The Man Who Crossed Worlds (Miles Franco #1)

by Chris Strange

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  My head spun like a dancing girl around a pole, and it felt about as naked too. I looked from the gun to Todd and back to the gun again.

  I was getting entirely sick of staring down the barrels of guns. If I had a union, I’d take it up with them, but as it was, I settled for staring at Todd dumbly.

  “Wha…?” I said, the only sound my mouth could produce.

  Todd stared at me, his eyes hard. The cigarette dangled from his lip, glowing like hellfire. “It’s a shame it had to go down like this. Hands where I can see them.”

  I did as he said, but my legs started moving by themselves. I backed up until I hit the wall. The barrel of the gun was a black pit. My eyes never left it.

  Without taking his eyes from me, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket, dialed a number, and pressed it to his ear. “Got him. Make the call.” He hung up and returned the phone to his pocket.

  My brain was working so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if smoke was coming from my ears. Finally, I managed to speak. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He stayed in the doorway. His face was a mask, and there was no way I was getting close enough to claw it off.

  “Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he said. “Uniforms’ll be here in a sec. They’re gonna take you downtown, stick you in the box for a while. A confession will be written for you. You make your scribble on it.”

  “A confession? You mean…Spencer?”

  “You beat him to death with that little stick you’re carrying. Seems you didn’t take too kindly to him trying to destroy your Tunnel while you were still inside.”

  Spencer’s arm had flopped out of the wardrobe, bloodied and gray. I ripped my gaze from it before the nausea building in my gut managed to spill over.

  “It ain’t so bad,” he said. “Inside, I mean. They won’t go hard on you. You’ll be out before you’re fifty.”

  “Take the rap for it yourself, then.”

  “I can’t. I need more time. Just a little more.”

  Todd didn’t say anything else. He just stared at me for a few more moments, smoke trailing from his cigarette. I stared back. A million questions buzzed in my head, but my throat was having other ideas.

  Finally, Todd ground out the cigarette on the doorframe and slipped the butt into his pocket. “All right. Out of there.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and dangled them on his finger. “Time to go.”

  I trudged toward him like a zombie. This was a messed up dream. It had to be. It didn’t make sense. “Walt.”

  “Don’t give me that look, Miles. It was you that got that damn Vei all spooked in the first place. Coming round here, tossing the place like a goddamn cowboy. I did what I had to.”

  “You’re sick.”

  He slammed his fist into the doorframe, setting the whole room shuddering. “Don’t tell me things you don’t know a fucking thing about. This city is what’s sick, and I’m gonna be the one to fix it. Me, you hear?”

  Jesus. The guy was off his rocker. He took a step toward me, and my collar started feeling awfully like a noose.

  He brought himself nose-to-nose with me, nostrils flaring and lips peeled back. Then he exhaled sharply, blowing thick smoker’s breath into my face, and lowered the gun a little.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, “not yet. But you will, when you see what I’ve done. You ain’t gonna like what I’ve done to you, I get that, but you’ll see. It’s for the best.”

  I tried to piece it together, but half my mind was focused on the bullet trembling inside his gun barrel. Then the next thought hit me. Was Vivian in on it? Had she been lying the whole time, using me for whatever twisted reasons she and Todd had? I’d trusted her, goddamn it!

  Todd landed a giant palm on my shoulder and spun me away from him, then reached behind me and slipped the bracelet on. “I’m sorry, Miles. Really.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Me, not so much.”

  I kicked backward, blind, and felt my shoe connect with Todd’s knee. It didn’t give the satisfying pop I was hoping for, but he grunted and stumbled nonetheless. I couldn’t face prison. Christ, there was no way I could live in a box.

  Todd’s paw tightened on my shoulder, but his grip slipped on the damp fabric. I spun and whipped the free handcuff bracelet across his face, and he stumbled backward.

  The gat went off at the same time. The air burned next to my face and my ears felt like someone had been at them with a hammer, but I couldn’t stop now.

  I lunged to the side and flicked the light switch. The room was plunged into darkness for a split second before being lit up by another muzzle flash. Sound became hollow and my ear squealed, then darkness returned to the room.

  I threw my arms out to keep myself from blindly smashing into a wall and sprinted back toward the laboratory. My hearing returned enough to hear Todd swear and swing at me, but by then I was out of his reach.

  Something clicked, and a flashlight beam appeared behind me. Todd fired again, but I was already out the kitchen door and into the workroom with all Spencer’s notebooks and his fridge of Kemia. Panting, I slammed the door to the kitchen closed at the same time as Todd collided with it, and the whole door frame shook.

  My mind was awash with panic. I could smell my own fear. I fumbled at the wall, flicked the red light on, and jammed a chair under the door handle. Todd responded by firing again. I yelled something incoherent and dived to the side as the bullets ripped through the door.

  “Miles!” Todd screamed.

