Last time, bad world-building. Now, the climax.

25
12:00 A.M.
THE SNAKE PIT

“As Jessica began to run, she glanced once quickly over her shoulder,
grimacing at the sight of Steve. He’d been looking straight at her when midnight
had frozen him. Somehow she had to get back here at the end of the secret hour.
If she wasn’t standing in exactly the same position, it would seem to him as if
she’d suddenly shifted place.”

Wow, what a terrible fate: to meet an asshole on a party and ditch him only to realize you have to return to him later.

“But Jessica smiled as she turned away and broke into a headlong run. If she
didn’t come back at all, he would think she had disappeared into thin air.

She could live with that.”

Yeah, that’s better. I mean, she doesn’t actually has that many reasons to be careful about the secrecy. For one thing, the secrecy should not be that important to her to begin with. Involving adults would actually be a good idea if it wasn’t likely to alienate the rest of Midnighters perceiving the secret hour as their personal playground. They are more likely to help her there than normal people, so following Rex’s request to keep it a secret makes sense, but only to a certain extent. For another, it’s not a worldwide Masquerade or anything. There is nobody who would silence witnesses or hunt her down for being sloppy with the secret, so there isn’t as much pressure. Midnighters are the only group she needs to appeal to, and it’s not that hard to explain herself and maintain decent relationships with them, comparatively. Plus, even if Steve were to see her suddenly disappearing, well, not much he can do about it short of going full obsessive stalker, at which point the secret hour would turn into the mutilation hour.

So, basically, I approve of Jessica not being hang up on secrecy without good reason in this instance. I would still like to see her thinking about revealing the secret hour to adults at some point. She doesn’t have to go through it, as I said following Rex’s request is a good idea in her position, but at least thinking about it and weighting her options would be nice.

“As she ran, Jessica searched the horizon for the snake pit, for anything
bigger than a scrubby weed. How far had Steve taken her out of her way? Her
watch said she’d been running for six minutes.”

It’s not clarified if her watch is mechanic or electronic, but I would like to point out this sentence anyway. Foreshadowing like that is actually clever as it’s hidden inside a tense scene, so while you are likely to remember it later after the reveals, you are unlikely to pay much attention to it now.

Well, unless someone like me would point that out, anyway.

So, she runs, but the snake pit fails to appear and she suspects she’s lost the direction. She looks at her compass, hoping it would still work, but soon discovers the compass always points at her, no matter which direction she faces. Monsters appear, still far away from her for now, but moving closer. She watches Milky Way, knowing it wuns from east to west, but unsure which direction to take, exactly.

“Jessica, you idiot!” The sun rose in the east; why wouldn’t the dark moon?”

…Ah… Because it’s a freaky colorless giant moon that appears during an hour that doesn’t exist? Just sayin’. I mean, you can very well make the case that it rises from the west and its movement running contrary to the sun is what erases the secret hour from normal time. It would be stupid but symbolic.

But of course Jessica is actually correct.

“Suddenly she saw what looked like a flicker of blue lightning before her. But
it seemed to strike in reverse, jumping from the ground up into the sky,
spreading out from a thick trunk to many thin fingers of fire, like a huge and
leafless tree suddenly revealed by a flash of blue. More streaks of lightning
shot up from the ground, and Jessica heard the screams of flying slithers. She watched as one dropped from the sky, touched
by one of the branches of blue electricity.”

Not sure what those defenses are, exactly. So far enchanted metal burned on contact with the monsters, but here it strikes at heavens, implying some sort of tall structure. It’s possible that the arcs are just here as a side-effect since slithers do try to get to the snake pit and do touch the metal, but on the other hand, Dess should have foreseen then coming from the air and prepared accordingly, so…

But the point is rendered moot for a moment as a darkling lands before Jessica, blocking her way to the defenses. As it hits the ground, it transforms from a flying monster into a panther. Since the safety is near, Jessica decides to rush the panther, which is leaping at her. Jessica throws the necklace given to her by Jonathan, which collides with the panther mid-air and burns it badly. The panther survives, though, and is ready to go after Jessica when it’s suddenly struck by a blue lightning from the defenses which explode for some reason afterwards, sending Jessica on the ground.

