Touching Darkness (9 page)

Jonathan started the car, looking back at the security guards. They slewed to a halt on the other side of the fence, their car immediately swallowed by its own dust cloud. The two rent-a-cops emerged, coughing in the dirt storm, and looked at him forlornly through the fence. One tested the tire with his foot, but it sagged almost flat under his weight.

Jonathan took a deep breath. No reason to rush.

“Hey, it’s those buttheads again,” Dess said. “Were they chasing you?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. You’re not really a total loser in normal time, you know.”

“Right.” His heart was pounding, his throat was scraped raw from inhaling dust, and his ankle was throbbing. He never felt this way at midnight, half dead from running a paltry mile. He pulled the GPS receiver from his belt. “Hope this thing still works.”

“It better,” she said, flicking it on. She stared at the numbers recorded on the little readout. A moment later a grin of satisfaction spread across her face. “Oh, this is so good!”

Jonathan felt himself smiling too. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, getting his heart beating. Not as good as flying, of course. “That’s from right under the balcony, just like you said.”

“I can see it…” Her eyes were open wide like those of a four-year-old girl entranced by her first butterfly. “I’ve got the pattern now. This is so freaky.”

She turned and leapt across the front seat, kissing him on the right cheek, hard and wet.

Jonathan laughed, then glanced at the cops again. They were getting slowly back into their car. It was miles back to the gate and then back here. He was enjoying just sitting here, ignoring them.

Then Jonathan remembered the letter in his pocket. He pulled it out, and the smile dropped from his face.

It wasn’t good news. Not at all.

“You think that’s freaky, check this out.” He tossed it to Dess.

She lifted it to her eyes as he pulled the car back onto the road, heading for the highway fast. They had to get back to school.

“What the hell…?” she murmured.

“It was in the mailbox at Darkling Manor. That must be the owner’s name, courtesy of Oklahoma Power and Light.”

“Oh, man, Jonathan,” Dess exclaimed. “With a name like that, they’ve got to be related.” She started to shake her head. “Jessica isn’t going to like this.”

“No. And I don’t either.”

He drove fast and hard toward school.

They hadn’t come back.

Jessica’s eyes swept the student parking lot, trying to find Jonathan’s car among the throngs escaping Bixby High. Everyone was full of last-bell energy, jumping up on hoods and playing catch across the lot, angling for rides home. On the street a line of school buses sat spewing gray smoke, their windows filling with impatient faces.

But nowhere did she see Jonathan or Dess.

“Hey, Jess. What’s up?”

She turned to find Constanza Grayfoot beside her.

“Oh, just looking for someone.”

Constanza smiled. “Mr. Gorgeous?”

“Yeah.” She turned back toward the parking lot. “He left school earlier, but I thought he was coming back.”

“Skipping, huh?” Constanza shook her head. “I thought you two were going to keep a low profile after getting arrested.”

“Not arrested. Detained and transported to parental custody,” Jessica said. “But yeah, we were.” She would’ve explained that Jonathan was making sure that two of her friends hadn’t been eaten alive, but somehow she couldn’t find the appropriate words. “He kind of had to do something.”

“Sure, I know the feeling.” Constanza waved to a cluster of cheerleaders headed across the parking lot.

As more and more cars departed, Jessica became even more certain that Jonathan’s was nowhere to be found. What did it mean that he and Dess hadn’t come back? That everything was fine? That their worst fears had been true? It seemed like they could have bothered to tell her if Rex and Melissa were okay. Unless by not going along to Rex’s she had proven herself irredeemably lame and the four of them had decided to ditch her permanently.

“What’s wrong, Jess?”

Jessica turned and gave Constanza a tired smile. She wished she could share her anxiety with someone, but as the only midnighter who hadn’t skipped school today, she was on her own.

“It’s just…” What could she say?

“Trouble in Coupleville?”

Jessica nodded. “I guess.”

“So tell me what’s wrong.” Constanza smiled. “You know you want to.”

Jessica realized that she did want to, and she wasn’t sworn to secrecy about everything in her life. “Well, Jonathan’s really great, some of the time. Like, at night.”

“But not so great the morning after?”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “It’s not about morning afters, of which there have been none, by the way. I’m just talking out here at school. We never seem all that connected when we’re together here.”

