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?