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

by Chris Strange

  She grinned and dug a charcoal pencil and a sheet of paper out of her bag. I watched her brow wrinkle as she concentrated for a few seconds. Then she nodded to herself and started drawing. I got up, turned around, and let the smile fade from my face.

  While she worked, I settled down at my kitchen table next to my goldfish and flattened out the crumpled scientific papers Doc McCaffrey had given me.

  It took me the better part of an hour to get through the first one. Most of Kowalski’s work was hypothesis and supposition backed up by numbers but no hard evidence. But as I propped my eyes open with matchsticks to get through the boring math parts, I started to see hints of something deeper underlying the research. There were references to several supposed worlds, including one world with no indications of life but displaying a psychic stimulus that the authors likened to a powerful pheromone. To me, it was more like one of those deep-sea fish with the light on its head to attract prey.

  Though the paper only gave the world a code number, it didn’t take a genius to work out they were talking about Tartarus. The paper had been published nearly two decades ago, long before I’d cracked open the Tunnel to Limbus or AISOR even existed. How long had this been in the works? And why had it taken Kowalski so long to get there? This was promising stuff, even if most of the world’s interdimensional physicists would’ve laughed them out of town. Why stop the research for so long? And why start again now?

  Zhi Lu’s face came into my head. How did she fit into this? I guessed someone must be paying her. And the mayor, what about her? What the hell did she have to do with this Tartarus bullshit?

  None of it made any sense. Or at least, not to a dumbass like me. I glanced up at Tania, drawing on a new sheet of paper with a couple of scrunched up pieces around her. No matter what Des said, I had to keep her out of this. I wouldn’t let her end up like Claudia. She’d been through enough already.

  But that’s not all, is it? a voice in my head whispered. You don’t just want to keep her safe. You don’t want her to see. Deep down, you know you’re a dead man walking now. Tartarus will have another victim. You don’t want anyone to see how far you’ll go now that you have nothing to lose. You don’t want yourself to see.

  I could feel the anger rumbling away inside me, quiet and waiting. Someone had killed Claudia, and now they’d killed me. The world wouldn’t miss me, but Claudia was different. Someone had robbed the world of her songs. They had to pay. I knew exactly how far I’d go to hurt the person who’d killed Claudia.

  And it scared me.

  FIFTEEN

  I was feeling lousy. My stomach churned like it was trying to make butter. My forehead was coated in a thin sheen of sweat. I’d spent half an hour this morning sitting by the toilet, wondering if I was going to spew. Somehow, I held it back. Maybe I should have stuck my fingers down my throat and got it over with. It was probably just bad Turkish food. Yeah, that was it.

  After Tania left, I’d fallen asleep in front of the TV with Die Hard: With a Vengeance playing on mute. Bruce Willis had requisitioned a taxi and was racing through Central Park when I blinked and my eyes stayed shut. Next thing I knew, the sun was shining in my face.

  Despite the queasiness, I fixed myself some off-brand cereal without milk and choked it down with some black instant coffee. I didn’t usually drink coffee in the morning, but it was that or pass out in my cereal.

  It was a long wait until midday. I tried to pass the time by piecing together the puzzle, but my brain wasn’t working. I slouched with one leg hanging over the arm of my couch, passing the white container of Tartaran fluid from one hand to the other. I wondered how long I had before I’d start getting really sick. Then again, maybe I was being pessimistic. Maybe it wouldn’t affect me. I only knew about the people who were dead or dying from this thing, but who knew how many people had been exposed to it and lived. It was about time I got lucky, wasn’t it?

  At 11:30 I forced myself to get up. I put on my black suit with a black tie, fought my hair until it submitted, and wiped the dried blood from around the stitches in my ear. I wondered if there was any chance it could get infected. Doc McCaffrey hadn’t given me any antibiotics, so she must’ve thought it was okay. Besides, it was probably the least of my worries.

