I carefully lowered myself to the ground. My legs trembled and swayed like a bridge in the wind, but somehow I stayed upright. I found my clothes and all my stuff on a chair. Somehow, it was dry and cleaner than it had been before. I dressed as quickly as I could, stepping around the pool of vomit on the floor. Sorry about leaving you with that, Doc.
I had my hand on the door knob when I paused and glanced back at the white container containing the fluid I’d coughed up. It was kind of gross, but that liquid had something to do with what was going on. I wasn’t likely to get another sample of it.
Time was running out. I crossed the room and picked up the container. It had a clip-top lid. I opened it and peered inside, but it just looked like water. I closed it and tucked it under my arm. On a whim, I pocketed my two blood samples as well. If I wasn’t staying here, they wouldn’t be much use to the doc, and if I got sick maybe I could give them to the hospital doctors to save time.
I went back to the door, passing the chlamydia poster again. A look out the door revealed an empty hallway. No guards, no assassins. No Vei with knives and no drill-wielding maniacs. Most importantly, no femme fatales. I closed the door as quietly as I could and made for the elevators. Claudia walked beside me. I tried to ignore the concern in her dead blue eyes.
I recognized the cop from six months ago, when Vivian and Detective Todd had hauled me downtown. Before everything started. Before I became a killer.
The cop was still about three sizes too big for his uniform, and still had the same spiteful look on his face. I’d ridden my bike straight from AISOR to the police station. Now this bastard was giving me a hard time.
“Look,” I said, trying to be reasonable, “I just need to talk to Detective Reed.”
“I can’t let you go to her desk.”
“Then call her. I’ll take her out for a goddamn coffee.” I would’ve done it myself but her number was blocked on my cell phone and she hadn’t given it to me herself. Besides, I wanted to get her face-to-face. It was nearly nine at night, but I didn’t think she’d have clocked out yet. Judging from how many roadblocks this bastard was trying to put in front of me, I was right.
He rested his arm against the desk and looked bored. “Mr. Falco—”
“Franco. My name is Franco. Christ, it’s been on the news enough. Will you please just call her and tell her I have information for her?”
He looked at me for a long time. Objectively speaking, I guess I could appreciate that he didn’t want his colleague getting harassed by a disheveled guy who’d narrowly escaped a couple dozen murder convictions, but I was far from objective right now.
Finally, agonizingly slowly, he picked up the phone and dialed.
I waited on a wooden bench, watching Vei hookers and tattooed thugs and scurrying cops come and go. The mayor had promised to clean up corruption on the force, and there’d certainly been a few cops going under the hammer of justice in the last couple of months. A lot of the cops I saw here were baby-faced, probably only out of the academy five minutes. I’d heard we’d also been getting some transfers in from neighboring cities. I wondered if it would make a difference. These things ran deeper than a few bad apples. The gangs had taken a few hits, but they still had their gloves up and their weight set for a swing. Bluegate didn’t seem to realize what was coming.
Vivian came down about ten minutes later. Her low heels click-clacked on the floor, making an interesting counterpoint to the sway of her hips. Her dark hair bobbed around her cheeks with each step. An image I’d seen in the pool in Tartarus flashed inside my head, and my cheeks grew warm. I hoped the bruises covered it. I stood up to meet her.
“What is it, Miles?” she said, her hands on her hips. “What happened to your face?”
“Zombie outbreak. They tried to gnaw my face off. Where’s your worse half?”
She checked her watch in what was probably the least subtle hint she could manage. “Detective Wade is going through old case files. Would you prefer to talk to him?”
“Nah, you’re better looking,” I said. She was giving me one of her stern looks, so I decided to get on with it. “Walk with me. We’ll get a vending machine coffee. Any leads on the case?”
“We’re thinking it’s gang-related. Some members from one of the new gangs have been snooping around the victims, so we’ve been trying to conduct surveillance on them. They’re slippery, though.”
I shook my head. “It’s not gangs. When you called this morning you mentioned some sort of crystallization in Claudia’s blood vessels, right?”
She walked with me to the vending machine in the corner of the lobby. The faint scent of a long day’s work trailed behind her. It wasn’t unpleasant. “I thought I told you not to follow this up.”
“Yeah, you did.” I put a styrofoam cup under the vending machine’s nozzle and punched the buttons at random until the machine started rumbling and squirting out something that resembled coffee. “I considered your suggestion with great care.”
She closed her eyes and muttered something to herself. It was probably a good thing I didn’t hear what she said. “What did you find out?”
“You heard of AISOR?” I passed her the coffee, then put another cup in for me.
“Yes. Of course.”
“No need to get snarky,” I said. “I found myself a little employment with them.”
She raised her eyebrow and blew on her coffee. “You? You got a job?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. More of a paying favor that I’ve yet to be paid for. They’ve found another world, Vivian. Not Heaven, not Limbus, something else.”
She studied my face like she was trying to decide if I was lying or just crazy. “How can you be sure?”
“I’ve been there.”
The coffee machine finished vibrating and I took my coffee. The powder hadn’t mixed properly, leaving little brown bits floating on the surface.
“That’s all very interesting, Miles. But how does it connect to these deaths? Our gang leads are solid.”
