He realized he was shouting. The only sound in the restaurant was the musac playing in the background. Everyone was staring at him. He shook his head, and made a helpless gesture. Everyone resumed talking and obviously turned away. Mary and her staff set six plates down in front of the lone man sitting in a corner booth.

“Oh, look, that must be Croyd,” Abby said brightly. “Obviously just now waking up. I really should say hello. Thank you for lunch. Well … I guess.” She stood and walked quickly away to the other table. Back to the ex-boyfriend. The ace.

Franny threw a bill down on the table, and bolted out of the restaurant. He pictured Abby twisted into the shapes described by retching reporters. Or raped and murdered by some madman. He had a horrible moment wondering if he might be that man. He was crazy about her. What if he lost all inhibition and acted on his desire?

He wanted to go back and apologize to Abby. To Mary. To everyone. For everything. For fucking up.

They’d been at it for hours, the sun closer to rising than setting, when Mollie reluctantly widened yet another portal for a quick survey of something Joey had glimpsed through her toe tags’ putrefying eyes. Day and night seemed to carry little meaning so deep inside Horrorshow’s zone of influence; the fell luminescent fog illuminated everything with a sepulchral glow. Joey pointed to damage in the barely recognizable remnants of buildings, streets, people. Here and there, craters pocked the surreal landscape, or what might have been blast marks.

“That’s her trademark,” she said. “Michelle was here.” She glanced around the edges of the portal, as if triangulating. “I think she was standing over there when she threw that one. Try over there.”

The lights flickered. In the far corner of the warehouse, Agent Vigil urgently waved his hand at his neck: their “cut it off” motion. Mollie fought to kill the portal; once the evil seeped through, they resisted her a bit, as though she were trying to uniformly compress a water balloon. But she managed to pinch off the incursion, then waited for the lights to return to normal operation. The SCARE team and its Russian counterparts monitored a bank of electronics inside the machoed-up Winnebago. She yawned hard enough for her jaw to pop while waiting for the all-clear. One of the Russian Andromeda Strain guys gave her the thumbs-up (who knew that was international?). Mollie rubbed her stinging eyes, steeled herself, and opened the bajillionth portal pair since entering the warehouse. The Talas side of this one opened on a site near where Joey had indicated.

After finding Earth Witch in her burrow, they’d come up empty on the rescue front. Mollie had been ready to pack it in hours ago. She could barely concentrate. But Joey was relentless in her search for Bubbles.