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

by Chris Strange

  “He’s dead,” Aran said. “Dead like my sister.”

  Shit. “You two will be dead too if you keep at this,” I said. “This is beyond crazy. Make the damn call.” The irony of my argument didn’t escape me. Look at me, the voice of reason. Call the cops. Let them handle it. Do as I say, not as I do.

  Even looking at the back of his head, I could see Aran’s cheeks twitching. If he was a cat, his ears would be flat against his scalp. He glanced at his brother, who shrugged.

  “We’re in deep,” the brother said in Vei. “Maybe the stinking human is right.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I can understand you, you know.”

  Aran ignored me, scowling. Looking past him, I could see buildings and construction sites flashing past, but I was too far gone to know what direction we were going.

  He cursed again, enough to make even me cringe. Then he jabbed buttons on the phone and turned around to press it to my ear. It was ringing.

  “This is Vivian,” she said. Voicemail. Even so, the sound of her voice settled on me like a warm blanket. “Leave a message.”

  “Vivian, I’m pretty much gone, but I got some information for you. It’s not Kowalski behind this. It’s a doctor who works with AISOR, name of Faye McCaffrey. She was a research partner with Kowalski and Bohr, and she’s been masterminding everything. She looks like someone’s grandmother, but she’s got a nasty set of teeth. I figure she’s been watching me for a while, working out how to get her hands on me. I don’t plan on letting her. I don’t know exactly how it fits together with the Collective, but you’re smart enough to figure that out without me.”

  Aran’s brother started slowing the car, and Aran gestured at me to wrap it up.

  “I figure the explosions and gunfire is a tip off that the Collective have cranked this fight up to full scale war. Hell, that’s probably where you are now. I trust you to take care of this.”

  I paused. My throat was burning with the effort of speaking, but that wasn’t what was making it hard to get the words out. “Vivian, I…” I pictured the way she looked the first time I met her in that police interrogation room. So stern, so hard, so beautiful. And then the last time I’d seen her, after I’d turned up at her door and she’d nursed me back to some semblance of health. Still beautiful, but in a softer way. Still a cop, but a real, intelligent woman as well. I closed my eyes.

  “Stay safe, Viv,” I said.

  I waved the phone away, and Aran hit the end call button.

  Aran’s brother pulled the Impala over and shut off the engine. Aran reached over, slipped my phone back into my pocket, and bared his sharp teeth in a predatory grin. “Come on. We must get you off the streets. They’ll be scouring the city for you.”

  I nodded. We didn’t have the luxury of an office chair this time, so the two Vei helped me out of the car and took me under each arm, the machine pistol dangling from Aran’s other hand. There were no streetlights here, and I didn’t recognize the neighborhood. Someone had spray-painted indecipherable tags on several of the apartment building walls—memories of my wasted youth ran through my head—and there was so much trash in the gutters the street must’ve flooded every time there was a light shower.

  “Where are we?” I rasped, cringing with each step as they hauled me down an alley. In the gloom, I could just make out a short staircase leading to a basement door.

  “Silk Dragon territory,” Aran said.

  It wasn’t the Silk Dragons’ best neighborhood, that was for sure. The stairs were so narrow we couldn’t go down three abreast, so the two Vei had to turn awkwardly and half-carry me like a mattress down the stairs. When we got to the bottom, Aran fed a key into the door and kicked it open. It creaked more than my bones did.

  If I had to describe the basement apartment in one word, it would be “dank”. By the looks of it there had once been carpet, but it had rotted away long ago. The light above flickered menacingly. Through my fading vision, I gathered the apartment was just one room plus a tiny bathroom through a sliding door. The whole place wasn’t much bigger than your average shipping container.

  The brothers lowered me onto a piss-stained mattress in the corner. I curled back into my favorite fetal position. Aran’s brother bolted the door behind us, and then we fell into silence. The smell of mold was greater the closer I got to the ground. Far away, I could still hear the sirens, but the only sounds in the room were a steady dripping sound in the corner and the scurrying of something that may or may not have been a rat.

