As they crossed the street, Rex glanced nervously skyward.

“Relax, they’re halfway to downtown.” The last two nights Melissa had felt them close to the center of Bixby, probably up on the tall buildings down there, well away from darkling country and with a clear view in every direction. Jessica was a lot safer with Jonathan than at home, even Rex had to admit.

The front door was locked.

“Damn city folk,” Melissa said. They crossed to Jessica’s open window.

“You’re in an awfully good mood,” Rex said.

She pulled herself in through the window, tasting leftover Jessica thoughts in the room. She extended a hand to help Rex pull himself up and saw him instinctively jerk away before he realized she was wearing gloves.

“I’m always in a good mood in the blue time,” Melissa said when he was inside. “Especially when I get to do some serious casting.”

Rex gave off a sharp flavor of anxiety.

She sighed. “Don’t worry, I promise not to have too much fun.”

“Just don’t start to enjoy it too much. The lore is full of—”

“Stuff that bores me,” she interrupted. “Speaking of which…” Melissa looked disdainfully around Jessica’s room. “Wow, she is so daylight.”

Rex frowned. “She’s not that bad. Why do you hate her so much?”

“I don’t hate her, Rex. She’s just…she’s nothing in particular. I think she got switched at birth with a real midnighter. Everything’s so easy for her.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

They went through the door and faced a long hallway. Melissa pushed open the first door on her left.

“Smells like…little sister.”

“You can taste that?”

“I can see it.” Melissa gestured at the floor. It was cluttered with skirts, jeans, shirts, crumpled papers, and school-books. Two walls were covered with boy-band posters, and on the bed a small form lay twisted among the sheets, clutching a stuffed animal.

Rex laughed. “Your psychic powers never cease to amaze me.”

They closed the door and headed farther into the house. There was a bathroom on the right, and the hallway opened on one side onto a living room. At the far end of the hall was one more door.

“This looks promising,” said Melissa as she pushed it open.

Jessica’s parents lay there, frozen while asleep.

Melissa looked at them, pale and defenseless. Like all stiffs, they didn’t seem quite human, more like department-store mannequins that someone had tried really hard to make realistic but had mistakenly taken a left turn at creepy.

Rex was poking around the room, peering into the moving boxes near the closet. Like the other midnighters, he was a little bit freaked out by stiffs.

Melissa didn’t mind them at all. Cold and hard though they were, this was the only time she would ever willingly touch another human being. She pulled off her gloves.

“I think we’ll start with Mom.”

20