The Spider Thief

by Laurence MacNaughton

  Wheezing, DMT headed inside and turned off the music. “Get up off the floor, fools. Mauricio here gonna shoot some footage.”

  Sweet looked eager. “Shoot some what?”

  “And we all goin’ to be in it,” DMT said.

  Mauricio paused with the camera in one hand and a wide-angle lens in the other. “Uh, no. I’m just going to shoot the skyline, that’s all.”

  A chorus of disapproval erupted from the three of them. They waved him inside.

  “Come on,” DMT said. “All we been doin’s sittin’ here. Let’s shake it up. Put us in the movie.”

  “That’s right.” Sweet grinned. “Put us in the movie.”

  “Get all three us in it,” DMT said.

  Mauricio sighed and went inside. Jermain reached for the camera and Mauricio yanked it away.

  “Don’t touch. Zeiss lens. This is not some RCA junk from eBay.” Mauricio took up a position against the far wall, facing them. “No rubber bands.”

  Sweet folded his arms. “You goin’ to turn that on or what?”

  Mauricio fired up the camera without another word. The lighting in here was all shadows and glare. But the thing he loved about this camera was how well it accommodated rough conditions.

  He got a clear frame around Sweet’s pocked face. DMT and Jermain crowded in around him.

  “Okay,” Mauricio said, “We’re rolling.”

  “For real?” DMT said. “Just like that?”

  Sweet’s face took on a sneer. He narrowed his eyes to glittering slits and tilted his head back, looking down into the camera. “Whassup. This is Sweet.”

  Behind him, the door silently swung open, showing nothing but blackness beyond. The wide-angle lens exaggerated the motion, turning the doorway into a yawning abyss.

  Strange, Mauricio thought. He’d just been out there a minute ago, and there was a porch light outside that door. He was sure of it. Now, it was pitch black.

  Sweet grinned and looked at Jermain. “Say somethin’, dawg.”

  An arm came up behind them, from outside. A black sleeve and leather glove, holding a pistol fitted with a silencer. It popped and Sweet collapsed on the floor, limp. Ice water ran through Mauricio’s body.

  Jermain, propped up against DMT’s shoulder, started laughing.

  “Gun!” Mauricio lowered the camera and pointed. “Gun!”

  DMT tilted his head back and peered over his shoulder. The figure in the doorway aimed the pistol, the sleeve of his black jacket pulling back, and shot twice more. The slide snapped back with each shot, popping a brass casing into the air. Blood burst from Jermain’s shirt, arcing across the carpet. He and DMT dropped in a sprawling mess and lay still.

  Their disassembled guns sat untouched on the coffee table, between beer bottles.

  Mauricio ducked low and scrambled around the corner past the tiny bathroom, no more than an alcove with a sink and a mirror and hideous wallpaper. He headed into the bedroom, tripping over dirty clothes.

  He realized he was still holding onto the camera, and it was still rolling. He dropped it onto the messed-up bed and dug underneath for the shotgun DMT had bragged he kept there.

  He found it, wrapped up in a towel. The barrel of the sawn-off twelve-gauge was oily and cold, barely longer than Mauricio’s forearm. The stock was cut off just behind the pistol grip and wrapped in dirty masking tape.

  He took it in his hands, turned around and faced the empty bedroom doorway, breathing hard. The apartment had gone silent. His knees shook as he stood up.

  He waited. Nothing.

  What about DMT? Mauricio didn’t know for sure he was hit. Maybe he was playing dead. He could’ve been just grazed, nothing serious, but too scared to do anything.

  He kept the shotgun aimed at the bedroom doorway. He tried to take reassurance from the weight of the gun. It shook in his hands.

  Nothing else moved. One step at a time, he edged closer to the open doorway. His wide-eyed reflection stared back at him from the bathroom mirror, showing his face gone pale beneath his tan complexion. He kept his mouth open to hide the sound of his breathing, but that was all he could hear, the shaky rush of his own breath.

  In the mirror, he saw a wiry arm covered in spider web tattoos. It snaked out and grabbed the shotgun, twisting it from his hands.

