An Artifact of Death

by Anna Philpot

  Cici snorted. Please. Like she deserved the right to compare herself to one of God’s prophets. All she’d wanted was a few days away from her congregants’ demands and to clear her head enough to review her new job offer. And now, she had to add accessory to murder to her long list of sins.

  Dammit.

  She missed Sam and her dogs. Even her sister’s ex-fiancé. Cici would have let Sam make her feel better—at least in the moment.

  But Sam wasn’t there, and that had been Cici’s choice. Just as hitting the man with the rock moments before was her choice. She was the one who had to live with her actions.

  Between one blink and the next, the fireflies built into a moving, living lantern once again, leading them toward a sharp rise in the rocky face of the mesa.

  Cici veered toward the firefly lantern and Anton followed. Perhaps he, too, was exhausted and willing to take help and comfort in whatever bit of mysticism they could find.

  As the last of the fireflies dissipated into the night, they found a narrow crevice between two of the taller plateaus and squatted down for a rest. With the two of them in such close quarters, the air warmed enough for them to stop shivering. Cici rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead, wiping away the dampness and dust that settled there.

  She glanced up at the sky. “Is this where you want us to leave the artifact?” Cici murmured. Nothing happened.

  “Do you want it returned? Here?” Still nothing. Huh. Cici had been sure they needed it back here for some burial ritual. “Or to a safer place…”

  A soft sigh of air puffed from the narrow cavern.

  “Like the Navajo nation?” she ventured.

  Another stronger puff of air shot out and surrounded her. Up until her twin’s death, Cici never considered air as a sentient thing, let alone able to communicate. Over the last few months, she’d discovered many challenges to her beliefs.

  Cici dipped her head in acknowledgment. “I’ll see what I can do,” she murmured.

  “We need a plan,” Anton said. He settled the SAR pack between his thighs and pulled out his water bottle. He uncapped it and drank, emptying a third of the contents. Good thing he’d refilled it from the rain earlier. He offered it to Cici, who also drank.

  Dehydration was a real and prevalent issue for them—not just because of their elevation, but also the lack of humidity. They needed more water than someone at sea level. She’d do well to keep that in mind—to keep her muscles ready for the next life-saving sprint.

  Because it was coming.

  Anton removed a hunting knife from a sheath around his chest and placed it next to the backpack. He opened the zipper wider and pulled out a hatchet and the first aid kit.

  He pulled his shirt up higher, and Cici caught her breath, wincing in sympathy at the sight of the red, angry flesh torn open.

  “Bullet?” she asked.

  Anton nodded.

  Cici knelt in front of him and took the anti-bacterial cream from his hand. She smoothed some over his ribs and then found a sheet of gauze, which she pressed over the wound. A few pieces of white tape, and the bandage was set.

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing as serious,” Anton said. He took another drink of water. “We need dry clothes.”

  “Aren’t there socks in there?” Cici asked.

  Anton bent over, wincing as the wound pulled, no doubt. He handed her a pair of wool-blend socks. Cici bit her lip, deliberating about which of them needed the fresh footwear more.

  He pulled out a second pair, and Cici snatched up one and began to remove her hiking boots.

  He glanced over at her, eyebrows raised.

  “You should change yours, too,” Cici said. “You’ll get blisters and maybe fungus. Wasn’t there something about feet issues that slowed down the armies in World War I?”

  Anton shook his head but picked up the socks before unlacing his hiking boots. Even though he was dressed in slacks and a nice shirt, his boot gear was top notch for their terrain.

  Smart man. Or at least prepared for many contingencies. Though, he seemed ill-prepared for getting stuck with her. She frowned. Or for her getting roped into this mess with him.

  Didn’t matter. She was here, he was here, and Cici now planned to slide on dry socks. That was a small victory.

  With slow, concentrated effort, she peeled off her smelly, muddy, wet socks and eased the clean, new ones onto her tired feet. She sighed and wiggled her toes, trying not to think about how she had to shove her feet back into her hiking boots, which now seemed like some sort of cruel torture devices designed only to destroy her arch and Achilles tendon.

