Hungry Ghosts E-Book

Stephen Blackmoore

• Herausgeber: JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Eric Carter
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 392

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Stephen Blackmoore's noir urban fantasy continues, with Los Angeles necromancer Eric Carter caught in a love triangle that is anything but loving… Eric Carter has always had a difficult relationship with the women in his life. That's hit all-time high since he unwillingly married the Aztec goddess of death, Santa Muerte. Which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't wake up every day worrying if every little marital spat might end with her obliterating his very existence. Oh, and every time he's used his marriage-enhanced powers, his body has slowly been transforming into jade stone. So, couples therapy is definitely not going to help in this situation. Now, Santa Muerte's own complicated romantic past is going to make things even worse. Because her ex-husband has just gotten out of his supposedly inescapable prison. And, of course, her ex is Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec King of the Dead. Pretty soon, Carter finds himself getting propositioned—or rather, threatened. Because both king and queen want him to kill their spouse. Carter is once again in a hard place with his life on the line, caught between two angry gods as his own magic slowly kills him. But there may be one way for him to save both his life and his soul from this pair of dreaded deities… Take them both out. Permanently. Ain't love grand? Praise for the Eric Carter series: "Blackmoore employs Chandleresque prose to smoothly incorporate a hard-boiled sense of urban despair into a paranormal plot, with occasional leavening provided by smart-aleck humor." — Publishers Weekly on Dead Things "In a world where Aztec Mythology, dark magic and grim reality blend together, nothing is what it appears to be... Best of all, Blackmoore's chillingly good storytelling skills ensures that fans will enjoy every step of this adrenaline fueled journey." — RT Book Reviews (Top Pick) on Broken Souls "This series is so fucking good. Blackmoore can't write these books fast enough to suit me. BROKEN SOULS is hyper-caffeinated, turbo-bloody face-stomping fun. This is the L.A-noir urban fantasy you've been looking for." — Kevin Hearne, Author of The Iron Druid Chronicles "Carter's wry voice is amusing as ever, but the grief he carries is palpable, adding depth and a sense of desperation to this action-packed adventure. Readers will be eager for more after this thrilling, emotionally fraught installment." — Publishers Weekly on Ghost Money, Starred Review Series Order: 1. Dead Things 2. Broken Souls 3. Hungry Ghosts 4. Fire Season 5. Ghost Money 6. Bottle Demon 7. Suicide Kings 8. Hate Machine 9. Cult Classic

Leseprobe

HUNGRY GHOSTS

Copyright © 2017 by Stephen BlackmooreAll rights reserved.

Published as an ebook in 2021 by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

Originally published by DAW in North America in 2017.

Cover design by Tiger Bright Studios.

ISBN 978-1-625675-29-3

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

Other Books by Stephen Blackmoore

Acknowledgments

Sometimes books are easier to write than thank you notes. Who do I thank? Everybody? Do I have that many pages to name them all? Will I disappoint someone because I missed them? Will they even care? Will they even notice?

The point is that a lot of people helped me with Hungry Ghosts and though I would like to thank them all, I don’t have nearly enough space here. They answered questions, vetted details, helped me with my deplorable Spanish. But they also helped me get through a rough year that saw this book torn down and rewritten from the ground up.

Thank you to my readers and their infinite patience. I hope this book is worth the wait.

My wife, Kari, for putting up with me while I hammered out draft after draft, tore everything down and started over. Thank you for helping me maintain something resembling sanity. I love you.

Angus and Emma, the two best dogs a guy could hope to have. Even if they do think every mailman and pizza delivery guy is a murderer.

Friends both authorly and not, whose support helped immeasurably. Chuck Wendig, Richard Kadrey, K.C. Alexander, Kevin Hearne, Jaye Wells, Jaclyn Taylor, Delilah Dawson, Lilith Saintcrow, Kat Richardson, Brian McClellan, Kristin Sullivan, and so, so many more.

My agent, Al Guthrie, the Scottish Ninja, whose kindness and stoic demeanor hides a truly dark soul. Respect.

My editor Betsy Wollheim, Josh Starr, and the outstanding staff at DAW. Thanks for helping make this the best book it could be.

R. Andrew Chesnut, PhD, Santa Muerte scholar and all around stand-up guy. His book Devoted to Death is the best scholarly examination of Santa Muerte and her followers out there, and I highly recommend it. It takes an honest and unflinching view of the movement, both good and bad. Anything I got wrong about Santa Muerte or her followers, and there are oh so many things, are all me.

And finally, a shout-out to the Bony Lady, herself. La Flaca, la Dama Poderosa, Señora de las Sombras. I have taken liberties, and I hope she doesn’t mind too much.

Chapter 1

Sharpie magic is the best magic.