Jonathan appears and helps Jessica get to safety. I guess the explosion didn’t destroy the protections itself. Jessica is hazy from the aftershocks, but soon starts to feel great for some reason.


“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.”

It also seems she has a lot of static electricity on her as her hair stands up.

“Uh, Jessica…”

“Yeah?”

“Are you wearing makeup?”

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

Really not the time, Jonathan, and also kinda weird Jessica reacted as if it were an accusation.

Jessica tells Jonathan what happened in this and previous chapters, while he tells her about his own trip, mentioning he fetched a trash can lid enchanted by Dess (who indeed mentioned leaving something special for him on her roof) called “Purposelessly Hyperinflated Individuality.”

Yeah, OK, Dess had a rough start as far as my sympathy goes, but all is forgiven now.

They talk some more, and Jonathan mentions seeing Melissa’s car on his way there. She, Dess and Rex should arrive soon. We also finally get a description of the defenses:

“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.”

So, yeah, enchanted metal shoots lightnings now. I would like an explanation for that. Like, maybe organizing metal in certain patterns gives it more power, but it’s hard to do on the move, so it’s reserved for stationary defenses only. It would feet with the basic protections in Jessica’s room: if thirteen thumbtacks can create a barrier that would stop darklings from getting inside, thirteen pieces of metal stuck into the ground may create a dome. As it is, though, it’s rather surprising and nobody comments on it.

Anyway, Jonathan seems to spot Dess, Rex and Melissa arriving, and the chapter ends.


26
12:00 A.M.
GAUNTLET

Rex, Melissa and Dess observe the defenses around the snake pit flaring. They can’t get close, though, as there is a lot of slithers and some darklings gathered. The group itself stays in a defense perimeter quickly constructed by Dess out of some metal junk. The monsters ignore them, paying full attention to Jessica.

“Dess had created a small protective perimeter around them, clean steel stakes
borrowed from her dad’s camping tent, carefully arranged and linked with wire to
make a thirteen-pointed star. The wires glistened in the moonlight like a
spiderweb around them. It was easy to keep away darklings if you could set up
defenses, but moving across open terrain was another matter.”

So, it seems to be a confirmation that stationary defenses can be made more powerful than weapons.

Dess notes that the defenses around the snake pit are unlikely to hold for the full hour. She didn’t expect a darkling to bump into them, which is what seemed to happen, as they are normally very cautious about this stuff.

The group discusses what to do. Going outside the perimeter is very dangerous as the monsters are likely to turn on them once they get close to Jessica, but leaving them would likely result in defenses falling. Rex wants to rush to the snake pit, but is stopped by both Melissa and Dess. Melissa, in fact, is rather content with just leaving Jessica and Jonathan to their fates.

“Yeah, I get it,” Melissa said. “They hate her. I can taste it like a
mouthful of gasoline. But we’ve never really been enemies with the darklings,
Rex. You always said they’re like wild animals: stay out of their way and
they’ll stay out of ours. She’s the one driving them crazy.”

Yeah, except they are also powerful sorcerers capable of bending space and time. And they are ancient enemies of humanity who preyed on humans long time ago and presumably do the same now under the cover of the secret hour. That kinda runs contrary to them being just wild animals you should leave alone.

“We turn around and go home.”

“Melissa,” Dess said, “my ring around the snake pit may not last for the
whole hour.”

Melissa shrugged. “Then all our problems will be solved, one way or another.
Maybe Jessica will figure out what her talent is once she really needs it. Or
maybe the darklings get what they want, and everything goes back to normal.”

So, yeah, it does feel that Melissa is motivated primary by her desire to preserve whatever semblance of non-sucky life she’s managed to carve for herself and easily discards any outside elements threatening to damage or change it.

But Dess has none of it. She pulls out her super-weapon and marches towards the snake pit. Rex follows her, and Melissa soon joins them.

