And then I thought about everything my friends went through to save me. I thought about seventeen-year-old Tania, not even old enough to get a drink to calm her nerves after what she’d seen here. I thought about how much I owed them. And about how much I needed them.
“No,” I said. “Not this time. Wait for my call.”
“Ask me nicely.”
I had to smile. “Please, then. Please wait for my call.”
I hung up. My stomach was starting to remember that it hadn’t kept anything down for nearly two days, and it wasn’t happy about it. It growled loud enough to start Toto yipping again.
I rested against the wall, facing away from Stretch, and dialed another number. Six rings this time. Then a click, and a voice that made me want to hurl the phone at the wall.
“Hello?” McCaffrey said in her soft voice.
“Doc,” I said, trying and failing to sound as calm as her. “Good to hear your voice again. We need to talk.”
“Miles?” There was a pause. “I expected you to be dead by now.”
“That makes two of us. Some assholes decided they couldn’t let me die in peace. I’ve got something you want.”
There was an intake of breath, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “You have the crystals?”
I rattled the jar next to the phone. “Pretty little things. You wanna see them?”
“I would love to, Miles. But I’m a little busy right now.”
“More evil schemes?”
“Sadly, no. A gentleman has a gun to my head.”
I barked a laugh I didn’t feel. “Oh, that’s excellent. The Collective nabbed you in the attack on the building, huh?”
“No, we fought them back. I sent a team to pursue them as they fled. We assumed they’d captured you, and I wanted you back.”
“My knight in shining armor,” I said.
“I underestimated their control over Limbus creatures. Incredible work. Bohr always was talented at that sort of thing.”
“It’s neat stuff, isn’t it? Is Bohr there? I want to talk to him.”
“He’s here. I’ll put him on.”
“Thanks. And Doc?”
“Yes?”
“You better have a good reason for wanting these crystals. Or I’ll burn you alive.”
“See you soon, Miles.”
There were a few seconds of muffled whispers and crackling. Then I heard someone breathing into the phone.
“Bohr?” I asked.
“Yes. Quite the escape artist, aren’t you? How’d you kill my men?”
“I didn’t. I had help.”
“Hmm, help. Very well. How are you alive?”
“I had help there too,” I said. “Do you have the cops?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. They’re here somewhere.”
“And McCaffrey’s people?”
“Some. Not enough. Many struggled. Kowalski is here, though.”
“Are you going to kill them?” I asked.
“Soon. When I’ve hurt them. I can never hurt them as much as they hurt me. But I can try. You should never have got involved, Miles Franco.”
“Never had a choice,” I said. “Don’t kill them yet.”
“Why?”
“I have something you want. The crystals.”
A full thirty seconds passed. I tapped the floor with my heel while I listened to him breathing. The phone grew sweaty in my palm. Then he spoke again.
“You want to meet,” he said.
“I do.”
“What do you want in exchange for the crystals?”
“Your hostages. All of them.”
“Hmm,” he said. “McCaffrey and Kowalski?”
“All of them.”
Another long pause. My stomach growled to fill the silence.
“One-hundred-twenty-one Twelfth Avenue,” he finally said. “Two hours.”
“I’ll be there,” I said. “One thing. If you hurt them, or touch me, or try to get the crystals by force, I’ll destroy them.”
“Yes, yes. Come alone, or they all die.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I hung up and slipped the phone back into my pocket, then wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my sleeve. Nearly done. You hear that Claudia? I’m nearly done.
I turned around to face Stretch. His face was already going purple where I’d hit him.
“I’m going out for a bit,” I said. “Make yourself at home. The cops will be here shortly to entertain you. Come on, Toto.”
The spider-dog hooted and followed me as I walked past the cuffed enforcer. I felt like tiny gnomes were giving every inch of me a tiny beating, but with every step I got stronger, and the pain got less.
“Remember what I said,” Stretch said as I reached the door. “I’ll come for you.”
“And you remember what I said. Keep the chair leg as a souvenir.”
