Her scowl deepened, and the chaos stabilized for an instant before starting to wobble like a spinning top.
“Kid,” I said.
She huffed and hurled something to the ground. A circular piece of wood not much bigger than a bottle cap rolled away along the carpet, leaving a trail of silvery Kemia behind it. A bouquet of wildflowers hit the ground as well, scattering leaves and petals across the floor. An instant later they disappeared, replaced by a scattering of plant seeds.
“I had it under control until you came barging in,” she said. She put her hands on her narrow hips. “I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Of course you are.” I picked up the wooden circle and waved it under her nose. “You’re sixteen, for Christ’s sake. Everyone’s stupid at sixteen.”
“I’m seventeen. My birthday was two months ago.” She sniffed and wrinkled up her nose. “You reek, Miles. How much have you had to drink?”
I palmed the wooden circle and slipped it in my pocket. “Don’t go changing subjects on me.” I wiped my sleeve across my face and hoped the drink hadn’t made my nose look like Rudolph’s. “What are you doing here, kid?”
“Practising,” she said. “We were supposed to have a lesson. Four hours ago.”
“We were?”
She narrowed her eyes so much I didn’t believe she could see anything at all.
“All right,” I said, “I got held up. I had court.”
“I’ve seen the news. You were out before midday.”
“I had some other things I had to do as well.”
“Yeah,” she said, disapproval painting her face. “I’m sure you did.”
I massaged my forehead, then brushed past her and collapsed into the couch. “How many times I gotta tell you not to Tunnel without me around, huh? It’s dangerous, going round changing reality.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “It was just a tiny Pin Hole. A bunch of flowers. It’s not like it was a Limbus Tunnel.”
Limbus was what the bozos at Immigration had dubbed the new dimension I'd managed to stumble on last winter. Sounded like a stupid damn name to me, but I guess it fit better that Heaven did.
It was a different sort of place entirely, or at least I guessed it must have been, since as far as I knew no one had actually managed to make it all the way there without being ambushed by any of the bizarre creatures that prowled around. I hadn't told anyone about the Tunnel I opened, but it was powerful enough that any half-decent Tunneler within a quarter mile would have been able to sense it. Some secrets were impossible to keep.
“You can’t go around Tunneling on your own,” I said.
“How else am I supposed to do it when you’re never around? You promised to teach me, Miles. So where have you been?”
I shook my head, trying to keep the anger up in the face of overwhelming guilt. “Never mind me. If I’m not here, you don’t Tunnel. End of story. You're not ready yet, and I'm not cleaning your brains out of the carpet when you fuck up."
Tania stomped away from me and snatched up her school backpack. "Miles, the only fuck-up around here is you."
My gut twisted. "Where are you going?" I asked, trying to keep my voice even.
"Home." She brushed past me and wrenched open the front door.
“I’m trying to protect you, kid.”
She shook her head. “You just don’t get it, do you?” She turned away, then paused. “By the way, the mayor’s assistant called when you were out.”
I’ll be honest; I was grateful for the change of subject. “Huh? What the hell does she want now?”
“You’re invited to a fundraiser tomorrow night. Address is over there.” She jerked her head toward the phone, then spun away. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s an open bar.”
She slammed the door so hard the apartment shook.
I buried my face in my hands. I felt like a skeleton that’d forgotten to lie down. The look on Tania’s face….
I opened my eyes and found Claudia’s ghost standing over me.
“Oh Christ, don’t you give me that look too,” I said.
She didn’t reply. Of course she didn’t. Not even a figment of my imagination wanted to stoop to talking with a loser like me.
I sat there, damn near catatonic with Claudia standing in the corner watching me. Wouldn’t be so bad to just lie there forever. It’d save me from ruining anyone else’s lives.
Tania deserved a real teacher, not some schlub like me. Seventeen, she said she was now. She’d be out of high school soon, then she could go do her training proper. Provided she didn’t get herself killed first. She was headstrong, stubborn. Maybe I could take away her Kemia. I just needed her to be safe. After all she’d been through—all I’d put her through—I couldn’t let her end up another corpse.
