It was going to be tricky coaxing her out of the cave. In his darkling dreams Rex had seen humans paralyzed by their own fear when cornered.

Standing sideways, he tried to push deeper into the fissure, but after only a few feet, teeth of sharp stone closed on his spine and ribs. “Cassie? Try to come toward me.”

“I can’t.”

“I know your foot hurts, Cassie. But you can still walk.”

“No. They won’t let me.”

Crap, Rex thought. The slithers had her trapped in there. He wondered whether even the beam of Jessica’s flashlight could reach back to where Cassie was. He reached out with his hunting knife and struck the stone a glancing blow. A single blue spark flared blindingly, illuminating the jagged walls of the fissure for an instant.

“Did you see that, Cassie?”

“That flash?”

“Yeah. Good girl. I’m not far from you.” Rex leaned his weight against the stone and stood on one leg, pulling the metal hoops from his boot. Then he reversed his stance and yanked them off the other. “I’m going to throw some things, Cassie. They’re going to scare the snakes. You have to run this way when you see sparks.”

“I can’t. They’re looking at me.” Her voice had gone flat, as if hypnotized by the lifeless stare of the slithers.

“They won’t bite you if you’re fast, okay? I’m going to count to three, then scare them.”

“Rex. I can’t. My foot.”

“Just get ready. One…” He held the hoops almost to his lips and whispered their names—Woolgathering, Inexhaustible, Unquestioning, and Vulnerability—the Aversions sending a shooting migraine through the darkling half of his brain. “Two…three…run!”

He threw the handful of hoops as hard as he could, and they careened deep into the cave, raising up a shower of sparks as they clanged off the walls. The bright, ringing sound of metal striking stone cut painfully into Rex’s ears.

“You scared them!” Cassie announced.

“Well, run then, dammit!”

As the echoes of his shout died, Rex heard her sneakers’ squeaky footfalls carrying her through the sharp angles of the cave. She came into view a few seconds later, limping and white-faced as she pulled herself down the narrow channel of stone. Rex reached out a gloved hand and pulled her from the crevice after him, out under the rising bulk of the dark moon.

Outside he stumbled to a halt. An army of slithers surrounded them. A host of the creatures covered the ground, and their winged forms filled every tree branch.

“Snakes…” Cassie said softly.

Melissa, Rex thought as hard as he could.

In the depths of his mind he heard the faintest word—Coming—and wondered if that meant Melissa and Dess were coming, or Jessica…or if something else was on its way.

“It’s all right,” he said, drawing Cassie closer and thrusting the knife out before them.

Then he saw the darkling.

It seemed to uncoil from the ground, its eight legs spreading out from its bulbous center like the blooming of some horrific flower. A tarantula, the desert spider of his nightmares.