She gave him an irritated sigh. “If you must know, I skinjacked a girl in her twenties, which is how old I would be if I wasn’t here. I chose her because she was pregnant, and I wanted to see what it was like to feel a baby kick.”
Jix never dreamed that Jill would have such a thing in mind when she went skinjacking, but he didn’t show her any sign of his surprise.
“I took a long bath,” Jill continued, “. . . and then I brushed her hair.”
Jix reached out to touch Jill’s hand, but she pulled it away before he could. “Your turn,” she said. “Tell me all the things about yourself that you don’t want me to know.”
Since she didn’t back off, Jix had to keep his word. He wouldn’t lie to her, or tell her half-truths. She would probably know if he did. He told her the truth as clearly and as simply as he could.
“I am the long-distance scout for His Excellency, Yax K’uk Mo’, the Supreme King of the Middle Realm. My mission is to find out if Mary Hightower poses a threat to him, and capture her if I can.”
If Jill was shocked, she didn’t show it. In this way, she was a lot like him. “The Middle Realm?” she asked.
“What you call Everlost.”
“So . . . there are more like you?”
“There are many Afterlights in the City of Souls . . . but only one like me.”
Jill smiled. “Good,” she said, then she got up to leave. “As far as secrets go, I’d give that a six out of ten.” Then she added, “I thought you were going to tell me you were an alien.”
The next day, one of the Neons’ lookouts found a stray Afterlight.
It wasn’t one of the train refugees; it was a Greensoul, a new spirit, freshly woken from some accidental crossing nine months before.
“He was just wandering around, calling for his mama,” the lookout told everyone. The Neons all laughed at the poor kid, and his lip quivered. He couldn’t have been any older than six. He had a runny nose, which would now continue to run for as long as he stayed in Everlost.
Avalon stomped up to him. “Give me your coin!”
“I don’t got money,” the boy said.
Avalon turned to the Bopper—one of the more intimidating Neons. “Take it from him!” But Jix firmly grabbed the Bopper’s shoulder.
“I’ll do it.” Jix said, and since Jix had become a regular in the Bopper’s daily poker game, he politely said, “Oh, sure, Jix.”
“I didn’t ask you!” Avalon snapped.
“But I can grab the coin without going into the light,” Jix reminded him.
Avalon never changed his unpleasant expression. “All right, then.”
Jix knelt down to the boy. “Do I scare you?” Jix asked.
The boy shook his head, then nodded. “Only a little,” the boy said.
“I won’t hurt you,” Jix told him gently, “but they might, if they don’t get what they want.”
“Yeah, but I don’t got money, just some tissues in my pocket,” the boy whispered.
“You wanna see a magic trick?” Jix asked. The boy’s answer was a wet sniff. Jix then told him to take out his tissues.
“Now,” Jix said, “unfold them.”
The boy did, and as the tissues spread apart, a coin dropped right into Jix’s open hand. The boy gasped. “Where did that come from?”
“Magic,” Jix said, because indeed it was.
The boy grinned, and wiped his nose.