“Yeah,” she answered. “That was kind of hard to forget.”

“Well, I’ve got a few ideas about how the rip works. And they have to do with you. But we need to do a few experiments. I want all of you to meet me in Jenks tomorrow morning. At six-thirty.”

Dess let out a snort. “Hold on there, Rex. There’s a six-thirty in the morning now? No one told me about that.”

“Yeah, really,” Jonathan said.

Rex rose from his seat, suddenly inhumanly tall, his bulk seeming to crowd against the ceiling. His features shifted on his face, the eyes growing as long and wide as a wolf’s and burning violet. His hands slammed down onto the table, crooked like claws, then scraped across the wood in one slow, deliberate movement, his fingernails catching every imperfection.

Jonathan swallowed—the creature had come out from behind the mask.

“Do you think we have time to waste sleeping?” Rex said, his voice gone cold and dry and ancient. “Thousands will be killed, and for some it will be worse than dying. The old ones will suck them dry first, wringing out every drop of fear. They’re coming for you, don’t you see?”

He stood there, glaring at them all, while the old house filled with the echoes of his words, like whispers coming from every corner. Jonathan thought he saw the piles of junk around them glow brighter for a moment, their soft blue metal rimmed with cold fire.

A vague, choking noise came from Madeleine upstairs, as if she was crying out in a dream, but Jonathan didn’t dare look up. The four of them just stared at Rex in stunned silence. Even Melissa looked bowled over by his sudden transformation.

A long moment later he sat back down, taking in a slow breath. “I know this is hard. But you can catch up on your sleep after Halloween.”

His voice had gone back to normal, but they all still sat there, dumbfounded. Jonathan wished he could think of something to say, anything at all to break the silence. But the whole concept of language—hellos, goodbyes, jokes, mindless banter—it all seemed to have fled from his brain.

Rex was suddenly so alien. It would be like making small talk with a snake.

Finally Dess cleared her throat. “Okay, then. Six-thirty A.M. it is.”

Jessica looked up at Jonathan, mouthing the words, Let’s go.

Jonathan didn’t have any problem with that. Some serious flying was what he needed right now, stretching his limbs and soaring away from the earth, as far as he could get from Rex’s weirdness.

But he remembered to ask, “So, Melissa, will you guys need a ride out there? I mean, since your car’s all busted.”

She looked at Rex, who shook his head no but didn’t say anything more.

Great, Jonathan thought. Maybe they’ll fly out with one of his darkling pals.

There was still time, so the two of them headed toward downtown.

“So what the hell is up with Rex?” Jonathan said softly, once Madeleine’s house was safely behind them.