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Mikey took a step back. Was she trying to trick him into freeing her? "But ... but you love Milos... ."
Allie laughed. "Is that what you think? Is that why you left?"
"I saw you kiss him... ."
She gasped at the realization that he had seen the kiss. But then she said, "Mikey, you are such an idiot." Then she looked him in the eye and said, "You're the one I love."
Mikey found his ears starting to grow larger all by themselves--as if by doubling his hearing it would help him to understand. "Prove it."
"Okay, fine!" Allie said. "Give me your worst. The most horrible thing you can imagine--but do it quickly!"
And so Mikey dug inside himself to find the worst of all his feelings, the worst of all his fears, the very worst of himself. Then he pushed forth a face so hideous his followers turned their eyes away in terror. A face that could melt the living, or at the very least turn them to stone. A face so God-awful it defied the ability of any language to describe.
And yet Allie not only looked at him, but she reached out through the bars, pulled the horrible head to hers, and she kissed him.
The kiss was the definition of perfect. True, it lacked the heat, the passion, the breathlessness of the living-world kiss she had given Milos, but this had something greater. More than a flash of fire, it had an unbreakable, perhaps eternal bond of connection. Mikey had transformed back into himself by the end of the kiss, and the moment their lips parted he knew, as he should have known long, long ago, that no one--not Milos, not another Afterlight, not anyone in any world--could ever come between him and Allie, from now until the day they met their maker.
"Now please, Mikey. Please let me go help Nick."
Suddenly Mikey felt naked and exposed before her, so he stepped back and pulled himself in, folding into his armor shell. Then he bore down and forced his armor to dissolve. It was harder than changing his features, harder than growing an arm or an eye or a tentacle, but he did it, and promised himself he would never grow the armor again.
He turned to his followers who looked at him with shock and surprise.
"Hey--you're not the McGill," said one of them. Mikey considered turning himself horrible just to scare the kid into line, but he decided he didn't want to. He could be whatever he wanted to be, but there were many more parts he wanted to play beyond that of a monster. So instead of fangs, he sprouted himself a pair of tall white ears. "No, I'm the Easter Bunny," he told them. "Now free Allie from that cage!"
And they were all so bewildered that they hopped right to it.
Chapter 36 The Intolerable Nexus of Extremes
Graceland had a faint but perpetual smell of peanut butter and bananas.
"Even better now with chocolate," offered Zin, as she and Nick stepped inside.
From the moment Nick arrived, he knew there was something odd about the world-famous tourist attraction. The floors were both soft and solid at the same time, and everywhere he looked Nick saw double. He wanted to chalk it up to his own failing vision, but he knew it was more than that.
"What is this, some sorta funhouse?" asked Zin, but Nick suspected there was no fun to be had for anyone but the tourists. This is a vortex, Nick realized. He sensed it would be wise to leave, but he said he would meet Mary here, and he wouldn't go back on his word.
He had come with a team of Afterlights, but told them to wait outside, as he went in with Zin. They moved through rooms that alternated between elegant and absurd, and the air was filled with the faint echoes of a thousand parties. Of course, all the living heard was "Love Me Tender" pumped in through the speaker system, but they were beginning to notice an uncanny aroma of chocolate.
Toward the back of the mansion, Nick and Zin found the infamous Jungle Room, full of leopard- and zebra-skin furniture and green shag carpeting--not just on the floor, but on the ceiling, too. There they waited for Mary.
Nick didn't feel well at all, and this was troubling, because you couldn't feel sick in Everlost. Yet there was a fever burning within him, rising from the deepest part of his soul, radiating out.
Zin nervously doodled on her prop notepad to pass the time. "What if she don't come?"
"She'll come," said Nick.
When all the clocks in the house struck five, and Mary hadn't arrived, Nick began to worry. Mary was never late, and with each passing minute Nick felt worse.
"She's not comin'" said Zin. "Let's get outta this place, it gives me the creeps."
;Gotcha!" it said.
This kid was all wrong in every way. He had an ear where an eye should be, and an eye instead of a nose. His cheeks were at different heights, and his mouth was entirely upside down. It was as if someone had been playing Evil Mr. Potato Head with his face.
"Who are you? Let me go!"
There were more of them now. A dozen of them, and they were still coming out of the woodwork, grabbing her, keeping her from moving. Every one of them had skewed features, but no two were exactly alike. Picassoids, Allie decided to call them, because they looked like something Pablo Picasso might have painted on a very, very bad day.
