Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(37)

Vivian and I met because our families were in the life. When you’re in the magic club your dating pool isn’t exactly what you’d call deep. And since dating normals is such a pain in the ass, we don’t do it much. Lying about who and what you are is second nature to us, but eventually anybody you’re fucking’s going to find out. It was nice to know that Vivian and I at least had magic in common.

That’s not necessarily bad. Lots of normals know about us. But those are the ones who know not to talk about it in public. The ones who don’t tend to have short lifespans.

“Well, yeah,” Vivian says, “but I prefer the type who doesn’t get into constant fistfights with drunks. Do I have to get the first aid kit out?”

“Not this time.” I know she’s right. I’ve been doing this crap for a couple years now. I’ll go to a club and find the biggest, most piss-drunk asshole there. Words will be exchanged. Voices will be raised. Eventually we’ll get tossed out by the bouncer and take it out to the parking lot.

Sometimes I lose. Sometimes I don’t. But I don’t use magic. Just fists, a head butt, an occasional kick to the nads. Vivian tells me I’ve got anger management issues, problems with authority.

Yeah, no shit. Ya think?

My parents had me talk to a therapist once when I was twelve. Another mage, of course. We spent a lot of time talking about my feelings, how I view death, what I think comes afterward. He wasn’t really helpful. If he’d been another necromancer, maybe he’d have been some use.

He annoyed me when he kept arguing with me about ghosts and things he called “theory” and I called “my every waking moment.” So I summoned the ghost of his dead grandmother and let her yell at him for half an hour. That was my last appointment.

“I’ve missed you,” I say. I have. I screwed things up so badly with her that I don’t know if I can fix them.

“You saw me this morning,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “But . . . I just miss you.” I put my hands on the Formica table, touch the silverware in front of me. It all feels solid, but it doesn’t feel substantial. Like it’s all a plastic shell. “I feel weird.”

Something snaps in my mind and I don’t know what I’m feeling weird about. This is Vivian and me. I went out and got into a fight and now I’m sitting with her here in Canter’s and goddamn it she’s beautiful. I marvel at how lucky I’ve gotten the chance to be with her. And I wonder what she could possibly see in a train wreck like me.

“Well, yeah. Things are weird right now,” Vivian says. “This shit with that Frenchman is making everybody nervous.”

Jean Boudreau. A mage who’s trying to be like some mafia don, shaking down lesser talents, mages who don’t have a lot of power. Making their lives difficult if they don’t pay up. Or worse.

My parents have been standing up to him and his goons, organizing people to do the same. Getting mages to work together is like herding cats on meth. But they’ve been doing it.

“It’ll blow over,” I say. Every few years some asshole tries this kind of thing and a bunch of mages will decide to stomp on them. This isn’t any different.

“What if it doesn’t?” she says.

“Are you scared?”

“That’s not the point,” she says. “They killed some hedge witch down in Alhambra last week. And the week before that they burned down an airplane mechanic’s business over at the Torrance airport.”

“That was the aeromancer, right? Guy who was charming planes to keep them running better?”

“And they went after him because he couldn’t protect himself. If we had an actual community, this shit wouldn’t happen.”

“Look at you getting all liberal activist.”

“Dammit, Eric, I’m serious. Your parents are doing something about it. My mom is too damn scared to help.”

Vivian’s dad died a couple years ago. Massive heart attack. Nobody found him for over an hour. A little sooner and somebody probably could have brought him back, but there’s only so much magic can do.

I tried finding his ghost, even though Vivian told me not to. Just as well, he didn’t leave one. A good sign, actually. Meant he probably died quick and painless.

“What do you want me to do, Viv? I’m not my parents. They’re good people, but come on. This is their cause, not mine.”

“Do you even have a cause?” she says. “They could use your support, you know. You’ve got more cred than you realize. People talk about you. They could use your help. What if something happens to them?”

“Yeah, they talk about me because I’m one of the two freaks who talk to the dead in this town and the other one’s a fucking psycho Nazi. What’s going to happen, Viv? Boudreau’s not going to do anything to them. He’d get a royal ass-kicking and he knows it.”

“What about Lucy?” she says. My sister. The black sheep of the family. The one with no magic. The one we don’t talk about.

At the mention of her name my mind snaps back and I know what’s happening. It’s the mists. Whatever the mists are they’ve decided I need to see this particular evening.

March eighteenth, three in the morning. Everything is about to go to shit.

“This isn’t real,” I say.