Jessica checked the beast behind them. It had stopped changing shape, settling on a thin, snakelike form with a beaked head. The creature’s wingspan had grown, as if the thing’s bulk had been transferred from its body to its wings. It looked faster now, and it was getting closer.

“Okay.”

At the next landing they turned, angling back toward the edge of town. Suddenly Jessica recognized where they were.

“My mom works near here. Next jump: that way!”

“What? Your mom can’t help us, Jessica.”

“Shut up and follow me.”

Jessica felt Jonathan’s hand tighten, resisting her for a moment, but when the next leap came, he followed her lead. As they reached the top of their arc, they found themselves soaring over a high fence and onto the grounds of Aerospace Oklahoma. Mom had driven Jessica past here on the first day of school, almost making her late. The complex was huge, dotted with wide airplane hangars and low office buildings, mostly runways and vast empty spaces. They tested new wings, landing gear, and jet engines here, and Jessica’s mom had said they even had an old Boeing 747 that they would occasionally set aflame to practice fire fighting.

It all required a lot of open space.

They jumped three times long and fast, eating up the entire length of a runway with the speed of a jet aircraft. Then they soared over a huge hangar and found another long runway. The darkling fell farther behind.

The beast’s cry reached their ears. Unlike the bellow of the panther, its scream was high and reedy, torturing Jessica’s ears like the shriek of a boiling teakettle.

A chorus of cries came in answer, piercingly high chirps from somewhere in front of them.

“The badlands are up ahead,” Jonathan said.

Jessica nodded and said softly, “They’re waiting for us.”

The setting moon filled the horizon now, and she could see a cloud of flying slithers against its lightless but blinding face. There were hundreds of them, wheeling in a chaotic mass, and two larger shapes, darklings on the wing.

“This is too weird,” said Jonathan. “I’ve never seen—”

“This way,” Jessica interrupted as they struck the ground. She pulled him to one side, angling away from the armada of creatures ahead. But her decision had come too late. Their hands jerked taut against each other, and she felt her fingers slipping. She reached out with her other hand for him, but their momentum carried them apart.

“Jess!” she heard Jonathan shout.

As they tugged free, she felt gravity take a brutal hold upon her body. They had just left the ground, and there wasn’t far to fall, but the asphalt was moving past under her quickly. It was like looking down at the street through the window of a speeding car. She rolled into a ball.