An Artifact of Death

by Anna Philpot

  The shots fired were not close enough to hit them. She didn’t think, anyway.

  She mumbled her morning prayer. So what if she lacked a cup of coffee or the soft, warm body of one of her dogs pressed against her legs?

  She was alive. Thanks to her SAR pack, she wore clean, dry socks and a poncho. She was no longer wet and shivering. Her body moved without much pain. She ran, putting greater distance between herself and the men trying to kill her.

  The birds rose higher in the sky, growing smaller. Her lungs began to ache. Cici turned her face up to the sun as it flashed above the horizon and thanked God for this morning.

  She hoped it wasn’t for the last time.

  They continued at that pace until Anton called a halt. Much as Cici wanted to drop her hands to her knees and pant, she managed to stay upright and continue to stutter-step forward. The Bratva would not stop. More than likely, they were fanning out both behind and in front of Anton and Cici, trying to cut off all possible escape routes.

  If that were the case, eventually Cici wouldn’t need to run any farther, because there would be nowhere to run.

  “Are you going to tell me why you lied to me?” Cici asked.

  Anton turned toward her. “Why would you think I lied?”

  “Why else would you fear the spirits?” Cici snapped back.

  “Maybe because it’s unnatural to be surrounded by ghosts—especially ghosts that are capable of handling physical phenomena like wind and tumbleweeds and flash floods.”

  Cici shook her head. “What would happen if the operatives out here knew you got rid of it?”

  A shift in rocks to their left caused Anton and Cici to stiffen. Crap. Anton tensed even more as the man spoke, raising his gun as he did so.

  “We’d still kill both of you to make certain.”

  At least this time it was light enough to see her attacker before he pounced. Unfortunately, the guy was scary and didn’t appear interested in actual discussions.

  He flicked his wrist holding the machine gun with a negligence of long practice toward Cici’s pants. “Start by emptying your pockets,” he said.

  His accent was slight. Not much more than an elongation of vowels that made the words sound un-American.

  Anton glared at the man before glaring at Cici. “Now would be a good time to call up the ghosts and have them deal with this menace. You know, like you did before.”

  “First off, I don’t control ghosts, especially the souls who remain here,” Cici said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  A portion of her consciousness was shocked at her ability to have a rational conversation, even a feisty one, with Anton right now, but the rest of her was so overloaded from the last twenty or so hours, this made as much sense as anything else.

  “You disturbed their eternal rest by digging through their burial sites and thieving their treasures,” Cici snapped. “I don’t have to ask them to do anything. They’re angry and ready to act on that anger.”

  Their would-be attacker clenched his fist around the gun’s base, his eyes darting around the area. Cici focused on him—perhaps this Russian operative feared the supernatural as Anton did. If so, maybe she—well, mostly Anton—could use it to their advantage.

  “Didn’t you tell me there were thousands of warriors buried in the canyon?” Anton said. Clearly, he and Cici had matched brain wavelengths. Anton dipped his head in a go-on gesture as he slipped his hands into the pockets of the trousers—one of which Cici knew held a pistol. “That means…what? Maybe ten thousand or more ghosts here, ready to defend the sanctity of this space.”

  She swallowed in a hasty gulp as the man with the machine gun brought his gaze back around to Cici. Anton’s eyes begged her to speak, but for a long, painful moment, no sound emitted from Cici’s mouth.

  “And what was that about artifacts? Grave robbers?” Anton asked. With each passing second, the skin around his eyes tightened, almost like a countdown timer.

  Cici’s heart pounded, but she forced words past her stiff, dry lips. If she didn’t…well, the man’s machine gun outmatched Anton’s pistol by a large margin.

  “The Navajo believe this land is still inhabited by their ancestors,” Cici rushed to say. “At one point in their history, over six thousand people lived here, which means that, thanks to the millennia of occupation in the area, there must be….what? Probably tens of thousands of people buried in the area. And, yes, there have been accounts for decades about strange accidents befalling people here.” Cici warmed to her story—mostly made up now. “Each of the people who died were found with mementos from the region.”

