"Yeah, well, I blew all my weapons on Sunday night. This is not a great time for a rumble."
"We can always do another brilliant improvisation," she said. "And Categorically Unjustifiable Appropriation is in the trunk, as yet untouched by inhuman hands. By the way, I'm still waiting for you to stick it back on my tire. Any day now would be fine."
"We should wait," Rex said. "Drive back into town now and come back after we get some more weapons from Dess."
"From Dess?" Melissa laughed. "Haven't you noticed? That girl's too busy with her own projects to make anything for us. She's about as useful as Jonathan these days."
Rex shook his head. "Dess'll be pitching in soon enough. We're going to need her to find whatever's out in the desert. Until then, she can play with all the maps she wants."
"You think Dess can turn the pictures I got from Angie's mind into coordinates?"
"That might be complicated." Rex looked at her and frowned. "You might have to..." He didn't bother to finish. They were miles from the mind noise of central Bixby, it was late at night, and the emotion was strong in him; Rex knew she could read the thought.
She smiled and reached over to touch his arm with a gloved hand.
"Don't worry, Loverboy. I wouldn't think of besmirching your honor that way."
He smiled back at her but felt his face flush. There was no point in denying the stab of jealousy he felt at the thought of Melissa touching Dess, sharing her mind as she'd shared it with him. It had been bad enough that time with Jonathan out in the desert. But there was no choice, Rex reminded himself. If she hadn't, they'd all have been darkling meat.
Speaking of which... He looked at his watch. Over an hour.
Enough time to get back to home and safety before midnight. "Maybe we should come back with Jessica. We wouldn't need weapons with her around."
"Ah, the mighty flame-bringer. Too bad she's grounded."
Rex sighed, wondering if any seer in history had ever had to deal with such a motley crew of midnighters.
"Of course," Melissa continued, "she could have spent the night with Constanza this weekend. Then she'd be here waiting for us, flashlight in hand. Only she'd be way too chicken now. Too bad you and Flyboy had to blab."
Rex stared at her. "What else were we supposed to do? Just 'forget' to tell Jessica about Ernesto Grayfoot? Let her spend the night out here, not knowing the danger?"
"Yeah, you're right. Jonathan would have told her anyway," Melissa chuckled. "Plus it's wrong to keep secrets. And as far as secrets go, you wouldn't want Jessica to witness any serious mindcasting, would you? She might wonder why her parents let her go to that party last week."
Rex just kept his mouth shut, not rising to the bait. Melissa had changed so much these past three days. She could almost tolerate school now, had kept her cool even in the Tulsa Mall, and had picked up Constanza's scent every time they'd lost her on the road. Her mind seemed clearer all the time.
But certain things hadn't changed. Rex knew firsthand how caustic she was on the inside, still wounded from sixteen years of physical isolation. Not to mention the eight years of loneliness before the two of them had met, a childhood spent fighting off the collective mind storm of humanity all alone. He wondered if Melissa would ever recover from being born the only mindcaster in Bixby.
He looked at his watch. "Well, it's not that late. We could call her from that Seven-Eleven back on Forty-four and tell her and Jonathan to come here tonight."
The smile on her face flickered again with amusement. "Requesting help from Flyboy?"
"He saved your life, I seem to remember."
The smile faded. "Oh, that. My secret shame." She let out a long sigh. "Fine. Here's a quarter."
The kitchen window opened easily, but climbing in turned out to be tricky. Especially while carrying Categorically Unjustifiable Appropriation, which Rex had brought along just in case there wasn't time to make it back to the car. When he blindly planted his foot in a sink full of dirty dishes, the clatter echoed throughout the house.
"Christ, Rex," Melissa said from behind him. "It's lucky you're not a real burglar. You could wake the dead."
"I'm thinking more haste than stealth, Cowgirl. Taste anything yet?"
She lifted her nose to the air, her eyes catching the rising arc of the moon with a violet flash. "They're curious, but nothing wicked this way comes. Yet. And Jonathan's headed toward Jessica's right on schedule." She frowned. "That's funny. I can't taste Dess anywhere."
"Maybe she found one of her blind spots," he said. "Anyway, come on."
The house was even bigger than it had looked from the outside, the living room long enough to hold a bowling alley. As Melissa stopped to plunk out a few notes on the grand piano in the corner, Rex searched for signs of Focus. But the house was clean on the inside too.
He smiled. Maybe they would get out of here without a rumble.
"Upstairs?" he suggested.
When they found Constanza's room, Melissa let out a laugh. "This is Jessica's only friend?" She shook her head. I don't know why we bother trying to compete."
