The Secret Hour (10 page)

“Want one?”

“Uh, that’s okay.”

“I’ve got four.”

She blinked. “Do you ever stop eating?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve got to eat my own body weight every day.”

“Really?”

“No. But flying makes me hungry.”

Jessica smiled and looked out over the town, feeling secure for the first time since last night’s “dream” had gone all wrong.

Her eyes followed a bird flying along the horizon, back-lit by the moon, which had just begun to set. She was so happy, still featherlight inside, that it took a moment for her stomach to sink.

The bird was
moving.

“Jonathan, what’s wrong with this picture?”

He followed her gaze. “Oh, that. It’s just a flying slither.”

She nodded, swallowing. “I saw some last night.”

“That’s what Dess calls them, anyway,” Jonathan said. “Although ‘flying slither’ kind of sounds like a contradiction to me. But the winged ones and the crawly ones are the same creature. They change their shape, did you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” She remembered the kitty-shaped slither that had led her so far from home before turning into a snake. The flying slither was circling them slowly, its leathery wings transparent against the cold moon. “It’s creeping me out.”

“Don’t worry. Those things never bother anyone.” He reached into his shirt and pulled up a necklace of thick steel links. “And if that one decides to, I’ve got all thirty-nine links of Obstructively to protect us.”

Jessica shivered. “A slither bit me last night. Or whatever you’d call it. Tongued me.”

“Ouch. Were you messing with a nest or something?”

She looked at Jonathan sourly. “No, I wasn’t doing anything stupid. A bunch of them were helping the darkling hunt me. It snuck up on me in the grass and gave me this slither hickey.” She showed him the mark.

“Yuck. They are nasty little creatures. But it won’t bother us, I promise, Jess.”

“I hope not.” She hugged herself. Somehow it felt colder up here, as if the suspended desert wind blowing off the badlands had left a trace of itself. Jessica wished she had brought a sweatshirt.

Jonathan put a hand on her shoulder. The lightness returned, the feeling of safety and warmth. Her feet disconnected for a moment from the tower, as buoyant as a cork on water. She shivered again, but not with the cold this time.

“Jessica?” Jonathan said.

“Call me Jess, I said.”

“Jess!”
His voice sounded wrong. He was staring the other way, toward the badlands outside of town. She followed his gaze.

A darkling was coming.

It wasn’t at all like the one from the night before. It shifted as it flew, muscles rippling as it transformed from one shape to another—first a snake, then a tiger, then a bird of prey, scales and fur and feathers all blurring together on its crawling skin, the huge wings beating with the sound of a flag whipping in the wind.

It could fly too, and quickly. It was headed straight toward them.

But Jonathan had seen lots of darklings before, Jessica reminded herself. He had been out in midnight hundreds of times. He was faster than the bullies.

She looked back at his face. Jonathan’s mouth had dropped open.

Jessica knew instantly that he’d never seen a darkling like this one.

Along with a flood of terror, a few morsels of Jessica’s daylong cram session trickled into her mind.

“Jonathan, this tower’s made of steel, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “It’s not clean. Nothing this far out of town is.”

“Oh, right. So we…”

“Jump.”

They locked hands and stepped to the edge of the water tower. Jonathan placed one foot squarely on the guardrail and pulled lightly upward. They floated up to a precarious balance on the thin rail.

“One, two…”

Even though she was nearly weightless, Jessica’s sneakers were unsteady. She bent her knees as she and Jonathan slowly listed forward, seeing nothing below but the hard ground.

“…
three.”

They pushed off, almost straight out from the tower. Jessica realized that Jonathan had meant it to work exactly this way. The scrubby earth zoomed by under them faster than ever, their momentum carrying them forward rather than up. They descended toward the ground quickly.

“That parking lot,” Jonathan said, pointing with his free hand. “Keep jumping, low and fast.”

The huge factory lot was perfect for landing. A few long trucks were crowded in the middle, but otherwise it was clear. As they arced down to it, Jess dared a glance over her shoulder. The darkling still pursued them.

They touched down on the asphalt and took one bounding step that carried them over the trucks and almost to the other end of the parking lot.

“This way,” Jonathan shouted as they flew, tugging her hand in the direction he intended. They jumped again, launching themselves toward an empty expanse of highway that led past the factory. Following Jonathan’s lead, Jessica kept their trajectory low. They didn’t want to waste effort soaring high into the sky. Only speed mattered.

They descended toward the highway, heading for a spot that was clear of cars. They were still well ahead of the darkling.

“Which way?” Jessica shouted.

“Down the highway!”

As they landed, Jonathan’s hand clenched, letting her know exactly when to push off again.

They took two more bounds down the highway, the four-lane width making it an easy target. They were moving fast. Jess glanced over her shoulder again; the darkling actually seemed to be falling behind.

But as the road led them farther into Bixby, it narrowed to two lanes, and more late-driving cars began to appear on it. Jonathan was hesitant with their jumps now as he frantically calculated how to come down in a clear spot.