  So, this was it. This was where I died. To be honest, I was starting to regret leaving AISOR. At least they had air conditioning. But I guess I couldn’t be picky. It felt strange, though, just lying here. Nothing left to do. Nothing but wait to die. I wondered if it would hurt. More than I already hurt, I meant.

  I was hearing music inside my head. Probably not a good sign. It was the same song we’d played in my dream, the one we wrote. “Destiny is No Excuse”. A moment later, I felt a presence beside me. I didn’t have to look to know it was another Claudia hallucination. I did it, I told her inside my head. Kind of. I found your killer. It took a while, but I did it. The cops will take care of the rest.

  Then why didn’t I feel happier? Sure, I was dying, but that wasn’t such a big deal. There were still things nagging at me, details obscured by my dying brain and the missing puzzle pieces. It was like getting to the end of a movie and having the last fifteen minutes chopped off.

  “Tell me a story, Uncle Aran,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Maybe start with who the fuck you are and what you’re doing here.”

  Aran and his brother glanced at each other, then Aran jerked his head toward the door. The other Vei nodded, picked up the machine pistol, and went to stand guard.

  “I used to work for Bohr,” Aran said after a moment. “I was a Collectivist.”

  Maybe it should’ve surprised me, but it didn’t. Not after what I’d seen him do. “What sort of work?”

  He grinned, showing the points of his teeth. “The kind of work that would get me eighteen to life.”

  I shivered. A police car screamed past outside, its siren dropping in pitch as it sped away.

  “Bohr’s a persuasive man,” Aran said. “I believed in him for a long time. I believed in our group. Our family. I would’ve done anything for them. I think maybe you can understand that, can’t you, Franco?”

  I could still feel Claudia beside me. “Yeah, I think I can.”

  Aran nodded. “Bohr asked me to pull a kidnapping job. AISOR’s main Tunneler. We wanted to disrupt their Tartarus operations. They were getting too far, too fast. So I tracked this guy down, Giles something, he was called, and pulled him out of his bed. An easy job.”

  I thought back to when I met Zhi Lu, how she’d told me their Tunneler had gone missing. I guess I just found out where he’d gone.

  “He started talking right away,” Aran continued. “I mean right away. I hadn’t even got him back to Bohr yet. This Giles was shivering like a frozen kuroth, giving up names and offering to turn on his friends if I protected him, like I was the police or something. I stopped listening. Tuned him out, as you humans say. Until he gave a name I recognized.”

  It took me a moment, then I got it. “Penny Coleman,” I said.

  Aran’s oversized eyes narrowed, and he nodded. Another stream of Vei cursing flooded from his throat, the sounds thick and guttural.

  “She was innocent. She didn’t play the game. But somehow they duped her into coming with them. Knocked her out, took her to Tartarus. Injected her with the fluid. That’s how they did it for most of them—injection. I’m surprised you’ve lasted so long after practically drowning in it.” He eyed me, then shrugged. “After they were done poisoning my sister, they brought her back to poke her and prod her and test her like they did to all the rest.”

  As depressing as the story was, it took the edge off my own pain. I had a fair idea what must’ve happened next, but I let the Vei tell his story. Hell, maybe it woul
d be good for him to get it out.

  “I went to Bohr, told him my sister had been taken. But all he wanted to do was wait. I thought we’d been fighting to stop AISOR, but it turned out we were just biding our time until AISOR got their breakthrough and Bohr could steal it and use it.”

  “For what?”

  He shrugged. “He’s crazy. You know his history?”

  I nodded.

  “I didn’t really know until I saw it in his eyes. He wants this war. He enjoys it. So I took my brothers and left. I got my sister out, but it was too late. By the time I realized they were after you, I was too late as well. No more people are going to be used for their experiments. I’m going to burn them all down, Franco. I think you can understand that too, can’t you?”

  I did. There was nothing like it in the world, nothing like that drive to deliver righteous retribution in the form of shattered kneecaps.

  “How many?” I asked. “How many did AISOR do this to?”

  He shrugged. “A few dozen in the last six months. But they have a history.”

  “So I hear.”

