“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.
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?”
