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Prologue

The third book in the Sign of Seven Trilogy series

For old friends

Where there is no vision, the people perish

¨C PROVERBS 29:18

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat

¨C WINSTON CHURCHILL

Prologue

Mazatl¨¢n, Mexico

April 2001

SUN STREAKED PEARLY PINK ACROSS THE SKY, splashed onto blue, blue water that rolled against white sand as Gage Turner walked the beach He carried his shoes-the tattered laces of the ancient Nikes tied to hang on his shoulder The he since faded to white at the stress points The tropical breeze tugged at hair that hadn't seen a barber in more than three months

At the mo of beach bu away on the sand He'd bunked on beaches a time or then his luck was down, and knew so tourists woke for their room-service coffee

At the moment, despite the need for a shower and a shave, his luck was up Nicely up With his night's winnings hot in his pocket, he considered upgrading his ocean-view room for a suite

Grab it while you can, he thought, because tomorrow could suck you dry

Ti out: it spilled like that white, sun-kissed sand held in a closed fist His twenty-fourth birthday was less than three months away, and the dreams crawled back into his head Blood and death, fire and madness All of that and Hawkins Hollow seemed a world away from this soft tropical dawn

But it lived in him

He unlocked the wide glass door of his roo on the lights, closing the drapes, he took his winnings froave the bills a careless flip With the current rate of exchange, he was up about six thousand USD Not a bad night, not bad at all In the bathroo cream, tucked the bills inside the hollow tube

He protected as his He'd learned to do so fro away small treasures so his father couldn't find and destroy theht've flipped off any notion of a college education, but Gage figured he'd learned quite a bit in his not-quite-twenty-four years

He'd left Hawkins Hollow the suh school Just packed up as his, stuck out his thumb and booked

Escaped, Gage thought as he stripped for a shower There'd been plenty of work-he'd been young, strong, healthy, and not particular But he'd learned a vital lesson while digging ditches, hauling lu theHe could make more money at cards than he could with his back

And a gaame

He stepped into the shower, turned the water hot It sluiced over tanned skin, lean ht idly about ordering some coffee, some food, then decided he'd catch a few hours' sleep first Another advantage of his profession, in Gage's ry, slept when he was tired He set his own rules, broke them whenever it suited him

Nobody had any hold over him

Not true, Gage admitted as he studied the white scar across his wrist Not altogether true A man's friends, his true friends, always had a hold over him There were no truer friends than Caleb Hawkins and Fox O'Dell

Blood brothers

They'd been born the same day, the same year, even-as far as anyone could tell-at the same moment He couldn't remember a time when the three of them hadn't beena unit, he supposed The middle-class boy, the hippie kid, and the son of an abusive drunk Probably shouldn't have had a thing in coreen of his eyes But they'd been fa before Cal had cut their wrists with his Boy Scout knife to ritualize the pact