The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy)

by Chris Strange

  She tucked the hem of her dress in around her legs and sat down, knees together. I sat next to her and glanced back at the garden. The shadow was gone. Hell, maybe it was never there to begin with, me being a madman and all. I put the glass of Coke against my forehead, hoping the condensation would calm me down.

  “What happened to your ear?” she said.

  “Cat got me.”

  “A cat?”

  I held my hands a couple of feet apart. “Big one. Fangs like razor blades.” I bared my teeth to show her.

  She giggled, and it was like the sound of rain on a window. The knots in my muscles began to relax.

  “So what does a chemical analyst do in a place like AISOR?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Nothing at the moment. I’m a field analyst, but we’re not going anywhere right now. Not since our lead Tunneler disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  She mimed a little explosion with her fingers. Her nails were painted red. “Poof.”

  I took a drink of my Coke. Disappearing Tunnelers. And they said Bluegate had changed.

  We sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Then: “Did you really do those things they accused you of?”

  “Which things?” I said.

  “Killing those gangsters.”

  I took another long drink. Something shimmered in the corner of my vision. No, no more hallucinations.

  “Pretty much, yeah,” I said.

  Another weak laugh came from the audience inside. We were the only ones still in the courtyard. I waited for Zhi to get scared and make an excuse to leave.

  “This isn’t really my scene,” she said. “I make sixty grand a year if I’m lucky. It’s enough, but I don’t exactly have a trust fund. You want to go somewhere else?”

  I’ve been hit with sucker punches that were less surprising. I gaped for a moment, trying to find the right gear for my brain. “Uh…”

  “There’s a Mexican place a couple blocks down,” she said. “Margaritas and nachos until three a.m.”

  I met her eyes. Ever get that feeling when you’re on top of a cliff, looking down at the jagged rocks below, and your chest tightens, and you know without a shadow of a doubt that you’re going to fall?

  Yeah.

  “Nachos, huh?”

  EIGHT

  Zhi Lu had good taste in nachos. We sat in a corner booth and shared a large plate, blocking out the sounds of the busy restaurant with our own conversation. She told me a little about work at AISOR, while I tried to deflect questions about what it was like to cross worlds. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of Tunneling. I just didn’t want to dwell on what I’d done with it last winter. I’d had enough of that, enough of the letters from screwed-up women seeking some danger in their life by trying to screw a mass murderer.

  Zhi was different, though. She didn’t focus on the destruction and the Chroma and all that other stuff. She just asked me about Heaven, and about the old days when I got in good honest trouble. Slowly, the tension went out of my shoulders and I started to relax around her. Of course, that might have been the booze.

  We started getting buzzed on tequila and margaritas—her idea, not mine. She could hold her liquor well. Within a couple of hours we were giggling together, our knees pressed together beneath the table, her hand touching my shoulder. Her scent was making me feel things I hadn’t felt in months. So around two a.m. I finished off my margarita and said, “Hey, so, hey, you want to get out of here, or something?”

  And she took my hand and we caught a cab and we went back to Zhi’s place. And we kind of slept together.

  I’m not that kind of guy, I’m really not. I don’t think she was that kind of girl either. But it had been a long time for me. A really long time. I’m pretty sure mammoths were still around the last time I was with a girl. And right then, I didn’t think I could stop myself.

  She was stronger than she looked. Her fingers traced my bruises as she sat atop me, her face glowing, her naked body glistening with sweat. My palms tightened around her narrow hips as she rocked back and forth. Heat radiated from her. In that moment, all the ghosts, all the guilt drained away, and it was just me and her and the night.

  Finally, achingly, we both shuddered and she collapsed atop me, her breath coming fast against my neck, her hair tickling my nose. After an age, she rolled off me and pulled the covers up around us. Her lips touched mine, soft and wet and sweet. My vision was still blurred and spotted, and a distant voice in the back of my head wondered if she had literally fucked me blind. She put her head down on the pillow next to me and her hand came to rest on my chest. It was intimate, comforting. I closed my eyes for a second.

