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

by Chris Strange

  I made my way to my motorbike, doing my best to ignore the whispering crowd. My gut was groaning, and I was feeling a little light-headed. That was unusual. Tunneling drained me a bit, but it didn’t usually leave me feeling like shit.

  I was halfway to my bike when Wade called out again. “Franco. You’re coming with me.”

  I stopped and shoved my hands in my pockets. “Like hell I am,” I said without turning around.

  “This is out of control. Detective Reed told me what you’ve been doing. You’re going to get yourself killed out here.”

  “So nice to know you care.”

  “Someone wants you out of the picture.” Wade came up behind me. “You think he was the only one they’ll send?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve handled things all right so far,” I lied.

  “You need our protection.”

  I would’ve laughed if I didn’t feel like hurling. “Protection. Right. I’ll take my chances on the street, thanks.”

  I took a step forward, and then a hand gripped my upper arm. A white-hot flash went through my head. Christ, I wanted to take a swing at him.

  “I’ll arrest you if I have to.”

  I could still taste the man’s blood in my mouth. I spat it out. “What charge?”

  “We’ll start with assault and Tunneling on a suspended license.”

  Son of a bitch. I had things to do. I needed to nail AISOR, and I couldn’t do that cooling my heels in a police station. For a brief moment, I considered attacking Wade and making a break for it. I could probably manage it, if I didn’t get shot. Come to think of it, the risk of getting shot was becoming a major impediment to me achieving my goals.

  I kicked at a loose stone with my shoe. Hell, I didn’t have a choice, did I?

  “Would you really have shot me?” I asked.

  “I still might.”

  I grinned and let him lead me back to his car. That damn dog was still yapping.

  SIXTEEN

  Detective Wade insisted on bringing my pale-faced attacker to the station in his car, so I got to sit in the front seat and not behind the mesh. The guy groaned in the back seat for a while, and then he lapsed into nervous silence as he came around. The paramedics wanted to take him to hospital and make sure I hadn’t slammed him around enough to knock anything important loose, but Wade said he wanted to get the guy talking. I had to agree; this son of a bitch must know something about Claudia. Of course, I didn’t tell Wade I was on his side here.

  The pretty boy drove in silence, his hands at exactly ten and two on the wheel. After he cracked the window, the breeze turned his hair into a men’s shampoo commercial. My initial impression of him hadn’t dimmed in the slightest. There was something smarmy beneath his exterior, and I didn’t like it. Physically, there wasn’t much similarity between him and Vivian’s previous partner, but something about him reminded me of Detective Todd. I found myself clutching my bottle of Kemia while the sun-drenched streets rolled past.

  Wade got a uniformed cop to take my attacker to booking when we reached the station. I didn’t get the same privilege. I signed my name at reception, then Wade dragged me past the vending machine and we took an elevator up a few floors. He didn’t say a word. I followed his example.

  We emerged from the elevator into a large room that could’ve come from damn near any office building in the world, if it weren’t for all the cops walking around. One side of the room was lined with large, grimy windows that let some of the day’s heat creep in, while the other held a few doors with stark metal name plates in holders. Most of the rest of the room was filled with desks and computers, vaguely separated into different teams. Every desk I could see was adorned with stacks of paper and a styrofoam coffee cup, or in some cases, five or six.

  A few of the cops greeted Wade as he took me past, but no one glanced at me. I shoved my hands in my pocket and tried to not look like a mass murderer. A vice was slowly tightening around my chest.

  “Wait here.” Wade pulled up a seat near the windows. The hard plastic stung a bruise on my ass. I didn’t let it show on my face.

  “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Wade said. He turned and walked away before I could respond. Stupid? Me?

  I glanced around once more at the cops to make sure none of them were paying me any attention, and then I pulled the pale-faced man’s wallet out of my jacket pocket. It was brown leather, nothing fancy, but with a lot less tears and holes than mine. I flipped it open and had a look inside. About a hundred bucks and assorted change inside, but no receipts to give me a clue what he’d been doing recently. Other than that, there was only a single Visa credit card and a driver’s license. My attacker had the unfortunate name of Anthony Gullet. I figured it was too terrible to be a fake identity.