  Soon. Not yet.

  “Damn…the stars are close,” he said, his voice filled with awe.

  Cici glanced upward and gasped. The break in the clouds grew and millions upon millions of stars shone against the pitch of the nighttime sky.

  “Dark sky location,” she murmured.

  “What?” Anton glanced over, distracted. His gaze swept back upward. “That’s the Milky Way. It’s…there are so many stars.”

  Cici felt a faint tug pull at her lips. Even she, who’d grown up in this land long considered one of the best night-sky regions, couldn’t believe the vastness of the blackness pressing against her and Anton—or the shocking myriad of stars most people never realized existed, thanks to their city’s light pollution.

  “Dark sky location means you can see all the constellations.”

  “I should say,” Anton said, voice dry. “It’s amazing,” he whispered.

  They both soaked in the moment, enjoying the beauty the world bestowed on them.

  With a sigh that seemed drenched in regret, Anton continued to sort through the rest of the items he’d kept in the pack earlier: flashlights, beanies, all-weather ponchos and other items. Cici stretched on her rocky seat, trying to work the kinks out of her tired, overused muscles.

  “We have to leave the artifact,” Cici said.

  “I know,” Anton said. “And I will. But I want a few hours to sleep first. You hear me, Chaco ghosts? Give me some time to rest, and I’ll give you back the artifact.”

  Cici opened her mouth to argue with Anton’s taunting, but what could she say or do now that he’d already spoken? Cici snapped her jaw shut and glared at his profile.

  Anton kept his gaze trained on the stars above, his profile in sharp relief. Cici spent the long minutes of his silence trying to discern his age. Thirty-five, maybe. Could be older, but not too much.

  “I had a wife once.”

  Anton’s words snapped her out of her reverie.

  Cici swallowed back the words of sympathy. He wouldn’t want them. “Had?”

  Anton’s face was still turned upward, as if he couldn’t look at her as he spoke. Cici once read that the confession box wasn’t for anonymity. It was to help the other person confess their darkest thoughts, fears, and actions without feeling the weight of another’s stare. The courage to come into confession sometimes was much greater than the courage to offer a spiritual shoulder or even advice. As if the advice would be followed.

  “She died because of me. Because of the work I chose to do.”

  Cici leaned forward and touched his hand. His comment when they’d first met—about movies getting him through a rough patch—she’d bet her car this is what he’d meant. Her lips began to twist at the reality that she no longer had a car, until she realized Anton was still aching over the loss of his wife. “How long ago was this?”

  “Almost four years.”

  He’d stagnated, no longer working through the steps of grief. This is what weighed him down—made him so cavalier with his life. He didn’t think he deserved a future. He didn’t think he deserved now. And he was sidetracking her, for sure. She understood that, but she wanted to hear his story, ease his pain.

  “Tell me,” she said, even as she yearned to understand why the Russian mafia chased them. That would come—she’d make sure of it.

  Again, the silence lengthen
ed. To Cici’s eye as a spiritual healer, she could tell Anton spoke rarely, if ever, about his wife since her death.

  “Did she like to watch movies?” Cici asked, though she already had a strong suspicion the answer was yes.

  “Rebecca. That’s her name.” Cici chomped on the inside of her cheek, trying to keep tears from leaking from the corners of her eyes. She needed to preserve whatever moisture her body still had.

  “Rebecca loved movies. Worked on various sets. She made me watch them and would point out how much time and effort went into picking the perfect rug or lamp or whatever to tell us more about a character. Sometimes I think she was more observant than I was.” His eyes slid closed.

  “She sounds fun. Interesting. We have lots of screenwriters and actors who come through Santa Fe. For parts on shows like Longmire or some movie being filmed in the area.”

  “She loved her job,” Anton said. “She was damn good at it, too. She was…we wanted to start a family. I told her one more assignment. The last one to get all my dreams of glory, my macho out, and then I’d turn to analysis or something else at a desk. She’d been so supportive of my career, the one to cheer me on. We met in college.”

