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Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. EVERWILD
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Copyright Page
  6. PART ONEA Vapor of Afterlights
  7. CHAPTER 1Fresh Havoc
  8. CHAPTER 2The View on High
  9. CHAPTER 3Audience with an Ogre
  10. CHAPTER 4The Outcast
  11. CHAPTER 5Southern Discomfort
  12. CHAPTER 6Shuttle Diplomacy
  13. CHAPTER 7A Fistful of Forever
  14. PART TWODancing with the Deadlies
  15. CHAPTER 8Treasures of the Flesh
  16. CHAPTER 9Good Stewards
  17. CHAPTER 10Skinjacking for Fun and Profit
  18. CHAPTER 11Surfing Tennessee
  19. CHAPTER 12Of Monsters and Mullets
  20. CHAPTER 13Bye-bye, Miss American Pie
  21. CHAPTER 14Strange Winds
  22. CHAPTER 15The Flight of Mikey McGill
  23. PART THREEThe Great White City
  24. CHAPTER 16Mary’s Master Plan
  25. CHAPTER 17The Death Boss
  26. CHAPTER 18The Interlight Incubator
  27. CHAPTER 19Eminence Green
  28. PART FOURWay of the Chocolate Warrior
  29. CHAPTER 20The Great Train Robbery
  30. CHAPTER 21Let ’Er Rip
  31. CHAPTER 22Cram That Sucker
  32. CHAPTER 23Severance and Blithe
  33. CHAPTER 24It’s a Dog’s Life
  34. PART FIVEThe Skinjacker Revelations
  35. CHAPTER 25Lair of the Cat Woman
  36. CHAPTER 26Home
  37. CHAPTER 27Skinjacker’s Lullaby
  38. CHAPTER 28The Sleep of the Dead
  39. CHAPTER 29Teed for Two
  40. CHAPTER 30A Place on the Mantel
  41. PART SIXCity of the Dead
  42. CHAPTER 31On the Banks of Eternity
  43. CHAPTER 32The Low Approach
  44. CHAPTER 33Suspicious Minds
  45. CHAPTER 34Poolside Rendezvous
  46. CHAPTER 35Allie-Allie-Oxen-Free
  47. CHAPTER 36The Intolerable Nexus of Extremes
  48. CHAPTER 37Sky Refugees
  49. CHAPTER 38Last Train Out of Memphis
  50. CHAPTER 39At the Moment of Madness
  51. CHAPTER 40The Changeling and the Golem
  52. EPILOGUERequiem for the Living
  53. Unwind excerpt
  54. Unwholly excerpt

Following Milos’s lead, Allie entered a patient, and revealed her presence slowly, so as not to frighten the woman. Then she spoke of the tunnel and the light. Milos was right— that was all it took to give the woman an overwhelming feeling of peace and comfort. Thank you! the woman said in her thoughts. Oh, thank you! She didn’t know who Allie was, but that didn’t matter. It was the message that mattered, not the messenger, and once Allie had peeled away, the feeling of utter peace lingered with her. This was definitely more rewarding than justicing. It was the kind of bedside comfort the living simply could not give. Perhaps this is the reason we can skinjack, thought Allie. To do things like this.

Allie must have communed with a dozen patients before she felt so exhausted by it, and filled with their gratitude, that she had to stop.

It was getting dark as they left the hospital, and as her mind ran through the miraculous things they did today, she couldn’t help but reel from the sheer awe of it. Since the first day she discovered she could skinjack, she had lived in fear of the idea—she had treated it like a nasty little secret, to be used only when absolutely necessary. It kept her from seeing the possibilities!

“Do you realize what we could do?” she told Milos. “Solve the world’s greatest crimes, bring peace to the most troubled places on earth. Why, through skinjacking, we could actually change the world!”

Milos found this very amusing. “You wag a finger at me for playing with fleshies, and here you want to change the world!”

“I didn’t say I wanted to, just that we could.”

Then his gaze changed. He was no longer laughing. Now he looked a bit bemused, instead of amused—as if looking at Allie was like looking at a wonder. The gaze made her feel awkward and she had to look away.

“Perhaps I am too small-minded,” Milos said. “This has always been my problem—but now, thanks to you, I will change. I will try to think more … globally.”

At the time Allie thought he was just humoring her.

Skinjacking can change the world.

Only much later would her own words come back to haunt her.

In her book You Don’t Know Jack, Allie the Outlaw makes the following observations:
“Unlike other Afterlights, we have an unfailing memory, and we don’t change, since we don’t forget who we were. What’s more important to remember is that we are more like other Afterlights than we are different—and we must help nonjackers to see this. We straddle two worlds—Everlost and the world of the living. If we wish to be respected and not feared, we must be good ambassadors to both.”

CHAPTER 12
Of Monsters and Mullets