Everwild (The Skinjacker Trilogy)

by Neal Shusterman

  To which he replied, "Is that an observation, or a request?"

  That brought forth a laugh, but no answer. Perhaps because she was still undecided.

  That night Pugsy Capone dined on lobster. There was always lobster, or steak, or good old Chicago Pizza since Mary became a part of his establishment. Her children diligently ventured out into the living world in search of crossed food, and her relationships with some fairly wellknown finders resulted in a trade surplus that kept Pugsy in the pink. Whatever he wanted, it was available. Even his own Chicago Afterlights were following suit, becoming busy bees, instead of lazy oafs.

  "I've been thinking of declaring myself boss over Indianapolis, and then spreading East to Ohio," he had told Mary. "Whadaya think?"

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  "It sounds visionary," Mary had told him. "Stretch as far east as you like."

  While he had been reluctant to join with her at first, he had to admit that they were an unstoppable team. The future was looking brighter than ever before. So when he was approached by Moose, who told him that a truck had arrived full of tributes and gifts from the Indianapolis Afterlights, foul play was the last thing he suspected.

  As he crossed the midway with Moose, it didn't trouble him that his trio of bodyguards were nowhere to be found. He had come to rely on them less and less since security, and a need for six-fisted intimidation, had become less of a priority. He was caught off guard by the sack that was thrust over his head, and before he knew what was happening, his hands and feet were tied, and he was carried off.

  He was dumped some time later on a wooden floor that creaked beneath him, and when the bag was ripped from his face, he was looking up at three Afterlights glowing in the dark night: It was the new skinjackers. All three of them.

  "What do you think you're doing?" Pugsy shouted.

  Milos was way too calm. "We are having a meeting. I am so glad you could come."

  As Milos was a Ruskie, Pugsy hated him on principal. It was Mary who had convinced him that Milos could be trusted. Well, Mary would get an earful for this!

  He tried to stand but his legs were tied too tightly. "All three of you have just bought yourself a place on the mantel." Which was one of Pugsy's pet expressions for a trip to

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  the center of the earth--along with "earning core time" and "sleeping with the magma."

  "Look around you, and think again," said Milos. Pugsy glanced around, and instantly knew exactly where he was. This was what he affectionately called "the submarine terminal." It was an Everlost dock on Lake Michigan where he would dispatch unwanted Afterlights into the "dirty deep," yet another pet name for the center of the earth. In fact, right now, there were three others bound and gagged, with cinder blocks tied to their ankles. He would have thought the work was done by his bodyguards. Except that they were his bodyguards. Now Pugsy began to worry.

  "Tell me," said Milos, "how many are the Afterlights you have thrown from this dock?"

  "I don't know," said Pugsy nervously. "I don't keep count."

  "Guess."

  "Throw him off! Throw him off!" shrieked Squirrel, but Milos threw him a gaze that shut him up.

  "I said guess."

  "Uh, maybe, a hundred? Two hundred?"

  "Just as I thought." Milos nodded to the other two, and they lifted up one of Pugsy's boys, then tossed him off the dock.

  "No!" screamed Pugsy.

  Then Milos knelt down to him. "I have grown tired of you," he said. "So I am now inviting you to leave Chicago. I am inviting you to leave alone, and to leave now."

  "What are you, nuts?"

  Milos nodded to the others again, and they sent the

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  second of Pugsy's bodyguards off to the dirty deep.

  "You have thirty seconds to accept my invitation."

  "Mary!" said Pugsy. "Go get Mary! She'll negotiate for me. She'll give you whatever you want!"

  The other two laughed, and Milos whispered to him, "Mary is the reason we are all here on this fine evening." He signaled the other two, and they hurled Pugsy's last bodyguard off for serious core time. Then they dragged a cinder block to Pugsy, and tied it around his ankles.

  "Okay, okay, okay, I see you mean business! So I'll tell you what. You can untie me, and I'll leave, just like you asked. I'll leave right now and I'll never come back. Okay? Just like you asked, okay?"

