Lon inclined his chin in answer, nearly smiling, but not quite. He’d obviously heard this joke before.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m getting too old to fight, and it’s not worth the stress on my wife. For her sake, I made up with Mark recently and gave him the CEO position at my company. The point I’m trying to make is that despite the bad first impression you got of the Hellfire Club, we are, at heart, an extended family.

“All of us have roots in La Sirena,” he explained, lounging in his seat. “Roots that stretch to the time the community was founded, after our ancestors fled the Roanoke Colony and settled here. We’ve taken care of one another for centuries, long before the Hellfire Club ever existed. And even if some of us fight or bicker”—he threw a gentle look to Lon—“or drift away from each other, we still take care of our own. And now we’re facing a danger that threatens the core of our community—our children.”

I uncrossed my legs and sat up straighter. “The missing kids.”

“Yes. Both were children of Hellfire Club members.”

“What?” Lon said in surprise. “Rick Chapman’s kid this weekend, sure, but—”

“The first was Thomas Jones’s boy.”

Realization settled over Lon’s features. “I haven’t seen Tom in years,” he admitted. “I didn’t even know he had a kid.”

Dare slumped in his armchair and swooped an open palm over the top of his bare head. “Tom’s kept to himself over the last few years, but he’s still one of ours.”

“It’s certainly a terrible thing,” I agreed, “and I’m sorry to hear that they were both part of your . . . community, but I don’t understand why you wanted to talk to me about it.”

“You’ve heard the rumors about this whole thing being a replay of the Sandpiper Park Snatcher, yes?”

I nodded.

“I have reason to believe that this madman is still alive and targeting Hellfire children out of revenge.”

Goose bumps rushed over my arms as a hollow silence filled the room.

“I’ll explain,” Dare said. “Thirty years ago, during the original abductions, Lon was just a boy himself—twelve or thirteen, I believe?”

Lon nodded in agreement and absently rested his hand on my knee. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Lon would have lived through the first snatchings. Sometimes I forgot how much older he was than me.

“Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard the story. Seven teenagers went missing during the days leading up to Samhain, one taken every day or so, and the last child was abducted on Halloween night. The police chased their tails trying to find the person responsible, just as they’re doing now, and the Snatcher was never caught, nor identified.”

Dare explained that a month before all of this occurred, he’d been embroiled in a yearlong dispute with a club member named Jesse Bishop, who was challenging the Body, the thirteen ruling officers of the Hellfire Club. Bishop wanted something exclusive that only Body members were allowed—transmutation, a secret initiation spell that made a permanent change to their demonic natures. Members who underwent this spell—like Lon and his ex-wife, Yvonne—were able to shift into a half-human, half-demon form at will. In this state, their demonic abilities increased considerably. But the club limited initiates to thirteen seats at any given time. Until an officer left or died, no one else could undergo the secret spell.

“I was convinced that Bishop wasn’t a bad person,” Dare said. “Believed that his intentions were good, and he had reasons for wanting the transmutation ability beyond mere power. But the Body stood by its rule. Only thirteen.” He smiled at Lon. “Your father persuaded me to put my foot down. We made a final ruling. Bishop left. A month later the abductions started.”

“Why would you assume he had anything to do with them?” I asked.

“I didn’t at the time. The abductions were frightening—the talk of the town. But after Halloween, the circle of trees was found with the children’s names and the kidnappings stopped. It was terrible, but nothing led me to believe Bishop was connected. That is, until a few weeks later. I called him several times to check in, see how he was doing. But I couldn’t get him on the phone, so I drove to his house. . . .”

Through a window, Dare observed that a pile of unread mail had collected inside the front door. He became worried that Bishop was dead inside, so he broke into the home and discovered it had been abandoned. The electricity had been shut off—for nonpayment, Dare surmised from the late notices piling up. Bishop’s car was gone, but a pot of sludgy coffee sat on the counter with the remnants of moldy food, as if he’d run off in the middle of breakfast. A newspaper on the table was dated ten days before Halloween . . . the day the first teen went missing.

And ten days before Halloween now, I realized.

“But what interested me the most wasn’t in the kitchen,” Dare said. “It was what I found spread across the living room floor. Stacks of old grimoires and journal pages filled with handwritten notes containing bits of spells. I think he was researching transmutation. Trying to figure out the spell on his own.”

“Did he manage it?” Lon asked.

“We wondered at the time. Your father and I searched for him for several months. But it was as if he disappeared without a trace.”

“Why would you suspect that he took the kids, though?” I asked.