Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(2)

“If it helps,” I say, though I know the spell keeps them from hearing me, “this isn’t personal.” I unload a couple of shells into the backs of their knees and they drop, screaming. If they get to a hospital soon they might not die. But if they do, well, them’s the breaks.

The front door to the main house is this massive oak monstrosity that looks like it was pulled from a cathedral. Religious carvings all over it. Lots of Virgin of Guadalupe stuff. Considering who I’m looking to find from Bustillo the irony is almost too much to bear.

I dig a couple more shells out of the messenger bag slung across my shoulder and load them into the shotgun. For backup I’ve got a variety of magical charms and a World War II era Browning Hi-Power, an ugly Nazi pistol with decades of evil energy baked into its frame. I can tap into that with my own magic and really fuck a guy up.

I’ve been watching Bustillo’s place for the last couple of weeks trying to figure out how to get close to him. He’s not the sort of person you just make an appointment with. Or someone who’s likely to tell you what you want to know.

I’ve kept a low profile, stayed hidden. It wasn’t until I saw a shipment to the warehouse come in on a couple of semis that I got the idea to set the place on fire.

I won’t have a lot of time before they get back, but it should be enough. At some point they’re just going to write the whole place off as a loss. Tepehuanes doesn’t exactly have a robust firefighting force. The warehouse is the most modern building in the whole town.

I give it less than an hour before they come gunning for me. They should already be getting frantic phone calls to come back. I need to get in, get my answers from Bustillo, and then get the hell out before thirty guys with AKs come busting in on the party.

I put the barrel of the Benelli against the door lock and pull the trigger, blowing a hole the size of a cantaloupe out of the wood. Sure, I could have just tried the handle, but where’s the fun in that? I wouldn’t get the satisfying shriek as buckshot tears into the poor bastard on the other side of the door. I step out of the way and let the inevitable rain of bullets punch through the wood in return.

The guy I shot through the door stares at me as I kick it open, the Sharpie spell too weak to hide me from him, anymore. The door was thick enough to stop a lot of the shot, but more than enough went through to make this a really bad day for him.

He points his gun at me in shaking hands. A crappy, little TEC-9—I didn’t think they made those anymore—and pulls the trigger on an empty chamber. I hit him in the head with the butt of the shotgun and he goes down like a drunk prom date.

There are a lot of ghosts here at the compound. Echoes in the courtyard, mindless recordings of people’s last moments. Every one of them an execution. Bullet to the head kind of stuff. All in nearly the same spot. They blend into each other like fractals, jerking this way and that as phantom bullets enter their heads over and over again. A few Haunts, too. Again, murders. Ghosts trapped in the house until their essence drains away to whatever afterlife they’re destined for.

And then there are the Wanderers, self-aware spirits borne of trauma and tragedy, but not locked to any particular location, they travel from place to place doing, well, whatever they do. Watching mostly, being hungry and looking for some shreds of life to feed on.

That’s the thing about ghosts. There’s not much going on in the land of the dead. Most can’t even see the living, just like most of the living can’t see them.

But they can sure as hell see me. I show up to them like a neon sign that says GOOD EATS. They want life. Any life. Lucky for all of us they’re on that side of the veil. So when I attract their attention they follow me around like hungry wolves after caribou.

Yay for necromancy, huh?

Counting the murdered in Mexico’s drug war is tough. Anywhere from fifty-thousand to over a hundred in the last five years alone. Not all of them leave ghosts. Not all of those ghosts become Wanderers.

But holy fuck are there a lot of them. I picked up a handful in El Zona Norte, Tijuana’s red light district. Murdered prostitutes and student protesters, low level cartel bagmen caught in a cross-fire, police officers, tourists, locals in the wrong place at the wrong time. In each city I’ve picked up more. Some of them I even killed myself. They’ve been trying to keep up as best they can. They’re not fast and I have a car, but they’re tenacious little bastards.

There are at least forty standing behind me, following me around as I shoot the place up. I’ve been seeing ghosts my entire life, so an audience of the dead is nothing new. But standing room only can get a little nerve wracking. I could push them away, but there are so many dead around more would just take their place.

The foyer is terra cotta red tile covered in rugs, wrought iron chandeliers. Real old school Spanish style. I hear two sets of running feet coming down the hallway. At this point, the Sharpie magic’s useless. I’ve made too much noise and the magic can only do so much. I take up a position on the edge of the doorway and wait.

Two men with AK-47s run into the foyer, see the guy on the floor. One of them’s stupid and runs for him, the other one’s smart and turns to check the rest of the room. I put buckshot in his chest before he can fill me full of .30 caliber rounds and another into the back of his buddy’s knee. I kick the guns away from the one who’s still alive, even though I’m pretty sure he won’t be conscious long.