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With a fair amount of excite on a vacation, taking the honey time in Florida Sunny Florida, and then spooky old Saleone, the workmen could do some of the necessary repairs on their home in the French Quarter, and it would all be perfect Perhaps Finn hadn’t realized just how far ruone, and that her fa if he was a wife beater, if Megan shouldn’t have stayed as far away fro then toshe’d never touched that loaf of bread

To her surprise, he was no longer lying awake His eyes were closed, lips slightly parted, and he was breathing deeply and evenly

"Finn?"

He didn’t answer

Megan slipped out of bed, frowning, but he still didn’t awaken She walked over to the big, overstuffed antique chair by the fireplace and found her terry robe, wrapping it tightly around her She pulled back the draperies to the balcony door, hesitated, then slipped out

October in Massachusetts A cool breeze was softly , but it wasn’t uncomfortably cold outside

The sky was beautiful and strange, a deep blue, alht, almost ethereal in others As she looked down at the street below, she sahirl of fog, and she found herself re the words of the crusty old storyteller who had been at the fireside tale-telling earlier in town

Ah, but though those caught, hanged, and pressed to death, as old Giles Corey, were uardians of justice h they were daft in their oodness, there must be evil, and evil is rooted in the very history of hout the years there have been stories of man, and of beasts, and of those, creatures who fall soels, there have been devils There is the Good Book, and there are works of the greatest demonic frenzy, and there have always been, as there are now, those who seek the secrets of the Devil, of is we

remember only in the deepest, darkest, recesses of our hearts It’s said, you know, that All Hallow’s Eve is the night when the dead may rise… especially if they are so bidden, if, perhaps, they are called froain, and inhabit the lives and souls ofhad fallen in the fire then; half the old hed

Megan had done so herself She hadn’t iined that she would come back to their rented roo below appeared to be blue It see itself

She wasn’t afraid of fog…

She felt the lightest touch against her nape Fingers, lifting her hair, softly, gently She closed her eyes and smiled

Finn had awakened He was behind her

That was his ritual He would come to her Stand in silence Touch her hair, lift her hair, press his lips against the flesh of her nape She felt him touch her, then The hotmoisture of his breath In seconds, his arms would come around her He would tell her that he loved her

And being Finn, he would bring his hips hard against her while he held her, and probably whisper that if she was going to screaht reasons, because the things he could do to her were just so good that she couldn’t begin to help herself…

She felt his hands, sliding over terry cloth, beneath it, touching her flesh…

His touch fell away She thought she heard hi for her to turn into his arms, melt into them as she always did

"Finn…"

She spun around, ready to do just that

He wasn’t there

She was alone on the balcony

The breeze suddenly turned colder The eerie blue fog was rising froer to engulf her

Chapter 2

There were two other fa mother and father with their children, a boy of about twelve and a girl around ten, and a younger couple, late twenties or early thirties, on their own as well As Finn and Megan walked through the house to the dining room, where breakfast was served, Finn couldn’t help but wonder if the others had heard Megan screaht

They had