Everfound (Skinjacker 3)

Nick grabbed him, getting chocolate all over his shirt sleeve. “If we stay here, Mary will eventually come to the City of Souls with enough Afterlights to overthrow the king. Can you imagine this place under Mary?”

Johnnie-O scowled at him. With Mary in charge, the city would no longer be the endless party that it was, and there wouldn’t be an eternal smorgasbord for him and Charlie. “Why do you keep ruining my death?”

Nick turned to Charlie, trying to reason with him as well, but Charlie just smiled back as he ate, saying nothing.

From the outside world’s perspective, it might have appeared that Choo-choo Charlie had completely lost his mind, but in truth, he had never been more at peace with his place in the universe. Now the songs that had been coming out of his mouth were merrily rolling along in his head instead, swirling into one another. Although all the words of all the songs were different, the meaning to him was the same.

You’re ready, Charlie, the songs said. It’s time to move on.

He knew it since he first began to sing, and he could have taken a coin from the bucket, held it in his hand, and completed his journey at any time. He didn’t want to do that to Johnnie-O, though. He couldn’t leave Johnnie alone. But as long as he had the songs in his head, he didn’t mind waiting—even if he had to wait until the end of time. Now he understood how the souls at the center of the earth felt. He was one of them now, full of patience, perfectly centered in himself, even without being centered in the earth.

It was only now that Nick was here, that Charlie felt he could leave Johnnie. So, on the evening that Nick arrived, Charlie left the Hall of a Thousand Columns and went to the forge. The king was out, making Mikey perform transformations for the king’s closest personal flatterers, which included the luchador, so no one was guarding the statue. Charlie thought he was alone. He had no idea that he had been followed.

He walked closer to the statue, skillfully crafted from the thousands of coins collected from the souls of Chichén Itzá, and the coins taken from the bucket. The statue looked like King Yax K’uk Mo’ but that was just a clever lie. No amount of disguise could hide the truth from Charlie. You could melt the coins down, pound them out, and make them look like some king’s face, but it didn’t change what they were. They were the way out.

“Charlie . . . ?”

He turned, surprised to see Nick standing there.

“What are you doing here?” Nick asked.

Charlie found that he had no words to explain all he was thinking and feeling, so instead he began to sing.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind . . .”

Then before he could change his mind or be pulled away, he reached out his hand . . .

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne . . .”

. . . and he touched the statue.

“Charlie, no!”

But the deed was done. A coin-size piece of the statue vanished, and a tunnel appeared before him with a light at its end, both bright and warm. Suddenly all the memories that had been lost to Charlie came back to him.

Something was talking in his head now too—not a voice, but a feeling. It was something he knew he was meant to share, but his mind was so full of memories of the life he had lived, it was hard to make room for the words that were fuzzily forming in his head. Still, he tried to get them out as best as he could, because he knew he didn’t have much time.

“Fat Alamo . . . the Trinity . . . Ground Zero . . .”

“Charlie?”

“Hey, that’s right! Charlie really is my name! How about that?”

Then he shot down the tunnel into the light and got where he was going.

CHAPTER 45

Mikey, the God

There was only so much Mikey could take, so many petty transformation requests from the king and his flatterers that he could stomach. He had once told Clarence that he was not a circus monkey, yet this was his role in the court of King Yax, and although the king promised no leash, he might as well have been on one. Jix had told him to have patience, but that had never been, nor would it ever be, one of Mikey McGill’s virtues.

When he tired of showing Mikey off around the city, the king boarded his sedan chair, carried by four strong subjects, each with one shoulder substantially lower than the other. He made Mikey walk.

“Come, changeling,” the king said, “we shall return to the forge to witness the completion of the statue, and you shall entertain us with your transformations there.”

They made their way through the dancing, singing, partying crowds, and as they crossed the huge grass square, where the shadow of the pyramid fell, Mikey came across Jix.

“This isn’t working,” he told Jix, lagging far enough behind the king so he couldn’t hear. “I can change myself into too many things—he’ll never get bored.”