Touching Darkness

"You're the one who's crap at keeping secrets."



"You're the one who can't keep her hands to herself!"



Jonathan tuned the argument out, pulling Jessica closer, glad of her support as they made their painful way to his car. He needed her touch, especially here on the salt flats, the flattest stretch of Flatland there was.



36



9:11 a.m.



PARAGON OF SANITY



His vision came and went, sharp details fading into a blur and back again. On his way to the hospital the morning light had been viciously bright, metal-reflected sunlight leaving streaks across his eyes.



The walls of the hospital were riddled with Focus, but not the marks of midnight. Rex could see new things now, traces of daylighter hands, the impressions left by their minds as they solved problems, worked their tricks with numbers and alloys and clever machines.



It had taken all morning for him to realize what these new visions were: tracks of prey.



For a hundred thousand years darklings had pursued humans, learning to track them, to read their places and their paths. As the last predators to dare hunt them, they knew humans better than any other beast alive, better than the half-blind bipeds knew themselves. Rex could see these signs now, could feel the manifestations of everything the darklings hungered for... and feared.



An intercom overhead barked out some emergency call, and he flinched. There were machines everywhere in this place - bright fluorescent lights, devices for measuring blood and flesh, thousands of clever tools. Rex longed to run for the door and into some open field, away from all these overwhelming signs of human ingenuity. They made his hands shake, the fear strung tight across his shoulders.



But he had to see Melissa and show her what the change had done to him.



He looked up at the number on the door he was passing, and the world blurred again momentarily.



He hadn't brought his spare pair of glasses; he didn't seem to need them anymore, now that the Focus clung to almost everything. But there were moments when his vision faded. They hadn't changed him all the way after all. He was still a human, still Rex Greene - a seer, not a beast.



An X-ray machine flashed nearby, its violet flare reaching his eyes through the walls of the hospital, and Rex flinched again, hissing through his teeth.



He had to find Melissa and share this with her. He needed her touch to make him feel human again.



Around another corner he found her hallway, the code of numbers and letters finally making sense. He hoped he wasn't losing his ability to read human symbols. It was probably just exhaustion from waiting for three hours in the emergency room last night. It had taken that long before they'd admitted Melissa and sent him home, finally believing their story - that she'd lost her ID in the accident, was eighteen, and had no parents to call.



As he made his way down the hall, something sharp caught Rex's eye ahead, a figure glowing with Focus.



An old woman, leaving Melissa's room.



Rex came to a halt. The marks were deep on her, detail worked into every line on her face.



She was looking at him with an expression of recognition, a smile playing across her aged, pale features.



"Rex! My boy." She held out a gloved hand, and he shrank away. What trick was this?



She shook her head. "Poor Rex. Still jumpy, of course. It was a near thing last night. As near as anything I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot."



"Who are you?"



"I'm... Melissa's godmother. Madeleine."



He shook his head. There was no such person, not that he could remember. But remembering was hard today. Rex had tossed and turned all night, trying to untangle everything in his head, all he'd learned from Melissa when they'd embraced on the salt flats. And later when they'd touched each other in the emergency room, swapping their pain back and forth like two kids with something too hot to hold...



But this morning he'd hardly had time to sort through the changes in himself, much less everything Melissa had shared with him. This woman Madeleine had something to do with Dess's calculations and with the lost generation of midnighters, that was all he could remember.



"I thought I'd visit her," she was saying. "You see, I may not have much time left. And I've always wanted to get to know her better." She shook her head. "My fault, really, leaving it so late like this."



An X-ray flashed again, and Rex spun toward it, a tremor running through his body.



She didn't notice the animal reaction or pretended not to and repeated softly, "All my fault, really I was so scared, so horrified by what I'd done."



He stared at her again, and a measure of his old vision returned. Rex realized that her Focus was the most familiar kind, the mark of midnight.



"You're one of us," he said.



"Yes, Rex. But Melissa will tell you all about it. We've been visiting, you see, getting to know each other. She's waiting for you."



The woman brushed past him, and as she strode away down the hall, Rex saw that she was wearing only one glove.



He turned and ran toward Melissa's room.



Her eyes were closed, her face pale in the buzzing fluorescent light. The wounds, two on her forehead and one stretching down her cheek, were stitched now, crosshatched with pink thread binding the skin together. The stitches were made of some synthetic; Rex could sense its awful, clever newness.



She had the same Focus as the woman in the hall.



"Melissa?" he called softly. Wondering what the old mind-caster had done to her in her sleep.



Her eyes opened, and she smiled. "Looking good, Rex. Like the hair."



He sighed with relief and exhaustion. Melissa seemed like her old self.



The other bed in the room was empty, and he sat down on it, rubbing his palm across his shorn scalp. He'd buzzed it down to half an inch, cutting all the burned locks away. "Thanks. Looking good yourself."



She snorted. "Thanks, Rex. And I was worried that these scars would tragically affect my popularity at school."



