The Mark of the Spider: A Black Orchid Chronicle

by David L. Haase

  “None of that requires speculation about anything.”

  “Okay. Yeah. We’ll do all that. Thanks, Sebastian. Hey, see you soon.”

  I punched off the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel. My cheek tingled. I considered turning around. Then I reconsidered. Mike’s call changed nothing. Besides, I needed more company than the demon I was starting to believe in.

  *

  I tapped on the oak door on the top floor of the most expensive looking building in Aspen. It burst open, revealing a kid holding a half-gallon of soda in one hand and some kind of Dagwood sandwich wedged in his mouth. He liberated the sandwich and yelled over his shoulder.

  “Hey, Dad, your buddy is here.”

  Mike’s son was all teenager, outgoing and self-absorbed at the same time.

  “Cool tattoo, dude,” he said. “You look like an old boarder.”

  “Snow boarders around here have scars on their face?” I asked. “I didn’t know the sport was that rough.”

  “Nah, but boarders like tats. They’ll be jealous. Uh, I’m Jeff. You ski?”

  “Never been forced to,” I said. “I’m Sebastian. I’m more like the guy who holds down the seats around the fireplace while everyone else is out dodging trees and freezing their butts off.”

  “I don’t know why Dad’s all nervous about you. You seem fine to me. C’mon. Let’s go find him. This place is huge. It’s half of this entire floor, and the views are spectacular,” Jeff said.

  “What’s the lady of the house like?”

  “She’s cool. She says she skis, and she has access to all the best runs. And she’s loaded.”

  “From the look of it, she must be.”

  “You’re not kidding. Every bedroom has a bigger flat screen TV than the one we have at home.”

  “What, colonels don’t make a lot of dough?”

  “Not at all.… Dad? Hey, dad, where are you?”

  “Jeff, not so loud. Your father’s on the phone with the Pentagon.”

  The boy’s mother met us in a long light-filled hallway lined with photos of snow-covered mountains.

  “Hi, Sebastian. I’m Jan. Mike has told me so much about you. I’m glad to finally meet you,” she said.

  I shook her hand and kissed her cheek. She was a small woman, 5 feet 2 inches, maybe 110 pounds. Good shape for a woman in her forties with two almost grown sons.

  “I’ve always wanted to meet a saint,” I said. “Now I can die satisfied.”

  She laughed.

  “You think I’m a saint?” she asked.

  “Of course. Anyone who could live with Mike for twenty years has to be a saint,” I said.

  She smiled. Her son rolled his eyes. Fifteen-year-olds don’t quite get the art of sexless flirtation.

  “You may be right. Please be sure to bring it up with Mike, will you?”

  “Absolutely. One more arrow in the quiver,” I said.

  A tall, well-curved woman entered the living room. I registered shock. “Sebastian, meet your hostess and my best friend, Amanda Cox Campion. Amanda, this is Mike’s friend, Sebastian Arnett.”

  “We meet again,” the tall beautiful woman said.

  “Welcome to Aspen.”

  “Uh, thank you. Hi. Hello.”

  “Wait. You two know each other?” Jan said.

  “This is the gentleman I told you about,” Amanda said. “We shared a hotel room two nights ago.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Small world. Well, then, you two probably know all about each other.”

  “Actually, no,” Amanda said. “He went out for a walk in the blizzard and let me settle down in complete privacy. Then I left as he was getting up yesterday morning.”

  Mike chose that moment to blow into the room.

  “Hey, you made it,” he said

  “Was there any doubt?” I asked.

  We shook hands, Mike eying me a little longer than necessary.

  What was that about? And why was Mike talking to the Pentagon during his vacation?

  *

  It took the better part of the day to corral Mike alone. We were settling very quickly into a festive routine, and I had plenty of time to enjoy Amanda’s company. But I needed to question Mike about the military’s continued interest in me.

  I finally grabbed him while the women and boys were making a spaghetti dinner.

  “Did I tell you about the call I got from the New Mexico State Police?” he asked. He knew he hadn’t.

