Someone to share responsibility when things went wrong.

“This one’s kind of different.”

Jessica was pointing at a digging trowel, a stubby hand tool that wasn’t a spearhead at all. Rex let his breath out slowly, not wanting his disappointment to show, not wanting to feel the entire weight of it yet.

“Yeah, it is different. They used it to dig for root vegetables.”

“Root vegetables?”

“Big fans of yams, Stone Agers.” He put his glasses back on.

“So it’s a yam digger. That’s not what you brought me over here for, is it?”

“No,” he admitted. “I wanted to know if you could see something.”

“You mean, see the secret hour like you can?”

Rex nodded. “I can tell which of these spearheads killed a darkling. The touch lingers. I can see it.”

Jessica stared into the case and frowned. “Maybe my eyes are wrong.”

“No, Jessica. Different midnighters have different talents. We just don’t know what yours is yet.”

She shrugged, then pointed. “That’s a darkling skeleton up there, isn’t it?”

He was surprised for a moment, then nodded, realizing that she’d seen a creature like it in the flesh.

“Wow. So these things really were around ten thousand years ago,” she said. “Shouldn’t they be extinct by now or something? Like dinosaurs?”

“Not in Bixby.”

One of her eyebrows raised. “Rex, there aren’t any dinosaurs in Bixby, are there?”

He had to smile. “Not that I’ve seen.”

“Well, that’s something.”

Rex silently led her back toward the table. It could have changed everything if Jessica had turned out to be a seer. He swallowed, unable to speak for a moment, then found part of last night’s speech on the tip of his tongue.

“Darklings almost went extinct, Jessica, but instead they hid themselves in the blue time. It’s been a long time since they lived in the world with the rest of us.”

“That must have been exciting, being chased around by those things twenty-four seven.”

“Twenty-five seven,” Rex corrected her. “Humans weren’t the top of the food chain back then. People had to deal with tigers and bears and dire wolves. But the darklings were the worst. They weren’t just stronger and faster, they were smarter than us. For a long time we were completely defenseless.”

They sat back down at the table, the darkness of the unused corner of the museum surrounding them. Melissa looked up at Rex, her satisfied expression showing that she could taste his disappointment.

“How did anyone survive?” Jessica asked.

Dess leaned forward. “The darklings are predators, Jessica. They didn’t want to wipe human beings out, just take enough to keep themselves fed.”

Jessica shivered. “What a nightmare.”

“Exactly,” Rex said. A small group of tourists was descending the ramp, and he lowered his voice. “Imagine wondering every night if they would be coming to feed. Imagine having no way to stop them. They were the original nightmares, Jessica. Every monster in folklore, every mythological monster, even our instinctive fear of the darkness, they’re all based on ancient memories of darklings.”