  I was about to leave when I thought about the container of fluid. It was valuable stuff. For a moment I stared at it, trying to figure out what to do. Then I carried it back to my bedroom, put my back against my set of drawers, and heaved. They came away from the wall with a groan, leaving behind pockmarks in the carpet and a heavy layer of dust. I bent down and tucked the container into a jagged hole in the drywall. I’d kept stuff in there once or twice before when I’d brought something slightly illegal back from Heaven, but it was empty now, aside from a few spiderwebs hanging from the wooden frame. I hoped the rats didn’t find it.

  I shoved the drawers back to cover the hole, slipped a bottle of Kemia into my pocket, and left the apartment. Outside, it was turning into another scorching day.

  The funeral service was all right, as far as these things go. Less than fifty people showed up, and I didn’t recognize most of them. The coffin lay at the head of the church beneath a tortured Jesus on a cross. It was closed casket. A framed photograph sat on top, showing Claudia at least ten years younger. Her smile hadn’t changed.

  Claudia’s sister, Georgia, didn’t much resemble her except for the blond hair. She stood up the front of the church after the minister had said his piece, and gave a wooden speech full of generic statements about kind hearts and pure souls. She didn’t mention how the world got so bright when Claudia sang you had to wear sunglasses.

  I sat about halfway down the church at the end of a pew. No one wanted to get too close to me. A couple of times I caught people staring at me with wide eyes. I wondered how many were speculating that I’d killed her.

  That might’ve been part of the reason they didn’t ask me to be a pall bearer. Then again, they didn’t seem to have picked the other guys in my band either. Bubbles was nowhere to be seen, but Salin came up to me as we followed the coffin out to the hearse in front of the church. Queen’s “The Show Must Go On” was playing over the speakers. It was a good song, but she would’ve preferred jazz.

  “It’s a sad thing,” Salin said. A lock of hair fell across his dark, leathery forehead.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Yup.”

  When we got outside, I caught a glimpse of Detective Wade leaning against his dark blue sedan. He was wearing sunglasses, but I could feel his eyes on me. I looked away.

  Salin and I watched for a while as the pall bearers loaded the coffin into the hearse. It was hot out, and Salin dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. “We’ll never find another singer like her.”

  “No.”

  “You’re still looking for the people who did this, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded. “Good. And when you find them, you will kill them?”

  “I’m not a murderer, Salin.” I wished I sounded like I believed that.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “But you will kill them. If you need help, you will call me. I will kill them too.”

  I glanced at him. Salin was slightly chubby and shorter than me, and I wasn’t exactly Sun Ming Ming. I’d never seen him raise his voice, let alone a fist. Still, he looked dead serious.

  We parted company. He wasn’t coming to the burial, so I took my bike to the cemetery alone, following the convoy that trailed behind the hearse.

  The hole in the earth was already waiting for her. The pall bearers laid the coffin on a pair of green straps that stretched across the grave site. Motors hummed as they lowered her into the ground. A breeze had started to pick up, but it did nothing to cut through the heat. The minister said a few more empty words, and women in black wiped away tears.

  Detective Wade had come as well. Like me, he stood apart from everyone else, his hands folded in front of him. I could make out the bulge of a pistol beneath his jack
et.

  When Claudia was in the ground, everyone took turns tossing a flower in after her. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Something about leaving a pile of rotting vegetation on top of her didn’t seem right.

  I glanced around at the other mourners. My presence was making them uncomfortable, that much was obvious. I’d already said my goodbyes to Claudia. Besides, that thing in the ground wasn’t her any more than my hallucinations were. I figured I should go. I turned away from the group and walked through the neatly-trimmed grass back toward the parking lot. Detective Wade glanced in my direction as I left, but he didn’t say anything. Something black and hollow gnawed at my insides.

  The walk back to the parking lot put a low, grassy hill between me and the mourners. A handful of other individuals were scattered around the cemetery, tending to grave sites. None of them looked at me. I kept walking. Something in my throat tickled. I put my fist over my mouth and coughed wetly a few times. Maybe I was getting a cold. I shoved my hands back in my pockets.