It was a beautiful day outside. I shielded my eyes, climbed the stairs back to the alley, and pulled my phone out again.
“Yeah?” came the reply on the other end of the phone.
“How’s the head, Des?”
“Stings like a son of a bitch.”
“I need some help. You up for more fun?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
TWENTY-NINE
By the time I found the twenty in my jacket pocket, my stomach was starting to eat itself. I’d spent the last hour and a half making preparations, and the effort had sapped whatever energy I had left. Leaning against a lamp post outside a construction site, I tried to puzzle out where the cash had come from. Then I remembered Tania kneeling in front of me before she left, giving me a kiss on the cheek. The little brat must’ve slipped it into my pocket. I tried to be mad at her, but my stomach wasn’t playing ball. It would be ungrateful not to use it, really.
I started off with a Big Mac combo and a couple of cheeseburgers from the McDonalds on the corner a few blocks away. After polishing off the large Coke and tossing the paper bag into a dumpster, I stopped at a street vendor selling fruit, picked out the three apples that didn’t look rotten, and started devouring them. I even had enough change for the subway fare to the Avenues.
The other passengers moved away from me when I sat down on the train. Even the homeless guy didn’t stick around to ask me for change. I knew I smelled, and I guess my bruises and blood-stained clothing weren’t helping. At least I didn’t have Toto with me. I didn’t want to see what a stampede of screaming passengers in a subway train looked like. The spider-dog had taking a liking to Vivian’s apartment, so he’d seemed happy when I left him there.
I finished off the last apple—core and all—and returned my hand to my pocket. The vibrations of the train were helping to work the aches out of my body. I closed my eyes and pictured Claudia when I first heard her sing. I pictured her working that job in the clothing store, trying to scrape enough money together to get herself a visa to Heaven. And I pictured McCaffrey reeling Claudia in with promises or threats or empty words, reeling her in and putting her back on the hook as bait for me. It’d worked. I’d got hooked myself. But I could be a mean fish.
I opened my eyes as the subway train squealed into the station at First Avenue. Claudia was dead, and she wasn’t coming back. I had to finish this, one way or another. Not just for her. For me.
I got off the train and went to break some teeth.
The Avenues had never recovered from the Chroma Wars, and they hadn’t exactly been high class digs in the first place. Stunted trees lined the streets, and behind them the crumbling buildings sat packed together. A bag lady shuffled past with her shopping cart, watching me out of the corner of her eye. I slipped her my last couple of bucks. She looked like she needed it more than I did. She took the money without comment and hobbled on.
Across the road, a couple of kids were shooting craps in the alley. Other than that, it was a ghost town. Once there would’ve been Gravediggers gang members on every corner, ready to put their leath
er boot halfway up my ass. But between the Chroma Wars and the Collectivists they’d been squeezed out of here, and now most of what remained of the Avenues could pass for a bombed European city from World War Two. Even the rats had moved out.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept my head low as I walked down the center of the street. The sun beat down on me as hard as anyone had in the last few days. The sole of my left shoe was coming off, and my jacket was torn in so many places it was barely holding on. The breeze bit at my sliced ear, and every step made my shoulder jar where Stretch’s shotgun blast had hit me back at the Collective’s headquarters. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say I was death warmed up.
I spotted the cop cars from two blocks away. My heartbeat kicked up a notch, but I didn’t change my pace. There were two vans and four cars, doors wide open, lights flashing, and no one home. As I came closer, I spotted a couple of pools of blood on the concrete, each about the size of a pizza. The wind picked up, sending an empty beer can rattling along the street toward me. I kept my eyes on the broken windows as I passed, hoping the shadows moving inside were pigeons and not angry gangsters with very big guns. My liver played jump rope with my intestines as I approached the abandoned cop cars.
I felt the creatures before I heard them, but that didn’t make me any more prepared when the two huge cyclopean creatures lumbered around the corner and stared at me, their black-and-orange fur bristling as they pounded at the street with arms bigger than my entire body. A dozen spider-dogs swarmed around the two behemoths, hooting at me and baring their teeth. They didn’t look as cute as Toto.
