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“Finish step seven,” Allie said, “and then I’ll let you know step eight.” Allie had really come up with a good one for step seven. As the McGill was so fond of bullying people around, Allie decided that the seventh step would be a seventy-two-hour vow of silence. So far the McGill couldn’t even make twenty-four. “You just spoke,” she said. “I guess you’ll have to start all over again.”
The McGill motioned to the wrestler kid. “Piledriver, you can bring it out now.”
Piledriver dutifully went into a side room, and came back rolling a barrel that he set in the center of the room.
“Are you putting me in there?” Allie asked. “Is that it? If you do you’ll never know the last four steps.”
The McGill nodded to Piledriver again, and he pried open the barrel. It was full of liquid—but there was also something else in the barrel — something that glowed—and once the lid was off, it rose out, dripping in slimy pickle juice.
The moment Allie saw who it was, she knew she was in serious, serious trouble.
It was the Haunter.
“You!” said the Haunter, the moment he saw Allie.
The McGill stood up. “I am the one who brought you here,” the McGill told the Haunter. “You will answer my questions.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“Then I’ll seal you back in that barrel.”
The Haunter held up his hand, and various loose objects began to fly around the room, striking the McGill.
“Stop that, or your next stop is the center of the Earth!” the McGill roared.
“Your skill at moving objects does not impress me, nor does it bother me. I bested you before, and if you fight me, I’ll do it again —and this time I’ll show no mercy.” Slowly the flying objects fell to the ground. “Good. Now you will answer my questions.”
The Haunter looked at him with hatred so strong it could have warped time. “What do you want to know?”
“Don’t believe a word he says!” Allie blurted out.
The McGill ignored her. “Tell me about this girl and her friends. Tell me what she knows.”
The Haunter laughed. “Her? She knows nothing! I offered to teach her, but she refused.”
“I didn’t need him!” Allie countered. “I was taught by someone else.”
“There is no one else who teaches the things I teach,” the Haunter said, arrogantly. “You knew nothing when you came to me, you know nothing now.”
“I know how to get inside people!” Allie told him. “I know how to skinjack.” She tried to sound strong and sure of herself, but her voice came out crackly and weak.
“It’s true,” said the McGill. “I saw her do it.”
The Haunter climbed out of the barrel and approached her, leaving a trail of salty brine where his moccasins fell. “It’s possible,” he said. “She does have an undeveloped skill to move objects, so it’s possible that she may also have the skill to skinjack.”
The McGill came closer to the two of them. “What I want to know is this: Can the skill be taught? Can she teach it to me?”
The Haunter didn’t bat an eye. “No, she cannot.”
The McGill pointed a crooked, sharp-nailed, furry finger at the Haunter. “Then you teach me how to skinjack.”
The Haunter shook his head. “It can’t be taught. Either you have the skill, or you don’t. You’ve been in Everlost long enough to know what your skills are. If you have not possessed the living by now, then you never will.”
Allie could feel the McGill’s anger like the heat of a furnace. “I see.” Like the heat at the center of the Earth.
“He’s lying!” Allie shouted. “He just wants to win you over, and get you to trust him, so he can betray you the moment you’re not looking! I’m the one who’s been helping you all this time. Who are you going to believe, him or me?”
The McGill looked at both of them, the Haunter on his left, Allie on his right.