  Before Mauricio could react, the taped-up stock of the shotgun smacked him in the chest. He stumbled back until he found himself sitting on the bed, staring up into the shotgun’s gaping muzzle. File marks glinted in the rough metal where the end of the barrel had been sawn off.

  The guy holding it had spider tattoos all the way up his shoulders, under his leather vest and up his neck. He sneered at Mauricio.

  A gloved hand clamped on the guy’s shoulder, and a middle-aged man in a black suit stepped into the bedroom. He had shoulder-length black hair and a close-cropped goatee speckled with gray. He frowned, and shadows grew in the lines on his face. His deep-set eyes held a bleak sadness, as if he’d just gotten back from a funeral. The silenced pistol dangled from his other hand.

  Mauricio tried to ask them what they wanted, but his throat went painfully dry. He couldn’t make the words come out. He could barely breathe.

  The man in black drew in a deep breath through his nose and let it out. “You, young man, what is your name?” He had a thick Spanish accent.

  “M-Mauricio.” It came out a squeak.

  The edges of the man’s eyes crinkled, softening his face, and for a moment he looked like a normal guy, maybe a neighbor. “You know, you have my sister’s eyes. She was so very beautiful, Selena was.”

  “That’s . . . that was my mom’s name.”

  “Yes. I never see her again, since your father take her to America, which breaks my heart. I so wanted to see you grow into a man, Mauricio.”

  He had no idea what this madman was talking about. His mom had died when he was a baby, and his dad had remarried a white woman. He’d never known his real mom.

  In the hall, a broad-faced man with an assault weapon stepped into view. His eyes were cold and brutal. That made three of them, penning him in.

  The man in black tucked the silenced pistol inside his jacket. He spread his arms, holding his gloved hands wide. “A hug. For your Tìo Andres.”

  Mauricio stared.

  “Your uncle.” Andres smiled, sending a shiver down Mauricio’s spine. “We are family.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Spider

  The black iron stove quietly warmed the old wood-paneled living room against the steady rain outside. Ash sank back into the comfortably worn armchair, watching Cleo doze under a comforter on the couch.

  He tried to calm down the whirlwind of thoughts that plagued him, but had no success. Was Mauricio safe? Where was the money Prez was looking for? Could he convince Cleo to help him instead of going to the cops?

  Too many questions. And no way to get answers. Not until morning, anyway.

  As exhaustion rolled over him, his eyes grew heavier and heavier. Then a flicker of motion overhead drew his attention.

  He looked up, where a shape moved in the darkness. For a second, he thought it was a ceiling fan, or maybe a chandelier rocking in a cold draft.

  But then it began to crawl.

  A spider, impossibly huge, with a body the size of his head, darker than the surrounding night. Carried across the ceiling on spindly legs as long as his arms.

  The horrifying sight anchored Ash to the spot. His breath caught in his throat.

  No spider could possibly be that big.

  Then a rush of adrenaline kicked through him. He drew in a breath to warn Cleo, but his mouth felt gagged. He tried to stand, but he realized he was tied down. Glistening looms of spider web wrapped him to the chair, shrouding his entire body, right up his neck and over his mouth. He struggled, but he couldn’t escape.

  Delicately, the spider played out a ropelike strand of web, sliding down toward Cleo’s sleeping body. Its legs, impossibly long, splayed out like the eig
ht points of a compass.

  Ash tried to shout Cleo’s name, but the webbing smothered his voice. He thrashed against it with all of his strength, the muscles in his arms and legs shaking with the effort. Blood pounded in his temples.

  Slowly, the spider lowered itself and settled onto the couch, its bristly legs dimpling the quilt that covered Cleo.

  With a muffled yell, Ash strained against the webbing. It unraveled thread by thread, like old fabric. He landed on his hands and knees, the chair following him. He managed to twist one arm free, in the process tearing the webbing from his face and neck.

  Gasping, he grabbed the corner of Cleo’s quilt and yanked.

  The quilt snapped out from beneath the spider, but Cleo was gone. In her place was a pile of hundred-dollar bills. They erupted into the air, fluttering down around Ash like falling leaves.

