Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

But nothing he ever experienced in life, or in death, half compared to what he felt when he saw Milos and Allie kiss.

He had followed them to the party. Until that night, Mikey had resisted the urge to spy on the two of them, but there was only so long he could fight his own curiosity. He kept far behind them, out of view, until seeing them skinjack that disgustingly beautiful couple. Once the two were ensconced in flesh, their eyes would see only the living world, and so Mikey could come right up to them, just inches away, and see it all, without them ever knowing he was there. To Mikey, they now just looked like a living teenage couple, but he knew Milos and Allie were inside them. He could tell by the way they walked and the things they said to each other.

He was there when Milos asked her to dance, and he witnessed Allie's initial reluctance--which gave him a brief moment of hope ... but she gave in far too easily, as if her refusal was nothing more than her being coy.

He watched them dance. He watched them dance close, and then he followed them outside to the pool, where it seemed everyone was a couple.

And then they kissed.

The first kiss was horrifying, and the second was devastating--because it wasn't Milos shoving his lips against Allie anymore--the second kiss was Allie kissing him back. This confirmed everything he suspected, everything he feared--and what made Mikey even more furious was that he had trusted her. How could he have been so stupid?

He screamed at them, a primal wordless howl, but they couldn't hear him.

Mikey knew what he would do to Milos once he was back in Everlost--he would push Milos right through that pool deck so hard, he would have made an express trip to the center of the earth, but Mikey knew if he let his fury loose, once he was done with Milos, he would turn his wrath on Allie, and do the same to her. He couldn't let that happen, and so he ran.

He never saw Allie pushing Milos away.

He never heard her tell him "no."

Mikey's grief and rage was unbearable, and yet familiar-- so much like the rage that filled him when he commanded the Sulphur Queen. And as he ran, he let his fury transform him.

His rage became red-hot spikes erupting from his skin. His frustration became jagged shark teeth, multiplying row after row, and when his mouth couldn't fit them anymore, it stretched. His jealousy pulled his eyes into narrow glaring slits, and his sorrow hardened his Afterlight skin into a shell as hard as steel.

Spiked armor encased him now, his whole body was like the surface of a medieval mace--but it didn't slow him down. His armored shell thundered with each footfall, setting off seismic ripples in the living world that no one could account for. And, fully encased in that armored exoskeleton, he stormed all the way back to Nashville, right into the factory, and the den of Nashville Afterlights.

When they saw this thing, this horrible miscreation before them, they didn't know what to do. Some scattered, others froze in place, others fell to the ground and covered their heads like the world was ending.

Mikey opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead, he vomited his entire being out through that gaping mouth, completely turning himself inside out. The armor folded in behind him, and into him, becoming a jagged skeleton within a veiny, sinewy inner self--a mockery of ruined flesh. His whole body was now an open wound.

"I am the McGill!" he roared in a ghastly, earthshaking voice. "I am the McGill! Look upon me and tremble!"

And they did.

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PART THREE The Great White City In her book Everything Mary Says Is Wrong, Allie the Outcast takes a moment to ponder the hereafter:

"I don't know whether we come to Everlost by accident or by design. Some will say we are abandoned here--lost between the cracks of an unfeeling universe. Others will say we have been selected to be here by an almighty hand, and then they will use that to justify everything they do as God's will.

Whether my ability to skinjack is an accident or intentional, I do know this: I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel, so I know the universe is not cold. I've read the fortunes; they are evidence that we are not alone. And I've seen Afterlights hold their coins, remember who they once were, and finally get where they were going.

I have seen enough to know that there is something beyond Everlost, but the nature of it is just as mysterious here as it is to the living.

So beware those in Everlost who say they know God's will, because they are no different from those who say the universe is soulless and cold. Both are two sides of the same coin, and it's not a coin that will get you anywhere you want to go."

Chapter 16 Mary's Master Plan

It would be untrue to say that Mary Hightower had, from the very beginning, planned the various things she would soon accomplish, and the many things she would soon attempt. Ideas take root, plans blossom, and old ones wither and die--in Everlost, just as in the living world.

Back in her days at the towers, Mary had dedicated herself to taking stray Afterlights under her wing, and finding for them the one activity that would occupy them until the end of time. She believed this to be a noble calling. Nick, however, had dazzled her children with those abominable coins, then dispatched them all into that mysterious light at the end of the tunnel, from which there is no return.

She could not blame the children, for what child could resist such a mystery? It was all Nick's pigheaded wrongmindedness, and she marveled at how much damage a single individual could do to her controlled, perfect little universe.

She hated him with a ferocity and passion that was only matched by how much she also loved him--and the endless conflict of those two emotions made it impossible to go back to the way things were before. She supposed in some ways, she owed Nick a debt of gratitude, because if he hadn't freed her children from Everlost, Mary would never have been rousted out of her own pattern; she never would have seen the larger picture, and she never would have cultivated grander plans.

Certainly she would still gather and protect as many Afterlights as she could, but that would soon become a small part of a master blueprint so massive, it would make Mary light-headed every time she was to think of it.