Conspiracy of Angels

by Laurence MacNaughton

  “Out of the tire. Weren’t you paying attention?” Mitch folded Bryce’s hands over the money and leaned in close. The sirens were loud now. “Bryce, listen to me. You gotta get out of town. Go someplace where no one can find you. Not the cops, not the FBI, not nobody. Use this cash. Don’t use credit cards. Not even once.”

  “Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

  “You want to talk to anybody, find a pay phone. Call Ma. Don’t tell her anything. Tell her I said I love her. But don’t, and I mean this, don’t go see her. Don’t tell her where you’re at. They’ll come cuff you and put you away.”

  “What did I do? Seriously. I don’t want to be, like, a fugitive or anything.”

  “I’m trying to keep you safe. Just take the car and get the hell out of town. And stay low until you hear from me.”

  At the end of the block, a fire engine blared its horn. Blue and red lights flickered down the street.

  Mitch hugged Bryce, hard. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I keep doing this to you. I gotta go.”

  Bryce patted him on the back and let him go. He held the money close to his chest.

  Mitch got down the driveway to Geneva’s car when Bryce called out to him. “Dude. Kick some ass, okay?”

  Mitch gave him a thumbs-up and climbed into the Cougar. Geneva didn’t even wait for him to shut the door before she hit the gas.

  *

  They drove for what felt like hours. Without anyplace specific to go, the nighttime streets seemed alien to Geneva. She was used to having a mission. Go here, buy these things or watch this person or count how often cops patrol the area, and then come back home. Now, there was no home to go back to. And no mission, either.

  Except, really, there was a mission. Destroy the Archangel.

  That had been her mission all along, ever since it had brought her old life to an end. Everything since that night had seemed like some kind of afterlife, a twisted purgatory made up of paranoid fear when she was awake and nightmares when she slept. Sometimes, she wondered if she even knew the difference anymore.

  Sure, up until that night, there’d been plenty with her family that was hard and scary. Like the blizzard when she was twelve, when they’d nearly starved. Those were tense days, full of huddling around the wood stove and not talking. But they’d gotten through that. Everything her family had ever faced, they’d gotten through. Except the Archangel.

  Michael had never meant to kill the Archangel. She knew that now. He meant to capture it and use it, the way the Conspiracy had. All these years, he’d lied to her. At one time, she thought—no, she knew—she loved him. But was he any better than the Conspiracy?

  She loved him. But how wrong was she? About everything?

  Everything?

  She blinked away tears, hoping Mitch, sitting in the passenger seat, wouldn’t notice. Ahead, a light turned red. She coasted Brutus to a stop, using it as an excuse to turn her head left, pretending to look out the window, so Mitch couldn’t see her face.

  Outside, a few people walked through the shadows between streetlights. She could imagine Michael walking among them, his black coat hanging around him like a cloak. Hands in his pockets, looking nonchalant, but watching. Watching everybody, all the time.

  “See that guy over there?” he’d said to her once, leaning down and speaking softly into her hair. His body shielded her from the December wind and the glare of the winter sun. She looked past him at a black BMW across the street, pulled up in front of a pay phone. White exhaust plumed up from the car’s tailpipe. The guy stood hunched over the phone, looking over his shoulder as he talked.

  “That guy,” Michael said, “is on the phone with his mistress.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “Look at him.” Michael smiled, sharing one of his secrets with her. “Just think about it. Look at the way he’s standing. He’s afraid of getting caught, isn’t he? And all dressed up for a fancy evening. A little early for that. And a man dressed like that, with a car like that, why isn’t he sitting inside using his cell phone?” Michael poked her gently with a finger. “Because the number shows up on his bill, and his wife reads it.”

  “And he only left home a few minutes ago.” Geneva nodded with her chin. “His exhaust is still steaming. He drove a mile or two, then pulled over to use the phone.”

