“No, Jess. I happen to know it wasn’t you he was trying to protect.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was me.” Melissa held out her hand, palm down. It was quivering in the cold. “The thought of driving fast gives me the shakes.”
Jessica looked at the mindcaster, wondering if she was kidding. Of course, flying through a windshield at eighty miles an hour might make you not want to repeat the experience.
“And they might not be here yet because they really did get busted by the cops,” Melissa continued. “In which case, we’re both lucky we didn’t go along.”
Jessica sighed. “That’s a lovely thought.” Jonathan wasn’t a big fan of spending the secret hour trapped in a jail cell, bouncing off the walls.
“Just trying to make you feel better. There are worse things than being arrested.”
“I suppose so.”
“I mean, you’ve got kidnappers and high-speed car chases involved,” Melissa continued.
“Jeez, Melissa. Who elected you Miss Sunshine?”
“I’m just saying is all.” The mindcaster looked at her watch. “Anyway, we’ll know for sure in five, four, three…”
The secret hour struck, spilling toward them across the desert floor like a sudden tide of blue ink. The picnic table shuddered beneath them, the air grew warm and still, and the stars turned ghostly pale above.
“Yeah, that’s the stuff.” Melissa sighed, tipping her head back to sniff the air. A few moments passed, then a faint smile broke across her face. “You can relax. Everyone’s okay.”
Jessica breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Melissa was here. When Rex had put the final touches on his plan, she’d been nervous about spending a whole hour in the middle of nowhere with Melissa. But actually, it hadn’t turned out so bad. Melissa wasn’t the bitchy snob she used to be.
The mindcaster fixed her with a cool glare. “Gee, thanks, Jess.”
“Oops. Sorry.” Jessica reminded herself to censor her thoughts, especially now that midnight had fallen. “But I mean… it’s true, though,” she sputtered. “You are much nicer these days.”
“Whatever.” Melissa looked skyward again, closing her eyes. “Okay. They’re all together, way out in the desert for some reason, miles off the access road. Something got screwed up—tastes like Rex and Flyboy have been arguing.”
“Funny, but I could have guessed that last part.”
Melissa smirked. “Now Jonathan’s on his way here. In a big hurry…” She frowned. “Things are waking up out there.”
Jessica drew her flashlight, whose new name was Enlightenment, from her pocket. “Are they going to be all right?”
“If we get out there before anything big jumps on them.”
“We?”
One of Melissa’s eyes opened a slit. “As in me, Flyboy, and you.”
Jessica realized it was pointless to hide her dismay. “That’s right, you’ll have to fly along with us.”
“You got it, Jess. I don’t want to, but the whole point of this plan is for me and Angie to have a little face time. And it’s not like I’m going to walk.” Melissa spread her hands. “Look, don’t worry about it, Jessica. I’m not going to spew my crippled mind into your boyfriend’s, all right?”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You thought about it. Don’t tell me that little twinge was you worrying about a dentist appointment.”
Jessica shook her head. “It’s just that Jonathan told me—”
“I know what he told you, Jessica. I can taste the way he pities me. I pretty much know how you guys feel about me, got that? And the more you worry about offending me, the more I know it. And frankly, I really don’t want to know about it anymore, so just give… it… a rest!”
Melissa’s voice broke on the last words, the awful sound disappearing into the flat, echoless desert. She sighed then, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry—” Jess began.
“Yeah, well.” Melissa waved her silent. “I’m sorry too. Didn’t mean to rant, but I thought maybe you might want to know what I was thinking for a change.”
Jessica swallowed, a dozen apologies tumbling through her brain. But of course, Melissa wouldn’t want to hear any of them. So Jessica concentrated hard, trying to banish all excuses and regrets and pity from her mind.
She cleared her head with thoughts of flying—imagining weightlessness rushing into her at Jonathan’s touch, the rolling quilt of Bixby’s streets from midair, the pleasure of a perfectly timed jump taking them directly to a target, the desert floor passing below….
