A teenage girl popped out of the wings behind him and waved at Riley. “Hey loser!”

I felt him stiffen against me. “Chloe.”

Riley’s sister! She looked a couple years younger than me and was dressed in a ruffly skirt and pink tank top. Like Riley, she was unnaturally pale, but her raven’s-wing hair was cut short and spiky, styled in a sort of half-mohawk that complimented her heart-shaped face in a girlish way. Her dark eyes twinkled mischievously, and as she got closer I noticed four piercings in one of her ears, five in the other, and one each in her nose and lower lip.

“So this is the meat?” she queried, looking me up and down before giving me a friendly wink. “Niiiiice ceremonial garb.” Despite her smirk, the impression I got wasn’t at all one of sarcasm or derision. She actually meant it. And her smile grew more cheerful, as if to prove that point.

I could only shake my head, bemused. I’d completely forgotten about what I was wearing, and I flushed with shame. I wasn’t about to thank her for the compliment, but if she had really come to help save us, I didn’t want to offend her either… My hopes were steadily rising.

Riley seemed unsure what to make of her attitude, and he looked back to Neil. “But even with our powers combined,” he said tensely, “we three do not possess the ability to lock the gate.”

My hopes sank like a shipwreck.

Neil rolled his eyes again. “You think she’s the only backup I brought?”

Chloe put her hands on her hips, scoffing. “Hey!”

Neil shook his head with a chuckle. “You’re feisty, kid, but we need the big guns. So I rallied the whole crew. Well, the awake ones, anyway. And let me tell you what a romping good time that was. About five minutes ago, out under the Sahara—”

Chloe cut him off with an enthusiastic nod. “Getting our grumpy old cousins to agree to work together when they’ve been avoiding each other for centuries? Hoo boy…”

Riley still seemed uncertain, but I could feel how his tension was dissolving into guarded optimism. “Even the Deep Ones?” he asked.

“Better,” said Neil. “I wrangled everyone’s favorite curmudgeon.”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yup.” Neil grinned. “Yog-Sothoth.”

“The Gatekeeper,” Riley murmured, low and reverent.

“You owe me bigtime for this one, kid.”

Riley’s family! He hadn’t so much as spoken to them in ages, but they were all coming here now to try to save the universe. To try to save us. Could they possibly have the combined strength to close the portal? How I wished I could feel more assurance from Riley.

Instead I suddenly felt a strange ripping in the air, as if the dimensions had begun to shift. Preternatural thunder crashed all around us.