The blue time was opening up long and straight, like some sort of darkling highway, a conduit between predators and prey. It was reaching west out into the mountains, where the oldest minds lived, the ones who hadn’t had a decent meal in thousands of years. And at the same moment the rip was traveling east, directly toward the populated center of downtown Bixby.

“Dess?” Rex said, frustration creeping into his voice.

She still didn’t answer. If he wanted to get all scary, let him.

Her eyes closed, Dess let her mind follow the direction of the tracks, recalling the images of wire frame globes that Melissa had given her.

What if the rip just kept growing year after year, shooting across the country like a lit fuse every Halloween?

It was tearing along Bixby’s ill-fated latitude: 36 degrees. That line led east through Broken Arrow, which was why the Grayfoots were evacuating. Then it whipped through a lot of small and medium towns after that… until eventually reaching Nashville, which sat at exactly 36.10 degrees. From there, it would go on to swallow Charlotte, North Carolina, at 35.14. Westward, the rip would cruise straight through downtown Las Vegas, which was centered at exactly 36.11. And it would pass a hundred miles north of Grandpa Grayfoot’s new digs in LA.

“Dess?” Rex called. “What is it?”

“We might be able to save more people than you think, Rex. Or at least delay the darklings long enough to get Bixby organized.”

He walked over, his violet eyes flashing, a smile on his face. Suddenly Dess knew he’d planned the whole thing to work this way—Dess too tired from getting up so early to resist Melissa touching her.

Well, it had worked.

“How do we do it?” he said.

“We need to build two big bonfires—or better yet, fireworks displays. The one out here will bottle them up for as long as we can.”

“Bottle them up?”

“Yeah. The rip will open up long and narrow, Rex, like a road. It leads right through here, straight from the mountains to downtown. If we stop them in Jenks for a while, make them go around us, we may have time to organize people back in Bixby.”

As Rex’s eyes followed the path of the tracks back toward the mountains, a thoughtful look crossed his face, as if he was accessing the numberless darkling math stored in his mind. “Yeah. You could be right.”

The world shuddered then—the dark moon falling like a rock, the red-tinged blue time fading—and the cold wrapped itself around Dess, driving its way into her bones. She shivered with excitement.

They had a way to stop the darklings… for a while, at least. Maybe they could give the people of Bixby time to understand what was going on and a fighting chance to survive their night in hell. Maybe thousands didn’t have to die.

Above Dess’s head the bottle rocket was suddenly released from frozen time. It shot farther into the sky, where it exploded with a tiny bang.

23

12:00 A.M.

SLUMBER PARTY

Noises came from inside the hardware store, the clattering of falling metal and a million small things spilling.

“Jesus, Flyboy,” Dess yelled in through the window. “It’s good you’re not a real burglar.”

“Never said I was,” he shouted back. Another crash erupted.

Even though it was the blue time, Jessica flinched a little at all the ruckus. It felt like they should at least try to be quiet, given that they were breaking and entering.

Again.

“Found them!” Jonathan’s voice came.

She and Dess walked around the corner to the front of the store. Through the glass doors she saw Jonathan trying the keys from a big ring, one by one.

“Should have just climbed through the window,” Dess muttered as the process stretched out.

“Some of the stuff on your list is too heavy,” Jessica said, stifling a yawn and happy to be going in through the door. She could hardly keep her eyes open, and she still had to get back to Constanza’s tonight.

Since Rex’s demonstration out in Jenks, the five of them had spent every midnight gathering the materials they needed to bring the darkling invasion to a halt. Mostly that meant breaking into every store in town that sold fireworks and making off with the stock. The nightly burglaries in the blue time were getting tiring. And obvious too—the Bixby Register had run a story about the unknown vandals collecting a dangerous cache of fireworks. According to the article, the sheriff’s office had actually figured out it was a bunch of kids planning something big for Halloween.

Of course, no one had a clue how big.

Tonight Rex and Melissa were knocking over the last fireworks stall in town while the other three picked up a few items from Bixby Hardware and Keys, after which, hopefully, Rex would let them get a few nights’ rest. Halloween was only six days away.

Jessica scowled at the big paper skeleton taped to the glass door, swinging lightly from Jonathan’s attempts with the keys. There were decorations up everywhere in school, orange and black bunting running down the hallways, pumpkin faces glowering at Jessica from the cafeteria walls. Every time she saw a witch or black cat on a classroom door, it reminded her of what was coming.

“Come on!” Dess said, just as the lock clicked.

“Ladies,” Jonathan said, opening the door with a bow.

“Good, let’s hurry,” Jessica said, walking in among the rows of tools and appliances and paint cans. “Constanza thinks I’m in the bathroom.”

Jonathan snorted. “That would psych her out, wouldn’t it? If you just disappeared in there?”

“Yeah, very funny,” Jessica said tiredly as Jonathan began to gather up a big plastic tarp.

On Monday morning, the day after tomorrow, Constanza was flying to LA. Supposedly it was only for a week. But as she mentioned to Jessica at least once every day, she might never set foot in Bixby High again.

Tonight could be the last time Jessica would ever see her.

Jessica pulled her coat tighter, wondering how many more people she would lose in the next week.

“Hey, check this out,” Dess said.

Jessica turned. “An empty paint can?”

“Formerly a lowly paint can.” Dess swung it by its wire handle. “But in its new incarnation, it will be a major explosive device.”

Jessica swallowed. Some of the stuff Rex was planning was on the edge of crazy. But there was no backing out now.

She pulled Dess’s list from her pocket and started walking among the blue-lit shelves, searching for nails and wires and metal tools—sufficient fresh, clean steel to make a hundred weapons.

Jessica wondered if it would be enough.

A half hour later Jonathan tapped her on the back.

“Come on.” He offered his hand. “We should leave soon if I’m going to get back here in time.”

“Thought you said it would be funny if I just disappeared.”

“Sorry.” He touched her hand softly, midnight gravity shivering through her body for a moment. “You could have stayed there. Dess and I could have done this on our own.”

“Glad to help.” She shrugged. “Slumber parties aren’t much fun when your host is a stiff.” Jessica looked into his eyes. “Plus I hate midnights when I don’t get to fly.”

He held out his hand, smiling. “Let’s fly, then.”

“Okay.” She took it, feeling the connection take hold, her body light as the air. “See you tomorrow, Dess.”

Dess looked up from the open front door, where she was piling the stolen merchandise. “Sure, Jess. And Flyboy? If you don’t get back before midnight, I’m leaving all this stuff in your car with a big note to the sheriff.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

They flew toward Constanza’s, shooting down an empty stretch of highway to the colony of large houses on a circular road. Jonathan jumped with Jessica up to the roof, just outside the open window of the second-floor bathroom.