There had been no word from Jill, so Allie and Clarence had no choice but to intercept Mary. They flew into West Texas, and Allie skinjacked the driver of a fast car, switching drivers and vehicles every few hours, with Clarence riding shotgun.

They followed Mary’s clear path of destruction; the remains of Eunice, then Artesia. Then they followed the highway west.

“If we can isolate her, and get her away from her skinjackers, I can take her down,” Allie told Clarence.

“And,” asked Clarence, “if it doesn’t work?”

“If it doesn’t work, we always have plan B.”

Plan B was not something to be discussed, but they both knew what Allie was referring to. The touch of a scar wraith. If ever there was a soul in need of extinguishing, it was Mary Hightower . . . and yet Allie instinctively knew that the premeditated ending of someone’s entire existence, even Mary’s, was a last resort. Ending the physical lives of skinjackers, that was bad enough . . . but intentionally extinguishing a soul? Squirrel had been an accident, but if they willfully extinguished Mary, it would be a crime against the universe, and perhaps the one act that was truly unforgivable. For that reason, it was a last resort.

Allie, who was skinjacking, couldn’t see into Everlost, but Clarence had the benefit of double-world vision—so it was Clarence who saw the deadspot, just past the town of Alamogordo.

“I don’t know what that is, but it doesn’t look good,” he said.

Allie pulled over to the side of the road, and, making sure her fleshie was still asleep, she peeled out. Once in Everlost, she saw the massive deadspot in the far distance.

“Whatever it is,” Allie said, “Mary would have seen it if she came this way, and would have gone to check it out.”

Up ahead there was a restricted military access road, leading to something called Trinity Site. The name sounded familiar to Allie, but she couldn’t recall where she’d heard it before.

“Well,” Allie said, “it looks like I’m gonna have to skinjack someone with military access.”

They returned that afternoon. Allie had skinjacked an Army officer, and let Clarence take the wheel, because only he could see the deadspot with his Everlost eye while Allie was skinjacking. They approached from the north. From Allie’s perspective, all there was to see was a stretch of dark fused sand, more than a mile or two across, but Clarence’s perspective was quite a bit different.

“They’re here!” Clarence told her, in a panic. “They didn’t just come through here, they’re still here! We’ve gotta . . .” Clarence pulled sharply to the right, and stopped the car abruptly, then he breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re okay—I don’t think they saw us.”

“Won’t they see us now?”

“I got it covered.”

Then, when Allie tried to peel out, she found it difficult.