Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld Page A

hold a grudge. In some ways he was still the kid she’d rescued from solitude eight years before, enthralled by the mysteries of midnight, driven by his need to know more. Melissa was sure they would hold hands again soon.
    “Stop,” he whispered. Melissa halted the car, feeling the buzz of his excitement.
    The house he was staring at looked like all the others, two-storied and big-windowed, an overpowering double garage presented proudly to the world.
    “I wish you could see this, Cowgirl. It’s so Focused. They’ve been crawling all over it.”
    She let her mind drift in through its big front door. The place had hardly any human taste at all. “No one home. And if anyone lives there, they haven’t for very long.”
    “Darkling Manor,” Rex said quietly. “Not a clean brick on the joint.”
    She looked at her watch. Twenty to midnight. “Well, shall we take a look before the witching hour?”
    “What about your friend?”
    “He was headed somewhere in a hurry” She tasted the air. “Long gone.”
    “Okay. But ten minutes max. We should be back in the car and a couple of miles from here before midnight comes.” He shook his head. “Don’t want to be crashers at a darkling house party.”
     
    The door was unlocked.
    “That’s interesting.” Melissa pushed it open, its new hinges utterly silent. The entrance hallway was grand and echoey, no rugs to muffle the sound of their boots across the polished wooden floor. No anything, she realized. The walls were bare of pictures, and no shoes or hanging coats cluttered the foyer. The two large front rooms were empty except for a portable phone. It sat lonely on a windowsill, its cord winding across the blank expanse of carpet, a demonic red eye showing that it was recharging.
    And the place tasted completely dead. Not a leftover thought anywhere. Even the dull roar of central Bixby miles away seemed muted by its walls.
    “Nothing to steal, I guess,” she said.
    “But lots of darkling action.” Rex was looking up the stairs, into corners. “Just like outside, it’s all in Focus.”
    “Maybe it’s some kind of darkling frat house.”
    “I’ve never seen them set up shop in a human dwelling before. Maybe a tire yard or a vacant lot, but not a house. Of course, nobody lives here.”
    “No,” Melissa said, “but the darklings aren’t paying the phone bill…”
    Rex chewed his lip. “Good point.”
    In the kitchen they found signs of habitation. Or maybe vandalism. The faucet had been yanked out from the sink, the handles of the cupboards torn off, every piece of metal removed. There were no appliances, and the lightbulb hung bare from the ceiling.
    “A darkling-friendly kitchen. What do they eat, anyway?”
    Rex just looked at her, sending out a stab of annoyance.
    “Oh, right. Us.” Melissa didn’t think about it in those terms much, but that was and always had been the prime source of conflict between the two races: the whole foodchain thing. Funny how that could mess up a relationship.
    “Let’s check upstairs,” Rex said, having gone through the drawers and cupboards and found them empty.
    She checked her watch. “Okay. But five minutes and we leave.”
    He turned his head slowly from left to right as they climbed the stairs, his eyes wide with the Focus. “Absolutely.”
    Upstairs was divided into three empty bedrooms, the largest with a big balcony that looked out into the dark Oklahoma night. Melissa stared through the sliding door and realized something. She pulled off a glove and put her hand to the cold glass.
    “You know, Rex, it’s warm in here.” Outside it was almost freezing, but someone had left the heating on, though they hadn’t bothered to lock the door…
    “Look at this!” he cried, his mind flooding the room with delight.
    He had pulled something from a closet, a box of small rectangular tiles that glowed white in the darkness. He squatted on the floor and dumped them out with a clatter. As his hands swept through