I stand on the side of the road, cool fall breeze blowing through the scrub brush. Half a dozen trucks pull out of a gated, hillside compound in the moonlight, kicking up dust and gravel. The men in the truck beds wear ballistic vests, skull-printed face masks, wicked looking guns clutched tight in their hands.

I wave as they go by, but they have no idea I’m here. I’ve got a “Hi My Name Is” sticker on my chest with the words “NO ESTOY AQUÍ” written in Sharpie and pumped with enough magic to keep me hidden from them. I didn’t need to write it in Spanish, the magic doesn’t work that way, but I’ve been speaking almost nothing but for the last two months, and it helps me focus.

They’re on their way down to a warehouse on the outskirts of Tepehuanes, Mexico, just down the road. It holds several thousand kilos of heroin in varying degrees of processing. It’s currently on fire.

I set the fire.

I don’t care about the heroin or the Sinaloa Cartel men entrusted with operating and guarding it. I just need them out of the compound. With them gone there should be about half a dozen men left inside. Plus the one I came to talk to.

The estate of Manuel Bustillo is fairly modest by narco standards. He’s not terribly important in the Sinaloa Cartel. Middleman stuff. Processes heroin, cocaine, meth. I hear he used to handle a lot of pot coming up from the south, but with medical marijuana in the U.S. getting so popular and so much weed being grown inside the states, the cartels have had a hard time moving product. Things are tough all over.

I’m not here because Bustillo is a Sinaloa man, or because he’s a murderer, thug and all around bad guy. I’ve hung out with worse people. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I might be worse people.

I don’t much care about Bustillo at all, actually. I’m here because he’s a stepping stone. A link in a chain. I’m looking for someone, and he’s going to help me find her.

I got his name from a guy in Hermosillo a couple weeks back. And I got that guy’s name from somebody in Ensenada, whose name I got in Tijuana. I found out about the Tijuana guy from somebody in San Diego, who I tracked down from a guy whose arms I broke in an alley behind a strip bar in Los Angeles.

It’s been a busy few months.

Bustillo’s house sits on ten acres of hilltop Durango real estate looking down on rocks and scrub brush. It’s surrounded by an electrified fence and a ten-foot-high, brick wall. Spanish Colonial. Terra cotta tile, fake adobe.

I sling my messenger bag over my shoulder, pick up my Benelli M4 twelve-gauge, and stroll unseen through the gate before the two men watching it shut it up tighter than a nun’s butthole.

The men in the courtyard have no idea I’m here, but once the gunfire starts—and boy howdy is there gonna be gunfire—the Sharpie magic’s going to be pretty useless. Them not seeing me depends on them believing they can’t see me. It’s hard to ignore a guy firing at you with a shotgun at the best of times.

I find a convenient spot out of the way and take a seat. The men walk the courtyard nervously fingering the triggers on their guns. A while later I check my pocket watch, an antique, railroad grade, 1911 Sangamo Special. Aside from being a nasty piece of magic that can twist time into ugly knots if you use it right, it’s a really good watch.

It’s been half an hour. That should give Bustillo’s men enough time to get down to the warehouse and out of my hair. I slide the watch into my coat pocket and pick up the Benelli.

“If it helps,” I say, though I know the spell keeps them from hearing me, “this isn’t personal.” I unload a couple of shells into the backs of their knees and they drop, screaming. If they get to a hospital soon they might not die. But if they do, well, them’s the breaks.

The front door to the main house is this massive oak monstrosity that looks like it was pulled from a cathedral. Religious carvings all over it. Lots of Virgin of Guadalupe stuff. Considering who I’m looking to find from Bustillo the irony is almost too much to bear.

I dig a couple more shells out of the messenger bag slung across my shoulder and load them into the shotgun. For backup I’ve got a variety of magical charms and a World War II era Browning Hi-Power, an ugly Nazi pistol with decades of evil energy baked into its frame. I can tap into that with my own magic and really fuck a guy up.

I’ve been watching Bustillo’s place for the last couple of weeks trying to figure out how to get close to him. He’s not the sort of person you just make an appointment with. Or someone who’s likely to tell you what you want to know.

I’ve kept a low profile, stayed hidden. It wasn’t until I saw a shipment to the warehouse come in on a couple of semis that I got the idea to set the place on fire.

I won’t have a lot of time before they get back, but it should be enough. At some point they’re just going to write the whole place off as a loss. Tepehuanes doesn’t exactly have a robust firefighting force. The warehouse is the most modern building in the whole town.

I give it less than an hour before they come gunning for me. They should already be getting frantic phone calls to come back. I need to get in, get my answers from Bustillo, and then get the hell out before thirty guys with AKs come busting in on the party.

I put the barrel of the Benelli against the door lock and pull the trigger, blowing a hole the size of a cantaloupe out of the wood. Sure, I could have just tried the handle, but where’s the fun in that? I wouldn’t get the satisfying shriek as buckshot tears into the poor bastard on the other side of the door. I step out of the way and let the inevitable rain of bullets punch through the wood in return.

