Conspiracy of Angels Read online

The last place he ever wanted to come back to.

  Uphill, the long driveway led to a rotting two-story house that stopped him cold. Once, it had been the preacher’s house. Now, half its shingles were gone and the porch roof bowed so deeply that one more winter snow could do it in.

  Two cars sat parked out front. A green Dodge pickup riddled with rust spots, and an immaculate black Trans Am from decades past. Even from here, he could see the massive gold bird splashed across its hood. It looked just a little bit like a screaming chicken.

  Where was his car? And where was Mauricio? He held up his phone again. Still no signal.

  He shook his head. Well, somebody seemed to be home, even if it obviously wasn’t the preacher. Maybe they had a phone, a land line. He trudged uphill toward the house.

  The closer he got, the worse the place looked. The curtains were drawn behind broken windows. Siding had fallen off, exposing black sections of wall. Weeds had grown up through the porch boards. The place gave him a bad feeling.

  He hesitated in the middle of the driveway. Dark memories of this house hovered around him, just out of sight.

  But that was all long gone, he told himself. The past was dead and buried.

  He forced himself to march the rest of the way up the driveway. The porch steps creaked under his feet and threatened to give way. He leaned on the corner post to keep his balance, and the wooden beam shifted beneath his weight. The sagging roof let out a groan.

  Ash carefully eased his hand off the post and picked his way up the steps. The new boots clunked on the wooden porch. He peeked in the windows, but the grimy curtains and the dirt-spotted glass hid everything.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he rapped his knuckles on the front door. He waited, glancing up at the rotted underside of the porch roof. Cobwebs swaddled the rafters.

  Inside the house, heavy footsteps pounded. The door gaped open and a compact Latino guy boiled out of it, pointing a shotgun at Ash.

  Ash stumbled back, but there was nowhere to hide. He put his hands up.

  The guy raised the shotgun to his shoulder, looking mean, breathing hard. He wore a leather vest over a thin torso covered in spider web tattoos. The ink stretched the length of his arms, zigzags of webbing that wrapped around him like scars. He sported a bumpy red rash across half of his face, just like the one on Ash’s hand.

  “¡Es él!” the guy shouted over his shoulder. “Salvador! Ramiro!”

  “Okay, take it easy,” Ash said. “I’m not selling anything.”

  The guy just kept aiming the shotgun, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “So you come back, eh?”

  Back? Ash thought. But he didn’t have time to figure it out. Pounding footsteps approached. Two more men with more spider web tattoos crowded out through the doorway, arguing in Spanish.

  From what Ash could piece together, the guy with the shotgun was called Lazaro. His two uglier friends were Ramiro and Salvador.

  Ramiro was a switchblade-thin guy in a white shirt open a few buttons too many, highlighting the gold chain around his neck. Like the others, he had a rash, this one on his forearms. He held up possibly the biggest revolver Ash had ever seen, a gigantic black hand-cannon with a tiny orange stripe atop the front gun sight. He pointed it at Ash and bared his teeth.

  The last guy, Salvador, was all muscle, right up to his lumpy face and thick forehead. He carried a military-looking assault weapon with practiced ease. As the other two grabbed Ash’s arms, he jerked his wide head in the universal "follow me" sign, then turned and led them inside the house. He had a revolution’s-worth of extra ammo jammed into the back of his thick leather belt, in the form of long banana-shaped magazines that jabbed into his black shirt as he walked.

  “Look, this is a mistake,” Ash said, heart pounding. “I’m just looking for a phone.”

  They ignored him.

  Salvador led them into what used to be a living room and forced Ash to kneel on the carpet. His knees shook.

  A sagging claw-footed couch filled half the room, flanked by little doily-draped tables. The green and tan wallpaper had buckled and sagged, making the room look diseased. Crosses hung on every wall.

  The last time he’d been in this house, at age nineteen, he’d been running for his life. At least back then he’d known who he was dealing with.

  Salvador stuck his squashed face around a corner and yelled into a dark hallway. “Andres! ¡De aquí, por favor!”

