Scott Westerfeld - The Secret Hour

The panther arched its back, eyes flashing, as if sensing what she was about to do.

Jessica took a deep breath and ran straight toward it.

The cat reared back, off balance. It was a predator, not used to prey turning on it. But then its hunting reflexes took over. Its claws extended, and it lunged at her with a single bound like the strike of a huge snake, suddenly a bolt of solid muscle.

She hurled the necklace.

The metal ignited the moment it left her hand, the links aflame in a string of blue sparklers. Burning steel and the panther arced toward each other, beast and metal colliding in midair with a thunderous sound. The cat was thrown back, howling. It rolled over once and scrabbled to its feet at the edge of the snake pit, shaking its head.

Its cold eyes locked on Jessica.

A second later the world seemed to explode.

A bolt of lightning shot out from the snake pit, leaping across the few feet of desert and striking the body of the panther. The whole snake pit seemed to burst into cold, blue flame for a moment, with a rushing noise like a building rain, and then a deafening explosion threw Jessica to the ground. She rolled across the dirt, the boom shaking the hard desert sand beneath her.

For a moment she couldn’t move. Her head rang, and she could see nothing but the bolt of lightning striking the big cat, burned into her eyes like the afterimage of a camera flash.

Jessica forced her eyes open and rose shakily, coughing, not knowing which way was which. Tears streamed down her face, and as she blinked them away, Jessica saw a blurry form hurtling toward her through the air.

She took a few half-blind steps backward. The shape landed in front of her.

Jessica put a hand up to her neck instinctively, but the necklace was gone. She was defenseless.

A hand grabbed her arm.

“This way, Jess.”

Gravity slid away. Suddenly she was made of feathers.

“Jonathan.”

With a single, soaring step he pulled her across the crackling boundary. She had been only yards from the edge of the snake pit. Lights flashed around them, the hairs on her head standing up as if she’d stepped into a bath of electricity.

Jessica stumbled when they landed inside the sinkhole, and the moment Jonathan let go of her arm, her feet slipped down the slope of softer sand. She sat down hard.

“Jess?”

“I’m okay.” She blinked away the dirt in her eyes and managed to get Jonathan’s face into focus. He was breathing hard, kneeling next to where she sat, loose dirt slipping around them down into the center of the pit.

“I tried to stop the darkling, but it went for you so fast,” he said breathlessly. “I thought I was too late.”

“No, you were just in time.” Jessica shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears. Her fingers and toes buzzed, as if some huge force had moved through her, electrifying her body in its wake. Every breath seemed to fill her with energy. She almost felt like laughing.

“I lost Obstructively. I mean, I threw it at the psychokitty,” she babbled.

“I saw the whole thing. That was incredible.”

“Is it gone? Your necklace?”

“Blown to bits, but I’ll give you another one.”

“Oh, good.”

Jessica giggled, then forced herself to take a slow, deep breath. The buzzing in her body was fading. Finally her vision cleared completely. Jonathan’s face was twisted with concern.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “You look like you just stuck a fork into a light socket.”

“Gee, thanks.” Jessica stood shakily, and he reached out a hand to help her up. “I’m okay, really.”

In fact, she felt great. She smoothed her hair, which was sticking out in all directions.

“Uh, Jessica…”

“Yeah?”

“Are you wearing makeup?”

She dusted the dirt off herself. “Can’t a girl get dressed up for a party?”

Jonathan raised one eyebrow and looked around. The bowl of the snake pit was ringed with pieces of metal, junkyard shapes that glowed and sputtered. Sheets of lightning flashed up from them into the sky, where screaming slithers wheeled in tight circles around the pit. Burned and twisted shapes lay on the ground, the bodies of fried, smoking slithers that had ventured too close. Through the blue dome of lightning Jessica spotted a few darklings hovering in the distance, their eyes radiant indigo in the glare of the incessant flashes.

Jonathan laughed. “Some party.”

Jessica smiled but then knitted her brows. “Not all the guests are here, though.”

“I spotted Melissa’s car on my way, at the other end of the Bottom. I guess they’re going to be a little late.” He looked at the fireworks show around them. “If they get here at all.”

Jessica looked out through the arcing blue lightning, past the wheeling cloud of slithers. “How did you get through, Jonathan?”

He pointed to an object on the ground next to him. It looked like an old trash can lid, dented and marked all over with strange signs and patterns. “Meet Purposelessly Hyperinflated Individuality. Something Dess made to help me get here.”

“Purposelessly Hyperinflated…?” She laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just a good name.”

“Her new thing is thirty-nine-letter phrases. Packs more of a punch.”

“Looks like you needed it,” Jessica said. The lid was blackened on one side, as if it had been used to ward off a flamethrower.

“I had flying slithers bouncing off me like bugs off a windshield.” Jonathan picked it up. With his fingers through the handle, the trash can lid looked like a battered shield. He looked up at the moon, half risen.

“They should’ve been here by now.”

Jessica could still see part of the Milky Way past the huge moon. “They’d be coming from that way, right?” she asked.

Jonathan nodded and pulled out a candy bar, taking a hurried bite.

They skirted the pit to the other side, the flashes of lightning sending long shadows from them in all directions. The sinkhole was a rounded, irregular crater in the desert, as if a giant shovel had scooped up a load of dirt. Plants clung to its sides, and the earth at its depressed center looked dark and damp. Jessica started at what she thought was a crawling slither underfoot, but it turned out to be a normal snake, frozen by midnight.

“Nice place for a party,” she muttered.

They reached the opposite edge and looked out across the smooth plain of the Bottom.

“There they are,” Jonathan said.

“Looks pretty impressive, Dess.”

“Thanks, except I was hoping we’d see it from the inside.”

“Come on,” Rex said for the tenth time. “The cops were all over the place tonight. We’re lucky we made it to your house at all.”

“So how are we supposed to get over there?” she asked.

The blue arc over the snake pit shone brightly across the desert. With his midnight vision Rex could see every slender finger of the cold lightning that leapt from the ring of steel Dess had created. He could see the slithers swirling overhead, drawn to the snake pit and its ancient stones, barely smart enough to avoid the deadly forces they attracted from the clean metal. He could also see darklings overhead, hovering wary and patient, waiting for something to happen.

Everything was in readiness.

Unfortunately, it was all happening hundreds of yards away, across open, defenseless desert.

“I have no idea,” he admitted.

“They know we’re here,” Melissa said. “But they don’t care about us. Just her.”

Rex nodded. He could see two forms inside the barrier of lightning, looking back at him across the plain. Jessica had made it here, had risked her life to meet them.