The guy I shot through the door stares at me as I kick it open, the Sharpie spell too weak to hide me from him, anymore. The door was thick enough to stop a lot of the shot, but more than enough went through to make this a really bad day for him.

He points his gun at me in shaking hands. A crappy, little TEC-9—I didn’t think they made those anymore—and pulls the trigger on an empty chamber. I hit him in the head with the butt of the shotgun and he goes down like a drunk prom date.

There are a lot of ghosts here at the compound. Echoes in the courtyard, mindless recordings of people’s last moments. Every one of them an execution. Bullet to the head kind of stuff. All in nearly the same spot. They blend into each other like fractals, jerking this way and that as phantom bullets enter their heads over and over again. A few Haunts, too. Again, murders. Ghosts trapped in the house until their essence drains away to whatever afterlife they’re destined for.

And then there are the Wanderers, self-aware spirits borne of trauma and tragedy, but not locked to any particular location, they travel from place to place doing, well, whatever they do. Watching mostly, being hungry and looking for some shreds of life to feed on.

That’s the thing about ghosts. There’s not much going on in the land of the dead. Most can’t even see the living, just like most of the living can’t see them.

But they can sure as hell see me. I show up to them like a neon sign that says GOOD EATS. They want life. Any life. Lucky for all of us they’re on that side of the veil. So when I attract their attention they follow me around like hungry wolves after caribou.

Yay for necromancy, huh?

Counting the murdered in Mexico’s drug war is tough. Anywhere from fifty-thousand to over a hundred in the last five years alone. Not all of them leave ghosts. Not all of those ghosts become Wanderers.

But holy fuck are there a lot of them. I picked up a handful in El Zona Norte, Tijuana’s red light district. Murdered prostitutes and student protesters, low level cartel bagmen caught in a cross-fire, police officers, tourists, locals in the wrong place at the wrong time. In each city I’ve picked up more. Some of them I even killed myself. They’ve been trying to keep up as best they can. They’re not fast and I have a car, but they’re tenacious little bastards.

There are at least forty standing behind me, following me around as I shoot the place up. I’ve been seeing ghosts my entire life, so an audience of the dead is nothing new. But standing room only can get a little nerve wracking. I could push them away, but there are so many dead around more would just take their place.

The foyer is terra cotta red tile covered in rugs, wrought iron chandeliers. Real old school Spanish style. I hear two sets of running feet coming down the hallway. At this point, the Sharpie magic’s useless. I’ve made too much noise and the magic can only do so much. I take up a position on the edge of the doorway and wait.

Two men with AK-47s run into the foyer, see the guy on the floor. One of them’s stupid and runs for him, the other one’s smart and turns to check the rest of the room. I put buckshot in his chest before he can fill me full of .30 caliber rounds and another into the back of his buddy’s knee. I kick the guns away from the one who’s still alive, even though I’m pretty sure he won’t be conscious long.

If I hadn’t made so much noise the sticker on my chest would have let me come in here and walk right on by everybody. Could have caught Bustillo in his bathroom or something. Or I could have used one of the perks of my particular magical knack and popped over to the ghost’s side, walked past Bustillo’s guards and popped back. It’s not fun, it’s not safe, but sometimes it’s damn convenient.

Aside from the fact that the ghost’s side of the world will leech out my life if I stay too long, they’ll try to eat me. With all of the dead here and the ones that have been following me it would be like jumping into a shark tank wearing a suit made out of meat.

But the truth is that I wanted to do this loud and I wanted to do it messy. Word’s been spreading the last couple of months of “The Gringo With No Eyes”. Some scary motherfucker with eyeballs black as midnight asking questions, causing problems when he doesn’t like the answers. I get to be the boogeyman. My newfound reputation has made this trip a lot easier.

Plus I have anger issues.

It’s a big house, lots of hallways going off the foyer, a staircase leading to the upper floor. Finding Bustillo could take time I don’t have. I dig a charm, a small hematite pyramid carved with runes and hanging from a string, out of my messenger bag. I let it dangle from the string and in a few seconds the charm rises, pointing down the left hallway, then veering sharply to the right. I pocket the charm, load a couple more shells into the Benelli and head down the hall.

Twenty feet and a right hand turn leads me to a pair of open double doors. Like the front door, these are heavy oak. Bustillo, a slight man with a balding head and a mustache you could sweep streets with, sits behind a desk in the room, a fat, little submachine gun on the desk in easy reach. Next to that is a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. Both of his hands are in plain view.

Either Bustillo is very stupid or this is a trap. I don’t think he’s stupid.

“Eric Carter,” he says. “Come in, come in. Have a seat.” His Spanish is flawless, cultured, unlike my shoddy American accent. He pours a measure of tequila into each shot glass. He gestures at the chair opposite him. “I won’t shoot if you won’t.”