So, they march, and for about half a trip everything is fine, but then a darkling lands before them, transforming from a bat-like creature into a giant spider with patches of fur here and there. Well, that’s an improvement over panthers. Panthers and other big mammal predators can be scary, but they aren’t exceptionally creepy. They are a threat to your life, not your sanity. If you absolutely must go with real animals as a basis for your monsters, reptiles, insects and arachnids are probably your best bets. They are actually creepy, probably because they are just so different from us that it’s hard to summon any kind of empathy to them. Their body language is completely unreadable, their movements alien, noises they make incomprehensible.

While I still prefer something more humanoid, spiders are fine. Though I think small spiders are actually more creepy than giant ones as they can crawl all over you, and you want be able to shake them off.

Rex agrees with me by saying that he’s afraid of spiders, especially spiders with fur:


“The monstrous creature illustrated what he’d tried to explain to Jessica back
at the museum. The darklings were the original nightmares, the template for
every human fear. Black cats, snakes, spiders, lizards, worms—the darklings
mimicked them all in their pursuit of terror.

Spiders, it so happened, were Rex’s personal nightmare.

Especially hairy spiders.”

Yeah, one of those things is not like the others. Can you spot it? Hint: it’s the only mammal on the list.

OK, first, the fear of black cats is a relatively recent thing characteristic mostly of Western civilization, and even there you can find some exceptions. Ten thousands years ago black cats were more likely to be worshiped than feared. Or treated like the rest of cats.

Second, people are not generally afraid of black cats themselves. They are afraid of things they supposedly represent. They are familiars of witches and bringers of bad luck and bad omens and all that jazz. But by themselves? They make for a great entertainment burning in a casket, or so a Middle Ages peasant may tell you.

Thirdly, it’s black cats, not black panthers. The superstitions don’t really cover both.

Superstitions covering black cats seem more appropriate for slithers, who do turn into kitties and serve as mooks for darklings. Even then, the timing, vague as it is, feels wrong for it to work.

The moral here is that if you want to add something to the real world that supposedly existed for a long time, research if it would actually fit with human history. There are fears nearly universal to humanity. Black cats are not one of them.

But anyway, Rex throws various metal objects from a duffel bag prepared by Dess. The spider barely reacts, so Dess charges it with her super-weapon. For whoever said they liked Dess in one of the first posts, stuff like this is probably the reason why. Her attack goes well, and the spider lies defeated.


“Seconds later a horrible smell washed across Rex and Melissa, dead rat and
burned plastic mixed together with rotten eggs.”

Points for using smell in description. A lot of writers ignore everything except sight and sound, but paying attention to other senses of the characters is a great way to build immersion as long as you don’t overuse it.

However, the smell itself is described rather poorly. There is no theme to it, just a list of random objects that smell bad. It would be better if the spider simply smelled of rot. Or you could go for a surprising smell like raspberry, which would be not bad but overwhelming (also, a cookie to whoever can tell me which common poison smells like that. I remember there is one, but can’t remember which, and it bothers me.). Or you could go with an abstraction, like Nasu does, and go for a “smell of dying things.”

Though I guess the latter wouldn’t be appropriate as the spider didn’t die, it gave birth to a horde of spiders. Now we are talking creepy.

Midnighters run, but Rex and Melissa can’t get away from the spiders (Dess does manage to reach the relative safety of the defenses around the snake pit). Rex quickly erects a protective perimeter with Dess’ metal stuff. The spiders surround it, some rushing the protections and burning, slowly paving the way for the rest. Two darklings unfortunately shaped like panthers descend from the skies.

“Rex hoped the panthers arrived before spiders were crawling all over
him. He put his right fist up to his lips and finally named the steel skull
rings on his fingers.”

I see Rex is determined to show off his hilariously pretentious style until the very end. I mean, skull-shaped rings. Then again, at his age it’s not that surprising he would find them cool, so maybe I should cut him some slack.

“Then he grasped Melissa’s arm, knowing this was all his fault, wondering what
he had done wrong.”