The images crystallized, erasing the bitter aftertaste of the argument, and on an impulse Jessica reached out and touched Melissa’s wrist lightly.
Melissa didn’t respond at first, but she didn’t pull away. Jessica could feel the struggle in her not to flinch from human contact, fighting reflexes trained by years of isolation. And then the connection took hold.
Images and emotions spilled from Jessica’s mind—the sheer exhilaration of soaring at top speed across the badlands, scrub and sand and salt all reduced to a blur—and Melissa drew in a breath, amazed by the visions shared between them.
Jessica realized she was the only midnighter who had never touched the mindcaster before. It wasn’t like Jonathan had said; there was nothing twisted and pitiable about Melissa’s mind now. Through her eyes the blue world was suffused with a stately calm. And under that an old sadness, and worry about Rex.
After a long moment Melissa pulled her hand away.
“Flying…” she said softly.
Jessica smiled. “It’ll be fun.”
Melissa turned away, looking down at her hand as if Jessica had somehow marked it. Finally she said, “Just as long as we get there fast. Rex needs us.”
“Is he scared?”
Melissa’s head tilted, like that of a dog listening to a far-off sound. “Not really. He’s not afraid of darklings anymore.”
Jessica frowned. “Shouldn’t he be?”
The mindcaster shrugged. “I guess we’ll find that out soon enough.”
Jonathan came skimming over the desert like a rock flung across frozen water. His flying shield flashed, warding off a pair of fast slithers who were buzzing around him like gigantic flies.
Jessica stood and aimed Enlightenment.
“Don’t. You’ll blind him,” Melissa warned.
Jessica lowered the flashlight, sighing. Jonathan would probably rather deal with the slithers himself anyway. Why ruin his fun?
“I know what you mean, Jess,” Melissa added. “He’s enjoying all this way too much.”
Jessica looked at her, suddenly wondering if their brief physical connection had made her thoughts permanently easier to read.
But Melissa shook her head. “It’s pretty obvious, Jess. I used to hate daylight too, you know? But I never loved midnight as much as that boy does.”
An explosion pulled Jessica’s gaze back out to the horizon. One of the slithers had glanced off Jonathan’s shield, blue sparks arcing across the sky as it fell, and the other turned and fled. Jonathan bounded to a halt a few yards away, raising a cloud of pale blue dust that froze in midair—his acrobat gravity working its strange magic.
“Come on!” he cried, holding out both hands.
Jessica was glad to see that he didn’t flinch as Melissa grasped his hand, just looked at her, and said, “Do you know how this works?”
“Yeah, Jessica just taught me.”
A look of surprise crossed Jonathan’s face, and he shot a glance at Jessica. She could only shrug. She hadn’t thought about it that way, but all the techniques of flying were recorded in well-used grooves in her mind, honed by long hours at Jonathan’s side. Even those nights they didn’t fly together, she dreamed about it or puzzled over the mechanics of midnight gravity when she was supposed to be doing physics homework.
Had Melissa really taken all that in so quickly?
“Let’s go,” Melissa said, bending her
knees.
The three of them jumped together, a small tentative leap at first. Melissa didn’t send them spinning or stumbling when they landed thirty feet away. They pushed harder on the second jump, launching into a low, fast trajectory across the desert. They built up speed, growing in confidence, dodging scrub and cactus bulbs without any exchange of words, as if Melissa had been flying with them a dozen times before.
Jessica wondered what was going on in Jonathan’s mind, if he was thinking about Melissa reading his thoughts as they flew. Or remembering his horror at their first contact, before Melissa had gotten herself under control. Or perhaps the emergency was too great, his mind too focused on flying…
Maybe that was the trick when dealing with mindcasters; maybe you just had to give your head a rest.
“Halfway there,” Melissa said, breathing hard.
Jessica asked, “Are they okay?”
“Dess is fine. Rex… he’s with the others.”
“With what others?”