  Kneeling on the carpet, dust tickling his throat, Ash tried to put it all together as fast as he could. Were these guys friends of the coyote? They had to be. But what were they doing in Colorado? For that matter, what was he doing in Colorado?

  And where was his brother?

  Deliberate footsteps came down the hall, leather-soled shoes on bare wood. The door creaked open. A man in a black suit and dark glasses seemed to fill the room. Instantly, Ash felt a change in the stale air.

  The gunmen looked at Andres with undisguised worship in their eyes. Except for Ramiro, the skinny guy in the white shirt—he crossed his arms and refused to meet Andres’s gaze. Ash wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  Andres wore his hair long. Waves of lustrous black flowed down to the collar of his shirt, which was pinned closed with a diamond. His glasses had a reflective blue coating, revealing nothing about his eyes. Andres passed Ash and headed straight to the window, carefully drawing back one side of the curtain and then the other, releasing a galaxy of dust motes into the sunlight. Beyond, the silhouette of the mountains was a jagged smudge in the dirty glass.

  Ash cleared his throat, but the words dried up.

  “You have no respect for what does not belong to you,” Andres said in a resonant Spanish accent. He didn’t turn around. “You are so much like your father.”

  Ash stared at Andres’s wide back. “You knew my dad?” His voice came out a hoarse whisper.

  Andres didn’t seem to hear him. “Do you know what it is like to have un destino, a destiny? Hmm? Is like your every dream, everything in your life is connected for a reason. When you are chosen, you cannot fight this. It belong to you.” Andres turned around at last and breathed in, his nostrils flaring. His voice dropped to a threatening rumble. “But you, Ash, you were not chosen. I was.”

  The Spider Thief

  Chapter Two

  Silenced

  “So you think you are like a Robin Hood,” Andres said, rolling the R. “You steal from me, give to los pobres. But not this time.”

  Ash kept his empty hands in the air while he tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t get him shot. He stole a glance at the gunmen, but all eyes were on Andres.

  “Your guy in Arizona,” Ash began, clearing his throat. “If he wants to smuggle people in across the border, hey, that’s his business. But holding them for ransom?” Ash shook his head, the tiniest bit, side to side. “You’ve got to admit, that lacks a certain element of humanity.”

  Andres’s mirrored glasses stayed motionless, unreadable.

  Goosebumps crept down the back of Ash’s neck. “Look, I’ll replace the ten grand. Okay? With interest. That way, everybody’s happy. No harm done.”

  Andres leaned an inch closer. Two inches. “This is not about the money. This, you know.”

  Ash swallowed. He didn’t know, actually.

  “I am waiting,” Andres said. “For what we come here for.”

  “Which is . . .?”

  Andres’s frown deepened.

  Ash stared into the mirrored blue pools of Andres’s glasses. The muscles between his shoulders burned, but he kept his hands up. Nobody else in the room moved.

  “Él no sabe nada.” Ramiro sneered into the silence, then fired off a long volley of sharp words.

  Ash didn’t speak Spanish, but he knew a challenge when he heard it.

  Andres turned his gaze on Ramiro. The other two gunmen edged away as Andres slipped off his sunglasses and let them dangle from his fingers. His dark brown eyes creased at the corners, pained. He li
fted his empty hand. “Ramiro . . .”

  “¡No!” Ramiro burst into motion, pacing the room, making the floorboards creak. He rattled off a tirade in Spanish, punctuating it with sharp finger points, the sleeve of his white shirt flapping over his rash as he moved. Spittle flew from his lips. The muscles in his thin face worked, pinching his features. He finished by gesturing at the other two gunmen. “Salvador? Lazaro?”

  Lazaro, in the leather vest, bit his lip. His gaze flicked back and forth between Ramiro and Andres. He stepped back into the shadow by the wall, as if trying to disappear.

  Salvador’s features turned hard. He straightened up and looked to Andres. A soldier awaiting orders.

  As Ramiro started to crank up his tirade again, Andres slipped a hand inside his black jacket. He drew out a long black pistol extended by a thick silencer. He raised it and closed one eye, sighting down the barrel.

  Ramiro saw the pistol and shut up as if he’d been slapped. He drew in a breath to speak, puffing out his chest.