  Milos gave Pugsy a satisfied smile. Then he said, "I'm sorry, but I cannot hear you."

  "What?"

  "You have ten seconds."

  "I said I'll leave! I'll leave!"

  "Sorry, your answer must be in Russian."

  "I don't speak Russian!"

  "Five seconds."

  "I'll leave-ski Chicago-ski!"

  "Time's up." He nodded to Moose and Squirrel. "Goodbye, Pugsy."

  "Nooooooo!"

  Pugsy was lighter than the other three, so he flew much farther before hitting the lake. He quickly plunged through the living-world water, as thin to him as air, and then passed into the lake bed, toward his place on--or rather in--the mantel. As he sunk deeper and deeper into the earth, he

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  could only hope that when he reached the center, he wouldn't come across anyone he sent there himself.

  The following day, all the Afterlights of Chicago were called for a town meeting--the first such meeting since Pugsy announced his partnership with Mary some weeks ago. Now Mary stood on the same balcony, looking out over the crowd. This time, however, Pugsy was absent. Instead she stood with Speedo beside her. Milos was there, too, but he lingered in the background, along with a silently aggravated Jackin' Jill.

  "You shouldn't be up here at all," Jill told Milos. "I earned the right to be here, but what have you done?"

  "Not much," Milos told her. "Just what was necessary."

  She was unimpressed. "Where's Pugsy?" asked Jill, glancing around. "He's never late when he calls a town meeting."

  "Pugsy did not call it," Milos said casually.

  At the front of the balcony Mary looked down on the crowd. Speedo, having been a finder, was still intimidated by large vapors of Afterlights. Finders were usually hunted down by such mobs, accused of unfair trading. It didn't help that he was eternally in a wet bathing suit, displaying a bare belly in a pasty shade of pale. He could never get used to being Mary's right-hand man--and he suspected she was now grooming Milos for the position. Speedo, who had no desire for power beyond the horsepower of an airship engine, would be more than happy to slip into the background when the time came--and he hoped it came soon.

  "Look at all of them," said Mary. "It hardly seems

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  appropriate to call them a 'vapor of Afterlights' anymore."

  "More like an entire cloud," suggested Speedo.

  "A cumulus!" said Mary, delighted with herself. "A cumulus of Afterlights!"

  Their numbers had indeed grown. A census upon Mary's arrival revealed there to be 783 Afterlights in Chicago, including the ones she brought with her. But once word got out that Mary had settled in for an extended stay, stray Afterlights began to wander in to the Columbian Exhibition grounds--more each day. Those, plus the new arrivals waking into Everlost for the first time, brought their numbers close to a thousand now.

  Nick had stolen from her more than a thousand souls. Now she had them back, and with Pugsy gone, she didn't have to share them with anyone. This was truly a day for celebration.

  "Afterlights of Chicago," she announced to the crowd. "It is with the utmost of mixed feelings that I must announce that Pugsy Capone has chosen to leave us."

  The crowd murmured in excitement, mingled with doubt.

  "He has decided to travel, and has taken a permanent leave of absence. I'm sure you all join me in wishing him everything he deserves, wherever his journey takes him."

  It began as a smattering of applause, that grew into cheers, as the crowd realized exactly what Mary was telling them.

  "As Pugsy will not be coming back, I am
pleased to accept the position as Governess of Chicago."

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  The cheers reached a fever pitch. "Listen to them, Speedo!" Mary whispered. "Do you see how happy they are to finally be freed!"

  "Where did Pugsy go?" Speedo asked her.

  "Milos was so kind as to convince him to leave." She turned back to give Milos a much-earned smile. "It's probably best if we don't know the details, don't you agree?"

