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

by Chris Strange

  After a few moments chatting among themselves, Sean came up to me and shook my hand. “Good to meet you. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how excited we are about getting back to Tartarus. Do you want to tell everyone how you want the Tunnel run to go?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said. I raised my voice to cut through the chatter of the scientists behind me. “Guys and girls, this is a brand new, never before seen on TV Tunnel here, so I don’t want anyone being a jackass. I’ll go first, and everyone stick close. If I tell you to run, ditch your gear and haul ass. I’ve been inside a Tunnel collapse before. You don’t want to be sitting around sucking your thumb. So keep your arms and legs inside the Tunnel at all times and don’t rock the damn boat.”

  Everyone got their goggles in place, gathered their gear together, and stood in single file behind me at the Tunnel entrance. Zhi was right behind me, which was closer to me than I liked, but I couldn’t think of an excuse to get her to the back.

  Kowalski came to see me off. “Make sure you get yourself and my people back, Mr. Franco.”

  “Will do. Cross my heart.”

  “You’re part of an incredible endeavor for science.”

  “Science? I thought this was for AISOR.” I waved the team forward. “Let’s roll, everyone.”

  TWELVE

  Everyone kept their traps shut as they walked through the Tunnel, which suited me just fine. The Tunnel had a beautiful kind of humming about it that I’m pretty sure only I could hear, and it got louder with each step.

  The end of the Tunnel approached quicker than I expected. Most journeys to Heaven take an hour or so, but I’d guess we were only walking fifteen or twenty minutes before the white dot at the end of the Tunnel became an opening. By now, the humming in my head was loud enough to drown out everyone’s footsteps. I called a halt, the first words spoken since just after we started making our way through the Tunnel.

  “This is us,” I said. “Better get yourselves ready.”

  Two of the figures rummaged around doing something with a large box on wheels they’d dragged behind them, while the other two approached me. I guessed by their outlines it was Zhi and Sean.

  “Do you know what sort of terrain we’ll be coming out into?” Sean said in his chain-smoker rasp.

  I shook my head. “Not a clue. Somewhere flat enough for a Tunnel exit to form, but there could be snake pits on every side for all I know.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll take point, and Zhi will be behind me. You follow her. If I say stop, everyone stops.”

  “What if you fall to your death before you can say stop?” I asked.

  “I’ll try to scream,” he said.

  Good enough for me. Sean moved away to ready himself, and Zhi’s silhouette moved closer. She spoke so quietly I could barely hear her over the humming. “What’s up with you?” she asked. “Last night you were one person, and today you’re someone else entirely.”

  Something in me wanted to tell her exactly what the hell I’d seen. I wanted to tell her all about Claudia, and I wanted to make her tell me what she knew. I wanted to say a big “Fuck you” to Mayor White, and the cops, and the Vei who’d split my ear open, and most of all, this damn girl who had the nerve to take me into her bed, screw me and then screw me over.

  But I couldn’t blow this. So I settled for some good old-fashioned passive aggressiveness. “Just ’cause you spread your legs for me, doesn’t mean you get to psychoanalyze me. Don’t go getting full of yourself.”

  She had good aim considering how little she could see. Her palm cracked against my bruised cheek and sent my head spinning on its axis. Jesus Christ, that stung.

  By the time I got my head pointing the right way again, she’d stormed away and everyone else was looking at me. I gave a half-shrug and tried to gesture to Sean to get this show on the road. Somehow, even through the goggles, he worked it out. “All right, standard protocol everyone. Remember, we’ve only got an hour in Tartarus, so make it count. With me.”

  He stepped up to the white surface that separated us from Tartarus. There was something nervous in the way he moved his shoulders. Zhi fell in behind him, not even looking at me. Without another word, Sean took a step forward, plunging through the surface. The Tunnel hummed happily in response. Zhi followed him a few seconds later, and the humming increased in pitch. No screams from the other side. That was promising. I rubbed my sore cheek, glanced back at Jamie and Jaimee, and stepped through the exit.

