Sandy Holmes’ nose was practically touching the VW’s foggy windshield. She furiously wiped at the glass with the back of her hand and squinted into the wet darkness, struggling to make out the street signs as they slipped by. The address she was looking for should be right around the next corner if she had her directions right.

Damn the Seattle traffic! Why was every-damn-body out on this Friday night? And why wouldn’t the jerk with the blinding, bright headlights behind her just go on around?

Okay, so the Lake Washington area was unfamiliar territory. But she owed it to herself to finally break some barriers, to explore some new ground, and tonight, by God, was the night. The computer-programming job over in Bellevue was all right, she supposed. But since the day she had been assigned her cubical and issued her desktop box and her own copy of the company employee manual, work had soaked up every drop of what little life she had. Fun was a trip to an all night grocery for salad-in-a-bag and a quart of pistachio ice cream.

Forget about it!

The rain had dwindled now to little more than an aggravating mist. Seattle sunshine. Sandy snorted in spite of herself. What did the Seattle Chamber of Commerce say? About the same annual rainfall per year here as they had in Washington, D.C.? Yes, but D.C. got theirs in occasional gulps. Seattle’s precipitation was insistent, constant, and seemingly never-ending. A fitting metaphor, she often thought, for her job.

The roadway stretching out in front of her glistened black beneath the streetlights. Sandy tried not to envy the happy couples that walked hand in hand up and down the sidewalk, oblivious to the weather. They were likely heading for the cozy little restaurants that lined the street and backed up to Lake Washington. Lights and fancy neon flickered invitingly in their windows and she was sure she would smell grilled fish and alder wood smoke if she cranked down the Bug’s window. Those were happy aromas, associated with dates and friends and a life. She left the windows up.

Sandy was glad, though, that Linda Farragut convinced her to give up an evening, to slip off work early for a change and enjoy herself. Linda was the only one at CedarTech who seemed to be any fun at all. She had told her about this party so it had to be worth the drive. And not a second too soon. Sandy’s social life was for shit. It had been so ever since she graduated head of her class from Iowa City Community College. “Number one nerd!” the yearbook had dubbed her beneath a horrid photo from back when she wore black-rimmed glasses and her hair in a tight, prim bun. So be it. The associate degree in computer science was supposed to be her ticket to success in high-techdom. So far, though, it had been nothing but a drag.

“Stock options! Stock options!” the screen saver on the computer monitor in her cubicle shrieked at her all day, a constant reminder of why she did what she did.

Now it was finally time for this nerd to let her hair down. The hormones had been hemmed up for too long. Nobody knew her here. Linda had even begged off at the last minute. Sandy would be as anonymous as she had ever been in her life.

There it was! Lake Street. She made the turn abruptly with no signal and the guy with the bright headlights angrily blew his horn at her. At least his high beams were gone from her mirror and she could see much more clearly as she searched for the house.

Now, what was it? Two blocks up, large brick on the left.

OK, that's it. Cars in the drive and parked up and down both sides of the street. There was obviously a party there. Good to have a VW. Slide it right in there in that half-a-parking-space, behind the Lexus. She felt her heart beat a notch faster. Time to party.

Maybe there would be a nice guy there that Mom would like. Better still, maybe one she would absolutely hate.

When she slammed the car door behind her, Sandy noticed for the first time in a while how fragrant the air was. One good thing about all the rain, the way the air always smelled clean and electric here. Even in the dark she could see that the aspen leaves had gone golden while she wasn’t looking and the maple leaves burning scarlet just behind them seemed to color the gray night. For a moment she was convinced she could even smell the sea, feel the fresh salt air, even though it was many miles to the west.

Sandy Holmes felt as alive as she had in months as she boldly strode up the walkway to the neat Victorian house. She punched the doorbell and waited until someone cracked it open it a couple of inches, as far as the chain would allow.   She could see only one eye and a deeply black face, topped with wildly spiked blonde hair. There was a dog collar around the man’s neck.

"Yes?" he hissed.

"I…ummm…am Sandy, Linda's friend," she answered. He looked like plenty of other twenty-somethings she saw around Seattle, but somehow, this one scared her.

“Linda?”

“Linda Farragut.”