Melissa stumbled on the next landing, and the three of them twisted in the air, spinning once all the way around before they set down again. Jonathan dragged them to a halt as they landed.
On the horizon ahead, a flicker of blue sparks rose up from the desert.
“What’s happening out there?” he asked her.
“Dess is holding them off. And they’ll scatter once they taste the flame-bringer on her way.”
Jessica frowned. “What about Rex?”
“Don’t worry about him. Moron—he said he’d warn me before he tried anything like this.”
“Anything like what?”
Melissa shook her head. “We should keep moving if we’re going to get there before Dess blows a fuse.” She looked at them both, pleading with them not to ask any more questions. “Let’s just keep going, okay?”
Jonathan glanced at Jessica, then bent his knees again. “Okay.”
They jumped again, eating up the landscape in long, bounding leaps. Melissa flew as if she’d practiced for months.
Half a mile from Dess they passed over a patch of small, stubby cacti. Jessica spotted a big black car with blown-out tires at its edge.
“That’s not Melissa’s, is it?” she asked.
“No. Grayfoots’,” Jonathan said. “Real ones.”
“Oh.” No wonder things had gotten messed up.
At the height of their next jump Jessica saw a huge black cat rising onto its haunches among blue sparks, surrounded by a whirling cloud of slithers. A thirteen-pointed star was traced out on the desert floor in glowing wires, Dess inside it, the darkling just outside. Melissa’s car sat nearby, looking battered and broken.
“That cat smells blood, Jess,” Melissa said. “It’s too young to be afraid of you.”
“Blood?” Jessica said as they landed, but the mindcaster didn’t answer.
They jumped again, hurtling toward the struggle. Jessica saw Dess’s long spear swing through the air, the panther batting at it with its claws, catching the spear point with a flash. The weapon spun out of Dess’s grip as the creature screamed, leaping backward from the contact through its entourage of winged slithers. It rolled across the desert, salt and sand flying into the air.
But like a cat, it sprang to its feet in an instant and bared its fangs.
Dess stood glaring back at it.
“Close your eyes,” Jessica warned through clenched teeth.
Enlightenment’s beam shot across the blue desert, reaching the darkling at the limit of its power. White fire played across its fur, bringing another howl of anger. All around it slithers burst into flame, wheeling to escape the scorching light.
But the darkling didn’t flee. Its purple eyes flashed as it glared at Dess, directing all its wounded fury toward her.
It readied itself to spring.
Jessica kept the flashlight steady as they flew, squeezing it with all her strength, sending every ounce of her will through it. The white fire grew stronger as the darkling leapt, enveloping it in a hissing ball of flame. Jessica felt the blue world shudder around them, the mountains in the distance seeming to warp as her power surged through Enlightenment.
The beast screamed one last time, disintegrating in midair like an exploding meteor, scattering glowing white coals across the desert floor.
“Eyes open,” Jessica said hoarsely. Another jump took the three of them into a skidding landing near the circle of singed earth and metal stakes. Dess stood inside, dusty and scared-looking, blood running from her forehead.
“Are you okay?” Jessica cried, dropping Jonathan’s hand and running toward her, leaping over the strewn and blazing remains of the darkling.
“I’ll live. But Rex went out there!” Dess cried, pointing into the desert. “I couldn’t stop him!”
“I know,” Melissa said.
“Jessica, Jonathan, go get him!”
“No, don’t.”
The other three looked at the mindcaster in disbelief. Her eyes were half open, rolled back in her head, nothing visible of them but two pale slits of glowing purple.
“He wants us to stay here,” she said softly.
“But you should see the thing that came for him!” Dess cried, wiping the blood from her forehead.
“I can see it, Dess.” Melissa slowly moved her head from side to side, like a drunk piano player grooving to her own music. “He’s okay. And he’ll be back soon.”
“He’ll be dead!” Dess said.
Melissa opened her eyes, which flashed as she stared straight at Jessica. “Trust me—don’t go out there. Rex is in the middle of a big crowd of wicked-old darklings. If you spook them, you’ll only get him killed.”