Rex had to chuckle. Clothes were scattered everywhere, as if a whirlwind had emptied the two huge closets. One entire wall was covered with mirrors, in front of which a frozen Constanza posed, trying on one of her purchases of the day. The floor was littered with discarded price tags, any one of which represented Rex's clothing budget for the decade.
"She's up late," he said.
"Why sleep when you can look at yourself in the mirror?"
"Just be careful with her."
Melissa snorted. "I'll try not to damage the shopping lobe."
Rex laughed but turned away as her hands reached for the motionless figure. He could do without seeing Melissa's expression of delight as she entered Constanza's mind. It was different with stiffs, of course, a one-way intervention completely unlike what the two of them shared. Even during daylight hours, if Melissa accidentally touched a normal human it only heightened her usual sensitivity. The only true connection happened between a mindcaster and another midnighter.
Still, he didn't want to watch.
The upstairs hallway led him to another bedroom, even larger than Constanza's. Two frozen figures occupied the bed, and Rex retreated from the room after one look at their pale, blank faces.
The last room on the second floor was a study, the desk crowded with papers and books. Rex sat down and began to leaf through them, looking for phone numbers, letters, or anything with the name Ernesto on it. Most of the papers had to do with oil drilling, federal regulations, and financial forecasts, long columns of numbers that possibly even Dess would have found boring.
After a few minutes, however, a bound sheaf caught his eye. The front page read:
Community Impact of
Aerospace Oklahoma Emergency Runway
Bixby Salt Flats
He took a slow breath, recalling the image that Melissa's touch had left in his mind in the parking lot this afternoon. The long black highway, absolutely straight, stretching out into the glimmering white of the salt flats, ending in the middle of nowhere.
"A road in the desert..." Rex murmured. He remembered seeing an op-ed piece in the Bixby Register over the weekend, someone complaining about a new runway being built outside of town.
Of course. The groupies weren't building this thing; they were trying to stop it from being built. Darklings hated human intrusions into the desert; highways, pipelines, and oil derricks forced them even farther out into the badlands. And anything built by Aerospace Oklahoma would bring advanced metals and fancy machines along with it - just the sort of new technologies that had chased the darklings into the secret hour to begin with.
Rex opened the folder and skimmed the report. It argued that the runway was actually being built to allow Aerospace Oklahoma to test experimental aircraft, huge planes whose thundering booms would wake up everyone in town in the middle of the night.
He raised an eyebrow. Rex doubted that anyone would ever want to land a plane near Bixby unless it really was an emergency.
He remembered the stolen thoughts that Melissa had shared with him: in Angie's mind, the road in the desert and the halfling were strongly associated. But what could a runway have to do with a half-midnighter, half-darkling creature? They had to find Angie again or someone else who knew.
Rex searched the report, but the name of its author was nowhere to be found. He delved deeper into the desk, opening drawers and searching pigeonholes, no longer trying to conceal the fact that it had been rifled. There had to be more here, a list of names related to the report or some indication of a sponsoring organization, anything that would show who else was involved with the darkling groupies. But other than the one folder, he found only oil business documents, a few personal letters, a massive credit card bill, and a party invitation. Nothing more about an emergency runway, and nothing that mentioned Ernesto Grayfoot. There were maps and geological data that Dess might be able to make sense of, but he couldn't tell what was important.
Finally Rex sighed and let the papers drop from his hands. He couldn't make much headway through the mass of paper in what was left of the secret hour, not without help. But maybe knowing about the emergency runway would help focus Melissa's casting. Constanza's parents must have something useful in their heads.
Rex stood, clutching the folder in one hand, and turned toward the door.
Melissa was standing there, her face grim.
"What is it?" he asked. "Does Constanza know something?"
"Not a clue about darklings or anyone called Angie. But I found Ernesto Grayfoot in there. They're cousins, I think."
"Okay, that's a start. I want you to..." His voice faded into silence. Melissa had closed her eyes, swaying on her feet. "What's up?"
Her eyes opened slowly. "They're coming, Rex."
Fear clutched his stomach, like the time his father had pointed a loaded gun at him, dead drunk. "The halfling?"
"Not the halfling, nothing that exotic. Just three old darklings... hungry ones."
He looked at his watch: it was twenty-five minutes into the secret hour. "Where the hell are Jonathan and Jessica?"
Melissa cocked her head, searching the psychic web of the secret hour for the familiar taste of their minds. "Miles from here. Over by Aerospace Oklahoma."
"Headed this way?"
"No. Just sitting there. They're... confused." She opened her eyes. "I thought you said you talked to her."
"I said I left a message. She wouldn't let me talk to Jessica."
"You left a message? Who wouldn't let you talk to Jessica?"
"The girl who answered the phone. But she said she'd tell Jessica right away. I think it was her little sister."
19
12:00 a.m.
