Hungry Ghosts

by Stephen Blackmoore

  I almost ask him how I can trust him and then realize that’s a stupid question. I can’t. He knows it, I know it. It would just be insulting to ask.

  “How could I possibly refuse such a generous offer,” I say, putting my hand on the side of the nightmare Flintstones mobile. “When do we leave?”

  The bone cars, a dozen at least, rattle across the desert toward the mountains, engines grinding out a low rumble. Plumes of shattered skulls kick up like gravel behind them. Each car is so packed with the dead they hang off the sides.

  The lead car that Bustillo and I are in contains just us and three nasty looking men who I don’t doubt would be excellent at committing just about any sort of violence you’d care to try. They certainly look as though someone did it to them. Like Bustillo one of them was shot in the head, another was opened from throat to gut with a blade, ribs pulled out and his organs hanging like Christmas tinsel, a third had his throat sliced open and his tongue pulled down through the hole. I wonder how he talks with a Colombian Necktie.

  I have to wonder how effective muscle like these guys are here, though. Do these dead feel pain? Fear? Bustillo had to have done something to gain status with them so quickly. Nobody just walks in to a group like this and just says, “Hey, I’m in charge now!” Could it have been as simple as them thinking I can open the mists for them?

  “Who built these things?”

  “No idea.” He yells over the engine noise. “I don’t even know how the damn things work. They were here when I arrived. You say I’ve only been dead a couple of days?”

  “Yeah. I put a bullet in you … Tuesday? I think it was Tuesday.”

  “Feels like months. Did you find the Avatar?” Does he not know? I didn’t see him when I was captured so maybe he wasn’t in one of the cars and doesn’t know she’s here. I’m okay with that.

  “Nope. Haven’t seen her. So what’s with this mist we’re going to? All I know is that it’s a challenge that souls have to pass through.”

  “Izmictlan Apochcalolca. There are supposed to be nine rivers that the souls have to wade across in the fog, but no one here knows if that’s true. They’ve all taken to calling it ‘Devorador de Memoria.’”

  I can hear the capital letters in it. “Eater of Memories? How come?”

  “Everyone who enters returns, but they come back diminished. They know they’ve been confronted with some horrifying truth, but can’t remember what. They can’t remember other things, either. The more they go, the more they lose. Their memories, their names. After five or six times there’s nothing left. I suspect the rivers are metaphorical.”

  “A metaphor for what? A memory-eating monster waiting to ambush you in the fog?”

  “That or something in the nature of the fog itself. When I was alive I studied as much of it as I could, but there’s only so much one can do on the other side. It’s still a mystery.”

  I’m not surprised that Bustillo was looking into it. Even the most ruthless and nasty of mages are digging into the mysteries of the universe. At their core, mages are just academics who found something practical to do with a philosophy degree.

  “And we’re heading into it?” I look behind me. “All of them are heading into it?”

  “All of them. And more.” He points toward the mountains and when I squint I can see them. There aren’t just this handful of dead. There are hundreds. Thousands of them. A sea of people at the base of the mountain have built a makeshift city. The thick fog shrouds the peak high above them.

  And they’re all going to do it because they think I can get them through. He’s brought them a Messiah. Talk about backing the wrong horse.

  “So how is this gonna work?” I say. “I lead them through the fog and into the Promised Land?”

  “Something like that,” Bustillo says.

  “And if I can’t?”

  “Then I guess we nail you to a tree like all good martyrs.”

  “Fantastic.”

  The city that’s sprung up around the mountain is a sprawling mess of slapped together buildings of bone and sinew like some macabre art installation at Burning Man. It’s had hundreds of years to grow, its population getting bigger and bigger and no one ever leaving.

  Bustillo drives the car through the center of the city, slowing down to almost a crawl. Souls openly stare at us, fall in behind as we drive by. Creepy as all that is, it’s nothing compared to the fact they’re not making any sound, just silently marching behind us.

  “Are they always this chatty?”

  “You can only scream in despair for so long before it all becomes routine,” Bustillo says. “And what would they talk about? Nothing ever changes. You’re the biggest thing that’s happened here in five hundred years.”

