“Rex!” a cry answered.
Following the sound, he saw a sheet of blue sparks through the branches and charged toward it. He was unprotected by the flare now, and the looming shapes in the trees were moving toward him. His ankle throbbed with every step, and the metal on his boots sparked as crawling slithers struck at his legs. But Melissa was so close.
The blue sparks glowed through the trees again, revealing the silhouette of a great cat raised up on his haunches. The creature was young and eager for a kill, full of the fervor of Samhain. Then Rex spotted a human form just past the darkling: Melissa tossing up handfuls of metal, hurling the bolts and screws that Dess had created into the cat’s face, driving it wild with fury. It let out a cry, swiping a claw at the tiny missiles.
Then it dropped into a crouch, ready to launch itself at her.
Rex felt his body changing, transforming more than it ever had before, the full fury of the beast inside him unleashed at last. Suddenly his injured foot seemed beside the point, the great cat’s size and strength meaningless—nothing mattered but saving Melissa.
He found himself crashing through the trees with a hunting scream, taking a wild leap onto the back of the darkling. He plunged Animalization into its shoulder, and the creature let out a howl. Its coiled muscles exploded under Rex, a jump that carried both him and the beast straight up into the air.
It twisted beneath him, trying to bring its powerful claws around. But Rex hung on with a wild, inhuman strength, his metal-encircled boots sparking against its flanks. He and the darkling spun around each other in midair like some bizarre rodeo ride.
The taste of Melissa entered his mind…
Get off it, Rex!
It made no sense, letting the beast free to shred him, but this was Melissa, and his human half obeyed the frantic demand without thinking. He pushed away with all his strength, leaving the knife embedded in the darkling, trying to shield his face from its flailing claws.
Rex fell hard on the damp ground, battered ribs letting out a crack, his ankle screaming with the pain he’d ignored. The beast inside him had faded a little. It had wanted to fight to the death, but he’d listened to Melissa instead….
He struggled to his feet with empty hands spread wide, defenseless.
The darkling lay a few yards away, its paws twitching like a dreaming cat’s. Then it let out a horrifying scream. For a moment Rex didn’t understand, until he saw the metal shaft protruding from its flank: some kind of spear, its steel still sizzling with blue fire. The creature twitched once more, then stopped moving.
Melissa emerged from behind its bulk, looking stunned, her hands black with the creature’s blood.
“Uninterrupted Vivisectional Preoccupation,” she said.
Rex blinked. She had set the spear on the ground and let the darkling fall on it.
“Thanks for distracting it,” she said.
Rex heard slithers flapping away from them in all directions, momentarily scattered by the dying howl of the great cat. He took a painful step, put a gloved hand on her shoulder. “No problem. But what are you doing out here?”
“I got bored of waiting and figured you needed some help.” She held up a backpack. “I brought fireworks. So, um… where’s the fire?”
Rex looked back the way he’d come; the red glimmer was just visible in the distance. “That way.”
A puzzled expression crossed Melissa’s face. Her eyes closed for a moment. “You left our only fire with a couple of thirteen-year-olds?”
He nodded. “Pretty much.”
Melissa shook her head with disgust. “Daylighters in the secret hour.” She sighed, tossing him a long metal shaft marked with spirals of solder. The steel burned even through Rex’s gloves, but its heft felt good in his hands.
“Thanks,” he said. “How’s Jessica doing?”
“Don’t worry about her; worry about us.” She lifted another spear onto her shoulder. “There’s a lot more darklings on their way.”
They crashed through the trees toward the bonfire’s glow, swinging their spears at the slithers that struck through the air. Every step shot through Rex’s injured foot and his throbbing ribs, but the pain had faded into a mindless blur. He had reached Melissa, and his human half was willing to let the beast take over.
The bonfire ahead was building, the smell of smoke swirling through the forest. More of the four-armed darklings thrashed at the trees around it, as if trying to batter it into submission. But the wind of their wings only seemed to drive the fire brighter.
As they grew closer, the slithers stopped coming at them, wary of the whirlwind of sparks and burning leaves.
“Cassie! Beth!” Rex shouted.
“Rex?” came a cry. He saw Cassie silhouetted against the flames, the highway flare still sputtering in her hand.
“We’re coming!” he yelled back.
“What about them?” Melissa asked, coming to a halt.
As she spoke, the bloated forms of five huge darklings rose from the forest floor. Their mouths glistened, and the clusters of eyes that dotted their bodies glowed dully in the purple light of the rip. Their long, hairy legs were splayed like the bars of a cage around the fire.
“Spiders,” Melissa said. “Your favorite.”
“Not a problem.” Rex held out his hand. “Give me the backpack.”
He unzipped it and dug his hand in, feeling a collection of bottle rockets, Roman candles, and firecrackers threaded in long strings. “Any highway flares?”
“Sure. At the bottom.”
His hand closed on the flares, and he handed three to her, keeping another for himself. “One for each of us. After I deal with those things, we’ll light up and make a run for the tracks.”
“There’s five of them, Rex. And they’re just standing there, staring at that fire like it’s no big deal. They’re not going to be afraid of you.”
Rex smiled, feeling the beast well up in him. “They should be.”
He turned, spear in one hand and backpack in the other, and limped toward the great spiders. They stood impassively, eyes aglitter with firelight. They were old, he could tell now. As he grew near, Rex felt their minds moving through him, the taste of ash and sour milk coating his tongue.
Abomination. You will die tonight.
“We’ll see.” He broke into a painful, ungainly run.
The spear left his hand first, shooting through the air toward the closest darkling. Two of its arms rose to ward it off, flailing like hairy tentacles. The spear glanced off one of them, coming to rest in the soft earth at its feet.
But the still-unzipped backpack was already soaring over the darkling’s head. It traveled in a long arc, over Cassie and her sputtering flare, its contents already spilling from it as it flew. It all landed with a burst of sparks and smoke in the center of the bonfire.
Watch this… he thought at the darklings.
A moment later the scattered fireworks began to explode, balls of fire spitting out in all directions, the shriek of long strings of firecrackers expelling clouds of smoke, rockets bouncing among the branches. The burning tongue of a Roman candle reached out to ignite one of the spiders, and the beast screamed in pain as flame spread across its hairy surface. One of the winged darklings caught a bottle rocket and began to flail its wings, then crashed into the beast beside it, the two creatures wrapping around each other in a frantic, blazing embrace.
Beth and Cassie dropped into the wet leaves, hands over their heads. The great spiders shifted, their arms shuddering, their terror washing through Rex’s mind with an electric taste.
He rolled under the nearest darkling, pulled his spear from the ground, and thrust it into the beast’s belly. A foul smell spilled from the wound as the beast reared up, its mouth opening wide, its teeth as long as knives.