She ignored me and bared her teeth. “Can you do something useful?”
“On it. How’s this?”
The Pin Hole opened, and the air turned to thick smoke in an instant. I could barely see Lucetta in front of me. She fired off another few rounds into the cloud and jerked her head in the opposite direction. “That way.”
I jogged through the smoke, with Lucetta coming up behind, throwing cover fire to keep the gangsters away. I had no idea where we were going, so I had to pray she did.
I nearly ran straight into a wall before I realized we’d hit a T-intersection. I glanced one way and the other, but I couldn’t see anything through the smoke. “Which way?”
“Right!”
I turned to the right and started walking, but then I heard a sound in between the gunfire. Someone was shouting, back down the left corridor.
Lucetta reached my side. “What are you doing now?”
“Those three Vei they captured. Where’d they take them?”
“You’re going to get us killed—”
I grabbed her shoulder. “Where’d they take them?”
She bared her teeth again and pointed her rifle down the left corridor. “Storage room at the end. But we don’t have time.”
I pulled her behind the cover of the corridor and released the Pin Hole. The smoke disappeared.
“What are you—?”
“Just a sec,” I said. I pulled a second coin from my pocket, splashed a good helping of Kemia on, and started humming. This one was trickier than the smoke. It’d be a piece of cake on Chroma, but I wasn’t ready to go back down that rabbit hole again.
The Pin Hole opened, and reality shifted around us. The gangsters’ footsteps turned to squelching sounds, like someone poking a bowl of pudding. They shouted in anger.
“What…what did you do?” Lucetta said.
I grinned. “Turned the concrete down there back into liquid. Nice little trick of thermodynamics. Watch this, it’s even better.”
I stuck my head around the edge of the corridor and closed the Pin Hole. The gangsters cried out as the liquid concrete set around their feet, trapping them. They struggled, several of them losing their balance in the process. Somehow, after everything I’d been through—or maybe because of it—I found it fucking hilarious.
“Keep watch for me, will you?” I said. I dashed across the open corridor before she could reply. A couple of the trapped gangsters half-heartedly tried to kill me, but I was out of their line of sight too fast. The sound of crunching concrete and frustrated cries followed me. I smirked.
Without the smoke, it wasn’t hard to find my way around. Most of the offices I passed were barren, although a few busted-up desks were still lying around. I followed the sound of Vei shouting to the end of the corridor, where the sign on the door said STORAGE. I held the shotgun like a baseball bat and kicked open the door.
I saw everything in a flash. Aran, teeth bared and snarling. His wounded brother bleeding out on the floor, while the other stocky Vei tried to apply pressure to the wound. And a Collectivist in gray overalls pointing an ancient bolt-action rifle at Aran. All eyes turned toward me. So did the rifle.
I swung the shotgun clumsily. All that rapid fire Tunneling and fisticuffs had drained me more than I thought. I aimed to bring the butt of the shotgun down on the gangster’s head, but the blow glanced off and came crashing down on his elbow instead. The rifle swung down and a gunshot cracked. There was a puff of white dust from behind me as it punched through the drywall.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I swore I could see my own wild, teeth-baring grin in the reflection of the gangster’s wide eyes.
No time to bring the shotgun around for another swing. I set my feet and drove forward with my shoulder, slamming into his sternum. Shockwaves went through me, rattling my teeth. The gangster went down hard with me on top of him. He dropped the rifle. I dropped the shotgun. It only got worse from there.
I hated fighting almost as much as I hated guns. But the universe didn’t take into account my personal preferences very often. I smacked the gangster a couple of times in the jaw with an open fist, then when he still kept struggling, I put my knee into his gut. His fingers grabbed my injured ear. I thought I could feel the stitches tearing. I drove my elbow into his solar plexus as hard as I could. That got him to stop squirming. The fight was still in me, telling me to keep hitting, but I reined it in and rolled off him.
Then I heard the bolt action of the rifle being worked.
I jerked up, grabbed the barrel, and pushed it aside. The rifle went off a couple of inches from the gangster’s head. A flash of pain went through my ear drums. For a moment, everything sounded like I was underwater. Aran snarled at me.