  Footsteps came from behind me, crunching on the dry grass. Something hard pressed into the small of my back. Something awfully gun-shaped.

  “Walk,” a man’s voice said in my ear. “Hands out of your pockets.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, putting my hands by my side. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Did they buy you guys in bulk?”

  He jabbed me with the gun barrel, pointing me toward a white Toyota Corolla parked a few spaces away from my bike. “Shut up.” The voice had a squawking quality to it.

  I wasn’t even scared. I was just angry. A line of trees partially shielded the two of us from the rest of the cemetery. There was no one in the parking lot except for a small, hairy dog racing around the back seat of a Land Rover.

  “You got a name?” I asked.

  “Shut up.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “I said shut up.”

  Not the friendliest of kidnappers. Not the classiest, either. It was a goddamn funeral. Who kidnaps someone from a funeral?

  Some part of me wanted to run for it and make him shoot me, just to screw his plan over. I decided against it. I had enough problems without a bullet wound. The dog in the Land Rover yapped as we went past.

  “You’re driving,” he said as we reached the Corolla. He tossed a key onto the concrete.

  I still hadn’t seen his face. I tried to glance at him as I bent to pick up the key, but from down here the sun was in my eyes, and he wore a hat that cast his face into shadow. I squinted, grimaced, and turned back to the car.

  “Get in,” he said. His voice was really starting to grate on me. He sounded like he’d been raised by trained parrots.

  I opened the driver’s door and climbed in. At the same time, I heard the door to the back seat open. The car rocked slightly as he got in behind me. I took the opportunity to palm a coin from my jacket pocket and slip it into the other hand.

  “Put the key in the ignition.”

  “I know how to drive a bloody car,” I said. I moved to put the key in, then fumbled it. It dropped to the mat. “Damn.”

  The gun barrel pressed against the back of my neck. “Hurry up.” He was nervous; I could hear it in his voice.

  While I bent down to retrieve the key, I put my other hand in my jacket pocket and carefully uncorked the bottle of Kemia without removing it from my pocket. I could feel the bastard’s breath on my neck as he watched me pick up the key.

  This time I got it in the ignition. At the same moment, I pressed the coin I’d palmed against the rim of the Kemia bottle and splashed a little Kemia on it. A fragment of chaos burst inside my mind. I didn’t know much about car engines, but it wasn’t hard to screw one up.

  I turned the ignition. For a few seconds, the engine groaned and spluttered like a lifelong smoker getting up in the morning. The noise didn’t stop until I released the key. The car didn’t start.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said. “Your car’s screwed, pal.”

  The car rocked with his fidgeting. I glanced in the rear-view mirror and got a glimpse of a pale face with sweat on his forehead. “Try it again.”

  I did, keeping the Pin Hole open. The car sounded like someone was throwing cats at a lawn mower.

  “You want me to get out and push?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” he growled. “Give it some gas while you do it.”

  “You sound a little stressed,” I said. “I can call a mechanic if you like. I won’t try to run away until it’s fixed, I promise.”

  He shoved the gat against my head so hard I was looking at my own chest. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. Let me think!” The pressure of the gun barrel disappeared. “Let me try.”

  He leaned past my head, reaching for the ignition with his free hand. The pistol came into my field of view.

  I released the Pin Hole that was screwing with the car’s engine and clamped my fingers around his wrist. Tugging on his arm, I slammed his gun hand against the steering wheel. He screamed. A moment later, the gat went off. The windshield shattered and my ears rang like the world’s most annoying alarm clock. That got my heart going.

  I smacked his fingers into the steering wheel again. The pistol barked, ejecting its hot casing into my lap. I barely noticed it. He screamed again and tried to gouge at my face with his free hand. The gun dropped to my feet.

  I rammed my elbow backward. It was an awkward angle, and all I managed to do was hit my funny bone on one of his bony prominences. Electricity rocketed up and down my arm. His fingers dug harder into the flesh of my cheek. I turned my head and bit. His fingers tasted like oil. His scream turned into a screech.

