Lori wanted to tell her to run inside and call nine-one-one, but she doubted anyone would come to their aid. Oakmont’s police force was doubtlessly overwhelmed dealing with the Shadowkin attacks throughout town.

The passenger-side door of Reeny’s car opened, and Brian stepped out. Lori already knew what to expect since Aashrita had shown her visions of the transformations her nephew, her sister, and the others had gone through. Larry did too, in general, since she’d told him about the visions. But knowing what to expect and experiencing it were far from the same thing.

Brian’s clothes were covered with dark stains that Lori knew were blood – some of it his, some of it not. His skin was a pale grayish white, and he moved with awkward, stiff motions, as if he was having trouble remembering how to operate his body. But worst of all was the expression on his face. His mouth was twisted into a cold, mirthless smile, and his eyes were flat and unfeeling like a doll’s.

“Hi, Aunt Lorlee!”

His voice was awful too, a hollow echo that sounded as if it came from very far away.

Reeny got out of the car next, but other than being soaking wet, she appeared normal. For an instant, Lori hoped that Reeny had escaped being changed by the Cabal, but then she saw the raw hatred contorting her sister’s features, the sheer loathing that burned in her eyes, and Lori knew that while Reeny looked unchanged on the outside, she had been transformed within. Reeny walked over to stand next to her son, put a hand on his shoulder, and together they stared at Lori.

Melinda, Katie, and Justin got out of the Cherokee and joined Reeny and Brian. They too fixed their gazes on Lori, but their faces displayed different emotions – amusement from Melinda, hungry excitement from Katie, and jealous resentment from Justin. All three of them were covered with blood, and their bodies had been transformed in different ways. One thing about the Cabal: you couldn’t fault their creativity. Melinda’s braid had been animated with a life of its own, and it whipped the air behind her like the tail of a restless animal. Katie was an animal, or at least she possessed aspects of one – a cat, Lori judged. It made sense. Her personality had already been like a feline’s in many ways. And Justin…. Jesus Fucking Christ, poor Justin! If she hadn’t already known it was him, she never would’ve recognized him. His body was completely covered by tumors, so many that his nose was no longer visible, and his mouth was a thin, barely perceptible line. His eyes remained unobstructed, though, and somehow that was the worst of all. She saw no love for her within them, only blazing anger that was growing hotter by the moment. His breathing was rough and labored, and when he coughed, it sounded as if his lungs were filled with wet gravel.

“Oh god,” Rajini said, and then she slammed the door shut and locked it, leaving Lori and Larry to face the others on their own.

Smart woman, Lori thought.

Larry didn’t take his gaze off the five nightmares confronting them as he spoke in a hushed voice. “What do we do now?”

Lori didn’t answer him. Instead she addressed the others.

“You’ve come to deliver a message to me,” she said. “I already know what it is. I damn well ought to by now. I’ve heard it enough. But you might as well get it out of your systems. So get on with it.”

The five spoke in unison, as if they’d rehearsed. “Confess and atone – or suffer.”

Lori clapped.

“Bravo. Message received loud and clear. That’s why I’ve come here to the Dhawans’ – to fix the Imbalance I created. That means there’s nothing left for you to do. You’ve played your parts and played them well. Now go away and let me play mine.”

Melinda smiled. “We don’t care what we were supposed to do, and we don’t give a fuck about the Imbalance. We’re writing our own script from now on, and in this next scene...we’re going to kill you.”

“And worse,” Katie said, rough cat tongue licking an elongated incisor.

“I’m going to eat your heart,” Brian said. “I bet it’ll taste like candy.”

“And you’ll eat every bite of it,” Reeny said to her son, “just like the good boy you are.”

Hearing her sister speak like that hurt Lori more than all the tortures the Cabal had put her through combined. This was Reeny, not just her sister but her very best friend.

Not anymore, she thought.

Justin spoke next, pausing every few words to catch his breath.