Oh, hey, isn’t it that thing that you should never do? I mean, earlier either Melissa or Rex lamented they would never be able to touch each other, and in general Melissa doesn’t like to touch anyone not unconscious. I mean, he does think it’s his final moment, but there is another line in the chapter, yet nothing appears to come up from their hand-holding. The next chapter doesn’t appear to do anything with it, either, so… Should I count it as a plot hole? It’s possible Melissa wears gloves, granted, but Rex was careful to not touch even them… Eh, I’ll just keep it in mind, I think there would be more stuff relevant to it later.

In any case, the chapter ends with something hitting one of the darklings. I think it would be more appropriate to end without that line, especially since we see it right away in the next chapter. Giving an emotional moment like that a bit of time to sink in is a good idea.

27
12:00 A.M.
PURPOSELESSLY HYPER-INFLATED INDIVIDUALITY

Well, with that kind of chapter name, I think it should surprise no one that Jonathan comes to the rescue. He slams into a darkling, sending it flying away.

There is another darkling coming, so Jonathan throws chapter name at it. Wasn’t he unable to throw anything earlier? Pretty sure objects become frozen again the moment he stops touching them. Though I guess enchanted metal can be an exception. Or perhaps the trash can lid touched enough monsters to get Focus. Still not sure if such things remain unfrozen during the secret hour.

Jonathan prepares to take Rex and Melissa to the relative safety of snake pit, but there is a problem of Melissa really not wanting to touch him.

So now it is a problem. What about Rex? Is Melissa OK with touching him or not? I’m fine either way, I just want clarification.

But clarification on that front isn’t forthcoming, so instead we are treated to some lovely description of Melissa’s bad touch:

“A wave of nausea hit him, and he almost blacked out. He could feel Melissa’s
mind rushing into his, belligerent and angry but at the same time feverishly
hungry, consuming his thoughts and memories, pushing into every corner of his mind. Her emotions
swept through him: terror of the spiders, surprise at being suddenly weightless,
and, overwhelming everything, horror at the intimacy of being touched.

For a moment he was paralyzed, but then an irresistible command surged into
his mind.

Jump, idiot, Melissa thought at him.”

So they jump. It seems that Rex and Jonathan both hold Melissa by a hand, using their free hands to fight off slithers filling the air, which again raises the question of how Jonathan’s power affects other objects. So far, my best theory is that the flesh of Midnighters serves as a conduit: everything he touches, and everything Midnighters he touches (and Midnighters touched by Midnighters he touches) touch become weightless, but if an object he touches touches anything, his power doesn’t work on the latter.

That would explain why all the stuff on Jessica was weightless when she was holding hands with Jonathan, while she herself wasn’t weightless when they were connected by a chain.

It also makes sense conceptually, since Midnighters are supposed to act as a cohesive unit with acrobats as their glorified mounts.

Anyway, they arrive to their destination safely. Melissa collapses on the ground, the experience of intimate telepathy taking its toll on her, but she thanks Jonathan for his help. She also thanks Dess, presumably for sending Jonathan their way and creating so many protections, though it isn’t clarified.

Rex assumes command and tells Jessica they should perform the ceremony of finding out her talent. He also assigns Jonathan to help Dess with the weakening defenses. Jonathan bristles at Rex giving him orders, but complies.

“Later,” Rex said. “Buy us some time, Dess.” He turned to Jessica. “Jess, are
you…?”

“Yes?”

Rex paused. “Are you wearing makeup?”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on. It’s Friday night!”

“No, you look great. Really. Let’s go do this.”

Really not the time, Rex. What is it with them talking about makeup now of all times and treating it as something unusual? I mean, really, Rex dyes his hair black and wears skull-shaped rings, a fact I feel worth noting again.

Anyway, Rex and Jessica go to the center of snake pit while Jonathan and Dess talk about defenses. Dess’ stuff in a duffel bag was left by Rex outside of protections when he was rescued by Jonathan, which deprives them of materials to work with now. Dess says they’d have to improvise.

Well, that’s it for now. Tune in next time to find out Jessica’s Madness Talent, though I think you can figure it out now if you think about it. Her surname is a big clue because subtlety is not YA strong point.