  The gunman glanced around again. As he did so, Anton dipped his head in what Cici deemed to be encouragement for her to continue talking.

  “Disturbing native burial sites is akin to digging up bodies today. We know it upsets the peace of an area—changes the atmosphere of the space. Stealing from the graves can lead to illness and mysterious death. Like what happened to the tomb raiders in Egypt. How many of them died?”

  She waited a beat.

  “Yeah, so the last guy…he tried to steal a valuable jewel,” Cici said. Both Anton and the guy with the machine gun jerked, their eyes roving, trying to peer deeper into the shadows. “His body was found at the bottom of a ravine. Coyotes had gnawed on him and the ravens had pecked through his eyelids and cheeks.” She swallowed hard against the urge to gag. Too much reality.

  “Stop,” the man growled, hefting the barrel of his weapon and pointing it toward Cici. “These are just words. You use them well, preacher, but that’s all they are. A story.”

  She jerked at her title. How would he know she was a reverend? Then, immediately, she realized that was ridiculous. She wasn’t a spy—her car was registered in her name. Of course these men knew who she was—which meant she’d never be safe as long as they lived.

  Damn Anton and his stupid spy world. The man hefted his weapon, raising it to her torso.

  Her lips numbed, but she couldn’t stop talking, buying time. This was another facet of her continued fight for her life.

  “Do you really believe that?” Cici kept her voice soft, almost coaxing. Like she did with her youngest congregants when they didn’t want to do as their parents requested. “I mean, really? All the native warriors, all the shaman here, their anger focused on you?”

  Before she could continue, a harsh whine split the early morning light, startling them all. The machine gun sprayed bullets out into the open sky as two fighter jets streaked low over the area, veering off before coming back around. In the distance, a large missile shot upward into the sky. Anton’s gun appeared in his hand as though by magic; the Bratva operative collapsed, but not before Cici witnessed his blank-eyed stare and the shock of imminent death stamped onto his face.

  “Leave the gun,” Anton yelled. “He used most of the bullets and it’s too heavy.”

  She hadn’t planned to pick it up. Not that she meant to tell him that. Instead, they stared up at the jets, Cici’s mouth hanging open as hope began to warm her chest.

  Sam.

  One of the jets opened fire, blasting the top of the mesa into a fiery explosion. The plane veered left, its wing dipping to miss the fireball slowly dissipating in the bright blue sky. While not close, the subsequent explosion still managed to knock them from their feet. Heat crept around them as bits of fireball dropped to the ground. Cici flinched as one of the cinders fluttered against her skin.

  Anton ran toward her, keeping low to the ground. If Cici’s television knowledge was correct, people did that to be a smaller target.

  Cici leaped forward, ignoring the tingles of warning stabbing up and down from her ankle. Her breath already flashed from her lungs in awkward bursts. She sprinted forward, Anton providing some cover to her back as they barreled over the terrain.

  Cici gulped back a sob as she kept running. Much as she wanted to raise her arms, to jump up and down, she resisted the urge.

  A rocket launcher. Or something li
ke it. She and Anton had pistols.

  The jets turned in sync and shot toward the location of the missile launch, bringing them closer to Cici and Anton.

  A faint whine built into a bloodcurdling scream.

  Another explosion rent through the air, blasting Cici’s eardrums with a huge boom as she was lifted up, up, arms and legs flailing, before she rocketed back down and collapsed to the ground.

  20

  Cici

  When the wind blows, the grass bends.― Confucius

  The sun continued to climb in the sky. Now, it was well past daybreak and the sunlight beat in harsh beams against the wakening earth. Cici kept glancing upward, waiting for the jets to come back. For a missile to shoot upward and land on her. Something.

  Nothing moved. No one popped out of the clumps of juniper or the narrow stands of rock outcroppings.