  Aran smirked and shook his head. “I always thought it was Kowalski behind everything. McCaffrey must’ve had him on her leash for years. After they made Bohr their fall guy, Kowalski and McCaffrey and all the others were cleared of any wrongdoing. Their names were even suppressed in the media.”

  I’d feel sorry for Bohr if he hadn’t tried to have me grinded. As it was, I only had enough emotion left to feel sorry for myself. My heartbeat had slowed to a crawl, and I was using every bit of energy I had left to keep my eyelids from drooping. If I closed them, they’d stay closed.

  “Aran.” It came out as a mumble, so I tried again. “Aran. The crystals. What do they do?”

  “Does it matter?”

  I tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a death rattle. “Tell me.”

  He ran a tongue along the points of his teeth. For a few seconds, we listened to the sirens outside. I wondered if Vivian would call me back before I dropped dead. Aran stretched in the chair, his long, narrow arms rotating like a contortionist’s. Finally, he spoke.

  “It’s a reality-shaper. That’s what they think.”

  “That’s it? Yawn. I’m a Tunneler. Reality manipulation is already my thing. They could’ve just asked me instead of killing a bunch of people.”

  “It’s not like that. And not like Chroma either. Not Tunneling trickery. They think they can draw on Heaven’s instability, but that’s not all. It’s Tartarus as well. You felt the power of that place. The desire. The temptation.” He grinned. “Combine that with the strength of a Chroma-affected Tunneler like you, and the crystals can shape reality permanently.”

  I looked into his eyes, but I couldn’t see any lie there. To be honest, I couldn’t see much of anything. It felt like I was looking down a long, dark tunnel.

  “The crystals look into your soul,” Aran said. “They look at your deepest desires. They combine that with some Chroma-sourced instability. And then they crystallize it in Earth’s dimension. Time, space, everything, it’s all fair game. One wish, any wish. You’ve got a fucking genie swimming in your veins, Franco.”

  “Huh,” I said, letting the idea play around in my mind. “I guess that is worth killing for. Don’t let them get it, will you?”

  “I’ll burn your body first.”

  I tried to nod, but I couldn’t. “I’m on my way out,” I said, but I had no idea if I was actually speaking. I seemed to be hearing my own voice in an echo chamber. “You know, you’re still an asshole for slicing my ear. That was my favorite ear.”

  I couldn’t see the room anymore. Maybe the light just went out. Probably unlikely. Something told me I wasn’t breathing right. I was taking a couple of deep breaths, then nothing, then a whole lot of shallow ones. I couldn’t feel the mattress beneath me, though I could still smell the urine in it. Or maybe I’d just pissed myself. That was probably it. I’d seen enough death to know it was never pretty. I didn’t expect mine to be any different.

  Loud banging. There was some sort of commotion happening, but it seemed to be a long way away. It wouldn’t bother me much longer. High pitched screeching and yipping kept cutting through my mind. It was getting annoying. Couldn’t they see I was trying to die here?

  There was another noise too. It might’ve been shouting at first, but it quieted to talking. I couldn’t make out the words. I hoped McCaffrey or Bohr hadn’t found me. I hoped Aran hadn’t betrayed me. But I wasn’t too worried about that anymore. I was warm, peaceful. I could’ve sworn I felt the touch of Claudia’s hand on my shoulder. I could hear the music again, like she was singing in my ear. If only that damn yipping would shut up so I could listen.

  “Miles?” Something slapped my face. “Miles!” A woman’s voice. Something slimy and wet brushed my hand. I couldn’t move my arm to push it away. Fingers at my neck. “I think he’s slipping into a coma.”

  “Gimme the syringe.” A man’s voice this time.

  “It might kill him faster.”

  “Does it look like he’s gonna get better any time soon? Give it here.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Not a damn clue.”

  Something pricked my shoulder, but I could barely feel my skin anyway. Everything went quiet. I was happy again. I was gone. Dead. Good. Time to sleep. Sleep forever.

  My heart lurched. Again. Again. Faster. Every beat sent pain echoing through my body. I sucked in a lungful of air, then immediately regretted it. So much pain. Every inch of me. I thought I’d at least get a chance to settle into Hell before the devil started the eternity of fire and torment.

