Dedication

As always, this is for my readers.
I hope you like this new world and its people.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND THANKS

My thanks to Dr. Karen Ross, Dr. Ed Uthman, the Reverend Gary Nowlin, Ellen Dugan (witch and writer), and Mike Meyers, the owner of Purple Heart Pawn. All of you helped me in the writing of this book. If I have made mistakes, they are mine alone. And, as always, thanks to Dana Cameron and Toni L. P. Kelner (aka Leigh Perry), for aid and support above and beyond the call of friendship. Paula, I really appreciate your reading the hate mail so I don’t have to wade through it. Joshua, I couldn’t have a better agent. You and the staff of JABberwocky are my agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Hal, thanks for staying calm.

Prologue

You might pass through the town of Midnight without noticing it, if there weren’t a stoplight at the intersection of Witch Light Road and the Davy highway. Most of the town residents are very proud of the stoplight, because they know that without it the town would dry up and blow away. Because there’s that pause, that moment to scan the storefronts, maybe three cars a day do stop. And those people, more enterprising or curious (or lower on gas) than most, might eat at the Home Cookin Restaurant, or get their nails done at the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon, or fill up their tanks and buy a soda at Gas N Go.

The really inquisitive ones always go to Midnight Pawn.