  Blood spurted into my mouth as he jerked his hand back. I spat the taste out, fumbled at the lever for the door, felt it pop open. There were hands grasping for the back of my jacket, but I was already scrambling out of the seat. He caught me by the belt, just for a second, and it was enough to throw me off balance. I came down on my forearms in the parking lot and scrambled the rest of the way out of the car on my hands and knees.

  My heart jumped around inside my chest. A glance back showed me he was wriggling through the gap between the front seats, trying to retrieve the gun. No time for subtlety. It was never my strong point anyway. I crawled around the side of the next car over and put my back against the muscle car’s tire. I fished in my pocket for another coin and pulled out the bottle of Kemia. Somewhere, a dog was yapping like crazy.

  Another gunshot split the air. The round slammed through the muscle car door a few inches from my head. I ducked as the pale-faced bastard let off another shot. Kemia splashed over the coin in my hand. A new whirl of unreality took my mind. I hummed in tune to the madness while my heart kept the beat. The Pin Hole opened. My ears popped. I stood up and faced him over the muscle car’s hood. He leaned awkwardly over the Corolla’s handbrake and leveled the gun at me.

  I don’t think he expected me to leap at him. It’s not the thing you tend to do when a rod is pointed in your general direction. But more than that, I don’t think he expected me to have turned into something that resembled an agile gorilla.

  With one huge, unfamiliar hand I snatched his outstretched arm and jerked it upward. He fired again and again, but he wasn’t hitting anything except the sky. Then he pulled the trigger once more and nothing happened. I could smell the sweat pouring from him.

  I dragged him out of the car by his arm, my muscles bursting with animal strength. His finger continued to switch uselessly on the trigger. Snarling, I grabbed the wiry bastard by the front of his shirt and pulled him close.

  “Who do you work for?”

  He just whimpered. My nostrils flared.

  “I’m sick of you guys,” I said. “Ambush me once, shame on you.”

  I slammed him back against the car. His eyes bugged and his mouth resembled the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner.

  “Ambush me twice…” I headbutted him in the nose, and he cried out. Blood poured from his nostrils. “…shame on me. Ambush me thr
ee times—”

  “Franco!”

  I glanced toward the voice. Detective Wade stood with his legs spread at the edge of the parking lot, his golden hair blown perfectly by the wind. A pistol was in his hands. It was pointed at me. A small crowd of onlookers—the people who had been at the funeral—gaped at me.

  “Let him go,” Wade said.

  “Come on,” I said, “we’re just having a chat.”

  The man trembled in my hands. His eyes were wide as his gaze swept up and down my new body. “It’s…it’s not possible. Tunnelers can’t do that.”

  “Anything’s possible if you put your mind to it. Isn’t that right, Detective?”

  “Franco.” If his voice was filled with any more warning, it would have a sign and flashing lights attached.

  I grunted. The queasiness in my stomach was coming back anyway. I let go of the man, releasing his head right into the car door. He yelped and toppled dizzily. As he fell, I slipped his wallet from his back pocket, using my body to hide the action from Wade.

  “Now,” Wade said, still aiming his gun at me, “return to your normal state.”

  “Ain’t I pretty enough for you, Wade?”

  He didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t crack anything at all.

  I sighed, closed my eyes, and severed the Pin Hole’s connection to Heaven. The chaos in my mind stopped swirling, and my ears popped again. When I opened my eyes, I was the same old me again. I met Wade’s eyes across the parking lot. “Happy?”

  He holstered his weapon. The crowd behind him started whispering furiously to each other and comparing the footage they’d captured on their phones. While Wade crossed the parking lot, I pocketed my attacker’s wallet and picked up my bottle of Kemia from next to the groaning, half-conscious man.

  Without a word, Wade rolled the man onto his stomach, cuffed his hands behind his back, and hauled him to a dark blue sedan. The pale-faced guy wasn’t really hurt. He bled from a nice cut above his eye, but I’d probably done him a favor. Ladies like scars.