“Let me kill him.” I could barely hear him through the ringing in my ears.
“Not likely.” I tapped my right ear with my palm, trying to get the ringing to stop, then got to my feet and met him eye-to-eye. He was tall for a Vei, but I still had a couple of inches on him. His teeth were streaked with blood. There was a cut on his cheek where someone had smacked him.
“Our sister is dead,” he said. “They betrayed me. Their war killed Penny. I’ll kill them.” His fingers tightened on the gun, and my muscles tensed. “I told you not to get involved where you don’t belong, human.”
“Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot lately.” I glanced at the gun barrel and tried to slow my heart. “Look, I’m sorry about Penny. But you’re gonna lose another family member unless we go right fucking now.” I pointed at the wounded Vei, then at my throbbing ear. “I’ve still got a half a mind to leave you here. Should I have stayed out of it, huh? Should I have left you to die?”
He narrowed his eyes and spat a glob of blood onto the floor. “No,” he said after a minute. “Thank you.”
“Then get your brother up and let’s go.”
I turned my back on him, picked up my shotgun, and made for the exit, half-expecting a bullet in the back. But after a moment I heard rapid Vei whispers and a groan from the wounded brother as they lifted him up.
All right. Now we just had to get out of this place.
I spotted Lucetta down the hallway where I’d left her. She stared at me with a mixture of rage and panic on her face. She waved her gun down the corridor we’d escaped from. “They’re getting loose! Move it.”
She was right; I could hear the cracking of concrete. Maybe the Collectivists weren’t as stuck as I’d hoped. I glanced back at the Vei brothers. Aran had the rifle in his hands while the other brother had the wounded one across his shoulders in a fireman carry. I led the way, pulling out my smoke coin again, until we were on either side of the corridor that held the trapped Collectivists.
“It’s gonna get hard to see in a second,” I said to the brothers. “Keep going forward. Lucetta, we’ll follow you to the exit.”
She nodded, and I splashed some Kemia on the coin. “Go!”
The smoke returned, blinding me instantly. A few of the gangsters shot randomly into the cloud, but I didn’t think they were even pointed in the right direction. I dashed across the corridor with Aran and company close behind. I could just make out Lucetta’s dress flaring in the smoke. Behind us, there were more crunches, and then running footsteps. Some of the gangsters were free. Shit.
“Lucetta?” I said between breaths.
“Nearly there.”
The footsteps behind were getting closer. I kept glancing behind, but the smoke was too dense. Come on.
I skidded to a halt. A door. An exit! Lucetta grabbed the handle.
“Locked,” she said.
Shit. I fished in my pocket for the right Pin Hole coin. “Gimme a second.” Damn it, where was it?
An assault rifle rattled. The smoke swirled and cleared for a moment, and then I saw the bullet holes Lucetta had put in the lock. She kicked the door open. Blessed sunlight shone through the haze. I shoved my bottle of Kemia back in my pocket, and we darted outside.
Right into a semici
rcle of growling, six-legged spider-dogs.
Lucetta swore in Vei. Aran matched her and raised her a scream of frustration. I slowly lowered my shotgun as I stared around at the rows upon rows of teeth and drool and animal rage. My heart deflated like a balloon at a children’s birthday party.
“Nice try,” came Daniel Bohr’s voice from behind us. “Hmm, yes, nice try.”
I let the smoke Pin Hole close. It wouldn’t do us any good out here in the open. We were in a huge open space, surrounded by a chain-link fence. An empty, pothole-lined road sat on the other side. Behind the squealing spider-dogs, a handful of Collectivists pointed their guns at us. All except for one. She was so broad-shouldered I took her for a man at first. I could sense the animal energy coming from her clasped fist. She was a Tunneler.
Daniel Bohr stepped out of the door behind us and made his way in a wide circle between us and the spider-dogs. A cigarette burned in his mouth. “Lucetta, interesting. Didn’t suspect. Not after all this time.” He bared his teeth and shook his head. “Why help this man?”
Lucetta stared at him and said nothing.
