Touching Darkness

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 spi