“You know what…the best thing about…cancer is? It spreads. That makes it…the gift that keeps on giving. I’m going…to pass it along to you.” His gaze flicked to Larry, and his tumor-covered brow furrowed. “And to him – your emotional crutch…of an ex-boyfriend.” His voice changed then, became a chorus. “We join with you. Much-much happy.”

The Cabal had turned Justin and the others into monsters in order to goad her into discovering the nature of the Imbalance she’d created and then fixing it. But the Cabal had done their job too well. Reeny, Brian, Justin, Melinda, and Katie were like machines that had been created to perform a specific task, and they intended to keep performing it, even if it was no longer necessary. They wouldn’t stop until she was dead – and if she died, so did everyone in Oakmont.

Lori drew in a deep breath, released it.

“Let’s get started then. I’m on the clock.”

She drew the Gravedigger Special from the leather jacket’s inner pocket and stepped off the porch and into the rain.

Chapter Fourteen

The Gravedigger Special had five rounds left. Five people, if you could still call them that, stood in the Dhawans’ yard, ready to attack her. She wondered if this was somehow linked to the concept of Balance – five enemies, five bullets – or if it was only a coincidence. Either way, she couldn’t afford to waste any ammo. She needed to make every shot count.

She blinked to keep the rainwater out of her eyes. The water was cold against her skin, but she barely noticed. From the porch, Larry said, “Uh, I’m not sure this is a good idea, Lori.”

“It’s a terrible idea,” she said without looking at him. “But it’s the only one I’ve got.”

The woman she’d been less than twenty-four hours ago would’ve waited for one of the five to attack her, and when that happened, she might not have been able to bring herself to fire the gun. Now she raised the Gravedigger Special, aimed it at Katie – who she judged to be the most immediate threat – and pulled the trigger. But as she lifted the gun, Melinda gave her head a quick shake and her braid snapped forward. It shot toward Lori, lengthening as it came, and it wrapped around the wrist of the hand holding the weapon. The braid yanked at the same instant Lori squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in her hand as it went off, and she thought for certain that the shot would go wild. Instead, it struck Katie in the left eye.

Thanks, Melinda, she thought.

Katie yowled as blood gushed from her wound. Her head jerked back, she staggered a couple of steps, and then went down. She lay on the wet grass, rain pelting her still form. Everyone looked at Katie’s body, and Lori waited to see if the woman would change back to herself in death, but evidently that was something which only happened in movies because she remained half-cat.

Lori thought of the Katie she knew, the woman she worked with, the one who was full of life and laughter, who liked to gossip and tell dirty jokes. She supposed that woman had died the moment the Cabal had gotten to her, but that didn’t make Lori feel any better about what she’d done.

Melinda, Reeny, Brian, and Justin stared at Katie’s corpse as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. They’d been transformed, were strong and filled with hate. How could one of them have been brought down so easily?

Melinda turned toward Lori then, features twisted by fury. “You bitch!”

She pulled her head back and her braid began to retract, pulling Lori with it. She stumbled forward, almost went down, but she managed to stay on her feet. The braid squeezed tighter around her wrist as it pulled her toward Melinda, and she knew the woman was trying to force her to drop the Gravedigger Special. Lori hadn’t taken her finger off the trigger, and the gun discharged. She didn’t get lucky this time, and the bullet struck no one. She now had three rounds left.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement across the street. She turned her head and saw dark forms crouching on the roof of the house opposite the Dhawans’. Three, no, four of them. The Shadowkin had reached this neighborhood, and it looked like some of them had taken a ringside seat to the latest episode of Lori Fights to Save the World.

She saw another flash of movement then, this one to her right. At first she thought it was another Shadowkin, attacking her from behind. But it was Larry. He stepped in front of her, grabbed hold of Melinda’s braid with both hands, and pulled. In that moment she loved the dumb sonofabitch more than ever.

