Conspiracy of Angels

by Laurence MacNaughton

  He came around to the driver’s window, hunched low. He saw Clean hunkered down in the back seat, his big chrome cannon held out like he was going to shoot the windshield.

  Mitch said to Lanny, “Look, drive around the corner and give me some cover to get in there.”

  “Say what?”

  “Just drive real slow.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Look. You going to cover me or what?”

  They stared each other down. Finally, Lanny said, “Man, if you’re doing dirt, then I’m doing dirt. But you owe me for this one.” He turned the wheel and backed up. “I’m gonna be lucky if I’m not the one gets caught up this time.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  Lanny rolled the Lincoln out into the open. Mitch jogged beside it, hunched down low to keep the SUV between him and the van.

  They got behind the Cougar and Lanny stopped. “Now what, man? I don’t see nobody.”

  “Stay put. I’m gonna go find the girl.” Mitch patted the fender and went around the front of the Lincoln. He kept the .45 up, swept the shadows, looking for movement. He didn’t see anybody inside the junk lot, just piles of rusted appliances, stacks of wooden pallets and stuff he couldn’t even identify.

  From the back seat of the Lincoln, Clean called out to him, “You come back, man, you better make sure I know it’s you. You know what I mean? I shoot first. I don’t ask questions.”

  Mitch ignored him. He crept around the Cougar, keeping low.

  Lanny got out of the Lincoln and hunkered down over the hood with his little .38 revolver. He nodded to Mitch.

  Mitch motioned for him to stay there, suddenly glad to have Lanny covering his back. Just like the old days.

  He checked shadows and hiding spaces, the big .45 feeling like it weighed nothing. His heart was pounding, his throat dry. But for a split second, he felt so good, he wondered if Lanny was right. Maybe he was losing his mind.

  The paint of the Cougar had a weird texture, up close. He ran his fingers along it. Not paint after all. Some kind of heavy black cloth was glued right to the metal, covering every square inch of the body, leaving only the glass exposed. And when he looked closer, there was a fine gold mesh covering that, too. From a few feet away, the windows just looked dirty.

  The cloth on the body had a dull metallic sheen to it, a little rainbow effect, like oil floating on water. It felt like sandpaper, warm in the sun.

  What was it? Kevlar? He had no idea.

  Up ahead, something in the van’s engine gave up with a bang. Rubber and metal screeched for a few seconds and then the engine went silent.

  Mitch circled the van to the front, walking across the flattened fence into the junk lot. Asphalt gave way to hard dirt beneath his feet, peppered with shiny bits of trash. He peered through the cracked windshield into the van. Nobody home.

  Somewhere behind him, down one of the rows of junk, something clanged and fell over. Mitch swung the .45 around. Parts and scrap metal were piled high everywhere he looked, leaving zigzag aisles between them. He headed in the direction of the noise.

  Mitch caught a glimpse of an overweight guy in a shirt and tie as he sprinted past one of the rows. He was clutching something to his chest, the way you’d carry a football. Mitch chased him.

  When he got to the end of the row, the guy was twenty yards ahead, puffing hard. Suddenly, the wooden stock of an AK-47 swung out from behind an old yellow refrigerator and connected with the guy’s forehead. A hollow thump echoed through the lot and the guy dropped to his knees, then sprawled face-first in the dirt, knocked out cold.

  The red-bearded guy who had been in the van stepped out. He spotted Mitch, and his eyes fired up with rage. “You!” He brought the rifle up to his shoulder.

  Mitch dove behind an old washing machine. The AK-47 hammered out a long burst, riddling the machine with holes. Mitch scrambled on his elbows and knees into another aisle and ran, his feet slipping in the sandy dirt.

  The bullets followed him, sparking off of junk, kicking up clouds of dirt.

  He dove again and rolled behind a stack of lawnmower engines. He crawled around to the other side and got into a low crouch, breathing hard. Which way was it back to Lanny? Mitch realized he was completely turned around. He had no idea which way to go.

  He forced himself to breathe. He didn’t want to panic. He brought up the .45 and peeked over the pile of dirty engines. No sign of the shooter. He waited a moment, listening.