  Ah. Young and naïve to the ways of the world—much as Cici had been.

  “She was killed while I was on that last assignment.”

  “Then how could it be your fault?” Cici asked. “You weren’t there.”

  Anton turned to face her straight-on. Cici’s heart lurched when his eyes filled with torment and regret, and anger.

  “She was on her way to the doctor. Her gynecologist. I left for my covert op twelve days before. The appointment wasn’t in her calendar as her annual. She’d visited her OB/GYN five months before.”

  Weight settled deep in Cici’s stomach. Whatever Anton was today—whoever’s side he’d taken in this global war—he adored his wife, then and now. He mourned her much as Cici still mourned her identical twin.

  “I don’t know if she was pregnant,” he said, voice catching on the word. “I’ll never know—and not because I refused an autopsy. There wasn’t enough of her left to…”

  He trailed off, but even across the distance separating them, Anton’s pain rolled off him. Like many Americans, she watched spy shows, enjoyed the occasional thriller. But she’d never thought of this—the human aspect such work could wreak.

  Until today, the terrifying and fatal world of international spy games seemed just that—games. High fantasy. Unreal.

  Clearly, she’d been wrong.

  “Doesn’t change that you miss her,” Cici said. “Rebecca.”

  He shook his head. “No. It doesn’t.”

  Cici decided then and there to pray for his deceased wife whenever she prayed for Anna Carmen. Sometimes, that’s all she could do—that’s the only way to cope with the onslaught of negative experiences.

  Prayer and hope remained valuable tools of the living to find the possibility, however slight, for goodness, for light to prevail. They were a reason to keep going.

  If Anton turned out to be one of the good guys she needed him to be. But even after spending the day together, Cici remained ambivalent of both Anton’s end goal and his allegiance. Based on what he’d said, he seemed Westernized in his beliefs as she was—but he killed with a ruthlessness Cici struggled to fathom.

  “You shouldn’t have to live with that weight,” Cici said, refusing to add his fake name to the sentence, refusing to undermine the importance of his emotions.

  “As you so succinctly pointed out earlier, I’m a spy. We exist for the one purpose of making enemies. Look at the Russian sitting on a park bench in Britain with his daughter. He’s retired. Hasn’t been involved in that vicious world in years. And the daughter—she’s an innocent. And the two other Brits who died subsequently after coming into contact with the empty container.” Anton didn’t say like Rebecca, but they both knew that’s what he meant.

  “But enemies don’t care who they hurt.”

  His words were soft but edged with steel and a level of hatred Cici hoped never wrapped itself around her heart. From the stiff set of his shoulders and the downward turn of his mouth, Anton clearly didn’t want comfort. At least, not from her.

  “Or they hurt your innocent loved one to destroy you,” Cici said.

  Anton dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Didn’t work. I’ve dedicated myself to this line of work. And I’ll be damned to hell a million more times before I let one of the slimy bastards trying to disrupt our fragile peace score a win.”

  “Does that happen often?” Cici asked.

  Anton’s lips trembled into what might have been the beginnings of a smile, but if so, it was built out of sarcasm. “Every day, every minute is a battle for the continuation of our country and our way of life. Don’t ever forget that, Cecilia.”

  She closed her eyes, hating he saw the world that way—hating more that he might well be right. If only Cici could go back to the naïve belief of the ideal of human goodness she’d always carried. It was quite possibly an illusion, but one she needed to do her job each day.

  “All right,” Anton said, his voice laced with the same exhaustion Cici carried on her shoulders, befuddling her mind.

  “Rest time’s over?” she asked, blinking much like owlets she’d seen at a bird sanctuary up in the Glorieta pine forests north of Santa Fe.

  “No. I was going to suggest you get some sleep,” Anton said.

  “What about you?” Cici asked.