  The lack of events made Cici even more nervous. As thankful as she was for the absence of further contact with the big baddies, the fact they’d only seen one today continued to worry her.

  Her body ached from her last slam into the ground, and her elbow throbbed with a large bruise. But she was still alive, still able to put one foot in front of the other. So, she did.

  Cici’s throat seemed coated in the dust that once again rose from the ground with each of their footfalls. Water, such a scarcity in the desert, soaked quickly into the ground. Or, it hadn’t rained here. Could be either. Cici cleared her throat and tried to keep her eyes from sagging closed. She drew in more of her water from her Camelbak. The straw held bubbles—a sure sign she’d managed to drink most of the water.

  “Whose jurisdiction is this?” Cici asked. “For criminal cases. And I mean right here, not if this is a national case. Since that guy blew up my car, that’s a felony. Someone will come check that out, right?”

  Anton slanted her a dark look. “You’re learning.”

  Cici shook her head, dreaming of a large body of water she could float in. “Not really. I’m native to the state.”

  “Depends on where we are. I can’t say. I know from oil leases that Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and San Juan counties all were scheduled.”

  “Were?”

  “Interior Department put those leases on hold in March. Beginning of the month.”

  Cici kept pace beside Anton. “Because of…” She racked her memory, trying to remember the reasoning for the pause. She couldn’t remember, but perhaps the details listed in the article she’d read didn’t matter. Based on what she was seeing here, now, those reasons turned heads away from the reality of the situation—flimsy excuses to divert from the sleight of hand used by the Interior Department or some other agency to temporarily stop exploration for oil and gas.

  Or some other government.

  “This has something to do with you,” Cici said. “Your spying.”

  Anton shrugged. She knew he’d never tell her outright she was correct. But he hadn’t said she was wrong, either. Which meant she was at least sniffing at the edges of the truth.

  “Why?” Cici demanded.

  “Why does anyone do anything? Ninety-nine percent of the reasons fall into three categories. Money. Power. Greed.”

  About five minutes later, Anton held up his hand. In a flash, he took off the SAR pack and dropped it at Cici’s feet, and he whipped his gun from his waistband and pressed himself in front of her. He backed her toward the dubious shelter of a solitary juniper. Its scratchy bark and needles jabbed into the flesh on Cici’s arms, causing them to itch. She ignored the discomfort, focusing on the stealthy sound of footsteps.

  “When I give the command, go, grab the pack, and run to the east.”

  He kept his voice low, soft, so it wouldn’t carry on the wind. Cici nodded against his back, letting Anton know she’d heard him.

  Cici glanced at the backpack, which was now a good four to six feet in front of them, the silver edging of the SAR pack flashing in the sun. A decoy. Anton must’ve hoped the men following them would shoot at the bag before they found Anton and her. If that were the case, where was the artifact?

  On him.

  That was the only explanation: he’d kept the artifact somewhere on his body.

  Another scuffling sound, like a snuffling nose. Coyotes. A pack. Cici caught the indistinct shape of four, maybe more, of the animals sniffing back near the crevice in the rock where Cici and Anton had spent the night. Their muzzles were all turned toward Cici, almost as if they were tracking her. One lifted its head back and released the yip-howl she associated with them. The others brayed back.

  Cici started to relax, familiar with the noise, the animals, when a voice barked from the east, “You hear that?”

  Footsteps pounded closer to their current location.

  “There! See it!”

  The coyotes turned and began to trot away, back in the direction that Cici and Anton had traversed.

  One man grumbled about the noise, but the two men headed off to the left.

  Anton tilted his head to the right. Cici nodded again, making sure he felt the movement. Anton darted forward and grabbed the pack while Cici eased around the juniper and a few small boulders in front of them. Anton joined her with a quiet, careful tread and they continued to walk.

  The voices and footfalls of the others grew fainter.

