Beware Read Free

kneeling, swayed to the rhythm.
    “The river flows!” Laveda yelled, wandering among her people. “It flows and winds. We shall drink from its shores, this night. We shall drink its all powerful waters and take its power into ourselves. The river is endless. Its waters flow forever. Eternal power shall be ours!”
    She stopped and placed her open hand on the head of the beautiful young mulatto. The woman rose to her feet.
    “We shall drink at the river!”
    Dukane winced as Laveda jerked the woman’s head back by the hair and flicked her knife across the throat. She pressed her mouth to the spouting wound.
    Two men held the convulsing mulatto from behind, and Laveda stepped back. Her face was smeared with blood. It streamed down her body.
    “Drink, all of you, at the river!”
    As the drums roared, the whole mob rushed forward. Including Alice. They caught the blood in their mouths and hurried off, smearing their bodies, dancing with sudden fury as if they’d all gone mad. Laveda, herself, leapt and spun like the others, her golden hair flying, flesh shimmering in the firelight, breasts slick with blood. A huge, black man fell to the ground at her feet. She dropped onto him, impaling herself. As she rode him, she took a man into her mouth.
    Everywhere Dukane looked, bodies were falling upon each other, mounting and thrusting to the thunder of the drums.
    Alice, on her back near the center of the group, was barely visible under the pale body of a middle-aged man.
    Slinging the rifle across his back, Dukane climbed down from the tree. He propped his rifle against its trunk. He tried to ignore the lump of fear in his belly as he disrobed.
    A piece of cake, he told himself.
    Cakes get eaten.
    Screw that analogy, he thought, and managed a smile.
    When he was naked, he mussed up his hair until it hung over his eyes. Then he slipped his Buck knife from its sheath.
    The things I’ll do for money.
    Even as he cut into his forearm, though, he knew this wasn’t just for money. Now that he’d located the girl, he could think of several less hazardous ways to snatch her from the cult. But none were this daring, this exciting. None would give him the same thrill.
    Gonna get myself killed one of these days.
    With a trembling hand, he smeared blood over his cheeks and mouth and chin.
    He stabbed his knife into the trunk of the cypress, then made his way toward the clearing. His heart pounded with the thudding drums. His mouth was parched. Licking his lips, he tasted his own blood.
    From behind a bush, he studied the fire-lit congregation. No one was standing, no one keeping watch. All were busy writhing in groups of two or more, or crawling off to join new partners.
    Six feet from where he stood, two women were entwined, faces buried between widespread thighs. The one on top was a lean, white woman with a strawberry birthmark on her rump. Dukane crawled forward and nipped it. Her buttocks clenched and she yelped with surprise. Twisting her head around, she gazed at him with wild eyes. Dukane leered. He threw himself onto her sweaty back. Together, they rolled off to the side. She squirmed on top of him, moaning as he nibbled the side of her neck and fondled her breasts. The other woman scurried to join in. She pried apart their legs and knelt between them, her mouth going to the girl, her hand groping Dukane.
    It squeezed him, massaged him, stroked him. He grew hard, his erection rising and pressing against the groin of the girl on top of him. He felt a tongue.
    Then the woman tumbled away, sprawling as a burly black man fell upon her and rammed in.
    Dukane threw himself over, rolling onto the girl who’d been on top of him. She clawed at the grass as he wedged her legs apart. Kneeling behind her, he stroked her wet opening. Then he clutched her hips and thrust into her. His quick, hard lunges soon brought her to a quaking orgasm. He withdrew, rigid and aching, concentrating to prevent his own body from finding its release. With a