be mad."

His head slowly turned toward her until their faces were inches apart. She pulled back just a little. "Let me worry about the details. That's my job."

She could almost hear every drop of saliva evaporate in his mouth. "But what's my job?" he asked dryly.

"Your job is to keep me happy."

He swallowed a deep gulp of air and opened his mouth to say something else. Tammy put a finger to his parted lips.

"Can you do that, Chad? Can you keep me happy? Because if I'm happy, then you'll be happy." She suppressed a gag. "Very, very happy."

If she could kiss him, he would be hers again. But her father had strict rules about things that were allowed in her bedroom. Making out was not on that list, and she didn't take needless chances.

Chad's hormonally deluged mind struggled to form a single, cohesive thought. Tammy gave him the time he needed to extract one. Finally, he made eye contact, and from there, his gaze rolled down to her lips, then chest, then all the other good parts along the way to her toes.

"Okay, but I don't like it when you call me stupid."

"Of course. I shouldn't have done that. I won't do it again."

Chad grinned stupidly, confirming he was hers again.

Her bedroom door opened, and her father poked his head in the room just long enough to tell her it was half past nine. No boys after nine-thirty. It was another of her dad's dumb rules. She could hang out with Chad late at night, just as long as it wasn't in her bedroom. Never mind that it was the one place in the world they'd never do any of the things her dad objected to, and never mind that out of the house, she and Chad had screwed around plenty of times. Parental rules had little to do with logic. They were just regulations they'd had to suffer through when they were kids and now had to inflict on their own offspring. Existence was merely an endless rotation. A led to B led to C all the way to Z which looped back to A. The world was a bad TV show stuck in reruns and in desperate need of cancellation. Which was why she was so looking forward to ending it.

Chad gathered up his books and homework, and she walked him to his motorcycle.

"Hey, how come you never use any of your magic stuff on your parents?" he asked as he climbed on the bike.

She almost called him stupid again but bit her lip.

"Because that magic stuff isn't as easy as I make it look."

"Yeah, but I bet you could do that mind-control thing on them real easy. Just to get them off your back." He wiggled his fingers at her and made a serious face.

His ignorance was almost cute in a ridiculous sort of way. For one moment, she forgot how much he annoyed her.

He started the engine. "So you wanna do sumthin' tomorrow?"

In Chad's lexicon, "Sumthin'" translated into hanging around somewhere for an hour or so before finding a place to screw. He was due for a maintenance jump anyway.

"How about tonight?"

"What about your dad?"

"He won't care." She chuckled. "Just as long as we're not in my room." She hopped on the bike behind him, wrapping her arms low around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder and breathing on his ear.

"Can't we put off the apocalypse until after graduation?"

"Chad."

"Alright, alright." He revved the engine. "I was just askin'."

Rockwood General Supply was a combination grocery, feed store, and used-car lot. Like much of the architecture of the town, the building was without any attempts at decoration. Its name was painted on each of the white walls in stenciled black letters. The used-car inventory consisted of three battered pickup trucks in various states of disrepair and a Volvo on cinderblocks that nonetheless "ran like a dream" according to a cardboard sign under the windshield wipers. Broken-down cars aside, the store was well stocked. Duke was able to find most of the things on Earl's list. Not that there was much hard-to-find stuff on it. Most of it was pretty basic.

There was magic in the mundane. Hector had once told him that a pract.i.tioner with three yards of duct tape, a PEZ dispenser, a CD player, and a pair of oversized clown shoes was responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. Duke never really understood how that worked, considering the Roman Empire had already fallen long before any of those items were available. But magic was never bothered by paradoxes like that. Supposedly, the average bathroom had all the necessary bits and pieces to resurrect the dead or exorcise an evil spirit. Of course, one needed an impressive level of talent to pull off something like that. Which was why most pract.i.tioners made it easier on themselves by throwing in weird doodles painted in blood, waving around exotic props, and chanting in an excessively dramatic fashion. The way Hector had put it, the forces invisible generally like a good show.

Duke prowled the aisles twice. He was still missing a couple of items when he went to the register.

"Evening, son," the short old woman replied. "Find everything alright?"

He checked his list. "I need candles."

"We got some back thataway."

"They're white. I need blue."

"Don't think we got any of those." She turned toward the back of the building and shouted. "Hey, Bill! Bill! G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Bill, you lazy son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

The door in the back marked "Employees Only" opened a crack. n.o.body came out, but a voice emerged.

"Yeah? What?"

"We got any candles?"

"Aisle six!"

"Those are white! This feller wants blue!"

"Blue? What for?"

The register lady shook her head. "Ain't none of our business! Just go check if we got any!"

"We don't got any!" Bill's voice yelled back immediately.

"Did'ja check?"

"I said, we ain't got any, Mary!"

"Did'ja check?"

"h.e.l.l's bells, Mary! I know what we got back here!"

"Just check already, you worthless . . . "

"Alright, alright! I'm checking!"

"You better really check!" Mary growled. "I'll know if you don't!"

The door slammed shut.

Mary began ringing Duke up. "Sorry 'bout that, son."

"S'alright."

The cash register was an antique. It clanged and clicked with each push of the keys.

"Hey, Duke!"

Tammy bounced through the store's front doors, followed by a woman he guessed to be her mother. She skipped by his side.

"Hey," he mumbled back.

"What'cha doin'?"

"Shopping."

"Cool."

Bill's door opened. "Ain't got no blue candles back here!"

"You sure?" Mary asked.

"Yeah!"

She shrugged at Duke. "Sorry, son."

"That's okay. No big deal." He ran his finger down to the next item on his list. They probably wouldn't have it, but in a town like Rockwood there was no way of knowing unless you asked.

"Got any powdered raven's eye?"

"Might. Let me check. Hey, Bill! Bill, you no-good b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

The door opened a crack again, and Bill and Mary spent a minute shouting at one another before he agreed to go and check. While they did, Duke went down the aisles to retrieve some white candles and a can of blue spray paint. Tammy tagged along.