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dead. But skinjackers had other alternatives. . . .
    She had learned the secret of skinjackers—the thing that no skinjacker ever spoke of, but every skinjacker eventually discovered. Skinjackers are not dead, but are in deep, deep comas . . . not quite dead, but not quite alive, either.
    But if her body was still alive . . . maybe—just maybe—she could skinjack herself.
    There was one problem, however. If she did it, it meant leaving Mikey behind. The thought of it challenged her resolve. Could she say good-bye to him, after the years they’d spent together? She loved him. It was not a simple love—it was as deeply complicated as true love should be, full of strength and vulnerability, joy and frustration. A powerful connection between them, more tangible than eternity. Could she sacrifice that for a chance at living? She wondered where Mikey was now, and what he would say. Would he talk her out of leaving, or encourage her to go? With Mikey there was no telling. He was a spirit who could be both selfish and gallant at the same time. It was part of what made her love him.
    Of course none of her musings mattered as long as she was tied to the grille of a train.
    On the day that Speedo left on his expedition to find railroad tracks, Milos and his skinjackers went off as well, for their own dark purposes. Allie assumed it was their usual “skinjacking for fun and profit.”
    Then, just a few minutes after they had gone, Allie was visited by the strangest spirit. A boy that seemed part cat. Clearly this was not one of Mary’s children.
    “I thought you were bound by a spell,” he said as he approached, “but now I can see it’s nothing but rope that has crossed into Everlost.”
    Allie had seen all sorts of body modifications in Everlost—some intentional, some not—but few were as exquisite as this boy’s. “Who are you?” Allie asked. She waited for an answer, but he gave her none.
    “They fear you,” he said. “If they didn’t, they wouldn’ttreat you this way.” She knew it was true, but it didn’t change her sense of powerlessness.
    “Are there many of you?” Allie asked. “Are you going to attack the train?” If there was a whole army of cat-kids, then this could be a good thing. If they saw Milos and the others as enemies, then they could see Allie as a friend, and might free her.
    “I am here as a guest of the Eastern Witch,” the cat-boy said, which, again, did not answer her question.
    “There is no Eastern Witch,” Allie told him, taking a little bit of pride in the fact. “She won’t be back, no matter what her children think.”
    The cat-kid raised an eyebrow. “Then who is it who sleeps in the last car?”
    At first she thought she had misheard him. Then she thought he was making some sort of joke. Then she realized he didn’t have a sense of humor. He was dead serious. But if Mary was in the last car, she wasn’t just sleeping, she was hibernating. She was in transition between life, and—
    “No!” Allie didn’t want to believe it. “No! Milos didn’t! He couldn’t have . . . he wouldn’t dare !” But she knew he would dare. Milos was audacious to an extreme—he would have no compunction about killing Mary, then pulling her out of the tunnel. It explained so many things. It explained why they were still pushing westward, following Mary’s directive, as if she’d be coming back.
    Allie had thought that the one consolation of being on the front of a moving train was knowing that they were moving away from Mary. . . . Little had she known that Mary was with them all along.
    This was the worst of all possible news—because Allie had seen into Mary’s mind, and knew the monster she was. Allie knew what Mary planned to do.
    “You have to help me,” Allie said to the cat-kid. “Mary can never be allowed to wake up.”
    “And why is that?”
    “Because she plans to end the living world. She means to kill everyone and everything.”

CHAPTER 6
Cat on a Cold Tin