  I caught a whiff of reheated pasta, and my stomach rumbled. The petite female cop left the steaming container on a desk a few feet from me and wandered over toward the coffee machine. I’d never even got to enjoy the post-funeral snacks. I wondered if I could snag the cop’s lunch and eat it before she got back. Nah, I didn’t want to give Detective Wade any ammunition.

  I took the cash and cards out of the wallet and went through them carefully again. Gullet sure wasn’t one of the scientists hanging around in the basement of AISOR, but he could easily work for them. Or maybe Zhi or Kowalski hired him to take me out. There were probably plenty of ex-gangsters out of work right now that would take a job like that in an instant. I didn’t get a gangster vibe from him, though. He was too inexperienced.

  “You’re not going to try to bribe your way out of this, are you?”

  I looked up to find Vivian standing in front of me. With her chin, she pointed at the wallet in my hands. She was wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt today, with just the top button undone. Her gun sat in a leather shoulder harness. It made me a little uncomfortable. She was sexy anyway. She could make wearing a burlap sack look sexy.

  I shoved the cash and cards back in the wallet. For a moment I considered keeping my hands on it, but I’d got all I could out of it anyway. I tossed the wallet to her. “That belongs to my pal with the itchy trigger finger. Do me a favor and return it to him, will you?”

  She turned it in her hands, checking the ID like I had, then nodded and pocketed it. I caught a glimpse of Wade hovering behind her, a vaguely satisfied smile playing around his lips. I raised my eyebrows at him.

  “What’s up with you?” I asked. “You look like you’ve been tattling on me to my mother.”

  He smirked and said nothing.

  “I’m not your damn mother, Miles.” Vivian folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Let’s go to the interview room. We need to talk.”

  I smiled as casually as I could, leaned back, and rested my arms on the seat backs to either side of me. “I’m comfortable here.”

  “Fine,” she said. Without turning around, she grabbed an office chair, dragged it in front of me, and sat down. That threw me a little. I expected more of an argument. Maybe some good old-fashioned police brutality.

  “We need you to go through everything,” she said. “Right from the start.”

  “And then what?” I said.

  “And then you’re going to drop this. Actually drop it this time. This situation is beyond dangerous, Miles. We’ll take you to hospital, or if you won’t go, we’ll bring a doctor here. And we’ll find whoever is responsible for killing your friend. But you have to talk to us.”

  I licked my lips. There was fire in her eyes, and not some lousy candle flame either. And even I had to admit she probably had a point. Attempted kidnappings and gunfights in broad daylight probably wasn’t the best way to heal a recovering city. But every inch of me wanted to resist. It was me who failed Claudia. I was the one getting beaten up and poisoned. I should be the one to avenge her.

  I rubbed my chin, feeling the sandpaper brush of stubble. For an instant, I thought I saw Claudia again, but then she was gone. Deep in my stomach, some thick, oozing pain lurked.
/>   I sighed. “When you’re right, you’re right, Vivian. I’ll talk. One condition.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Pretty Boy gets lost.”

  Wade scowled and tucked his thumbs into his belt. Vivian shook her head. “I have to tell him everything anyway.”

  “Fine,” I said, “but I’m not talking to him directly.”

  “You’re being a child,” she said.

  “It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

  For a moment, I thought I caught a tiny smile flash across her face. Then it was gone. She studied my face for a few seconds, and it was all I could do to hold her gaze. Then she nodded.

  “Detective Reed,” Wade said testily, “can I speak to you for a moment?”

  “Of course. How about you go pick us up some takeaways for a late lunch, and we’ll talk then. I’m sure we’re all hungry.”

  I wished I had a camera to capture the look on Wade’s face.

  Wade didn’t say anything. After a moment, he gave me a sneer that did nothing for his handsome face and walked away.

