29
12:00 A.M.
FLAME-BRINGER
"What do you mean, Dess?" Rex asked.
"When the defenses ate Jessica's darkling, my clean metal got very dirty. It's starting to sputter out."
Jessica looked up at the edge of the pit. The ring of lightning surrounding them looked weaker. The flashes no longer blinded when they shot up into the sky, the bolts of blue pale and tentative.
"I know," Rex said. "But I thought you could fix it."
"We did what we could. I don't have enough clean steel. Someone left my duffel bag out on the desert."
"You walked away from your duffel bag," Rex replied, "when you were getting all Amazon with your spear."
"Somebody had to kill that tarantula," Dess shouted.
"You didn't kill it, you turned it into an army," Rex yelled, "which some of us almost drowned in."
"You don't drown in an army!"
"Stop it!"
Melissa's cry silenced Rex and Dess. Jessica saw that their argument had drained the color from her face. She was doubled over in agony.
"Sorry, Melissa," Rex said. He took a deep breath.
"There's nothing I can do, Rex," Dess said softly.
Jessica looked up into the sky. Through the sputtering ceiling of lightning she could see slithers swirling around the snake pit. At the lip of the crater a host of tiny eyes gazed down at her. The spiders had surrounded the pit and peered down at them expectantly.
"It's up to you, Jessica."
She looked at Rex helplessly. "What am I supposed to do? You all keep acting like I know something. Like I'm someone special."
Jonathan grasped her hand, and she felt his reassuring weightlessness flow into her. "It's okay, Jess. We'll figure it out."
"What does 'flame-bringer' mean, Rex?" Dess asked.
"I can't be sure. I'd have to do more - "
"There isn't time to go look it up in the lore, Rex," Jonathan interrupted. "What do you think it means?"
Rex looked over at the shaft of stone, biting his lip. Melissa pulled her head from her hands and looked up at him.
"You're not serious," she said.
Dess laughed. "You think it's literal, don't you? You think she can use fire. Real fire."
"In the secret hour?" Jonathan asked.
"That would kick butt," Dess said. "Red fire in the blue time."
Rex looked at Melissa.
"It makes sense, I guess," she said. "At least it's something that would scare them enough to explain all this."
"But you said fire didn't work here," Jessica said.
Rex nodded. "That's right. That's why they created the secret hour in the first place. The whole point of the Split was to escape technology. Fire, electronics, all the new ideas." He turned to Jessica. "But you've come to make them face fire again. You could change everything."
"Well, don't just stand there making speeches about it," Dess said. "Anyone got any matches?"
"No."
"No."
"No."
Melissa shook her head. "Some flame-bringer. Too bad we didn't get the match-bringer."
"Hey, I asked about matches," Jessica said. "And Rex said they'd be - "
A cracking sound pealed through the snake pit, along with a blinding flash, and a dead slither fell to the ground next to Dess.
"Oh, yuck!" she cried, holding her nose at the smell.
Melissa raised her head to the sky. "They know it's fading. They're coming closer."
"Okay," Rex said. "Maybe we don't need matches. We can start a fire the old-fashioned way."
"With what? Flint or something?" Jonathan said.
"Or two sticks. You rub them together," Dess said.