  “Three cowboys dead without a mark on them,” he continued. “Tough guys. Maybe even mean. Healthy, other than having a big drunk on. A waitress traumatized almost out of her skin. And the only witness is you. Now what do you think the military thinks?”

  “Can’t tell you. I’m not military,” I said, hoping he would elaborate.

  “Come on, Sebastian. Three dead. Did you do anything more than look at them?”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely accurate,” I said, “and you seem to want to jump to conclusions on circumstantial evidence.”

  “Circumstantial? Are you kidding me? Who else did it if not you?”

  “Could have been the girl. She was tending bar. She could have slipped something into their drinks.”

  “That is so far-fetched.”

  “Why? Why is that far-fetched?” I argued. “She has to be innocent because she’s a cute little girl out in the middle of nowhere? She’s probably seen dozens, if not hundreds, of drunken cowboys. She knows how to take care of herself. Did you ask the cops if they did any forensics on the beer, the glasses, the draft punch? Did you?”

  “No. And don’t you flash your tattoo at me,” he said.

  “I don’t control how the damned thing looks.”

  “It goes black and red when you get hot, and you’re hot and you shouldn’t be. I’m your friend. I’m on your side. I’m not forcing you to do anything.”

  Mike cooled down as fast as he heated up. “So, don’t go giving me the dark tattoo look.… Really, Sebastian, don’t you think, even a little bit, that your experience in Borneo might have—I don’t know—changed you?”

  “Mike, I know it changed me. How could it not? You say the bartender was traumatized. Hell, she didn’t have bamboo slivers pounded into her face over and over for God knows how many days.”

  “No, she didn’t. But when she looks at people who make her mad, they don’t drop dead either,” he said. “Listen, people very high up in the chain of command are taking this seriously. They want to test you, see what happens. That’s what the call this morning was about. They want me to convince you to go along.”

  “You mean they want to intentionally piss me off and see if I kill them? I might actually be willing to try that,” I said.

  “No,” Mike said. He sighed and shook his head.

  “They’re thinking more along the lines of using small animals.”

  “They want me to get mad at lab rats and bunnies,” I said. “And how do they know I won’t just focus on them instead of the bunnies?”

  “They don’t. They still want to try,” he said.

  “You know that’s perverse.”

  “And nuclear weapons aren’t? I’m a soldier, Sebastian. We talk about defending our country, but the reality is the way we do that is to kill the other guy before he kills us. Once you accept that, eyeballing bunnies to death is really no big deal.”

  “Maybe not to you, Mike, but it is to me. And there is a complicating factor.”

  “Really? What could possibly be complicated about killing someone with a look? I think there’s even a phrase that covers it: If looks could kill.”

  “Well, I don’t think…” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I sense that I am not alone in my body. It’s been growing on me, ever since Borneo.

  “And if you’re so anxious about finding out what I can do, maybe you should also think about whether I’m actually in control of this thing, this power, whatever.”

  Mike stared.

  “Not in control? I never thought… I
just assumed…”

  “Yeah, I know what you assumed, but you better think about it. And those guys you have following me, they should be carrying sniper rifles. You may just need to take me out some day.”

  Chapter 21

  Situation

  The nurse ushered Maj. Sturgeon through the French doors leading to General Brant’s suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, nestled just inside the Capital Beltway.

  She felt his eyes on her bottom and wondered how baggy green scrubs could entice even a first-class asshole like the major. Working so close to the politicians just to the south in Washington, all the nurses had a lot of practice identifying and classifying assholes. Under the nurses’ ASS (Asshole Surveillance System) typography, she rated him as an asshole, first class. He wasn’t very high-ranking, but thought he ruled the world. Everything he did was ultra top secret, including his bowel movements. Anyone not in special ops of some kind was not worth talking to, and only his branch knew what it was doing. Most importantly, A1Cs believed women are good for one thing and one thing only.

  Oh, yes, she recognized the type. He was a mini-me of his boss, General Brant.

