25
12:00 A.M.
THE SNAKE PIT
As Jessica began to run, she glanced once quickly over her shoulder, grimacing at the sight of Steve. He'd been looking straight at her when midnight had frozen him. Somehow she had to get back here at the end of the secret hour. If she wasn't standing in exactly the same position, it would seem to him as if she'd suddenly shifted place.
But Jessica smiled as she turned away and broke into a headlong run. If she didn't come back at all, he would think she had disappeared into thin air.
She could live with that.
The desert was a blue expanse, broad and flat, as if she were running across an endless ocean. In the midnight light, though, a few features became visible. Wisps of cloud were scattered overhead, and a few scraggly scrub plants clung to the hard earth. The stars were still visible, and Jessica could tell from the Milky Way that she was headed in the right direction.
There was no sign of darklings or slithers, at least. Not yet.
Nor was there any sign of the snake pit.
Jessica felt like an idiot for having trusted Steve. If she had stuck to the plan, leaving the party alone and following Dess's map, she'd have been safely at the snake pit by now.
"I'm such a wimp," Jessica spat through clenched teeth. How was she supposed to survive darklings and slithers if she was afraid of a short walk in the dark alone?
As she ran, Jessica searched the horizon for the snake pit, for anything bigger than a scrubby weed. How far had Steve taken her out of her way? Her watch said she'd been running for six minutes.
Her feet pounded to a halt. That seemed too far, for what was supposed to have been a five-minute walk.
She pulled out the compass. Would it work in the secret hour?
"Come on, come on," Jess whispered. The needle swung lazily in a full circle, then finally pointed the way she had come.
But she'd been running east. North could not be behind her.
A sound came across the desert, a chirping call.
Jessica scanned the sky. Directly in front of her, batlike wings were silhouetted against the rising moon. A flying slither, close enough to have spotted her. She had to keep moving. But which way?
She faced the direction that the compass said was east. There was nothing but featureless, blue desert before her. Her eyes fell to the compass angrily.
The needle was pointing in a new direction. It said north was still behind her, but now she was facing a different way.
"What the - "
Jessica turned in a slow circle. No matter which way she faced, the needle pointed straight at her.
"Great, I'm the North Pole now," she muttered. Another one for Rex to ponder.
If she survived long enough to see him again.
She thrust the useless compass into her pocket and looked up at the stars. The Milky Way ran east to west, or at least it had before midnight had freaked out the compass. At one end of the river of light was the rising moon.
"Jessica, you idiot!" The sun rose in the east; why wouldn't the dark moon?
She had been going the right way all along.
Jessica started running again, as hard as she could. If the slither had spotted her, there was no time left to waste. Either she was headed in the right direction or she was dead meat.
The moon was higher now, its baleful face broad enough to fill the eastern horizon. Winged things were gathering in front of her, dark shapes against the cold light of the moon.
Suddenly she saw what looked like a flicker of blue lightning before her. But it seemed to strike in reverse, jumping from the ground up into the sky, spreading out from a thick trunk to many thin fingers of fire, like a huge and leafless tree suddenly revealed by a flash of blue. More streaks of lightning shot up from the ground, and Jessica heard the screams of flying slithers. She watched as one dropped from the sky, touched by one of the branches of blue electricity.
"Dess," she said. The bolts of lightning were the snake pit's defenses, coming to life. Jessica was headed the right way. Safety was close.
She ran harder.
The flying beasts seemed to be testing the defenses, trying to get past the lightning and down into the snake pit. As the cloud of slithers thickened, the lightning grew more furious, forming a stuttering arc of blue flame over the pit. The scrubby weeds around Jessica cast long, flickering shadows.
Another thirty seconds and she would be safe.
A huge, dark shape rose up over the blue arc, too big to be a slither. It came straight toward Jessica and began to descend, its wings almost large enough to blot out the fireworks behind it.
She skidded to a stop, panting. As the darkling landed and its wings folded, she could see its form boil and change, resolving into a crouched black shape of muscles, claws, and flashing eyes. A panther.
The blue arc protecting the snake pit was only a few yards behind it. She was so close.
Jessica pulled off Jonathan's necklace, holding it tightly in one hand. She whispered its name, "Obstructively."
The beast roared, shaking the hard desert earth under her feet. It reared up, saber teeth growing from its maw.
For a moment Jessica was overwhelmed by the same paralyzing fear that had trapped her the first time she'd seen a darkling. But then she remembered how joyfully Dess had dispatched that panther, in a wild burst of sparks from the flying hubcap.
This time Jessica wasn't defenseless.
"You're in big trouble, psychokitty," she said, holding the necklace high.
The beast just growled, unimpressed.
She readied herself to attack, the necklace wadded into a ball in her hand. No point in waiting for another darkling to show up.
The panther arched its back, eyes flashing, as if sensing what she was about to do.
Jessica took a deep breath and ran straight toward it.
The cat reared back, off balance. It was a predator, not used to prey turning on it. But then its hunting reflexes took over. Its claws extended, and it lunged at her with a single bound like the strike of a huge snake, suddenly a bolt of solid muscle.
She hurled the necklace.