The Man Who Crossed Worlds (Miles Franco #1)

by Chris Strange

CHAPTER EIGHT

  I swear I’d only been asleep five minutes before I was awakened by an insistent rapping at my door. I groaned, wrenched my eyes apart, then snapped them closed again as sunlight flooded them. I hadn’t closed the curtains before I collapsed into bed, and I was sure as hell regretting it now.

  I was halfway back to sleep before the knocking on my door came again, louder this time.

  “If you’re in there, Mr. Franco, I’d advise you to open this door before I shoot the bloody lock off.”

  I groaned again as I recognized Detective Reed’s voice. Couldn’t everyone just leave me alone? Did they want to work me right into the ground?

  With a final groan for good measure, I hauled myself out of bed and snatched some clothes off the floor.

  “Mr. Franco!”

  “Jesus Christ, I’m coming, give me a goddamn minute,” I yelled at the door while I tried to work out which trouser leg to put my foot through. My bruises screamed at me as I slid into my shirt, and I grabbed the packet of paracetamol from the coffee table in the living room before padding to the door in bare feet.

  I pulled open the door and found a large, round object hurtling toward my head. By instinct, I snatched it out of the air, and realized it was my motorcycle helmet. A series of large cracks ran along the black fiberglass, and one side of it was dented.

  “Fuck me,” I said. “The hell happened to it?”

  I glanced up and found Vivian Reed staring at me, a cell phone pressed to her ear in one hand. “Yeah, he’s here. He looks like shit. I’ll meet you back at the station.” She paused as someone responded, then snapped the phone shut and slipped it into the pocket of her slim-fitting black jacket. “Someone worked over your bike,” she said. “I’ve got half a mind to do the same to you.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I whispered to myself. That was a good bike.

  Vivian looked like she’d had a much better night than I had. Her dark hair hung perfect against her cheeks, and her eyes weren’t bloodshot or puffy, like I expected mine were. She wore a hint of eye shadow and foundation, but no other makeup that I could see. She didn’t need it. Goddamn beautiful women.

  She raised an eyebrow at me, and my hand went to my head of its own volition, trying to smooth down my curls. “It don’t matter,” I lied, and held out a hand. “Detective Reed. How’s it going?”

  “Save it,” she said, shouldering her way into the apartment and slamming the door closed behind her. These cops sure were belligerent. Didn’t they need a warrant or something to come into my home? “Where the hell have you been, Miles?”

  Apparently, we were on a first name basis now. That was promising. “Isn’t it a bit early in the morning to be chewing me up? I’ve had a really shitty night.”

  “It’s one in the afternoon,” she said. “I’ve been calling your phone all morning.”

  Aw hell. I knew there was something I was supposed to do before I slept. I hadn’t heard my phone ring. Maybe it got smashed during the beating or took on water in the rain. I opened my mouth to defend myself, then took another look at Vivian’s face and thought better of it. “Look—”

  “No, forget that. It doesn’t matter. What I want to know is what, in the name of all that is holy, you were doing at John Andrew’s strip club.”

  Christ, she was talking loud. My head pounded. That wasn’t fair; I hadn’t even got drunk. I went to the kitchen to pour myself some water and swallowed another handful of painkillers. Even her glare was painful, so I looked away, pulled up a rickety chair at what passed for my dining table, and told her the story.

  Of course, I downplayed my moments of stupidity as much as I could, but I don’t think she thought I was a rocket scientist anyway. She listened in silence, doing her little cop nod to keep me talking and maintaining her face in a calculated expression of neutrality, all her previous annoyance hidden behind the mask.

  That all changed when I finished telling her what had happened and told her what Caterina had told me. Of course, I left out Caterina’s name. Somehow I didn’t think Vivian would approve of my consorting with the wife of the enemy.

  “Suron?” she said when I mentioned the meeting place. “But that’s in—”

  “Heaven. Yeah. Not a big territory, but nasty. They’re planning something.”

  “You really stomped all over everything, didn’t you? I should slap you in bracelets right now.”

  I tried to ignore the snark in her tone. It didn’t work. “Give me a break. You and Todd were the ones who wanted me doing this in the first place. You wanted information, and that’s what I gave you. Now you can leave me alone.”

  “You have no idea how badly you’ve stirred up the hive.” She stabbed her finger toward my TV. “Have you even looked at the news?”

  “No,” I said, and took another couple of painkillers for good measure. The last ones didn’t seem to be working. “I’ve been recovering. You know, from the beating that I got doing your fucking job for you.”

  That did it. Vivian slammed her hands down on the table and I jumped halfway to the ceiling. “You don’t get it, do you? This isn’t about you and your petty struggles.”