My mouth had gone dry. I froze in the center of the street as the creatures fanned out, slowly circling me. The Limbus creatures never came within eight or ten feet of me, but the reek wasn’t so polite. Bile crept up my throat, and I swallowed it back down.
A Vei and two human men rounded the corner, dressed in loose-fitting shirts of gray and red and white. Two carried guns—a shotgun and an assault rifle. The third had a pistol tucked into his belt, but I could see the glint of metal clutched in his hands. Animal energy radiated from him. He must be the Tunneler in control of the Limbus creatures.
“Come with us,” the one with the assault rifle said.
“Nah, I don’t think so,” I said.
He looked confused. I guessed people didn’t usually argue with so many mean-looking beasties. “What?”
“I said I’m not going with you. You expect me to walk right into whatever trap your boss has set up? Here’s fine. Tell him to meet me here, or I destroy the crystals. And bring the hostages.” I glanced around. “Get rid of these things, too. That one with the big teeth is making me nervous.”
The Collectivists exchanged looks. The one with the assault rifle looked dubious, but Shotgun shrugged like he just wanted to get on with things. I stood in place while the creatures snarled at me, their reek bathing me. I breathed through my mouth so I didn’t hurl.
Finally, the gangsters seemed to come to a consensus. Shotgun left and jogged back around the corner while the others watched me. The creatures didn’t move.
“How about this weather, huh?” I said. The gangsters didn’t reply.
Five minutes passed, then ten. And then Shotgun came back with a trail of gangsters in tow.
Bohr was at their head, the Vei walking in his jerky fashion with a cigarette between his lips. His leather jacket flapped in the breeze. I recognized several of the other Collectivists from the warehouse. All of them were armed, and most of them looked like they hadn’t showered for as long as me. A few of the humans wore Kevlar vests. And in the center of the mass of gangsters came the hostages.
There were about twenty cops, half of them in black fatigues with empty holsters and pouches, and the other half in standard cop blues. Each had their hands cuffed in front of them with their own handcuffs or plastic ties, and they kept their heads low as the gangsters prodded them along with the barrels of their weapons.
I spotted Detective Wade near the edge. His golden hair didn’t look so pretty now that it was mussed and tangled. His face was whiter than usual, and I could guess why. His left sleeve was ripped off, with a red-stained bandage wrapped around his shoulder. I met his eyes and tried to grin reassuringly. I was too far away to make out what he said, but it wasn’t hard to lip read: “Oh, fuck.”
Separated from the cops were a handful of other hostages, including a tiny man with cracked spectacles and a grandmotherly woman with curls in her hair. Even now, Doc McCaffrey looked innocent. I wasn’t sure whether to work her over with a baseball bat or ask her for some homemade cookies.
The creatures cleared a path for the gangsters. Some of the Collectivists eyed the spider-dogs and cyclops-gorillas nervously, but Bohr paid them no attention. He bared his teeth at me in a smile and plucked the cigarette from his mouth.
He cocked his head to the side and nodded to himself. “Miles Franco. It is you. I thought this might be a trick.”
“You should know it takes more than a little deadly poison to kill me,” I said.
“The crystals.” He held out a thin hand.
I shook my head. “Lose the zoo.”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Nice work, isn’t it? We improved the Pin Hole since you…hmm…appropriated our animals the other day.”
He wasn’t lying. I could sense the Tunneler’s work, and it wasn’t leaking energy nearly as bad as it used to. I could still do better, but I wouldn’t be able to get control of the creatures so easily this time.
“Send them home,” I said. “Make this safer for everyone. I only want to deal with things with actual intelligence.” I jerked my head toward Wade and the other cops. “And those guys.”
Bohr cocked his head to the other side and took in a lungful of smoke. Then he gave a jerky nod and waved with his cigarette. The Tunneler paused, glared at me, then turned and walked away. The creatures followed, still growling. Their stench hung around like it had been painted onto the air.