Jessica noticed that the other three were all looking at her too, waiting for her answer. She was the flame-bringer, after all; only she could save Rex.
She looked at Melissa again. The mindcaster wore an expression of absolute certainty. Jessica remembered the calm she’d felt when they’d touched, as well as how she sensed Melissa’s love for Rex, and found herself suddenly certain about what she had to do.
Nothing.
No matter how screwed up Melissa was now or ever had been, whatever she had done to Dess or anyone else, she would never, ever hurt Rex. Not in a million years.
Jessica nodded. “Okay. We’ll trust Melissa.”
“Jessica!” Dess cried. “She’s a psycho!”
“No, she’s not. We wait here.”
Melissa smiled, her eyes drifting closed again. “It won’t be much longer. They know the flame-bringer’s nearby, so they won’t be in the mood for a long conversation.”
“Conversation?” Jonathan said. “Are we talking about darklings here?”
“Old ones. Smarter than this turkey,” Melissa said, kicking at the sputtering embers near her feet. “By the way, Jess, you were right.”
“About what? You not being psycho?”
“No. About flying. That was fun.” She opened her eyes and turned toward her old Ford, inside of which Angie’s frozen form could be glimpsed, and cracked her knuckles. “But not as much fun as getting a shot at that bitch’s brain.”
Dess shook her head. “Before he walked off, Rex said for you to wait. He said it’s totally important you don’t touch Angie until he comes back. And he said that if you were a pain about it, I get to hit you with that.” She pointed to where the darkling had flung Flabbergasted Supernumerary Mathematician, its tip blackened by ichor and fire. “So, go ahead.”
Melissa gave Dess a sneer but stayed where she was. “That bastard. He made me promise.” She clenched both fists as she looked across the desert, swearing. Finally she spat out, “Fine. Seer knows best, even if he is nuts. Maybe I can stand to wait for a few more… whoa. What the hell happened to my car?”
17
12:00 A.M.
THE OLD ONES
They hovered overhead, like spiderwebs suspended from the air itself. Their tendrils snaked out into the sky, silhouetted against the midnight moon as if sucking
energy from its dark light. Other strands anchored them to the desert floor or were wrapped around the necks of darklings, like leashes on giant panthers. The beings seemed to have no head or body, just a matted center where the grasping arms converged.
Rex wondered if this was the darklings’ original form before they had taken the shapes of humanity’s nightmares. These were certainly the old ones Melissa had always felt across the desert; just as she described, he tasted musty chalk, as if his mouth were full of the remains of something long dead and crumbled to dust.
One of them had come for him across the desert, its arms like glistening threads, resplendent in his seer’s vision even from miles away. He’d known he had no choice but to follow—the thing could reach its long arms through Dess’s defenses, and it called to the darkling part of him irresistibly.
For that matter, he’d wanted to come, even his human half. After everything Angie had told him, Rex realized how imperfect and incomplete the lore really was. If there was a way to stop what was happening, these old minds would know.
There were three of them, each twenty yards across, and an entourage of another dozen creatures in nightmare shapes: pale snakes and bloated spiders, slugs that dripped black oil, all of them unmoving, as if in thrall to the old ones hovering overhead. Wingless slithers pulsed in the ground beneath his feet, like an eruption of earthworms turning the threadbare soil.
Rex had never felt so small.
How wrong he’d been, thinking he was half darkling. Only a tiny fraction of him had changed, a sliver of strength gained, enough courage to express his paltry human anger. These creatures were so much more powerful than he would ever be. Rex found himself unable to move or speak, his humanity shrunk into a terrified corner of his mind, their darkness lying across him like a blanket of lead.
And what was he supposed to do, anyway? Say hi?
A liquid motion caught his eye. One of the creatures’ long tendrils was approaching, sliding across the desert floor like a snake. As Rex watched in horror, it stretched toward his boot, wound around his leg as soft as feathers. Every muscle in his body strained against it, but he couldn’t move.
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