  Michael looked and then hugged her tight, kissed her hair. “Good girl. You’re practically secret agent material. You know that?”

  His eyes were bright against the gray winter twilight.

  “Hey,” Mitch said, jerking her back to Brutus and the drizzly night. The rumble of the engine. The raindrops on the windshield glinting with light. “It’s green.”

  She chirped the tires when she accelerated. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be doing this. She wanted to be back in the warehouse with Michael, plotting to get the Archangel, talking about what they would do after. Travel. Go to Mexico. Live on the beach.

  She wanted everything back the way it was supposed to be.

  She wanted to go home, to the mountains, to the cabin she’d grown up in, miles from the nearest road, safe from the outside world they’d always warned her about. No electricity, no guns, no complications.

  Before Michael. Before the Archangel.

  Before Mitch’s daughter had showed up half-dead beside the stream and started this whole chain reaction.

  Geneva braked hard as a minivan drifted into her lane. She swore and laid on the horn. The minivan braked. She checked over her shoulder and gunned it, squealing the tires as she went around the van.

  “Hey, you’re gonna attract some attention.” Mitch put his hand on her shoulder. “Take it easy.”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  He took his hand away. She could feel him staring at her from the other seat. It was like his gaze had weight, and she had to hunch up her shoulders to hold it up.

  He made a noise in his throat. “Listen, kid.”

  “Don’t call me kid. I’m not a kid.”

  “Yeah? How old are you?”

  She’d turned twenty-two in November. A long, long time ago. “None of your business.”

  “Listen, it’s one in the morning. Okay? You going to keep dodging cops all night until you fall asleep at the wheel? Or you want to get some shuteye?” He rolled the window down a crack and took a deep breath. “You know, I’d offer to let you stay with me. But I’m fresh out of houses right now.”

  She didn’t say anything. The problem was, she didn’t know where to go. There were a couple people she knew how to contact, but she also knew she couldn’t trust them. Besides, that would be the first place Michael would come looking for her.

  If Michael was still alive. She pushed that thought aside, concentrated on the road.

  Mitch said, “Look, I know a place, not too far from here. A motel. I know the owner.”

  He sounded serious. But for some reason, she wasn’t getting a creepy vibe from him. Great. With her track record for judging character, that probably meant he was a serial killer.

  He said, “I don’t want you to read the wrong thing into this. What I mean is, I can get us each a room.”

  “Why don’t I just drop you off there and go to a different motel all by myself?” Because she didn’t have any money, that’s why. But she wanted to hear what he’d say.

  “Because at ordinary motels, you got to show some ID. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to show any ID right now. With me?”

  She thought about it. She didn’t have a lot of choice. She was running on the shaky outer edge of adrenaline right now, and she knew she’d crash sooner or later.

  Besides, if they got separate rooms, she didn’t have a lot to worry about. If this old guy turned out to be a creep, she could pulse him and hit the road.

  She took a breath and let it out. She could either trust this guy, or not. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m with you.”

  “Good. When yo
u get up to the next light, make a right.”

  “Mitch.”

  “Yeah?”

  Faces flashed in her mind. Michael. Gabe. Raph. Arthur. The sharp, shining teeth of the Archangel.

  She swallowed. “I’m sorry about your home.”

  He stared out the window. In the moving light of passing headlights, she could see the age in his eyes.

  Slowly, he shrugged. “Forget it.”

  FIFTEEN

  Geneva dreamed she was in the cellar again. The smell was the first thing that clued her in. That old, earthy mustiness, mixed with the hint of onions and potatoes in their wooden bins. And then there was the smell of blood.

  The light shone down through the floorboards over her head, touching the cobwebs, lighting up the motes of dust that drifted through the thick air. Unfamiliar footsteps crisscrossed back and forth above her, making the boards creak.