When I couldn’t take Claudia’s stares anymore, I hauled myself up and went outside to find my jacket. It was still lying next to the fire escape, right where I’d tossed it. I couldn’t work out which stains were new and which were old. I went back inside, dragged myself back upstairs, and fed my goldfish. Munsey and Frank were swimming around in pointless circles in their bowl by the front door, stirring up light growths of algae on the surface. I could feel them judging me as I scattered the flakes in.
“Sorry, guys. I’ve been busy. I’ll clean it later.”
They munched on their flakes, eyeing me carefully, before swimming away to hide in the fake hollow log at the bottom of their bowl. Even my fish had a lousy opinion of me.
Claudia followed me into the bathroom where I stood in the lukewarm shower for an hour. She followed me back to the kitchen where I tried to find something to eat that didn’t make me want to puke everything up again. She stood over me all night while I sat flicking channels on the TV until the sun began to rise.
I finally clambered into bed at seven in the morning. I felt so thin you could stick a pin right through me. I lay down and closed my eyes. Claudia pulled them open again.
“Please,” I said. “You heard Tania. I can’t even get my own life together.”
She just stood over me, staring.
“I’m sorry, all right? I want to change it. Christ, you got no idea. What do I gotta do to make it up to you?”
Her eyes were blue ice.
“No,” I said. “You know I can’t get involved. Not now. Once I get my life back together, then maybe.”
She never blinked. And she never would again.
I sighed and rubbed my itchy eyes. Slowly, like a suicider taking his last stroll to the bridge, I slid out of bed. “All right. Just tell me this. Did it hurt? Did it hurt when they killed you?”
A smile played on her lips, and she shrugged.
“Figures,” I said. “Gotta find everything out my own damn self.”
I got dressed, grabbed a bottle of Kemia from the fridge, and left the apartment.
FOUR
My old 250cc Yamaha bike hadn’t run so well ever since John Andrews’ gangsters had tuned it up with baseball bats and tire irons. I’d gotten reimbursed by the police department to cover the damage to the gas tank and the frame, which I’m pretty sure had been Vivian’s doing. Still, the engine really needed a complete overhaul. After the amount of back rent I had to pay to keep Tania’s mom from booting me out of the apartment, there hadn’t been much left for luxuries like that.
So I put up with the rattles and the random engine power fluctuations, all the while hoping my teeth didn’t get shaken loose. I rode the miniature monstrosity south along the expressway and took the exit onto Grant Street. The neighborhood breathed Vei culture this far south. I passed entire shopping blocks without seeing a word of English displayed. Must’ve been nearly ninety per cent Vei in the tightly-packed low rises, with a few culturally oversensitive humans to round out the balance. The area ran the whole gamut of expensive red brick townhouses to roads that were more pothole than street. I rode slowly, taking in the scent of unnatural spices and fragrances that seemed to saturate the area. It was comfor
ting in a way.
I didn’t know where Claudia lived, and I figured the cops would’ve been over the place anyway. If it was any other cop I would’ve gone to have a poke around myself, but I trusted Vivian not to miss anything. Still, there were other places I could stick my nose in. Places I might have an advantage over the cops.
The Mercy of the Eight hospital was easy to spot. It was easily the biggest building around, and the only one surrounded by grass and trees. The orange stucco building sat at the back of a long driveway lined with flowers and trees hardy enough to eke out a living amongst the city’s smog. I brought my bike to a halt on the footpath outside and strolled up the driveway on foot.
Claudia was nowhere to be seen. I walked along the unsealed gravel driveway, breathing in the smell of the flowers on either side of me. The morning was warm and quiet, which made the hangover easier to bear. I shoved my hands in my pockets and licked my lips. Being away from the noise of the central city made me shifty. You knew where you stood when you were serenaded each morning by the sound of sirens. I didn’t belong here.