“Fair enough,” I say and step slowly into the room. I’ve been keeping a low profile in Tepehuanes while I’ve been scoping out Bustillo’s estate, using Sharpie magic to hide from the locals or make them think I’m something I’m not. I’ve never used my name. The fact that he knows it is troubling.

“Inspired move,” he says. “Burning my warehouse. I was wondering how you were going to get my men to leave the estate. You put in so much effort, it would be rude of me not to play along.”

I’m not sensing any active spells, and I’m not seeing anything on the walls, floor or ceiling that might be a magical trap. Of course he could have a claymore sitting under the chair to shoot up, but that seems a bit drastic, even when dealing with me.

I sit, placing the Benelli onto the desk, my hand on the pistol grip, finger hovering over the trigger.

“You were expecting me,” I say.

“I was. Been waiting for weeks. Had I known you would show such caution I would have made myself a more tempting target.”

“This isn’t how this usually goes,” I say. “There’s a lot more screaming involved. Broken fingers, that kinda thing.”

“Oh, I heard plenty of screaming. The men you shot were stealing from me, so you have my thanks. We have all the time we need. The others won’t be back for a while. They think the heroin is important.”

“And you don’t?”

“Only as a tool. Like money is a tool. Or a gun is a tool. Or magic is a tool.”

“You’re a mage.”

“A minor talent at best. Not someone with nearly your standing. Tell me, why do they call you the Gringo With No Eyes? I have heard rumors, but I don’t know if they’re true. Is it the sunglasses?”

“No,” I say and take them off. The whites and iris of my eyes are gone, replaced with pitch black orbs. I tend to wear sunglasses a lot so as not to scare the straights. It’s an unfortunate side effect of a bad decision I made a while back. Kind of like chlamydia.

He cocks an eyebrow, curiosity on his face. “I see.”

“So why’d you send your men away, Mister Minor Talent? You’re either awfully certain that I won’t just kneecap you and make you tell me what I want to know, or you’re monumentally stupid.”

“Hopefully the former. I know where the one you’re looking for is. And I’m happy to tell you.”

Everyone else I’ve talked to has had a little more information—talk to this guy, that guy knows something, maybe see this other guy—but they’ve all just been links in a chain. Breadcrumbs leading me further and further down the trail.

Bustillo is just one more of them. He might think he’s important, they all think they’re important, and him being a mage is just going to reinforce that. But he’s only as useful as what he knows and what he can give me.

I think he’s going to be surprised when he figures that out.

“You’re a mage. You know what I’m here for. You are just full of surprises. And here I thought I was going to have to torture you, or . . .”

I pull a small, obsidian knife from my inner coat pocket. The handle is simple wood and leather, the blade only a few inches long. It’s wicked sharp and I’ve been through three custom sheaths already. I place it on the table. Manuel stares at it, looking nervous.

“Perhaps it is time for a drink,” he says and lifts his shot glass, his hand shaking a little.

“Perhaps it is.” I’m not worried about poison, my body is crawling with tattoos infused with spells for protection. I have at least three against poison. I think. Maybe four? I’ve lost track over the years.

I take my hand off the shotgun, but hold on to the knife. It’s the more dangerous of the two. We down our shots. If it’s poisoned it’s worth it. It’s damn good tequila.

“I see you’ve heard of the knife,” I say. “Mictlantecuhtli’s blade. The Aztec king of the dead made this for Xipe-Totec, the Flayed God, to carve the skins of his enemies and absorb them into himself. A few quick cuts, toss the skin over the shoulders and everything a person is, everything they know, goes to the one who uses it. You’re not gonna make me use it, are you, Manuel?”

“No,” he says, eyes firmly on the blade.

“I’m glad to hear that. I don’t know what nest of vipers are bouncing around inside your head, but believe me I don’t want you in mine. Now you seem awfully eager to be having this conversation. Why is that?”

“Señora de las Sombras told me to,” he says. Lady of the Shadows. Also known as La Flaca, Señora Negra, La Madrina.

“I’m not looking for Santa Muerte,” I say. Which is true. I know exactly where she is.

A while back I got backed into a corner, and to get out of it I made a deal with an Aztec death goddess. She used to go by the name Mictecacihuatl, Queen of Mictlan, the Aztec land of the dead. In more recent years she’s transformed, recreating herself as Santa Muerte, Saint Death.

Her movement, religion, cult, whatever you want to call it, has spread to over two million devotees throughout Mexico and the United States and across the world, getting bigger every day. She’s seen as the Narco Saint, a protector of killers and thugs, but she’s so much more than that. She’s a protector of the innocent, an instrument of vengeance, and, oddly enough, a love sorceress.

And she’s my wife.

That was the deal I made. Marry my power to hers. Necromancy and a death goddess. I got the pitch black eyes and a ring covered in calaveras on my hand. She got me. I’m her champion, her consort. Neither of which is a job I’m particularly thrilled with. She’s got some other plan in mind for me but I don’t know what it is.

