But old darklings had been here, of that Rex was sure. He could see deep, clawed footprints in the soil and a broad tree branch that had almost cracked under the weight of something huge and winged. There were slither burrows scattered throughout the underbrush; darklings young and old hid from the sun out in the deep desert caves, but some of their little minions nested closer to town, buried under the earth.
It took time to layer a place with this much Focus, this many signs. They must have begun months ago, maybe a lot longer than that. Melissa and Madeleine had felt their celebrations out in the desert: the darklings had somehow known that the eclipse was coming and exactly where it would happen. Which meant they’d probably also known what Dess had discovered today, that this first tear in the blue time would spread like a rip along the seam of an old T-shirt.
Maybe it had always been their plan that the blue time would one day come apart. But what would happen then?
Suddenly something caught Rex’s eye. One of the railroad track cross-ties stood out, a halo of red surrounding it. He looked closer and smelled the inherent strangeness of the spot. The blue time was paper-thin here.
The old wood of the cross-tie was marked with a sliver of Focus, looking out of place here among the stains of darklings. He drew closer and saw in the half-moon shape the distinctive tread of a sneaker.
That was why it looked different—that other kind of Focus clung to it, the kind Rex had only learned to see over the last couple of weeks.
“Prey,” he said softly.
“Five minutes,” announced Dess, nervously rocking the long piece of steel pipe that rested on her shoulder. “How’s the flame-bringer doing?”
“Close,” Melissa said. “But they’re slowing down. Wimps.”
“Not everyone appreciates the subtle pleasures of flying through a windshield, Melissa,” Dess said.
“They’ve got five whole minutes before midnight, and Flyboy’s already parking it!”
“How far are they?” Rex interrupted.
“A few miles.”
“Not good.” He followed the trail of human Focus with his gaze. The glimmering footprints left the rail bed and headed down into the dense undergrowth. “She went this way. On foot, not being dragged.”
“Who? Cassie?” Dess asked.
Rex nodded.
“You can see that?”
“I can see the traces of humans now,” he said, pointing at the trail. “And these footprints look like they were made in the blue time. Cassie must have left them during the eclipse.”
Dess’s face twisted into a skeptical expression. Other than Melissa and Madeleine, none of them yet understood how different he had become.
Rex knelt on the tracks and sniffed. He could smell the uncertainty of the lost girl, could see her fear in the tentative distance between the steps. It made his mouth water, his palms sweat. This was a young one, weak and ready to be cut from the herd.
“Get a grip, Rex,” Melissa said softly.
He shook the hunting thoughts from his head. “Okay, I’m going to track her. She might still be close by. You guys stay here. But yell out a countdown for the last thirty seconds, Dess.” He slid down the loose gravel bank of the rail bed and plunged into the thick bushes.
“Rex!” Dess shouted. “There’s only four minutes left! Get back here.”
“Quit showing off, Rex,” Melissa called. “Once midnight falls and her brain starts up again, I’ll find her right away.”
Rex glanced back. The two of them were standing inside Polychronious, a large and complex tridecagram that Dess had laid down on a patch of clearing, using a spool of fiberoptic cable stolen from Oklahoma Telecom a few midnights ago. The cable smelled bright and buzzy to Rex, like cleaning detergent fumes going up his nose, and the thirteen-pointed star Dess had woven with it made his head spin. They would be safe from darklings inside it, even if the flame-bringer was a few minutes late.
“Just give me that countdown,” he called back.
“Rex!” Dess wailed.
He noticed that she and Melissa were standing as far apart as they could inside the tridecagram, like two rival cats locked in a small room together.
Whatever. They’d live.
Rex pushed his way deeper into the underbrush, fighting the bare, brittle branches of mesquite. He could see in the dark better than ever now, and the spaces between leafless trees and scrub seemed to open up before him. He soon realized that his prey’s slender marks of Focus followed a narrow path, probably an old animal trail.
As Cassie’s footsteps went deeper into the brush, they began to grow more sure and purposeful, as if after the first few minutes of confusion in the blue time, she’d headed for someplace where she felt safe.
A branch caught Rex, bending taut, then whipping backward, leaving a long rip in his shirt. The girl must have grown up around here to move so easily through this overgrowth. He could tell she was much shorter than him—from her footprints, she had walked almost upright underneath branches that he was forced to crouch beneath.
Her footsteps grew farther apart; moving more swiftly now, as if coaxed forward by some goal. Rex swore—he wasn’t going to find the girl before midnight fell. She’d had twenty-one minutes to get wherever she’d disappeared to, and he had only…
“Thirty seconds, Rex!” Dess’s voice called through the trees.
He paused. To make it back to safety, he should turn around now and start running. Inside Dess’s ring of protection, they could wait for the flame-bringer. In the blue time Melissa would be able to taste the lost girl’s thoughts even if she were miles away.
Of course, Cassie couldn’t have actually gotten that far in twenty minutes unless the darklings had swooped down and carried her off. And if that had happened, she probably wasn’t alive and certainly wouldn’t survive the long minutes it would take Jonathan and Jessica to reach her.
Rex sniffed the trail before him. An electric trickle of fear still lingered in the human scent, mixed with excitement and wonder. It made something within him grow hungry. This was the smell of those young, adventurous humans who tended to stray too far from their villages—the call of easy meat.
Part of Rex knew that he should do the sensible thing. He should head back to safety and get everyone organized: keep Dess and Melissa from fighting with each other, tell Jonathan and Jessica what to do when they arrived, maybe fly along with them to the rescue. No one but he could be the leader that the group needed.
But the smell of the lone girl drew him forward, calling his entire body down the narrow path. Cassie Flinders felt so close. His hands tingled with how near she was, and a raw imperative filled him…
Reach her before the others do. She’s yours.
Rex took an unsteady step forward. He had to get there first.
“Fifteen!” Dess’s distant cry reached him. “Where the hell are you, Rex? Ten. You’re-an-idiot-nine, get-back-here-eight, you-dimwit-seven….”
Rex plunged deeper into the undergrowth.
Seconds later the earth shuddered under his feet. Blue light swept through the brush and across the sky, dulling the stars and bringing every branch and blade of grass into sharp relief, his vision suddenly seer-perfect.
He breathed in the hungry essence of the blue time, the mental clarity of midnight.