Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

"It works fine the way it is," Pugsy insisted.

"Oh, yes, it does," Mary admitted, but she pointed out how very afraid of him his own subjects were. It was something Pugsy took great pride in, in fact. And so Mary proposed a little test. She asked Pugsy to call in one of his loyal subjects, and order him to perform a simple but time-consuming task. Curious as to where this was going, Pugsy called in a kid whose name he did not remember, and told him to do a head count of the hundred or so Afterlights living in the administration building, and then create a graph, plotting how each of them had died.

"I want it before sunset," Pugsy demanded. "Or else!"

The boy obediently ran off, took the entire day, and returned just as the day settled into twilight. He presented Pugsy with a list and a competent graph, and he cowered until Pugsy nodded his acceptance.

Then Mary asked the same of one of her own children--a boy known as Bedhair--to graph the demise of all ninety-three in her care. The boy took only two hours, and he returned with a list, and not just one graph, but three: a coordinate graph, a bar graph, and a pie chart.

"You cheated!" Pugsy insisted. "He already knew the answers."

"Do you really believe that?" Mary asked in a calm and condescending way. "My children obey my requests because they want to, not because they fear what will happen if they fail. Consequently, they perform their tasks better."

It didn't occur to Pugsy that Mary never actually denied that Bedhair already knew the answers.

Mary also discovered that Pugsy did not personally attend to the transitioning Interlights that Jill continued to bring to the agricultural building. He found it beneath him, and left their assimilation to his flunkies. This provided Mary with a great opportunity.

She marked her personal calendar with the date that every sleeping Interlight would awaken, and made sure she was there to greet them when they did.

"Welcome to Everlost," she would tell the confused, and often frightened, children. "My name is Miss Mary, and you are among friends." Then she would present each of them with a volume of Tipsfor Taps, her definitive book for new arrivals to Everlost--each book painstakingly handwritten by her children on paper scavenged from Pugsy's troves. Grateful for her kindness, these new children would imprint on her like ducklings, ensuring their allegiance, while Pugsy became little more than a distant figure in their minds, a footnote in their world at best.

From Pugsy's point of view, high atop his regal Ferris wheel, nothing had really changed. His subjects still feared him and obeyed his every whim. But now it was merely because Mary allowed it. Only when Mary made it clear that her ambitions stretched beyond Chicago, did he begin to worry about her intentions.

"Tell me what you know about the west," she asked Pugsy one day. "Not what you've heard, but what you know."

"There is no west," he answered curtly. "Everlost ends at the Mississippi River."

"Have you been there?"

"What's it to you?"

"I just assumed that a leader of your stature would want to see it with his own eyes."

Pugsy took the flattery at face value and said, "I did. Once. There's a wind that blows from the other side. A crazy wind. I ordered a dozen Afterlights, one after the other, to cross the Centennial Bridge, but the wind wouldn't let them, and each one of them sunk right through the bridge, into the river."

The thought that he'd order so many Afterlights to their doom didn't sit well with Mary, but she tried not to show it. "Perhaps if you found a bridge that had crossed into Everlost ..."

"There are no Everlost bridges that cross the Mississippi, because there's no Everlost there to cross into, so stop asking stupid questions." He eyed her with suspicion, and Mary realized she had pushed too far.

"Perhaps my next book should be a collaboration," Mary suggested. "I'm sure there are other things you know that I don't."

"And it'll stay that way," said Pugsy, closing the door to further conversation. But, as they say, when God closes a door he opens a window, and in Mary's mind, it was a window facing west.

Jackin' Jill took a close interest in the gradual shift of power. Pugsy was far too busy luxuriating in extravagance to notice it, and although Jill could have sown the seeds of his suspicion, she didn't. Pugsy's life before Mary's arrival had been one of decadent excess, but Mary's superior administrative abilities had made life better for all the Afterlights of Chicago--especially Pugsy. Even the leather armchair that served as his throne was gone, replaced by a gold embroidered settee that a pharaoh might have once used. It was a gift presented to him by Mary as a show of her loyalty to their partnership. Mary had traded the finest baubles of her own collection for the settee, and yet she had given it away to Pugsy, claiming his armchair for herself. Jill found this very impressive, because she knew exactly what Mary was doing. Pugsy's comfort was worth any cost, because the more comfortable he was, the less he'd be looking in Mary's direction. Jill dreamed that the next partnership would be between her and Mary--that together they would become the most powerful force in Everlost.

On this particular day, Jill carried two fresh sleeping Interlights to the incubator, both thrown over her shoulder like a hunter's kills. The incubator wasn't kept under tight guard anymore. Mary had declared that all Afterlights should be able to see this glorious place, as if it were a hospital nursery. After depositing the sleeping Interlights, Jill went to tell Mary that the incubator was now brimming with almost a hundred and seventy hibernating souls. She found Mary in the Hindenburg's Starboard Promenade, talking to another Afterlight--but not just any Afterlight. This one was a handsome skinjacker. A skinjacker by the name of Milos.

Jill tried to hide her shock, but couldn't. She had left Milos and his two miserable cohorts at the hands of an angry mob, and had assumed the mob had sent them on a long, slow trip to the center of the earth. She should have realized that Milos would have found a way out of it. He was so smooth--too smooth. Even now he looked at Jill with the suave hint of a gloat, and a grin that hid what must have been hatred, for how could he not hate her after what she had done to him? "Jill!" said Mary. "I'm glad you're here." She was either oblivious or pretending to be. She was smooth too.

"He's a liar!" Jill blurted out. "Don't listen to a word Milos says. If you have any sense you'll get him off your ship right now!"

Mary showed no signs of heeding her. "What an odd thing to say--I thought you two were friends. At least that's what Milos said."

Jill looked to Milos. The grin never left his face. "We parted under ... uncertain circumstances," he said. "But Jill, I must say, I am surprised by your ... how do you say it? 'Unprovoked hostility'."

"Whatever happened between you and Milos, I'm sure you're sensible and mature enough to put it behind you," Mary said. "Just as I've been able to admit how wrong I've been in my assessment of skinjackers, you should be able to resolve your differences. After all, we're all working for the greater good."

Jill was truly speechless, but she tried to salvage the moment. She turned to Milos. "Milos, I'm sorry, let's start fresh." She reached out to shake Milos's hand and he took it, clasping it a bit too hard, making it clear that bygones were not bygones, and that he would have his revenge. Jill squeezed his hand just as hard. Let him try to get back at her. Let him try!