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.

The metal ignited the moment it left her hand, the links aflame in a string of blue sparklers. Burning steel and the panther arced toward each other, beast and metal colliding in midair with a thunderous sound. The cat was thrown back, howling. It rolled over once and scrabbled to its feet at the edge of the snake pit, shaking its head.

Its cold eyes locked on Jessica.

A second later the world seemed to explode.

A bolt of lightning shot out from the snake pit, leaping across the few feet of desert and striking the body of the panther. The whole snake pit seemed to burst into cold, blue flame for a moment, with a rushing noise like a building rain, and then a deafening explosion threw Jessica to the ground. She rolled across the dirt, the boom shaking the hard desert sand beneath her.

For a moment she couldn't move. Her head rang, and she could see nothing but the bolt of lightning striking the big cat, burned into her eyes like the afterimage of a camera flash.

Jessica forced her eyes open and rose shakily, coughing, not knowing which way was which. Tears streamed down her face, and as she blinked them away, Jessica saw a blurry form hurtling toward her through the air.

She took a few half-blind steps backward. The shape landed in front of her.

Jessica put a hand up to her neck instinctively, but the necklace was gone. She was defenseless.

A hand grabbed her arm.

"This way, Jess."

Gravity slid away. Suddenly she was made of feathers.

"Jonathan."

With a single, soaring step he pulled her across the crackling boundary. She had been only yards from the edge of the snake pit. Lights flashed around them, the hairs on her head standing up as if she'd stepped into a bath of electricity.

Jessica stumbled when they landed inside the sinkhole, and the moment Jonathan let go of her arm, her feet slipped down the slope of softer sand. She sat down hard.

"Jess?"

"I'm okay." She blinked away the dirt in her eyes and managed to get Jonathan's face into focus. He was breathing hard, kneeling next to where she sat, loose dirt slipping around them down into the center of the pit.

"I tried to stop the darkling, but it went for you so fast," he said breathlessly. "I thought I was too late."

"No, you were just in time." Jessica shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears. Her fingers and toes buzzed, as if some huge force had moved through her, electrifying her body in its wake. Every breath seemed to fill her with energy. She almost felt like laughing.

"I lost Obstructively. I mean, I threw it at the psychokitty," she babbled.

"I saw the whole thing. That was incredible."

"Is it gone? Your necklace?"

"Blown to bits, but I'll give you another one."

"Oh, good."

Jessica giggled, then forced herself to take a slow, deep breath. The buzzing in her body was fading. Finally her vision cleared completely. Jonathan's face was twisted with concern.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked. "You look like you just stuck a fork into a light socket."

"Gee, thanks." Jessica stood shakily, and he reached out a hand to help her up. "I'm okay, really."

In fact, she felt great. She smoothed her hair, which was sticking out in all directions.

"Uh, Jessica..."

"Yeah?"

"Are you wearing makeup?"

She dusted the dirt off herself. "Can't a girl get dressed up for a party?"

Jonathan raised one eyebrow and looked around. The bowl of the snake pit was ringed with pieces of metal, junkyard shapes that glowed and sputtered. Sheets of lightning flashed up from them into the sky, where screaming slithers wheeled in tight circles around the pit. Burned and twisted shapes lay on the ground, the bodies of fried, smoking slithers that had ventured too close. Through the blue dome of lightning Jessica spotted a few darklings hovering in the distance, their eyes radiant indigo in the glare of the incessant flashes.

Jonathan laughed. "Some party."

Jessica smiled but then knitted her brows. "Not all the guests are here, though."

"I spotted Melissa's car on my way, at the other end of the Bottom. I guess they're going to be a little late." He looked at the fireworks show around them. "If they get here at all."

Jessica looked out through the arcing blue lightning, past the wheeling cloud of slithers. "How did you get through, Jonathan?"

He pointed to an object on the ground next to him. It looked like an old trash can lid, dented and marked all over with strange signs and patterns. "Meet Purposelessly Hyperinflated Individuality. Something Dess made to help me get here."

"Purposelessly Hyperinflated...?" She laughed.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just a good name."

"Her new thing is thirty-nine-letter phrases. Packs more of a punch."

"Looks like you needed it," Jessica said. The lid was blackened on one side, as if it had been used to ward off a flamethrower.

"I had flying slithers bouncing off me like bugs off a windshield." Jonathan picked it up. With his fingers through the handle, the trash can lid looked like a battered shield. He looked up at the moon, half risen.

"They should've been here by now."

Jessica could still see part of the Milky Way past the huge moon. "They'd be coming from that way, right?" she asked.

Jonathan nodded and pulled out a candy bar, taking a hurried bite.

They skirted the pit to the other side, the flashes of lightning sending long shadows from them in all directions. The sinkhole was a rounded, irregular crater in the desert, as if a giant shovel had scooped up a load of dirt. Plants clung to its sides, and the earth at its depressed center looked dark and damp. Jessica started at what she thought was a crawling slither underfoot, but it turned out to be a normal snake, frozen by midnight.

"Nice place for a party," she muttered.

They reached the opposite edge and looked out across the smooth plain of the Bottom.

"There they are," Jonathan said.