PROLOGUE
"Love Potion #666"
At a Bun Hut counter in an upscale mall, a man is talking to Lucy Parker while she tries to open up for the day. Not a young man, not an old man, just an exceptionally average man. He's maybe thirty, kind of pudgy but very clean-cut, with glasses and a short-sleeved button-up shirt. Lucy is nineteen and hot, and she knows it.
She gives noncommittal monosyllabic answers to his boring and pointless questions, wondering if he knows how sad and creepy it is for him to be standing here hitting on her at ten in the morning.
She's certain she knows him from somewhere, but can't quite put her finger on it. Maybe he's a regular. She would tell him to buzz-off, but Lupino is managing today and he's a stickler about polite customer service.
"You haven't seen Star Wars?" the nerdy man asks her, incredulous.
"That movie was a bit before my time," she explains. "I'm only nineteen."
She smiles wanly, wishing he would just get the hint. He smiles awkwardly, not getting it at all. They share a moment of uncomfortable silence.
"If that's everything," she offers gently. "I have to get back to work."
The man nods, fishing in his pocket for something. Lucy tenses, fearing he will offer her some sort of present and push the situation from awkward and uncomfortable straight into creepy and weird.
Instead he pulls out a small black cannister and points it at his face, giving it a few quick pumps. Lucy represses a smirk. Is he serious, she muses, or has he just seen too many commercials for body sprays?
She had to admit, whatever he was spraying on himself smelled good. In fact it smelled great. She looks at him and suddenly realizes he's gorgeous, and she wants him. No, she needs him. She runs a hand along her body, touching her face, wanting to rip her clothes off and throw herself at him.
"You want to get out of here?" he asks.
She jumps up on the counter and swings her legs over. Sliding across, she puts a hand on his shoulder and leans forward, their lips meeting as she kisses him.
"Come on," he says. "Let's go somewhere private."
She wants him right here, right now, but lets him take her by the hand and lead her through the food court.
* * *
A minute later, Lupino stepped out from the back of the restaurant calling for Lucy. She was nowhere to be seen. He looked out over the crowd at the food court, trying to spot his employee. He was startled to realize that everyone in the court was tearing their clothes off, launching themselves at each other, going at it like dogs in heat.
Lupino started to cross himself, but as his hand touched his shirt, he felt a powerful wave of desire and lust pass through him, and instead he tore the shirt off his back and sprung over the counter, rushing to join in the frenzy of flailing bodies.
Two thin but steady lines of blood streamed from his nose.