Everfound (Skinjacker 3)

Filled with furious, yet exhilarating, determination, Milos gathered all the Afterlights in the Shrine where the effect of the vortex was its greatest—knowing he could use the vortex’s power to help rally them.

“The Neons are not here,” he announced. “But we will find them, and when we do, we will show no mercy because they showed no mercy to us!”

And they all cheered, the battle fury of the vortex filling them. “Remember the Alamo!” Squirrel shouted, and Moose smacked him.

“So what do we do until we find them?” someone asked.

And all at once Milos realized what they needed to do. All this time Milos had resisted, but now he was ready to accept his mission—his purpose. He had lost nearly a thousand of Mary’s children. Well, by the time Mary woke up, he would make absolutely sure that there were at least twice that many; maybe three times; maybe ten. It could be done, if they all worked hard enough.

“Mary made it very clear what she wanted us to do,” Milos said.

“Go west?” someone shouted.

“No,” said Milos. “We stay here. We stay here until we find her. And in the meantime we increase our numbers . . . by reaping.”

Milos never enjoyed reaping, but maybe that was because Jill had done it in such a cheap, sleazy manner. But with nearly fifty Afterlights waiting in Everlost to catch crossing souls, Milos’s reaping extravaganzas would not be sleazy at all. In fact, they would be nothing short of epic.

PART THREE

The Gates of Grief

High Altitude Musical Interlude #2 with Johnnie and Charlie

She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes . . .”

Johnnie was more than ready to hurl himself out of the Hindenburg window.

“She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes . . .”

More than once, he thought they were actually beginning to settle back to earth, and he got his hopes up . . . but it wasn’t them coming closer to the ground, it was a living-world mountain rising to meet them.

“She’ll be comin’ round the mountain, she’ll be comin’ round the mountain . . .”

The problem was, in spite of Charlie’s inane singing, they weren’t comin’ round the mountains at all: they were going directly through the mountains. Over and over they were forced to suffer an unpleasant violation of granite and limestone as they traveled sideways through living-world mountains—which wasn’t all that different from sinking into the earth except that you came out on the other side.

“She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes!”

And beyond the mountains and the plains there was always another vast expanse of sea. Johnnie had no idea there were so many oceans, so many seas. Then, when they finally hit land again, he realized that there was something a little bit too familiar about the coastline.

Finally he spotted a landmark in the foothills. A sign on a mountainside said HOLLYWOODLAND, although the LAND part was clearly in Everlost.

“No!” wailed Johnnie-O. “Are you telling me we’ve gone all the way around the world?”

To which Charlie responded, “She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes . . .”

It was enough to make Johnnie-O cry. He knew the world was round, but in his mind it sort of went on forever before coming back around on itself again. There was no telling how many times they had circled the globe and no way to know if it would ever stop.

“We deserve better than this,” he told Charlie, who just smiled and continued to sing his song.

It was late the next day that Johnnie saw something out of the ordinary from the window. They had been traveling mostly over desert, and were still over the western United States. Johnnie-O had seen many odd living-world things from the Hindenburg windows—a road whose random twists and turns spelled out the word “haha”; a fighter jet parked for no apparent reason in a suburban backyard, giant crop portraits made by living people with way too much time on their hands. But nothing was as strange as this—and it wasn’t in the living world—it was in Everlost!

“Is that a deadspot?” asked Johnnie, mainly to himself, because he knew Charlie wouldn’t answer. “Yeah! Yeah, I think it is!” But this was more than just a deadspot—it was a massive patch of earth, dull gray in color, miles across, and perfectly round.

“Charlie, you gotta see this!” But right now Charlie, was all about killin’ the old red rooster when she comes.

Johnnie peered out at the deadspot as they approached. What first looked like a flat gray disk wasn’t flat at all; it was covered with tons of stuff! Johnnie couldn’t tell what kind of stuff it was, just that it was stuff.

And that’s when Johnnie had the big idea!