Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(35)

“What was your knack?” I say. Every mage has a knack, a specialty, something that they really shine in.

“It is . . . it was aeromancy. Why?”

When Bustillo flipped the desk to block my shot I knew it was magic, but there are so many different ways to move an object I had no idea what kind it was. He probably just used the air to move it.

“Just curious.”

Curious how much he actually knows about necromancy. I’ll go out on a limb here and say not much. There are things I’m still learning about it, and I was born into this shit. For example, I picked up a little tidbit last year on why ghosts deteriorate over time.

The theory is that when most people die they just go where they’re supposed to go. But ghosts get stuck like water in a plugged up toilet. Over time they fade, losing bits of themselves as more of their soul slowly drains away to their particular Valhalla.

Which sounds an awful lot like what Bustillo’s talking about when somebody walks into the mists.

I wonder what it will do to me.

The drive up takes a couple hours and by the time the road disappears my back feels like I’ve been running a jackhammer. The fog isn’t far off. It hovers just above a wide plateau above us. The walk gives me a chance to stretch my legs, unkink my back.

The silence from the amassed dead following us is maddening. Even Bustillo, who was such a Chatty Cathy when he was alive, says nothing. His three goons are just as silent, though I suppose that’s understandable with the guy sporting the Colombian Necktie.

“What’s their story?” I say, breaking the quiet.

“Lieutenants of mine,” he says. “Loyal even unto death.”

“Loyal? Sure they weren’t just bored? I have to wonder how long it will be before they turn on you. Loyalty might keep them going for twenty years or so, but eternity? I’d watch your ass if I were you.”

“You should probably be more concerned about your own,” he says, acid in his voice.

Ah, there it is. I know that at some point Bustillo is going to try to kill me. He hasn’t yet because he either thinks I can get him through the fog, or he’s got some plan to use my not getting through to his advantage. Can he use the knife to take my skin? Or does his being dead prevent that? If he thought he could, he’d have done it while I was passed out.

We reach the plateau and I get to see the mist up close. The mountain ends here. What looked like a pointed peak down below turns out to be a pyramid of black fog. Thin lines of lightning shoot through it, arcs of electricity dancing in its roiling depths. It smells of rain and wet forests, dank with the scent of rotting wood.

And then the scent changes. Car exhaust and oil. The metallic tang of a desert wind in summer. The salt air of the beach. Every breath I take smells different. But one thing remains constant. It scares the shit out of me.

I see why they don’t want to go in. A sense of dread comes off it like a static charge. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down and knowing that if you step off you’re not going to survive it.

The assembled dead fan out around us. The plateau’s nowhere big enough to hold them all, so they spread down and around the side of the mountain, staring at me.

Panic crawls up my spine. I do not want to go in there. I am not putting myself through whatever meat grinder that place is. I wrestle the fear into submission. No, I don’t want to go in. Yes, I will go in. I don’t see as I have much choice.

I catch a flash of movement behind me. I’ve been waiting for Bustillo to make his move and it seems this is it. He steps quickly behind me, pulling out Mictlantecuhtli’s blade. He slashes at my neck. One swift movement and he’ll easily sever my spine.

Only I’m ready for him. The spell I cast isn’t even so much of a spell as just a thing I can do. A while back it would actually have taken some thought, maybe even a full-on ritual with blood and everything. But the last couple of years I’ve been getting better at this sort of thing. I used it on a bunch of corpses on a subway train in L.A. after a crazy Russian lady killed them all with a spell.

This is a little different, of course. Bustillo’s not a corpse, or a ghost. I’m not really sure what to call him. The important thing, though, is that he’s dead.

The blade stops centimeters from my neck.

I won’t be able to hold it long. But then I shouldn’t have to. It’s still magic and I’m burning my reserves. Go too far and I bump up against that other power. I could tap into the local pool of magic, odd that Mictlan would have one, but it feels even more sour and rotten up here than when I crossed over. Drinking that power in would be like gargling maggots.

“Oh, Manuel. I thought we were friends.” I turn to him. He’s frozen in place, his face straining as he tries to move. “You do recall the bit about necromancy, right? And that you’re living impaired? You seeing the connection here?”

His three bodyguards move toward me and I lock them in place with a wave of my hand. I can feel my reserves draining. They’ll replenish over time, even without tapping the local pool, but I don’t have time.

“This was your plan?” I say. “Kill me, hope you can take my power and stroll through the mists on your own? What makes you think you can even wear my skin?”

“I wasn’t going to skin you,” he says. “Just kill you. No one’s gotten through the mists in hundreds of years. Killing you will send a message to Santa Muerte, to Mictlantecuhtli, that the dead will not stand for this. They will let us through to Chicunamictlan. We have power and we’re not afraid to use it.”