Conspiracy of Angels

by Laurence MacNaughton

  Bryce shuffled in wearing plaid shorts and a “Ski Hoth” T-shirt. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, squinting his puffy eyes against the daylight. “Dude, what time is it?”

  “How many times I gotta call you?” Mitch scraped the contents of the frying pans onto two plates. “Here. Breakfast.”

  Bryce took the plate Mitch shoved into his hands and leaned back away from it, trying to focus his eyes. “And who else is coming over?”

  “Nobody. Sit down and eat.” Mitch waved him toward the table. “They didn’t feed you good in the hospital. The meds say you gotta take them with food. And you got a lot of meds. So, the math is simple.”

  Bryce stood at the head of the table, scratching at his shaggy hair, watching Mitch sit down and dig in.

  After a minute, Mitch looked up. “What?” he said around a mouthful of eggs.

  “So … what’s going on?”

  Mitch shrugged his ignorance and kept eating.

  Bryce sat down and poked at one of the little whole-wheat hockey pucks. “What’s that, a crouton?”

  “It’s a pancake. Got flax seed in it. It’s good for you. I read about it.”

  “Ohh … kay.” Bryce pushed the pancake aside and sawed at a sausage with his knife. He ate slowly, stealing glances at Mitch every so often.

  Mitch slurped his coffee. “Why you keep looking at me like that?”

  “No reason.” Bryce pushed the food around on his plate. “Just usually, you do stuff like this, you know, you’re feeling guilty about something.”

  “I’m not guilty.”

  Bryce held up his hands. “Whatever. I’m not blind, okay? Something’s up.”

  “Well.” Mitch chewed. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Worry? Why worry? We’ve only got, like, ten illegal guns in the house now.”

  “They’re not illegal.” Mitch pointed with his fork. “They’re just not registered.”

  Bryce shook his head. “You know, while you were away, nobody ever came into the house and started shooting it up. Especially not chicks with laser guns. Okay? It just makes me wonder.”

  “Wonder what? Look, this is not my fault.”

  “Mitch. Seriously.”

  “Look, you eat.” Mitch came around the table and patted him on both shoulders. “I gotta make a phone call.”

  “Totally guilty,” Bryce muttered.

  “And take your meds!” Mitch said over his shoulder. He carried the phone into the living room and sat down in front of the shattered TV. What a freakin’ day already.

  Lanny’s phone picked up on the first ring. A rough voice said, “What?”

  It took Mitch a second to remember the name. “Clean, right?” Without the ‘Mr.’ “I need to talk to Lanny.”

  “He’s in the can.”

  In the distance, Lanny’s voice said, “Dog, that is not how you answer my phone.”

  Clean let out a single grunt of a laugh. Then the phone rustled and Lanny came on. “What’s good, dog?”

  “Dog?” Mitch said. “You always talk like that these days?”

  “Mitch, you wound me. As stylish and hip as you are to the urban scene—”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I look to you as a source of inspiration.” Lanny’s voice rose soulfully on the last word. He laughed. “So what’s crack-a-lackin’?”

  Mitch sighed. “I need a ride.”

  “Ruben didn’t deliver?”

  “Oh, he delivered. Car looks great. He also gave me an idea which way this girl was headed.”

  “All right, good news. Now you know which direction to stay the hell away from. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I need to find this girl. Ask her some questions. All you gotta do is tag along and give me some extra eyes and ears.”

  “Got enough trouble of my own, man. So do you.”

  “And it’s not going to go away on its own. Those bastards with the machine guns, they’re gonna come back. Right? So I’ve gotta find them first. Before they come kicking down the door while my brother is home alone eating his Froot Loops. Understand? He is not going to get caught in the middle of this!” Mitch realized he was practically shouting and forced himself to lower his voice. “I can’t just walk away, pretend this is not happening. I gotta do something.”

  Lanny mulled things over before he answered. “So, what, say you find this girl, she don’t want to talk to you. Then what?”