  Geneva covered her mouth with her hands, trying to quiet her breathing. Her throat felt tight, as if an invisible hand were squeezing the life out of her. Any moment, they would hear her. She reached out in the darkness, felt across the cold dirt, to Jocelyn. Her skin was cool and damp. Geneva felt along her neck, the skin seeming too fragile to touch.

  There was a faint pulse. She hadn’t moved since Geneva dragged her down here to hide.

  She thought she would cry, but she didn’t. It hadn’t sunk in, couldn’t. It was all too unreal.

  Voices, sudden like nearby thunder, from above: “Where’s the girl’s body?”

  “I don’t think she’s dead. Not yet. Could be hiding. If she was dead, the thing would have left by now.”

  “Why would it care about the girl? It was her father who headed the project.”

  “So? If the girl’s still alive, she’s gotta know something.”

  “She’s just a kid.”

  “But she’s gotta know something.”

  Quick footsteps, stopping above her. Then everything was silent.

  The iron ring of the trapdoor rattled, and the door swung up, letting in the blazing, hellish light.

  Geneva screamed, trying to get to her feet and run. She woke herself up.

  She sat up in the unfamiliar bed, disoriented, sweaty. The room was dark, no light except the glow of the street coming through the cheap curtains, making the floral print over the window look like bloodstains.

  Information clicked in her mind, in random order. Motel room. Smell of old cigarette smoke. Thin sheets. The sore spot in her ribs where she’d been sleeping on the pulser. She had it gripped tight in her hands.

  Something banged in the darkness. It was loud, the sound of something heavy hitting the door. She didn’t know if she was awake or dreaming.

  It happened again. Heart pounding, she clicked the safety off the pulser and brought it up. She aimed at the black rectangle in the darkness. The gun whined. Its tiny battery indicator glowed green.

  “Geneva!” Mitch shouted from outside the door, his voice muffled. “Geneva, open up!” The door banged again. She realized he was trying to break it down.

  She got out of bed, stumbling, and ran across the room. She hit something sharp with her knee and swore.

  “Hang on!” she yelled, just as Mitch hit the door again.

  She fumbled with the lock. A shiny old fire escape plan gleamed at her from the darkness, black ink on a colorless background, showing an L-shaped building.

  She got the door open and Mitch shoved it, pushing past her and hitting the lights. He stood there in his underwear, breathing hard. He swept his ugly gray .45 around the room. Old tattoos stood out on his arms, an eagle and an ace of spades, the ink greenish and blurry. Mitch’s gaze flicked to the window, then the far side of the bed, the closet, and back to her.

  He lowered the gun, breathing hard through his nose, looking pissed as hell. “Well?”

  She turned away from the light, blinking at spots in her vision. “Just had a bad dream, is all.”

  “A bad dream?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  He reached past her and shut the door. “Listen, you start screaming like that, there better be someone in here trying to axe-murder you or something. Jesus Christ.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  He said more, but she wasn’t listening. She could still smell the basement. She could see the cobwebs, lit up in slices by the hard white light spilling down through the cracks between the floorboards. She could still see a spider crawl through the light, legs like tiny bony fingers picking across its web.

  Mitch put his heavy hand on her shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”

  She twisted away from him. “Just leave me the hell alone! Look, I’m sorry I inconvenienced you. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  “Woke up half the metro area.”

  “You think this is funny? You think it’s a riot for me? It happens every night. I don’t know if you can even imagine that. Every time I close my eyes, I see my parents again. I remember the angle of the sunlight on the trees the moment I knew they were dead. I see everything in these … these freaky, intense little details. I see everybody dead, and I can still hear their voices. I can still hear the words they said.”

  Mitch didn’t say anything for a minute. She had no idea what he might be thinking. Maybe she’d said too much. Maybe she hadn’t said enough. Either way, he could turn around and walk out, and she’d never find out how to kill the Archangel.

  Because he had to know.

