“That’s your fault, Beth. I told you to leave half an hour ago.”
“Can you at least explain when you come back… in eighteen minutes?”
Jessica sighed. “Sorry, Beth, I’d love to. I just can’t.”
“Got your flashlight?” Jonathan said, one foot already out the window.
She thumped a bulge in her jacket. “Yeah, right here.”
They slipped out, dropping to the soft earth of the garden. Jonathan heard one last complaint cut off by Jessica’s sliding the window closed and thought again how he couldn’t wait for midnight gravity to arrive. Finally he would be unstuck from Flatland, able to fly again, and all little sisters would be mutely frozen.
And the darklings will come to life, he realized, checking his watch as they jogged toward the car.
Midnight was coming, all right. Way too soon.
“Why did you have to say that?”
“Say what?”
“That thing about eighteen minutes exactly,” Jessica said. “It was kind of obvious, don’t you think?”
Jonathan shrugged. The clock had said 11:42, and he could fly Jess back here by the end of the secret hour, midnight on the dot. He did see her point, though. Maybe he had been a little too precise about exactly when Jessica would return.
He sighed, watching a flattened armadillo flash past on the road. Listening to Dess talk math all afternoon had crowded his brain with numbers. “What’s the difference, anyway?”
“Beth’s starting to figure out that midnight’s important.” Jessica was staring out the passenger window. “She’s noticed that I’m always getting ready to leave around twelve, and she’s started showing up just before the secret hour starts. If I kick her out, she’ll probably just go get Mom and Dad. It’s like she knows. Ever since that night I shoved her in the closet—right at the stroke of midnight.”
Jonathan chuckled. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t shove her in closets.”
“You’re lucky—nobody but your father, and no hassle from him.”
He winced a little at that and took one hand off the wheel, reaching out to her. She was nervously playing with Acariciandote, the bracelet he’d given her, and he stilled her hand. “That was my mom’s, remember?”
“Oh. Sorry, Jonathan.”
“It’s okay. She ran off all the time, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when she didn’t come back. But you’re lucky to have family.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”
Jonathan wished he hadn’t brought it up. Talking about this kind of stuff never helped. “Anyway, Beth probably isn’t going to guess that time freezes at the stroke of twelve and a secret blue world full of monsters appears.” Jonathan laughed. “She might be smart, but she’s not that smart.”
Jessica turned toward him. “You don’t really mind her that much, do you? You like her.”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
“Yeah. But she’s my sister. I sort of have to.”
Jonathan chuckled again. “Listen. You guys used to get along before you moved here, right? You will again, once Beth gets used to the weird ways of Bixby. And yeah, I do like her. Since you introduced us, I feel like less of a stalker when I’m sneaking around.”
Jessica drew closer, leaning her weight against him. “Yeah, it’s been better since she got to know you. I think she trusts you. At least, she doesn’t think you’re a serial killer anymore.”
Jonathan smiled, but the expression faded as he glanced at his watch: only ten more minutes before the blue time fell, and they were about that many miles from Jenks. He stepped on the gas, the old car shuddering as it accelerated. They had more important things to worry about tonight than little sisters.
They zoomed passed an old Chevy that was lumbering down Creek Turnpike. This far out of town the roads were almost empty, which meant that his father’s car would be easy for his old friends in the sheriff’s department to spot. He was sure that by now, they’d recognize it from halfway across the county.
Jonathan didn’t know what he’d do then. Get stopped for breaking curfew, maybe go to jail again, and risk Cassie Flinders disappearing forever? Or do a grand theft auto, get the cops into hot pursuit mode, and get Jessica and himself into more trouble than Beth could ever have imagined?
Not a great choice.
Jessica cleared her throat. “Um, I hope you’re not planning on going this fast when time freezes. Don’t want to fly through the windshield, personally.”
“Midnight’s not for ten more minutes. Unless there’s another eclipse.”
She pulled away, sitting straighter in her seat and checking her seat belt. “Oh, right. Thanks for reminding me. Midnight can come at any time now.”
“Yeah. Cool, huh?”
“Uh, no, Jonathan. Not cool. What if it keeps happening?”
He shrugged. “Then we get to fly around more.”
She sighed. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“What? More midnight? The whole world belonging to just us five? Less time in Flatland? Sure, I would.”
“But we don’t understand what’s happening, Jonathan. On the phone Dess said something about the blue time changing completely. And today we didn’t know if the eclipse was ever going to stop. It felt like the world had ended.”
“Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.” He snorted. “And anyhow, look at it this way: if the world ends, you won’t have to worry about Beth anymore.”
Jessica just turned away, staring out the passenger window and not saying another word.
Jonathan frowned, wondering what he’d said wrong now.
7
11:53 P.M.
PREY
Melissa’s eyes rolled back in her head, her nose wrinkling. Rex saw a shudder pass through her body from toes to fingertips.
“What, did they stop already?” Rex asked.
She shook her head. “No, Flyboy’s still got his pedal all the way down. They’ll get here in time, more or less. But the flame-bringer’s not in a very good mood.”
Dess glanced up from her GPS device and snorted. Rex shook his head. Great time for a lovers’ quarrel.
He swept his eyes across the railroad tracks again. This place was wrapped in Focus, inhuman marks corrupting every piece of gravel in the rail bed, every blade of grass shooting up through the wooden cross-ties. Darklings and slithers had danced here. Even the steel spikes in the iron rails bore the traces of their claws and snouts and slithering bellies.
All this Focus couldn’t have been laid down in twenty-one minutes. They must have come here before the eclipse.
Of course, Rex thought, there were always a few midnight places on the outskirts of town. Perhaps it was only a coincidence that this weak spot had been visited before.
He knelt to take a closer look at a slitherprint, a sinuous line that wound down the railroad tracks as far as he could see. It didn’t look especially fresh, not like a trail left only fifteen hours ago.
But Rex frowned; his new hunter’s nerves were twitching with all the metal around him. Why would a slither travel down a railroad line that reeked of iron rails, steel bolts, and buried telegraph lines? Most darkling places on the city’s edges were open fields and empty back lots, places where little patches of the wild still clung—stands of native plants, snake holes, or small creeks not yet erased by buildings and concrete. But this iron path was an artery of the rail system, an old and powerful symbol of human cleverness and dominance. Only a hundred years ago it had represented the highest technology that humanity possessed, yet the darklings had embraced this spot. They must have come here with a purpose.
Rex saw how far the Focus stretched up and down the track, how it trailed off into the brush and extended even to the ramshackle houses backed up against the right-of-way. He wondered how far into the mesquite trees it went. The small town of Jenks was close to the Arkansas River, and the scrub in these parts was impenetrably dense, hiding much of the landscape from his new predator’s eyes.