  “I go find the bastards who took a shot at me.”

  “This is not a good plan.”

  “Look,” Mitch said, slamming his hand down on the arm of the couch. “Either they find me, or I find them first and put an end to it. Start with the girl, figure out what the hell she knows about Jocelyn that I don’t. Find out what kind of secret is worth getting shot over.”

  “Yeah,” Lanny said, almost to himself. “Yeah, all right.”

  Mitch stood up. “You’re in?”

  “You’re in it, I’m in it. That’s the way it is.” Lanny let out a long breath. “You’re like my brother, man. You know that.”

  “Yeah.” Mitch cleared his throat. “You know, people can hardly tell us apart.”

  *

  Geneva sat in the empty room with her back against the wall, listening to the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, thinking everything and nothing at the same time. How could she have screwed up like this? Where did she go wrong?

  Was it yesterday, when she went to find Jocelyn’s dad? Or was it years ago, when she agreed to help Michael kill the Archangel?

  Or did it go back further than that? Did it go back to the night she saw Jocelyn lost in the woods, huddled up beside a stream, and decided to break her father’s number-one rule and talk to a stranger?

  It always came back to that. To that night, just before the full moon, that Geneva had stayed out past dinnertime working on Brutus in the abandoned garage they kept him in. It was a couple of miles from the cabin, but not too far a walk, even in the dark, if you knew the way. The air was cold and crisp, and she walked by moonlight along the bank of the stream, smelling the beautiful chemical stink on her hands. The oil and the carburetor cleaner. The scents she’d come to love.

  She’d been fired up all day, working on Brutus. It was the day before her seventeenth birthday. Her dad promised to take her into town with him when he bought supplies. They were going to stop at the ice cream place for hot fudge sundaes. She’d never had one before.

  She did everything she could do to get Brutus ready. Installed the new halogen headlights that had been sitting on the shelf, their round glass lenses smooth and clear. She’d flushed the radiator and refilled it with a carefully measured fifty-fifty mix of bright green coolant and water from the stream. Changed the oil and filter. Added an ounce of fluid to the transmission. Sprayed the carburetor clean.

  She’d washed Brutus with a bucket of cold water and an old rag. Made his faded mint-green paint gleam. Polished up the chrome trim, and the little chrome cat that decorated one of the headlight covers.

  She wanted tomorrow to be a great day. Her seventeenth birthday. Her first step into the outside world, where everyone else lived. She wanted to see if it was really as dangerous as her parents said. If it was as crowded as she imagined it. If hot fudge tasted as good as she hoped.

  She’d walked home beneath the stars and the bright silver moon, her coat wrapped tight around her, the stream running alongside her feet. And that’s when she’d seen the shape hunched on the ground, and realized it was a girl with long blonde hair. Shivering.

  Geneva’s first instinct had been what she’d always done when strangers passed by in the woods. Hide and stay silent until they were gone.

  But the girl looked so lost and cold. And the night sky was so bright and clear, and everything seemed right with the world, except for this.

  So she stepped down to the squelchy bank of the stream and called out, “Hello?”

  On the other side of the stream, the girl looked up, her face and
hair pale in the darkness. “Hey. Um, do you know which way it is to the highway?”

  Geneva pointed. “It’s a couple miles.”

  “Shit. It’s fucking cold out here.” The girl sniffed, and Geneva realized she’d been crying. “You got a cigarette?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “No big. There a store around here? Place with a phone?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you live around here?”

  Geneva hesitated. She’d already broken the rule by talking to her. Telling her where they lived was totally forbidden. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything at all. She started to edge away.

  “Man, all I want is to use your phone.”

  “We don’t have a phone.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m sorry.” Geneva backed into the shadows.

  “No, wait! Don’t leave. It’s fucking cold, man. I can’t walk.”

  “Then how did you get here?”