  The spider scuttled around to face him, its cluster of emerald green eyes burning in the darkness, locking gazes with him. It knew him, he realized. It knew everything about him. His weaknesses, his loneliness, his fears. It had stalked him all his life, and now it had him cornered.

  In a blur, the spider pounced on him, pinning him down with inhuman strength. Its long legs entangled him, cold and hard as metal. A musty smell filled his nostrils, like an attic closed up too long. The spider reared back, exposing the shimmering gold crescents of its fangs. It whispered his name.

  Ash woke with a gasp, heart thudding in his chest. He sat up in the armchair, and the blanket fell into his lap.

  The blue light of predawn filtered in through the curtains, revealing Cleo sleeping peacefully on the couch. Her black hair peeked above the edge of the quilt, which rose and fell with each slow breath.

  A thorough inspection of the ceiling revealed nothing. Just a featureless expanse of textured white that spread uneventfully to all four walls. The sound of rain pattered on the roof, lighter now but steady.

  He gripped the arms of the chair. Just a dream, he told himself, still fighting for air. His heart hammered in his chest. Just a dream.

  Shaking, he rubbed his face, trying to bring himself back to reality. The goosebumps wouldn’t go away.

  Eyes aching, Ash crept through the room, his knees wobbly. Although the place was tidy, it had a deserted feel to it. The thinnest layer of dust covered everything. Cleo slept peacefully, her breaths soft and soothing.

  With a sprightly tapping of toenails, Moolah trotted in and nuzzled Ash, then headed for the door. After a lingering look around the roof, Ash followed the dog and let him out into the cold drizzle.

  A small table by the window was cluttered with photos in ornate metal frames. Cleo at different ages, with one or both parents, her mom different shades of blonde and an occasional sunburn, her dad with his dark mustache and gradually receding hairline. Then there was Cleo and Ash at the prom, formal attire, balloons behind them, bad complexions and big smiles. At the end of the table, her dad’s portrait in his tan sheriff’s uniform, doing his stern Old West pose, all business. Ash couldn’t look at that one too long.

  The thick rug silenced the sound of his footsteps. Worn binoculars sat on a shelf next to the glass case of hawk feathers, each one with a hand-lettered tag showing the date and location where it was found. An old snapshot had young Cleo in an orange vest, grinning, holding a feather so close to the camera that it was out of focus.

  Ash bent over Cleo and brushed the dark hair back from her face. She slept peacefully, her lips parted, one hand tucked underneath her chin.

  Outside, Moolah started barking.

  Ash crossed to the window and eased the curtain back. The Galaxie sat partly sheltered by a huge cottonwood tree, looking nearly black in the washed-out light. Moolah stood well behind the car, hackles raised, barking at the trunk.

  Moolah hardly ever barked. Except at something dangerous.

  A cold, nameless fear coursed through Ash. He stepped outside, pausing beneath the front awning to scan the woods around the house. His breath steamed in the air. Leaves shook in the rain. Ripples spread out in pools of water. Nothing else moved.

  He tried to reassure himself that it was nothing. But he couldn’t shake the primal fear that something was closing in on him, just out of sight. Something deadly.

  He had to get Moolah back inside. Now.

  He sprinted down the wet driveway toward the Galaxie, watching the woods around him as he went. “Moolah!”

  Moolah whined and backed up a step, then barked at the Galaxie again. His frightened tone raised the hairs on the back of Ash’s neck.

  He stopped a few yards behind the car. “Moolah, come here! Let’s go back inside.”

  Moolah moved to stand between Ash and the Galaxie’s trunk. His wet fur stood on end. He barked again, louder, more urgent.

  Rainwater trickled off the flat expanse of the Galaxie’s trunk. Tiny spouts of water arced off the thick chrome around the tail lights and dripped from the shining bumper.

  Ash remembered waking up in the shed next to the red bulk of the car. The sunlight had peeked in through the cracks of the wood-plank walls. Fingerprints had been drawn through the dust on the trunk, like claw marks. They’d been recent.

  Slowly, Ash crept past Moolah, who stayed close at his heels. He gingerly ran his fingers across the wet trunk, leaving trails in the water. Just like those fingerprints in the dust. They’d been his.