I had a friend, Darius, who told me it was a bad idea. I should have listened to him. He’s had some experience with her, though I don’t know what kind. He had the sort of perspective you’re not gonna get from most people.

Darius is special. He’s a Djinn. Hundreds of years old if he’s a day. He came over to California five hundred years ago with Cabrillo, and his bottle got lost in Los Angeles. Now he uses it as a pocket universe and lets people in from time to time so he doesn’t get bored.

Once I took the deal with Santa Muerte, he and I were on the outs. Should have listened to him. Wouldn’t be in this mess if I had.

The thing Santa Muerte didn’t tell me was that she already had a husband. Mictlantecuhtli, King of Mictlan. Darius told me he was dead. Turns out not quite. Dead gods are more complicated than I thought. It was more like sleeping. Sitting in a tomb in Mictlan, a statue locked in jade.

And by a fucked up piece of cosmic logic—Mictlantecuhtli is the King of Mictlan, but the King of Mictlan is married to Mictecacihuatl and since I’m married to Mictecacihuatl I’m the King of Mictlan—he and I are trading places. I’m getting access to his power. But I’m also slowly becoming jade, the stone replacing my flesh like petrified wood. He’s slowly becoming . . . whatever it is Aztec death gods count as flesh. I don’t really know.

The last time I saw him I was just beginning to change and he was still stuck in his tomb in Mictlan. Now a good forty percent of my body is green stone, flexible, movable, but stone nonetheless.

“Her avatar, then,” Bustillo says. “Tabitha Cheung.”

“Ah,” I say. “Now her, she’s the one I’m looking for.”

Chapter 2

Because my situation with Santa Muerte and Mictlantecuhtli wasn’t weird enough, I met a girl, Tabitha Cheung. Worked at a friend’s bar in Koreatown in Los Angeles. We hooked up a couple of times. She helped me out of a jam.

And then I found out that she’d actually been killed a while back and the only thing keeping her upright was that Santa Muerte had stuck a piece of her soul inside her, turning a mid-twenties Korean waitress from Fullerton into her will made flesh.

When I figured it out and confronted her, Tabitha showed me her true colors. She told me that she’s Santa Muerte, but she also told me she’s a combination of the two of them, blurring together until she can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

That means it’s possible there’s some of Tabitha still in there. I have a lot riding on that.

She walked out and I let her. I’ve wondered since if that was maybe not the best decision I could have made, and boy howdy have I made some bad decisions. Killing her would have just killed Tabitha’s body and whatever was left of her inside it. It wouldn’t have touched Santa Muerte. And I wouldn’t have the opportunity that I have now.

I tried to keep track of her, but she went to ground. It’s taken me months to pick up the trail of men and women she’s seen or talked to. Santa Muerte herself has trouble talking to people in person. Most can’t see her. So she appears to them in their dreams.

But with Tabitha, Santa Muerte gains a physical presence. She can actually see her followers, show them proof of who she represents. Whether operating through an avatar limits her power at all, I have no idea, but I’m not sure how much that matters.

It’s not surprising that Santa Muerte knows I’m down here, and if she knows it, then it’s a good bet Tabitha knows. I’ve made a point of making as much noise as I can to get her attention. I want her to know I’m coming for her. I want her to think she’s got the upper hand. I want her to get lazy. It might be a stupid move, but it’s not likely I could surprise her, anyway, so I’d rather work with what I’ve got.

But if she’s set this guy up with a message for me then it’s not just that she knows I’m in Mexico looking for her. She knows that eventually I’d have come here for him to give it to me. I’ve been herded in this direction from the start.

“You should know she wants very much to see you again,” Bustillo says. “She knew you would be coming here not long after her visit.”

“How long ago was that?”

“A month ago? Little more?”

“What’d you guys talk about? Best ways to dispose of troublesome Federales? The ins and outs of the heroin trade?”

“Tithes, mostly. Sacrifices to Santa Muerte. Spreading her word among the faithful. Señora is powerful, and she has many devotees, but she needs more.”

This is pretty much what I’ve heard from everyone else. Santa Muerte’s looking to consolidate her power, grow her flock. Every day she gets more followers. Among the narcos, sure. But also, oddly enough, among Mexican and U.S. law enforcement, not to mention the millions of men and women who are caught in that crossfire, or the ones who simply see her as an alternative they can understand.

They follow her for different reasons, but a lot of them do it because they think she’ll help when the saints they grew up with and the god they follow won’t.

Santa Muerte will not judge you, will not tell you what you are doing is right or wrong. She will help you with vengeance, she will help you with your rocky relationship, she will help you when the chips are down and there’s nowhere else to go.

Unless she doesn’t. She can be fickle. She is Death, after all.

“All right. So where is her avatar now?” I ask.