  Something slapped my face again. It felt like being hit with a cattle prod.

  “Miles!”

  I opened my eyes. That was another mistake. My retinas had pretty much packed up and gone home, and they weren’t happy about being dragged back into work. Figures hovered above me, silhouetted by that damn flickering bulb in the basement ceiling. The slimy thing touched my hand again. I jerked my arm away, and something yipped happily.

  “You with us, guy?” I knew that voice. A friend. A partner through a hundred scrapes. Desmond.

  I groaned. It took a few attempts to get my vocal cords warmed up. “Fuck this. I hate Kansas. Take me back to Oz. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”

  “He’s delirious.” The woman’s voice again. It was familiar, but I couldn’t see clearly enough to make out the face.

  “No,” Desmond said. “He just thinks he’s funny. Guy, we don’t have long. The adrenaline’s going to wear off any minute, and I don’t think you can take another shot. I need you to show me how to do a Pin Hole to Tartarus.”

  I closed my eyes tight and opened them again, but the figures didn’t go away. My heart was going like it was trying to set a new land speed record. “What?”

  “A Pin Hole. You’ve designed a Tartarus Tunnel, you can do a Pin Hole. Something that’ll give me a focus on the crystals.”

  “I thought I was done with this bullshit.”

  “Not yet.” I felt him shove the slimy yipping thing aside and press his hand against mine. “Draw it on my palm with your finger. No more jokes, no more talking. Just do it.”

  He didn’t sound like he was screwing around. I closed my eyes and pictured the Tunnel I’d made for AISOR. I could still feel the pull I’d felt that day, the temptation. Something inside me resonated with my thoughts as I probed the feelings. I could feel the crystals inside me, lining my blood vessels, swimming through my body. They vibrated in tune with my mind. It was taking everything I had just to keep the connection in place.

  Without thinking, I let my finger drift across Desmond’s palm. Three interlocking circles with a triangle in the middle.

  “Got it,” Desmond said, and his touch left me. “We’re going to try something, guy. Just stay still, all right?”

  “Wha…what are you doing?” I asked. My eyes had drifted closed again
, and my heart was slowing.

  “You got this, Tania?” Desmond said.

  Tania? What was she doing here? It must be past her bedtime. But her voice was unmistakable. “I think so.”

  I opened my eyes in time to see Desmond passing a bottle of silvery liquid to Tania. She looked so young. Mainly because she was young. Seventeen wasn’t old enough to watch a guy die in a dank shithole like this.

  Desmond moved aside and started scratching something into a piece of brass. Another face entered my view. Vivian’s dark hair fell down around her ears and tickled my forehead. Even though it looked like she hadn’t slept in two days, she was a hell of a dish. Her touch was warm against my cheek.

  “How’d you find me?” I asked.

  She smiled the same way she had when I’d woken up in her apartment after puking my guts out. “We had a guide. This damn creature of yours stinks, but he’s persistent.”

  The yipping started again, and the wet thing returned to nuzzle my hand. I let my head loll to the side. The tame spider-dog stared at me with all of its beady eyes, then laid its head down on my hip and started drooling all over me. I clumsily rested my hand on its head, barely able to feel the fur on my skin. “Good vicious alien pet.” Toto screeched happily.

  “This may or may not hurt like hell, guy,” Desmond said.

  “Whatever doesn’t kill me, right?”

  “It might do that too,” he said.

  I could sense the Pin Hole he’d carved. But it wasn’t the only one. I glanced at Tania and saw another Pin Hole in her hand, already coated in Kemia. One glance at the complex web of shapes and symbols enclosed in the circle told me it was a position shifter, and not a basic one either. She’d be pulling on Heaven’s instability to pull a whole lot of somethings out and away to a single focus.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “What are you guys planning?”

  “Just stay still, Miles,” Tania said. She encircled my hand with her own tiny one and gave it a squeeze. “We’re going to shift the crystals out of you, and you really don’t want to be moving while we do it.”

  “Wait.” It was getting hard to form words again. “Wait. This is going to tear me to shreds.”