  Heart pounding, Ash dug the Galaxie’s brass keys out of his pocket and unlocked the trunk. It clicked, and the old metal pushed up against his hand.

  He stepped back. The trunk swung up, creaking on old springs. A tiny bare light bulb, bolted to the metal, flared to life. There, on the checkered-cloth floor of the trunk, between the spare tire and a wadded-up old sweater, sat the source of his dreams and nightmares.

  The gold spider.

  It gleamed in the light, shining like an Aztec treasure. A skull-sized lump of gold with eight pointed legs, so skillfully made that it looked like a live spider dipped in molten sunlight. Its eight emerald eyes flared in the dawning light, staring at him. Alive.

  Those inhuman green eyes seemed to lock with his, the way a predator would lock on to its prey. The spider knew him. He could feel it.

  It wanted him. Wanted to consume him.

  He stared back, unable to break away. His hand rose, as if it had a life of its own. It reached out for the spider. Reached out for the indescribable wealth it promised. The power. The answers to the mysteries of everything that weighed on him.

  It promised release. It promised the end of all pain. The end of loneliness.

  It called to him. Beckoned him. Promised him with a sickly sweetness that he would never lack for anything again. Looking at the spider almost hurt. It stirred up an ache inside him that he knew was the very reason he had run away all those years ago.

  It wanted to use him. It wanted to break him and consume him.

  It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was all his.

  He reached toward it.

  “Ash?” Cleo’s voice jolted him out of his trance. He blinked.

  Cleo stalked toward him, hair flattened in the gentle rain, her big steel pistol trained on the Galaxie’s trunk. Moolah trotted just ahead of her, leading her to him.

  “Ash?” she called again softly, her breath steaming in the air. “You okay?”

  He nodded mutely, and she lowered her gun.

  As Cleo got closer to the open trunk, her eyes went wide. Ash watched her carefully, searching for any sign of recognition. A brief twinge of fear crossed her face, but it quickly vanished.

  “So this is what Andres is after.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she said it. She stretched one hand out toward the gleaming gold spider. For a painful moment, Ash wanted to join her. Instead, he caught her wrist. “Don’t.”

  She looked at him, her eyes forming an unspoken question.

  He held up his free hand, showing her the fading red rash. “If you touch the spider, it curses you. Steals your memory. You can’t give in to
it.”

  Cleo backed up a step, throwing a wary glance into the trunk and then at Ash. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t remember the last two weeks,” Ash said at last. “They’re a total blank. I woke up beside this car, and now I know why. I must have touched the spider. You get a good look at the guy who shot at you? Notice he had a rash on his arm?”

  She shook her head. “I was a little preoccupied.”

  “I think he touched the spider, too. Maybe brushed up against it, like I must’ve.” He tried to pretend it was an accident. But he had to wonder: Had he given in to it? Is that how this had started? He averted his eyes, determined not to look into the trunk again.

  Cleo pushed rain-soaked hair out of her eyes. “This thing is cursed? Seriously. It’s a statue, Ash. If it’s solid gold, it could be worth a million dollars, maybe, but it’s not evil.”

  “We have to get Mauricio.” Ash reached over and slammed the trunk.

  Chapter Twelve

  Secrets

  Dawn spilled gray and bleak across the curves of the mountain road. Every so often, Ash had to slow the Galaxie to navigate through slicks of mud and fallen rocks that had been washed out by the night’s storm. It took a couple of hours before they made it around the closed-off section of highway and got back on track, headed downhill toward Denver. Moolah hung his head out the window.

  From the passenger seat, Cleo watched him. She didn’t say anything. Just let her gaze rove over him until he finally had to break the silence.

  “What?” he said at last.

  “Nothing. You just seem . . . different.”

  “Of course I’m different. It’s been a while. We barely know each other anymore.”

  She kept studying him. “You think that’s true?”

  “I don’t know.” He gripped the steering wheel hard, as if he could shake it. Which he couldn’t. “There’s something in my head I just can’t put my finger on. Which would be weird enough, if I didn’t feel so lost about everything. I don’t like feeling lost. I always have an angle. I don’t do lost.”