“Will do,” I said. “And if you see anything . . . call me.”

Jen watched him drive away. “Call me a wuss, but I’m hoping that additional backup comes quickly.”

“You’re a wuss,” I said obligingly.

“Thanks.”

As it happened, we didn’t have to wait long. Mark and Sheila Reston arrived within a few minutes, parking behind us. We milled around in the street, making the sort of awkward conversation that arises when a handful of people who don’t know one another well gather to prepare for a possible massive ghost uprising or zombie apocalypse. Things went more smoothly when Sinclair arrived after his final tour of the day, sputtering up the hill to join us in the battered Chevy Lumina he’d purchased a few weeks ago.

That made four people on backup. To be honest, I’d rather have had Cody there, but it made sense to spread our resources around, coven members and police presence alike. If anything did happen, we’d have to converge, fast. But I’d chosen the hill since I figured it would get the most traffic from trick-or-treaters, and as I’d observed, the dead seemed to like an audience.

Perched on our cars and swinging our heels, we waited while a soft pre-dusk dimness settled over the hill and kids in costume flitted from house to house.

Despite the hour, the unnaturally balmy conditions persisted, a warm breeze springing up to rustle the piles of fallen leaves along the streets. Halloween in Pemkowet is old-school—none of that sterile contemporary business of determining a preordained time and place for trick-or-treating. People take the holiday seriously. Houses on the hill were decorated for the occasion, candlelit jack-o’-lanterns flashing flickering grins on every doorstep, fake gravestones in the front yards, fake cobwebs in the windows, plastic cauldrons from the dollar store spewing swirls of fake fog. Roving bands of trick-or-treaters went on foot from door to door, mostly accompanied by parents, but not always.

At around half past five, Jen’s phone rang. She took the call and hung up after a brief exchange. “Oh, crap.”

“What?”

“That was my mom,” she said in a grim tone. “Brandon’s missing. So’s his bike. That little shit! He promised me.”

“Damn.” I called in to dispatch. “Sue, it looks like the Easties vs. Townies battle is on after all. Can you notify the officers on patrol?” When I ended the call, Jen was on her phone again, leaving a voice mail.

“Just left a message for Bethany at the House of Shadows,” she said when she finished, her voice still grim. “She did promise to make sure nothing bad ever happened to him.”

“She probably hasn’t, um, risen for the night yet.” I glanced toward the west. The horizon was obscured by trees, but amber luminosity lingered in the sky. “Looks like another hour until the sun sets.”

“Great.”