  I was pretty sure it wasn’t petty to not want the shit kicked out of you, but Vivian was just winding up, and it was pretty obvious I wasn’t going to get a chance to argue my case.

  “I’m not here to deal with you and your bloody authority problem,” she said. “I should never have let Todd bring you in on this. Gangster or not, you’re just another lawless piece of shit who never grew up, never realized the world doesn’t work like that. It’s people like you that are the reason my—”

  Her mouth slammed shut, as if time was up and I needed to put in another coin for more screaming. Strangely, I found I was fresh out of money.

  I have to admit, she’d struck a nerve in me. A nerve that made me want to lash out and put the table through my window. If she didn’t want me here, then fine. I’d done what I could. What the hell else did she expect me to do? Don a mask and cape and go vigilante on the city?

  She was breathing heavily after her outburst, making her chest rise and fall in interesting ways. I stopped myself staring before she noticed, I think. She was looking down at the table, her normally bronze skin flushed with pink. Whether from anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell.

  The minutes ticked by, and we sat in silence. If I opened my mouth, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t start screaming.

  “Damn it,” she said finally. She stood up, practically tearing the chair from under her. “I don’t have time for this. John Andrews’ people have been mobilizing all morning. The other gangs too. Whatever you did, you scared the hell out of him. I have to stop this city from tearing itself apart.”

  I grabbed her arm as she passed me. The glare she gave me nearly turned me to stone, but I held on nonetheless. “He’s preparing for war?”

  She stared at me for a moment, as if trying to figure out which way she was going to kill me first. But then she just shrugged. “Maybe,” she said, quieter now. “Our informants all went dark a couple of hours ago.”

  “I wasn’t imagining it. He’s afraid. He’s trying to unite the gangs against Doctor Dee.”

  She nodded, and I let go of her arm. She looked tired. “This is about more than some new drug. This union of gangs won’t last longer than it takes for one of them to take control of Doctor Dee’s operation. And when that happens, the violence isn’t going to stop with the gangsters.”

  She was right. I hate it when other people are right. The city’s gangs had existed in a sort of uneasy peace for two decades, somehow always managing to scale back their skirmishes before they escalated too far. But they’d never had an outside influence like this Doctor Dee and his Chroma to unbalance the spinning top. Hell, with half the city in the pocket of one gang or other, the place would be torn to shreds.

  “Goddamn it,” I said. “You want more of my help, don’t you?”

  “We have to shut this down before it starts. Tha
t means going to Heaven.”

  Crap. I knew that was coming. The part of my brain still bent on survival kept trying to look for a way out, like a man on fire in the middle of a desert. “I seem to recall the police force spending my tax dollars hiring a whole bunch of Tunnelers a few years ago.”

  She scowled. “And would you trust any of them, Miles? Give me a name, and I’ll walk out of your life right now.”

  “Charges dropped?”

  “Charges dropped.”

  She had to be bluffing, but when I studied her face, I could find no lie. She’d thrown a ticket to freedom down in front of me. All I had to do was pick it up, cash it in, and walk away from this whole damn mess. I knew some of the cops’ Tunnelers. I could tell her to use any of them, and I’d be off the hook. Wasn’t that what I wanted?

  I didn’t know anymore. Every inch of my body felt like it’d been fine-tuned by a baseball bat and a sledgehammer. John Fucking Andrews was scared now, and he’d already shown the means he turned to when someone spooked him.

  There was a certain appeal to exacting the good old human tradition of vengeance on the bastard. He’d made me hurt. Hell, I was still hurting. I wanted to see what color John Andrews bled. But that was the Mr. Hyde part of me talking. Why should I care if Andrews and some doctor with a letter for a name had a fight over who got to rule the playground?

  Because it wouldn’t stop there. I’d seen Andrews, I knew who he was. He was a madman with a thin coat of sanity face-paint, and he’d bring this city to its knees before he let someone else take charge. Vivian was right, goddamn it. If I went on my merry way, if I left this in the hands of the police department’s Tunnelers, Andrews would find a way to turn them. The ones that weren’t crooked already would soon find themselves and their families turned inside out by Andrews or one of his counterparts.

  Granted, I wouldn’t do much better if Andrews decided I would make a nice hood ornament for his car. Even if I got Andrews alone, I wasn’t sure I could take him, what with his shapeshifting and all. Who knew how much he could change himself?

  I buried my fingers in my curls. So there it was. Survive, maybe blow town, and let Bluegate fall even further into the abyss. Or go with Vivian and the cops, try to single-handedly stop a gang war, and most likely end up feeding worms in John Andrews’ backyard.

  How could I say no?

  “I’ll need you to lend me some cash to buy supplies,” I said. “A grand should do it.”

  Let no one say Miles Franco didn’t have balls.