  “You have a visitor, sir.” She addressed the general, dressed in a tan officer’s hospital robe and seated in a recliner beside the bed.

  Turning to the major, she said, “Five minutes. And don’t make him talk.”

  Wall Sturgeon watched her turn and walk out the door, paying particular attention to her ass. Fair. Nothing to write home about. Any port in a storm.

  Never a happy man, Brant looked particularly discontented. Who wouldn’t be? Sturgeon thought. No voice. No likelihood of ever recovering his voice. Facing a medical discharge at his age and rank. He deserves better, Sturgeon thought, and the man who did this deserves much worse.

  Looking down on his commander, he wondered why the CO was even in the hospital. He should be home in his own bed, being taken care of by his wife. Of course, with that iceberg in charge, maybe it would be better to be in the hospital. At least they had to treat you according to rank.

  “Glad to have you back home, sir,” Sturgeon said, handing a gun metal computer tablet to his boss. “We, uh, disabled the voice recognition function and turned on the biologic sign-in. It requires both your finger print, in the circle there, and your eye print, just turn it around and make sure your eye is looking straight into the camera from about a foot away.”

  Brant thumbed the circle, flipped the device and stared into the camera. The device pinged, and he turned it back again. Watching the screen load row after row of file folders, he nodded at Sturgeon.

  “Everything everyone knows about this man, Sebastian Arnett, is loaded there. I’ll be back tomorrow, sir, with your courses of action options.”

  He saluted. The patient ignored him, and he strode out the door, turning over a list of unpleasant options in his mind.

  Chapter 22

  Busted

  Mike was a good actor. Even his wife seemed not to notice his new concern. I caught him making an angry phone call the day after our argument; after that he made no calls, at least not in the condo.

  He and his family skied with Amanda in the mornings and early afternoons. I holed up in the condo researching online topics that never interested me before: Black orchids, spider tattoos, headhunters, shamans, demon spirits, and demigods.

  Every day, my research threw me into a funk, and every day, Amanda lifted me out of it with a warm smile, a touch of the hand and a take-no-prisoners sense of humor.

  She shared my interest in photography, although she favored panoramic landscapes while I obviously preferred macro close-ups. We discussed the merits of each, and I confessed my complete inability to shoot anything other than flowers. She laughed and offered to model for me.

  I spent half a day following her around Aspen, snapping touristy photos and sneaking the occasional close-up. When she looked them over, she agreed the snapshots were truly horrendous. I wasn’t offended; I have an eye for close-ups, and that’s all. With a patron like the sheikh, however, that was more than enough.

  Amanda puzzled over the close-ups. I captured moods in her eyes she had not discussed—sadness, disappointment, loss.

  “How can you take such awful snapshots and create such wonderful art?” she asked.

  “Well, the model created the art; the snapshots… it’s like a blind spot. What can I say?”

  “You know how some people don’t like the sound of their voice?” she said.

  “Yes. I’m one. So I try not to say much.”

  “I’m that way with pictures, but your photographs don’t look like the me I’m used to seeing. Where did you find that person?”

  “Got lucky, I guess,” I said.

  “Flatterer,” she said. “But seriously, you see parts of me I thought I kept hidden.”

  “It’s there,” I said. “The camera doesn’t lie. You’re a beautiful woman.”

  “Oh, thank you. You’re being kind.”

  “Not at all. You’re gorgeous,” I said. “I, uh, think I like you—a lot, I mean.”

  I think my whole face turned red; I know it felt hot.

  “Shouldn’t you kiss me then?”

  I did, and she kissed back.

  *

  Amanda told me about her pioneer ancestors who had busted the silver mine unions in Colorado in the late 1800s and left her a bundle; her former Mormon husband with the wandering eye; her business life as a professional board member and business advisor.

  I told her about Sarah; her long, losing battle with cancer; my life without her; my photography; the sheikh; Borneo and how I got the tattoo.

  “Are you sure my face doesn’t bother you?” I asked one day.

