Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(38)

“What are you talking about?” she says.

“This already happened. Nineteen ninety-five. Alex is going to come through that door any second now and he’s going to tell me that I need to get home. My house is on fire. My parents are inside. He’s going to break every rule we have and use a one shot teleportation charm he bought out of the back of some guy’s Buick in Vegas to make me disappear in front of all these people. It won’t get into the news because mages have people in the papers and the networks and they’ll block it.”

Vivian looks at me, eyes wide. “I—What?” Alex runs into the restaurant right on cue.

“Told ya. So, is this all in my head? Or are you actually a thing?”

“Eric, I’m your girlfriend,” she says. “What are you going on about?”

“No, you’re not. And god, I wish you still were. But we both know that boat’s sailed. You’re a memory, maybe. Or something that’s tapped into my memories?” I pull the obsidian blade from my pocket. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

I lunge across the table, grabbing the back of her head and pulling her forward as I shove the knife deep into her chest. She tries to scream, but I’ve punctured a lung and all that comes out is a wheeze.

For a sick moment I think I’m wrong. That I’ve had some weird hallucination and it really is nineteen ninety-five and I’ve just murdered the woman I love.

No. I’m right. I have to be right. Even now the magic of the mists are making me doubt. Making me forget. Why I’m here, what I’m doing, who I am. I twist the blade hard and everything comes back into focus.

“How fucking dare you use Vivian against me. I don’t know who you are or what you are, but goddamn it I am not letting you win.” Vivian looks up at me, wide-eyed and horrified. The diners around us are staring at me, frozen in fear.

And then Alex begins clapping.

“Bravo!” he says, walking across the restaurant toward our table. Vivian, the diners, the waitresses, they all evaporate into smoke. Silence crashes down around us. In seconds it’s just Alex and me in an empty restaurant.

“So which one are you?” I say. “The real Mictlantecuhtli, or just the piece of him stuck in my soul?”

“Neither, actually,” he says. “I’m here to guide you. Everyone who comes through here faces their demons. They win against them. Or they don’t.”

I can guess what happens when they don’t. They get kicked out of the mists, diminished, stuck. All those souls out there who tried and failed and tried again only to come out missing chunks of themselves. So why didn’t any of them make it through?

“And you’re my demon?”

“One of oh, so many,” he says.

“You do this for everybody who comes in here?”

“Everyone gets a guide. I didn’t exist until you came in here, and I’ll stop existing once you’re gone. Your own personal Virgil.”

“Personalized concierge service for the dead? Nice.”

When Mictlantecuhtli took Alex’s form he was indistinguishable from the real one, flaws and all. But this thing isn’t quite right. It looks like Alex, talks like Alex. Except . . . he’s a little too Alex. Skin too clear, teeth too straight. Some details are off and as I think of them they clarify. He becomes more like the real Alex the more I remember him.

“You’re pulling all this from my memories,” I say.

“Yes.”

“I have some pretty fucked-up memories.”

He smiles the way a hungry wolf that’s just cornered a rabbit might smile. “Oh, yes, you do.”

“Why hasn’t anyone else gotten through?” I say, trying to change the subject and keep him talking. Maybe I can find a way through here that doesn’t involve me reliving the past.

“The mists were locked when Mictlantecuhtli was imprisoned,” he says. “And now you’ve unlocked them.”

“So all those souls backed up out there? They’re going to finally get through.”

“Some of them. Possibly even most. They still have to go through their challenges. Everyone who comes through here does.”

“Even the king of Mictlan?” I say, hoping a little bit of name dropping will get me to the front of the line.

He nods. “Even the king. This is the last stop before reaching Chicunamictlan. There are nine rivers you must traverse. Each one is a window to your past.”

“Nine rivers, huh? Real ones? Or, like, metaphorical ones?”

“Depends on the person. Some people, it’s rivers. Some people, it’s snakes. Some people, it’s all the regrets and mistakes they made in their lives that they can’t take back.”

“I’m in that last category, aren’t I?”

“Do you have a problem with snakes?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then yes, you are. And the sooner you continue the sooner you can finish.”

“You’re like Mister Roarke on Fantasy Island. Where’s your midget?”

“That’s an interesting way to put it,” he says. “I’m a greeter of sorts. A facilitator. We usually don’t explain what’s happening to the dead who come through here. You’re special.”

Maybe that’s my loophole. “If I’m so special why am I going through this?”