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Page 3

 

  “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.

  The scent drew him toward a part of town still busy long after dark, a main avenue full of cafes and clubs. He quickly scanned the street for alleys and dimly lit crannies—places he could lurk without being seen—then padded off in the direction of the scent.

  But then something happened. Something unexpected. Something terrible.

  Jix felt the crash before he heard it—smelled it before he saw the flying shards of glass. The skinjackers’ Cadillac had plowed into the front of a café.

  Against all caution Jix loped forward to get a closer view.

  The entire glass front of the café was gone, and the scene was full of panic. The scattering living, the groaning injured, and the silenced dead. Although Jix had no particular attachment to the living world, he could not help but ache with sorrow at the scene before him, and he knew instinctively that this was no accident—it was intentional! These eastern skinjackers were like angels of death, slipping in and out of flesh as the whim suited them, creating mayhem. His heart, which had pounded steady at the pace of his chase, now quickened, fed by both terror and fascination.

  He leaped onto the hood of the Cadillac, and looked through the spider-webbed glass of the windshield into the car. Air bags and seat belts had saved the lives of the four passengers. They were as panicked and confused as everyone else—which meant that the skinjackers were gone. They had crashed the car, then had left their human hosts.

  So where were they now?

  Jix could no longer smell them, which meant they were no longer skinjacking. They were back in Everlost, and could be standing right in front of him, but as long as he was furjacking the panther, he couldn’t see them.

  “Oh my God! Is that some kind of tiger?” someone yelled, and Jix turned and growled menacingly, insulted for being mistaken for his brutish cousins. Then he peeled himself out of the panther, leaving the living world and transitioning back into Everlost.

  There was a moment of disorientation as he left the world of flesh. The living world became blurry and unfocused around him. He was now back in Everlost, where the living world seemed a little less real, and the only things that were solid were things that no longer existed.

  Immediately he saw the portals—four of them standing open before him. He knew exactly what they were, even though he had only seen a portal once—but the passageway to the afterlife is not something one easily forgets. It’s the tunnel every soul sees at the moment they die. Most don’t linger in Everlost—for the majority of people, Everlost is just a stepping stone—a springboard to launch oneself down the tunnel toward . . . well, toward wherever it is one happens to be going.

  But every once in a while something goes wrong.

  Standing at the mouth of the portals were the victims of the crash—high school age by the looks of them. They had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and had been killed when the Cadillac crashed into the café. They stood in what should have been a brief moment of transition—and in spite of the shock of their sudden crossing, they seemed ready to move on, already reaching toward the light, which seemed both impossibly distant, yet close enough to touch. This moment was so personal, so private, that Jix felt ashamed to be watching it, yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  That’s when it happened. Four oth
er figures came up behind the unfortunate souls. It was the skinjackers!

  Each skinjacker grabbed on to a crossing soul, and held tight, digging in their heels, leaning away from the light with the full force of their wills, keeping the victims from going down the tunnel. It worked for three of them, but the scrawny one couldn’t keep his grip and lost his victim into the light, cursing as he did.

  In the end, the tunnels vanished, and, thanks to the skinjackers, three new spirits were committed to Everlost, collapsing into a deep sleep—the nine-month sleep all new arrivals had to endure before waking up as citizens of Everlost.

  “You killed them!” Jix didn’t even realize he said it out loud, until all the skinjackers turned to him.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked the girl with wild hair. The one called Milos put up his hand to silence her.

  “We freed them,” Milos said. “We released them from a life of pain. We saved them from that world. ”

  Jix hesitated. Until this moment, it had never occurred to him that people could be brought into Everlost on purpose—or that a forced crossing could be a desirable thing. He wanted to think about it, let his mind see it from every possible angle, but there was no time for thinking now.

  “C’mon, c’mon, Milos. Let’s get out of here,” said the squirrelly one.

  “No,” Milos said, “I will not leave more of a mess than I have to. ” Then he turned back to Jix. “Are you alone? Are there others like you?”

  But before he could answer, a scream rang out from the living world and a situation that was already bad, suddenly became a whole lot worse.

  Jix had always been careful to leave the great cats he furjacked in places where they could do no harm, but in the heat of this extraordinary and terrifying moment, he had released his beast in the middle of a crowd. Confused and frightened, the animal did what frightened predators do. It attacked.

  The cat turned on a girl who was no older than twelve. She wore a crimson dress. It was probably the blood color of the dress that got the cat’s attention in the first place. Her life ended quickly with the panther’s first pounce, then the cat bounded away, disappearing into the night. Jix wailed at the sight of his deadly mistake.

  Now the girl’s spirit stood in Everlost at the mouth of her own afterlife tunnel—and all because of him. Her eyes were fixed on the light, and she was already moving toward it.

  “I got thish one,” said the skinjacker in football gear, then he surged forward, and tackled the girl out of the tunnel like he was sacking a quarterback. She landed right at Jix’s feet and her tunnel disappeared. Jix knelt down cradling her head in his hands.

  “Lo siento,” Jix said. “I’m sorry. . . . ”

  She looked up at him, her pupils wide and dilated, not yet understanding any of this. “I’m sleepy,” she said. “Tell my parents I’m taking a nap. . . . ” Then her eyes closed and her soul plunged into a nine-month slumber.

  Milos knelt beside them. While the wild-haired girl seemed impatient, the squirrelly one just scared, and the football player proud of his accomplishment, Milos appeared to have genuine remorse. “What’s done is done,” Milos said. “At least she is at peace now. And when she wakes up, she will be young and beautiful forever, yes? Maybe someday she will thank you. ”