He laughed, but the sound was hollow. There were too many machines in here - call buttons and intercoms, special wall plugs for heart monitors, a whole infrastructure of cables and steel around them. And suddenly Melissa was rising toward him like a mummy, the bed's tiny, clever motors making it flex at its center.



"You taste weird, Rex."



He looked at his shaking hands. "You think?"



"Kind of... psycho-kitty. They changed you, didn't they?"



He blinked, then nodded. There was so much in his head, new species of tastes and visions, wild thoughts bubbling up from some animal buried inside him. But one question made it through the confusion.



"Who was she?" he asked.



Melissa smiled. "My godmother, like she said. The godmother of us all." She sighed. "Until they find her, anyway. They'll be looking now."



Rex closed his eyes, his head racked with too many new sensations and now more information crowding it. Coming here had been a bad idea. He needed to head to the badlands, to find some place bleak and empty to sit and think.



"Come here, Rex."



He shook his head. "You're too weak. You won't be able to take what's in my head." He looked around at the walls, marked with handprints of sick and dying humans, easy prey to cut from the herd. "Especially not while you're in this place."



She laughed. "Not a problem."



"I thought you hated hospitals."



"I hated everything, Rex."



He frowned, some part of his mind recalling the intricacies of grammar. "Hated?"



"Not anymore." Melissa reached out, taking him by the arm. She drew him toward her and, for the first time, pressed her lips against his.



She came into him - not with the usual mad flood of emotions, but in a fashion measured and controlled, shaped by the technique of a hundred generations of mindcasters, an artistry passed from hand to hand across the centuries. Dess's numbers had found it, the thing Rex had always searched for, the connection to their past that the severed lore had never offered. And Melissa had been given it here in the flesh, this morning, by Madeleine and the host of predecessors in her memory. Finally a bond with living history; at last, for Melissa and the rest of them, the human touch.



Even carrying those centuries, the kiss was between the two of them alone, their old friendship turning suddenly and completely inside out, overwhelming him almost as much as his transformation in the desert.



And Rex knew he would survive.



He might be half a beast, afraid of the marks of humanity all around him, wounded by the darklings that had reached inside and turned one part of him against another, but he had her to carry him.



Nothing had ever tasted this sweet.



37



12:00 a.m.



INTRODUCTION



"It wasn't that hard, really. Dess brought her GPS thingie, so we knew exactly where the car was. Close enough, anyway."



"And you drove it all the way back to Melissa's?"



"No way. Just to the roadside. Melissa can get it home herself. That'll teach her not to wear a seat belt." Jonathan smiled. Even in the blue time his dark face showed that he'd caught some sun on the trek across the runway this afternoon. "Driving back across the flats with no windshield was the worst part." He licked his lips. "I can still taste salt."



Jessica laughed, gazing down into the backyard, regarding the frantic progress of her father's gardening. She felt safe sitting up here on her own roof, staying close to home tonight. "You guys didn't see... Anathea, did you?" He shook his head. "We didn't go over there." The tugging pain she'd felt all day shot through Jessica once more. "Maybe we should have buried her."



Jonathan sighed. "We didn't have a shovel, we didn't have time. And someone had to get Melissa to the hospital. Besides, the darkling groupies most likely took care of..."



He didn't finish the sentence.



"Oh, I didn't get a chance to tell you," she said. "Rex called. Melissa was released today. Her X rays didn't show anything. He said she's really... in great shape."



"Melissa, in great shape?" Jonathan laughed. "Whatever. Wonder how she's going to explain everything to her parents."



Jessica rubbed her arm where last night's slither bite had turned into a purple-yellow blotch. "I don't think Melissa has to explain things to her parents."



"Oh, right." Jonathan looked down.



Jessica had told him about Melissa's powers - the truth about Rex's father and what she'd done to Dess in the backseat of the Ford - but Jonathan didn't seem to have taken it all in yet. He only wanted to talk about what Dess had told him about Madeleine or about rescuing Melissa's car, not about terrible things done in the past or even the night before... or about Anathea, dead out in the desert.



"How was Dess?" she asked.



He shrugged. "She was talking about darkling-proofing Madeleine's house. She seemed good."



"She wasn't good last night." After they'd finally gotten back to Dess's house, she'd slept, but only to have nightmares every hour, most of which had involved screaming the name of her Ada Lovelace doll for some reason.



"Well, now that she's got a new project, she'll be okay."



Jessica shook her head. "You should have seen it, Jonathan. It was like Melissa..." She couldn't say the word. "You just don't know."



"I do know, Jess. Melissa touched me too."



She looked at him. "What?" A stab of something sickening went through her, a mixture of jealousy and disgust. "When? Why?"



"The night you found your talent, I had to jump with her and Rex."



Jessica swallowed. She remembered them soaring across the desert together, into the snake pit, but she'd never realized...



"God, that's right. I didn't even know back then."



"None of us did, except Rex and Melissa."



She realized she'd pulled away and reached out again for his hand. "I'm sorry, Jonathan."



He shuddered slightly. "Don't be sorry for me. Be sorry for Melissa."



"I'll save it for Dess, actually." She looked down into her dad's garden again. "I wonder if she ever did anything to our parents."



