“Uh-oh.”

“We’ll make it!” Jonathan flailed against the rain like an injured bird, then reached out one hand, and as they hit the building, his fingers found the edge of the roof. Jessica smacked into the wall below him, bouncing off and outward. For a moment the canyon of the street below yawned beneath her, and her hand seemed to be slipping through Jonathan’s wet fingers.

But his grip remained firm, and he managed to cling to the building, letting her almost weightless body rebound in a circle over his head. She landed on the building’s edge and pulled him up behind her.

“Made it!” he cried.

She looked back the way they had come, and her eyes widened. “Jonathan…”

The rip was barreling toward them, taller than a skyscraper now, wider than a football field. As the boundary of red time struck the rain, it released vast sheets of water, like a huge crimson tidal wave plowing through downtown Bixby’s streets.

In its wake flew a horde of darklings, a thousand winged shapes of every size, vast whirlwinds of slithers glittering red and black, screaming their rat-squeak cries. A knotted mass of the tendril creatures flew at the center of the horde, their appendages intertwined like braided hairs.

“Rex didn’t make it,” she said softly. “Beth…”

“No, look.” Jonathan pointed. Miles away, a tiny plume of fire rose into the sky over Jenks, showers of sparks and explosions in every color. “He and Melissa must have stopped some of them. Maybe there are more than we thought.”

Jessica nodded slowly. Their carefully prepared plan had been woefully inadequate—a few fireworks against an army of monsters.

She tore her eyes away, dropping Jonathan’s hand and running toward the giant horse. Its lowest hoof reached down almost to the rooftop—a strand of the arrested lightning wrapped around its metal support, bright and humming with contained power.

She reached toward it, her palm out, like testing the heat of a fire. Huge energies moved inside it, the hairs on her arms standing upright, her whole body tingling. It was like the glorious buzzing feeling when she’d first brought white light into the blue time, but a thousand times more intense. It made her heart pound harder, her vision swim.

Frozen or not, this was really lightning, she realized. An awesome force of nature, inconceivably deadly. Like sticking her hand in a light socket, but a million times more powerful. What was supposed to happen to her when she reached into it?

All she knew was what would happen if she didn’t: thousands dead, the old ones feeding on their victims freely, humanity at the mercy of its oldest foe.

“I have to do this,” she said softly.

“Are you sure?” Jonathan was right behind her.

“Stand back.”

He shook his head, reaching for her, pulling her into a kiss. Jessica felt it in her lips then, the energy of the trapped lightning all around them mixed with the dizzying glow of Jonathan’s midnight gravity. Her skin seemed to tighten, its surface running with wild currents and heat.