  When I opened them, light was streaming through the window. The alarm on Zhi’s phone was beeping, and she was scrambling to shut it off. I hadn’t got a good look at the place last night, what with the dark and the booze and the sex and all, but it was nice. I seemed to remember it was on the second or third floor of an apartment building south of the central city, probably no more than ten or fifteen years old. A line of worn Robert Ludlum and Lee Child novels were stacked on a bookshelf in the corner, bookended by a framed photo of an older Asian couple and a small pile of textbooks.

  Zhi finally got her phone to stop screaming. She rolled back toward me. She held the sheet to her breasts in a display of modesty that was nowhere to be seen last night. Her smile was shy.

  “I have work,” she said.

  “Good morning to you, too,” I said. She playfully bit my shoulder. “Bit early for work, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve got an errand to run first. Then back to the grindstone.”

  “Ah yes, the work of the chemical analyst who can’t do anything because her Tunneler’s missing. Sounds tough.”

  “Shut up,” she said, smiling. “There are old samples I can use. And maybe they’ll get it working today.”

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I could still taste the tequila in my throat, but at least I hadn’t drunk enough to have a proper hangover. “Get what working? A Tunnel?”

  She nodded, slipping out of bed. I caught a glimpse of dark pubic hair before she pulled a robe around herself. Something in me stirred again. “We’ve been having trouble with it,” she said. “Giles was the only one who could keep it open, and even then it was unstable.”

  “Any Tunneler should be able to keep a Tunnel open for at least half a dozen people.” I sat up in bed. “What kinda losers you been hiring?”

  “It’s not a normal Tunnel. There’s no one with the kind of experience…” She glanced at me and touched her lower lip with her index finger. “You opened a Tunnel to Limbus. The first one.”

  “You shouldn’t listen to rumors.”

  She pounced on top of me. Her robe fell open, and my wits checked out without settling the bill. “You met my boss last night. He was interested in you.”

  “Yeah?” Something about the way she said it made my stomach give a little turn. But I saw the opportunity she was offering. “Say, if you want a Tunneler, maybe I could be your guy. I’m pretty handy.”

  She bit her lip and studied me for a moment. “You might be just what we need. I could see if he’ll give you a try,” she said. “It probably won’t be a permanent job, but if you can get it working there’ll be a bonus in it for you.”

  I pulled her down on top of me. “What kind of bonus is that?”

  She giggled and struggled free. But as she got up, a little voice whispered in my ear. That was easy. Maybe too easy. You thought Caterina Andrews was a sweet little thing as well. You thought you could trust her.

  “Miles?”

  I blinked. Zhi’s thin eyebrows were pulled together, forming little creases between them.

  I forced a smile onto my face and kicked the voice back where it belonged. “Huh? What?”

  “I said I need to have a shower. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  She planted a kiss on my lips, jumped up again, and made for the
door.

  “Hey, give me a shout if you want any help in the shower,” I said. “I’m good at scrubbing. And toweling. I’m an expert toweler.”

  She poked her tongue out and closed the bedroom door behind her.

  I put my hands behind my head and lay back down. It was a hell of a bed. I was going to have to get me something like this if I ever had the cash. Mine had so many springs sticking out you could skewer a deer on it.

  Not everyone was out to get me. Zhi was a good person. I mean, sure, I’d only known her, what, ten hours, and five of those I’d been asleep, and I wasn’t the world’s best judge of character. And okay, maybe it was awfully convenient that someone working at AISOR had taken me home to have sex with me and then offered me a job only a few hours after I’d met her and only a day after I’d started looking into the company, but I could trust her, right?

  “Goddamn it,” I muttered. I crawled out of bed, found my boxers, and slipped them on. The bathroom fan started to hum. I heard the shower running. I stumbled across the room while pulling my pants on and found Zhi’s handbag sitting on the floor beside her bedside table.