Bohr stepped closer, his posse following. “Better?”
“Much. You might want to give those things a bath.”
“I’ve acted in good faith, as you say,” Bohr said. He couldn’t hide the hunger in his eyes. He pointed at the hostages. “Here is what you want. Now I want the crystals, Miles Franco.”
I looked over the hostages once more. Kowalski looked like he was going to pass out. I met McCaffrey’s gaze for a moment. Her smile made me want to smash her dentures beneath my shoes. I forced myself to breath.
“You promised not to hurt any of them,” I said. “That asshole detective over there looks pretty hurt to me.”
“He struggled,” Bohr said simply.
“He can barely stand. You’re not going to make any friends with the cops doing this.”
Bohr’s lips peeled back in another grin. “They did not like me anyway. Now they know not to underestimate me, yes? No matter. This will be done soon.”
“Yeah?” The wind gusted, sweeping my jacket behind me. The rest of the city was alive with traffic and sirens and construction work and people chatting in their offices, but here we could’ve been the last people on Earth. “Tell me, what do you want? What do you think these crystals will get you?”
“Do you know what they did to me?” There was no anger in his voice, but he jabbed his cigarette toward McCaffrey and Kowalski. “They stole everything I ever did. They broke my life. Some of my companions were their victims as well.”
“You could’ve gone to the cops,” I said.
“Like you did, Miles Franco? You know the ineffectiveness of your human police. I worked on Earth, but I am a Vei. You know the way we settle things.” His eyes danced with fire, and his slitted nostrils flared.
“So why haven’t you killed them already?”
“That would never be enough. They don’t deserve death. I will make it so they never existed. I’m going to scour AISOR from history, and everything they’ve done. I will break Tartarus if I can, and if not, I’ll break the co
nnections between the worlds. They have only brought destruction.”
Jesus. This guy’s more than eccentric. He’s high-functioning, but he’s certifiably bat-shit. “Bit overdramatic, isn’t it? Do you even know what you’re doing? I read the papers you guys wrote. Well, I skimmed them. You did an awful lot of talking about the interconnectedness of the worlds. What if you screw up Tunneling for good? What if you collapse the worlds in on themselves? Hell, what if you just manage to erase yourself in the process? You’re connected to all this too.”
“No matter,” he said, his voice cold. “The question is whether you are willing to take that risk. How badly do you want these ones, hmm?”
I looked over McCaffrey and Kowalski. I blinked, and Claudia stood behind McCaffrey, staring at her with dead eyes. I blinked again, and she disappeared.
“Badly,” I said.
“Then please, the crystals.”
“Sure,” I said. “Except I don’t have them with me.”
He looked like he was going to bite his cigarette in half and swallow it. “Do not joke with me.”
“Who’s joking? I’m not thick enough to stroll down here in the middle of the day with the crystals in my pocket.” I gestured around. “Not with so many friendly gangsters ready to plug me as soon as I hand them over.”
Bohr ran his tongue along the points of his teeth, his eyes darting around at his people. His hand drifted inside his jacket, and I caught a glimpse of an ivory handle. I kept a smile on my face, but inside, all my nerve had dripped into my shoes. This was the only way to play it, but Bohr wasn’t the most stable guy I’d ever dealt with. I kept a careful eye on all the guns trained on me, resisting the urge to wipe away the sweat beading on my forehead.
“Where are they?” Bohr said, mouth twitching.
“I think we both know I’m not going to give it up that easy. I’ll take you to them. Not your whole gang. You.”
“You push your luck, Miles Franco.”
“I’m good at that. You can bring a bodyguard if you’re nervous. I want McCaffrey, Kowalski, and the pretty boy detective.”
“Hmm, and the rest?”
“Let the cops go. Or keep them somewhere out of the way until this is over. Same as McCaffrey’s people. I don’t want you wasting them all when you have your precious crystals.”
The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) Page 27
