Blue Noon

28

12:00 A.M..-

Long Midnight

FLYBOY, FLY

“Where are they!” Rex shouted.

“Who?”

“Jessica! Melissa!”

Jonathan spread his hands. “They’re still back in Jenks.”

Rex let out a half-animal howl, his hands twisting into claws. Dess looked up from where she knelt inside her thirteen-sided arrangement of fireworks and shrugged. “He wanted you to bring Jessica,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

Jonathan was soaked. Barreling through the suspended rain at seventy miles an hour had been like swimming in his clothes. If the secret hour wasn’t so warm, he probably would have died of exposure by now.

And some thanks I get.

“Why didn’t you bring them?” Rex cried.

“Listen, Melissa didn’t know exactly what you wanted, so she said I should come and see.” He coughed into a fist; he’d inhaled a lot of water on the way here. “Plus Jessica had to sort of look for her, um, sister.”

“Look for her what?” Dess said.

“We need her here!” Rex hissed.

“Okay. Should I go back and get her?”

“Yes. But I’ll come with you.” Rex made his way across the roof toward Jonathan, limping, his teeth clenched with pain.

“Are you okay?” Rex didn’t answer, and Jonathan held out his hand. “Are you sure you can fly?”

Rex shot him a look, and for a moment Jonathan thought he was going to get all scary-faced.

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Hey, Rex,” Dess called. “Sorry to do the math, but if there’s four of you out there, how are you all going to get back?”

Jonathan nodded. As far as he knew, he could only fly with two midnighters in tow—one holding each hand. With four of them out in Jenks, someone would have to stay behind.

“If we can get Jessica back here in time, it won’t matter.”

“What won’t matter?” Jonathan asked.

Rex took his hand in a deathlike grip. “I’ll explain on the way.”

He looked into Rex’s eyes; the exhaustion and madness had only gotten worse in the last week. What if the guy had snapped, and this was all a wild-goose chase? What if Rex decided he was a winged darkling in mid-flight and let go of Jonathan’s hand?

What if he really was a darkling?

Jonathan paused, but then remembered his promise to Jessica and decided to follow the seer’s orders, no matter how crazy he seemed.

“Fly,” Rex said, his voice cold.

“Okay. But I have to warn you, you’re going to get really wet.”

They jumped from the building’s edge, cutting two tu

Before the other buildings rose up around them, Jonathan caught a glimmer of red in the distance—the rip was moving faster now.

“Can we make it?” Rex shouted, covering his mouth with his free hand to keep the water out. “All the way to Jenks and back before the rip gets here?”

“I don’t know. Normally it would only take ten minutes or so. But this damn rain—” He broke off, coughing up water from his lungs.

Rex grunted as they hit the next roof over, and as they pushed off again, his fingernails dug into Jonathan’s flesh, his face twisting with pain.

“Ow, Rex!” The pressure eased. “Why do you need her back here anyway?”

“It’s complicated.”

Jonathan shot Rex a sidelong glance. He should have known that the promised explanation wouldn’t be forthcoming.

He sighed. No point in arguing now. How did Dess always put it? Seer knows best.

“Ten minutes? That’s cutting it close.” Rex winced as they hit the next roof, taking two long strides across its rain-slick surface, then leaping into the air again. “Dess says the rip will reach downtown in less than twenty.”

“Yeah, and that’s assuming we find Jessica right away,” Jonathan said. “I mean, she might still be out looking for her sister.”

“Don’t worry, I can find her,” Rex said.

“Huh?”

The seer didn’t answer as the outskirts of downtown rose up around them. They had landed at street level finally and angled onto the highway. Jonathan imagined the cars around them springing to life again in twenty minutes, all weaving to a stop, people struggling to control them with brute strength, their power steering and brakes suddenly heavy as lead.

Rex made a strangled noise with every bound.

When they reached a light patch in the frozen storm, Jonathan spoke up again. “Listen, Rex. Why don’t you let me go on alone? You could still make it back there in time. You’re killing yourself on that sprained ankle.”

“It’s broken, actually.”

“What the hell?” Jonathan looked down at Rex’s right cowboy boot. It was turned wrong somehow. The next time they landed, he watched Rex hold the foot up off the ground, taking all his weight on his other side.

“You have to stop, Rex. I’ll take you back to Dess first. You’re going to tear your foot apart!”

“No. You need me to track Jessica.”

“Track her?”

“She smells like prey to me now. You all do.”

Their next bound took them over a frozen pickup truck piled high with sharp, deadly scrap metal, giving Jonathan a moment to think before he answered.

Rex had really lost it; he was certain now. For once his plan had actually made sense, yet the seer seemed determined to screw everything up.

Except for the parts that Beth has already managed to screw up.

He let out a sigh through clenched teeth, wishing he hadn’t promised Jessica that he’d do what Rex said. Of course, following orders didn’t mean he couldn’t try to make sense of them. “So, wait. Why do you need Jess downtown?”

“Lightning,” Rex said in a strangled voice, then cried out as the ground rose up and struck them again.

He refused to say another word the rest of the way.

29

12:00 A.M..-

Long Midnight

BETH

“Beth!” Jessica shouted for the hundredth time. “Where are you?”

The cave had to be around here somewhere, she was positive. But three weeks ago Jessica and Jonathan had flown here, not walked. Somehow the path had disappeared right under her feet, fading out into scrub and tree roots. Everything looked weird and unfamiliar here in the rip, the edges of the leaves glinting with purple and crimson fire.

She checked her watch. It had been almost ten minutes since she’d left Melissa behind. Soon the younger darklings would be closing in.

She pulled out her flashlight and whispered its new name: Foolhardiness.

The beam surged through the forest, driving away the violet shimmer of the rip. Jessica heard movement ahead, a slither—or something larger—fleeing before the white light.

“Beth!” she cried. “Where are you?”

Finally an answer came. Not to her ears, but in words that sounded distantly in her mind.

To your right, fast. They need you.

Melissa. The mindcaster’s taste washed across Jessica’s tongue—a strange sensation, given that she’d never thought of Melissa as having a taste before. But there it was, bitter and caustic, like chewing some pill you were supposed to swallow.

Jessica began to run, veering right until a high-pitched scream reached her through the trees. She barreled toward the sound, ignoring the branches whipping at her face and clothes. The rip had cleared the suspended raindrops from the air, but the trees were still heavy with water—dumping gallons on her as she crashed through them.

Another scream came from dead ahead. Close.

She burst out into the familiar clearing, saw the finger of stone thrusting into the air, then stumbled to a halt, eyes wide. A thing was wrapped around the cave entrance, like a great jellyfish attached to its prey, its tendrils sinking into the rock itself. It had no head that Jessica could see, just a tangled knot of stringy appendages, all matted together like hair caught in a bathtub drain.