“Some friendly Vei put me on to AISOR. Check this out.” I retrieved the tubes of blood from my pocket and held them out. She didn’t take them.
“A bottle of wine would’ve been fine,” she said. “Whose blood is that?”
“Mine. Take them,” I said. She did, reluctantly. “Notice anything familiar?”
“The color,” she said. “It’s like the victims. It’s—” Her eyes flicked back to mine and her lips pressed together. “Miles…”
“Give those to whoever needs to look at them. That asshole pathologist, maybe. See if whatever’s in there matches what was in Claudia’s blood. If so, that’s your connection. AISOR, and their new world.”
We started walking back toward the seats on the other side of the room. She still hadn’t taken a sip of her coffee. Her voice lowered. “Goddamn it, Miles. I told you to stay out of this.”
“A lot of people did. Some of them were very persuasive. But you know me.”
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she said. “If you’re infected with this thing, or poisoned, or whatever it is…” She shook her head. “People are dead, Miles.”
Claudia’s face appeared in my mind’s eye. My chest felt like it was filled with rocks. “I know they are.”
“I’ll take you there. Or we can call an ambulance if you’d prefer.”
I shook my head, and a drop of hot coffee splashed onto the back of my hand. I made no move to wipe it off. “I’ll get there myself. I’ve got a couple more things to do first.”
She shot me a look.
“Really,” I said. I took a long sip of the coffee. It wasn’t actually that bad.
“You’re an awful liar.” She sipped her coffee as well, and we were silent for a few seconds. Over in the corner, a drunk was making a hell of a noise while a couple of cops tried to talk some sense into him.
“Did Claudia’s sister call you?” Vivian said after a while.
I shrugged. “I haven’t been home, and th
ere wasn’t much cell reception where I’ve been.”
“The funeral’s tomorrow at noon at St. Matthew’s Church. The sister wants to get it over and done with as soon as possible.”
I nodded. It must have been a hell of a job getting the church booked on short notice like that. I didn’t even think Claudia was religious. “I’ll be there.”
“I’ll look into AISOR,” she said, “but I don’t see it. They’re a huge company. They have nothing to gain from this, and everything to lose. The Collective fit better as suspects.”
I stopped with the coffee cup halfway to my mouth. The Collective again? Who were these guys? And what was their connection in all this?
“Miles?”
“Never mind,” I said. “A thought just occurred to me. Will you be at the funeral tomorrow?”
“No. Detective Wade will be, though.”
Great. “Did you tell him what I said?”
“Yes.”
“How’d he take it?”
She said nothing, but she allowed a small smile to touch her lips. It made her look even more beautiful.
“You still owe me that talk,” I said.
She nodded. “I do.” With one last gulp, she finished the last of her coffee. “Please, Miles. Leave this alone. And go to the hospital. We’ll find who did this.”
“I know you will. You’re a good cop. Say, you ever use those cuffs outside of work hours?”
“Thanks for the coffee, Miles.” She walked away, past the overweight cop behind the desk. I watched her until she was out of my sight. Then I drained the coffee, crushed the cup in my hand, and tossed it into a waste bin. I offered the overweight cop a wave before I left, but he just glared.
The sun had long set by the time I stepped back out onto the street. The streetlights gave off little pools of light, trying to hold back the darkness. I paused for a moment on the stone steps leading down from the ancient police station. A few cars rumbled along the street, making their way home. I was starving.
Vivian was right; the hospital was where I should be, but I knew what those places were like. If they decided I was sick, they wouldn’t just let me walk out. And I wasn’t done yet. I pictured Penny Coleman lying in that hospital bed, dying. Dying hard. Sure, I was scared. I was goddamn terrified. But I’d made a promise.
I went down the steps and along the street until I reached my motorbike. As I was putting my helmet on, I thought I caught a glimpse of movement in my side mirror. I could have sworn I saw someone move in that silver sedan parked a couple of cars back. But when I looked again, there was nothing. Maybe it was another hallucination. Maybe.
I pulled on my helmet, started up the bike, and pulled out onto the road. It had been a long, long day. And tomorrow I had to bury my friend.
Somehow, I didn’t think she’d stay buried.
FOURTEEN
Tania was waiting for me outside my apartment when I got home, a handbag across her shoulder and a plastic bag in her hand. She cast her gaze over my body. “How do you manage to look worse each time I see you?”
“Scientists have been trying to find out the answer to that for years. What are you doing here? Did I forget another lesson?”
She shook her head and held up the plastic bag with a couple of white styrofoam containers inside. “I brought you some Turkish. Last time I was here your fridge held nothing but Kemia and old cheese.” She frowned at the bag. “It’s probably cold now, but—”
“Gimme.” I snatched the bag away from her and tossed her my apartment keys while I ripped open the packaging. There was a plastic spork in the bag, but I’ve found cutlery only gets in the way when you’re starving. I grabbed a handful of rice, salad, and meat and shoved it in my mouth.
Tania shook her head as she opened the door. “You’re disgusting. No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Hey, maybe I don’t have a girlfriend because I’m playing the field.” I followed her inside and dropped myself onto the couch, still eating. “Anyway, I do all right.”