Their leaps grew timid. They were moving slower and slower.

An errant jump carried them toward a house and onto its treacherously sloped roof. Jonathan slipped as they pushed off, and they went spinning. When they landed, the darkling was closer.

They leapt again, trying to get back onto the road.

“It’s too crowded here,” he cried. “We have to get farther out of town.”

“Toward the badlands?”

“Yes. The open desert’s perfect.”

“Isn’t that where the bad guys
come from
?” she asked.

“Yeah. But we’re too slow here.”

Jessica checked the beast behind them. It had stopped changing shape, settling on a thin, snakelike form with a beaked head. The creature’s wingspan had grown, as if the thing’s bulk had been transferred from its body to its wings. It looked faster now, and it was getting closer.

“Okay.”

At the next landing they turned, angling back toward the edge of town. Suddenly Jessica recognized where they were.

“My mom works near here. Next jump: that way!”

“What? Your mom can’t help us, Jessica.”

“Shut up and follow me.”

Jessica felt Jonathan’s hand tighten, resisting her for a moment, but when the next leap came, he followed her lead. As they reached the top of their arc, they found themselves soaring over a high fence and onto the grounds of Aerospace Oklahoma. Mom had driven Jessica past here on the first day of school, almost making her late. The complex was huge, dotted with wide airplane hangars and low office buildings, mostly runways and vast empty spaces. They tested new wings, landing gear, and jet engines here, and Jessica’s mom had said they even had an old Boeing 747 that they would occasionally set aflame to practice fire fighting.

It all required a lot of open space.

They jumped three times long and fast, eating up the entire length of a runway with the speed of a jet aircraft. Then they soared over a huge hangar and found another long runway. The darkling fell farther behind.

The beast’s cry reached their ears. Unlike the bellow of the panther, its scream was high and reedy, torturing Jessica’s ears like the shriek of a boiling teakettle.

A chorus of cries came in answer, piercingly high chirps from somewhere in front of them.

“The badlands are up ahead,” Jonathan said.

Jessica nodded and said softly, “They’re waiting for us.”

The setting moon filled the horizon now, and she could see a cloud of flying slithers against its lightless but blinding face. There were hundreds of them, wheeling in a chaotic mass, and two larger shapes, darklings on the wing.

“This is too weird,” said Jonathan. “I’ve never seen—”

“This way,” Jessica interrupted as they struck the ground. She pulled him to one side, angling away from the armada of creatures ahead. But her decision had come too late. Their hands jerked taut against each other, and she felt her fingers slipping. She reached out with her other hand for him, but their momentum carried them apart.

“Jess!” she heard Jonathan shout.

As they tugged free, she felt gravity take a brutal hold upon her body. They had just left the ground, and there wasn’t far to fall, but the asphalt was moving past under her quickly. It was like looking down at the street through the window of a speeding car. She rolled into a ball.

Just before Jessica hit the ground, the asphalt seemed to change texture, suddenly dark and uneven. When she struck the earth, it was covered with something unexpectedly soft. She rolled and rolled, the ground pummeling her from every direction.

Jessica finally came to a stop, bruised and breathless. She lay there for a second, feeling terribly heavy. When she could breathe, the smell of grass filled her nose. That was what had broken her fall.

Jessica sat up slowly. She looked around.

She had just missed the runway, landing where thick Oklahoma scrub grass led up to its edge. There was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, and she was dizzy, but her arms and legs all seemed able to move.

The sounds of slithers came from in front and behind, closing in on her. In the distance their shapes moved against the vast, dark moon like a haze of gnats. Jonathan was nowhere to be seen.

Her normal weight felt as heavy as lead now that she could only run, not fly.

She stood slowly. Started painfully to walk.

“Jess!”

Jonathan was skimming across the ground toward her, one hand extended.

She thrust out her right hand. As he flew past, Jonathan grasped her wrist, and she was transformed into a toy balloon again, pulled in his wake. The bruises on her hands complained, and she cried out.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just banged up.”

“I thought you were dead!”

She giggled, a little hysterically. “I thought you were halfway to Texas.”

Jonathan didn’t say anything, just grasped her wrist tighter.

“Thanks for coming back,” Jessica said. She could hear the crazed sound of her own voice and wondered if she’d bumped her head. It was hard to tell if her light-headedness was brain damage or the effect of Jonathan’s touch.

“They’re on three sides of us now,” he said.

Jessica blinked, trying to clear her mind. She could see a cloud of slithers to their right and a lone darkling to their left and assumed there were more of each behind. On the open ground they were moving quickly again, one of her ankles twinging with pain whenever they jumped. Eventually, though, they would be driven out over the badlands, and if another group of pursuers appeared in front of them, they would have nowhere left to go.

Suddenly Jessica spotted a mesh of girders off to the right. Rising into the sky a few stories, a brand-new building was going up at the edge of the complex.

“Steel,” she said.

“What?”