  She picked up her boot and felt the lining, frowning at the dampness there. Her mouth turned down in a grimace as she shoved her foot inside. She managed to tie the laces. At least her feet would be cleaner and drier than they were twenty minutes ago.

  “I’ll be okay. Catch some rest, Cici.”

  Cici bit her lip, unsure she could accept any answer to the question clouding her thoughts. On a rush of air, she asked, “You aren’t going to leave me here, are you?”

  “And catch the wrath of the Chacoan spirits combined with your sister?” Anton scoffed. “You’re exhausted. I promise to be here when you wake.”

  She smiled a little at the kindness in his tone. Silly though it was, she appreciated his suggestion and the courtesy he extended her. She closed her eyes, though sleep seemed to slam into her before her cheek cushioned against her forearm, her body already shutting down as the adrenaline slipped from her muscles and her brain shut off.

  The first faint shades of pink blushed through the clouds when Cici opened her eyes. Her neck was stiff and her hips and shoulders ached from supporting the rest of her weight on the unforgiving limestone bed. Sometime in the night, Anton covered her with one of the ponchos from her SAR pack. The dark gray material swished as she sat up.

  Anton slumped at the entrance to the crevasse. He’d donned the other poncho and the thicker pants, probably because his others were thin, wet, and miserable. His gun lay in his lap, his hand fisted around the stock.

  Cici stood in slow increments, giving her body time to circulate the blood and work out the worst of the aches and jabs from the pebbles embedded in her clothes. Her hiking pants crackled as dried mud fell off them in clumps.

  But the breathable fabric dried quickly last night, making her more comfortable than Anton must have been in his dress slacks.

  As the chunks of mud and pebbles fell to the ground, pinging off the larger piece of limestone beneath her feet, Anton jerked awake, gun pointed toward her.

  She raised her hands and backed up. She sighed when he lowered the weapon.

  “Dawn?” he asked, his voice raspy.

  “Coming,” Cici responded, turning once more to look at the deepening pinks and golds flashing up from the horizon and bursting into the clouds.

  Anton stood and stretched, shook his face much as a bird ruffles water from its feathers.

  “We should move along,” Anton said.

  “Do we have a destination?” Cici asked.

  Anton shouldered his pack, frowning as he
blinked the last vestiges of exhaustion from his eyes.

  “We always set up a contingency plan,” he said.

  Much as Cici wanted to point out that wasn’t exactly what she’d asked, she chose to keep her mouth shut.

  “What about the artifact?” Cici asked. She winced, her body stiff and sore from too little sleep and overuse.

  On the plus side, her ankle didn’t ache like she’d expected. Small miracles—the ones so many overlooked in their day-to-day lives. Cici said a brief, heartfelt prayer for the continued use of her leg. Her ability to move was her main defense against death.

  “Dealt with it,” Anton said.

  “Where?” Cici asked.

  Anton turned to face the rising sun. “It’s nearby. Not buried. Not in the crevasse—they’ll find it there.”

  “The other guys, you mean? The spies?”

  “Yep.”

  In the distance, a coyote howled, followed by another.

  “Anton…” Cici began, trying to keep her voice free of accusation.

  He’d lied to her. At least he hadn’t looked her in the eye as he did so. But, no, either way Cici approached this, Anton lied to her, and to the restless ghosts unsettled by his theft, in this moment.

  “Let it go, Cecilia.”

  Before she could respond, shouts rang out, follow by shots. The noise sent hundreds of birds blasting into the sky, cawing and agitated.

  Like the spirits of the region Anton refused to acknowledge.

  19

  Cici

  The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat.― Confucius

  “Now’s a good time to move,” Cici said, moving in the direction of the birds. Their shadows and the swirl of feathers, bodies, and noise provided a small—the only—amount of cover. Cici wanted to use that to their advantage.

  Anton didn’t argue, just kept pace as she hustled after the avian crew working their way higher into the sky—and farther from Cici and Anton with each flap of their wings. Cici sprinted, not her favorite activity first thing in the morning, and gritted her teeth as she ignored her sloshing bladder.