  Hating myself already, I unzipped it. I had to know. Or that’s what I told myself. I started rummaging. Her purse was nothing special. Twenty bucks and change in cash, a couple of credit cards, driver’s license, library card. I put the purse to one side and kept looking through the bag. A compact mirror, a tube of lip gloss, a couple of tampons, some hand sanitizer. I flipped open a small notebook with a pen attached, but all it said was: “Milk, eggs, tissues.” Other than that, just a set of keys and a smartphone. I started to check through her text messages. Then I realized what I was doing.

  Jesus Christ. I really was screwed up, wasn’t I? Tania or Desmond would have my head off if they could see me now. I felt sick.

  I started shoving everything back in more or less the same way as I found it. The Chroma Wars were over. Not everything was a goddamn conspiracy. I didn’t have a damn clue what she saw in me, but Zhi hadn’t kicked me out first thing in the morning or pointed a gun at my face. She was good people. Maybe she even…

  My fingers brushed against a zip inside the handbag wall, so small I’d missed it the first time. I froze, my fingertips on the zip. Don’t do it, Miles. You don’t wanna know.

  Hell. I unzipped the hidden compartment, and my fingers closed on something plastic. I pulled the zip-lock bag out into the light, opened it. Three thousand dollars, all in hundreds. And another driver’s license with Zhi’s photo inside. But the name beside it didn’t say Zhi Lu. It said Brittany Wei.

  Told you you didn’t wanna know.

  My pocket started ringing. My heart nearly gave out. I shoved the cash and license back in the plastic bag, stuck it in the handbag compartment, zipped it up, and put it back on the floor. After a second to get my breathing under control, I got my cell phone out of my pocket.

  “Yeah?”

  “Miles. Where are you?”

  “Vivian?” I said. “I’m…out.”

  Vivian made a noise like she was clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I know you’re out. I’m outside your apartment. I want to talk.”

  “Is the pretty boy with you?” I found my shirt on the floor and tried to put it on one-armed. “Ask him if he’s noticed I swiped his notebook yet.”

  “Detective Wade,” she said, with extra sauce on the detective, “is at the station. And stealing documents pertaining to a current investigation could be construed as obstruction of justice.”

  “Also, tell him he writes like a girl.”

  There was an audible outflow of air from her nostrils. In the bathroom, the shower stopped running.

  “I was going to apologize for the way you were treated yesterday, but I don’t think I’ll bother. I just wanted to let you know we’re releasing Claudia’s body. We contacted her sister. She’s flying in today. She’ll get in touch with you about the funeral.”

  The funeral. Christ, I hadn’t even thought of that. “Thanks, Vivian. Really. You guys find anything more on the autopsy?”

  “There was one thing. The pathologist found some sort of crystallization in her arteries. We’ve had something similar on the other victims, but never this…” She paused. “Wait. You’re not sticking your nose into this on your own, are you?”

  I heard the bathroom door open, and Zhi—or Brittany, or whoever she was—approached. “Me? ’Course not. I gotta go.”

  The bedroom door swung open. Zhi’s hair dripped trails of water across her naked shoulders. She wore a towel and nothing else. “Who’s that?” she said, pointing to the phone.

  “Who’s that?” Vivian said in my ear.

  “Bye Mom,” I said. “Be sure to tell Dad what I said.”

  “Franco—”

  I pressed the end call button and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

  Zhi raised an eyebrow at me. “You always call your mother after you sleep with someone?”

  “We’re very close.” I tried for a smile, but I don’t know if I pulled it off.

  She came near me, very near. The smell of her damp hair was intoxicating. No, damn it! Stay on guard. She tilted her face up to mine, glanced at my lips and gently bit hers.

  “I should go,” I said.

  Her face dropped. “Already? You don’t want a shower? Breakfast? At least let me look at your ear.”

  “I’ve got some stuff I need to do,” I said evenly.

  “Oh.” She frowned and studied my face, but I gave her nothing. “Well, you’ll come by and have a look at the Tunnel, right? Here, let me write down the address.”

  She went back out to the living room, still in a towel, and scribbled something on a scrap piece of paper.

  “Thanks,” I said, pocketing it without looking. I finished buttoning my shirt and found the tie Tania had lent me.

