Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(53)

“And now?”

“Now it’s gone. When she came to me it was like finding a sister I never knew I had. But now I’m not sure I want that connection back. The piece of her inside me is just me now. And when I think about her voice it feels like—”

“Gaslighting?” I say. “She lies, Tabitha. You know that. She’s lied to me. She’s had you lie for her.”

“She’s the most honest thing I know.”

“Yes. She’s a thing. She’s not human. She’s death. Nothing more honest than that. But it’s when she’s not being death that there’s a problem.”

I consider my words. I feel like I’m talking to a spooked horse. There’s a chink in Tabitha’s devotion to Santa Muerte and I want to worry it open, a little bit at a time. Too much too fast and it could all break down.

“What would you do if you didn’t get that voice back? That connection?” I say.

She gives me a sad smile. “What does it matter? It’s not like I can stay away from her forever. Even with this trinket on my arm. This thing ends one of two ways and you know it. I either go back to her or you kill me.”

“What if there was another way?”

“You mean kill her and let me live? I still have part of her in me, Eric. If she dies and I don’t, I don’t know what will happen. But I don’t think it will be good for any of us. I’m still not going to help you kill her.”

“Will you stop me?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Fair enough.” It’s not much, but it’s a start. I don’t want to have to kill her. I don’t know what she is or who she is, but she’s not what I thought she was.

Of course, says that voice in the back of my mind, she could be lying now, too. I rub the bridge of my nose where the headache is growing. I’m tired of all this. Tired of the paranoia. Tired of the betrayals. I would like to be able to trust somebody. But something tells me that’s not going to happen any time soon.

“She loves you, you know,” Tabitha says. “As much as she knows how. I’ve felt it. She’s been alone for such a long time.”

“I know. I figured that out a while ago. It’s fucked up, like Sid and Nancy fucked up. She’s not human. She’s not going to feel the way we do. The fuck does love even mean with her? Love the way a dog loves a bone? Love me enough to murder my sister to get my attention? That’s insane to me. But it isn’t to her. I think she loves me for what she can use me for. She’s got a plan. And I’m a big chunk of it. You know that, too. Hell, you might even know what the plan is.”

“I don’t,” Tabitha says. “That’s one of those gaps I was talking about. I have some of her memories, but there are things she won’t share with me. That’s one of them.”

I feel sorry for her. I want to tell her about Darius, but what would I say? An eight-thousand-year-old Djinn told me what’s going on but he made me forget, and wow is that less than helpful, or what? Yeah, that’ll fly like a lead balloon.

And say I could remember. Should I tell her? Probably not. Darius could be blowing smoke up my ass. Or he could have it wrong. Maybe he doesn’t really know as much as he thinks he knows. Too many variables, too many risks, too many ways for things to go shit wrong. But at least it’s a direction.

Instead I say, “Did she say why she chose you?”

“I told you, I’ve got the same kinds of powers you do. She needed a necromancer.”

“For what?” I say. “What’s the long game? You’ve asked, haven’t you? Wondered?”

“Of course, I’ve wondered. I just—” Confusion in her eyes. “It never seemed important.” The drumming of her fingers on her leg speeds up. She’s questioning. Nervous.

“So you never asked.”

“Once,” Tabitha says, her voice cracking. “She wouldn’t tell me.”

I don’t want to push her any more. I tell myself it’s because that might force things too far too fast and it’ll backfire. That all I need right now is for her to be questioning things. The seed’s planted. Let her worry on it.

But I wonder if I just don’t want to hurt her.

“How far to Mictlantecuhtli’s tomb?” I say, standing up. My knee creaks and my back screams at me with a knot of pain. I ignore it as best I can. I put out my hand and she takes it. She holds my hand a little longer than is strictly necessary before I help her up. Or maybe I hold hers. I can’t tell.

“An hour maybe,” she says. “Are you sure you want to try to get in there?”

“‘Want’ isn’t exactly the word I’d use, but yes. I don’t know if killing him will stop the progression of the jade, but I have to try.”

“It could speed it up.”

“So could all sorts of things. I’m trying not to think about it.”

She starts down the road and pauses mid-step. “If nothing else,” she says, not looking at me, “please know that I’m sorry that it came down to this. That it happened at all.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”





I can tell we’re getting close because I can feel Mictlantecuhtli’s power uncoil inside me like a snake catching the first rays of the sun. It’s a big knot of want. It wants to get into that tomb, wants to reconnect with Mictlantecuhtli. It knows it’s in the wrong body and it wants very much to fix that.