Everfound (Skinjacker 3)

The other kid nodded. “In the flesh.”

A few other kids in troop thirteen looked at them funny. Jix motioned for Jill to step away with him, for a moment of privacy.

“Hey,” said one of the other kids. “Scoutmaster Garber wants us to wait here!” But fortunately the scoutmaster was at the ticket booth, too busy to notice.

Once they were far enough away for no one to hear them, Jill said, “The boy scout look suits you. Now let’s get outta here.”

And although he knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, Jix said, “I’m going back.”

“What?” She stared at him, shaking her head. “No! No way! Not this time. If you go back, you go alone.”

“Don’t you see—the Neons don’t know about skinjackers!”

“Yeah,” said Jill. “Lucky for us.”

“More lucky than you think!” Then without any further explanation, Jix peeled out of the scout and returned to Everlost, leaving both the scout and Jill completely bewildered.

In Everlost, the Neons were at a total loss. As far as they were concerned, the two prisoners simply vanished into thin air. It was at least ten seconds until someone asked the obvious question: “Uh . . . where’d they go?”

“I don’t know,” said the Bopper, “but I don’t like it.”

Then, just as quickly as he’d vanished, Jix appeared, standing ten yards away.

“Grab him!” yelled the Bopper, but when they tried, he vanished once more into a flurry of live people, only to appear somewhere else a few moments later.

Now the Neons were scared—which is exactly what Jix was counting on. Then an exceptionally annoyed Jill appeared beside him. Jix was counting on that, too.

“Wh . . . what are you?” someone dared to ask.

It was Jill who answered. “He is the son of the jaguar gods,” she said in a commanding voice, “and the jaguar gods are very . . . very . . . angry!”

Eyes widened, jaws dropped, and some of the smaller kids ran back into the Alamo to hide, but the rest were too shocked to move at all. In fact they were so frozen in place, they were sinking in up to their ankles.

“You mean there really are jaguar gods?” said Little Richard, timidly. “And they’re mad at us?”

“Furious!” Jill said. “But they can be calmed, if you do exactly as Jix says.”

Even though Jix never told her of his plan, she instinctively said all the right things. They were working as a team now! Jix puffed out his chest and matched her commanding tone. “You no longer serve the music machine,” he told them. “You will feed it no more coins, and its name will never be spoken again.”

The Neons all looked to one another. “But . . . But . . .”

“Do as he says, or you will face the wrath of the jaguar gods!” Jill threatened.

Jix wanted to grin at how well their ploy was working, but he kept his face dark and menacing, staring down as many Neons as he could. “You are all now subjects of His Excellency, the Supreme King of the Middle Realm.”

“The who of what?” someone called out.

“Silence!” shouted Jill, clearly relishing every moment of this.

“So . . . there are jaguar gods, and a king?” asked Little Richard.

“Yes,” Jix told them. “But mercy will be shown to those who are obedient . . . and come with gifts.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘gifts’?” the Bopper asked.

“The girl in the glass coffin,” Jix told him. “She will be your gift to the king.” Then he stood there waiting to see what they would do.

The Neons had a very difficult decision to make. For as long as they could remember they had done Wurlitzer’s bidding. Their entire purpose had been to steal coins from stray Afterlights, just so they could hear Wurlitzer “speak.” But Wurlitzer did not move, or disappear, or threaten as this son of the jaguar gods did. In fact, Wurlitzer didn’t do anything without a coin. This gave Jix an advantage—and although Afterlights by their very nature resisted change, they could also adapt when they had to.