DIRECTIONS
The razor-wire fence stretched in both directions out of sight, shimmering with pale fire in the dark light of the fully risen moon. Jonathan remembered their flight through the Aerospace Oklahoma complex two weeks before, the relentless frenzy of their pursuers. He'd almost lost Jessica that night when their hands had slipped apart and she'd fallen to the ground. The memory sent a nervous shudder through him.
Of course, these days those same creatures were scared of Jessica, now that she knew her talent. Even this close to the badlands, they hadn't seen a slither all night.
"Anything coming back to you?" he asked.
Jessica nodded slowly, pointing east. "The fence was on our left, so we were driving that way."
"Yeah, that makes sense. That road leads to Rustle's Bottom."
"Great." She smiled happily, gesturing in the opposite direction. "So Constanza's must be back that way."
Jonathan took a deep breath. This was taking forever. "I thought you spent the night there."
"Once, okay? Constanza drove me to her house from school. I didn't pay that much attention to where we were going."
"No kidding."
"I was kind of preoccupied. You know, about to discover my mystical destiny and everything?"
"All right, sorry." Great, it was going to be another night of apologizing. "Let's keep moving."
They turned and held hands, launched themselves down the empty highway, long strides eating up the distance. The coils of razor wire to their right flashed past ominously as their speed increased.
"I don't understand why Rex thought I'd know where Constanza's house is. I've only been in this town a month." She sighed. "Even if it seems like years."
"It's all right, Jess. We'll find it." Jonathan hoped she would keep her mind on flying. One false step and they'd find themselves plowing into the top of the fence - razor wire at sixty miles an hour wouldn't be pretty.
"I could have called Constanza or something, but Beth didn't give me the message until she got off the phone to Chicago. Five minutes before midnight. Little twit."
Jessica sank into silence, her expression tight. Jonathan wondered if Beth would be such a pain if Jessica didn't do things like lock her in the closet. Another few leaps and they had cleared the perimeter of Aerospace Oklahoma, the pulsing coils of razor wire dropping behind them. Finally.
"Look, Rex and Melissa are probably okay. I bet they just wanted to show us something. What did your sister say, exactly?"
Jessica was silent until they had landed and jumped again, angling past an old VW Bug frozen on the highway. "She said, 'Rex and Melissa are at Constanza's. They need you.' That doesn't sound optional."
Jonathan snorted. What it sounded like was Rex giving orders. "Come on. You know how cautious Rex is. He wouldn't go this far out at midnight without serious weaponry. Maybe they brought Dess along."
"I hope you're right. Let's just get there."
"It would help if we knew where there was."
"I'm trying, all right?"
They climbed a highway overpass, and Jonathan groaned at the view before them. The highway extended out toward the badlands, with a dozen or so turnoffs between here and the other end of Bixby County, every one of which led to long stretches of housing developments. From up in the mountains in normal time, you could see them glittering, the black river of asphalt spinning off into bright eddies of streetlamps and backyard security lights. But here at midnight, nothing glowed except the dark moon. Constanza's house could be anywhere in the blue expanse of desert.
However frustrating this was, at least they were flying. His sore throat was gone, his ankle had stopped hurting, and last night he had started to clear things up between him and Jessica. If Rex hadn't left his cryptic little message, this would have been the perfect hour to spend time in some high place with her, alone.
Thank you, Rex and Melissa.
Jonathan wondered how those two could have gotten themselves into trouble again so soon, forty-nine hours after their last scrape. Were they trying to get killed? Last night Melissa had seemed different, as if Rex's calm, collected sanity was slowly seeping into her. But maybe the opposite was happening too, and Melissa's madness was bleeding into Rex.
Since Jonathan had touched her, feeling what it was really like inside her head, he'd wondered if at the core of her bitterness lay a genuine death wish, a desire to permanently escape the torment of never having her brain to herself.
Suddenly something flashed through his mind.
"Decatur Street?" he said softly.
"Yes!" Jessica cried. "I was just thinking that. I remember now. That's the exit she took."
Jonathan swallowed. "That's weird."
"So you knew where she lived all along?"
"Me?" Jonathan laughed. "Yeah, right. Like I spend a lot of time with cheerleaders."
He pointed off to the right, tugging Jessica toward an exit ramp. They leapt across a quartet of gas stations arrayed around an intersection, coming down onto a rough, undeveloped field. Rainbow cacti dotted the field like spiky basketballs, and Jonathan slowed their pace. He'd clipped a cactus once in the secret hour - as sharp as razor wire, with the added bonus of spines that broke off and stayed in you.
From the top of their next jump Jonathan saw a dark cluster of houses in the distance.
"Look familiar?"