  Andres’s pistol coughed out a single hoarse shot. Ramiro crumpled to the floor. A brass shell casing rang off the wooden arm of the couch and bounced to a stop on the carpet. Silence reigned in the shadowy house.

  Ash’s heart thudded in his chest. The sound of rushing blood filled his ears. Bile rose in his throat.

  Andres swung the silenced pistol around to aim at Ash’s head. “You have brought the wrath of La Araña on us,” he said in thick English, “dividing us, breaking our loyalty.” The lines around his frown deepened into shadow. “The spider. Give her to me. Now.”

  Ash stared up into the gunsmoke-tainted hollow of the silencer and finally understood what Andres wanted.

  The last time he’d seen the spider, he’d been eleven years old, hiding in the bed of his parents’ pickup. His mom had driven to this house, the preacher’s house, in the heat of the summer night.

  The truck’s exhaust had pinged. Insects had scratched. Ash had peeked over the edge of the pickup bed, watching his mom step up onto the preacher’s porch, clutching a heavy bundle wrapped in a faded towel.

  Lamplight came on inside the house, bathing her in a golden glow. The door eased open.

  Even from a distance, Ash could see the worry on the preacher’s wrinkled face as he carefully unwrapped the towel. Inside was a spider made of gold.

  The gleaming idol was the size of a human skull, a fat body with jointed legs pulled tightly in, as if ready to pounce. Its emerald eyes caught the lamplight and shimmered in the darkness. Seeking him out.

  Ash huddled against the wheel well, hot tears burning the corners of his eyes. He’d gone where he shouldn’t have gone, and found a thing that no one should have found. The spider’s merest touch could draw the life out of someone and leave them lying cold and pale on the floor. The only way to stop it, his mom had said, was to let the preacher break the curse.

  That night, Ash had wanted to believe that the curse was lifted forever, that the spider would never come back to hurt or kill again.

  He was wrong.

  “The spider,” Andres repeated, holding the long pistol steady, its muzzle inches from Ash’s face. “Her power, she belong to me.”

  Ash glanced at the dead man crumpled on the floor, then up into Andres’s deep-set eyes. Something glinted there: devotion, fervor, obsession. Ash didn’t know exactly what to call it, but it ruled out any kind of negotiation.

  “Okay,” Ash croaked out. He cleared his throat, fighting to talk around a tongue that wouldn’t work right. “You win.”

  “Where is she?”

  Ash had no idea. “Outside,” he lied. “I can show you.”

  “Do.” Andres motioned with the gun. “Get up.”

  Ash struggled to his feet, unsteady. Rough hands grabbed him and shoved him through the gloom, down the hall. Lazaro pushed the front door open, letting in a burst of sunlight that shone on the sweat of his thin arms.

  The crisp mountain air washed over Ash like a torrent of cold water. It whispered across waves of tan grass, carrying the scent of old pines, opening his eyes, making him feel alive again.

  To his left was a jumble of sun-bleached split logs, the remnants of the wood pile. Downhill sat the creaky shed where Moolah still waited for him. Hopefully. If Andres found the dog, Ash had a feeling he’d shoot him just to make a point. The thought stabbed a cold pain through his heart.

  The porch boards creaked as the gunmen crowded in on either side of him, Lazaro with his shotgun and Salvador with his evil-looking assault weapon. Behind, Andres’s leather shoes stepped onto the wooden threshold. Then everything went quiet.

  “So,” Andres said, his voice husky. “Show me.”

  Ash’s mouth went dry.

  This was it. No room left to stall. Now he had to improvise.

  He tapped his heel on the hollow floorboard and looked down, drawing their attention to his feet. Then he tensed and launched himself at the corner of the porch. He hit the rotted corner post with his full weight.

  The post broke against his shoulder, black decayed wood exploding from its center. Ash let his momentum carry him off the porch. The roof collapsed behind him, deafening.

  Down into the knee-high mountain grass. Rough ground. He stumbled and fought for his balance. The driveway’s loose sand slipped beneath his smooth soles as he sprinted for the shed.

  He risked a glance back over his shoulder. The porch roof was an avalanche of shingles and rotted wood. It folded in on itself, tearing off siding from the second story. A wall of dust rushed outward, blotting out the front of the house.

