Dead Things (Eric Carter #1) by Stephen Blackmoore

Author:Stephen Blackmoore [Blackmoore, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2013-02-05T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Vivian orders delivery Persian food from a 24-hour place down on Westwood. I’m wolfing down my second kabob before I realize how hungry I was.

“Good stuff,” I say. “Thanks.”

She grunts something like “You’re welcome” through a mouthful of koobideh. We’ve moved back to our respective corners, the gulf between us bigger than the coffee table could ever fit. I’m sipping grape juice. The tape is off my nose and the anesthetic is starting to wear off, but besides it being a little tender my nose feels fine.

“Tabitha came back to the club after she dropped you off,” Vivian says. “About three hours after. She seemed happy. Bubbly even.” Vivian raises an eyebrow.

“She’s a positive gal.”

“I just wonder what she did in the time it took between dropping you off and her coming back. What do you think she did?”

She’s trying to pass it off as cute and it’s just irritating. It’s none of her fucking business.

“Couldn’t tell ya,” I say.

“Really? And what were you doing?”

“Called up some dead folk. We had a party. I was looking for Ellis.”

She perks up. “Did you find him?”

“Oh, yeah. And then some.” I tell her about the spell that Ellis had cast that ultimately led to his burnout. And what it means if it works and I didn’t do a thorough enough job.

“What exactly did you do to him? Boudreau? I know he died. How?”

“In a very unpleasant way. Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

I tell her. I tell her about taking him to the other side, about bleeding him and feeding his body to the ghosts. About his screams and the way I watched him shrivel and shrink in on himself. How he died. How I laughed. How it wasn’t nearly enough.

Her eyes go inward and she doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then, more to herself it seems than to me, she says, “Okay.” She looks at me, as though seeing me for the first time. I know I’ve lost something.

“I wish you hadn’t asked me that,” I say.

“Me, too. You’re sure you got all of him?”

“I did. There wasn’t a scrap left when they were through with him. No body, no ghost, no Boudreau. But I have to be sure.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Try to summon him at the place he died. His old warehouse down in the harbor. Nothing’s going to come of it, I know. But I have to try. Otherwise I’ll have this nagging at me.”

“You can’t do it somewhere safer?”

“I could try, but if Ellis is right and Boudreau’s still around it means he’s different. Doing it from my hotel room might be safer, but it might not work. I want to be sure.”

“What will you do if he shows up?”

“I’m more likely to get a blowjob from the President.”

“Eric, seriously. If Boudreau is really out there and he was able to kill Lucy like that, he’s not someone to fuck around with.”

“If he killed Lucy he had to have possessed someone. Whoever was there was alive.

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