  Cici’s innate hope surged. They’d evade the bad guys this time—once again—and give Sam time to find her. He always found her. Like that time in Manhattan, when she’d broken up with her boyfriend.

  Cici rolled her eyes just thinking of her clichéd first-love letdown. Cici had caught Jason kissing her friend behind the rec center. She’d been sad about Jason’s cheating and sadder still to lose someone she’d considered a friend.

  What had Cici done? She’d called Anna Carmen. Within a few hours, Sam had found Cici in a bar she’d ducked into, hoping a drink or three would ease the pain of losing an important relationship and the last remnant of her innocent faith in marriage—a strange remnant she’d managed to hold on to even through and after her parents’ unhappy divorce.

  Insisting she give Sam the full Manhattan treatment, Cici had dragged Sam to all her favorite places. Truth be told, that night with Sam had proven to be one of her best college experiences—more fun than she’d had with Jason or any of her other friends all year. He’d carried her home when she felt faint from drink and dancing.

  She should have realized then what Sam meant to her. But Cici remained too blind to see Sam as he was—the rock in her life, the person she could trust to get her home.

  After a much-needed pit stop in a clump of scrubby junipers, Cici used an alcohol wipe from the first aid kit to clean her hands. She picked through their freeze-dried food options as her stomach growled its need. She ended up with a bag of her trail mix. The protein in the almonds and walnuts should keep her mind alert and her muscles primed. The dark chocolate offered a tiny portion of her normal caffeine, and the dried fruit she added as a token nod toward healthier choices added a nice sweetness.

  Cici loved trail mix. That’s how she ended up with multiple baggies in her pack when she was only supposed to be hiking for an afternoon. She munched on it, offering some to Anton, who also crunched his way through a few handfuls as they walked. She drank a few small sips from her straw, wondering how much more was in the pouch.

  As the hours slid past and the sun rose higher overhead, as the heat built and then sweltered up from the ground in waves, as the sun’s brutal rays pressed further into her skin, sucking out any moisture there, Cici began to ponder how much longer they could go.

  Hadn’t the pioneers wandered this valley more than a century ago? They’d walked—what, fifteen, twenty miles a day? The ladies did so in those corsets and awful high-heeled boots.

  Much as Cici liked to think she was in good physical condition, she struggled with the concept of traipsing twenty miles overland, through harsh, hot conditions in those boot-shaped blister-making devices.

  The alternative—sitting on
her rear end—would end up with Cici getting caught.

  “Will they torture me?” Cici blurted.

  “Probably,” Anton said. “But it won’t come to that.”

  Cici cocked her head, trying to grasp why reassurance slipped farther away with the tone of his words.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He turned toward her, stopping so that the boulder was to his back. His eyes stood out in greater contrast to his mottled skin. His nose and the highpoints of his cheekbones were red, while his forehead attempted to deepen the pigment and protect itself from burning.

  “I’ll kill you before I let the Russians capture you.”

  Staring into Anton’s eyes, Cici understood something: he meant this as a comfort to her.

  21

  Sam

  It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.― Confucius

  Sam and Jeannette both gasped as the jets she’d sent into the canyon veered back, running toward a mesa, guns blazing. A larger explosion rocked the ground, reverberating through Sam even from their vantage point ten or more miles away.

  “Oh, shit,” she whispered with as much fear in her voice as little Tammy had the day she peed herself in the first grade. “They weren’t supposed to engage.” She turned to look at Sam, eyes wide, pupils dilated. “They weren’t supposed to engage.”

  Sam slammed the gas pedal harder into the floor of his SUV, ignoring the scream of the engine or the way his head slammed into the minimal padding on the metal roof of the vehicle when his tires careened over a vicious rut.

  No way he was slowing down. No way he wasn’t getting to Cici, getting her out of here alive.

  “Christ, Sam, can you please stop trying to give me a concussion? I’m on your side in all this.” Jeannette cursed again when her head slammed into the window.