Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(55)

“Bits, mostly. Images, thoughts, knowledge. I’ve pieced together more than I’ve actually gotten from her. Like I said, there are gaps.”

“Maybe gaps about him?”

“Some, yeah. I know she loved him intensely. They were married for thousands of years.”

“Really? She seemed kind of bitter about it.”

Tabitha frowns. “It’s hard to tell with her, sometimes. They didn’t always get along? How did you put it? It’s fucked up, like Sid and Nancy fucked up?”

“Cemetery love. I’ve had a few of those relationships.”

“You still do.”

“Like I need reminding.”

I tap at the stone some more. The magic in it traces along the carvings, stronger in some spots, weaker in others.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any dynamite in that messenger bag, would you?” Tabitha says.

“Yeah. Just not sure I should use it.”

“Wait, seriously? You have dynamite?”

“Better, actually.” I dig through the bag, pushing past Zip-loc bags of grave dust, a vial of Four Thieves Vinegar to ward off disease, a chicken foot amulet for protection against demons and a severed thumb I got off an Icelandic Seiemenn that I can’t remember what the hell it’s for.

“Here we go.” I pull out a small green marble the diameter of a quarter. “I got this from a Bruja in L.A.”

Tabitha’s face turns sour. “Oh. Her.”

Tabitha met the Bruja, Gabriela Cortez, when we went in to Tabitha’s bar to find a shapeshifting Russian mobster. The mobster killed Tabitha, though if he hadn’t there was a good chance Gabriela would have.

“You saw her for like two minutes,” I say. “How much do you even remember from that night, anyway? You were dead for most of it.” At least I thought she was. I also thought she was normal at the time.

“The night’s fuzzy. I was less me than I was Santa Muerte at the time. I just know more about the Bruja through Santa Muerte’s memories than you do, obviously.”

“Yeah, I think I’m siding with the Bruja on this one,” I say. “She didn’t turn out to be Santa Muerte’s avatar.” She did try to kill me, though. Which, to be honest, is not that rare an occurrence. “Before we do this, I have to take some precautions. If those demons are still in there that’s gonna be a whole lot of trouble.”

I dig a depression into the dirt road about twenty feet in front of the tomb with the heel of my shoe. Another minute of rummaging through my messenger bag and I find a half-empty bottle of Stoli. It’s an impromptu spirit bottle, a ghost trap. Some poor schmuck died in Darius’s bar and left a ghost he couldn’t get rid of. I did the old Djinn a favor and trapped the ghost.

I’ve been meaning to let it go, banish it to wherever it needs to be, but I keep forgetting. It hasn’t exactly been high on my to do list. The volume of the bottle isn’t important. When it comes to spirits you can fit a surprising number of them into a really small space. Demons, too.

I set the bottle into the depression and tilt it so it doesn’t wobble and the opening faces the entrance to the tomb. I draw a circle around it in the dirt with my foot, unscrew the cap and set it aside. Finally, I pour salt into the circle, and add a couple of drops of blood from my thumb.

I can’t see the ghost inside, but I can feel him. Small, insignificant, scared. I kinda feel sorry for him. I don’t even know his name. Probably feels like an eternity in there. Trapped with nothing to do but bang around against the glass like a fish in a tiny aquarium. Suck it up, pal. Things are tough all over.

Normally I wouldn’t have to go through this much trouble. But I need to set it for bigger game than just a ghost, and using my own magic to bait and set the trap might just be a really bad idea. This way I only have to tap a little bit and this small ritual does the rest.

“One makeshift spirit bottle half-filled with the finest Russian spirits a gulag chain gang ever had the misfortune to drink.”

She bends down to look at the bottle. “If it works, it’ll suck in all the demons?”

“That’s the idea.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Then we won’t have anything to worry about again ever. But don’t worry. It’ll work just fine.”

The trap set, I turn my attention back to the door. There’s a space in the carving of Mictlantecuhtli’s mouth. It’s not large, but it’s deep. Deep enough for me to shove the marble into it and seat it firmly. The marble’s keyed to me, so it won’t just go off if I drop it.

“Might want to stand back,” I say. We both get behind a column of quartz about ten feet away. I’ve been pretty close to these things when they went off, but I don’t want to take a chance that the blast won’t kill us, too. Maybe I’m paranoid, but these things can leave a hell of a mess. I prime and trigger it with a thought.

A tremendous flash fills the cavern as the marble explodes. When the blast fades Tabitha starts to look around the edge of the column and I pull her back. I learned the hard way that the show’s not over yet.

A sound of rising wind punches through the air with a sonic boom that rattles my teeth. Dirt, dust, anything that isn’t nailed down in this section of the road gets pulled in like a black hole to end with a muffled pop. I can feel the force tugging at my clothes, shifting the quartz column we’ve sheltered behind.