  Nothing.

  He cursed under his breath. The guy was probably waiting him out. If he ran the wrong way, he might run right into his line of fire.

  He took his best guess and headed in a direction he figured was directly away from the shooter. It was hard to tell, since none of the rows went straight, and every time he turned a corner, he wondered if he was going in a circle.

  Before too long, he stumbled over the unconscious guy sprawled out by the yellow refrigerator. His glasses lay a few feet away.

  Mitch glanced around. No sign of anyone else. He bent over the guy and shook him. “Hey. You okay?” The guy didn’t respond. Mitch rolled him over. A black cube, about six inches across, fell out of his arms and landed in the dirt.

  Mitch backed up a step. He didn’t know if the box was a bomb or what, but it sure looked high-tech. Dull black and sharp-edged, it reflected no light at all.

  Gingerly, Mitch picked it up. It was heavier than it looked.

  Something clattered in the next aisle over. Mitch tucked the box under his arm and recalculated where he was. He ran back toward the exit.

  With a thunderous crash, the pile of junk in front of him burst apart. Scrap metal and old appliances tumbled, blocking his path. The thing from the road, the blurry shape that had crushed Lanny’s Lincoln, leaped to the top of the heap and stood looking down at him.

  Mitch squinted. The thing seemed to flicker in place, like a mirage on a summer highway. As if it was there and yet at the same time it wasn’t. Human-shaped but too gaunt and long-boned to be human. Its wings flexed like spreading fingers. It tilted back its long head, revealing a shimmer of teeth, and made a noise halfway between an animal growl and a shriek of twisting metal. The hairs on the back of Mitch’s neck stood up.

  He brought up the .45 and fired twice, the heavy gun kicking in his hand. The thing moved in a way that was too fast to see, its gaunt shape jittery as it crouched and leaped at him.

  Mitch jumped back as the thing landed in front of him, sending loose junk flying. It pulled back one blurry arm. Mitch ducked behind a thick metal pipe. The thing’s claws slashed through the rusted metal, leaving a jagged edge shining in the sun. The top half of the pipe fell off and clattered to the ground.

  Mitch eyed the shredded stump of metal and took off down the aisle, legs pumping. He jumped over old tires and pipes, dodged around kitchen sinks. The thing stayed right behind him, bounding off the walls of junk, screeching as it closed in. Mitch’s blood ran cold.

  He charged around a corner into a clearing just as Geneva’s black Cougar came roaring up through an open gate in the fence, headed straight for him.

  He saw her surprised face through the windshield. The Cougar skidded in the dirt. The front bumper knocked his legs out from beneath him. He rolled across the hood and flew into a stack of oil drums. Sparks exploded in his vision. The oil drums toppled around him.

  He didn’t know which way was up or down. Oil barrels banged around him, into him, but he couldn’t really feel them. His arms and legs wouldn’t move. He saw the black box tumble across the ground, kicking up sand.

  His vision swam. The world slowed down to a painful crawl. The thing came at him, clawed arms reaching. Its shadowy outline stretched out as it moved to strike.

  Behind it, Geneva swung her big plastic gun out the car’s window. She aimed.

  The claws came at him.

  The world went blinding white. Time stopped.

  Something hummed through his body, like electricity. Like his whole
body had gone to sleep.

  Somewhere in the bright light, gentle arms circled him, pulled him from the weight of the oil barrels. He blinked, looking up into the glowing face of an angel.

  It was the girl. Geneva. She opened her mouth, spoke to him from far away. Her mouth didn’t seem to move in time to the words.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He tried to answer. He wasn’t sure if he did.

  She looked away into the light, and then back at him, worried. “Where’s Arthur? What happened?”

  Arthur? He didn’t know any Arthur. He was more concerned about the thing with the claws.

  “It’s gone,” she said. “But it’ll be back. Come on.”

  He couldn’t feel his feet as he walked. She steered him around the car and into the passenger side. He lost his balance and fell into the seat.

  Her face slipped away. He had a vague feeling of movement, a sensation of the world sliding past him. Cold wind washed across his face.

