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"A hobby of yours?" he asked.
Mary took the book from him and set it down. "Every book has something to teach us," she said, "and crucial knowledge at the right time can be a very powerful thing. "Mary gestured for Milos to sit, and so he did, stretching out comfortably on a plush sofa. Mary sat across from him. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to know a little bit about your travels."
"What would you like to know?"
"Your friend Moose mentioned that you had an encounter with Allie the Outcast. I would very much like to know about it."
"Allie is of no concern," he told her. "When I last saw her, she was on her way home. It is a serious thing when a skinjacker goes home--you will be the last thing on her mind. Trust me, she is no threat."
Mary shifted her shoulders, the suggestion unnerving her. "Did I say she was a threat?"
"No," admitted Milos, "but she is a friend of the Chocolate Ogre. And he is a threat, yes?"
Mary leaned forward, a little too interested. "Did she say anything about him? Anything at all?"
Milos shrugged. "A bit. Very little. She had not seen him for years--since the day on the pier. I understand you were there too."
"I hope you realize that the Ogre must be stopped."
"From doing what?"
"From doing anything! He must be brought to justice!"
"And you," asked Milos, "are the judge?"
And then she quoted from one of her own writings. "In
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a lawless world, we must illuminate truth with our glow, and create justice by the convictions of our souls."
"So then, you are his judge."
"I have seen firsthand the acts of cruelty he's capable of," Mary said. "He sent hundreds of helpless children into the light. He'd send us all there if he had his way."
Milos found he could read her just as easily as one of her books. At least when it came to the subject of the Chocolate Ogre. He tried not to smile as he spoke. "Does he know you're in love with him?"
She snapped him a burning glare, as if the question itself was an attack. "I see you've been listening to smears made against me. Probably from Allie the Outcast."
Milos knew he had to play this very, very carefully. "No, it was only a guess. But believe me," he said earnestly, "I know what it's like to love someone who has betrayed you. And I know how hard it is to move on. But in the end, we must."
They held each other's gazes, and what wasn't spoken at that moment was more important than anything else that was.
Mary was the first to break the gaze. Her eyes drifted to the book sitting on the table beside her. The engineering textbook. She picked it up, and pondered it, rubbing her hand across the surface as if it might sprout forth a genie.
"I will be needing the services of skinjackers, for various missions. Important missions. I'll need someone I can trust in charge."
"In that case," said Milos, "I hope I can be of service."
* * *
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It was long after dark when he left that night, after hours in Mary's company. There was no question he was dazzled by her. Mary was everything Milos imagined she might be. She had Jill's shrewdness, without the sociopathic streak. She had Allie's high moral integrity, without the naivety that kept Allie devoted to that miserable Mikey McGill. Milos knew his weakness was that he fell in love too easily, which blinded him to the character flaws of the girls he fell for-- but finally here was a girl worthy of his attention!
He had already softened her defenses, but truly winning her affections would require a different kind of dance than he was used to. One where all his moves were clear, and his motives transparent. She valued honesty and directness. This he could deliver.
Milos knew he had no choice but to win her over-- it was a matter of necessity for him now, because he had already fallen for her--and the only way to survive a force of nature such as Mary Hightower was to make sure that the feeling was mutual.
If only Mary were a skinjacker, he thought. Ah well, one can't have everything. Besides, if Mary were a skinjacker, she wouldn't have any need for Milos, so perhaps it was better this way.
And she did need him--she said so herself--but there were many levels of need. Milos had had his heart broken one too many times. This time would be different. Somehow he would find a way to be everything Mary needed, as indispensable as air to the living. As permanent as Everlost itself.
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PART FOUR Way of the Chocolate Warrior
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In her most recent book, What You Don't Know Can Most Certainly Hurt You, Mary Hightower writes:
"It would be untrue to say Everlost is entirely free from illness and disease. Our flesh is gone, but in our beings, seeds of our own doom remain. That which was small will grow. That which was once insignificant can devour us. There are cancers beyond those of our mortal bodies. I consider them punishments for unwholesome deeds and wrongful thinking. The Chocolate Ogre serves as a perfect example, for whose thinking can be more wrong than his, and whose affliction could be more unpleasant?"
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CHAPTER 20 The Great Train Robbery
A large vapor of Afterlights gathered to watch the festivities in the old train yards of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was the most exciting thing to happen here in recent memory. It began with the arrival of the Chocolate Ogre, and rumor was that he was going to perform some sort of magic trick.
A team of ten Afterlights, supervised by the Ogre himself, took a rope, and tied it around the waist of a kid in a Confederate Army uniform.
It was, of course, Zinnia.
"Let's not make this a show," Nick told her. "Let's just get this done."
"S'already a show," Zin pointed out, "best milk it for all it's worth."
Zin concentrated and thrust her ripping-hand out of Everlost, and into the living world just as easily as if she were shoving her hand into water. "Ooh" and "ahh" went the crowd. Then, through the tiny portal into the living world, Zin grabbed the rusted coupling of a living-world train car, springing it closed on her forearm, like a bear trap. They had
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chosen an Amtrak passenger car--an older one, because it was the only uncoupled passenger car they could find.