  Mary turned back to the crowd and resumed addressing them. "Since my arrival, there have been many changes here, and there will be many more to come. My goal is to bring your quality of death to the highest possible level. Many of you have found your own "special activity" to make each and every day your personal perfect day. For those of you still searching, my door is always open. I pledge to help you in every way I can."

  The crowd seemed a bit less enthusiastic at the prospect of a gloriously repetitive eternity, but that was all right. They would come to see the wisdom of Mary's way. They always did.

  Milos was called for an audience with Mary in her Promenade. He assumed it was a private audience. Milos already knew she spoke to no one else as candidly as she spoke to him. He had to believe that it meant something. That he meant something.

  He came with a chilled bottle of champagne that he found in Pugsy's wine cellar mixed in with all the bottles of root beer, and two champagne flutes. When he arrived, however, he found the audience was anything but private.

  "Milos, I'm glad you're here," Mary said, not even

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  noticing the champagne. Speedo was there, and there was another Afterlight as well--one who Milos had never seen before. He sat in the red leather armchair--the one that used to be Pugsy's--and Mary was offering him candy from her private stash.

  "He's one of Mary's long-distance scouts," Speedo explained, "and he just got back." Apparently he was an important player in Mary's war against "the forces of dark chocolate," as she liked to call it.

  The boy then tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and closed his eyes. The others, who knew what was coming, ducked, just as the boy released an earth-shaking sneeze. Milos was the only one caught unawares, and was splattered with more unspeakable ecto-stuff than ought to be allowed in any universe.

  "I'm sorry, Milos," said Mary. "I should have warned you. But every talent comes with its own stumbling block, and the Sniffer is no exception." She turned to the boy. "You really should cover your mouth when you sneeze."

  "I know, but I always forget."

  Speedo rose from the chair he had hidden behind, and threw a rag to Milos to clean himself, but it was much too small to do the job.

  Mary was not bothered by the deluge--she would have someone clean it later. What mattered was the news the Sniffer brought back with him. And what news it was! "How marvelous! How absolutely marvelous!" she said after he told her what he had learned. It was exactly the information she needed. She now knew not only Nick's location, but the size of his vapor, and where he was going.

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  And as for this "Ripper" he seemed to have acquired, how much damage could she do, really? The ripper was just one against a thousand.

  Mary stood up, her plan already taking shape in her mind. She would see Nick again, and she would see him soon ... but it would be on her terms.

  "Well, if the Chocolate Ogre has gone to Memphis to find Allie the Outcast, I think we should meet him there. A thousand of ours--against four hundred of his!"

  Milos just stood there, a little shell-shocked by the sudden shift of direction. It was the first time she noticed he held a bottle of ... was that champagne?

  Speedo, as always, was wary. "You had a thousand last time ... and you know what happened."

  The memory only made Mary more determined. "Last time he went behind my back. So this time, we'll sneak behind his!"

  "There's one more thing," the Sniffer said. "I smelled something ... nasty ... that was also moving toward Memphis. I'm not sure what it was, but if I didn't know better, I'd think it was the McGill."

  It caught Mary off guard. She felt her afterglow sputter liked a burner low on gas. She hoped no one saw it. "The McGill no longer exists," she proclaimed. "In fact, he never did. Speedo! Make a note that I should point out the nonexistence of the McGill in my next book."

  "Yes, Miss Mary."

  And then she turned to Milos. He still stood there dripping with the Sniffer's unpleasantness. Even so, she found she wanted to embrace him, but restrained herself. "Milos,

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  I asked you to be patient, and now your patience will be rewarded." Then she went to her bookshelf. "We will defeat the Ogre in Memphis, and from there we will begin our crusade to unite the East and the West." Mary ran her finger over the book spines, then pulled out the heavy volume on Civil Engineering.

  Milos was amused. "Don't tell me--you wish me to build a bridge in your honor!"

  "Not exactly." She held it out to him. "I want you to study this--because in this book are the blueprints for every bridge that crosses the Mississippi River."

  "Yes, but these are all living-world bridges," Milos pointed out. "They are of no use to us."

