Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts) (37 page)

“That was a dark and terrible time for us. But especially for Maddie.”

“And when Maddie was able to survive one month after another, I started cheering for her. Dominica never had a host like her.”

“If it hadn’t been for Dominica, Maddie might never have met Sanchez.
Brujos
changed the course of all our lives and for that I’m grateful, Ricardo.”

“The other day when I tasted you? I discovered you’re pregnant with twins. And the souls haven’t yet entered their bodies.” Then he fussed with the bed he’d made on the pew in front of hers and settled into it, vanishing from her view.

Twins?

4.

One moment,
Further
raced forward like a stallion on steroids and Lauren, now driving, pumped her fist in the air. Then they struck something, the impact knocked Ian out, and he came to in a cloud of dust that drifted through the open windows, Lauren slumped over the steering wheel.

Merchandise surrounded him, some of it on floor-to-ceiling shelves, most of it on the floor. Rolls of toilet paper and paper towels tumbled off
Further
’s hood. A can of baked beans rested against the windshield wipers. He was pretty sure he was in the market where he’d seen Tess in the early part of his hallucinogenic fest.

The Segunda Vista had long since worn off, all of this was real, palpable. He tasted the dust on his tongue, felt it at the back of his throat. He heard something rolling across the market floor, felt the solidness of his body as he got up and moved over to Lauren.

“Lauren, hey, c’mon, wake up.” He patted her face, but she didn’t move. He touched his fingers to her carotid and felt frantically for a pulse. Faint, almost not there. “Shit, you need a doctor.”

He quickly squeezed behind the steering wheel, pumped the gas once, turned the key in the ignition.
Further
wheezed, backfired, lurched forward, and promptly died. Ian shot to his feet, slung their packs over either of his shoulders, then picked up Lauren and carried her off the bus. He moved as fast as he could through the disheveled aisles, kicking cans and boxes out of his way, talking to her, begging her to stay with him. Had her head hit the steering wheel? Had she had a heart attack?

She didn’t stir. Her head hung limply over the side of his arm, her mouth open slightly. He could hear her quick, shallow breathing. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead and upper lip like perforated lines. At the front of the store he put her into an empty grocery cart. He glanced back and could see the hole that
Further
had punctured in the whiteness, the edges jagged, the color of metal, white stuff like snow or dust drifting through the air around it.

He heard an explosive crackling sound and suddenly the rest of the whiteness around the hole blew apart, as if detonated, and for seconds, he glimpsed moonlight, stars. Then the market started falling apart, crumbling like a cookie, pieces of it raining down over him, over Lauren. Ian raced for the door, the cart clattering across the floor, then across the earthen sidewalk outside, and he shouted,
“She’s dying, I need a doctor, hey, is anyone here? Please, shit, c’mon, please, she needs help.”

Everywhere he looked, he saw dead birds, hundreds of them blanketing the ground, and then he saw mobs armed with torches and Christ knew what else, racing toward him from every direction. Forget a hospital or clinic, he thought. He needed to get somewhere safe.

Behind him, a great, heaving, unnatural screech sundered the air and the market collapsed completely, concrete and wood and dust flying up, forming a cloud as huge and unnatural as the whiteness had been. It obliterated the moonlight and provided a barrier between him and the mobs. Ian tore forward, screaming for help, praying there was someone in the church nearby who could hear him.

“Don’t die, please don’t die, Lauren. Stay with me, I know you can hear me.” The cart’s wheels clattered across stones and packed earth. His mind emptied of everything.

The door to the church suddenly flew open, a blue and green parrot fluttered out into the twilight, and Tess and Wayra tore down the steps, toward Ian. Even in this strange light, he could tell Tess had lost weight, her cheekbones as sharp as razors, the flare of her hips chiseled away. Her blond hair hung loosely, a tangle. And she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Slim,”
he shouted, and ran toward her, and she barreled into his arms and nearly knocked him over.

They clung to each other, the scent and feel of her as familiar to him as his own skin and bones. “My God, my God, you’re here,” she whispered over and over again. Then she wrenched back from him, her face ravaged with emotion, and turned to her mother. Tess tried to rouse her, just as Wayra was doing.