  A chorus exploded in my head. My legs turned to cooked spaghetti and I only stopped myself face-planting into the rocky ground by sticking my hands out in front of me. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was too busy listening to the music. Compared to what was going on in my head, every song Claudia or my band had ever played might as well have been the gurgling of a garbage disposal. Tartarus itself was cuddling me, warming me. I felt like a three-year-old getting tucked in by the mother I’d never known.

  “Franco.” The voice was horrible, out of tune, a blight on the soundscape inside my head. Hands grabbed me and pulled me up. I realized I’d practically been stroking the ground. Stop it, I warned myself. Don’t let the world do this to you. You’re doing this for Claudia, remember. I shook my head and pressed the sound to the back of my mind.

  “Franco,” Sean said again, his hands on my shoulders. “You okay?”

  I hoped the goggles kept him from seeing the blissful smile that wouldn’t come off my face. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I tripped.”

  I could tell by the pressure of his hands he didn’t believe me, but one of the Jaimees came out of the Tunnel behind me and Sean had to go help with the equipment. No one was affected like me. The poor bastards couldn’t even hear the music.

  With a strange sense of comfort still enveloping me, I looked around Tartarus for the first time. I was gripped with the desire to take off my goggles, but I kept my hands firmly in my pockets. From what I could tell, we were in some sort of huge underground cavern. I could see surfaces in every direction, with no sign of the sky. White outlines gleamed at me from a hundred surfaces. Every crack and corner of Tartaran rock was cast into sharp detail in my goggles, like an artist had sketched the place in white ink on black paper. My team, on the other hand, were shadowy figures, barely distinguishable.

  I left the Tunnel open and started to wander. “Have you guys got lights on in here?” I said to whoever was listening. “I can see.”

  “The walls give off their own light,” Sean said over his shoulder. “That’s one of the things we’re studying.”

  I continued examining the cavern. The uneven floor opened up into cracks and crevices, and disappeared entirely a hundred feet to my left. Somewhere, water dripped into pools with tiny splashes. I could hear the sound of a slow-moving creek trickling through the rock. The air had a vaguely sweet scent. I took a few steps away from the Tunnel and laid my hand against the nearest wall. It was soft and moist, with patches of something moss-like. I was hit by a sudden desire to lick the moss. I jerked my hand back as soon as I realized what I was thinking.

  “Don’t go too far, Franco,” Sean called to me. “We’re going to collect samples of vegetation and the liquid in the pools.” I glanced back and saw that everyone was through the Tunnel.

  “That’s not water?” I asked, pointing at the nearest pool. It shimmered with white light.

  “Not even close. If you want something to drink, come get something from the supplies.”

  I nodded. “I’ll take a look around, see if I can’t find a good place for a permanent Tunnel exit.”

  “Take Zhi with you.”

  “No.” I thought my voice had echoed, then I realized she’d spoken at the same time.

  Sean sighed. “Fine. Just stay in visual range. There’s a mike in your goggles if you’ve got an emergency and you can’t yell.”

  I nodded again and walked away while they were still unpacking. I wanted to get the hell away from these people.

  I kept one hand near the wall t
o steady myself as I walked. The ground was uneven and the goggles made it a pain in the ass to see clearly. I made my way down a gentle slope toward the sound of running water—or some liquid, anyway.

  This place had something to do with Claudia, but what? She couldn’t have visited here. And none of the other victims in Detective Wade’s notebook were any more likely to have come to Tartarus. Prostitutes, junkies, transients.

  I wracked my brain for answers. Maybe by opening Tunnels here, AISOR had accidentally released some sort of disease on Earth. I could be breathing it in right now. But why would it affect Claudia and the others but not AISOR’s staff?

  I shook my head. The music was making it difficult to think. The chatter from the others had died down. It sounded like they were spreading out to get their samples. I came across a narrow creek that trickled down one wall and cut a groove through the rock floor before it flowed into a pool maybe eight feet across. I couldn’t tell how deep it was. Liquid dripped from the stalactites directly above it, making little tinkling noises in time with the music. It was so peaceful here. I took my hand off the wall and moved slowly toward the pool.