She also took hold of the braid with her free hand and added her strength to Larry’s. Maybe if the grass had been dry, they would’ve been able to slow or even stop Lori’s progression toward Melinda. But it wasn’t, and neither she nor Larry could get any traction. They slid forward as Melinda pulled, almost as if they were slow-motion water skiing. Then Melinda tossed her head back, giving her braid a fierce yank. Lori and Larry lost their footing and fell forward. She and Larry continued sliding toward Melinda, who was grinning in triumph. Larry tried to hold on, but the rain had made Melinda’s hair slick and he lost his grip. He rolled to the side as Lori shot past him, and when she reached Melinda, the braid raised her up into the air until her bare feet dangled several inches above the ground. Melinda held Lori by the right wrist, just below the hand that held the Gravedigger Special, and she couldn’t aim her gun at the woman. The weapon was useless.

Melinda had to raise her head to look Lori in the face. Lori gazed into her eyes, searching for any sign of the person she’d once been. Their relationship had been prickly at times, but Lori had respected her as a boss and colleague. She was tough on both her clients and staff, but she’d built a strong practice that had helped a lot of people. Lori couldn’t reconcile that woman with the one grinning at her now. This Melinda wasn’t a person so much as a force of nature, no different than the rain falling on them. She was hatred, aggression, and cruelty personified. She was, in short, evil.

“I’m not surprised you were able to take Katie out so easily,” Melinda said. “She always was more sizzle than steak. But I’m far stronger than her.” Her grin widened. “Meaner, too. So if you think—”

While Melinda talked, Lori felt feather-light movement in her hair. It crept down the back of her neck, onto her shoulder, then up the arm that Melinda was holding her by. She watched as the last of Edgar’s friends made its way onto Melinda’s braid and began scuttling along it, picking up speed as it went. The beetle disappeared from sight as it followed the braid down to where it was attached to Melinda’s head. It reappeared on top of her head, ran over her forehead, onto her nose, and before the woman was even aware it was happening, the beetle crawled into her right nostril and vanished up her nose.

Melinda’s braid flailed about wildly as her shriek grew into a scream. Blood gushed from both nostrils, and she brought her hands to her face and pressed them against her nose in a vain attempt to stop the flow. Lori leaned back against the ground, took a two-handed grip on the Gravedigger Special, and aimed it squarely at Melinda’s chest. But before she could fire, Melinda’s screaming became a high-pitched ululation, and her body began spasming. Fresh gouts of blood jetted from her nose, her eyes rolled white, and she collapsed to the ground. Her braid continued moving for a moment, then it too fell still. An instant later, the beetle emerged from Melinda’s left ear. It was coated with thick blood, but the rain washed the gore off the insect. The beetle took to the air, flew toward Lori, landed on her head and once more nestled in her hair. She thought she knew what the insect had done. It had entered through Melinda’s nostril, burrowed its way up into her brain, and started eating as fast as it could. A nasty way to go, but at least it had been fast and she hadn’t wasted another tooth-bullet. She still had three.

She looked at the house across the street and saw more Shadowkin had climbed onto the roof to watch the action. There were ten now, maybe a dozen. And there were Shadowkin on some of the other roofs too.

She’d been so focused on Melinda that she’d lost track of the others. She looked around and saw Reeny and Brian standing off to the side, watching and waiting. She saw Justin and Larry grappling with each other. Justin gripped Larry’s shoulders and Larry had his hands around the other man’s throat. Justin’s neck was so swollen with tumors that Larry’s fingers had sunk so far into the spongy discolored flesh that they weren’t visible. Larry’s features were scrunched up with effort and his arms were shaking. He was putting everything he had into strangling Justin. For his part, Justin kept his hands on Larry’s shoulders, gripping them tight, yes, but not in a way that would cause any damage. Why wasn’t he fighting back?An instant later Lori understood why.

Justin let out a violent cough and a spray of black particles hit Larry’s face. Larry drew in a reflexive breath, and then he began coughing too.

“Fuck,” Lori said softly.

Larry let go of Justin’s throat and stepped back. He kept coughing, so violently now that his entire body shuddered.