  The girl made a sniffing sound. “They put me in a foster home, okay? My dad’s in prison. They put me with this witch, man, this doped-up witch. I had to get out. I mean, it’s just … I had to get out. Okay? So I took a ride with my boyfriend Rodney and his friend Vic.” She sniffed again, and her voice went high, trying to hold back tears. “And this guy Vic, he was, he was just creepy, okay? He was, like, grabbing me by the hair. I thought he was going to kill me. And Rodney was high, he didn’t care, he was just laughing. So I jumped out of the car. Twisted my fucking ankle. And now I don’t know where …” She put her head down on her knees and sobbed.

  Geneva stood frozen on the side of the stream, watching her cry. Unsure what to do. Turning it over and over in her head, knowing in her heart there was only one thing she could do.

  Slowly, she stepped down to the bank of the stream, feeling her feet sink into the mud. “What’s your name?”

  “Jocelyn.” She looked up.

  “I’m Geneva. Come on. You’ve got to get inside and get warm.” She held out her hand.

  *

  In the humming silence of the fluorescent lights, Arthur said, “Snap out of it. Attagirl.”

  Geneva blinked, looking around the bare room. Four blank walls, once white but browned by age. A water-stained tile ceiling high overhead. A plain wooden door with a tarnished brass knob.

  Arthur sat against the wall to her right, scowling at her. “They’ll kill us, you know. As soon as the other two convince your boyfriend that they can’t leave any witnesses.”

  She stared at him, feeling anger and helplessness boil up inside her. And something else. Something she couldn’t name. “You know, I found someone lost in the woods one time. And if I’d left her there like I was supposed to, my parents would still be alive.”

  “You’re starting to babble.” Arthur shook his head. “Don’t lose it on me now, honey. You’ve got to get me out of here.”

  “And why the hell should I care about you?”

  “Hey, we’re locked up in this together. You’re a prisoner now, just like me. And I don’t know how long we’ve got until Paul Bunyan out there—”

  “Raph.”

  “—comes back in here and shoots us both full of holes. You know, so you made some mistakes and your parents died. So what. You can’t bring them back.”

  She shot to her feet, came across the room at him. “They were my parents!”

  “My parents are dead, too.” He spread his hands wide. “Car crash. Both of them. The lady who ran into them died at the scene. What can you do?”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “Oh, I get it. Bet your little tail I do. But I’m concerned with just one thing right now, and that’s walking out of here on my own two feet. The past is gone. Screw the past.”

  She knew he was right. But at the same time, he was wrong, only she didn’t know exactly why, or how to argue it with him.

  She kicked the metal suitcase instead, sending it skidding across the floor.

  She looked around for something else to break. There was only the wooden chair, lying on its side. It still had scraps of duct tape stuck to it.

  She stood there breathing hard, fists clenched, and looked at the suitcase, measuring it in her head. Maybe two and a half feet long. Looked at the chair. Craned her head back and estimated how high the ceiling was.

  It might work.

  “Arthur,” she said. “Stand up.”

  A few minutes later, she had the chair in the corner, the suitcase standing on end on top of it. Arthur was balanced on top of that, his hands braced against the wall, his wrinkled white shirt gapped open above his belt, showing the hair around his belly button.

  He said, “Now, how do you suppose you’re going to get up here?”

  “I’m going to use my super powers, Arthur. What do you think?” She put one foot on the chair and stepped up. “You ticklish?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “That’s not true. Everybody’s ticklish. It’s just a matter of where. So if I get near any hot spots, you let me know, okay? I don’t want to do a Humpty Dumpty onto the concrete floor because you started giggling.”

  She stepped up onto the suitcase, putting her feet between his. She put her hands against the walls to brace herself, but she was still pressed up against him. She felt herself blushing.

  “Okay, Arthur. You ready?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.

  She started climbing up onto him. It was harder than it looked.

  “Ow,” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  He buckled under her weight once, but then he held steady, grunting. She couldn’t help thinking that if Michael was here, he’d lift her up and set her on his shoulders.

