Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts) Read Online Free PDF

and had convinced the largest and most prosperous churches in Quito to reach out to the rural communities in Ecuador by launching an ambitious improvement project.
    Today, every one of these villages not only had electricity and clean water, but most of the roads were paved, and the schools had free Internet and the computers to access it. The buildings had shutters that had protected them against the dense fog in which brujos had traveled in their natural forms and cellars where they had hidden during brujo attacks. In the years since the annihilation of Dominica’s tribe, these villages had prospered by creating a food cooperative that now had the largest outdoor market in Esperanza. It shut down at dusk, and as Wayra drove past it, the truck’s headlights briefly illuminated the empty wooden tables and crates that would begin to fill by dawn.
    Just past the market, he turned right and followed a narrow road that twisted down through the hills to yet another village. Mariposa—Butterfly—sat on a plateau that overlooked Esperanza. The town itself was built around two village plazas, with many of the homes near or on one of two small lakes. Wayra and Illary lived in a place on the eastern shore of Lago Mariposa, the smallest lake, shaped like the butterfly for which the town was named.
    The house, surrounded by trees that had been grown in greenhouses and then transplanted here, was visible for a moment in the glare of the headlights, then blended into the landscape, becoming invisible. Four bedrooms, two baths, large enough to accommodate guests. Usually, their guests consisted of Wayra’s family of shape shifters, the three humans he had turned when he had rescued Maddie, or Diego Garcia’s two kids whom he and Illary took care of on occasion.
    Diego was the head of the Guardia—the Esperanza police department—and was like a son to Wayra, who had adopted him when Diego was orphaned at thirteen, after his parents were killed during a brujo attack. He hoped Diego would be able to get away from the Café Taquina at some point, meet them here at the house, and explain things from the official perspective. But the only car in the driveway at the moment was a silver Honda that belonged to Maddie and Sanchez.
    The two of them and their golden retriever, Jessie, were sitting on the front steps. As Wayra pulled into the driveway, Maddie shot to her feet, her long, wildly curly red hair bouncing against her shoulders. “Shit, shit, after we heard what had happened at the café, you guys had us really worried.” She hurried over to the truck, peered inside the windows, front and back. “Okay, everyone accounted for. What the hell really happened at the café?”
    “Let’s talk inside,” Wayra replied, getting out with the others.
    Maddie moved and spoke at the speed of light; Sanchez was more deliberate, measured, and less apt to hug everyone hello until he had flipped his psychic switch to Off. He was a former remote viewer for the U.S. government, and his ability was both a gift and a curse. He had been forced to learn to power down before he touched anyone. When he finally greeted the others, Wayra knew he was in his Off mode.
    They all went inside, Jessie bringing up the rear, her tail wagging, her nose to the floor as she pursued the many shifter scents that permeated the house. Sometimes when Maddie and Sanchez visited, Wayra ran around the lake in his canine form with Jessie and they communicated through images and symbols that convinced him that Jessie was the most joyful creature he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.
    Her unconditional love for Sanchez—and now for Maddie—spoke tomes about the purity of her heart. He often felt that Jessie’s soul was actually human and she had chosen to incarnate in the body of this beautiful dog specifically to explore unconditional love—and to be involved in the evolution of Esperanza. He’d actually asked her this once, a difficult thing to ask in just images and