Bohr took a long drag on his cigarette and crushed it beneath his feet. “After everything we worked for. You never understood. Anyway, guns down. Come on.”
A couple more Collectivists appeared behind us. I tossed the shotgun, since it was empty anyway. It skidded to the feet of a spider-dog, but the animal didn’t react. Its many eyes stayed fixed on me. After a moment, Lucetta and Aran dropped their guns as well. My shoulder stung where Stretch had got me. Blood dripped from the fingers of my left hand.
The energy coming from the Tunneler shifted, and the spider-dogs closed in around us. But I only had eyes for the Tunneler. It was like Bohr said. A Pin Hole to control the Limbus creatures. But I could tell from here she wasn’t a particularly powerful or skilled Tunneler. Her Pin Hole was leaking energy more like a hose than a sieve. A germ of an idea put out roots in my mind.
Bohr nodded, as if to himself. “Good, good. No harm done.”
“There’s a couple of dead gangsters that might argue with you,” I said. “If they weren’t dead, I mean.”
Bohr frowned. “Not something to joke about. Expected better of you.”
Something slipped in the Tunneler’s Pin Hole, and an extra burst of energy sprang loose. A couple of the spider-dogs snapped at each other before the Tunneler got them back under control. Sweat made rivers on her forehead. Sloppy.
I folded my arms across my chest. The blood pooling on my fingertips touched my shirt, leaving a stain. I smiled and half-closed my eyes, letting my instinct guide me. I was going to run out of shirts if I kept ruining them like this. A red triangle formed on the fabric above my heart, hidden from the gangsters by the position of my arms.
Bohr continued to pace, jerking like the breeze was blowing him around. He stabbed his cigarette toward Aran and the others. “And why rescue these three, hmm? Dangerous. Cost you time. Might have got away without them.”
I saw Lucetta shooting me a glare out of the corner of my eye, but I ignored it. I sketched a couple more symbols in blood, improving the design I’d reverse-engineered.
“Not much to say now?” Bohr asked. He came closer. “I understand. You got your hopes up. Hope is dangerous. Is that it?”
“Nope,” I said. “Just letting you talk yourself out while I wait for the cops.” I pointed over his shoulder, the broken handcuff bracelet still hanging from my wrist. “Oh look, here comes the cavalry.”
A dozen gangsters spun on the spot, pointing their guns toward the road. Aiming at nothing. I snatched my Kemia from my pocket and splashed it on the triangle I’d painted on my shirt. The liquid felt like ice as it soaked through to my skin.
“I can’t believe you fell for that,” I said. The gangsters pointed their guns at me again. Bohr’s eyes widened as his gaze came to rest on my shirt. The cigarette dropped from his mouth.
The Tunneler shrieked. “He’s trying to gain control of the animals!”
I grinned. “Not trying.” The Pin Hole opened, filling my mind with fear and rage and hunger and hot blood pumping through a quick heart. It soaked up the Tunneler’s excess energy like a sponge. I severed her connection. “It’s already done.”
It was incredible. I existed in twenty bodies at once. My vision fractured into a hundred separate images, overlaid with a sense of hearing that was both broad and sharp. But the smells, Christ, the smells. They were everywhere. And I could smell fear. I bared two dozen sets of teeth and growled.
I had to grab hold of my human component like a life preserver in a storm of animalism. I blinked, and felt Lucetta grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the chaos. Then I blinked again, and my teeth dug into flesh and hot, salty blood filled my mouth.
Gunfire popped, and pain ripped through me. I screeched as I died, confused, both understanding and not understanding. Then one set of eyes went blank, and the other primitive minds squealed in rage. The shooter screamed and fell under a pile of ripping, tearing bodies. I couldn’t wait to see the eyes fading, blood pooling, cartilage crunching as I bit down and tore the human’s throat out and fire filled my muscles and I snarled and squealed and went after the next prey.
No! The spider-dogs seemed confused by my cry. One of them paused with its jaws over the gangster’s throat.
They were killing because that was what they did. They had no morals, no strange human constructions about whether killing was right. Killing just was. But I wasn’t an animal. And I’d killed enough people with Tunneling.