“She needs medical help,” Ian said, his voice riddled with urgency. Up the street, shouts rang out. Through the unnatural cloud, he saw the flickering lights of the mob’s torches.

“The hostiles,” Wayra hissed, and scooped Lauren out of the cart and tore toward the church.

Ian and Tess raced after him, their arms around each other, Tess intermittently sobbing and asking what had happened, how had he and Lauren gotten into El Bosque.

They sprinted into the church and Ian slammed the massive wooden doors. Not enough, he thought. They needed more protection. A crowd like the one outside could easily break through these doors. He looked around frantically, spotted an industrial-sized broom nearby, grabbed it, and slid the metal broomstick through the doors’ handles. Then he backpedaled, his eyes traveling up to the stained-glass windows, so many of them, but at least they started six feet up from the floor. If the horde broke the windows, they wouldn’t be able to climb into the church unless they had ladders. But they could hurl those torches, he thought, and set the interior on fire.

He spun around and hurried over to where Wayra had set Lauren, on a blanket on the floor. A tall black man came over with another blanket and a pillow. “If she’s going into shock, you need to keep her warm and elevate her legs.”

“Who’re you?” Ian asked.

“Ricardo.”

“Ricardo,” he repeated. The
brujo
? What was he doing here? “I won’t even ask. You have medical knowledge?”

“Some. From a host. But there’s nothing in the church that will help her and there’s no hospital left in El Bosque. The crazies burned it. There’s a clinic not far from here, but the staff has probably fled.”

Tess suddenly said, “I can’t find a pulse, her heart’s not beating.” Her wild, panicked eyes impaled Wayra. “You have to turn her. Your shifter blood will save her.”

Wayra hesitated. “I can’t bring the dead back to life, Tess. She doesn’t have a pulse.”

“You have to try,” Tess begged. “She might still have a faint pulse, we don’t know. We don’t have a stethoscope. Please, Wayra. Just
try.
”

Ian tore open Lauren’s bag, pulled out her stethoscope, and went over to Lauren. He mimicked what he’d seen her do and detected a faint—almost nonexistent—pulse. “She’s still with us, Wayra.”

The shouting outside got louder, the mob had moved much closer. Ian made a beeline for the closest window, the only one with a circular pane of clear glass. He could see them now, the burgeoning herd of crazies torching cars, trees, buildings, anything and everything.

Ian spun around. “Get on with it, Wayra. Fast. The crazies are nearly on top of us.” Then he ran over to the rear pew and struggled to move it up against the door. Ricardo hastened over to help. The sucker was heavy, but Ricardo’s host, or virtual body or whatever the hell he was, proved to be as strong as he looked. They shoved and pulled, shoved and pulled until the pew stood up against the door.

“You think it’ll hold?” Ian asked.

“It should. It’s heavy enough.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but thanks for helping,” Ian said, then returned to the others, Ricardo behind him.

Wayra’s hands pressed against Lauren’s forehead. Ian knew that as soon as light shot from his palms, Wayra would bite his own tongue hard enough to make it bleed and then sink his teeth into Lauren’s carotid, infusing her body with shifter blood. But nothing happened. Wayra rubbed his hands together again, hard and fast, and touched his palms to Lauren’s heart.

Nothing.

“Jesus, do something,” Tess sobbed.

Wayra tried again, but the outcome was the same. He finally rocked back on his heels, misery etched in his face, and just sat there, staring down at Lauren.

“Sanchez can’t flip off his psychic switch,” Wayra said quietly. “Ricardo is stuck in his virtual body, the chasers can’t get into the disappeared area, the council can’t reverse what’s happening. And I’ve lost the ability to turn anyone.” He turned his gaze to Tess. “I can’t help her.”

Ian pressed his fists against his eyes. He blamed himself. If they hadn’t taken the Segunda Vista, if he hadn’t suggested she ask the Pranksters for help, if they had been escorted out of the area by the cops, as Leo and Pedro were, perhaps she would still be alive. It tore him apart when Tess dropped to the floor next to her mother, shaking her, sobbing, begging. Then she slipped her hands under her mother’s back, lifting her off the floor, pulling Lauren’s body against her, and rocked and sobbed.