  His face flashed in her mind, his expression as the door closed, the look that said she’d betrayed him.

  She couldn’t think about that. She focused on the walls, her balance, Arthur’s shoulders.

  She finally got her feet up onto his shoulders and straightened up, slowly. The ceiling was close, but still too high. Don’t look down, she thought. Don’t look down.

  “Arthur, can you stand on your tiptoes?”

  He grunted. “You are a crazy one, aren’t you?”

  She let go of the wall with one hand and reached for the ceiling. But Arthur shifted beneath her, and she felt her balance vanish.

  “Hey!” She grabbed the wall again. “Don’t do that!”

  He gasped. “I’m … trying … not to.”

  She steadied herself, let out a long breath. Reached up, slowly. Stretched. Her fingertips brushed the ceiling tile.

  Arthur blew out his breath and gulped in another. “Hurry up!”

  She reached, pushing up onto the balls of her feet, one hand on the wall, the other pushing a ceiling tile up and out of the way. Above was nothing but darkness and the smell of dust.

  “You’re heavy.”

  She grinned. “Lighter than you. And I’m an inch taller.”

  “Like hell you are.” His shoulders shook.

  She reached up with the other hand and got a grip on the top edge of the wall. It was wood, felt like a two-by-four. The dust made it a little slippery.

  “Whoa, Nelly!” Arthur disappeared from beneath her feet with a crash.

  “Arthur!” Her fingertips grabbed on. Her feet kicked in the air, trying to find something solid. There was nothing except the wall. She latched onto the two-by-four above her and pulled. She wasn’t strong enough. Her arms shook.

  Don’t look down, she thought. Don’t look down!

  She pulled harder. Slowly, she rose toward the opening. When her head reached the edge of the darkness, she realized she couldn’t pull herself all the way up this way. She needed something else to grab onto, farther up. But she couldn’t see anything.

  Her arms burned. Her muscles trembled. She knew she had maybe a second before they gave out. She couldn’t drop back down. Concrete floor. Too high up.

  She breathed in and lunged, catching something har
d and metal. The edge of an I-beam. She pulled, groaning, and grabbed onto it with her other hand.

  She got one knee up onto the edge and climbed up into the darkness, not knowing what she was leaning on, just that it was solid.

  She rested, trying to catch her breath, and sneezed.

  “Gesundheit.” Arthur picked himself up off the floor below, holding one arm.

  “You okay?”

  He squinted and looked around at the floor. “Lost my glasses.”

  “Okay. I’m going to find a way down. Stay put.”

  “Yeah, I’ll try not to wander off and get lost.”

  Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She could see where the I-beam went. Big rectangular metal ventilation ducts ran alongside it. All around her was a sea of tiny white lights, little holes in the tops of the fluorescent light fixtures. For a second, it created the illusion that she was hovering a mile above a sprawled-out city. Then the illusion was gone, and the lights were holes in the fixtures again.

  She stood up and lost her balance. She stepped to the side on instinct. Her foot went through a ceiling tile.

  She grabbed onto the I-beam and caught herself. Pieces of ceiling tile tumbled down and broke on the concrete floor below.

  Arthur looked up at her through the hole.

  She waved. “I’m okay. I’m fine. Just testing gravity, is all.” She stood up more carefully this time, steadying herself on the ventilation duct.

  Mentally, she figured out which way led to the garage, and started heading in that direction, one foot carefully in front of the other, arms out to her sides. Just like walking on a log.

  Twice she stifled a sneeze from the dust. She couldn’t risk giving herself away.

  When she got to where she figured the garage was, she sank down to her knees and lifted up a tile. It wasn’t the garage after all, but the kitchen. She couldn’t see anyone in there. Good enough. Gripping hard on the I-beam, she lowered herself down over the kitchen table and let go.

  She landed hard, but didn’t hurt anything. Michael’s laptop was still there, running columns of blue numbers on a black screen. She resisted the urge to kick it.