  Kemia. I needed Kemia. I damn near ripped the fridge door of its hinges and grabbed the first bottle I saw. The door to the kitchen shuddered and crunched, and the chair slipped out and dropped to the floor. Todd kicked the door open a moment later, but I was already sprinting for the darkness of the laboratory, ripping the cork out of the Kemia bottle as I ran.

  “You piece of shit!” Todd yelled. I ducked behind what must have been a lab bench as the gun barked again, hitting something glass and expensive-sounding. I rummaged in my pocket, trying to find the coin I wanted, while Todd fumbled with something near the wall.

  I got the coin out just as the lights came on. I blinked and ducked down further, pressing my back against the lab bench. The place wasn’t large. He’d find me in less time than it took to pull the trigger, which I was sure he’d be doing soon after. If I made a run for the door, I’d be dead before I could take two steps.

  It was safe to say I was royally screwed.

  I could hear him shuffling closer to me, and my mouth grew as dry as the desert in summer. I could only think of one way out. I caught myself about to start humming, nixed that idea, and just splashed the Kemia over the coin.

  I was freaking scared. That worked to my advantage. The insane, completely irrational mindset you’re in when you could die at any moment matches well with the state of mind needed to open a Pin Hole. Chaos filled me, almost comforting in a way, and I felt the familiar touch of Heaven.

  Todd appeared at the end of the bench, nothing between him and me. His eyes widened, a determined set to his jaw, and he raised the gun.

  That’s when I turned the air into smoke. It was one of my favorite Pin Holes. It had saved my bacon in the past. I left enough oxygen to breathe, but the rest of it I changed into smog so thick you couldn’t see a foot in front of you.

  Todd screamed something incoherent and fired his gun, but I was already moving. I scrambled through the smoke, aiming for where I thought the front door was. Todd crashed into something behind me and sent more glass shattering across the floor.

  I nearly ran right into the front door, but I skidded to a halt just in time. I waved away the smoke, found the door handle, and pulled.

  It was locked. Son of a bitch.

  The gun fired again and hit the door inches from my head. I dived to the ground and scrambled away from the door.

  “I ain’t that stupid, Miles. You’re not leaving here.”

  I crawled, my sweaty palms slipping on the floor. Jes
us, what the hell was I going to do? I could use a Pin Hole to unlock the door, but that would mean releasing the Pin Hole that kept the room shrouded in smoke, and I’d have a mouth full of lead before I managed to get outside. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  I slipped behind another lab bench, staying as low as possible. I could hear Todd’s heavy breathing, but the smog I’d created distorted sound, making it difficult to track where it was coming from.

  “I didn’t want it to come to this,” Todd called out. My best guess was that he’d taken up position near the door into the work room, which put a great big hole in my only other plan for getting out.

  “Yeah?” I said, staying crouched. “I’m sure your sincere regret is a real comfort to old Spencer back there.”

  I caught a glimpse of reflected light flashing through the smoke. He was trying to use his flashlight to spot me, but in this he’d have a better chance just throwing the damn thing and hoping he bopped me in the head with it.

  “Stupid son of a bitch,” Todd said. “If he just kept his shit together, I wouldn’t have had to rat him out to the gangs. This wouldn’t’ve had to happen. I wouldn’t have had to put him down.”

  None of this made sense. Todd was Doctor Dee, not Spencer? Why the hell was he doing this? He was a good cop, for fuck’s sake!

  The light flicked past again. I had to keep him talking. Maybe I could get him wound up, tempt him into searching the place for me.

  I kept on the move, hoping to confuse him. “So how’d it all work, eh? You go to him wanting a little booster, and he gave you Chroma? Then you decided you’d make a better criminal mastermind, so you started calling yourself Doctor Dee?”

  “Grow some brains, Miles. This ain’t no comic book. Doctor Dee was never more than a shadow figure to keep everyone occupied, keep the gangs guessing. Besides, that little shrimp Vei Davies couldn’t run a dimestore shoplifting racket, let alone a drug empire. I shook him down on another case a few months back, and I bet you can guess what rolled out.”

  I spoke more to myself than to him. “Chroma.”

  “There you go. See, you’re getting it eventually. Son of a bitch had cut the project. He couldn’t see the potential it had.”

  I felt my way along the shelves, passing chemicals and glass beakers. I paused to breathe, and caught a wailing sound from outside. Sirens. The cops were on their way. This shit just kept getting better and better.

  The flashlight flickered around again. “There’s no place for you to go. I made sure of that. Try to run, and all you get is another ten years.”

  I needed to be gone, which meant I had to distract him somehow. This wasn’t working. I had to make him angry. Which, to be honest, isn’t usually the best plan when the other bastard has a goddamn hand cannon.

  “So why does the great unappreciated Detective Todd want to scramble about in the pits with the gangsters, I wonder? Can’t get your own pussy so you want to see if John Andrews will throw you his seconds? Or do you just want some pocket money to buy yourself a few hookers?”