“Tepito.”

Of course she is. Tepito is a barrio in Mexico City that has one of the highest concentrations of Santa Muerte devotees in the world. There are others, Tultitlán north of the city, Ciudad Juárez just on the other side of El Paso. But Tepito is where her base is. Where the people who need her most live.

Tepito’s a slum, a massive, blocks wide, open-air bazaar. You can find food, drugs, electronics, guns, phones, computers, anything you can think of. As long as you’re okay with questionably sourced goods and illegal trade, you’re golden.

“You know where in Tepito?” I know of the place, heard a lot about it, but I’ve never been there myself.

He spreads his hands and shrugs. “She didn’t say. Can you answer something for me?” Bustillo says.

“Possibly.”

“You want to kill her,” he says. “Why?”

“Santa Muerte, or her avatar?”

“Both.”

“Santa Muerte murdered my sister. Her avatar, well, she’s got a piece of her in her head. They’re pretty much the same person. You’ve been a devotee of hers long?”

“Many years. Even before I knew it. There is an honesty to her I find refreshing.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Honesty. Right.”

“I have heard some of what she did to you. But tell me. Did she lie, or did she merely keep the truth from you?”

This is actually a question I’ve been struggling with. She’s never flat out lied to me as far as I can tell. When we first met she offered to tell me who killed my sister, Lucy. I didn’t take her up on that offer, the price was too high. So instead she offered me a cryptic clue that wasn’t, technically speaking, incorrect. If I’d taken her up on her offer right then and there, would she have told me the truth? I think she might have.

“No, she hasn’t lied to me. That’s not why I’m going to kill her.”

“Of course not. But she is a product of her time. She has not fully grown into this modern world. It is regrettable that your sister died, but Señora only knew one way to get your attention. You cannot expect her to be anything but true to her own nature, even as she tries to change it.”

“Yeah, and I can’t blame a bear for trying to eat me, either, but I can put a bullet in its brain so it doesn’t.” Something he just said catches my attention. “Wait, what do you mean about trying to change her nature?”

“She hasn’t lied, but she has deceived. That’s new to her. Foreign. She tries to accommodate this new world, but doesn’t know how. Her ways are not—”

“Sane?”

“I was going to say subtle. She may only know death, but she is not the instrument of it. To enlist you in her cause she used the only tools she understood. So, as I said, she has an honesty that I find refreshing. She’s simply death. There’s nothing more honest than that.”

He has a point. Death is the great equalizer. It’ll lay you low whether you’re the richest motherfucker in the world or the lowliest peasant.

“Well, aren’t I lucky.”

“She needs you for something,” Bustillo says. He pours out more tequila for us. “Do you know what?”

“No. And I don’t care.” Not anymore. For a while it was driving me crazy. Second guessing her. Trying to figure out her game. But then I realized, it didn’t matter. Because whatever it is, I’m not going to let it happen. I’m going to kill her. I’m going to kill her husband. I’m going to kill her avatar. I’m going to kill anyone who gets in my way.

“You don’t? It seems you’ve been given a gift. Why not accept it?”

I’ve heard this one before. Everybody seems to think it’s like a fucking Christmas present.

“I know this game. This is where I say, ‘I don’t want it,’ and you say, ‘But the power! The opportunity!’ And I say, ‘You don’t get it,’ because you don’t. It’s not a gift. It’s my sister’s murder. It’s my friend’s death. It’s me trapped in jade. It’s a debt I haven’t paid back, yet. And now I think we’re done here.”

“Yes,” he says. “I am very sorry.”

He says it less as someone offering condolences and more as someone who is apologizing for something he’s done. Or, more likely, something he’s about to do. I don’t give him the chance.

I grab the shotgun and pull the trigger. It goes off in my hand with a thunderous blast that should vaporize Bustillo’s chest, but he’s fast. I feel a flare of magic as he lets off a spell he already had primed, and the desk, a thick, oak monstrosity that has to weigh a few hundred pounds, flips up blocking him and forcing my shot to go into the ceiling.

Minor talent, my ass. With as much power as he’s got I can see why his ass is so chapped that he’s not the one with Santa Muerte.

Buckshot tears through the edge of the desk, and I barely keep from being flattened as it comes crashing down toward me. I kick backward, rolling out of the way and to my feet.

So far Bustillo is the first mage I’ve run into on this trip. It was really just a matter of time and I’m actually a little surprised it’s taken this long. Most of the people whose heads I’ve busted have been your run-of-the-mill narco thugs. Tough bastards, dangerous, but normal. Normal I can eat for breakfast.

I unload the Benelli at him. Five rounds, but I’m not really expecting anything to connect. He’s already on the move and any mage worth the title is going to have defensive spells ready to go at a moment’s notice. Bustillo works for Sinaloa, which is about as cutthroat a cartel as they come. They’re not known for coming at you in a fair fight. He’s going to have something extra special up his sleeve for just such occasions.