As I reached the main building, a pair of Vei came striding out through the swinging double doors. They were female, one much younger than the other. Unlike the Vei that lived in the city, they’d eschewed human-style clothes and wore tunics woven from enough different colored fabrics to give someone an epileptic fit. The older one was the first to see me, and jerked nearly to a stop. The younger one did the same, her wide mouth dropping open to reveal an array of shark-like teeth.
Vei took a bit of getting used to. They were hairless, pale-skinned, and not generally graced with the sort of looks that had you swooning. Between their round, oversized heads and their bugged out eyes, they attracted their share of attention. In the thirty or so years since they’d started immigrating from Heaven into the twenty-four Bore cities on Earth, they’d been pestered by every biologist and anthropologist who could weasel a grant out of someone.
But in this part of town, I was the one who was out of place. The two Vei women scurried past me, eyeing me furtively. I didn’t take it personal. Folks had shot worse things than glances at me before.
I straightened my jacket and used my tongue to try to wipe away the fuzzy feeling on my teeth, then shouldered my way through the doors. A blast of blessed air-conditioning swooshed onto me. The blood-red walls that lined the main corridor were a bit off-putting. It didn’t help how badly they clashed with the green floors. My hungover brain ached a little at the insult to its aesthetic sensibilities.
The funny looks from Vei continued as I wandered down the hall. A few of the elderly ones shuffled past me on walkers, practically hugging the walls to keep out of my way. I wasn’t sure if that was because I was human or if I just looked like the creature from the Black Lagoon. I tried smiling at one old Vei man, and he started shuffling faster. I could tell I was going to be popular here.
I found the reception desk at the end of the hall. The Vei woman sitting there was by far the chubbiest Vei I’d ever seen. Vei medical systems don’t really work the same as ours, and I’d never been able to work out the ranks of healers and administrators. I figured the closest job title was “nurse”. She glared up at me over a pair of bifocals. I gave my friendly smile another shot.
“I’m looking for a patient, a Vei woman,” I said in my best Vei. The harsh sounds did a number on my throat, but it was enough to get the nurse’s attention. It wasn’t often you found a human who spoke Vei. Outside of the mixed-race gangs, anyway. Came in handy for a Tunneler, though, especially if you had to spend any extended periods of time in Heaven.
The nurse sniffed. “Name?”
“Penny something,” I said. “Um, Collins? Coltrane? Coleman, that’s it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you family?”
And they said Vei didn’t have a sense of humor. “Yeah, can’t you tell? People always said we looked alike.”
Her scowl could’ve turned me to stone. I glanced around the lobby. A tall Vei man in human clothes eyed me from his seat in the corner. I looked away again so he didn’t think I was staring.
Then inspiration hit. I turned back to the nurse. “I’m Detective Johnson with the city. Special Investigations. I think my colleague, Detective Wade, has been to talk to Penny.”
“Ah, yes. He tried,” she said, not letting go of the scowl. From what I’d heard, cops didn’t have many fans in the Vei communities. Lots of Vei wondered what the hell the cops had ever done for them, other than rounding up illegal immigrants. It was a fair question. “Miss Coleman spoke little English, and the policeman spoke even less Vei.”
I nodded, playing it cool. “That’s why I’m here. Translator duty, see?”
The nurse licked her lips, studying me for a moment, then shuffled through a pile of papers. No computer in sight; Vei didn’t take to such things. Neither did I, to be honest. My old pal, Desmond, had been trying to fit me with some fancy smartphone ever since my old cell took on water. Why anyone’d want a phone that was smarter than them was beyond me. My replacement brick suited me just fine.
Eventually, she pulled out a file, sniffed again, then opened it. The patient’s Vei name was scrawled on the admission form, looking as unpronounceable as most Vei names. No wonder they took on human names when they came to Earth.
The chair creaked as she hefted herself up and came around the side of the reception desk. “Follow me.”
“If it’s all the same,” I said, “I’d like to talk to her alone. It’s something of a delicate matter. You understand.”