Tania studied me carefully for a few seconds. Then her eyes lit up. “Oh my God. You got laid, didn’t you?”
I shoved another pile of food in my mouth so I didn’t have to speak. I hoped the dim lights of my apartment were enough to cover the blush creeping up my neck.
“You did!” she practically squealed. “Who was she?”
I choked down the dry meat. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re way too young to be exposed to the dirtier parts of life.”
She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “I’m seventeen, Miles.”
“So you keep telling me.”
Tania glared at me for a second, then lunged forward and grabbed the container of Turkish food out of my hands. She wheeled backward, fending me off while I desperately tried to reclaim the meal. “Come on, I won’t tell anyone. Who is she? Tell me that and you get your food back.”
“I’m not hungry anyway.” My stomach made a contradictory moan.
Tania raised an eyebrow.
“Seriously, kid, it’s not worth talking about. She was a girl I met. I liked her. But it didn’t work out.”
“Oh. How come?”
Because she wasn’t who she said she was. Because she killed me. “She snored,” I said. “It was never going to work.”
Tania gave me a look that said she didn’t buy my line, but she passed me back the food anyway. We sat down on the couch and stared at the blank TV for a few minutes, eating and thinking. Mostly eating, on my part.
“Desmond called me,” she said after a while. “He told me your friend died. I’m sorry.”
I licked my fingers clean and said nothing.
“You didn’t say anything the other day,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“He said you’re planning to do some stuff,” she said. “Dangerous stuff. Stupid stuff.”
“You’re one to talk. Des told me you’ve been conning him into letting you come along with this idiot neighborhood watch thing he’s got such a hard-on about.”
She shrugged like it was nothing, and flashed me a little smile. “He’s easy to play. But it’s not like I’m doing anything really dangerous. Not like you.”
Now it was my turn to shrug. “I can’t let her lie in that morgue without knowing why she’s there. I can’t.”
Tania pulled her legs up on the couch and tucked them beneath her. “You think this will make up for what the Chroma made you do?”
“The Chroma didn’t make me do anything,” I said, growling more than I intended to. “I did it. Me. I killed those gangsters, kid. The Chroma gave me the strength, but…” I shook my head. “You don’t get it.”
“I don’t get it?” Her eyes were glistening, but her voice was all fire. “So when John Andrews’ men held me down and injected Chroma into my veins, when I lost my mind and started blowing them all away, that was my fault, was it?”
I was having trouble speaking with my foot in my mouth. “That’s not what I meant. That was different. They kidnapped you and forced the drug into you. I shot up that Chroma myself and aimed myself at those gangsters. I knew what would happen.”
“Stop being so melodramatic,” Tania said. “Just because you held the syringe yourself, doesn’t mean you weren’t forced. You had to save Vivian. You had to save all of us.”
“But not like that.” I ran my fingers through my hair. My voice fell. I was so tired. “I can’t deal with what I did.”
Her tiny hand touched mine. “You’re not the only one who got screwed up by Chroma, Miles. I still have nightmares every night. Do you know why I practice Tunneling so much?”
I shook my head.
“Because I have to learn to control it. I need to. Because the thought of losing control like that again….” She shivered. “And it wasn’t just when I was on the drug, either. After, the withdrawal symptoms, the need for it that overwhelmed every
thing else, that made me hate everyone who tried to stop me from getting more Chroma, I can still remember that. And it makes me sick.”
I knew what she was talking about. A couple of days after I’d dosed myself, the withdrawals hit. The doctors practically had to tie me to the bed to keep me from fighting my way out of the hospital. I even tried to deck one of the nurses, a petite little brunette thing. I’d never felt so desperate. And I’ve been awful desperate at times.
Tania leaned her head against my shoulder. “But we’ve got to get through it. We can come out of this better. You can’t do this thing you’re doing if it’s only guilt driving you. If you want to find who hurt your friend, you have to do it for the right reasons.”
“Yeah? And what reasons are those?”
“You have to do it because she deserves some closure. And because you cared about her. That’s your weakness, and your strength. You care so much. Desmond thinks this will destroy you. But I don’t. I think this is something you need to do.”
I looked down at the veins in the backs of my hands, at the green tinge I saw there. “Maybe you’re both right.”
“You’re pretty hard to destroy.”
I grinned and squeezed her hand. Damn the kid, but she was optimistic. I couldn’t bear to wipe the smile off her face, so I changed the subject. “You bring your Tunneling stuff with you?” I asked.
She patted her handbag.
“Draw me a Tunnel to Heaven,” I said.
“Where to?”
“Where do you want to go?”
She pursed her lips, then smiled brightly. “Oh, I know. The Hanging Cities. I was reading about them the other day. Do you know they have air-jet elevators to get between the levels?”
I’d nearly got myself killed fooling around on those elevators when I wasn’t much older than Tania, but she was more sensible than me. “Good choice. Sketch me a design for a Tunnel to take you, me, and whoever else you want to come. When this is all over, we’ll go.”
“Really?”
I looked her in the eyes and tried to pretend I wasn’t dying. “Really,” I lied.
The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) Page 11
