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.”