“Oh, got you. He’s afraid of PDA.”

“Yeah. Not too much into public or private displays of affection, actually. Except at night. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

Constanza snorted. “Not that hard.”

“I mean, it’s not what you think.”

“What do you think I think?”

Jessica felt a smile on her face. “What do you think I think you think?”

Constanza raised an eyebrow. “I think you know what I think.”

The release of hydraulic brakes squealed across the parking lot, and Jessica looked up to see the first bus in line begin to roll.

“Oh, crap. I need to run.”

“Hang on, Jess.” Constanza took her arm. “That was just getting interesting. Let me give you a ride home.”

Jessica looked at her. “Really? It’s miles out of your way.”

Constanza shrugged. “So what? Since you’ve been grounded, I’ve hardly seen you.” She put her arm around Jessica and started walking her between the few remaining cars. “You never hang with us at study hall anymore.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.”

It’s okay. I know you have this weird affliction where you believe that study hall is for actual studying.” She giggled. “And it’s not like I would be jealous of Miss Gothoid over in the corner.”

Jessica sighed. “Dess is pretty cool, really.” Of course, she couldn’t imagine having a conversation about Jonathan’s hand-holding phobia with Dess. And forget Rex or Melissa

“Yeah. Super-cool,” Constanza said. “But I guess she does know her trig. Isn’t she one of Sanchez’s math groupies?”

“Sort of.”

Constanza opened her purse and pulled out a key chain jangling with a mini flashlight, a fingernail clipper, a rabbit’s foot, and a host of keys. She squeezed it, and the powder blue Mercedes ahead of them let out a chirp.

“Whatever and who cares? We’re going to spend this ride talking about you and your boy problems. Miss Day.” Constanza made her way around the car.

Jessica smiled and opened the passenger door, relaxing a little for the first time since the physics test had hit her desk that morning. Running into Constanza had been her first bit of luck all day. For the next twenty minutes, at least, she wouldn’t have to hear about darklings or slithers, ancient blood feuds, missing lore, or even ice-cream socials.

Inside, Constanza began to fiddle with the radio.

“So, your boy’s PDA-shy in daylight. Sort of an affection vampire?”

“Yeah.”

“Very common syndrome. And it’s pretty clear what to do.” Constanza started the car, put both hands on the steering wheel, and looked across at her.

“What?”

“Be patient.”

“Patient?” Jessica’s eyes widened. Patience wasn’t the advice she’d been expecting from Constanza.

“Yes. Just let your anger mellow inside you, aging like a fine wine. Then when Jonathan does something that really pisses you off, let him have it with both barrels.”

Jessica blinked. “Um, I got lost. Are these wine barrels?”

“Pay attention, Jessica. These are barrels of anger.” Constanza sighed, thumping the steering wheel. “The problem with boys is, you can’t tell them every time something annoys you. If you complain every single second that Jonathan isn’t holding your hand, you look feeble and whiny and desperate. So you have to hit him with all his flaws at once. Which means…” She put the car into gear. “Waiting until he does something that he knows is bad and having a tally of all your complaints ready in your mind. Be patient, but be prepared—that’s my motto.”

Jessica shook her head as they backed out of the parking space. “You’re probably right. I mean, about not bugging him. He’ll freak if I’m all clingy. I’ll just have to talk to him.”

“Wait until you have the upper hand, though. Patience is a virtue.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Although at some point, Jessica knew from experience, patience was also being a wimp.

As they reached the edge of the parking lot, a car swerved in from the street and screeched to a halt right in front of them. Constanza slammed on the brakes, and the Mercedes stopped with inches to spare.

It was Jonathan and Dess, looking very much in a hurry. His car was dirty, as if they’d been driving off-road, and Jonathan wore a wild-eyed expression.

He glared at Constanza’s car, then squinted through the two windshields at Jessica.

“Jeez. Speaking of patience…” Constanza said.

Jessica swallowed. Something serious had happened. “Look, I better go. He looks upset. His thing he had to do… maybe it didn’t go so well.”

“Sure, Jess.”

Jessica opened her door. “I’m really sorry, Constanza. I’d love a ride home some other time.”

