“Go on, sweetie,” Reeny urged.

“She’s back in this world again. She just got a text message from a friend. A dead friend. I’m sensitive to that kind of thing since I’m dead too.”

Melinda, Katie, and Justin all leaned forward, eager to hear what Brian had to say.

“Tell us more,” Reeny said. “Do you know exactly where she’s at right now?”

“Better,” Brian said, grinning. “I know where she’s going.”

* * *

Lori and Larry passed her parents’ house on the way to Aashrita’s. Everything looked normal from the outside, but that didn’t necessarily mean her mom and dad were safe. She pictured Shadowkin swarming through the house, claws sinking into her parents’ flesh, tearing them apart as if they were tissue paper.

“Do you want to stop?” Larry asked. “Just for a minute, to make sure they’re okay?”

She was tempted. She knew Larry cared about her parents too. His mother had died when he was a teenager, and his father hadn’t really spoken to him after he came out as bisexual. Lori’s parents adored Larry and had become like a second mom and dad to him. Sometimes Lori thought they were more upset that she and Larry had broken up than she was.

“I’ll just call them. Can I borrow your phone?”

Larry nodded, and she took his phone from the cupholder and called her mom. She picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Lorelai! Thank god! I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon.”

“Sorry, I lost my phone. I’m using Larry’s. How are you and Dad doing?”

“We’ve been frantic! After what happened at the clinic, we thought…well, we thought the worst.”

Lori frowned. “What do you mean?”

Her mom told her about the murders at Get Moving!

“The police have no idea what went on there. And that’s not all. Have you been watching the news? The whole town’s going crazy! There was a shooting at the mall, and some kind of terrorists are running around killing people. Where are you? Come over here so we know you’re safe. Bring Larry, too.”

She wasn’t surprised that her mom didn’t say anything about Justin. Her mom and dad felt lukewarm toward him at best.

“I’ve got something to do first, Mom. But I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

“Have you heard from your sister? I’ve been trying to call her, too, but she hasn’t answered.”

Lori thought of the visions Aashrita had shown her, saw Reeny sobbing as she held Brian’s dead body.

“I haven’t,” she said truthfully. “I’ll let you know if I do. Try not to worry about her. She’s probably fine.” She hated lying to her mother like this, but she could hardly tell her the truth.

She once more promised that she and Larry would be over soon, and then ended the call. She would’ve loved to go to her folks’ house and hole up there until this all blew over. But she knew if she didn’t find a way to reset the Balance between Shadow and the real world, no one in Oakmont – maybe in the whole damn world – would be safe.

Lori’s parents weren’t rich, but they lived in one of the more upscale sections of town, the kind of place where larger, two-story houses sat too close to one another, and there were no streetlights because residents thought they were too garish. The Dhawans lived a couple of streets away from the Palumbos, and their house was even larger and nicer. At least, it had been the Dhawans’ house back when she was a senior in high school. But after Aashrita’s death, she hadn’t seen or spoken with her parents, not once. Not even at Aashrita’s funeral, which she’d barely been able to make herself attend. For all she knew, they’d decided to move sometime in the last fifteen years. She imagined herself and Larry knocking on what she believed was the Dhawans’ front door, only for their knock to be answered by a man or woman she didn’t recognize.

The previous occupants moved out years ago. No, I don’t have their new address. Sorry.

Then there would be nothing she could do to stop the Intercessor, and all of Oakmont would be well and truly fucked.

She thought she might have trouble recognizing the Dhawans’ house after all these years, but she knew it the instant she saw it. She felt a wave of sadness move through her. She and Aashrita had spent most of their time together at Lori’s house, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t gone to the Dhawans’ before, and she found herself feeling a strange emotion, homesickness for someone else’s home.

She pointed to a white two-story with black shutters.

“This is it,” she said.

Larry pulled into the house’s upward-sloping driveway, parked, got out, and walked around to the passenger side of the car to open the door for Lori.

“All ashore who’s going ashore,” he said.

It was still raining. His hair was plastered to his head and water droplets clung to his beard.

Lori tucked the Gravedigger Special into the inner pocket of Larry’s leather jacket, and got out. The rain felt cold on her head, face, hands, and legs, but she barely registered the sensation. Her mind was laser-focused on what she’d come here to do.

She hurried to the front door, Larry following close on her heels. She hadn’t asked him to accompany her, but she was grateful for his presence. When they reached the porch, Larry stood a couple steps back to give her room. She faced the door – a big white thing that looked as if it had been freshly painted recently – raised her hand, and knocked. She felt the beetle in her hair shift positions, and she wondered if it had done so to get more comfortable or to get a better view of the events about to transpire.

No one answered right away, so she knocked again, a bit louder, more forceful.

“Maybe we should break a window,” Larry said. “I could climb inside and unlock the door in case something has, you know, happened to them. With all the Shadowkin running around….”

Lori was seriously considering it when the door finally opened, and she saw Aashrita’s mother for the first time in seventeen years.

Rajini Dhawan was a handsome East Indian woman in her sixties, with gray hair she wore pulled back in a bun. The hair startled Lori. She remembered Rajini with long, beautiful black hair. She was short, only an inch or two over five feet, and she was heavier than Lori remembered. She wasn’t obese by any means, but her face was rounder, her body plumper. She wore a long-sleeved black pullover sweater, navy-blue slacks, and a pair of black flats. She had on earrings and several thin bracelets, but on her fingers only a wedding band. Rajini was an anesthesiologist, and Lori remembered Aashrita once telling her that her mom didn’t wear any other rings because of how often she had to wash her hands at work.

“Hi, Dr. Dhawan,” Lori said. “You probably don’t remember me, but—”

“Of course I remember you, Lori. It’s good to see you, but I must ask: are you wearing anything under that jacket, because it doesn’t look like you are.”

Lori almost laughed in relief. She hadn’t known if Aashrita had told her parents about the awful things she’d said on the day before she ended her life, but she’d always feared she had. It was why she hadn’t spoken to Aashrita’s parents at the funeral, and why she’d avoided Aashrita’s siblings as well. She hadn’t been able to bear the thought of their looking her in the eyes and thinking, This is the girl who caused Aashrita to kill herself. She’d been afraid that Rajini would look at her that way now, but the woman hadn’t, and she began to hope that maybe Aashrita hadn’t said anything to her family about her cruel words. That, or if Rajini knew, she’d long ago decided to forgive her.

“It’s a long story, Dr. Dhawan.” She remembered Larry was standing behind her, and she half turned toward him to acknowledge his presence. “This is my friend, Larry Ramirez.”

“Nice to meet you,” Larry said. He grimaced then, perhaps aware of how ridiculous social niceties were in this situation.

Rajini favored him with a smile before facing Lori once more.“Why don’t you come in and get dry? Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”

“Actually,” Lori said, “we are and we do.”

Before she could say anything more, a pair of vehicles came speeding down the street toward the Dhawans’ house – a white Jeep Cherokee and a red Nissan Altima.

“Shit,” Lori said.

She watched as the vehicles drew closer, neither slowing. Reeny was in the lead, and when she reached the Dhawans’ yard, she went over the curb and onto the grass. Melinda followed close behind. Lori thought they were going to keep coming and ram into the porch in an attempt to hurt them, but at the last instant, Reeny veered off and hit the brakes. The Altima slid on the wet grass, tires churning the ground to mud. Melinda braked abruptly too, but she managed to maintain better control of her vehicle, and it didn’t slide nearly so badly.

“What in the hell?” Rajini said.