He was silent for a moment, his violet eyes narrowing. “There’s a pattern. I can see when they’re coming, all of them between now and Samhain. This one should last for a while longer.”

“You can see a pattern?” Dess cried. “Then write it down for me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t express it in numbers, not without my head exploding. But she can give it to you.” He pointed toward the Cadillac.

The driver’s side door opened, and Melissa got out shakily, grinning from ear to ear. “That was cool!”

Dess shook her head. No way was Melissa touching her again.

“I thought you were afraid of driving fast,” Jessica said.

The bitch goddess shrugged. “You have to face your fears to conquer them, Jess. That’s what Rex has been telling me lately.”

“You two are both nuts,” Dess said softly.

Rex raised an eyebrow. “This experiment wasn’t just for kicks, Dess. We had to make sure that when midnight falls on Samhain, it won’t kill everyone who happens to be in a car. Which is one less thing to worry about.”

Everyone was quiet for a second, and Dess realized she hadn’t even thought about that. If the rip really did expand to consume a million people, and only one percent of them were driving at midnight, that would have been ten thousand Melissas going through their windshields all at once.

She swallowed. This thing just got bigger and bigger the more she thought about it.

“So cars are okay,” Flyboy said, pushing himself up into the air. “But what about planes?”

Rex thought for a moment. “Small aircraft can do dead-stick landings. But the big airliners will be a problem.”

“We could phone in bomb threats to all the airports on Halloween,” Jonathan suggested from above.

“Bomb threats?” Jessica cried. “Wait a second, Rex. Why are we even talking about all this? Didn’t you say we were going to try to prevent Samhain? I thought the point was to make sure that half of Oklahoma doesn’t get sucked into the blue time.”

Rex took a slow breath, then shook his head. “We can try to stop some of what’s going happen—the worst accidents, some of the panic. We can prevent most of the unnecessary deaths.”

“The ‘unnecessary’ deaths, Rex?” Dess said. “Are you saying that some deaths are necessary?”

He fixed her with a cold stare. “The predators are coming back, Dess. We have to get used to the fact that we can’t save everyone.”

She stared back at him. This new darkling-infected Rex seemed perfectly happy thinking the unthinkable. The old Rex would have been appalled by the thought of one death, but here he was, talking about thousands like it was just the Bixby Tigers losing again.

“All we can do is follow the old traditions,” Melissa said. She was leaning against Rex, her legs still unsteady after her maniacal ride.

“Like what?” Dess asked. “Dressing up in costumes?”

“Be my guest,” Rex said. “But that’s not the tradition I was thinking about. We have to organize people, bring them together and teach them how to protect themselves. In the meantime we have to keep the darklings away as long as we can.” He looked at Jessica. “Maybe that’s why you’re here.”