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finger toward the Xtreme Park, where skateboarders were making like metronomes on the ramps, up and down, up and down. “You are the shit in this playground over here. Fine. Congratulations. But we want you to go farther. You join with us, you’ve got muscle behind you . . . money, product, protection. You hit it with us, you’re going to be something more than a two-bit punk swinging your cock around a concrete lot. We’ve got your future.”
    The kid’s calculating stare shifted toward his little slice of territory in Caldwell and then floated over to the horizon where the skyscrapers loomed. The ambition was there, and that was why he’d been chosen. What this little bastard needed was a way up and a way out.
    The fact that he’d have to sell his soul to do it was going to dawn on him only when it was too late, but that was the way of the Society. From what Lash had been told by the lessers he now commanded, there was never a full-disclosure thing before they got inducted—and this was understandable. Like any of them would have believed that evil was waiting on the other side of the door they were knocking on? Like any one of them would have volunteered for what they were getting into?
    Surprise, motherfucker. This ain’t no Disney World, and once you get on the ride, you are never, ever getting off.
    Lash was totally fine with deception, however.
    “I’m ready for bigger shit,” the kid murmured.
    “Good. Now get the fuck out of my car. My associate will pick you up tomorrow night at seven.”
    “Cool.”
    With business concluded, Lash was impatient to move the little bastard along. The kid smelled like a sewer and was screaming for more than a shower—he needed to be hosed down like a dirty stretch of sidewalk.
    As soon as the door was shut, Lash backed out of the parking lot and hooked up with the road that ran parallel to the Hudson River. He headed for home, his hands gripping the steering wheel for another reason than the urge to kill.
    The urge to fuck was just as strong a motivator for him.
    The street he lived on in Old Caldwell had Victorian-era brownstones running down it and sidewalks planted with trees and property values no lower than a million dollars. The neighbors picked up after their dogs, never made any noise, and put their trash out only in the back alleys, and only on the right days. As he drove past his town house and cut around the block to the garage, he was tickled fucking pink to think all these tight-ass WASPs had a neighbor like him: He might have looked and dressed like them, but his blood ran black and he was as soulless as a wax statue.
    As he hit the garage door opener, he smiled and his fangs, a gift from his mother’s side, elongated as he got ready for his Hello, Lucy-I’m-home shit.
    Never got old. Coming back to Xhex never got old.
    After he’d parked the AMG, he got out and had to stretch his body. She put him through the wringer, she abso did, and he loved how she left him stiff . . . and not just in the cock.
    Nothing like a good opponent to cheer his shit up.
    Cutting through the back garden and entering the house through the kitchen, he smelled grilled sirloin and fresh bread.
    He wasn’t into food at the moment, though. Thanks to that convo at the park, that little shit skater was going to be his first induction, the first offering he brought to his father, the Omega. And didn’t that make him jones for some sex.
    “Y’all ready to eat?” Mr. D asked from the stove as he flipped the piece of meat over. The little Texan had proved useful not only as an initial tour guide through the Lessening Society, but also as a killer and a halfway decent cook.
    “Nah, I’m going up now.” He tossed his keys and his cell phone on the granite countertop. “Leave the food in the fridge and lock the door behind you.”
    “Yessuh.”
    “We’re on for tomorrow night. You pick the target up at seven. You know where to take him.”
    “Yessuh.”
    That two-syllable word