  Each drop sent concentric circles of white light radiating across the surface. It was only when the rings reached the edge that I figured out the pool was perfectly circular. I knelt in front of it. Kowalski said this liquid was dangerous. Maybe it was acidic, or poisonous. But even though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, something about the pool was hauntingly beautiful. I bet Claudia would have written a song about this if she’d come here. A song to make grown men cry.

  Something scraped on the rocks behind me. I started to turn, but a hand roughly grabbed my head. There was a tug, and the pressure of the goggles on my eyes increased.

  “Hey,” I said, “what’s the big—?”

  The goggles suddenly came loose and dropped away from my face. At the same time, my attacker’s grip left my head. I shifted my weight and started to turn, fist clenched, until I realized I could see—really see—the world I was in. And nothing else mattered anymore.

  It was beautiful. Majestic. In-fucking-credible. You could make a thousand poets write for a thousand years, and they’d never capture it in words. The English language would run screaming. All I can say is that it was life itself, the canvas of gods, spread across the walls in such color that I’m pretty sure my eyes were giving off smoke. My entire body tingled with energy. A twenty kiloton orgasm bomb went off in my head.

  And then my gaze fell on the pool in front of me. It gave off no reflection. What was inside was too awe-inspiring to be tainted with a reflection of my ugly mug. But no, it was me I saw in there. It was me free of pain, free of fear. In there, I was changing the world. There was Bluegate, free of crime, corruption, hate. I’d done it. I was a hero.

  I’d made sure everyone I’d ever loved was safe, happy. Des, my band mates, Tania. Faces from long ago. A woman’s face that I’d spent the better part of a decade trying to forget. She pressed her naked body against me and snuggled into my embrace. “Miles,” she whispered. A strand of blond hair fell across her face.

  “Anna,” I said, smiling. I kissed the tip of her nose, and she giggled.

  Then her face changed. Her skin grew darker, her breasts fuller, and it was Vivian pressed against me. That made me happy too.

  Everything was good. Everything was perfect. Everything I ever wanted and everything I didn’t know I wanted was in that pool. All I had to do was reach in and get it.

  I didn’t know I was falling forward until I went face-first into the pool. The liquid was light, like foam. I dropped straight through, slipping away from the rocky ground. It was deeper than I thought. Distantly, some part of me knew I was drowning.

  But that didn’t matter. Even death was beautiful in Tartarus.

  THIRTEEN

  Everything hurt. My eyebrows hurt. My toenails hurt. My nose burned with the stench of Earth. My stomach heaved. I rolled onto my side and puked my guts out without opening my eyes. The smell was even worse, and I puked again. My guts were trying to escape out my mouth. Someone had poured gasoline down my throat and tossed in a match.

  “It’s all right, Miles. You’re okay.” The voice was kindly, even if it was ugly. Everything was ugly now.

  I opened my eyes into slits. Horrible yellow sunlight streamed in from a window in the corner of the room. I was on a bed—no, it wasn’t a real bed, it was an examination couch. I was naked from the waist up, with a thin white blanket lying across my lap. The poster on the wall asked me again if I had chlamydia. I figured I had enough to worry about for now.

  “Doc,” I said, testing my voice. It was the worst noise I’d heard since I woke up. My throat didn’t much care for it either. I fought down another wave of nausea. “Next time someone gives you that ‘Earth is beautiful’ crap, tell them to go screw themselves, all right?”

  Doc McCaffrey laughed, and every line on her face crinkled. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She held out a box of tissues. “You’ve got vomit on your chin.”

  Too tired to be embarrassed, I took a couple of tissues and wiped my mouth. “Sorry about your floor.”

  “I’ll get the maid to clean it up.”

  “I didn’t know you had a maid,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrow at me behind her glasses.

  “Oh,” I said. “Right. A joke. I’m still a little fuzzy. A lot fuzzy. They could make stuffed toys out of me. What happened? Why am I here?”

