“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.