  There was a beat-up chair near the bed, with stuffing coming out of the bottom cushion, and Mitch lowered himself into it. He uncocked the .45 and set it on the nightstand with a quiet little clunk. In the light of the lamp, she could see the little capital letters on the slide that spelled out the word HARDBALLER.

  Mitch pointed to the bed. “Sit down.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause I want to talk to you and I don’t want to strain my neck. So sit down. Please.”

  Slowly, she sat down on the bed, hugging herself with her arms.

  Mitch stared at the far end of the room, looking worn out. When he spoke, it was like he had to drag the words out of himself. “You know, every once in a while, you think you got a few things figured out. I mean, when I was your age, you know, I knew everything. But this is different. You get to a point, you say, all right, I been down this road before. I know how to keep my head down, keep fighting, not get sidetracked. You think you know a few tricks, how to play the game. Beat the odds. Keep your daughter safe.”

  He stopped, and stared into the corner. Geneva thought maybe she should say something. But she didn’t know what.

  “And then you find out everything is a pack of lies. You find out you don’t know one goddamn thing. Right?” Mitch cleared his throat. “That about sum it up?”

  Geneva swallowed down the lump in her throat. She nodded.

  “Look. I don’t know you. All right? To me, you’re some raccoon-eyed suicidal punk kid with a ray gun. And you, you don’t know me. To you, I must seem like …” He trailed off.

  “Like somebody’s dad.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. My point is, I don’t care whether you know who I am. I don’t care whether you trust me. But we got to talk.”

  She shrugged. “We’re talking.”

  “Not here. Not like this, with guns all over the place and for damn sure not on an empty stomach.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s too bad.” He put his hands on his knees, grunted, and stood up. She noticed for the first time that the waistband of his boxer shorts said, in big red letters: HOME OF THE WHOPPER.

  He followed her gaze and then looked back at her. “What? Man can’t have a sense of humor?”

  “Whatever.” She held up her hands and turned away.

  “Look, I’m going to go back to my room, put some clothes on, and then I’m buying you the best damn breakfast you ever had in this town. Best, that is, until you have my cooking.” />
  “Look, we should probably stay out of sight for a couple days. Order pizza or something.”

  “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.” Mitch picked up his gun and headed for the door. “Still dark out, anyway. Nobody’ll see us. Trust me, I’m a pro at this.”

  “This coming from a man wearing ‘Home of the Whopper’ shorts?”

  “Yak yak yak.” He shut the door behind him.

  She fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  No wonder Jocelyn had been so weird.

  *

  Most of the people in the diner were old guys in John Deere baseball caps that said things like “B&B TOWING” or “Gold Foods, Go For The Gold!”

  Geneva gave Mitch a hard look once the waitress put down their plates and left. “I thought you said this place would be empty.”

  “Just truckers,” Mitch said, shoveling up eggs and sausage. “Twenty-four hours a day, there’s somebody bound to be hungry. Tell you what, it’s not an easy way to earn a buck, driving. Running your own smuggling deal’s even harder. Even if you get a load of duty-free stereo equipment or something juicy, the margin’s still pretty slim.” He chewed. “But then, there’s the extra little heart-pounding excitement every time you see a cop in your rearview mirror. Knowing what could happen, they find out. You know what I mean? That’s the kind of rush you want to avoid.”

  Geneva wasn’t really listening. The place was loud. Dishes clanking, forks and knives scraping. The air smelled like hot grease and burned coffee. The waitress was an old lady with chapped red hands and bleached hair, wiping off tables. Geneva wondered what it must be like, finding yourself working here. Carrying food, scrounging for tips. Not being hunted by some kind of creature. Must be nice.

  Mitch pulled a napkin out of the metal dispenser and wiped his mouth. “You know, you better eat something. All that coffee on an empty stomach. Not good for the system.”

  She stared out the window at the dark parking lot, not really seeing it, or the blue predawn glow out past the highway. She closed her eyes. “You know what, why don’t you do both of us a huge favor? Stop worrying about me.”