"Yeah. I think that's her neighborhood. She's not just a cheerleader, you know."
"Sorry," Jonathan muttered. "I'm just saying, I had absolutely no idea where Constanza lived. I'd never given it a thought until tonight."
"But you just said - "
"I know." He could feel the last few jumps settling into his mind, the way the angles always did. But this familiarity made no sense. Somehow he could see the approach to Constanza's house as clearly as the trip to Jessica's every night, every open field and rooftop, all the landings between here and the two-story mansion sitting on the biggest lot of the development.
But he'd never been here before. Not once.
A haze appeared on the horizon, a crooked column like the dust devil they'd seen three nights before. But this one was much larger and in motion, the black and fluttering shapes of slithers forming a whirling vortex over the house.
"Crap. Looks like they did need us."
"I hope we're not too late." Jessica pulled out her flashlight and put it to her lips. Jonathan heard her whisper above the screeching, "Demonstration." The cloud wheeled in the air before them, starting to bleed away into the desert, the beating of leathery wings roaring like a hundred flags in a high wind. He wondered if the darklings had already left, their ancient minds sensitive enough to have felt the flame-bringer coming and smart enough to flee.
"Um, Jonathan... could you?" Jessica held out her wrist. He smiled and said, "Acariciandote," slowly and clearly to the bracelet.
"Thanks," she said. "I'll learn. Promise."
"I'll give you lessons." Jonathan pulled his chain over his head and murmured, "Rubbernecking." It was good to have it ready, even if he probably wouldn't need it with Jessica around.
At the peak of their next leap the flashlight sprang to life in her hand, its blinding beam cutting through the swarm of flying slithers. Jonathan's eyes jammed shut, seared by the astonishing intrusion of white light into the cool, eternal blue of the secret hour. Matching the horrific screams that filled the air, a last image remained burned into his vision: slithers bursting into flame at the light's touch, a fiery wedge exploding across the black horizon, the dark moon itself paling in comparison to the power of the flamebringer. Then the smell of burned flesh reached his nose.
Jonathan coughed and forced his eyes open.
Mercifully, Jessica had turned Demonstration off. The flock of slithers had been split by the beam, leaving two chaotic masses careening across the desert. A blotchy haze marked the place where the light had passed through the swarm, like the drifting puffs of smoke left over after the finale of a fireworks show.
Jonathan tried to blink away the spots before his eyes "Warn me next time?"
"Sorry." She squeezed his hand. Through the streaks burned onto his vision, he saw that her eyes were wild, her expression electrified from the surge of power that had coursed through her. His hand tingled where their palms were pressed together.
He blinked again: Acariciandote was glowing on her wrist, the little charms as bright as diamonds.
They settled on the lawn of the big house. Dead slithers lay around them amid the sparkle of metal. Jonathan knelt and picked up a power drill, the steel bit blackened by fire.
"They put up a fight, at least."
"Rex!" Jessica called. "Melissa?"
A hissing noise answered them, a wet and shuddering sound that carried a foul stench across the lawn. A massive shape lurched from between Constanza's house and the next one over, a welter of legs thrusting out in all directions as the thing struggled to keep itself upright.
Jonathan gagged at the smell, his eyes watering as they beheld the creature.
It had been a tarantula not long before, most of its mass gathered in a bulbous body. But it was trying desperately to transform, the legs receding into the beast, its body stretching, writhing like a giant hairy earthworm. A wet, flailing wing emerged from its back, half formed and sickly. The darkling hissed at them again, and a stream of viscous liquid shot from its mouth onto the ground a few feet short of Jessica.
It was dying.
"Close your eyes," she said.
"No problem."
The scream deafened him at first; then Jonathan heard the burst of flame, felt its heat drying his exposed flesh like a bonfire out in the desert. He didn't breathe for an endless time, then finally was forced to fill his lungs with the smell of the ancient, dying darkling.
When he opened his eyes, coughing as he struggled to inhale, there was nothing left of it, just a blackened patch of lawn and a glimmer of metal. Jonathan squinted through the tears in his eyes.
A hubcap lay in the grass where the darkling had been.
"That's what wounded it," he said.
"Wounded it?" a voice called. "I think Categorically Unjustifiable Appropriation gets the kill."
Melissa and Rex stumbled around the side of the house, their faces and hands blackened where improvised weapons had burst into blue flame.
"Just because you showed up in time to hose down the remains, don't go taking credit, Jess." Melissa's eyes were bright, her voice on the edge of laughter. The sweat on her face glistened like a knife.
Rex looked sick to his stomach. "Never again," he said softly, slumping on the front porch. He looked up wearily. "So you did get my message."
Jessica nodded. "Barely. Next time, leave directions."
Rex thought for a second, then said, "Oh."
