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“My last orders from Mary were very clear,” Jill said. “I won’t put everything on hold just because you’re a wimp.”
Milos turned on her sharply. He would never strike a girl, but Jill often brought him to the very edge of his temper. “What I did for Mary proves I am anything but a coward.”
“So why do you only let us reap once a week?”
“Because there needs to be limits!” Milos shouted.
“Mary’s vision has no limits, does it?” The fact that Jill could stay calm made him even angrier, but he resolved to calm himself down. Losing his temper gave her control, and he was the one in charge here. He had to remember that.
“The difference between you and me,” said Milos, “is that I reap because it is what Mary wants. But you do it because you enjoy it.”
Jill did not deny it. “In a perfect world,” she said, “shouldn’t we all enjoy our jobs?”
Milos agreed to lead the skinjackers on a reaping excursion that night, but under the strictest of rules. “We will take no more than we can carry, and I will choose where and when.”
“Whatever floats your boat,” Jill said, caring only that she would get her chance to do her dirty work.
Moose and Squirrel were also part of the skinjacking team, bringing their number to four. Although Allie was also a skinjacker, Milos knew she would never come reaping, even if he did set her free from the train.
“Can I take two, Milosh?” Moose asked. “Pleashe?” Moose was a linebacker who had made his unfortunate crossing into Everlost during a high school football game. As such, he was doomed to wear a blue and silver football uniform. That uniform included a helmet and an eternal mouth guard stuck between his teeth, so everything he said came out slurred.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Squirrel, “Moose can carry mine back to the train.”
“Thatsh not what I meant!” said Moose.
Squirrel was a twitchy rail of a kid. Milos never knew the manner in which Squirrel had crossed into Everlost, only that his exit from the world of the living had been supremely embarrassing, as evidenced by the way Squirrel’s cheeks and ears would go red at the mention of it. Since Afterlights had no flesh or blood, one had to be severely embarrassed for the distant memory of blood to turn one’s face red.
“As I said, we will take what we can carry,” Milos told him. “Don’t get greedy.”
They set out from the train at dusk. Perhaps it was his imagination, or maybe just his misgivings, but Milos couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that they were being watched.
CHAPTER 3
Doomed Worthy
Jix, still in the body of the jaguar, had tracked the ghost train from Memphis to Oklahoma, following the faint scent of the supernatural. It wasn’t a scent, really, but more of an absence of scent. It was that very specific feeling of fur standing on end for no apparent reason. No matter how keen the cat’s senses, though, it could not see into Everlost. So when he knew he was close, he marched that jaguar into a public park in broad daylight, and allowed himself to be captured by animal control, before leaving the jaguar’s body. He was himself again, and back in Everlost—but even as an Everlost spirit, he had absorbed enough from his feline hosts to be agile and stealth. He spent so much time furjacking cats that it had changed him. He had even begun to look like one. Although he still wore the tattered jeans he had worn on the night he crossed, he had crossed shirtless, and now his muscular chest had taken on a faint orange, velvety sheen—almost like fur. He had even begun to develop jaguar spots. His eyeteeth were slowly growing into fangs, and his ears had shifted higher on his head, becoming small and pointy. Jix was short for fifteen—at least by American standards—but he didn’t seem young for his age, for his frame had filled out nicely, and his serious expression made it clear he was not to be trifled with.
Jix found the ghost train just south of Oklahoma City. It wasn’t moving, because its path was blocked. Jix was not foolish enough to approach the train; there was some sort of demon attached to the front of it. Who knew what the demon was capable of? Jix kept his distance, watching and waiting.
Then at sunset, a team of skinjackers left the train. He knew they were skinjackers from the way they moved. Heavy on their feet, even though the earth threatened to pull them down. They walked with the brash arrogance of flesh, even though they had none of their own. It was the same way Jix walked—with the knowledge that living and breathing was only as far as the nearest heartbeat.
There were four of them. Their leader was a tall boy of fifteen or sixteen the others called Milos, there was a disagreeable girl with wild hair, there was a boy in a football uniform, and there was another scrawny boy who talked a lot but said nothing. Jix knew their language. He had become fluent in English, since much of his life had been spent selling trinkets to American tourists in Cancun. One’s success depended on how much English one knew, and Jix had become exceptionally fluent. Even so, the small talk these four made didn’t give him much useful information.
Were these the skinjackers who had destroyed the bridge? There was no way to be sure unless he followed them, but once they skinjacked, he wouldn’t be able to keep up . . . unless he was in the body of a creature with keen senses.
When the skinjackers reached the highway, they leaped into four human bodies in a passing Cadillac that was headed toward Oklahoma City.
That’s when Jix decided it was time to visit the zoo.
Finding a suitable cat was easier here than in the jungle. Here, all the perfect predators were assembled in a central location and locked in foul-smelling cages. Fortunately unlocking cages was not a problem for a skinjacker.
Since the Oklahoma City Zoo did not have a jaguar, and time was of the essence, Jix chose a panther, with charcoal-gray fur that looked blue in the moonlight. Good camouflage for a city night. Jix took over the body of a zookeeper just long enough to undo the locks on the habitat—but he left the gate closed. Then, once he had furjacked the panther, he pushed the gate open with his paws. There was something so satisfying in doing that part as a cat. It felt more like an honest and true escape.
The zoo was quiet now, and the night watchmen had no idea that one of their most dangerous predators was loose. They were more worried about kids with spray paint than they were about the animals. Watchmen were always easy to evade.
Out into the night, bounding through the shadows, he tracked his prey. Now he had a true scent to pursue—because the smell of a skinjacked human is strong, and as easy to follow as the blood trail of a wounded stag. A skinjacked human smelled of ozone and nervous sweat. It smelled like wet lightning.
He picked up hints of them on the air among the various scents of the city as he approached downtown. Keeping out of sight in such a densely populated area was a challenge, but challenge was something he lived for—and since city folk were not expecting to see a panther in the shadows, it was easier than one might have thought for him to go unnoticed.