  “There’s a path up the mountain that we’ll be taking,” Bustillo says. “The car will get us most of the way there. But then we’ll have to walk. From that point it won’t take long to get to the mist.”

  I’m not sure what he’s expecting me to do. Stand there and part the fog like it’s the Red Sea? When we get to it maybe I can make a run for it. I can’t bail without the knife, so I’ll stick close to Bustillo and grab it when we get up there. I don’t doubt he’ll come after me, but if it’s as weird as they say it is I might be able to lose him in it. Provided I don’t get lost in it myself.

  Bustillo doesn’t stop the car. The bone houses disgorge their occupants and the mob swallows them up, growing like a tick on a dog’s nutsack. By the time we reach the base of the mountain and the road winding up its side we have a trail so long behind us that I can’t see the end of it.

  By the time Cortés showed up there were over five million Aztecs. Between him, smallpox, and typhus, they were annihilated in just over fifty years. By the look of things, most of them are right here.

  “The road gets a little bumpy,” Bustillo says. “I’d say buckle up, but these things weren’t exactly built with safety in mind.”

  He isn’t kidding. The cars have no suspension. The bone road was bad enough, but at least that was relatively smooth. Once we hit the mountain it turns to rock and dirt, cratered with potholes. My teeth rattle as Bustillo takes a turn too fast, hits a crater in the dirt that almost sends me flying.

  “So you’ve been up there?”

  “We all have,” he says. “Stood at the edge and stared into the abyss.”

  “And nobody goes in anymore?”

  “I know what you’re thinking. How do we know what happens if nobody goes in? There are people who do. Or, more to the point, people who get pushed in.”

  “Must be hard to punish somebody if they’re already dead.”

  “Exile would be pointless. We’re all exiled. There’s no hardship to it. But going into the mist, well, just the thought of it keeps order in place. More or less.”

  “You’ve seen this happen?”

  “Half a dozen times since I’ve been here. Tossed a couple of them in myself. A few … days? Weeks? Hard to tell time around here. They come back out, missing pieces of themselves.”

  “What was your knack?” I say. Every mage has a knack, a specialty, something that they really shine in.

  “It is … it was aeromancy. Why?”

  When Bustillo flipped the desk to block my shot I knew it was magic, but there are so many different ways to move an object I had no idea what kind it was. He probably just used the air to move it.

  “Just curious.”

  Curious how much he actually knows about necromancy. I’ll go out on a limb here and say not much. There are things I’m still learning about it, and I was born into this shit. For example, I picked up a little tidbit last year on why ghosts deteriorate over time.

  The theory is that when most people die they just go where they’re supposed to go. But ghosts get stuck like water in a plugged up toilet. Over time they fade, losing bits of themselves as more of their soul slowly drains away to their particular Valhalla.

  Which sounds an awful lot like what Bustillo’s talking
about when somebody walks into the mists.

  I wonder what it will do to me.

  The drive up takes a couple hours and by the time the road disappears my back feels like I’ve been running a jackhammer. The fog isn’t far off. It hovers just above a wide plateau above us. The walk gives me a chance to stretch my legs, unkink my back.

  The silence from the amassed dead following us is maddening. Even Bustillo, who was such a Chatty Cathy when he was alive, says nothing. His three goons are just as silent, though I suppose that’s understandable with the guy sporting the Colombian Necktie.

  “What’s their story?” I say, breaking the quiet.

  “Lieutenants of mine,” he says. “Loyal even unto death.”

  “Loyal? Sure they weren’t just bored? I have to wonder how long it will be before they turn on you. Loyalty might keep them going for twenty years or so, but eternity? I’d watch your ass if I were you.”

  “You should probably be more concerned about your own,” he says, acid in his voice.

  Ah, there it is. I know that at some point Bustillo is going to try to kill me. He hasn’t yet because he either thinks I can get him through the fog, or he’s got some plan to use my not getting through to his advantage. Can he use the knife to take my skin? Or does his being dead prevent that? If he thought he could, he’d have done it while I was passed out.