  Then he came out of it, like breaking up out of deep water. All the sound rushed back to him at once. He heard the steady drone of a big V-8 engine. Wind rushing over the car. And the girl’s voice.

  “Come on, stay with me. Mr. Turner? Come on, don’t die.”

  Die? He found himself sprawled in a low seat that smelled like old leather and cigarette smoke, and he didn’t know how long he’d been there.

  The girl was shaking him. Her fingernails were painted black. They were chipped.

  He blinked, squinted around at the inside of the Cougar, trying not to move his aching eyes too much. His head felt warm and wet. He was bleeding onto the black leather that covered the door. The highway flashed past outside.

  “Hey. Can you hear me?” she said. And then, to herself, “This is not good.”

  “Damn.” His tongue felt thick. He turned to look at her. “What happened?”

  “Here.” She pushed a thick stack of paper napkins at him. “Hold these to your head. Press them down.” She looked at him for a second with worried eyes, then turned back to the road. “Come on, do it. You’re bleeding bad.”

  He put his hand up, felt his hair matted to his head with sticky blood. He took the napkins and pressed them against the wound. It hurt like hell. He sucked in his breath.

  “Well, you did it,” she said. “You kept it from getting the box.”

  “What’s in that box?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “Kid, you don’t make any sense. Never seen that thing before in my life.” The world still felt like it was spinning. Mitch couldn’t sit up. “Where you taking us?”

  “I’m just trying to keep you alive.” She looked at him again, her face unreadable, like a mask. “You do want to stay alive, I figure. Though you don’t act like it.”

  Mitch closed his eyes. Behind the dyed black hair, and the black lipstick, and all the earrings going way up her ear, this girl had an unearthly beauty. Almost a glow. At least, that’s how it seemed. He had trouble thinking straight.

  “Hey! Mr. Turner?” She shook him. “Stay awake!”

  But he was so tired.

  “Mitch? Open your eyes.”

  She said something else, but her words became a buzz. And then silence.

  The world went dark.

  TWELVE

  Geneva spun the wheel and braked, skidding into the guy’s driveway. She stopped inches from his garage door and turned off the ignition. In the sudden silence, all she could hear was her own quick breathing.

  The guy was slumped motionless against the passenger door, blood oozing down his head and into his shirt. He didn’t look good.

  She told herself that head wounds always bleed a lot, that they look a lot worse than they really are.

  But still. This guy had taken a hell of a beating. It was hard to believe he was still alive.

  She felt for a pulse. Yes. This guy was tough.

  Might be just a concussion. Or maybe worse. He’d been right in the line of fire when she’d opened up with the pulser. That alone would be enough to scramble his circuits. God knew what was going on inside his head.

  She’d argued with herself the whole way here, even though she knew the answer. If she took him to the hospital, they’d find him. Either the Conspiracy, or Michael and the other two. Either way, Mitch Turner would end up dead, once they were through with him. Once they had the answers.

  They’d make him talk, the way Michael had planned to make Arthur talk. This guy had seen everything. The black box. The Archangel. The hideout. Her face.

  If she ditched this guy at the hospital, took the black box and ran, she’d have a chance. Up until he remembered Brutus. Brutus was the kind of car you didn’t forget.

  No matter how bad things got, there was no way she could give up Brutus. He was about the only protection she had against the Archangel.

  All of this put her right back at square one. And this guy didn’t have time for her to sit around and make a decision.

  The hell with it.

  She got out of the car and ran up the front walk, weeds and overgrown grass grabbing at her legs. She rang the doorbell and heard two slow chimes go off inside, one high and one low, sounding bizarrely ordinary.

  She hammered on the door with her fist and was still hammering when it swung open. The other guy, Bryce, filled the doorway, blinking in the daylight. He looked a little like Mitch, only rounder, and with a pug nose. Like a big pasty cave bear in a Batman T-shirt.

  He backed up when he saw her. For a split second, she thought that was twistedly funny, this huge guy afraid of her.

  “Don’t shoot.” His voice was soft.

  She pointed at Brutus. “He’s in the car.”