Stop. It was like trying to stop a steam roller by building a wall out of toothpicks. The spider-dogs didn’t want to listen; they wanted to rip and tear. I pushed more energy into the Pin Hole, forcing more of myself on them. Their rage dimmed a little. There was no negotiation here, just pure strength of will. Jaws loosened their grip on the Collectivists’ flesh.
“Franco.” It took me a moment to remember that was my name. I blinked again, and the vision I saw came from the eyes of the human Miles Franco, not the black eyes of a monster. Lucetta was dragging me to my feet. “Our ride is here. Come on.”
Our ride? What was she talking about? It was difficult remembering how to walk on two legs instead of six, but I got the hang of it after a few seconds. I let the Vei woman lead me past the wounded bodies of the Collectivists who hadn’t fled. Aran and his brothers were nowhere to be seen. Had I killed them, crushed their bones between my teeth? No, I had enough control not to do that, didn’t I? I couldn’t see Daniel Bohr either, but I could smell the stench of his cigarette. The spider-dogs watched me as we passed, making slight whimpering noises. The Pin Hole was still open, but I couldn’t keep this up for much longer. I was ready to fall asleep standing up. I just had to hope the remaining gangsters could get away before the animals returned to their natural instincts.
My feet kicked against each other as I walked. My vision was so hazy I could barely see the concrete in front of me. Then I saw the car, and the face that always had a grin for me. But not today.
“Hey, Des,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. “You’ll never guess what I’ve been up to.”
TWENTY
Desmond ended his call, stuffed the cell phone in his pocket, and put the steering wheel in a death grip. “I finally managed to get through to the cops and let Detective Reed know you’re alive. Sounds like there’s been at least three Limbus attacks all over the city. They’ve only just got them under control. I gave them the Collective’s address. They’ll do a raid as soon as they’ve got people together.”
“They’ll enjoy that,” I said.
“Goddamn it, guy. God fucking damn it.”
I lay in the back seat, my shirt undone so I could inspect the damage from the shotgun blast. It looked like another trip to the doctor was in order. Lucetta was in the front passenger seat, tending to a graze on her hand. She hadn’t said a thing since we got in the car and tore away from the old factory.
“You know how
lucky you are?” Desmond said. He jerked the steering wheel to the side and passed a slow-moving van. “If Lucetta hadn’t called me, you’d be dead by now.”
“A slurry.”
“What?”
“They were going to turn me into a slurry.”
He tugged his fingers through his sandy hair. He was a Tunneler, so he must have sensed what I’d done with the Limbus animals. But he hadn’t mentioned it. He was too busy playing the angry mother bit.
“You couldn’t just let the cops handle this, could you? You had to get involved.”
“Hey, I didn’t walk to that factory by myself. I was bird-napped. From the same goddamned police you’re so fond of.”
He shook his head. “You’ve been digging yourself a grave since this thing started. Are you trying to get yourself killed? You really think that’ll make up for whatever sins you think you’ve committed?”
The sun flickered between buildings as we passed. It made me nauseous, so I closed my eyes.
“I’m trying to get answers.”
“By yourself? I don’t think so. You’re trying to be a martyr.”
I was too tired for this. “I’m not trying to be anything.”
“Then why aren’t you working with Detective Reed on this? She contacted me. She told me about the—”
“Look, thanks for the save, Des, but I’m fine,” I said without opening my eyes.
“Then you’re going to drop this?”
I said nothing.
“You need that shoulder looked at,” he said.
“Screw that. Take me home.”
“You need—”
“I don’t need a hospital. I’m fine.”
“No, guy, you’re not. I’m taking you to the hospital, and then I’m calling Detective Reed.”
“You do that, and I tell the cops about all this quasi-vigilante stuff you’ve been up to.”
He hit the brakes. The car skidded to a stop, making my stomach lurch. Des twisted around to stare at me. His eyes were hard. Mine were harder. I wasn’t going to a hospital. I couldn’t afford to waste a second. No matter what—or who—it cost me.
The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) Page 16