They drew closer to the city, the wide, blank spaces of vacant lots and new developments giving way to strip malls and gas stations and, of course, her favorite store: 7-Eleven, a fraction also known as point-six-three-six-three-repeat-to-infinity.

Up ahead Melissa was going faster now, no longer feeling her way, apparently certain of the direction. Something was really giving off bad vibes tonight. Dess pedaled a little harder, swerving her bike around the occasional motionless cars that hogged the road.

Rex was right behind Melissa, making sure she didn’t crash into a car while she had her nose in the air. Melissa was a lot more functional here in the blue time, but Rex still hovered. Eight years of baby-sitting was a hard habit to break.

Dess saw a shape in the sky. Silent and gliding—a winged slither. Against the almost fully risen moon she could see the fingers in the wing. Like a bat’s, the slither’s wing was really a hand: four long, jointed finger bones spread out like kite struts, with paper-thin skin webbed between them.

The slither made a chirping call, a strangled little noise that sounded like the last cry of a stomped-on rat.

Answers sounded. There were more of them up there, a full flock of twelve. They were headed in the same direction as Dess and her friends.

Dess swallowed. It was probably a coincidence. Or maybe the little guys were just coming along for the ride. There were always some around, curious about the little tribe of humans who visited the blue time. They didn’t usually make trouble.

She looked up. Another flock had swept in to join the first group. She counted the dark, translucent shapes at a glance: twenty-four of them now.

Dess started counting aloud to calm her nerves. “Uno, dos, tres…” She knew how to count in twenty-six languages and was working on a few more. The rhythmic sounds of number-words soothed her, and she always found the different ways of dealing with the tricky teens amusing.

She switched nervously to Old English. “Ane, twa, thri, feower, fif…”

September the fifth. Nothing big was happening tonight, she was positive. Nine plus five was fourteen. And it was the 248th day of the year, and two plus four plus eight also made fourteen. Not as good as thirteen, but no bad karma there.

There were still more shapes in the sky. Their calls came mockingly from every direction.

“Un, deux, trois, quatre.” She switched to French, counting louder to drown out the slithers. Dess decided to go all the way to eighty, which was “four twenties” in French. “Cinq, six, sept…”

“Sept!” she said aloud, skidding her bike to a halt.