  I grinned at Vivian. But if there’d been a smile there before, it was nowhere to be found now. “Start talking.”

  I thought back to how I tailed Zhi. I didn’t know whether to tell Vivian about Mayor White. Truth is, I didn’t know what I’d seen. Still, I had to at least give her an idea what I thought was going on. “This thing’s big. I can feel it. How big exactly, I don’t have the damnedest.”

  “Let’s take it from the top,” she said. “Go through it nice and slow.”

  “Don’t I even get a ‘please’?”

  “No.” There was something dangerous in her eyes. I was beginning to regret getting Wade sent away. He might have been the one holding her leash.

  “Look—” I started.

  “No, you look. The lab ran a test on your blood sample. It’s what killed the others, all right. You don’t have the same level of crystallization yet, but you’ve only got a couple of days, maximum. You’ve got yourself into a very deep pile of shit, and I don’t know if I’ve got a long enough rope to pull you out. I need you to take this seriously.”

  “I—”

  “Seriously, Miles. We’re trying to get what we can on AISOR, but it’s a fucking huge company and we don’t have enough to convince a judge to let us knock down the doors. I need your statement telling us exactly what happened and what you’ve found out. And I need you to stop screwing around and turning this whole thing into a legal nightmare. AISOR has lawyers. A lot of lawyers. If you’re stomping through everything, they’re going to tear us to shreds when we try to prosecute.”

  Something strange touched my consciousness. A kind of heat, and something that sounded like a drum. No. A heartbeat.

  “Vivian—”

  “This is the only way you can help your friend. This is the only way you can help yourself.” Her eyes touched the floor for a moment, and then returned to meet my gaze. “I want to be your friend, Miles, I really do. You have a good heart, even if you try to hide it. I want to help you, but…” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not even listening to me, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “Shut up. I’m trying to concentrate on something.”

  The heat was growing stronger. The bustle of cops moving around continued, but inside my head, everything melted away. Then there was another sound in my mind, like claws on glass.

  Oh, shit.

  “Someone’s just opened a Tunnel to Limbus,” I said.

  She frowned. “What?”

  “It’s close. It’s really close. Vivian, we need to—”

  A cacophony of inhuman screams ripped through the office. The windows behind me shook in their frames. Black dread crept like a spider up my spine. Car tires screeched, and then the yelling began. They were outside.

  Vivian and a dozen other cops raced to the windows while I twisted in my seat to look outside. The street below looked like a child had kicked over his toys and released his sister’s pet rats into the chaos. Cars were stopped in the streets, abandoned by their drivers. Pedestrians sprinted in every direction, some of them literally running in circles like they were in a cartoon. And everywhere, the creatures attacked.

  There were at least ten of them, maybe more. I recognized most of them instantly. They were the same hairy, screeching, fang-filled monsters I’d sicced on Caterina in John Andrews’ mansion. I’d called them spider-dogs at the time, and the name still fit. I watched as a pair of them sank their teeth into a middle-aged woman running down the street. Even as she fell, she never let go of her grocery bags.

  But there were two creatures that I didn’t recognize. And they were big. The cyclopean monsters were each the size of an SUV, with enough muscle to feed a neighborhood. Their black fur was streaked with orange across their backs, making them look like a cross between giant apes and hornets. And they looked pissed.

  “Everyone outside!” Vivian yelled. The other cops were drawing their weapons, but not her. “Push them back and plug the Tunnel.”

  I stood, heart hammering, and pulled my Kemia from my pocket. It was still mostly full. My mind spun up half a dozen attacks to put into action. My limbs seemed to be moving awkwardly, in slow motion.

  “No,” Vivian said. “You’re staying here.”

  “To hell with that. You need me to fight them. I can find the Tunnel.”

  “So can we. We have Tunnelers too, remember? This attack has something to do with you. I’m not letting them draw you out.”

  “Your Tunnelers are a bunch of saps,” I said. “They couldn’t turn Coke into Pepsi. People are going to die if you don’t let me help.”