“I cannot leave you alone with her, Detective.”
“Put someone outside the door to keep an eye on me, then.”
She eyed me a bit more, then slowly nodded. “Very well. I’ll have someone there in a moment. Room thirty-three. End of the corridor.”
I nodded my thanks and tried my smile one last time. When it got no response, I returned my hands to my pockets and strolled down the hallway.
I really hoped I knew what I was doing. Didn’t sound like the cops had much luck. I almost grinned at the thought of Detective Wade trying to communicate without knowing a word of Vei. I bet the pretty bastard didn’t look so smug then.
The thought was so sweet I almost walked right past room thirty-three. It was tucked into a corner at the end of the corridor. The door was closed, and it took me a couple of seconds to translate the sign stuck to it.
Isolation. Great. Whose bright idea had this been?
A metal shelf next to the door held a few packets of face masks and gloves. Both were designed for Vei anatomy; the face mask would probably work, even if it was a bit big, but the narrow fingers of the gloves would be impossible to get on. My escort hadn’t shown up yet. I contemplated turning around and walking right back out. I wasn’t keen on catching whatever the hell this was. I could wind up pushing daisies, or worse, locked up in my own goddamn isolation room. I’d just escaped one prison. Did I really want another?
I turned to find Claudia’s ghost standing at the end of the corridor. She stared at me, emotionless, her head cocked to one side.
“Christ,” I muttered. “Now you’re just getting pushy.”
I fixed a mask to my face, took what I hoped wasn’t my last breath, and shoved open the door to room thirty-three.
Penny Coleman lay sleeping in a stretcher bed, the sole occupant of the narrow room. Sunlight trickled through the window and shone directly on the Vei woman, illuminating the unnatural green tinge of her skin. She made the starving kids on those TV ads look like fatsos.
I crept closer, ignoring the thud in my chest when the door closed behind me. I realized I was holding my breath. The woman was on the wrong side of pretty. Her face was worn, like a pair of jeans put through the wash too many times. Despite everything, she seemed to have painted her face with the kind of garish, overwrought makeup favored by Vei men. Wade’s notebook had said she was a prostitute. I picked her for a streetwalker. The world had been too hard on her for her to
come from any high-class joints.
I gave another thought to leaving the room, then kicked that idea aside. I was here now, might as well make the best of it.
“Miss Coleman?” I said in English, then switched to Vei. “I know you’re awake. You’re not breathing right to be asleep.”
Her breathing stilled for a moment, then her eyelids crawled open. Her eyes swiveled to focus on me, but the rest of her stayed completely still. Her face was slack.
“Leave me, human,” Penny said in Vei. Her voice was quiet, raspy. She rolled her head away from me. Greenish veins bulged in her neck, disappearing beneath a white blanket. I remembered the same rivers beneath Claudia’s pale skin back in the morgue. Hell, I could probably see them right now if I cared for another hallucination.
“Soon,” I said. “I’m with the police. Special Investigations. I need to talk.”
She groaned. A spasm clutched at her throat and she doubled over as if to cough, then she cringed and settled back down. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She looked like hell.
Still, I had ghosts to get off my back. “What’s wrong with you? Did someone cause this?”
No response. I clicked my fingers in her face, but she didn’t stir.
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, Miss Coleman.”
She rolled her head back toward me. “No help…for me.”
I had to admit, she might’ve had the right of it. Her left arm was lying beside her, being fed by an IV hooked up to a bag behind her. Half a dozen track marks covered the crook of her arm and the veins of her forearm. At least a few of them were stained black. She’d taken Ink recently. The Vei drug was particularly popular among human junkies, but it still had its consumers among the less affluent Vei.
“Maybe you can give me a hand, then,” I said. “Folks are dying, Vei and human. You know anything about that?”
She shook her head slowly.
“You sure? Because they all got what you got.” I thought about something Asshole Wade said. “Did you take a bad hit? Tainted Ink? Drugs? Is that it?”
The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) Page 3