She pointed. “New steel, untouched by midnight.”

“Let’s hope so.”

The sounds of their pursuers came from all around now. Chirps and squeaks and caws, like being trapped inside some insane bird sanctuary. As they angled toward the new building, a flock of flying slithers drew closer.

Jessica pulled out Jurisprudence with her free hand and used her teeth to pull the antenna out to its full length. The building was only a few jumps away.

She spotted the slither just before it hit.

The leathery wings struck first, wrapping themselves around her face. Jessica flailed away with Jurisprudence, and blue sparks filled her vision. Then the creature was gone.

“They’re trying to separate us,” Jonathan shouted.

Jess felt a creeping cold in her shoulder. The thing had struck for their interlocked hands. It knew she couldn’t fly on her own.

Another slither approached, but she swiped at it with the still sparking antenna, and it flapped away.

One last jump took them into the mesh of steel girders. They landed hard on a metal beam strung with cables.

“I’m letting go,” Jonathan warned.

Jessica gained her footing with only a second to spare. Weight crashed back onto her, and she knelt, clinging to the beam.

Jonathan pulled the necklace over his head, wrapping it around his fist.

“Splendiferous,” Jessica whispered to the steel.

“If we can just hold out a few more—,” Jonathan started, but his voice choked off in confusion. “What in the—”

The forest of steel around them bloomed with light—white, not blue. The world shifted into full color, the metal beams suddenly a dusty red. Jessica’s face and hands turned pink, Jonathan’s light brown.

Suddenly there were panicked shapes all around them, screaming past like angry rockets. Slithers were flying into the building site, screeching and leaving a trail of sparks as they struck the white light, retreating back to the edge of the steel girders.

The cloud of slithers regrouped and wrapped itself around the building, circling as if Jessica and Jonathan were caught in the eye of a tornado. Wounded sounds came from all around them, but nothing dared enter the grid of steel.

Jessica could see three darklings together at the edge of the light, their silhouettes pulsing through horrible, half-glimpsed shapes. Their eyes flashed a deep indigo.

A low growl came from one of them, long and full of varied sounds, as if it were trying to make words and meaning. But it was no more understandable than fingernails on a chalkboard.

Then the three darklings turned and flew away. The flying slithers slowly gathered themselves up into a ragged cloud, the whole mass heading back out toward the badlands.

“The moon’s setting,” Jonathan said.

Jessica nodded, unable to speak.

“We’d better get down.”

Of course,
Jessica thought. In a few minutes Jonathan wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. They’d be stuck up here.

She held out her hand, and he took it. They jumped from the steel beam, falling softly to the ground. The white light around them slowly faded, returning to the placid blue light of the secret hour.

“What was that?” she said. “What saved us?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe the steel?”

“I gave it a thirteen-letter name,” she suggested.

Jonathan let out a short laugh. “The whole
building
?”

“I guess. The part we were standing on, at least.”

He shook his head. “You can charge up a ring or a necklace, and Dess can do bigger stuff if it’s the right shape, but not a whole building. Maybe this place is made of some kind of crazy new metal. What does your mom do here?”

“Aircraft research.”

“Hmm.” Jonathan nodded. “We should look into it. That was totally cool.” He looked up at the building over their heads. “Wouldn’t mind some brass knuckles made of that stuff. Or maybe it was just the end of the blue time coming on. Lots of steel in conjunction with moonset.”

Jessica shrugged. This was another mystery for Rex, it sounded like.

Then a terrible thought struck her.

“How long do we have?” she asked.

Jonathan glanced at the moon. “Only a minute or so until the blue time runs out. I guess we’ll be walking home tonight.”

“Not unless we get out of here.”

“What?”

“They do classified defense work here, Jonathan,” she said hurriedly. “My mom got background-checked, interviewed by the FBI, and fingerprinted twice. There are security guards all over and a big fence all around.”

“Great,” he said, scanning the horizon. He pointed and grabbed her hand. “Bixby-side fence, now!”

She nodded. “Three, two…”

They jumped, heading back toward the city.

It took several bounds just to carry them to within sight of the fence. It was at least thirty feet high.

“Oh boy,” Jonathan said.

“What? We can clear that easy.”

He swallowed, clenching her hand hard. “I usually don’t jump at all this close to moonset. It’s not fun getting a face full of gravity when you’re up high.”

“Tell me about it,” Jessica said.

“Oh, yeah.”

They neared the fence. Jessica could see the coil of razor wire that capped it now, like a long, vicious Slinky stretched along its top. The light was changing slowly, a bit of color coming back into the world.

“Not long now,” Jonathan said.

Jessica swallowed. If she were caught trespassing in here, they’d blame her mother. The new job would be in the toaster.

“Just one more jump,” she cried. “Go!”

They soared into the air and over the fence, clearing the razor wire by at least twenty feet.

“Oh no,” said Jonathan. “I think that was maybe a little…”

“Too hard?” she asked.

They continued to sail upward.