  Ash pumped his arms as he ran, breath burning in his chest, and skidded into the shed. The sudden transition from sunlight to darkness left him blind for a moment. Moolah barked and plowed into him, happy paws and wet nose.

  “Come on, buddy, let’s go.” He blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust, looking for a weapon to grab. Stripes of sunlight fell on the red Galaxie where the afternoon sun shone through the wall. Nearby, a cobwebbed pitchfork hung from rusted nails. He reached for it.

  Bullets cracked through the walls of the shed, punching a line of holes through the wood. He ducked under a rain of splinters. Fingers of sunlight reached through the bullet holes.

  He pulled the car keys out of his pocket. The first two didn’t fit in the door lock. The second one turned easily, despite his shaking hands.

  He yanked the door open. Watery yellow lights woke up inside the car, mounted low on the doors and back pillars. Everything inside was black and chrome, frozen in time. “Moolah, get in!”

  The dog shot past him in a blur of cinnamon-brown fur. Ash got behind the wheel and slammed the door, looking for a place to put the ignition key.

  The dash had a speedometer a foot wide. Chrome knobs on an AM radio. Shiny switches everywhere. And there, in the middle of the dash, a slot for the key.

  He jammed it in. Turned it. The motor cranked over, sluggish. Then silence.

  He pumped the delicate-feeling gas pedal. The motor cranked again, even slower this time, then picked up little spurts of speed as he worked the pedal. He kept pumping, listening to the ancient starter whine.

  Dust shot across the shed in thin streaks, carried by bullets. Bits of old bird nests rained down on the windshield. The rusted pitchfork, its tines streaming with cobwebs, clattered onto the wide hood. Fresh white splinters bristled from the bullet hole in its handle.

  Moolah cowered on the floor in front of the bench seat.

  “Come on, you beast,” Ash whispered, pumping the gas pedal.

  The engine coughed, then coughed again and sputtered to life. A little blue square of light flickered to life below the speedometer, printed with the word COLD. He jammed the chrome shifter into gear and nailed the gas.

  The whole car shook as the engine died.

  The Spider Thief

  Chapter Three

  Ghost

  Cursing, Ash worked the gas pedal as he turned the key again, coaxing the old car back to life
. He kept his foot on the gas until trails of oily blue smoke curled in the fragments of the shed’s sunlight. Bullet trails streaked through the smoke.

  He dropped the Galaxie into gear. The tires chirped on the concrete. The car lurched forward and hit the wooden doors, forcing them open. Sunlight whited out the dusty windshield.

  He spun the monstrous steering wheel. The Galaxie skidded across the loose sand and lumbered down the driveway, kicking up a cloud behind him.

  Through the dirty windshield, he could make out the driveway as a twisty dark stripe against the tan of the tall grass. He fought to keep the fast-moving car on the road. Its hubcaps rattled at him with every rock they hit, but the rest of the car didn’t let out a squeak.

  He searched the dashboard until he found the chrome slider that operated the wipers. Stubby black blades creaked across the glass, scraping off the worst of the dirt, revealing the world again.

  Ahead, the road forked. One path led up the side of the mountain, along a stream. The other headed downhill, and if he remembered correctly, it eventually led to the highway. Neither was marked, but he knew where the uphill fork led. The ghost town.

  Unlike most of the ghost towns that dotted the Rocky Mountains, this one was more or less intact, as far as he remembered. It was also the make-out spot for local kids. He had spent a lot of summer evenings there with Cleo, talking about how one day they’d get out, leave this town behind and never come back.

  Moolah climbed up off the floor and sat on the black bench seat next to him, panting. The dog’s alert eyes surveyed the inside of the car. Ash pried one hand off the steering wheel for a moment to pat the dog.

  He was about to take the right fork when he saw another cloud of dust coming up behind his. The rusted green pickup appeared in the side-view mirror, closing in fast.

  If the truck had four-wheel drive, it would make better time on these roads. There was no way he could beat them to the pavement. They’d catch up first, or he’d slide into a ditch trying to outrun them. Either way, they’d get him.