Sure enough the buckshot scatters as it gets close, splitting into two streams of pellets and peppering the wall on either side of him with holes. I drop the shotgun, it’s useless, anyway, and scoop up the obsidian blade from where it’s embedded itself into the floor. As I grab the knife, Bustillo gets hold of his submachine gun and stitches a line of bullets across the room.

I drop behind the desk. Like Bustillo I have defensive spells, too. Apparently, they’re not as good as his are. Even with the magic in my tattoos redirecting most of the rounds I get tagged by a bullet in my shoulder. Normally, that would be a problem.

But normal left the building a long time back. The bullet that gets through my protections mushrooms on contact and stops dead. The jade crawling through my body has gone up to my shoulders and down most of both arms. I can’t scratch it, can’t break it. And it’s really good at stopping bullets. A small bright spot in an otherwise fucked situation.

I pull the Browning. I don’t think I’m going to get close enough to him for the knife to be very effective. Even the Browning isn’t going to do much good. It’ll make big holes, but unless I can do something about his magical defenses it’s not going to do a whole lot.

“So was I right?” I say. “You think I’m an idiot for rejecting Santa Muerte’s ‘gift’? I’m thinking you see yourself as a much more worthy recipient of it, yeah?”

For somebody who’s just one more stepping stone to getting what I want, Bustillo’s turning out to be a big pain in my ass.

Bustillo says nothing, but I can hear footsteps nearby. I can feel him drawing power from the local pool of magic. It’s slow, a trickle. He’s hoping I won’t notice. That gives me an idea.

Mages get their power from within and without. We have our own reserves, and we can tap into the ambient magic that infuses a place. Different places have more or less power. Some places are better for certain types of spells than others. And each place has a flavor, a scent to its magic given by its people, its history.

New York tastes like hot metal and granite, San Francisco like hammered brass and filigree. Los Angeles is a twisty mess of cultures and flavors that changes from block to block. The magic here in Durango is wild, violent. Hot and sweet. A product of its history.

“Because, you know, I’ve heard that before. Folks who figure if they can kill me they can take my place as Santa Muerte’s favorite. Better yet, if they can get hold of Mictlantecuhtli’s blade, they can take my skin, take my place as Santa Muerte’s pet. That’s why you were really waiting for me, isn’t it? Wanted some uninterrupted quality time to take my skin?”

When mages draw power from the pool, they’re doing it because their own power isn’t sufficient to do what they want. That’s a plus and a minus. On the one hand, yay, more power.

On the other hand, we’re all drawing from the same, constantly replenishing pool around us. But it doesn’t replenish quickly and there’s only so much of it at a time. Right now, Bustillo is using a drinking straw to suck on a lake. And as long as the power is there, he can keep pulling it in, building it up. Use it for whatever big spell he thinks will take me down.

“You know, a guy tried to do that to me a while ago,” I say. “Carve me up like a chicken and wear me like a suit. I stuck a bomb in his eyeball and blew his head up. The hell of it is, that didn’t kill him.”

“You don’t deserve it,” he says.

“Damn right I don’t deserve it. Nobody fucking deserves it. I’m in the middle of a cosmic threesome I didn’t want to have and I’m the one getting fucked.”

“So give it to me,” he says. “You want to get rid of it. I want to take it.”

“Dude, you have no idea what you’re asking,” I say. “Believe me when I tell you, if I could give it to you, I’d wrap it up in a bow and hand it to you. You think this is going to put you at the right hand of God. It won’t. It would just put you under her thumb.”

Since becoming tied to Santa Muerte my abilities have amplified. Spells I couldn’t do without days of preparation and hours of ritual I can pop off with a thought. I’ve always been able to draw a lot of power, but now I can pull it in like a firehose.

I’ve also got access to Mictlantecuhtli’s power, so casting is easier, but it comes with one hell of a big string attached. Every time I tap into it more of me turns to jade. Casting spells has become a delicate balance of making sure any energy I’m using is mine and mine alone. I touch his power and another chunk of my body turns green. So far it’s mostly hidden under my clothes, but it’s spreading.

So I’ve been really careful about what magic I’m using and how big a spell I’m casting. Casting something powerful just fucks me more. But pulling in power from the local pool? Well, that’s just charging up the batteries. Doesn’t mean I have to use it on a spell.

And that’s what I do. I open the taps and power floods into me. Not because I need it, not because I particularly want it.

But sucking it all in keeps it away from Bustillo. The pool drains like it’s burst a pipe. I can feel him grasping for it, desperately trying to hang onto whatever bits he can grab hold of. But it’s mine. I’ve got it all.

Magical cock-block.

My defensive spells are inked into my skin, not an unusual thing for a lot of mages, but the sheer volume of my tattoos is. I make the illustrated man look like a yoga mom with a tramp stamp. I’ve stored power into my tats, so if I run out of my own juice, or I can’t get anything from the local pool, they’re still going to work. Even the jade hasn’t affected them. They just look like they’re etched into the stone.

