“She’s my problem and that makes her your problem.”

“We don’t work for you anymore,” Johnnie-O said. “We quit.”

Nick grabbed him, getting chocolate all over his shirt sleeve. “If we stay here, Mary will eventually come to the City of Souls with enough Afterlights to overthrow the king. Can you imagine this place under Mary?”

Johnnie-O scowled at him. With Mary in charge, the city would no longer be the endless party that it was, and there wouldn’t be an eternal smorgasbord for him and Charlie. “Why do you keep ruining my death?”

Nick turned to Charlie, trying to reason with him as well, but Charlie just smiled back as he ate, saying nothing.

From the outside world’s perspective, it might have appeared that Choo-choo Charlie had completely lost his mind, but in truth, he had never been more at peace with his place in the universe. Now the songs that had been coming out of his mouth were merrily rolling along in his head instead, swirling into one another. Although all the words of all the songs were different, the meaning to him was the same.

You’re ready, Charlie, the songs said. It’s time to move on.

He knew it since he first began to sing, and he could have taken a coin from the bucket, held it in his hand, and completed his journey at any time. He didn’t want to do that to Johnnie-O, though. He couldn’t leave Johnnie alone. But as long as he had the songs in his head, he didn’t mind waiting—even if he had to wait until the end of time. Now he understood how the souls at the center of the earth felt. He was one of them now, full of patience, perfectly centered in himself, even without being centered in the earth.

It was only now that Nick was here, that Charlie felt he could leave Johnnie. So, on the evening that Nick arrived, Charlie left the Hall of a Thousand Columns and went to the forge. The king was out, making Mikey perform transformations for the king’s closest personal flatterers, which included the luchador, so no one was guarding the statue. Charlie thought he was alone. He had no idea that he had been followed.

He walked closer to the statue, skillfully crafted from the thousands of coins collected from the souls of Chichén Itzá, and the coins taken from the bucket. The statue looked like King Yax K’uk Mo’ but that was just a clever lie. No amount of disguise could hide the truth from Charlie. You could melt the coins down, pound them out, and make them look like some king’s face, but it didn’t change what they were. They were the way out.

“Charlie . . . ?”

He turned, surprised to see Nick standing there.

“What are you doing here?” Nick asked.

Charlie found that he had no words to explain all he was thinking and feeling, so instead he began to sing.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind . . .”

Then before he could change his mind or be pulled away, he reached out his hand . . .

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne . . .”

. . . and he touched the statue.

“Charlie, no!”

But the deed was done. A coin-size piece of the statue vanished, and a tunnel appeared before him with a light at its end, both bright and warm. Suddenly all the memories that had been lost to Charlie came back to him.

Something was talking in his head now too—not a voice, but a feeling. It was something he knew he was meant to share, but his mind was so full of memories of the life he had lived, it was hard to make room for the words that were fuzzily forming in his head. Still, he tried to get them out as best as he could, because he knew he didn’t have much time.

“Fat Alamo . . . the Trinity . . . Ground Zero . . .”

“Charlie?”

“Hey, that’s right! Charlie really is my name! How about that?”

Then he shot down the tunnel into the light and got where he was going.

CHAPTER 45

Mikey, the God

There was only so much Mikey could take, so many petty transformation requests from the king and his flatterers that he could stomach. He had once told Clarence that he was not a circus monkey, yet this was his role in the court of King Yax, and although the king promised no leash, he might as well have been on one. Jix had told him to have patience, but that had never been, nor would it ever be, one of Mikey McGill’s virtues.

When he tired of showing Mikey off around the city, the king boarded his sedan chair, carried by four strong subjects, each with one shoulder substantially lower than the other. He made Mikey walk.

“Come, changeling,” the king said, “we shall return to the forge to witness the completion of the statue, and you shall entertain us with your transformations there.”

They made their way through the dancing, singing, partying crowds, and as they crossed the huge grass square, where the shadow of the pyramid fell, Mikey came across Jix.

“This isn’t working,” he told Jix, lagging far enough behind the king so he couldn’t hear. “I can change myself into too many things—he’ll never get bored.”

“Yes, it’s a problem,” Jix admitted.

“And I have a solution,” said Mikey. “But I need you to distract the king so I can get away.”

“Not now, I’m busy” said Jix. “The king’s vizier has vanished, and I have to find him.”

“Why?” said Mikey. “Vari’s a weasel. If you can’t find him, it’s good riddance. I’d be happy to never see him again.”

“Yes, but weasels are sneaky,” said Jix, “and he’s likely to pop out of the mulberry bush at the worst possible time.”

“Look for him later. Distract the king now,” Mikey said. “I promise you’ll be glad you did.”

And so reluctantly, Jix made his way to the front of the sedan chair.

“Your Excellency,” Jix said. “I need to discuss with you the . . . uh . . . the Inca threat to our southern border.”

“What Inca threat?” asked the king. “Why weren’t we informed of this?”