  “It’s not the best tattoo I’ve ever seen,” she said, “but—I don’t know—I just don’t pay much attention to it. I didn’t know you before, so now, I guess, it’s just part of you.”

  She placed her hands on my cheeks and kissed my forehead.

  End of conversation.

  Maybe it was wrong on my part—it certainly proved to be a mistake—but I didn’t share my growing concerns about what the tattoo might mean. I didn’t want to jeopardize my new happiness—and I just flat out didn’t know how to talk about it. How do you say, ‘Oh, by the way, I think I may be possessed’?

  In the end, it was my fault alone, but others paid the price.

  *

  After five days, Mike, Jan and the boys flew back East.

  Amanda and I stayed on, to work out “us.”

  Spring returned to the Front Range, and the late snowfall produced bumper crops of high desert wildflowers. I had to move on if I was to finish my project this year.

  Amanda invited me to operate out of her home in Denver as much as possible, and I agreed. It meant some long nights of cruising up and down I-25, but Amanda always made it worthwhile.

  In the meantime, she canvassed her network to find photography projects that would keep me in her neighborhood.

  Our idyll might have lasted forever, or at least a lot longer, if I hadn’t forgotten my key card as I started on what I thought might be my last trip north for the dying spring season.

  Amanda lived in a guarded, gated community of about twenty properties. Not only did you need to pass the guard to get in, you had to activate the gate with a key card on the way out. New ones were distributed at irregular intervals to prevent theft and counterfeiting. Amanda had given me a new card, and I had left it on the dresser in the bedroom we now shared. Given the likelihood that I would come back in the middle of the night and, without it, would need the guards to waken her to let me in, I decided I had to return to the house and get it.

  I parked my truck on the curved drive outside the front door rather than pulling around to the garage.

  As I let myself in, I thought I heard Amanda berating Maria Reina, her cook, housekeeper, and confidante. They had been together since shortly after Amanda finished grad school, and I had never heard
Amanda raise her voice to Maria. I thought it best not to interrupt, and I confess I was too intrigued not to eavesdrop.

  “You must listen to me, Amanda,” Maria said. “And you must understand. I do not say that Sebastian is evil. But you must be careful.”

  “Maria, I like this man very, very much,” Amanda said.

  If I hadn’t been embarrassed at listening in, I would have blushed.

  “He is not like my former husband. You knew him. You know what he was like.”

  “Sí. Yes, Amanda, I do know. Sebastian will be faithful to you. I know it. I know in my heart. But he is different. And you must be careful.”

  “Maria, is this about the tattoo?” Amanda said. “I know it’s not the most attractive thing, but he didn’t choose it. It was done to him against his will.”

  “Yes. Yes, that is it. It was done to him, and it is a bad thing, and that is why you must be careful,” Maria said.

  “Why? Careful about what?”

  Maria’s voice softened, and I could hardly make out her words. “About death. Mr. Sebastian carries death.”

  That stunned Amanda and saddened me.

  “How do you know this? I mean, why do you think this?”

  “You think I am Mexican, yes? My husband, Emilio, he is Mexican. I come from the south of Mexico, but my people come from Aztecs. My mother’s mother’s mother, all the way back. We are Aztec. The women in our family marry the shamans, the healers, the medicine men. We help make the medicine.”

  Maria stopped suddenly.

  “Not all medicine is good. Not all shamans are good. Sometimes they kill. But always, they carry death. That is how I know about Sebastian.”

  Amanda sighed.

  “You think he is a shaman?”

  “No, Amanda. I know it,” Maria said. “I feel him. His heart beats and changes the way my heart beats until it is the same as his. He has power. Too much the power of death.

  “Please, Amanda. Be aware and be careful. If you do not believe what I say, ask him. He is listening to us now.”

  *

  I canceled my trip north after getting caught eavesdropping. Amanda and I agreed to talk things over at dinner that night in LoDo, a hip neighborhood in downtown Denver full of trendy young people and great restaurants.