Once she was sure her arm was firmly snagged in the coupler, she turned to her team. "All right, y'all know the drill. One, two, three, pull!"
The other ten Afterlights behind her began to pull on the rope which was still tied around her waist. Nick watched, but couldn't participate, because these days everything he touched became too slippery to hold on to.
The team of ten strained as they pulled on Zin with all their strength, and with her arm still firmly caught in the coupler, her body lifted off the ground. A living body might have been torn in half by such a thing, but not an Afterlight. Instead, Zin withstood the force, and the solitary train car began to move. Getting it moving was the hard part. Once it was moving, the small hole in space which at first had been just large enough for Zin's hand, now stretched like elastic, until the entire passenger car was moving through the portal, out of the living world, and into Everlost.
The crowd could not contain their excitement as they watched the blurry, faded train car resolve bit by bit into sharp focus, and fill with the bright hues of chrome, rust, and colorful graffiti.
Once the train car was through, the portal collapsed, sealing closed with a pop. The team of haulers dropped their rope, and scattered as the car rolled off onto a side track that no longer existed, rolling toward the last car of the Everlost train.
"Tha's right," complained Zin, as the Amtrak car continued to roll. "Just leave me stuck here to get smashed in the coupler again!"
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Nick grinned, and yelled, "That's half the fun, Zin!" Still, he went to free her.
He couldn't move as quickly as he used to--chocolate dripping onto his feet had made them heavy--but fortunately the train wasn't rolling all that fast. He caught up with the rolling car,
jumped on the coupler, and used his chocolate-covered left hand to grease the coupler. Zin wriggled her arm free just in time, and they both hopped off just as the Amtrak car hit, and coupled with the last car of the Everlost train, sending a shudder through every coupling down to the engine. The newborn passenger car was now a part of their train, and in the engine, Charlie tooted the whistle to mark their success. The crowd of gawking Afterlights cheered.
"How does it feel to be everyone's hero?" Nick asked Zin.
"I still miss my rocket ship, sir." But Nick could tell she was enjoying the adoration far more than the isolation she had lived in for so many years.
Their train, which had started with just three cars, now had nine--each added by Zin one at a time over the past few weeks. This did not go unnoticed in the living world-- although Nick found out quite by accident.
Johnnie-O, who was attempting to teach Zin how to read, made Zin rip various newspapers and magazines from the living world. Johnnie-O, who was now in perpetual nicotine withdrawal, was the world's most impatient teacher, and Zin was the world's most ungrateful student. Every day they would verbally abuse each other for an hour, not much of anything would be learned, and yet the next day, both of them would come back for more.
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One day Johnnie-O came to Nick with a copy of The World Weekly Herald-- a tabloid with questionable news. "I think you'd better read this," Johnnie-O told him. On page two, a headline read SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD SUES PARALLEL UNIVERSE. The article spoke of train cars gone missing from Southern train yards with no explanation-- and a promise by one railroad line to take matters into its own hands ... but since the headline right next to it read A LIEN BABY DEVOURS AREA 51, Nick really wasn't concerned. Besides, the living world had bigger things to worry about than missing train cars, anyway. And so did Everlost.
Nick had not heard news of Mary Hightower for quite a while, and he couldn't help but worry what kind of mischief she was up to. If Mary had her way, all the world's Afterlights would be trapped in her smothering embrace, and no doubt she was still working toward that end. She had to be stopped at all costs, and Nick had a plan to do it.
That plan depended on Zinnia.
It had been more than a month since wrangling her in at Cape Canaveral.
"I gots no use for you!" she had told Nick and Johnnie-O that first day, as they made their way back through the Florida forests to the train. "But now that ya blowed up my artillery, I gots no use for myself, neither."
Charlie had been waiting with the train, and was more than happy to stay in the conductor's booth rather than have any dealings whatsoever with an ecto-ripper. Johnnie-O, on the other hand, would keep taunting her, until she would rip out some random part of his anatomy, threatening to feed it to Kudzu, and he'd have to chase her to get it back.
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Johnnie-O did this so often, Nick was convinced that he actually liked it.
Their first challenge was Atlanta--and Nick knew if he failed there, there'd be little hope after that.
When they rolled back into the Atlanta Underground many weeks ago, the crowd of Afterlights that had been so threatening the first time still came out with their bats and their bricks, but this time it was just for show. They were more curious than anything. Word had gotten around that the Chocolate Ogre was looking for Zach the Ripper, which meant he probably wouldn't be coming back. The fact that he had actually returned elevated him to Monster Supreme in their eyes. Everybody wanted to know what he had found in the Florida Everwilds.