  “Who?”

  “Look, he’s hurt. You going to help me get him inside or what?”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?” She turned and ran through the weeds, back to Brutus.

  *

  Mitch woke up on the couch, seeing Bryce, red-eyed, kneeling over him with an ice pack. The girl paced around the living room, biting her nails, her right hand shoved under her leather jacket. He could see the outline of a gun barrel beneath the leather.

  “He’s waking up.” Bryce leaned down close. “Dude. Lanny’s called here like fifty times. He says there’s cops all over some kind of junkyard. And he says you owe him a new Lincoln. What the heck happened?”

  “Huh.” Mitch touched his head. It hurt like hell. Might need stitches. “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

  The girl came over and looked down at him, her face pale as a ghost. A ghost with black lipstick and eye shadow. “You’re going to live, okay? But you’ll make yourself sick if you get up. So don’t move around if you can help it.”

  Mitch squeezed his eyes shut and felt the towels wrapped around his head. “Sonofabitch.”

  Bryce said to the girl, “Look, he’s got a concussion or brain damage or something.”

  “I don’t have brain damage,” Mitch mumbled.

  “We need a doctor,” Bryce said. “Stat.”

  “I told you,” she said. “It’s not going to happen.”

  Mitch focused on breathing. In, out. Slow, deep. The room felt like it was spinning, even with his eyes closed.

  “Mitch?” Bryce said. “Can you hear me? Come on, we’ve got to get you to the emergency room. You’re bleeding.”

  Mitch was about to say that sounded like a pretty good idea. The emergency room, that is, not the bleeding.

  The girl said, “Listen to me. Okay? If he leaves this house, goes to the emergency room, there are people that will find him. You don’t want that to happen.”

  “What, they’ll arrest him?”

  “They’ll kill him.”

  Bryce touched the cold pack to Mitch’s face. Mitch grabbed it and put it back on his head.

  Bryce said to the girl, “So explain it to me. Why are we not calling the cops?”

  “They don’t care about cops. They outrank th
e cops.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  Mitch heard the girl pace to the other end of the room and then come back. “Look, I saved his life. That’s all you get from me. Be thankful. Now I’m getting out of here.”

  “If you get out of here, I will be thankful.” Bryce pushed off the couch and got to his feet. “Come on, Mitch, wake up.”

  Mitch kept his eyes closed. It hurt too much to open them. “I’m awake, okay? Jesus. You’re talking about me like I’m dead.”

  “Okay. Just don’t hurl on me.”

  “Hmm.” Mitch cleared his throat. “Get me a couple aspirin, will you? And a beer.”

  “Dude, are you not getting this? You’re bleeding. From the head. So, screw beer. How about an ambulance?”

  Mitch sat up, grimacing from the pain. “Ahh. I’ll be okay.”

  Bryce threw up his hands. “I wish you could see yourself. Seriously. There are people who went up against Mike Tyson who came out better than you. And they lost.” He turned to Geneva. “So you’re, what, his new partner in crime now?”

  “What? No.” Geneva wrinkled her nose, like she’d just smelled something bad. “No, no.”

  “Because you should be aware, he has this tendency to get arrested. And then he goes to prison.” Bryce turned back to Mitch and raised his voice. “For a very long time!”

  Mitch’s head throbbed. He squinted one eye. “Take it easy, will you? She saved my life.”

  Bryce’s lips pressed into a thin, disbelieving line. “Really.”

  “Yeah.” He gestured to Geneva. “Ask her.”

  Geneva shrugged, like it was nothing.

  “Oh. Hunky-dory.” Bryce nodded. “Good thing the psycho chick was nearby to rescue you from anything illegal.”

  “Listen, Mother Teresa, give it a break.”

  “Oh, no.” Bryce wagged a finger at Mitch. “You’re not doing this to me again. You’re not the one stuck in this electrical nightmare you call a house, that keeps frying my hard drives. No. You don’t care if the mortgage gets paid or the utilities get paid while you’re in prison. Who gets stuck with that? Gee, I don’t know. How about … hmm. Me!”

  “It was just the once.”