They were shaped like panthers. One was right above them, its saber teeth protruding from its jaw as it dove, wings billowing like a parachute behind it.

“I’m sorry, Cowgirl.”

“At least these things got me,” she said, “before all those damn, noisy humans drove me insane.”

“Yeah.” Rex hoped the panthers arrived before spiders were crawling all over him. He put his right fist up to his lips and finally named the steel skull rings on his fingers. “Understanding. Incorruptible. Anticlimactic.”

Then he grasped Melissa’s arm, knowing this was all his fault, wondering what he had done wrong.

A second later something barreled into the darkling, and sparks flew.

27

12:00 A.M.

PURPOSELESSLY HYPERINFLATED INDIVIDUALITY

Jonathan caught most of the impact on his shield, but the collision still knocked the wind out of him. The darkling’s skin bulged with muscle, as hard as a sack of doorknobs. He heard the thin aluminum alloy of Purposelessly Hyperinflated Individuality crumple with the impact, then the shield burned his fingers as it instantly turned white-hot. Sparks flew from the darkling’s flesh, and its scream rang deafeningly in his ears.

For a moment Jonathan grew heavy; contact with the darkling had robbed him of his midnight gravity. He fell toward the ground, but as the icy touch of the creature’s flesh faded, Jonathan’s body lightened again.

By the time he hit the ground, he was almost back to weightless.

He rolled to his feet, coming up face-to-face with a very surprised Rex.

“Did you see that?” he said. “Direct hit.”

On his way out to the Bottom, Jonathan had discovered that the trash can lid was a great flying aid. It was a surfboard, a wing, a sail—a surface to catch the air and control his direction after he’d jumped. In the moments he had soared toward the darkling, Jonathan had used it to adjust his path like a smart missile homing in on its target.

Something sizzled at his feet, and Jonathan glanced down. The spiders were closing in from every direction, forcing their burning way through the metal. He had landed in the middle of a lake of relentless, poisonous bugs.

Smart was relative, he supposed.

“Smells bad out here,” he said to Rex and Melissa. “Let’s jump.”

“One problem, genius,” Melissa said. She pointed.

The other darkling was swooping toward the three of them, skimming across the desert.

Jonathan pulled the still smoldering Purposelessly Hyperinflated Individuality from his hand, hoping its triple-decker name had one more jolt left in it. He crooked the trash can lid in his arm like a giant Frisbee and hurled it at the beast.

He didn’t pause to see the result, grabbing Rex. He held out his other hand.

Melissa shrank from him. “I’d rather die.”

“That’s crap,” Rex said, shoving her forward. Her hands came up instinctively and Jonathan grabbed one.