Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(34)

“Nope. Haven’t seen her. So what’s with this mist we’re going to? All I know is that it’s a challenge that souls have to pass through.”

“Izmictlan Apochcalolca. There are supposed to be nine rivers that the souls have to wade across in the fog, but no one here knows if that’s true. They’ve all taken to calling it ‘Devorador de Memoria.’”

I can hear the capital letters in it. “Eater of Memories? How come?”

“Everyone who enters returns, but they come back diminished. They know they’ve been confronted with some horrifying truth, but can’t remember what. They can’t remember other things, either. The more they go, the more they lose. Their memories, their names. After five or six times there’s nothing left. I suspect the rivers are metaphorical.”

“A metaphor for what? A memory-eating monster waiting to ambush you in the fog?”

“That or something in the nature of the fog itself. When I was alive I studied as much of it as I could, but there’s only so much one can do on the other side. It’s still a mystery.”

I’m not surprised that Bustillo was looking into it. Even the most ruthless and nasty of mages are digging into the mysteries of the universe. At their core, mages are just academics who found something practical to do with a philosophy degree.

“And we’re heading into it?” I look behind me. “All of them are heading into it?”

“All of them. And more.” He points toward the mountains and when I squint I can see them. There aren’t just this handful of dead. There are hundreds. Thousands of them. A sea of people at the base of the mountain have built a makeshift city. The thick fog shrouds the peak high above them.

And they’re all going to do it because they think I can get them through. He’s brought them a Messiah. Talk about backing the wrong horse.

“So how is this gonna work?” I say. “I lead them through the fog and into the Promised Land?”

“Something like that,” Bustillo says.

“And if I can’t?”

“Then I guess we nail you to a tree like all good martyrs.”

“Fantastic.”

The city that’s sprung up around the mountain is a sprawling mess of slapped together buildings of bone and sinew like some macabre art installation at Burning Man. It’s had hundreds of years to grow, its population getting bigger and bigger and no one ever leaving.

Bustillo drives the car through the center of the city, slowing down to almost a crawl. Souls openly stare at us, fall in behind as we drive by. Creepy as all that is, it’s nothing compared to the fact they’re not making any sound, just silently marching behind us.

“Are they always this chatty?”

“You can only scream in despair for so long before it all becomes routine,” Bustillo says. “And what would they talk about? Nothing ever changes. You’re the biggest thing that’s happened here in five hundred years.”

“There’s a path up the mountain that we’ll be taking,” Bustillo says. “The car will get us most of the way there. But then we’ll have to walk. From that point it won’t take long to get to the mist.”

I’m not sure what he’s expecting me to do. Stand there and part the fog like it’s the Red Sea? When we get to it maybe I can make a run for it. I can’t bail without the knife, so I’ll stick close to Bustillo and grab it when we get up there. I don’t doubt he’ll come after me, but if it’s as weird as they say it is I might be able to lose him in it. Provided I don’t get lost in it myself.

Bustillo doesn’t stop the car. The bone houses disgorge their occupants and the mob swallows them up, growing like a tick on a dog’s nutsack. By the time we reach the base of the mountain and the road winding up its side we have a trail so long behind us that I can’t see the end of it.

By the time Cortés showed up there were over five million Aztecs. Between him, smallpox, and typhus, they were annihilated in just over fifty years. By the look of things, most of them are right here.

“The road gets a little bumpy,” Bustillo says. “I’d say buckle up, but these things weren’t exactly built with safety in mind.”

He isn’t kidding. The cars have no suspension. The bone road was bad enough, but at least that was relatively smooth. Once we hit the mountain it turns to rock and dirt, cratered with potholes. My teeth rattle as Bustillo takes a turn too fast, hits a crater in the dirt that almost sends me flying.

“So you’ve been up there?”

“We all have,” he says. “Stood at the edge and stared into the abyss.”

“And nobody goes in anymore?”

“I know what you’re thinking. How do we know what happens if nobody goes in? There are people who do. Or, more to the point, people who get pushed in.”

“Must be hard to punish somebody if they’re already dead.”

“Exile would be pointless. We’re all exiled. There’s no hardship to it. But going into the mist, well, just the thought of it keeps order in place. More or less.”

“You’ve seen this happen?”

“Half a dozen times since I’ve been here. Tossed a couple of them in myself. A few . . . days? Weeks? Hard to tell time around here. They come back out, missing pieces of themselves.”