While behind them, Mikey slipped away.

Ten minutes later, the City of Souls was besieged by a creature standing atop the pyramid, and was rocked by a voice so loud, that it shook the ground.

“YAX K’UK MO’!”

All eyes turned to the pyramid, where a fearsome plumed serpent with searing jade eyes peered down from the pyramid peak.

“YAX K’UK MO’!”

The creature looked very much like the carvings and mosaics of Kukulcan, the single most powerful Mayan god. Of course, it did look a little bit different from the artwork, with few extra eyes in the wrong places—but who could expect human artists to capture the likeness of a god?

The king, who was still being briefed by Jix on the nonexistent Inca threat, rose from his sedan chair, shaking in such terror that all his gold rattled. “We are being summoned by the God of the Elements!”

“YAX K’UK MO’,” the god commanded, “YOU HAVE ANGERED THE GODS, AND HAVE MISTREATED MY MESSENGERS. I SUMMON YOU NOW TO MY PYRAMID. DO NOT KEEP ME WAITING!” And the god breathed out fire for emphasis.

Still trembling, the king left his sedan chair and struggled to climb the steps of the pyramid while his entire kingdom watched.

“We are here, Lord Kukulcan,” said the king as he arrived. “We will do whatever you desire.”

“FIRST OF ALL,” the glorious feathered serpent said, “YOU WILL NO LONGER REFER TO YOURSELF AS ‘WE.’ IT’S ANNOYING. YOU ARE AN ‘I,’ JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.”

“Yes, Lord Kukulcan.”

“AND YOU WILL TREAT MY MESSENGERS FROM THE NORTH WITH RESPECT, AND HEED THE THINGS THEY SAY, OR I SHALL PUT THE MIDDLE-REALM IN WORTHIER HANDS.”

“Yes, Lord Kukulcan.”

Then the god addressed the entire kingdom. “KING YAX K’UK MO’ WILL LEAD YOU INTO BATTLE AGAINST THE EASTERN WITCH, BECAUSE IT WILL PLEASE ME TO SAVE THE LIVING WORLD FROM DESTRUCTION.”

“Yes, Lord Kukulcan,” said King Yax. “Whatever you say, O God of the elements, O God of healing, O God of rebirth, O God of—”

“—ENOUGH OF THAT!” said the serpent. “NOW GO AND DO AS I SAID!” Then the serpent roared and hissed and spun and vanished in a fiery burst of flame.

When the god was gone, everyone turned to the king for direction, but it took all his strength just to get down from the pyramid without falling.

As all eyes were on the king, nobody noticed the boy running down the stone steps at the back of the pyramid, trying to make the last of his feathers go away.

Once properly motivated, the king wasted no time in preparing the journey to battle the Eastern Witch. Fearing that someone would install themselves as king in his absence, he decided to take the entire population with him. He even unstuck the wailers from the city wall. “Where I go, the kingdom goes,” King Yax declared, struggling to use the word “I.”

Since Afterlights can squeeze themselves into any confined space, with virtually no added weight, the king ordered the entire population into the vast infrastructure of the Hindenburg—even those with wings, just in case they decided to fly the coop on the way. He installed the completed statue of himself in the stairwell landing, because it was too big, and too tall, to get any farther into the ship. “All my subjects will see its glory as they come up the gangway stairs,” he proclaimed.

While the City of Souls piled itself into the great airship, King Yax gave “the messengers of Kukulcan,” an entire temple, and a phalanx of guards to protect them.

To Nick, however, it felt more like house arrest. Mikey paced, Jix tried to hide his anxiety by grooming himself, and Johnnie-O, who was depressed that Charlie was gone, did nothing but complain.

. . . Fat Alamo, the Trinity, Ground Zero . . .

Charlie’s words stuck in Nick’s mind. He could have dismissed them as the randomness of a spirit in transition, but he knew that one never thought more clearly than at the moment before disappearing into the light. Watching Charlie leave Everlost struck Nick harder than anyone else’s exit. He knew he should have been happy—after all, it had been Nick’s entire purpose to free the souls stuck here—but watching a friend go was always difficult to bear.

Every day Nick was more and more himself. His fingers were emerging from the chocolate. Spots of white appeared on his shirt. Bit by bit, Nick was coming back from the brown. With it, however, came a sense of responsibility, and the kind of heartache he felt upon seeing Charlie go. It was almost easier being the simpleminded ogre, who understood little and had no depth to his emotions.

Since Nick had been given the cryptic message—if it was even a message at all—it left him as the new unofficial leader of the group. It had been a long time since Nick had been in a position of leadership.

“The king thinks the gods will direct him to Mary Hightower,” Jix said. “Which I might believe if the gods had actually spoken to him, but they didn’t.” He glanced over to Mikey, who got defensive.

“What are you looking at me for? I got him to go to war with my sister, didn’t I? Isn’t that what we were trying to do?”