  We reach the plateau and I get to see the mist up close. The mountain ends here. What looked like a pointed peak down below turns out to be a pyramid of black fog. Thin lines of lightning shoot through it, arcs of electricity dancing in its roiling depths. It smells of rain and wet forests, dank with the scent of rotting wood.

  And then the scent changes. Car exhaust and oil. The metallic tang of a desert wind in summer. The salt air of the beach. Every breath I take smells different. But one thing remains constant. It scares the shit out of me.

  I see why they don’t want to go in. A sense of dread comes off it like a static charge. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down and knowing that if you step off you’re not going to survive it.

  The assembled dead fan out around us. The plateau’s nowhere big enough to hold them all, so they spread down and around the side of the mountain, staring at me.

  Panic crawls up my spine. I do not want to go in there. I am not putting myself through whatever meat grinder that place is. I wrestle the fear into submission. No, I don’t want to go in. Yes, I will go in. I don’t see as I have much choice.

  I catch a flash of movement behind me. I’ve been waiting for Bustillo to make his move and it seems this is it. He steps quickly behind me, pulling out Mictlantecuhtli’s blade. He slashes at my neck. One swift movement and he’ll easily sever my spine.

  Only I’m ready for him. The spell I cast isn’t even so much of a spell as just a thing I can do. A while back it would actually have taken some thought, maybe even a full-on ritual with blood and everything. But the last couple of years I’ve been getting better at this sort of thing. I used it on a bunch of corpses on a subway train in L.A. after a crazy Russian lady killed them all with a spell.

  This is a little different, of course. Bustillo’s not a corpse, or a ghost. I’m not really sure what to call him. The important thing, though, is that he’s dead.

  The blade stops centimeters from my neck.

  I won’t be able to hold it long. But then I shouldn’t have to. It’s still magic and I’m burning my reserves. Go too far and I bump up against that other power. I could tap into the local pool of magic, odd that Mictlan would have one, but it feels even more sour and rotten up here than when I crossed over. Drinking that power in would be like gargling maggots.

  “Oh, Manuel. I thought we were friends.” I turn to him. He’s frozen in place, his face straining as he tries to move. “You do recall the bit about necromancy, right? And that you’re living impaired? You seeing the connection here?”

  His three bodyguards move toward me and I lock them in place with a wave of my hand. I can feel my reserves draining. They’ll replenish over time, even without tapping the local pool, but I don’t have time.

  “This was your plan?” I say. “Kill me, hope you can take my power and stroll through the mists on your own? What makes you think you can even wear my skin?”

  “I wasn’t going to skin you,” he says. “Just kill you. No one’s gotten through the mists in hundreds of years. Killing you will send a message to Santa Muerte, to Mictlantecuhtli, that the dead will not stand for this. They will let us through to Chicunamictlan. We have power and we’re not afraid to use it.”

  “Seriously? Since when did the dead unionize? You’re acting like you’re a bunch of striking workers. Jesus, I blew out more of your brain than I thought. What the hell is that going to accomplish? You can’t tell me you don’t know that there’s something seriously wrong with this place. They’re not keeping you out here because they don’t like you, dumbass.”

  I’m beginning to feel like Sergeant Howie at the end of The Wicker Man. Bustillo didn’t promise them a Messiah to guide them through the mists. He promised them a sacrifice.

  Bustillo’s not stupid. I doubt he even believes what he’s telling me. But he does believe he can put himself in charge. He’s already gotten partway there. All these people wouldn’t be here if they didn’t think he could deliver.

  And now that it’s looking like he can’t, there are murmurs in the crowd. An ugly, angry muttering that spreads from person to person like a virus. It begins to sound like rain, then a storm, then a flood.

  “I will see this through!” Bustillo yells. It’s not for my benefit. He’s trying to regain control. But it’s not working.

  Problem is I can feel my control slipping, too. Keeping four dead souls locked in place isn’t taking a lot of juice, but it’s taking enough. Sustaining spells like this isn’t easy. It’s like lifting weights. Sure, you might be able to bench a few hundred pounds, but for how long?