  Mary put the book firmly into his hands. "Come now, Milos," she said with a smile that, on anyone else but Mary Hightower, might be called wicked, "I think you're much smarter than that."

  She sent Milos to clean up, and requested she meet him in the non-slimed Portside Promenade, on the opposite side of the ship, when he was done.

  Milos was still reeling from this change in circumstance. All of them leaving Chicago, a war with the Chocolate Ogre, and the possibility of Allie being brought into the mix. But then this might not be a bad thing. This battle could provide him an opportunity to make himself truly indispensable to Mary. And what if Milos could bring Allie in--even if only as a prisoner? That would certainly win him huge points.

  The Portside Promenade was a mirror image of the Starboard promenade, except that it still had the airship's original furniture. Mary told him she was planning to gut

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  it, and turn it into a playroom for the younger children, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.

  When Milos arrived, all squeaky-clean, Mary had already opened the champagne, and poured two glasses.

  "I never usually consume spirits," Mary told him, "but I suppose we have a lot to celebrate."

  Milos hesitated. "Consume spirits?"

  "Drink alcohol," Mary explained. "What on earth did you think I meant?"

  Milos just chuckled in his own embarrassment, which seemed to please her.

  "Let's toast," she said. "What shall we toast to?"

  "To the Governess of the East, and soon to be West," suggested Milos. "The beautiful catcher of lost souls."

  Mary's thoughts seemed to darken when he said it, but she clinked glasses anyway. She took a sip, put her glass down, and strode away from him.

  "Is something wrong?"

  She paused, looking out of the window. "Saving the children of the world is not always an easy thing," she said. "But the end does justify the means, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Sometimes, yes." Milos cautiously moved closer to her.

  She still looked out of the window, a convenient way to avoid his gaze. "There's much work to do, but before we begin, there's something you need to know, and something I need to find out."

  Then she offered him a confession.

  "As much as I despise stepping out into the course of living events, there are times it must be done," she told him. "There is an appliance store not too far from here. In it are

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  many of those television machines, and they often display the news of the day." She began to rub her arms as if she was cold. "I was there, in search of something in particular, and I found it. There was a report of a dreadful car accident-- a terrible thing. Witnesses claimed that the driver actually swerved to hit pedestrians, but the driver claims to have no memory of it whatsoever. Imagine that."

  M
ilos took a nervous sip of his champagne. "Strange things do happen in the living world."

  "Yes, they do," agreed Mary. "But I don't think it was an accident at all. And I don't think the driver was himself that day."

  Milos withheld his opinion. "And ... were any lives lost?"

  "What a curious expression. How can a life be lost when you know exactly where it is?" Mary said. "Two children did leave the world of the living, if that's what you mean. The news was kind enough to show their photographs, but I had already seen their faces. Jill had brought them both into the incubator earlier that day. Of course they were asleep, but I still recognized them."

  Finally she turned to him. "You knew, didn't you? Don't lie to me, Milos."

  "I am truly sorry," was all Milos dared to say.

  "Sorry that I found out, or sorry you didn't tell me that Jill's amulet was fake?"

  He looked at the bubbles in his champagne, feeling all his hope begin to extinguish. Milos had no idea what Mary would do now. Would she throw him out? Would she have both him and Jill hurled off the pier to join Pugsy? Directness

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  and honesty, thought Milos. That's what Mary respects. And so rather than wasting his breath trying to spin things to his favor, he simply told her the truth.

  "I was afraid to tell you. I thought you might blame all skinjackers for what Jill was doing. I feared that you might send us away. That you might send me away. But I'm not like Jill... ."

  And instead of throwing him out, Mary tapped her champagne glass very gently to his and said, "Do you really think I am so shortsighted as to let you go, Milos?" He didn't think he was supposed to answer, so he didn't. "It does change things, though," she said. "Since we don't have to wait for accidents, I can increase Jill's quota."