Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(48)

“What’s wrong?”

I shake her off. “I’m fine.”

I knew this was going to happen eventually. I need sleep and food. The Adderall is only going to carry me so far and any spells I know that can keep me going have a nasty price. The drugs are actually safer.

“No, you’re not. How long have you gone without sleeping? Days? And what about food? You need rest.”

“I am not sleeping here. Or near you.”

“Eric, I’m not going to— You know what? Never mind. I’m going to take a nap. You do whatever the hell you want to do. Sleep. Don’t sleep.” She puts out her hand and an apple appears in her palm. “And maybe have something to eat.”

“I was wondering where you got that apple.” I don’t make a move to take it.

“Jesus, Eric.” She rolls her eyes and puts it on the ground in front of me. “You’re not Snow White, I’m not the Wicked Witch.” She goes over to one of the larger crystals on the side of the road, sits down against it, closes her eyes. “And it’s not a goddamn apple. Wake me up when you pull your head out of your ass.”

“That could be a while.”

“Don’t take too long. That Ahuizotl’s still out there. And you’re not getting any less jaded.”

“I see what you did there.” She doesn’t say anything in response. I pick up the apple, look it over. I’ve never been good at conjuring. Not a lot of mages are. We’re great at bending reality around but making something out of nothing is a whole other level.

Knew a guy in Philadelphia who made a killing on the séance circuit by conjuring watches, rings, bracelets, shit like that. He’d do this ‘Spirits, show me a sign,’ shtick and make them rain down on everybody. Inevitably somebody would insist that one of the pieces had been buried with their dead grandmother.

I worked with him for a few weeks. I’d be behind the scenes talking to actual ghosts and feeding him information. Made a lot of money for a while. But then he ran into a demon he’d tried to cheat twenty years before and ended up as a wall decoration.

I take a bite. She’s right. It’s not an apple. The consistency is like an avocado, but it tastes like custard. Before I know it I’ve finished the whole thing. I don’t seem to be in any danger of passing out until a prince kisses me, but I am damn tired. Even with the Adderall buzzing through my skin exhaustion is threatening to pull me down.

To hell with it. Tabitha’s right, whether I like it or not. I need sleep. I lie down against one of the crystals, bunching up my jacket to use as a pillow. I’m out in seconds.

___

“Jesus, not you again,” I say.

Alex / Mictlantecuhtli sits across from me in a dimly lit bar that I know I’ve been in, but can’t quite place. Strong 1930s vibe, jazz quartet playing on a stage. It isn’t until I see the guy behind the bar, a massive black man with arms like tree trunks hitting on some redhead, that I figure it out. Darius.

“Why are we in Darius’s bar?” The bar was the last place I saw the Djinn back in Los Angeles. I’d only been there twice when it looked like this, and not for very long either time. It’s a pocket universe inside his bottle that he changes around from time to time and lets people in by opening portals scattered around Los Angeles. Just because he’s trapped in his own little world doesn’t mean he can’t be social.

Before I left L.A. he’d had the place done up as CBGB’s in New York. He was big into punk in the late nineties but he didn’t have a great idea what the place looked like. I took a trip there and brought him pictures. During the time I was gone his tastes had shifted from punk, and vomit in the bathrooms, to jazz and speakeasies.

Alex looks around this recreation from my memory and sips at a glass of scotch in front of him. Balvenie ’78 from the bottle sitting on the table.

I pick up the bottle. “Now that’s just mean,” I say.

“Got some memories about that, don’t ya?”

A few. Tabitha snagged that bottle of scotch from Alex, and we said we were going to drink it together. Took a while before we got to that point. It was good. But now when I think of it all I can see are Tabitha’s lies and Santa Muerte’s face.

“So what are we doing here?”

“I like the vibe,” he says. “Nice music. And it’s good to see Darius again. Even if it’s only by plucking him out of your head.”

“You are really starting to— Say that again?”

“Darius and I. We go way back. He never told you?”

I was banned from Darius’s bar once I got married to Santa Muerte. This was before Mictlantecuhtli started showing up to me.

I think about it and realize that Darius did tell me. When I met Santa Muerte he was the one I went to looking for information. He said he knew her back before she became Santa Muerte. Told me Mictlantecuhtli was dead, for a given value of dead, of course. Said he’d met them a long time ago.

I assumed that was all bullshit. Darius isn’t known for being big on the truth, though he’s not exactly a liar. I figured he heard about them through some kind of demigod grapevine or something. But if he actually did meet them . . .

“Anyway, I’m not here to dredge up old times and get all maudlin over some castaway Djinn,” Alex says. “I’m here to tell you that what you’re doing is a really bad idea.”