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"You’ve been fed and taken care of as best as we can htened young faces turned toward her in the base I want to ask of you in return"She made an effort and steadied her voice "I want to know if anybody knows of a mobile phone that connects to the Internet, or a co Please, please - if you even think you knohere one ht be, telMeredith toward each of the pale, strained faces, dragging them to her

It was just as well that Meredith was essential y well -

balanced About twelve hands went up immediately, and their lone five-year-old whispered, "My mommy has one And my daddy"

There was a pause before Meredith could say, "Does anybody know this kid?"and an older girl spoke up before she could

"She justMan cal ed Shinichi?"Meredith asked

"’Course Sometimes he would make the red parts of his hair burn up way over his head"

Meredith filed that little fact away under Things I do not want to see, honest, cross e

"You guys and girls, please, please think I only need one, one ht now One laptop or coenerator Stillenerator Stillworking Anybody?"

The hands were do A boy she thought she recognized as being one of the Loring siblings,Man told us that mobile phones and coht with my dad He threw al the mobiles at home in the toilet"

"Okay Okay, thanks But anybody who’s seen a working enerator - "

"Why, yes, ot one"The voice ca there, dressed in a fresh sweat suit Strangely, she had her voluenerator?"Meredith asked, her heart sinking What a waste! And if disaster ca over her own research! Theaway, and if everyone in Fel ’s Church died, it would be her fault Her fault She didn’t think she could live with that

Meredith had tried, al her life, to reach the state of calm, concentration, and balance that was the other side of the coin froht her And she had becoood student for al that she was in Elena’s fast-paced, high-flying clique The four of theether like four pieces of a puzzle, and Meredith Stillso pseudo-sophisticated capers that never real y hurt anyone - except the sil y boys who hadat herself, she was puzzled Who was she?

A Hispanic girl nae A hunter-slayer of varoup of friends included Stefan, a vampire; Elena, an ex-vah she was extremely hesitant to cal Da to do her best to keep her balance and concentration, in a world that had gone insane A girl Stillreeling from what she’d learned about her own fa fro Stop! You have to tel Mrs Flowers that her boardinghouse has been destroyed

"Mrs Flowers - about the boardinghouse - I have to talk to you"

"Why don’t you use my BlackBerry first?"Mrs Flowers ca her feet, and then the children parted before her like waves on the Red Sea

"Your?"Meredith stared, choked up Mrs Flowers had opened her enor a rather thick al -black object to her

"It Stillhas power,"the old lady explained as Meredith took the thing in two shaking hands, as if receiving a holy object "I just turned it on and it orking And now I’m on the Internet!" - proudly

Meredith’s world had been sed up by the srayish, antiquated screen She was so aot why she needed it But her body knew Her fingers clutched; her thumbs danced over the e and entered the word "Ori a tre in her knees, she typed in "Inari"

6,530,298 results

She went to the very first hit and saeb page with a definition Key words seemed to rush out at her like vultures

Inari is the Japanese Shinto deity of riceandfoxes At the entrance to an Inari shrine arestatues of two kitsuneone male and one femaleeach with a key or jewel carried in ers of Inari They carry out Inari’s orders

There was also a picture of a pair of kitsune statues, in their fox for on a star bal

Three years ago, Meredith had fractured her leg when she was on a skiing trip with her cousins in the Blue Ridge Mountains She had run straight into a smal tree No martial arts skil s could save her at the last roo: powder, crud, or iced-over ruts And, of course, trees Lots of trees She was an advanced skier, but she had been going too fast, looking in the wrong direction, and the next thing she knew, she was skiing into the tree instead of around it

Now she had the sa up after a head-on into wood The shock, the dizziness and nausea that were, initial y, worse than the pain Meredith could take pain

But the pounding in her head, the sickening awareness that she hadto have to pay for it were unbearable Plus there was a curious horror about the knowledge that her own legs wouldn’t hold her up

Even the sah her subconscious, like: How could I be so stupid? Is this possibly a dream? and, Please, God, can I hit the Undo button?

Meredith suddenly realized that she was being supported on either side by Mrs Flowers and their sixteen-year-old, Ava Wakefield The mobile was on the cement floor of the basement She must have actual y started to black out

Several of the younger kids were screa Matt’s name

"No - I - I can stand up alone"Al she wanted in the world was to go into the darkness and get away froo slack and her o blank, to flee

But she couldn’t run away She had taken the stave; she had taken the Duty fro supernatural that was out to harm Fel ’s Church on her watch was her problem And the proble down the stairs, carrying their seven-year-old, Hailey, who continual y shook with petit mal seizures

"Meredith!"She could hear the incredulity in his voice "What is it? What did you find, for God’s sake?"

"Co detail after detail that should have set off warning bel s in her mind Matt was somehow already beside her, even as she remembered Bonnie’s very first description of Isobel Saitou

"The quiet type Hard to get to know Shy Andnice"

And that first visit to the Saitou house The horror that quiet, shy, nice Isobel Saitou had beco from every hole And when they had tried to carry dinner to her old, old grandmother, Meredith had noticed absently that Isobel’s roo Isobel pierced and clearly unbalanced, Meredith had assu to travel up, and had worried in the back of her randmother

But the evil could just as easily have traveled down Maybe Jiiven Isobel the iven it to hiiven it to Caroline and to his sister

And that children’s ga that Obaasan - that Inari-Obaasan had crooned "Fox and turtle had a race" And her words: "There’s a kitsune involved in this so herself! Come to that, it was from Inari-Obaasan that Meredith had first heard the word "kitsune"

And one more additional cruelty, that Meredith had only been able to excuse before by assuht, Meredith had had her back to the door and so had Bonnie - they had both been concentrating on "poor decrepit old Grand the door, and she was the only one who could have seen -up behind Bonnie And then, just as the cruel ga told Bonnie to look behind her