17

12:00 A.M.

THE OLD ONES

They hovered overhead, like spiderwebs suspended from the air itself. Their tendrils snaked out into the sky, silhouetted against the midnight moon as if sucking energy from its dark light. Other strands anchored them to the desert floor or were wrapped around the necks of darklings, like leashes on giant panthers. The beings seemed to have no head or body, just a matted center where the grasping arms converged.

Rex wondered if this was the darklings' original form before they had taken the shapes of humanity's nightmares. These were certainly the old ones Melissa had always felt across the desert; just as she described, he tasted musty chalk, as if his mouth were full of the remains of something long dead and crumbled to dust.

One of them had come for him across the desert, its arms like glistening threads, resplendent in his seer's vision even from miles away. He'd known he had no choice but to follow - the thing could reach its long arms through Dess's defenses, and it called to the darkling part of him irresistibly.

For that matter, he'd wanted to come, even his human half. After everything Angie had told him, Rex realized how imperfect and incomplete the lore really was. If there was a way to stop what was happening, these old minds would know.

There were three of them, each twenty yards across, and an entourage of another dozen creatures in nightmare shapes: pale snakes and bloated spiders, slugs that dripped black oil, all of them unmoving, as if in thrall to the old ones hovering overhead. Wingless slithers pulsed in the ground beneath his feet, like an eruption of earthworms turning the threadbare soil.

Rex had never felt so small.

How wrong he'd been, thinking he was half darkling. Only a tiny fraction of him had changed, a sliver of strength gained, enough courage to express his paltry human anger. These creatures were so much more powerful than he would ever be. Rex found himself unable to move or speak, his humanity shrunk into a terrified corner of his mind, their darkness lying across him like a blanket of lead.

And what was he supposed to do, anyway? Say hi?

A liquid motion caught his eye. One of the creatures' long tendrils was approaching, sliding across the desert floor like a snake. As Rex watched in horror, it stretched toward his boot, wound around his leg as soft as feathers. Every muscle in his body strained against it, but he couldn't move.

Cold swept through him then, and an arid voice...

Winter is coming.

Rex tried to open his mouth to speak, but his teeth were clenched so hard it felt like they would shatter. He let out a growl, pulling his lips apart, forcing his tongue to form words in his captive mouth.

"What will happen?"

We will hunt again. Join us.

"No," he said.

We are hungry.

Images exploded in Rex's mind, every bully who had ever taunted him, all his father's beatings, the spiders making their way across his pale, bare flesh. Every old fear came surging out of his memories, tearing at the foundations of his human side. Suddenly he knew he was a failure. The lore he had taught himself to read was nothing but lies. All along he had been a blind seer, a fraud.

Laughing, the old ones showed him the coming change, how the blue time was tearing open, unleashing the darklings' ancient hungers.

"No," he said, already exhausted. "I'll stop you."

There was a shudder from the beasts.

You are not the one who threatens us.

Rex's body suddenly went rigid, as if something was stretching him, prying his mind wide open. All his senses grew a thousand times. The world was suddenly crystal clear all the way to the dim stars on the horizon, even more perfect than in his seer's vision. He could hear the sound of his own blood rushing through his body, like freight trains pouring past. And he tasted the blue time itself, ash and corruption on his tongue.

More images poured into him - the world moving at darkling speed, the seasons flashing past, only one hour in twenty-five visible, every day almost a month. He saw the prime contortion that the old ones had made, the secret hour itself, groaning under the weight of all that missing time. It was beginning to fray, a steady drumbeat of eclipses until it shattered, and then the hunt would begin.

Unless... Rex saw a bolt of lightning, the ancient pressures released and spreading across the earth, the rip diminishing.

"We can stop this," he whispered.

She can. You must take her.

"No."

More images, like his hunting dreams but a thousand times more vivid. He saw a pile of burning bones, human forms wearing horned masks. He felt the rush of galloping pursuit, smelled the fear of the prey, tasted the warm vitals of the kill. Rex felt himself gorging on flesh.

His stomach clenched against the vision, but what horrified him most was how complete it made him feel, how sated. And how powerful. As Rex Greene, he was trapped in a body that was weak and small, that would sicken as it grew old and certainly die in a laughably short time. But the old ones were offering him millennia.

All he had to do was let his humanity slip away. He could join in the feast.

Just take her. You alone can bring her down.

He shook his head, fighting back with his shredded humanity. Then a long-buried Aversion rose up in his memory, one Dess had taught him long ago.

Join us, they coaxed him.

"Unconquerable," Rex spat at them hoarsely. His mind almost split from the effort, but the grip of the old ones shuddered again, disgusted with him.

Then away with you.

With astonishing suddenness his mind was released from the creatures' awful grip. Rex felt his muscles unlock, and he was falling like a dropped rag doll, every ounce of will expended in the struggle. They had given up, he realized. Somehow he had beaten them.

Rex opened his eyes and found himself lying facedown on the desert floor, dirt in his mouth, his jaw muscles aching. But he managed a smile. The darklings had shown him something about the coming hunt... something important.

But as the cluster of nightmare shapes moved away, leaving him there exhausted and spent, Rex felt his mind contracting, his senses turning back to merely human. Like a great maw closing around him, darkness consumed the new knowledge, leaving only disjointed images and scents and the taste of dust in his mouth.

By the time the old ones had disappeared on the horizon, he hardly remembered what had happened at all.