  Zhi followed me to the door. My gut was having a knot-tying competition with itself. She was the one who lied to me, and now I had to feel like the asshole. Damn it. I’d really liked her.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” she said. She stood up on tiptoes, and I didn’t have the strength to avoid the kiss. Even now, I wanted her.

  I broke the kiss and opened the door. “Yeah,” I said. “See you.” I closed the door without looking at her again. I just couldn’t.

  I took the stairs to the street. It was a nice part of town, with honest-to-God grass next to the sidewalk and everything. The apartment buildings in the area weren’t the kind to have parking garages, so the streets were lined on both sides with cars, none more than four or five years old. I shoved my hands in my pocket, squinted against the glare of the morning sun, and walked to the end of the block. A few respectable people in business suits were up and about. They gave me a wide berth. I took shelter in the doorway of a small Indian restaurant that hadn’t opened yet, and there I waited.

  Zhi came out ten minutes later. She wore a white blouse and dark, form-fitting trousers. She looked fantastic. Without a glance in my direction, she put her key in the door of a regal blue compact Ford and climbed inside. I kept my head down as I made my way to the street and flagged down a taxi.

  “Where to?” the driver said as I climbed in.

  I shoved a twenty in his hand. “If you can follow that car without making a smartass comment about it being just like the movies, I’ll pay double the fare.”

  NINE

  I worked out where Zhi was going a few minutes later. She’d said she had an errand to run before work. Must’ve been a strange errand to send a human deep into the Vei-dominated district south of the central city. We followed her as she came off the expressway, rolled down familiar, pothole-filled streets, and stopped outside the Mercy of the Eight hospital.

  The taxi driver pulled over a way back from the Ford. Zhi parked, got out, and made her way to the hospital entrance. Just around there, in that clump of trees, was where Aran and his brothers had sliced and diced me. My ear throbbed at the memory.

  I paid th
e driver his fare, double as promised. He even kept his mouth shut as I got out and he pulled away.

  I considered following Zhi into the hospital. Then I unconsidered it. Too much chance she’d see me, and if she didn’t, that nurse would. So I strolled over to see if my bike had been jacked.

  I was on someone’s good side, because it was still there and it hadn’t even been touched. I found my keys, started it up, and rolled the rumbling machine back to the street where I could watch the hospital from the cover of an alley between a pair of low-rises.

  I could hear the Vei community waking up around me. Families picked up quarrels from previous nights and young children played some sort of game that involved shouting the names of the eight faces of the Vei gods.

  It was twenty minutes before Zhi emerged from the hospital. She was too far away for me to read her expression, but her shoulders seemed slumped and her movements slow. Maybe she was just hungover.

  No one accosted her on her way back to her car. Were Aran and Co. still hanging around? If their sister was still alive, I imagined they couldn’t be too far away.

  Zhi got into her car. I put on my helmet, started my bike up, and rode after her at a distance. Riding was automatic, allowing my mind to take advantage of the free time. This settled it. Unless she had a secret Vei step-mother in hospital, Zhi was visiting Penny Coleman. What the hell for, I had no idea. But there was no way a goddamn chemical analyst had any business hanging around a sick Vei prostitute unless she knew something about why she was there.

  The thoughts dug barbs into my heart. I should have known better. Miles Franco, biggest sucker in any dimension.

  The traffic got heavy as we got closer to the central city. I stayed a few cars back from her as the traffic slowed to the pace of a paraplegic turtle. She gave up on the expressway and took an exit. I wound my way through the cars until I could follow her again.

  It took me five minutes of driving through the South Bays before I realized where I was. Six months had turned the place from a desert of abandoned construction sites and the tombstones of destroyed buildings into a thriving rainforest. On every street, men dangled above the earth on safety harnesses, putting glass and walls around the skeletons of buildings that had lain dormant for a decade. This part of the city hadn’t been hit too hard last winter—not much point blowing up things when no one’s around to watch, I guess. A sign on an in-progress apartment building said in huge garish letters: Coming Soon: The Home of Your Dreams!