"Melissa? Nah. I doubt she'd bother with my dad. He's never given me that much trouble."



She nodded. "Yeah, but what about when my parents let me go to that party... just when Rex needed me there."



"But you're still grounded, Jessica, six nights a week, anyway." Jonathan spread his hands. "Wouldn't she just get you off completely?"



"Unless she was trying to be subtle."



"Melissa? Subtle?" Jonathan laughed. "Come on. We can't start being paranoid about every single thought in everyone's head, you know?"



"I guess." She sighed. "I don't know why I'm this way. Maybe because..." She turned to him, and the tears that had been ambushing Jessica all day blurred her vision again. "I just never saw anyone die before."



He put his arm around her. "Me neither."



"She was about the same age as Beth when they took her."



"Oh, yeah."



She shook her head, repeated the words that had been in her head for hours. "I'm sorry."



"For crying? Don't be. But..." Jonathan chewed his lip, which meant he didn't want to say the wrong thing.



"Go on."



"Well, it was horrible what they did to Anathea, but that was fifty-three years ago, like something in an old newspaper clipping. To me, it's like the girl we saw last night was a ghost, and we finally put her to rest."



Jessica stared at the dark moon; it didn't hurt her head so much these days to look at it. Maybe she was becoming more of a midnighter. "I guess that's one way to think about her, like a ghost that's free now."



"And you saved Rex, so the same thing didn't happen again."



She squeezed his hand. "I had some help with that."



He shook his head. "Just imagine old Grandpa Grayfoot standing there when midnight ended. Looking down at the girl he kidnapped back when he was a boy. He probably died of a heart attack."



Jessica flinched, not wanting to imagine any such thing. She didn't want anyone to die, she knew now. Not ever. She was glad that the other three were over at Madeleine's tonight - Melissa hiding in the contortion to protect the secret of its location, Dess working to darkling-proof the house, Rex beginning the task of reading through its archive, adding to the lore, maybe one day finding something to keep them all safe at midnight forever.



"Sorry," Jonathan said, having felt her pull away.



Jessica shook her head silently and looked across the street to the row of bushes where Ernesto Grayfoot had hidden with his camera. "I can't believe it's only been a week since my stalker showed up."



"Yeah, really." Jonathan laughed. "Shows how much you can get done with an extra hour every day."



She smiled weakly. "Yeah. And what can get done to you."



They were silent for a while, the dark moon setting before them, before Jessica got up the nerve to ask. "I don't want to be alone, Jonathan. I keep seeing Anathea, dead, where we left her."



He took her hand again. "I'm right here."



"I mean tonight. Later."



Jonathan looked up at her. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Your parents..."



"Are sound asleep," Jessica said. "Mom was at work all day, and Dad was digging up the backyard. He's going to grow all our vegetables from now on, he says."



Jonathan laughed. "Beats working, I guess. Sure, I'll stay with you."



"There's just one catch."



"Hey, no problem. I'll sleep on the floor."



"No, you won't," said Jessica softly. "The catch is... there's someone I want you to meet."



Ninety seconds before midnight ended, they alighted outside her window.



Jessica hauled herself in and extended her hand back to Jonathan. He was still limping from his slither bites and reached up to let her pull him in. But when he got inside, Jonathan stammered, "Uh... Jessica?"



"That's the catch," she said. "Just for a few minutes. She's been wanting to meet you."



"Yeah, but... are you sure this is a good idea? Me just appearing out of nowhere?"



Beth sat on the bed where Jessica had left her an hour before, hands over her eyes, an annoyed expression clearly visible on her motionless face.



"Yeah, I'm sure." Jessica smiled. "Surprises are good for her."



"But... won't she wonder where I came from?"



"I already told her: Pennsylvania." Jessica giggled. She checked her watch, excitement building in her. Maybe this was a crazy idea, but she wanted to give Beth some small measure of the blue time - Jonathan, here and now, just as midnight ended.



Jonathan stood still, looking at the open window as if contemplating a mad leap in the remaining seconds.



"Listen," Jessica said, "I told her I had a surprise for her, and she really did want to meet you. Just for a few minutes, then she'll go to bed."



Finally Jonathan laughed nervously and sat down on the windowsill, one leg up as if he'd just darted through. "Okay, sure. I'm glad to meet her. Just one question."



"What?"



"What is it with you and your little sister, anyway?"



Jessica smiled. "It's a work in progress."



Seconds later the world shuddered. The blue light faded, and rich colors settled over everything. Her room looked alive again, set free from the arresting paleness of frozen time.



" - is so retarded," Beth finished.



"Okay," Jessica said. "You can look now."



Beth dropped her hands, a resolutely unimpressed expression already fixed on her face, one that lasted about half a second.



"Jesus!" she cried, half jumping up from the bed. "Who the hell...?"



Jessica started to say something, but laughter snorted out of her instead of words. She struggled to suppress more giggles and felt her face turning red.



Jonathan smiled, holding out his hand.



"Hi, Beth, my name's Jonathan," he said politely. "It's nice to finally meet you."