Ian went over to her, touched her shoulder, and started to draw her away from Lauren’s body. But a hail of stones crashed through one of the stained-glass windows and something monstrously huge slammed against the door.

Then two things happened simultaneously—the first torch sailed through the broken window, into the church, and a fierce wind rose, whipping through El Bosque with such tornadic frenzy that the windows rattled, the door shook. Ian ran over to the torch and stamped it out. He moved to the window but couldn’t see anything except sand swirling through the air.

“Ian,” Ricardo shouted.

He raced to the front of the church where sand was blowing under the door and starting to accumulate on the floor in small drifts. He and Ricardo frantically pressed sheets and blankets and pillows against the crack to stop the flow of sand, but the wind blew so hard that their efforts were useless. Sand struck the door, windows, the roof of the church, the sound like that of a thousand rats clawing to get in.

“Where’s Kali?” Wayra shouted.

“She flew out when we ran out of the church and didn’t return,” Ricardo said.

“Behind the altar,” Ian yelled. “No windows back there!”

Wayra picked up Lauren and he and Tess tore toward the altar, with Ian and Ricardo right behind them.

Wayra set Lauren on the floor, between the altar and the wall. Ian and Ricardo moved two of the smaller pews onto the elevated area—one on their right, the other on their left—and flipped them on their sides so the four of them were now enclosed in a small square. Ian leaped over the barrier to snatch the last two blankets off a nearby pew, and tossed one to Tess, the other to Wayra, and they covered themselves and Lauren’s body the best they could and huddled with their backs to the wall. The blankets might protect them from flying glass, but if the roof collapsed, they would be crushed.

He and Tess pressed up so close to each other he could feel the wild pounding of her heart.

Then the first window exploded and the tempest roared into the church.

What Is Remembered

If time is an illusion, if reality is created by our own consciousness, can this consciousness ever truly be extinguished?

—Robert Lanza, M.D.,
Biocentrism

Eighteen

Ghost Train

1.

The ghost train didn’t run on anyone’s timetable. Midnight came and went and Charlie, Karina, and Newton still waited in their virtual forms, outside the old depot in downtown Esperanza. They stood in the shadows of the abandoned building, between the road and the tracks, so that both were visible.

The narrow cobblestone road ran through a neighborhood of family-owned shops, cafés, and several bars where music pumped from open doorways. A young, hip crowd spilled onto the sidewalk, their laughter ringing out. Some of them crossed the street and Charlie watched them, decked out in tight-fitting jeans and colorful shirts, sweaters and jackets, the women with their flowing hair, the men with their cocky laughs.

He wondered what it would be like to be their age again, young twenties who didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Hadn’t they heard about what had happened in El Bosque? Or at Café Taquina? Didn’t they have any idea what the hell was happening in the city, how these events threatened its very existence—and theirs?

“They don’t want to think about it,” Newton said, also watching the crowd outside the bars. “When your personal Armageddon looms, it’s sometimes easier to just order another beer.”

Irritated that Newton poked around inside his private thoughts, Charlie snapped, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that, Newt. It’s intrusive.”

Newton, who now looked like a European tourist in jeans, a pullover sweater, and a worn leather jacket, just rolled his eyes. “Charlie, you’re such an open book that I don’t even have to reach into you to read what you’re thinking.” He gestured dramatically toward the young hipsters. “Their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents lived through the dark years of
brujo
seizures. Most of them probably lost relatives to
brujos.
But it’s been more than four years now and memory is short. When they hear about weirdness at the Café Taquina, in El Bosque, when they hear the
brujo
sirens, they tune it out. If the
brujos
are back, if some corrupt chasers are moving portions of the city out of the physical world, they don’t want to know about it. That’s how it is, Charlie.”

“That’s not how it is for his granddaughter and Sanchez,” Karina said.

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. “Maddie’s in her twenties and Sanchez is in his early thirties.”

“They’re new to the city. And they’re exceptions.” Newton rocked forward and sank his index finger into Charlie’s chest. “Everyone connected to
you
is an exception.”