Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(74)

“I don’t care what happens to you, vermin,” Santa Muerte says. “But if you don’t murder him right now I will make your eternity in stone a nightmare you can’t possibly imagine.”

“She killed your sister,” Mictlantecuhtli says, continuing to get close. “Everything that’s happened is because of what she’s done. I’ve seen your pain. I’ve seen what you’ve been through. Lucy and Alex dead. Vivian hates you. She used Tabitha to move it all along. I know how much you want revenge. Killing her will fix all of this.”

His eyes never waver from mine. He steps in close, the blade inches from his chest. He’s either really confident or really stupid. Possibly both.

“I like his pitch better,” I say to Santa Muerte. “But he’s closer.” I lunge, the knife snaking out to his chest. The blade will cut anything, will kill anything. It should slice through him like a perfectly cooked steak. If I can take him out, hopefully I’ll have enough time to do the same to Santa Muerte before I turn into an ornament for a Zen garden.

That’s when Darius’s spell holding my memories at bay unravels and I remember it all.

___

“The thing you gotta know,” Darius said, “is that Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl can’t leave Mictlan. They’re stuck there.”

“Then how did they even talk to me?”

“Son, you think I’m actually sitting here having this conversation with you? I’m stuck in a goddamn bottle buried someplace in L.A.”

“Point taken,” I said.

“It’s actually pretty goddamn impressive that Mictecacihuatl has been able to rebrand herself as Santa Muerte. Had to start small once everything went to shit, but she’s done good for herself. She’s been invading dreams, moving shit around, getting people all worked up over her for the last few hundred years. And now look at her. She’s a savior, she’s a devil. Nobody can shut up about her.”

“Okay, so she can’t get out,” I said. “She gets herself an avatar. Now she can move around.”

“Not quite. She can influence her avatar. She’s connected to her the way a transmitter’s connected to a receiver. But she can’t completely rule her. She’s still her own person. What she needs is to swap places with her avatar.”

“Swap places,” I said. “You mean the way Mictlantecuhtli and I are swapping places.”

“Exactly. It looks more obvious on you because what I did to him with the jade is transferring over to you, too.”

“Tabitha’s becoming Santa Muerte the way I’m becoming Mictlantecuhtli?”

“Right now, it’s swapping. You’re turning into a rock, Mictlantecuhtli’s turning to flesh. But the point isn’t to be a swap. It’s to be a replacing. But that part doesn’t happen until there’s also a sacrifice.”

“The obsidian blade,” I said. “It’s a sacrificial knife. But . . . wait a minute. They’re not trying to get Tabitha and I killed. They’ve been trying to get me to kill the other and . . . Oh, goddammit.”

“I know that look,” Darius said.

“They are the ones who need to be sacrificed,” I said.

“You and that girl are vessels. They’ve been grooming you. Seeding you. When you kill them, they will become you. They’ll kick out your souls, or eat them, or whatever, but you’ll just be shells with new occupants. They’ll leave Mictlan, travel to the living world. Once they do that, they can do whatever the hell they want. Probably try to pick up where they left off five hundred years ago. I can tell you there’ll be a lot of blood, a lot of torn out hearts.

“Your sister? She’s dead because they knew it would piss you off and make you come running. All that distrust they’ve been sowing in you? That’s to get you so mad you want to kill them both. They been feeding you this bullshit and you’ve been eatin’ it up.”

“And Tabitha? Did Santa Muerte just promise her life?”

“I doubt it. That girl’s got her head out of her ass more than you ever did. Probably promised she’d be more, do more. Make a difference. Probably showed her what was wrong with Mictlan, told her she could help change it. I figure she went along with it even though it got her hands dirty. Necromancers don’t seem to have problems getting their hands dirty.

“You lot, necromancers, y’all go in one of three different directions. Seeing all that death changes a person. There are the batshit crazy ones, the cynics, and the idealists. I’m not sure if you’re the first or the second, but she’s definitely the third.”

“And why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I said. “You could have said something when I came to you to ask about Santa Muerte the first time, over a fucking year ago. I came to you when I thought I had to take her deal to get Alex back from Boudreau. Why didn’t you tell me then?”

He put up his hands, trying to calm me. “I couldn’t. I wanted to. I wanted to tell you all about it. I—”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You didn’t tell me because you wanted me to do your fucking dirty work. You didn’t tell me because you knew at some point I’d be here looking to take them out. You couldn’t do it. But you figured I could. Jesus, you’re just as bad as they are.”