“No,” said Jix, “I don’t see you as a monster. We are both oddities. I have respect for that.” Clarence waved off the prospect of Jix’s respect, but Jix was insistent. “Listen to me,” Jix said. “I’ve come to think it’s no accident you are the way you are. There is a purpose for you in all of this. I sense it—and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s sensing. You already saved many people, and yet you still feel unfulfilled. It means you still have more to do in that purpose, I think.”

Both the living and the lost halves of Clarence’s face smiled, but it was a smile of apology. “I used to believe things like that,” he said, “but in my experience it all goes belly-up in the end. I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t have a purpose . . . and when I finally go down that tunnel to the pearly gates or wherever, I’m going to slap God silly for not giving me one.”

Jix nodded, accepting Clarence’s point of view without judgment. “Do that if you must,” Jix said. “But I suspect it will all be much clearer when you are there.”

A few yards away, Jix’s sleeping jaguar stirred and Clarence turned his living eye toward it. “Better skinjack that thing before it wakes up and eats me.”

“Chichén Itzá!” said Allie. “The City of Souls is at Chichén Itzá! I should have figured out it had nothing to do with a chicken.”

“I won’t go!” yelled Mikey. He could not be calmed. He raged and stormed, and as he did, his anger gave him all nature of deformities. Extra hands and arms, boils bubbling the size of golf balls on his face. Mikey didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve, he wore it all over his body in frightening manifestations of fury.

“Calm down and think about it!” Allie told him. “What Jix proposed makes sense. You can’t go where I’m going—and anyway, I won’t be alone, I’ll have Clarence—”

“who will wipe you out of existence if he touches you,” reminded Mikey.

“So I’ll be careful. And you shouldn’t be worrying about me—you’ll have your own mission to worry about.”

“Some mission!” griped Mikey. “I will not go down to the City of Souls to grovel at the feet of some stupid king!”

“Hey,” said Nick. “I’m going there too—and I’m not complaining.”

“You’re too stupid to complain,” growled Mikey.

“That,” said Allie, “is not fair!”

“No, he’s right,” said Nick. “I’m not the boy I used to be. Maybe I never will be—but at least I’m not so selfish as to—”

“Selfish? You think I’m selfish?” Boils bubbled on Mikey’s face and popped like pizza cheeze. “I’ll show you selfish.”