  “Hold still.” She tightened a blue strap around my upper arm and collected a couple of paper packages on a tray. After a few moments, the veins in my forearm and hand bulged. “Apparently, you took your goggles off in Tartarus. Sean found you floating face-down in one of the pools.”

  It came back to me in a flood. The pool, the things I saw in there. The desire. Jesus.

  But the doc was wrong; I sure as hell didn’t take my own goggles off. I opened my mouth to correct her, but stopped myself. Someone had tried to kill me. That was getting to be less of a novelty now, but I didn’t want my attempted murderer to know I knew that murder had been attempted. And I had a pretty good idea who’d been doing the attempting.

  She considered my arm for a moment, picked a vein, and wiped it with an alcohol wipe. The sensation was so strong on my sensitive skin that it hurt. “They said you had a big grin on your face when you came out. You weren’t breathing, so they gave you chest compressions until you coughed up the fluid.” She pointed to a small white container on her desk. “That’s some more you coughed up back here.”

  “Souvenir,” I said. “I brought it back for you ’specially.”

  “They had to carry you back through the Tunnel. Lucky it stayed open when you went out.”

  “Wasn’t luck. I make my Tunnels to last.”

  Doc McCaffrey pressed her gloved fingers against my vein and slid in a needle with a little plastic holder on the other end. The skin wasn’t so sensitive anymore, but I still had to grit my teeth. She removed the tourniquet and stuck a tube into the holder. As I watched, a flash of dark red blood appeared in the tube. I was about to look away when something about the blood caught my eye.

  “Doc,” I said. “Are my eyes screwy or is that blood looking a little green?”

  She took away the filled tube and connected another empty one to the needle. “You swallowed a lot of fluid. We’re not sure what effect it will have. I’d like to keep you here.”

  Something she said rang in my head. Swallowed a lot of fluid. I glanced again at the blood flowing out of me. There was no doubt; the blood was tinged with green. The same green I’d seen in Claudia’s neck veins, and running up the arms of the Vei prostitute, Penny Coleman.

  Shit.

  “Miles, are you okay?” Doc McCaffrey removed the needle from my arm and brought her face close to mine, her brow knitted. “You’ve gone pale. Are you dizzy? Light-headed?” She pressed two fingers against the pulse in my wrist.

  I struggled to speak. “No…no. It’s pro
bably just the heat. Say, are you really set up to take inpatients here?”

  “Not really.” She released my wrist and pressed some device into my ear. It beeped and she consulted the tiny screen. I couldn’t tell from her expression if it was giving her good news or bad. “But your vitals are good and the vomiting seems to be your only symptom. Even if the hospital took you, they wouldn’t be able to do much for you.”

  “And you can? You’ve had this before?”

  “We’ve got equipment the hospital could never afford. Our analyzers and scanners are top of the line.”

  “Great. Are you trying to sell me one?” I asked.

  She smiled and laid a motherly hand on my shoulder. “You’re in good hands here, Miles. Chances are, you’ll be able to go in a day or two. I just don’t want all my good handiwork going to waste.”

  I tried to return her smile. My cheeks ached. “All right. Something tells me you guys’ll have better grub than the hospital anyway. Speaking of that, I’m starving.”

  “Most of your breakfast is all over my floor. How about I get us something from the cafeteria for dinner and organize someone to clean this up?”

  “You’re a godsend, Doc. Get me anything. I’m not fussy.”

  She smiled again, washed her hands, and left. The blinds fluttered as she closed the door.

  Shakily, I sat up. My pains weren’t so bad anymore. My chest still felt wet and heavy, but breathing wasn’t too difficult. I swung my legs over the side of the examination table and looked around.

  Zhi Lu was more dangerous than I thought. I must’ve given something away, let her know that I knew she was up to something. Sean must’ve come across me before I drowned completely. That meant not everyone in AISOR was involved. But I had no way of knowing who I could trust. I was worse than a sitting duck if I stayed here. Ducks had wings, at least. Fatigue was taking me again, and I couldn’t stay awake forever. I had to go.