Nick had not planned to reveal Zin right away. He knew the Atlanta Afterlights needed to be prepared. But Zin--to whom common sense was a limp afterthought-- made herself known even before the train rolled to a stop. She took one look at the Atlanta kids, then poked her head out of a window, and shouted at them, "If you throw them bricks at me, I swear I'll rip out parts a' ya y'didn't even know ya had! See if I don't!" And then to prove it, she reached over to Johnnie-O and ripped his memory of a spleen, holding it out the window.
"Don't you drop that, ya stupid inbred freak!" yelled Johnnie-O.
Since Johnnie-O had no idea what a spleen looked like, his memory of it more closely resembled a Polish sausage than anything else. Even so, it inspired terror in the crowd. They all dropped their weapons, scattering in abject fear,
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and yelling, "It's Zach the Ripper! It's Zach the Ripper!"
Johnnie-O pulled her away from the window, retrieving his Polish spleen, but it was too late to stop panic from spreading through the mob.
"Great," Nick groaned. "Why don't you rip out your own brain and give yourself one that works?"
Zin was unfazed. "Yer just mad cuz your chocolate don't scare 'em as much as I do!"
"You had better start listening to me!" Nick put his finger in her face, and, of course, she bit it.
"Sorry, sir," she said, all nasty grin, "but I thought yer hand was one a' them chocolate Easter bunnies."
Johnnie-O let out a guffaw, and Nick glared at him. "Sorry," Johnnie-O said. "It does kinda look like that sometimes."
Nick decided to use a different tack. "Soldier! Your behavior is disgraceful for a sergeant of the Chocolate Brigade."
"Sergeant?" said Zin. "I thought you said I was a private."
"Not anymore." He reached over and painted a chocolate chevron on her sleeve. "You're a sergeant now, and I expect you to act like one."
Zin was overjoyed. "Yes, sir!"
"And if you follow orders and do your job to the best of your ability, you might even make lieutenant."
"Yes, sir! What are my orders, sir?"
Nick had suspected she might be more motivated by responsibility than by threats. "Your orders are not to do anything unless I tell you to," he said.
"Good luck," grunted Johnnie-O. Then he asked what rank he got to be. Nick told him he was special ops, which suited Johnnie-O just fine.
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Five minutes later, Isaiah, the kid who ran Atlanta, showed up, just as Nick knew he would. He barged right onto the train.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded. His sudden appearance and threatening tone of voice set Kudzu barking, and hiding behind Zin. Nick thought about sending Zin away, but decided it was best if she stayed in his sight. Instead he told Johnnie-O to check on Charlie. "He might be in need of some special ops right about now."
Johnnie-O left, but not before matching Isaiah's glare. With Johnnie-O gone, it was no longer three against one, but the tension didn't drop in the slightest.
Isaiah looked at Zin, then back to Nick again. Nick could tell he was afraid, but he hid his fear behind anger. "You take that thing and you get it out of Atlanta. Now."
"Who's he calling a thing?" growled Zin.
Nick firmly clasped Zin's shoulder with his chocolate-free hand. "Remember your orders," he said under his breath. Zin bit her lip--literally--as if the only way for her to shut her mouth was to clamp her bottom lip between her teeth.
It was then that Nick realized that Zin was a double whammy. Not only had he brought "Zach the Ripper," but he had brought a Confederate soldier into a city run by a kid who may very well have suffered the life of a slave when he was alive.
"Her name is Zinnia," Nick told him, "and she means you no harm."
"You mean to tell me that thing is a girl?"
Zinnia bristled, but kept her mouth shut.
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"She's a ripper and she's here to help all of us."
"I don't care what she can do--I don't need help from someone wearin' the gray."
Then Zinnia took a few steps forward. Nick tried to stop her, but she shrugged him off. So much for obeying orders.
"I don't recollect all that much 'bout my life," she said, "but I do know I didn't join the war to protect slavery. I did it to protect my family--and I'd take off this here uniform if I could, but I can't any more than you can take off those torn pants and rope belt. We's all stuck with what we wore, but not with what w
e were."
Isaiah still looked angry, but he didn't respond. He just waited to see if there was any more to her defense. To Nick's surprise, there was.
"The way I sees it," said Zin, "there ought not to be problems with skin color in Everlost, cuz Afterlights ain't got no skin, technically speakin', right?"
Isaiah nodded. "I'll do you one better than that," he said. "Hold out your arm."
Zinnia held her arm out, and Isaiah held out his right beside hers. "See that?" he said. "Our glow is exactly the same."
"Yeah, how 'bout that!"
"You remember that," said Isaiah, "and maybe I won't have to run you out of town."
"Fair enough," said Zin.
Now that their peace had been made, Isaiah turned to Nick. "So are you just passing through again, or is there something you want from us?"
And that's when the real work began.
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CHAPTER 21 Let 'Er Rip
Winning over the Atlanta Afterlights was a delicate matter, as painstaking, as ... well ... the making of chocolate. Too hot and it would burn, too cool, and it would lump. With Isaiah's reluctant permission, Nick introduced Zin to all the Atlanta Afterlights. There were almost four hundred of them. Once more they filled the streets of the Atlanta underground-- this time without weapons.
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