  Bustillo struggles against the hold I have on him. He slips a fraction of an inch. Not nearly enough for anyone to see it. But I know it happened, and from the grin on Bustillo’s face, he knows it, too.

  I pluck the knife from Bustillo’s quivering hand. “It’s been fun, Manuel, but I really gotta go. Thanks for the lift.”

  “He’s escaping!” he yells. “Kill hi—” I reach behind him with the knife, grab his hair with my other hand. I slice the blade from the back of his neck and out through his throat, the blade passing through muscle and bone like it’s pudding. His head pops off and hangs in my hand, mouth twitching, eyes rolling like marbles. His body falls bloodless to the ground.

  The blade is supposed to be able to kill anything, even gods. Can it destroy souls? Bustillo’s head has stopped twitching, so I’m gonna go with probably.

  The crowd surges forward like a tidal wave. The grasping hands of the dead reaching out. I release my control of Bustillo’s goons just as they’re overwhelmed. The rage coming off the crowd is palpable.

  “Hey, here’s the guy who fucked you over,” I yell and toss Bustillo’s head into the crowd. They fall on it like wolves.

  Time I was leaving then. Unfortunately, the only way out is through. I don’t know what’s waiting for me, but I suspect it won’t be good.

  I turn and step into the mists, the gray haze swallowing me up. I have a second where I think I’ve made a huge mistake and then everything fades away.

  I blink at the too-bright lights, my ears ring at the too loud noise. Something’s not right, but I can’t remember what it is. I remember a knife and … smoke? No. Fog.

  “Are you listening to me, Eric? You have to stop doing this,” Vivian says, pouring sugar in her coffee. Her red hair’s long, down to the small of her back. She hasn’t worn it that way in years. Last time I saw her she had it cut in a bob.

  Wait. That doesn’t make sense. That would have been this morning? No. Months ago. I haven’t seen her since I stopped her from being killed in her apartment last year. But she doesn
’t live in an apartment. She lives with her mother in Beverly Hills.

  What the hell is wrong with me? There’s something but I can’t figure out what it is. The memory I had slides off my brain like it’s Teflon. I try to grasp at it, but it pulls away just out of reach.

  We’re in Canter’s Deli on Fairfax in Los Angeles. The place is full of late night diners, people getting out of clubs and bars. In a few hours the crowd will shift to people stopping in to get a bagel on their way to work, old Jewish men and women from the neighborhood coming in for breakfast.

  I’m beat to hell again. Bruised ribs, left eye swollen shut, knee feels like it’s been stomped on by a sumo wrestler. Road rash from … something. I can’t remember how I got this way, but it’s not like it’s the first time.

  “And for god’s sake, put that knife away.”

  Knife? The hell— Oh. Huh. I’m clutching a black, obsidian blade tight in my hand, some antique thing. It feels familiar but for the life of me I can’t remember where I got it. I find a sheath for it in my coat breast pocket and put it away.

  I’ve got two images of Vivian competing in my mind. My girlfriend for over five years now. We’ve been dating since I was fifteen. But I also see a woman who moved on after I disappeared, leaving everyone I knew and loved so that hopefully they wouldn’t be killed because of my own mistakes. But I haven’t gone anywhere. Have I?

  “What happened?” Something slips. The diners around me go hazy for a second then snap back into focus. I’m forgetting something important.

  “You tell me,” Vivian says. “This is getting bad, Eric. Every couple of weeks you do this. Going out and getting the shit kicked out of yourself isn’t healthy. Look at yourself. You need a hospital.”

  “I thought you liked bad boys,” I say. Slowly because the words feel strange in my mouth. I’ve said them before. A weird sense of déjà vu hits me. I’ve had this conversation.

  Vivian and I met because our families were in the life. When you’re in the magic club your dating pool isn’t exactly what you’d call deep. And since dating normals is such a pain in the ass, we don’t do it much. Lying about who and what you are is second nature to us, but eventually anybody you’re fucking’s going to find out. It was nice to know that Vivian and I at least had magic in common.