Touching Darkness

25

8:44 p.m.

DOMAIN OF SPIDERS

“Here’s your meds, Dad.”

Rex knelt before his father, holding out the tiny paper cup of pills with both hands. White-rimmed eyes lowered from the TV set to meet Rex’s, filled with the usual anxiety and suspicion. But his father’s trembling hand took the cup, brought it to his mouth, and tipped it back. Rex reflected that dry swallowing was one of the few new tricks his old dog of a father had learned since the accident.

“That’s real good, Dad.”

One less thing to think about, anyway. Melissa was coming by at ten to drive him to Constanza’s, and with an extra yellow in the mix, his father wouldn’t be causing any trouble between now and well past midnight. Rex didn’t like altering his father’s prescriptions, but left alone in the wee hours, the old guy was more of a danger to himself than one extra sedative would ever be.

“You seen my…? You seen my…?”

“Around here somewhere,” Rex said, rose, and turned away.

In the kitchen Daguerreotype was waiting by his food dish, rubbing his jaw against the corner of the counter.

“Clever Dag,” Rex murmured. The old tom always ran in here when the sound of pill bottles being opened reached his ears. “That’s right. Daddy’s got his meds, now Daggo gets his.”

He wound the key of the sardine can, the dense smell of oil and fish spilling out and sending the cat into an ankle-rubbing frenzy. Rex peeled one slimy sardine from the crush and waggled it by its tail. Daguerreotype lifted a paw halfheartedly, then meowed loudly and looked reproachfully at his bowl.

“Not the time for games, is it, Daggy?”

“Mrrrreeow,” came the reply. Eating was serious business.

Rex flipped the sardine into his own mouth and pulled out six more as he chewed, dropping them into the bowl from knee height with an oily splat. He watched the cat’s ravenous assault for a moment, then wiped his hands, picked up the phone, and dialed.

“Yeah?”

“Is Dess there?” he asked.

“It’s me, Rex. The beagle has landed.”

“What?”

Dess sighed. “Jessica’s been here all afternoon. We’ll be ready for you at ten-thirty, all weaponized, like I said. Do you need to talk to Jess? Because we’re busy doing something here.”

“No. That’s fine. See you in…” He turned his wrist to note the exact time.

“See ya, Rexy.”

The line went dead. Rex sighed. This trip to Constanza’s had seemed exciting when he’d gotten the idea—all of them together at midnight for the first time since Jessica had discovered her talent. But now that the evening was upon him, all Rex could contemplate was having to juggle their five personalities all night long, on top of not getting anyone killed.

“Why weren’t you born at midnight, Dag? Then you could do my job.”

The cat paused to look up at him, then dove back into the dish.

The phone call was another thing out of the way. He’d already talked to Melissa, and Rex didn’t see the point in calling Martinez. With Jessica headed into danger, Jonathan would be there on time, if not early.

He went to his room to prepare.

Dess was bringing weapons, so Rex packed light. Into his backpack he stuffed the runway report he’d pinched from Constanza’s father, a compass, extra batteries, a ragged twenty-dollar bill for gas, and a snakebite kit (useless for slithers, but useful for snakes). Finally he stuck an extra flashlight into his coat pocket—mostly for when it got dark, but written on its side in block capitals was the name INTENTIONALLY, just in case Jessica could use it in a pinch.

Forget reading the lore or seeing the marks of midnight, Rex thought. This was his real job: making sure that somebody bothered to be ready for anything. He stuffed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and bandages into the backpack.

The sounds of a car pulling up outside caught his attention. He frowned. It was more than an hour until Melissa was supposed to get here, and what he really didn’t need tonight was one of his mother’s surprise visits. She drove down from Norman sometimes on the weekend to dispense advice (and sometimes money, more usefully) and to convince herself that she hadn’t totally bailed after Dad’s accident.

Rex walked silently down the dark hallway back to the living room. His father wasn’t asleep yet—his milky eyes shone in the restless glow of the TV—but the extra yellow had worked quickly enough that there was no passing mention of spiders. The empty terrarium brushed along Rex’s shoulder in the flickering light, imagined shapes dancing behind its scratched sides. An idea half formed in his mind that it was darker in the living room than usual.

He peered out the window, praying that his mother’s Mary-Kay-pink Cadillac wasn’t occupying the front driveway.

There were two vans in the street, their side doors rolled open and disgorging figures in dark colors. Six or seven of them, moving quickly in the darkness, spreading out across the lawn, surrounding the house.

Rex watched, stupefied. Pointlessly and too late, he realized why the living room was so dark. The stark white rectangles that usually flooded through the front windows were absent. The lonely streetlight that cast them had been broken.

It took an effort of will to turn away from the astonishing sight of the attackers. As Rex retreated down the hall—first walking, then ru

He should have known it would come to this. Melissa had said that the halfling was sick; the darklings would need to create another before she died or lose their link to their human allies forever. They must have wanted to get rid of Jessica before sending the groupies after him, but Rex had made that tricky by messing with the dominoes. Now they were desperate, with only one course of action left: taking Rex Greene to the desert and changing him there.

In his room he pulled on his coat and grabbed the backpack, turned off the desk light, and took two steps toward the door, then realized he was barefoot. His eyes swept the floor of the unlit room, struggling to pick out his boots from among the piles of papers and books and discarded clothes.

Not here. That was right, they were by the back door.

He ran to the kitchen with soft steps, trying to listen for his attackers. Maddeningly, there was no sound at all, no passing cars, not even the moan of autumn wind in the trees. Rex flicked off the lights in the kitchen and peered over his glasses. Even in darkness the boots stood out with the bright detail of Focus from stomping slithers out at Constanza’s house.

He sat on the floor, back braced against the outside door, and pulled them on.

Finally he was ready to run.

Rex sat there, wondering how far he’d get. He was panting already, and the figures out the window had been so fast, their movements so graceful and confident. He remembered Melisssa’s words: Get some poison. Rex had let himself think she was just being overdramatic. But the realization rose slowly and horribly inside him that maybe he should have listened to her after all…

The house was still silent, the night disturbed only by sounds of a baseball game from the television. At least his father would be almost unconscious by now.

Not a light in the house was on. Rex’s one advantage was his midnighter’s photophobia. He could practically see the dark.

A sound reached his ears, finally. A knock at the door.

Rex closed his eyes. The knock came again, stronger, and his father made a small sound of irritation: Somebody get that.

Why were they knocking? For a moment Rex allowed himself to believe that his paranoia had gotten the better of him. Maybe it was just two vanloads of lost tourists asking for directions. He swallowed, fighting the urge to answer the knock. It would be so much easier to pretend he didn’t know who they were and why they were here. Just go and open the door to them.