“No problem. See you tomorrow. I want to hear more about this.”

“Oh… sure.”
If I can tell you anything at all
. Jessica wondered what she was about to find out. From the way Jonathan and Dess looked, last night had been bad.

Constanza laughed. “I mean, even if Jonathan is being a pain in the ass, you have to admit, the guy knows how to make an entrance.”

Jessica lifted a corner of the shade to peer out, wondering if the movement could be seen from the bushes across the street. Her lights were off, of course, and she’d draped T-shirts across the pulsing eyes of her bedside clock and snoozing computer. The only light in her bedroom crept in beneath the door: the faint glow of the hall night-light.

She couldn’t see anything outside—nothing human, anyway. Just intertwined tree branches, fallen leaves, and a few pools of illumination gathered under porch lights.

Somewhere out there, Melissa was searching, sifting through the few waking minds for one thinking stalking thoughts. If she and Rex were actually in town tonight and not headed off to the edge of the badlands to tangle with monsters. Jonathan had told her the story as he’d driven her home from school—how they’d stumbled onto a house where darklings gave orders to human followers in midnight séances.

Jessica shuddered, trying to imagine the half-thing that made this communication possible, the kidnapped midnighter somehow melded with a darkling.

Jonathan had also passed on Rex’s assurances that Jessica would be safe for a while; something about a stolen domino, which hadn’t been completely convincing. What if the man with the camera already had his orders? What if he had a spare set of dominoes? Didn’t seem like much to bet your life on.

Jessica knew she wouldn’t be out of danger until the blue time came, when she and Jonathan could soar above Bixby to safety. She glanced at her watch: only twelve minutes to go.

A noise crept into the room.

It was the sound of creaking wood. And it was definitely coming from inside the house. Jessica dropped the window shade, turned, and froze.

Along the dim strip of light creeping beneath the door a shadow moved, accompanied by the faintest of complaints from the wooden floorboards.

Mom? Her mouth moved to form the word, but no sound came out. She tightened her lips. If it was her mother, she would knock or say something, wouldn’t she?

Jessica waited motionless for what felt like a solid minute, her heartbeat rising slowly into her throat. The shadow under the door didn’t move. In the darkness Jessica’s vision began to conjure stirrings in the corners of her room. The light under the door seemed to grow in intensity, and the moan of the wind outside kept getting louder.

Were they waiting for midnight? That wouldn’t make any sense if they were normal humans. Unless they planned to attack in the last minutes before the secret hour came, to bundle her up all ready for the darklings. But why? To join her with some darkling body to do their bidding?

Jessica chewed her lip. She couldn’t just stand here.

Slowly she knelt by the bed, sliding out her weapons box. Ignoring the flashlight and lighter, she pulled out Anfractuously, the bicycle lock. Made of heavy steel, it was suitable for both midnight and daylight threats.

She took slow steps toward the door, stood to the side, back against the wall, and raised Anfractuously above her head.

A loud
thump
filled the room; the bicycle lock had struck the wall behind her.

Jessica froze.

A whisper pierced the door: “Jess?”

“Beth?”
She yanked open the door, revealing her tousle-headed sister standing there in pajamas. “You little sneak!
What
are you doing outside my door?” she hissed.

Beth walked into the room, looking around interestedly. “Well, mostly I was wondering what you were doing here inside your room.”

“Shhh! You’ll wake up Mom and Dad,” Jessica whispered. Beth had spoken in a normal voice.

“So close the door.”

Jessica groaned and glanced at her clock, but the numbers were obscured by the T-shirt she’d draped over it. If her little sister was still here at midnight, things were going to get tricky.

Beth followed her gaze. “Interesting. Is that to hide the light?”

“Shhh!” Jessica hissed again. She relented and closed the door. The last thing she needed was her parents joining them. “What do you want?”

“I want to know what’s going on with you.”

“What do you mean, Beth?”

“Well, the blinds are drawn, the lights are off, you’re dressed, and you’ve got your bike lock in your hand. Going somewhere?”

Jess looked down at Anfractuously. “This was to bash your brains in with, actually.”

Beth smiled sweetly. “Who did you think I was?”

