Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(16)

It takes me a moment to remember what Xiuhtecuhtli’s shtick was. He renewed the sun once every fifty years or something. Priests would take a victim up a mountain and at the right time, carve out the poor bastard’s heart and stick a fire in the empty chest. If the fire caught, yay! Happy times. Except for the guy burning on the altar, of course. And if not, the Tzitzimimeh, monsters or demons, something like that, would come down from the sky and eat everyone.

I’m betting those priests made damn sure that fire caught.

“I’ll have to get me some cigars, then.” I slide the lighter in my pocket.

“Do not joke. That is a proud god you hold. Do not waste his gift. Now go to Mictlan and do what you have agreed.”

“Sure. I’ll jump right on that.” I need to get some sleep. Speaking of which, I need to find a new hotel. Dammit. Maybe I should just move on. Keep heading south.

We don’t seem to have drawn any attention, yet, and I honestly don’t know if anyone looked if they’d even see Quetzalcoatl, gods do weird shit like that. But they’d sure as hell see a couple dozen smoking corpses.

I pick up my bag and head toward the Cadillac. Quetzalcoatl has sucked up all the trash and dirt in the parking lot to make his form and the ground is scoured clean.

“I did not give you permission to depart,” Quetzalcoatl yells, his voice booming. I answer him with my middle finger.

I open the Caddy’s driver side door and toss my bag in and the shotgun onto the seat. If he wants to play games he can knock himself out. For whatever reason he wants Mictlan destroyed, he needs me to do it. And if he’s just given me the remnants of a dead god to do it with, I’m thinking he doesn’t have a whole lot of other options.

Police will be here eventually, and I really don’t want to have to explain all the bodies. I wonder what they’ll think did it. Probably a rival cartel. Burned bodies pop up with alarming frequency these days.

I pull out of the parking lot, Quetzalcoatl watching me with his coal-red eyes, his tattered wings flapping lazily. I don’t know what feathered serpent body language looks like, but if I were to bet on it, I’d say he’s pissed off at me.

I watch him in the rearview mirror as I get onto the street, and once the wheels touch the pavement his body crumbles, leaving nothing behind but a pile of burning trash.





I gas up the car a couple hours later in Salinas de Hidalgo, exhaustion pulling me down like an anchor. I crush an Adderall onto a discarded receipt on the dashboard and snort it. It won’t last as long, but it will hit me hard and fast, and that’s what I need right now. I’ll follow it up in an hour with another pill that should last me for the rest of the drive down to Mexico City.

I debate pulling over and sleeping, finding another hotel room. But my paranoia is kicking into high gear and I don’t want to be caught like that again. Any place I stop along this road is just going to leave me exposed. And it’s not like Quetzalcoatl taking out Bustillo’s men solves my problems.

I’ve pissed off a lot of people in the last couple of months, and I know some of them are still looking for me. I’ve given them the slip so far, but they have long memories. Once I get to the city it’ll be a lot easier to hide.

But there’s more to it than just paranoia. There’s the feeling that I’m getting close. That this is almost done, for good or ill. I haven’t had this feeling in fifteen years.

The fact that I’m slowly turning into a statue isn’t why I’m doing this. Sure it helps, but even if I wasn’t, I’d be on this same road making the same plans.

When my parents were killed I hunted the man down who did it. I waited for him with a car full of leaking propane tanks and when he stepped out of a warehouse in San Pedro I shoved a brick onto the gas pedal, ran it into him and set off the propane. It didn’t kill him. I fed him to the ghosts for that.

I’m doing it again. This feels like sitting in the dark, packing the car full of propane. Santa Muerte murdered Lucy knowing I’d come looking for revenge, knowing she could steer me in whatever direction she wanted. My sister’s murder was nothing more than a means to an end. I don’t even care why, anymore. Or even what happens to me. I just want Santa Muerte destroyed, Mictlantecuhtli back in the ground where he belongs, and Tabitha, my one, big loose end tied up and squared away.

Revenge is one hell of a motivator.

The Adderall burns in my nostrils and a few minutes later I can feel the buzz starting behind my eyeballs. My mouth goes dry and my sinuses open up. I get that jittery feeling of fake confidence. I can drive all night. I can outpace the cartels chasing me down. I can get to Tabitha, get to Mictlan, set the world on fire. Everything will be just fine.

I know it’s all bullshit. I have to remember that. Have to force myself. Confidence in this game is dangerous. The second I think I know what I’m doing, give in to that screaming Adderall voice and its promises, the euphoria, the confidence, I’m fucked. The Adderall focuses me, keeps me awake, but it’s a lying sonofabitch. Tomorrow I’m going to pay for it. Right now I need it.

The next five hours go by in a blur. I crank the volume on the one tape stuck in the car’s dilapidated cassette deck, a regrettable collection of Norte?o music I picked up in Tijuana. I can’t get the damn thing out of the machine.

Half the tracks are narcocorridos, songs glorifying the cartels, making them sound like fucking Robin Hoods instead of mass murderers. If I weren’t tripping balls I wouldn’t be listening to this crap. So I’m rocking out while I speed down the highway to Movimiento Alterado’s “Sanguinarios del M1,” a peppy little number where some narco in Culiacán goes on about how awesome it is to kill people. The accordions really tie the song together.