"Now," said lean and mean Torment, the brains of the duo. "Give off. Man the machine."

Trusk's whip handle clattered to the floor.

Futzy braced himself for the pain.

Spang went the release mechanism and hush-hush-hush the grains of salt from the funnel above. They pinged and stippled against his skin, finding their way, much of them, into the V's of his wounds.

Salt knifed into him everywhere. Pain waved through his body like the unending misery twenty years before, the thoughts he could not shut off no matter how hard he tried.

Futzy pa.s.sed out, the harsh words of his wives ringing in his ears, longing for death but knowing it would not yet be his.

The blue clunker pulled up to the curb and parked two blocks from Zane Fronemeyer's house.

A quiet walk past manicured lawns, no faces peering out. The doorbell chimed. Zane would be in the bas.e.m.e.nt. But if not, if he was finished already, knifing three of them wouldn't pose too great a problem.

All planned, all smooth.

Familiar heads appeared at the decorative window in the door: Hedda and Camille, taste of s.e.x on the lips, a threeway suckle on left lobes until they had gone giddily into simultaneous oral o.r.g.a.s.m.

The deadbolt snapped and the door swung open.

Surprise lit their faces.

"h.e.l.lo, you two." Casual. Not too loud.

"Zane's home," said Hedda. "Are you surea""

"It's all right. If he comes upstairs, I'll offer an excuse. I have a few things I wanted to give you. Is it all right if I come in?"

Better be.

Discretion cautioned against the ruckus of forced entry.

Empty boxes in the clutched paper bag hid the shape of the knife.

Camille fretted. "Well I don'ta""

"Sure," said Hedda.

Snap judgment.

That and her s.e.x drive, a burning focus on whatever flesh happened to be at hand, were Hedda's most alluring traits.

The door settled snug in its frame as Hedda surged forward into a kiss.

Camille went nonlinear: "Hedda, what are you doing? Zane could pop up any minute!"

Hedda's hunger was palpable. "Take us away," she urged. "Tonight."

"Soon. I promise."

"Zane's a prize bore," said Hedda, her eyes hard and fiery. Amazing how such an attractive woman now held no interest at all, had become so guiltlessly killable.

"We don't like him," Camille offered.

"The three of us will be dynamite together. It'll happen soon, not much longer. But for now, I've got to go. I only wanted to drop these gifts off."

Beyond the art teacher's fluxed mother, the vestibule arched into the family room, where heavy curtains shut out the night.

As they approached the couch, they pa.s.sed an end table that held a thick packet with Corundum High's clocktower logo in its upper left corner and "Z. Fronemeyer" scrawled across it in loopy ballpoint.

"What's the occasion?" asked Camille.

"Nothing special. I just wanted to express my love for you both. Hedda, sit here. Camille, beside her. That's it."

The bagtop uncrumpled. No footsteps clumped up the cellar stairs. A free shot at Fronemeyer's wives.

Inside the bag, the duct-taped boxes split on a hinge to yield the knife handle.

"Close your eyes and open your hands."

"Oh come on!" Blond-haired Hedda gave a practiced flick to her head that tossed just so her shoulder-length s.h.a.g-cut. But she grinned.

"Humor me. Please."

They did.

The razored edge opened Hedda's throat to the bone, savage and deep, no need to grip a hank of hair. Just as well, since Camille's eyes sprang open at the sudden gesture. Her mouth sucked in air for a scream.

Clamp that mouth.

Press her back into the couch, off-balance.

Putty.

Once more the knife blade. Its swift pa.s.sage reflected in Camille's eyes. She pitched right, dying, as the weapon was wiped clean on an end-cushion.

Doing Zane in was the goal, which wasn't yet a sure thing. No time to savor his wives' death throes. These two were mere p.a.w.ns.

Kill Zane.

Then tackle the packet.

Game plans were always easier when you knew what your enemy had in mind. Besides, a map of the school's secret backways would be a welcomed refresher.

The kitchen flashed by in bright fluorescent light. Racing heartbeats erased all detail.

Stay calm. Set things right.

An image of the Lion of G.o.d slaughtering the moneychangers flared up. Some sanitized filmstrip from Bible school long ago.

Love owed, love denied.

These moved the world.

The k.n.o.b felt cool. The flimsy cellar door, flung back, gave onto blue-painted steps.

Exasperation: "Hedda, for the last timea""

"It's me, Zane." Conceal the knife behind a pantleg. In the subdued light on the stairs, it would look perhaps like an injured arm.

Zane puzzled out his lover's name. His voice turned surprised and annoyed. Halfway down, Zane became visible, the washing machine behind him.

He rose from the couch, holding a b.l.o.o.d.y axe. The trough was dimly lit, but a bare lightbulb above the dryer caught glistens of gore threading into the drain. "But we were going to meet at your place after I . . . what kind of a . . . hey wait, what do you think you'rea""

The axe looked tricky, a sharp thing that might fall in a scuffle. Go for the bold move, came the thought. A left-handed grip on the axe handle. Done!

Zane clenched tighter to counter.

The knife flew up and over. It caught on something hard in his chest, then slipped past to stab deep.

A Greek mask frowned upon his face: a bunched brow, anguished eyes, lips fizzling like a limp balloon, all of it in motion. Flares of life flashing by tried to stick and hold. But something vital had been skewered.

Zane collapsed, a house of cards falling inward. The axehead hung abruptly left, his fingers releasing their grip on the handle. The axe clattered to the floor. Then Zane, drifting downward, took to the tattered couch.

"Whya"" he wheezed.

"Call it payback."

A glimpse aside into obscurity. The cellar smelled like meat and sewage. You would think the homeless would catch on. But they were as dumb as Thanksgiving turkeys.

Zane had just snuffed two more here.

Close to fifteen thousand nationwide bought the farm every year, if the networks told the truth.

Fifteen thousand more in prom couples.

A chill took hold, then burgeoning heat.

The blade angled from Zane's chest, the stir of a gelatinous stew. Its grim handle gristled in strained grip, curving and turning as the killer carved.

It wouldn't do to risk the possibility of revival. Zane would pay the price, as his spouses had done.

And the payments would continue, multiplying toward midnight, until healing took hold and love thrilled the heart once more.

Upstairs waited the packet. Keys, maps, agendas, the naming of the couple.

Not that this last was more than a curiosity.

One couple alone would not suffice.

Nothing near.

Still, they were names to bear in mind if ruin threatened and they fell to hand.

Fronemeyer's wrist.w.a.tch, upside-down and spattered, read 6:20. Time to move on. The worn cushions soaked up his blood. But the stairs beckoned.

Music rose out of memory's ashes, slap'n'smack mixed with terrified slow-shuffling embraces on the dance floor.

Moving on, feeling high, sailing toward fated waters.

Tonight would be beautiful indeed.

PART TWO.

Invitation to a Dance.

High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.

a"Kurt Vonnegut, Jr..

In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.

a"Ralph Waldo Emerson.

3. A Delectable Frenzy.

Whap-whap-whap, went the blades of the chopper, off-camera.

On a wall-sized screen at the far end of the Cabinet Room, toy houses on winding streets drifted past far below. Inset on the lower left, a woman with a mission waved to her husbands and drove off in a late-model car.

This year, a school in a suburb of Dallas had been chosen for the high mucky-mucks' delectation.

The designated slasher?

Karn Flentrop, a Home Ec teacher with killer gams, a clench-fisted upjut of b.r.e.a.s.t.s, taut and tantalizing lobes, and the perkiest bloodl.u.s.t in her every glance.