Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(3)

If I hadn’t made so much noise the sticker on my chest would have let me come in here and walk right on by everybody. Could have caught Bustillo in his bathroom or something. Or I could have used one of the perks of my particular magical knack and popped over to the ghost’s side, walked past Bustillo’s guards and popped back. It’s not fun, it’s not safe, but sometimes it’s damn convenient.

Aside from the fact that the ghost’s side of the world will leech out my life if I stay too long, they’ll try to eat me. With all of the dead here and the ones that have been following me it would be like jumping into a shark tank wearing a suit made out of meat.

But the truth is that I wanted to do this loud and I wanted to do it messy. Word’s been spreading the last couple of months of “The Gringo With No Eyes”. Some scary motherfucker with eyeballs black as midnight asking questions, causing problems when he doesn’t like the answers. I get to be the boogeyman. My newfound reputation has made this trip a lot easier.

Plus I have anger issues.

It’s a big house, lots of hallways going off the foyer, a staircase leading to the upper floor. Finding Bustillo could take time I don’t have. I dig a charm, a small hematite pyramid carved with runes and hanging from a string, out of my messenger bag. I let it dangle from the string and in a few seconds the charm rises, pointing down the left hallway, then veering sharply to the right. I pocket the charm, load a couple more shells into the Benelli and head down the hall.

Twenty feet and a right hand turn leads me to a pair of open double doors. Like the front door, these are heavy oak. Bustillo, a slight man with a balding head and a mustache you could sweep streets with, sits behind a desk in the room, a fat, little submachine gun on the desk in easy reach. Next to that is a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. Both of his hands are in plain view.

Either Bustillo is very stupid or this is a trap. I don’t think he’s stupid.

“Eric Carter,” he says. “Come in, come in. Have a seat.” His Spanish is flawless, cultured, unlike my shoddy American accent. He pours a measure of tequila into each shot glass. He gestures at the chair opposite him. “I won’t shoot if you won’t.”

“Fair enough,” I say and step slowly into the room. I’ve been keeping a low profile in Tepehuanes while I’ve been scoping out Bustillo’s estate, using Sharpie magic to hide from the locals or make them think I’m something I’m not. I’ve never used my name. The fact that he knows it is troubling.

“Inspired move,” he says. “Burning my warehouse. I was wondering how you were going to get my men to leave the estate. You put in so much effort, it would be rude of me not to play along.”

I’m not sensing any active spells, and I’m not seeing anything on the walls, floor or ceiling that might be a magical trap. Of course he could have a claymore sitting under the chair to shoot up, but that seems a bit drastic, even when dealing with me.

I sit, placing the Benelli onto the desk, my hand on the pistol grip, finger hovering over the trigger.

“You were expecting me,” I say.

“I was. Been waiting for weeks. Had I known you would show such caution I would have made myself a more tempting target.”

“This isn’t how this usually goes,” I say. “There’s a lot more screaming involved. Broken fingers, that kinda thing.”

“Oh, I heard plenty of screaming. The men you shot were stealing from me, so you have my thanks. We have all the time we need. The others won’t be back for a while. They think the heroin is important.”

“And you don’t?”

“Only as a tool. Like money is a tool. Or a gun is a tool. Or magic is a tool.”

“You’re a mage.”

“A minor talent at best. Not someone with nearly your standing. Tell me, why do they call you the Gringo With No Eyes? I have heard rumors, but I don’t know if they’re true. Is it the sunglasses?”

“No,” I say and take them off. The whites and iris of my eyes are gone, replaced with pitch black orbs. I tend to wear sunglasses a lot so as not to scare the straights. It’s an unfortunate side effect of a bad decision I made a while back. Kind of like chlamydia.

He cocks an eyebrow, curiosity on his face. “I see.”

“So why’d you send your men away, Mister Minor Talent? You’re either awfully certain that I won’t just kneecap you and make you tell me what I want to know, or you’re monumentally stupid.”

“Hopefully the former. I know where the one you’re looking for is. And I’m happy to tell you.”

Everyone else I’ve talked to has had a little more information—talk to this guy, that guy knows something, maybe see this other guy—but they’ve all just been links in a chain. Breadcrumbs leading me further and further down the trail.

Bustillo is just one more of them. He might think he’s important, they all think they’re important, and him being a mage is just going to reinforce that. But he’s only as useful as what he knows and what he can give me.

I think he’s going to be surprised when he figures that out.

“You’re a mage. You know what I’m here for. You are just full of surprises. And here I thought I was going to have to torture you, or . . .”

I pull a small, obsidian knife from my inner coat pocket. The handle is simple wood and leather, the blade only a few inches long. It’s wicked sharp and I’ve been through three custom sheaths already. I place it on the table. Manuel stares at it, looking nervous.