  I tried to push past her, but she blocked my way and shoved me back down in my seat. The rest of the cops were already scrambling for the stairs.

  “We can handle it.” Her hands touched my shoulders. “No one’s going to die. Please, Miles.” She leaned down close to me. Even through the adrenaline—or maybe because of it—her scent was overwhelming. “Stay here.”

  “I—”

  Her face was inches from mine. A stray dark hair hung from her forehead to tickle my cheek. I could feel the warmth from her body. “Please, Miles.”

  I could hardly breathe. Even the sound of the creatures’ screeching sounded far away. All I could see was her. I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry. “I—”

  There was a clicking sound. Something cold wrapped itself around my wrist.

  “You didn’t,” I said.

  I looked down to find my left wrist handcuffed to the arm of the seat.

  “I did,” she said.

  I went for my Kemia, and I realized it was no longer in my hand. Vivian took a step back and held up the bottle. I hadn’t even felt her take it.

  “Not cool,” I said.

  Vivian turned and flagged down a passing uniformed cop. “Collins. Stay here and keep an eye on him.” She pointed to me. “Make sure he doesn’t get free.”

  The skinny cop hesitated, glanced at me, and nodded. I glared at him. Goddamn it, I hated cops.

  Vivian pocketed the bottle of Kemia and drew her pistol from her shoulder harness. “Back soon.”

  “If you get yourself killed, just remember I told you so,” I said.

  She turned and ran for the stairs. Outside, the popping of gunfire started to overlay the screeches and screams. Collins, the young cop, crossed his arms and tried to look at me sternly. I would’ve slugged him if he was within arm’s reach.

  I spun awkwardly in the seat and craned my neck to look out the window. Both plain-clothes officers and uniforms were battling the creatures, using cars as cover. Some moved in to flank and surround the creatures, while others helped usher the civilians away, firing at any creature that came too close. One of the giant apes overturned a car and slammed its knuckles into the concrete in a scream of fury. The road cracked.

  Where the hell was the Tunneler and his Tunnel? I couldn’t pinpoint a location from here, but it couldn’t be more tha
n a couple of blocks away. I had no clue how he—or she, I guess—had managed to herd the creatures here. The monsters from Limbus weren’t known for being tame or timid. Damn it, Vivian. She needed me out there.

  “Stay still,” Collins said. He had one eye on me and one out the window.

  “You’re as bad as Detective Reed. I’m trying to concentrate here.”

  I closed my eyes and focused. I really needed to get closer to find the Tunnel, but it was big enough that it was putting out a pretty decent amount of energy. If I could get a general area to point the cops in, that would let them…

  Wait a minute. Something wasn’t right. There was definitely a big Limbus Tunnel close by. But there was something else as well. Limbus again, but slightly modified and coming from further away. No, that wasn’t quite true either. It was a different signal, for want of a better word, but mainly it was smaller. Almost like a Pin Hole, but for Limbus. And it was moving closer.

  “Hey, Collins,” I said. “You got a gun?”

  “Yeah.” He sounded wary.

  “You might wanna draw it.”

  There was a new screech, bird-like this time. I pulled at the handcuffs, hoping against hope they would give. Christ, what I wouldn’t do for some Kemia.

  A shadow blocked the light from outside. Then something huge and winged crashed through the window.

  I spun away from the sudden rush of air, throwing my free arm across my face to shield my eyes from the rain of glass. Tiny pricks of pain sprung up along my hand. Far away, I heard Collins swearing and fumbling for his pistol. Then the noise was blocked out by another screech and the whoosh of wings beating against the air.

  I wrenched at the handcuffs again. Wind buffeted me. When I could open my eyes, my guts turned to ice. The creature perched in the window with its wings folded. It resembled a giant, four-winged bat. I’d guess that when it was flying, its wingspan would be bigger than two of me lying head to toe. The most obvious deviation from a regular bat was the huge beak and the two pairs of talons it had—one pair it used for standing and the others like low-slung arms. It regarded me with four small, black eyes.