Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(62)

“No. It’s not like that.” But it was like that. When I started all this, all I was thinking of was killing Santa Muerte, Mictlantecuhtli, and even Tabitha. Burn the place down after? Sure, sign me the fuck up. Salt the earth, never look back.

But now? I don’t think I can do it. “I didn’t even realize what I was signing up for,” I say. “Last year, when I left your place to talk to the Santa Ana Winds? Turns out he’s got a connection to them. He’s a wind god, they’re wind spirits. I got what I needed and in return I promised to burn my home down.”

We stop at a rise, and I can see Chicunamictlan more clearly. It really is fucking huge. Nearby are a handful of buildings. Too small for villages, too big for compounds. Fields of corn, groves of lime and avocado trees.

I don’t see any livestock, but of course they wouldn’t have any. The Spanish introduced cattle, and why would they need them, anyway? They’re all dead. But then why the hell would they need corn? Or anything else for that matter?

“Turns out the wind knew about my connection to Mictlantecuhtli before I did,” I say. “I didn’t know it would lead to this.”

“So of course you said yes.”

“I needed information. They had it.”

“Do you ever think about consequences?” Tabitha says.

“I did what I had to do. I ran into Quetzalcoatl in Zacatecas and he gave me the Zippo. Said it’d burn anything. Figured I’d give it a try on the island.”

“I understand why you want to kill Santa Muerte and Mictlantecuhtli,” she says. “I even understand why you want to kill me, but you can’t do this. You know that, right?”

I don’t know exactly when I decided I wasn’t going to let Mictlan burn, but I know I won’t. I take this place down what happens to all those souls? Do they burn along with it? Do they get ejected into the ether?

When it comes to death I’m used to being the smartest guy in the room, or at least the guy who knows what the hell is going on. Someone kicks, I know they’re dead, but not, you know, dead dead. Their soul goes somewhere or it sticks around. They don’t get destroyed unless something actively makes it happen. But I’ve only dealt with ghosts, spirits in transition. Souls who’ve moved on? Above my pay grade.

The souls in Mictlan are just people. I might not like some of them, but people are people wherever you go. Some of them are good. Some of them aren’t.

None of them deserve to be on the receiving end of a genocide.

“Yes. And I don’t want to. I think Quetzalcoatl knows that, too, which is why he sent the Ahuizotl to keep tabs on me. But if I survive this trip and I don’t burn down Mictlan, Quetzalcoatl hunts me down. I’m already trying to get out of a jam with a pair of psycho gods. I don’t really want to get into another one.”

“So you’ll let thousands of souls burn for your convenience. Nice.”

“Oh, screw you. You think I haven’t thought about this? Do I want to do it? No. Do I want Quetzalcoatl coming after me? Also no. You know how I get out of this without lighting all this shit on fire? The answer is, I don’t. I suck it up and do the right thing and keep this fucking lighter in my pocket. I’m a lot of things, Tabitha, but I’m not a mass murderer.”

“Just the regular, everyday, one at a time kind, right?”

She’s not wrong. I’ve killed a lot of things that could easily be called people, whether they were human or not. But it’s rich coming from her.

“Stones and glass houses,” I say. “Every one of Santa Muerte’s murders is on you, too. Now that we’ve firmly established that we’re both horrible people, are we done? Or would you like to shoot me in the face again?”

She wants to say something, I can tell. Her face twists into an ugly sneer. “I can see why Vivian hates you,” she says, and heads down the hill toward Chicunamictlan.

“Yeah? Well, you are . . . too. Shit.”

“I’m sure you’ll hit me with a stunning riposte, eventually, Eric,” she calls over her shoulder. “Staircase wit. You should look it up.”

Somewhere, deep inside, I can feel Mictlantecuhtli’s power stirring. I think it’s laughing at me.

___

When Tabitha knocks on the door of a house on the outskirts of Chicunamictlan and the occupants see two people covered in dried gore they freak out for about thirty seconds before they realize they’re talking to their queen’s avatar. Then they freak out for entirely different reasons.

Their entire demeanor is subservient, respectful, afraid. She’s polite, pleasant. They don’t seem to know what to do with that.

Their names are Tenoch and Mahuizoh, a man and a woman. They’re dressed simply, like many of the Aztecs I’ve met on the other side of the mists. They offer us food, water. But more importantly they offer us baths.

Turns out dead Aztecs don’t have indoor plumbing. Who knew? Instead they have a stone tub with a firebox beneath it and a rooftop cistern.

“Does it rain in Mictlan?” I ask Tabitha.

“About six months of the year,” she says. My surprise must show on my face because she says, “What, you think it doesn’t have weather because it’s the land of the dead? The souls who come here are what give it shape. They want weather, they get weather. Who knows what it will be like when the new ones finally get here.”