Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(76)

Killing Mictlantecuhtli with the knife isn’t an option. That will just be a sacrifice as far as the magic is concerned, completing the ritual and kicking me out of my own body as his dies and he moves in. Same with Santa Muerte. That will just do the same to Tabitha.

I can’t sacrifice him. I can’t sacrifice her. That only leaves me with one other option.

I shove the obsidian blade deep into my own chest. It parts the jade flesh, punches through the stony bone of my sternum and tears into my heart. I twist to make sure I’ve really got it.

The pain is indescribable. Bone is cracked, my heart is a shredded mess. Green blood floods through the gash, pouring onto the floor. I twist some more, my vision going black, and yank, tearing out a green, fleshy chunk of my own heart hanging onto the end of the blade.

Distantly I can hear Mictlantecuhtli’s screams. Tabitha’s and Santa Muerte’s, too. Pain, panic and rage respectively. It lasts forever. It lasts no time at all.

A burst of green light tears out of the hole, enveloping Mictlantecuhtli. I can feel the jade, his magic, every piece of his personality wrapped up in my soul leaving my body. And in return I feel myself coming back from him.

I had lost more than I knew. Sensations I hadn’t realized I was missing, senses dulled that I hadn’t noticed. Everything is a burst of light and color and sound.

Sound comes back first. Tabitha’s panicked yelling, her screaming into my face, asking me what the hell I’m doing. Santa Muerte’s furious shrieks and accusations. How I’ve destroyed everything, how I’ll pay for it.

I had thought, hoped at least, that I could do this and just turn around and take care of Tabitha, too. But she doesn’t know what I know. All she sees is this idiot on the ground who’s just stabbed himself in the chest and pulled out a chunk of green meat. If I turn around and stab her, I don’t think she’s going to be very receptive to it.

But it’s a moot point, because I can barely move anyway.

“What the hell did you do?” she says, trying to pick me up, see if I’m still breathing. I’m not sure if I am. I must be, right? Because I’m still alive? I think I’m still alive.

I manage to twitch my head up as my vision comes back, seeing Tabitha’s face swimming in front of me, blurred and indistinct.

I look for Mictlantecuhtli, finding him next to me. Turned back to jade, but with one crucial difference. He’s nothing but a pile of green rocks and dust.

Santa Muerte looms over us. Seven feet tall, a demonic skeleton with razor claws at the ends of her fingers, her skin in a puddle around her ankles.

“I will murder you,” she shrieks and her hands shoot out toward us.

I’m actually okay with that. I’ve had a good run. And honestly I really wasn’t expecting to survive this. I’m only sorry I wasn’t able to do the same for Tabitha. Would have been nice if I could have gotten her out of this, too. But the dying bit? I’m okay with that.

So I’m really surprised when a scream bursts from Santa Muerte’s mouth. I turn my head to see that Tabitha has grabbed the knife and punched its obsidian blade through the goddess’ sternum.

No. Oh, no. Tabitha doesn’t know what she’s done. Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe their plan won’t work. But I know that it will. They were putting it together for five hundred years before I came along and fucked it all up.

A red light bursts out of the wound in Santa Muerte’s chest and envelopes Tabitha before she can move out of the way. I watch her burning in the light. Skin and hair going up in flames. With each passing second Santa Muerte is getting smaller while Tabitha burns ever brighter.

I will my legs to move, my arms to push myself up. I stagger over to them, expecting to burn, but to me there’s no heat. It’s a fire that only Tabitha can feel.

She turns her head toward me, panic and confusion in her eyes, her arms and hands shaking, unable to tear herself free.

I reach between them, pull the obsidian blade from Santa Muerte’s chest, and in the same motion plunge it deep into Tabitha’s. The flames sputter for a moment, and I twist, tearing into her heart, making sure I destroy as much of it as I can. This might not work. This might not save her. It might be too late. But maybe I can keep her from becoming Santa Muerte’s new home.

The light twists between them, Santa Muerte catching the flame. Only Tabitha hasn’t stopped burning. They are both being consumed by the light pouring from each other. The snake eating its own tail.

The light grows brighter and I have a sinking feeling I know what happens next. I don’t bother to move. Where the hell would I go? Instead I close my eyes and wait for it.

The world explodes.





I’d just drive the Caddy out to Venice Beach, but after months of dirt and dust and general abuse, it’s not doing so hot. Just as well. I need people. Live people. Normal people. People who aren’t trying to twist the universe into knots. So I hop onto a bus of the L.A. Metro that I keep wanting to call the RTD. Funny how some habits never quite shake loose.

The bus stinks of sweat and food and cheap booze nipped from years of flasks and paper-bagged forties. I sit in the back across from a guy in ratty jeans and sores around his lips. He keeps looking at me. Pensive. Finally says fuck it and pulls out his works to shoot up.

Doesn’t get much more normal than that.

A few not so upstanding gentlemen seem to think this makes him an easy target. I disabuse them of that notion with a little magic and a lot of terror. They get off at the next stop, shaking. One of them has pissed his pants.