He eyed her up and down through the crack in the door while she wondered if maybe she was at the wrong place after all. She tried to check the house number again without backing off the little porch.

"Yeah, I know Linda. But I don’t know you."

There was someone else behind him, someone with an easy, friendly voice, soft but still audible over the sound of a party that drifted out from somewhere toward the back of the house.

"Wait a minute, Jason. Where are your manners? Let the little lady in. She says she's Linda's friend. That's good enough for me."

Jason obeyed immediately, unchaining the door and opening it wide, beckoning her in with a regal sweep of his hand and a demented grin that showed chapped lips and bad teeth.

The disembodied voice behind him turned out to be a young, dark man with big, sad, brown eyes. He had a welcoming demeanor, a handsome smoothness that instantly had her weak-kneed. He took Sandy’s hand, nodded slightly, and welcomed her to his party.

“I’m glad you could make it, ‘Sandy-Linda’s-friend.’ Please, make yourself at home. I’m Carlos…Carlos Ramirez…and I’m delighted to meet you. Come on back and let me show you off to the other guests.”

There was something almost hypnotic about the man. He immediately made her feel as if he was, indeed, profoundly happy that she had come. He held her hand in his, his arm around her shoulders as he gently guided her through the expensively but tastefully decorated home.

Then they reached the source of all the noise. There were at least a hundred other people milling about the big room at the rear of the house, but Carlos seemed to be playing host only to her now. For that moment, the pretty blonde computer programmer from Iowa City was the most important guest at Carlos Ramirez’ party.

As he led her down the steps into the big open room, the other guests fell silent and looked his way.

“Everyone, welcome Sandy!”

They all raised their cocktails to her in a friendly enough gesture. After a polite pause, they resumed their chatter. Sandy couldn’t believe the crowd. It was as if someone had called Central Casting and asked them to send over a hundred “beautiful people” to populate the most glamorous party Sandy Holmes had ever seen.

A drink appeared in her hand from nowhere and she knew nothing else to do but put it to her lips and take a sip. It tasted sweet, strangely cool on her tongue, but warm and spicy as it went down. Carlos ushered her into the midst of the guests and soon she was talking to someone tall and dark-haired and wearing a suit that likely cost as much as her VW Bug.

Thank you, Linda, she thought. Thank you for delivering me right into heaven!

She soon lost track of Carlos Ramirez. He was standing on the party’s fringes, occasionally acknowledging one of his guests, but mostly watching this new arrival with a small smile playing at his lips.

His dark eyes were no longer sad. They had gone stone cold evil.

Beautiful white trash, he thought. Look how shyly she flirts. How innocent she tries to look. Soon she’ll be snorting with the rest of them. And taking back word of the delights available here to the others, just as her friend has done for her.

I may have her before she is too wasted to appreciate it. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll allow Jason to enjoy her first. These blondes are especially good, his favorites, and he deserves the perks of the job.

Now Carlos watched her as she laughed, her self-consciousness leaving her as she sipped the last few drops of her second drink. She was deeply involved in conversation, cozying up to one of those prancing, WASP, captain-of-industry types that he so despised. Despised even after they inevitably became his best customers. He observed the way the slight, pink flush was spreading its way up her throat now, coloring in her cheeks, adding starlight to her eyes as the alcohol did its work on her.

That was nothing. He would soon have another refreshment to serve her and the rest of his guests. And it truly was magical.

The plan is going precisely as Juan de Santiago promised it would, he thought.

“Give them a taste of the new powder,” de Santiago had urged. “Once they have tasted, they are yours from now on. Yours and ours, Carlos.”

And if the new powder worked as predicted, it would be gold.

A snort or two and hooked for life! How was such a thing possible?

Carlos didn’t care about the specifics. The scope of what de Santiago and the others were doing was much too big for him to comprehend. He only knew how it affected him. Basic supply and demand. This new product would take care of the demand and de Santiago swore he and the others would soon have the supply problem solved.

It’s finally my time, Carlos thought.

After the struggles of the last few years, the small-time marijuana business, the miniscule-margin cocaine distribution, he was finally ready to reap the bounty this new, powerful powder of de Santiago’s promised.

The noise level in the room confirmed that his party guests were ready, too. Carlos stepped through the double doors and signaled to Jason.

It was time to bring in the new refreshments.