“No. I’m talking about successful stalking.” He looked around, and saw that the poker kids were beginning to get louder, preparing for their daily fistfight—which included a crowd of others cheering them on. Jix took Jill to the corner farthest away, so they could not be heard. “Cats stalk with their instincts—but you and me—we stalk with our minds. The way I stalked all of you on the train.”

Jill gave him a twisted grin. “You didn’t stalk anyone—we let you stay.”

“Why?” asked Jix. Jill had no answer for him. “I’ll tell you why. Because you never saw me as a threat. And yet I was. I knew you all so well—and had earned the respect of so many of Mary’s children, I could have easily taken over the train if I wanted to.”

Jill looked a little shaken. “Was that your plan? To take over?”

“No,” he told her, then leaned in closer. “But it is now.”

* * *

The following day, one of the lookouts—a skinny kid they called Domino—came down from up above, announcing that he had been seen by a group of refugees from the train crash. Avalon was not pleased. “I should push you down myself!” Avalon yelled at him. Then he ordered the Neons to prepare for battle. “We beat them once,” he said, “and we’ll do it again. And this time, we’ll send every last one of them downtown!”

“But they’ve got a monster now,” said Domino.

“What do you mean, monster?”

“I don’t know what else to call it. I’ve never seen anything that strong. And here’s the weird part,” he said, looking around, almost afraid to say it, as if they wouldn’t believe him, “It’s made . . . of chocolate.”

Jill gasped, then pretended she hadn’t.

“It’s true!” said the lookout, and showed them the brown stains on his clothes where it had grabbed him.

“And you led it right here, didn’t you?” said Avalon in disgust.

The lookout began to stammer. “I . . . I . . . I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Imbecile!”

Up above them, in the Alamo complex, a woman screamed and an alarm began to blare. Even though living-world business meant nothing to them, today it added to the tension. The Neons were all looking to Avalon for direction, so he pulled out the one remaining coin from his pocket. “We’ll ask Wurlitzer what to do.” Everyone agreed. He strode toward the machine, tugged off the blanket, and all the Neons fell to their knees. Even Jix did, for fear of angering it, whatever it was. Jill had to be forced to her knees.