“No one,” Jessica said. Just some retarded serial killer in pajamas. Now why don’t you go back to bed?”

“You need to get your watch fixed,” Beth announced. “It’s wrong every morning.”

Jessica paused, although she knew that pausing was always a bad idea with Beth. It gave her little brain time to think it knew more than it really did. “Yeah, I guess it’s running fast.”

“Yeah, but exactly an hour fast? Every morning?”

“I miss Chicago time,” Jessica said, a trickle of sweat beginning to crawl down her back. Just how much had Beth noticed?

“Nice try. Chicago time and Bixby time are the same.”

Jessica sighed. “Okay, Beth, you win. Every night I fly to New York on my broom to attend wild parties, and in the morning I sometimes forget to set my watch back to Bixby time. Satisfied?”

Beth sat down on the bed, nodding slowly. “Not completely, but at least we’re getting somewhere.”

“Where you’re getting is into trouble. Leave. This is my room!”

“So call Mom.”

Jessica took a breath and opened her mouth, but all that leaked out was another deadly pause, which was as unstoppable as Beth’s growing smile.

“Didn’t think so. On a related topic, Jess, I tried to wake you up Sunday morning. But mysteriously, I couldn’t open your door.”

“Maybe I locked it.”

Beth snorted. “Your door doesn’t have a lock. I am your little sister—I know these things. I suspect that you jammed this under it.” She held up a doorstop, the one Jessica had secured her door with the night they’d spotted the stalker.

“That’s mine.”

Beth dropped it onto the bed with a smile. “Yes, it is. And when I find out what you’re up to,
you
will be
mine.”

Jessica glanced at her watch. Six minutes. If the darkling groupies would just burst in now, she could jump into her closet, and in the confusion they would assume that Beth was her and whisk her off to the badlands, where she could annoy the darklings until they were forced to escape into yet another hidden hour or perhaps another dimension entirely. A win-win situation.

“Waiting for someone?” Beth asked.

“Yes… you. To leave.”

“Someone who’s coming at, oh…” Beth whisked the T-shirt off the bedside clock. “Twelve?”

Jessica just shook her head. Her heart was pounding too hard for her to say anything. Maybe if she stood very still and came back to this exact spot when the hour had ended, Beth wouldn’t notice any minuscule changes in her position.

But Beth, it seemed, was noticing everything.

She sat on the bed, eyes sweeping the room. “You’re majorly grounded, but there’s always dirt on your sneakers in the morning. And rust and grease on your jeans. It’s like you go out Dumpster diving every night.”

Jessica ground her teeth together. Beth must have been spying on her for weeks, probably since they’d arrived in Bixby. All the time she’d been worrying about her poor, friendless sister having trouble adjusting to the new town, the little sneak had been busy snooping.

It occurred to Jessica that she could really let Beth in for an eyeful. All she had to do was wait until midnight came and when it ended be standing just behind her or in another room entirely, vanishing before Beth’s snotty, superior gaze.

Of course, if Beth saw her disappear, she might start talking about it. Mom and Dad wouldn’t believe her, but if she told someone at school, the story might eventually get back to the other midnighters. Rex wouldn’t be very happy about that.

Even worse, instead of being terrified, Beth would probably decide to start showing up every night at midnight, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice how love-happy you are all the time?” Beth continued. “Or were, at least until you got all paranoid Saturday night. And now you’re waving that thing around.” Beth pointed at the bicycle lock, still in Jessica’s hand. “That guy you got busted with, Jonathan—he’s been in trouble with the police a bunch, right?”

“Beth, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s right, I don’t. I’ve never met this guy; he could be a total psycho for all I know.” Her eyes fell to the floor. “Jess, I’m worried about you.”

Jessica blinked. “You’re what?”

“Worried. About. You.” Beth pulled her knees up onto the bed and hugged them. The superior smile had faded from her face. “You never got brought home by the cops before, or snuck around, or lied to me.”

“Beth, I don’t—”

“You lie to me all the time now, Jessica. I can tell.” Beth looked straight at her, daring her to disagree. “You weren’t like this before we came to this stupid town. I knew all your friends back then.”