  “Money? The hell would I want with money? You saw what I did with a single vial of Chroma and one Tunneler. Imagine what I could do with ten Tunnelers. With a hundred.”

  My hands tightened into fists, nails digging into my palm. “You son of a bitch. Your little experiment nearly killed Tania.”

  “That wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know they’d take a young one.”

  “Yeah, you’re the innocent victim here,” I said. “Your drug is going to set this city on fire.”

  I took a breath and fought to shove my anger back down. This wasn’t working at all. The sirens were getting closer, and I was only succeeding in enraging myself. I had to think. Todd was large, deranged, and packing heat, but I was smart.

  “Fuck you, Miles. Don’t you talk to me about innocence. I’m doing this for the innocent victims. People like you and me are going to burn, but the people out there, good fucking people, they’re going to come through the fire and find a brand-new city waiting for them. A city where the gangs have been turned to ashes by their own evil.”

  I slithered alongside the benches, peering through the smoke at the tools and instruments scattered around. There had to be something. Jesus, there had to be.

  And then I saw it. A little bottle with a glass stopper, filled with a deep red fluid. I snatched it off the table and brought it close enough to read the label. Yes.

  I flipped my knife out and scratched a rough circle in the floor. It would be close enough, just.

  The sirens were right outside now. I heard car doors slamming and footsteps tramping down the stairs to Spencer’s front door.

  “Time’s up, Miles. End this. Don’t make me kill you.”

  “Why are you doing this, Walt? You can’t rule a city of ruins.”

  “That’s what you don’t get. I’m not going to rule anything.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to destroy them. I’m going to kill every last fucking gangster in this city.”

  “You can’t beat them this way. They—”

  “Don’t fucking tell me what I can’t do! I’m going to make them pay, Miles. I did my goddamn job, I was good police, and they tried to break me for it.”

  “Walt—”

  “They ruined my life,” he screamed. “They destroyed my marriage. Those mother-fuckers killed my son!”

  The words rang in the room, penetrating the smoke in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. Some note deep inside me sounded, shocking me to stillness for a moment.

  Then the hammering on the door started. I shook my head, pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose, and splashed a dash of Kemia on my circle.

  “I’m sorry. But I can’t eat this charge.” I cleared my head and clutched the bottle of red fluid. “Tell Vivian I said hi.”

  I hurled the bottle in the direction I thought Todd was. He shouted something at the same time as the cops outside banged on the door, and then the glass bottle hit the ground and shattered.

  For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of tinkling glass. Then I heard Todd retching.

  The smell hit me a second later, despite my attempts to block it out with my shirt. It was a stench of the worst kind, rotting flesh rolled in shit and left out in the sun for a week. I nearly gagged, even though I was ready for it. My eyes were leakier than my apartment’s drainpipes, but I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself.

  I was already running. I released the Pin Hole that held the smoke in place, and the room was thrown into sharp, impossibly clear light. No bullets came my way. I glanced to my side to see Todd wiping his eyes with the back of his hand while he bent over double, coughing his lungs out.

  There wasn’t time for pity. The front door splintered as a cop tried his foot against the door handle, but there were enough locks in place to keep out a Soviet tank. Still, I’ve seen cops that would give a tank a run for its money.

  I changed the focus of my thoughts, opening the new Pin Hole while I ran. I didn’t make for either door. That would’ve been suicide, and I hadn’t lived through numerous attempts on my life today just to throw it away in an attempt to rush Todd. Instead, I made for the newspaper-covered window in the back.

  Chaos entered me as the Pin Hole opened. The newspaper seemed to shift slightly, but not enough for me to be sure it had worked. Oh well. I’d soon find out.

  I leaped in mid-run, planted a foot on the lab bench against the wall beneath the window, and launched myself forward. Todd shouted something, but he was way too late.

  I hit the window fist first and drove my weight through. I waited for the cutting and the spurting blood, but none came. The Pin Hole had worked.

  My foot hit the concrete outside, soon followed by my hand and my face. Around me, sugar glass rained down. It was the same stuff they used in movies, so when the hero gets chucked through the bar window he doesn’t slice an artery and end up bleeding out on the ground. Despite the concrete scraping away the skin on my hands and face, I
was feeling pretty proud of myself.

  That faded pretty quickly when Todd’s shouts reached an all-time high. I picked myself up just in time to see his face appear in the window, a gun barrel coming into view a moment later.

  I scrambled out of the way as the gun went off. I was in an alleyway, with trash cans to my right and flashing police lights to my left. The image burned itself into my brain, Bluegate at its rotten core.

  Todd shouted something incoherent and fired again, and I decided now might be a good time to make my exit, stage right. I turned and fled deeper into the alley, every inch of me aching.

  I could already feel the walls closing in.