Standing sideways, he tried to push deeper into the fissure, but after only a few feet, teeth of sharp stone closed on his spine and ribs. “Cassie? Try to come toward me.”

“I can’t.”

“I know your foot hurts, Cassie. But you can still walk.”

“No. They won’t let me.”

Crap, Rex thought. The slithers had her trapped in there. He wondered whether even the beam of Jessica’s flashlight could reach back to where Cassie was. He reached out with his hunting knife and struck the stone a glancing blow. A single blue spark flared blindingly, illuminating the jagged walls of the fissure for an instant.

“Did you see that, Cassie?”

“That flash?”

“Yeah. Good girl. I’m not far from you.” Rex leaned his weight against the stone and stood on one leg, pulling the metal hoops from his boot. Then he reversed his stance and yanked them off the other. “I’m going to throw some things, Cassie. They’re going to scare the snakes. You have to run this way when you see sparks.”

“I can’t. They’re looking at me.” Her voice had gone flat, as if hypnotized by the lifeless stare of the slithers.

“They won’t bite you if you’re fast, okay? I’m going to count to three, then scare them.”

“Rex. I can’t. My foot.”

“Just get ready. One…” He held the hoops almost to his lips and whispered their names—Woolgathering, Inexhaustible, Unquestioning, and Vulnerability—the Aversions sending a shooting migraine through the darkling half of his brain. “Two… three… run!”

He threw the handful of hoops as hard as he could, and they careened deep into the cave, raising up a shower of sparks as they clanged off the walls. The bright, ringing sound of metal striking stone cut painfully into Rex’s ears.

“You scared them!” Cassie announced.

“Well, run then, dammit!”

As the echoes of his shout died, Rex heard her sneakers’ squeaky footfalls carrying her through the sharp angles of the cave. She came into view a few seconds later, limping and white-faced as she pulled herself down the narrow channel of stone. Rex reached out a gloved hand and pulled her from the crevice after him, out under the rising bulk of the dark moon.

Outside he stumbled to a halt. An army of slithers surrounded them. A host of the creatures covered the ground, and their winged forms filled every tree branch.

“Snakes…” Cassie said softly.

Melissa, Rex thought as hard as he could.

In the depths of his mind he heard the faintest word—Coming—and wondered if that meant Melissa and Dess were coming, or Jessica… or if something else was on its way.

“It’s all right,” he said, drawing Cassie closer and thrusting the knife out before them.

Then he saw the darkling.

It seemed to uncoil from the ground, its eight legs spreading out from its bulbous center like the blooming of some horrific flower. A tarantula, the desert spider of his nightmares.

Rex wondered where it had come from, whether it had flown here swiftly from the desert or crouched in some rocky warren out of the sun, waiting since the eclipse for this ancient delicacy—a rare meal of human flesh.

“Rex…?” Cassie said softly.

That had been the plan, of course: the slither-cat leading her to this spot, trapping her in the cave until its master arrived at midnight. Next the slithers inside would have driven her into its jaws… if Rex hadn’t already coaxed her out himself.

“Go back inside,” he whispered.

She only clung to him tighter.

“Go back in the cave, Cassie!” he shouted. “That thing can’t fit in there!”

“But the snakes!”

Rex turned to look. The blue-lit depths of the cave were dotted with the eyes of slithers staring back at them.

“Here, take this,” he said, pressing the hunting knife into her hand. “They’re scared of it, and help is coming.”

She held the knife loosely, looking down at it with wide eyes.

“It’s name is Animalization,” he said. His fists clenched in pain as Dess’s pointed little tridecalogism passed his lips. “Keep saying that, and they’ll be really scared. Animalization.”

“But—”

“Go!” He shoved her into the fissure, hoping she would find the courage to go deep into the cave, far enough to escape the thin, reaching arms of the darkling.

He whirled back around to face the creature, crouching down into a fighting stance. Its eight legs had extended to full length, pressing against the ground to lift the central body mass up into the air. The legs were covered not with hair, but with glistening spurs, like thorns on some vast and hideous rosebush. The entire beast was dripping with a viscous black substance, as if it had been dipped in crude oil.

Rex flexed his empty hands, realizing that he was completely unarmed. He had no knife, no metal on his boots, and yelling thirteen-letter words would hurt him more than it would any darkling.

“Where are you, Jessica?” he whispered, daring a glance at his watch.

His heart sank. Only six minutes of the secret hour had passed.

She wasn’t going to make it here in time.

The darkling’s two forward legs raised and its body rested on its rear, the posture of a tarantula facing an enemy. Rex could see the fangs in its oily maw, shivering with the creature’s hunger.

He remembered being forced to stand still at ten years old as his father’s pet tarantulas crawled across his bare flesh. The weird slowness with which they moved, the interlocking motions of their eight legs, the sickening fascination that they compelled.

His father’s voice came back to him: Relax, boy! They’re not poisonous. They can’t hurt you. Be a man!

Hairy spiders had crawled through every one of his childhood nightmares.

Rex waited for the darkling to strike. Its two forward legs made slow circles in the air, like the arms of a dog paddling in water. The sinuous motion threatened to hypnotize him, and he tore his gaze away.

He stared at the ground, his heart pounding, every muscle tensed, ready to fight a hopeless battle. But somehow, Rex realized, something in his reaction was missing. The gnawing fear in his stomach hadn’t come yet; the spider didn’t terrify him as it should have.

In fact, he couldn’t remember having a single dream since the darklings had changed him that had included his father’s tarantulas. He and Melissa had killed them after the accident had left the old man helpless, but Rex had always known their ghosts were lurking beneath his house, waiting to wreak revenge.

He looked up at the giant spider again and realized that the cold sweat of those childhood traumas had disappeared. His arachnophobia (his brain twinged at the word’s thirteen letters) was gone.

Another moment passed, and still the creature didn’t strike.

Rex bared his teeth at the beast, and a sound gurgled up from his throat—the same hiss that had turned Timmy Hudson into a puddle of melted bully.

Of course, the darkling before him wasn’t so easily scared. It stood firm on its six hind legs, the dance of its spurs still mesmerizing, its bulk glistening in the dark moon’s light. But as the long seconds stretched out, it didn’t strike.

Slowly the reason dawned on him. The beast hadn’t taken a hunting stance at all—Rex wasn’t prey. This wasn’t the kill at the end of a chase; it was a ritual between two predators, like a standoff over some carcass. The spider’s dance was posturing and bluster, a challenge made, hoping that another hunter would back down. But Rex had gotten here first to claim the kill.

He stood his ground.

Wolves didn’t eat other wolves, after all.

For a long minute he faced the creature, letting the motions of the contest move through him. His fingers clenched into rigid claws, slowly cutting the air like a familiar ceremony unfolding. Neither he nor the darkling advanced, held apart by mutual respect and fear.