Jessica swallowed. It seemed so long ago, like another life, but she did remember. Before Mom and Dad had announced the big move to Bixby and the packing and goodbyes had turned Beth into a full-time whiner, the two of them had always talked. Teased and argued mostly, but never lied to each other.

“Beth. I don’t mean to keep secrets from you. It’s just that…” Jessica’s voice caught. Beth’s eyes were so full of longing; she needed something to cling to here in Bixby.

It would be so easy to tell her.

Guiltily, Jessica allowed herself to imagine the look of awe on her little sister’s face. Beth wouldn’t believe it at first, but Jessica could prove it in another two minutes, flitting from one spot to another in the blink of an eye. Beth would have to accept the truth, and Jessica would have an ally when she had to cover things up. There would be one less person in the world to deceive.

“Beth…”

“What?”

The words didn’t come, of course. She would hate herself if she said them. For years the others had kept the secret from everyone—friends, family, the police who enforced Bixby’s merciless curfew. It wasn’t convenient, but what else could they do? Rex said that lots of people used to know about midnight, but look what had happened—one day the midnighters had all just disappeared. Secrecy was their only real protection. Her shades were drawn and windows locked right now because someone out there knew.

And there were worse things than the man with the camera. Jessica’s imagined vision of the half-thing came into her mind. Midnight wasn’t just secret; it was full of horrors. She couldn’t dump her nightmares on her little sister—it wasn’t fair. The whole idea was stupid and selfish.

Jessica sighed and looked at her watch again. Forty seconds. “Let me show you something.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Jessica smiled—just one more lie tonight. “Really. Come here.”

She opened the door to her closet, pointing into the darkness. All she really had to do was distract Beth for a few seconds; as long as she wasn’t looking at Jessica at the stroke of midnight, her little sister shouldn’t notice a thing.

Beth stood and crossed the room, a little suspicious now. “No one’s in there, right?”

“Yeah, sure. I keep my new psycho boyfriend in the closet. Don’t be a wimp. Look.” Her watch said twenty-four seconds now.

Beth frowned warily but came. “Turn on a light or something?”

“Sure.” She flicked the overhead light on, but Beth only frowned harder, like this was all too easy. “Come on.” Jessica took her sister’s shoulder and pulled her toward the closet. Fifteen, fourteen…

“What?” Beth stared into the darkness.

“Just look. Let your eyes adjust.” Ten. Jessica took her hand from Beth’s shoulder, stepped back out of her view. Beth turned to track her movement.

“You better not be pulling some—”

“Look there!”
Jessica snapped. This was turning out to be trickier than she’d expected; maneuvering Beth was like herding a cat. And her watch wasn’t always perfect to the second. There was only one way to be sure…

“Jess, there’s nothing in there but—”

Her little sister squawked as Jessica shoved her into the closet, stumbling against the hanging clothes with a clatter. She swung the door closed behind Beth until it clicked.

“Jess!” came a muffled roar. A solid thump followed, probably a kick.

Jessica leaned her weight against the door, watching the stroke of midnight come and go. That was the problem with quartz watches, Rex always said. They tended to lose a few seconds every day.

“You are so dead! If you don’t open this door in five seconds, I’m going to scream.”

Five seconds should be fine, Jessica thought.

“One, two, thr—”

The familiar shudder came, a ripple in the wooden solidity of the floor beneath her feet and the door against her shoulder, a simultaneous choking off of little sister and moaning Oklahoma wind. A distortion passed through the room, leaving everything still and flat and lit from within by a soft blue glow.

Jessica sighed. The coming scream was almost certainly unavoidable, and her parents might have already heard the ruckus. But it was Beth who had invaded her room, after all, refusing to leave. In any case, explanations and recriminations were all on the other side of midnight.

She left the closet door closed, unable to imagine a worse sight than a frozen prescream Beth face, deathly pale and furious. Arming herself with Explosiveness and Demonstration and pulling on her sneakers, Jessica unlocked and opened a window, swinging one leg across the sill.

Looking back at the room, she was momentarily proud of herself for resisting the temptation to tell secrets. She had done the adult thing and protected Beth from the truth. Maybe she would even apologize when her little sister emerged from the closet.

“See you in an hour, sweetie,” Jessica called, and dropped to the ground outside.