They’ve saved my life a time or two. From the sudden flare up and darkening of magic I’m sensing from Bustillo, it looks like his spells are drawing on his own power and the pool to keep running.

He can’t get anything from the pool, so he’s going to draw on his own to build the spell. Only he doesn’t have enough to do it.

I stand and gesture toward the desk with a spell. Nothing big, nothing showy. More importantly, nothing that takes too much juice. I can feel Mictlantecuhtli’s power inside me perk up, but I shove it back down. It’s tempting to use it. It wants to be used.

But aside from the fact that it’ll just fuck me up faster it’d also be like using a flamethrower to take out a mosquito. God power is overkill. And much as I like the idea of Bustillo as a red smear across the floor, it’s a bit much even for me.

I make the desk slide across the room and crash into the wall. Bustillo and I face each other. I’ve got the knife in one hand, the Browning in the other pointed at his head. He holds his empty submachine gun in his shaking hands.

“You’ve lost, Manuel. Or do you want to try throwing the gun at me?”

He lets it slip from his fingers. Must be strange for him. I wonder if he’s ever felt really afraid in his life. Like he couldn’t just magic his way out of a bind.

Magic can give a guy a level of wealth and privilege that even a normal can’t touch. Sure, some guy can build a massive financial empire, but I can think of half a dozen ritual spells that can make it all go away.

Magic’s not about money, it’s about power, it’s about knowledge. We’re special. Top of the food chain. The one percent of the one percent of the one percent. Lots of shit in this world just can’t touch us. Lot of mages get to live in their ivory towers and no matter how much shit they walk through they don’t even get so much as a stain on their shoes.

I’m betting Bustillo’s like that. Probably figured out his power as a kid, honed it as best he could, maybe picked up some pointers from another mage. Bit by bit he grew until he had all the power he wanted.

Oh, sure he could be running a cartel, but why? Big pain in the ass, that. Mages who think on that scale are fucking dangerous, don’t get me wrong, but unless they’re playing some other angle, they tend not to be big thinkers. Why run a multi-billion, worldwide, criminal enterprise when you can spend your time prying out the secrets of the gods instead and still eat filet mignon every night?

Yeah. Bustillo’s that kind of guy. I can see it in his eyes. I’ve seen that fear before. I’ve felt that fear before. If I were a better man I’d just kill him. He knows that’s where this is headed. But I’m tired and I’m pissed off and I don’t much like him. So instead I feed that fear.

“I could carve you up, Manuel.” I trace the air with the knife like I’m filleting a steak. “Slice your skin from your bones with Mictlantecuhtli’s blade and put it on like I’m putting on a jacket. I could take you with me. Everything you are, everything you have would live on after a fashion. It’s maybe not immortality, but something of you will survive in me. Would you like that?”

Bustillo, eyes wide and body quaking from fear. I’ve cut him off from the pool, and his own power is next to nothing now. He’s used it all up. I’m still drawing power from the pool, pulling it down faster than it can fill back up. There’s nothing there for him.

“Or I can shoot you. Got a round in the chamber with your name on it. Well? I asked you a question, Manuel. What’ll it be? Do you want to live on? Or do you want to die?”

“Live,” he says. “I want to live.”

The fear has taken him and I bet if I told him to beg for it, he’d do exactly that. It’s not just that he’s afraid to die, though he’s sure as hell that. It’s that he’s run up against the limits of his own power and arrogance. That’s broken him more than anything else possibly could.

“Too bad,” I say and pull the trigger.

Chapter 3

I pull my car, a ’73 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, out from where I’ve hidden it half a mile away from Bustillo’s compound. I got it off a whackjob necromancer who was kidnapping Voodoo Loa and stitching them into his soul. I took him down in a bar in Texas and took the Eldorado for my trouble.

I drive down the rocky hill from Bustillo’s compound toward Tepehuanes, the throaty rumble of the Cadillac’s V-8 echoing through the darkness. The Caddy’s been unintentionally mothballed for about a year and it feels it. Even with new pads and rotors the brakes aren’t great, the engine sounds like it needs another tune-up and the rag-top is so thin you can see light through it.

I had to abandon the car on a dock in San Pedro when I took it over to the land of the dead and didn’t have enough magic to bring it back. Kind of like if you do valet parking and you lose your stub.

I was being chased by a fire elemental at the time and had my ex-girlfriend and a burnt-out hobo of a mage in the car with me. It was kind of a stressful day.

The other side of the veil is pure entropy. Life drains away, magic leeches off into the fabric of the place. So by the time I got the car from the other side and off the dock the gas in the tank was as combustible as water, the metal was starting to pit, the rag top was falling apart and the tires were about ready to turn into dust.