Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(39)

“Because you’re here. Alive, dead, mortal, god. Everyone pays their way in pain, here, Eric. Everyone.” He snaps his fingers.

And I fall.





My house is on fire.

I’m standing in the driveway of the home I grew up in, staggering from a sudden wave of nausea. One of the joyous effects of Alex’s teleportation charm. I’m glad he had it. Driving would have taken me an hour even in late night traffic, but I’m still too late.

There is something I’m forgetting. Even through the terror and realization that there’s nothing I can do, there’s the sense of something vital that’s just out of reach. It surfaces briefly like a whale breaching the waves and then just as quickly sinks back down again, disappearing completely at the sight of the house engulfed in flames.

It takes everything I have not to go running into the fire. The entire fa?ade of the building has burned away. The living room, foyer and kitchen are gone. The second floor collapses as I watch crews of firefighters desperately try to put it out.

I can tell already they won’t make a damn bit of difference. I can feel the magic in the air, residue of massive spells. Some of them undoubtedly my parents’. The rest of it is from a thing I catch out of the corner of my eye, dancing in the flames of what used to be my living room.

Then there’s the death. No ghosts, but the sense of death lingers. Not quite a smell, not quite a sound. Just a feeling I get when someone nearby has kicked the bucket.

My parents and Lucy, I’m sure. I can’t see bodies. The untouched garage is still closed. I can’t tell if their cars are in there or not, and much as I hope they took off for some late night errand, I know they’re in the house.

All this devastation has been caused by a fire elemental. Not a big one. I can see it flitting from flame to flame, hiding in the fire, disguising its shape. The firefighters, normals every one of them, won’t see a thing, but I know what to look for.

I catch a glimpse of another one that hasn’t hatched yet in the remains of the living. They start as eggs, tiny things made of fire that grow to about the size and shape of an ostrich egg before cracking open and letting loose a nightmare beast of flame. They’re good for burning things, nothing else. And unless you’re into arson for insurance purposes, and believe me there are better ways to do that, you only use them to kill.

And I know who set them off in my house.

Jean Boudreau. He’s been fucking with mages and lesser talents for months now, and my parents were pushing back. Vivian said something about an aeromancer whose business burned down. I doubt an elemental was used there, too. A can of gasoline and a match would be less indiscriminate.

I’ve moved on from panic, straight through grief and horror and hit the brakes firmly at rage. I know the way I know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west that I will kill this man. I will tear him to pieces. I will make sure he knows I’m the one who’s doing it to him.

And I will make it hurt.

A car pulls up into the driveway, screeches to a stop. I don’t recognize it, don’t know who’s driving. I ready a fire spell of my own in case it’s Boudreau come to gloat. He wants a fight, I’ll give him a goddamn fight.

But it’s Lucy. She jumps out of the passenger side in sweats and sandals, brown hair pulled back with a scrunchie, sleep still in her eyes. She’s running on adrenaline. Relief that she’s safe, horror that she’s going to see this. I run to her and pull her close, turning her away from the flames.

I can’t shake this feeling of déjà vu, as if this has all happened before. It has an almost hazy feeling, like a memory I can’t quite grasp.

Lucy’s with a woman I don’t know, something strange about her. The feeling that this is a memory stops at her. She feels familiar, but I can’t place her. It’s like she doesn’t belong here. Her face is blurry. Smoke in my eyes, I imagine. Who the hell is she?

“Oh, god, Eric, what happened? Alex called and we came right over.” We? What is this woman’s name? I know her, don’t I? That doesn’t sound right. A memory tugs at me and all I can think is that she feels wrong. Lucy should be alone.

I’m not the hugging type, but I can’t seem to let go of my sister. I should be feeling grief but all that I can seem to grab is anger. My insides are a knot, competing emotions tearing me up from the inside. Relief that Lucy’s safe, rage that my parents are dead, that Boudreau murdered them.

I don’t know what to say. There’s been an accident? I don’t know yet? She’ll see through anything less than the truth, so I don’t bother hiding it.

“Mom and dad were in there,” I say.

At first there’s confusion. The words aren’t registering. And then understanding floods into her, and she pulls away from me, tries to run. I hold on tight, don’t let her go.

“We have to get them out.” Her voice is ratcheting up to a scream. “We have to go in there and get them out.”

“Lucy, they’re gone,” I say. She knows what I can do, knows the things I can feel. She’s got to know I’m telling the truth. “Someone let a couple of elementals loose in the house. They’re still there. If we try going in there we’ll die, too.”

The fact that the elementals haven’t come out of the house to look for Lucy and I is, if not a good sign, then at least a thin, silver lining. That means Boudreau went looking for our parents and not for us. We should be safe from them as long as we stay out here. Once there’s nothing left of the house to burn they’ll put themselves out and fade back into the void.