The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) (28 page)

I made my way slowly down the final ladder and stepped onto the sidewalk. Traffic was light. A couple of stray cats watched me with yellow eyes as I waited for a car to pass, then I lurched drunkenly across the street. I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking. I had to keep going.

AISOR’s giant TV screens above the front doors were flashing with color, giving the pitiful neighborhood an eyeful of their logo. I staggered toward it like a moth to a flame. A moth with a gun in his pocket. There was a light on behind the wide glass wall leading into the lobby. I could spot a security guard lounging with his feet up on the desk inside, fiddling on his smartphone. He didn’t look like the usual weedy kid working a nightshift job to fund his studies. More like police academy dropout. He probably didn’t know what Kowalski had been up to. He was probably just a dumb asshole working a shitty job.

I prayed he didn’t do anything stupid.

I knocked on the glass doors. The black-haired guard looked up at me, fingers still poised over the smartphone. He shook his head, smiled, and waved me away. I knocked again. The shake of his head was more annoyed this time. The smile disappeared. I knocked a third time.

He slammed his phone on the desk with more force than was probably necessary, stood up, and marched toward me. I checked his belt for weapons. Nothing there, but there was an interesting gun bulge beneath his jacket.

“We’re closed for the night,” he said, his voice distorted through the glass. “Beat it.”

“I need to see your CEO.” Speaking felt like someone was shoving sandpaper down my throat. “Kowalski.”

“Then make an appointment in the morning.” He jerked his head toward the street. “Get lost.”

I sighed. It always had to be the hard way, didn’t it? I cracked open the bottle of Kemia in my pocket, pulled a coin out, and splashed the silvery liquid over the top. Chaos entered my mind. A loud click came from somewhere above me. The automatic glass doors slid open. The guard’s eyes widened.

“That’s better,” I said. I pulled the gat from my pocket before he could move and shoved it in his face. “Sorry. I’m not usually like this. Don’t move, don’t do anything stupid, blah blah blah. You know, the usual.”

While he was still looking like someone had slipped a cockroach into his sandwich, I reached under his jacket for his pistol. With my fingers as clumsy as they were, it took me a couple of tries to get the catch undone and the pistol out of the holster. I pocketed the gun and waved my own at him.

“We’re going to the elevators, okay? I’m a little tired to be climbing stairs right now. Come on.”

He turned woodenly, still doing his best impression of a deer in the headlights. I followed a few steps behind him, trying to walk as normally as possible. I was having trouble keeping the gun outstretched, so I aimed at his back from the hip, keeping my finger off the trigger. In my current state, I didn’t trust myself not to have a seizure or something and squeeze off a round into the poor bastard by accident.

I noted the security cameras in each corner of the lobby as we walked. How many guards were in this place? They couldn’t have someone watching the cameras all the time, could they?

“Going up,” I said to him as we reached the elevator banks. He pressed the call button, and we waited.

I wasn’t blind to the idiocy of my current position. I figured I had maybe five minutes before some guard tried to take a shot at me. That just meant I had to work faster. The black-haired guard seemed to be finally coming out of his shock. He glanced at my face a couple of times, and I gave him a grin. Then his eyes flashed to my gun.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t try it.”

The elevator let out its sing-song noise and the doors slid open. I waved the guard inside and followed him in.

“Take me to the ninth floor,” I said.

His eyes went to my revolver again, then he swiped his card and pressed the button for nine. The doors closed and the elevator started moving with barely a shudder.

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s not going to work,” the guard said.

I shrugged. “Thanks for the concern, but I think—”

A wave of nausea rolled through me. At the same time, something wet tickled the back of my throat. I curled over and coughed a thick glob of blood onto the nice clean floor of the elevator. My eyes burned as I coughed again and again.
Keep the gun on him
, a voice inside me said. It was too slow.

The guard dived. Not for me. For the elevator panel. His finger jabbed the emergency stop button. The elevator jerked like an elephant had landed on the roof, and a bell started screaming at me.

The spasms going through my chest finally subsided. I’d got blood all over my shoes, but right then I was more concerned about the guard desperately trying to get himself shot. Or be a hero. Same thing, really.

He grabbed my gun arm and forced it to the ceiling, simultaneously driving his fist into my side. Nausea hit me again. I was too weak to grapple with this guy. So I kneed him in the balls.

He grunted, eyes widening, and his grip loosened for a moment. It didn’t put him down. He probably would’ve had me, if he hadn’t shifted his weight to protect himself from another blow to the nether regions. But he didn’t count on all that blood on the floor.

His foot slipped, and he started to go backward. I helped him with that. He went down hard, head slamming against the elevator handrail. His eyes went out of focus. When I clocked him in the side of the head with the butt of the revolver, they closed completely. He slumped to the side, groaning slightly.

I grabbed the handrail for support, my legs trembling and my guts trying to escape my mouth again. Cold sweat poured from my forehead. It wasn’t until the spasms stopped that I was able to breathe again.

“Why does it always have to be the hard way?” I mumbled, trying to convince my legs to take my weight fully again.

The alarm finally stopped ringing, but my ears didn’t. I pressed the button for nine. The elevator didn’t move. Oh, right, the guard’s swipe card. I nudged the unconscious man onto his side and unclipped his card, then swiped it against the sensor and pressed the button again. The panel beeped and we started going up again. Thank Christ for that.

The number nine flashed up above me before I had a chance to fully catch my breath. The door slid open.

Two more guards stared back at me. Their wide eyes went to the black-haired man slumped in the corner.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I pointed the revolver at them. “No, you know what?” I pulled the unconscious guard’s pistol from my pocket and aimed that at them as well. “I’ve had enough of this shit. Get in the elevator.”

I staggered into the corridor and waved them in. They glanced at each other for a second, then did what I said. Maybe someone in this damn building could play nice.

“Gimme your swipe cards,” I said. “Come on, I’ve got an important meeting to get to.”

They unclipped their cards and tossed them into the hallway at my feet.

“Good,” I said. I retrieved the unconscious guard’s card from my pocket without letting go of either of the guns. “I’ve got enough rods for now, so I’m letting you keep yours.” I reached into the elevator, swiped the card, and pressed the button for the ground floor. “See you soon.”

I kept the guns pointed at them until the doors slid closed on their stunned faces. The elevator hummed quietly to itself as it started to descend.

My arms dropped to my sides. Christ, these guns were heavy. What were they made of, plutonium? I tossed the guard’s one on the ground next to the other swipe cards. All this pointing guns at people was taking it out of me, and I felt like I’d coughed up a lung back there. But I didn’t have time to wait for everything to stop aching. I figured I had maybe three minutes before those bozos got hold of some spare swipe cards and came after me. And that was best case scenario. More likely they’d call in some heavier hitters. I had to get on with it.

I staggered down the hallway, barely noticing how nice this part of the building was. The lights were dim, which was fine with me. Each big wig’s office had a tinted glass wall looking out into the hallway.

Just walking was like fighting through a crowd at a concert. My joints were in on the action now, stabbing at me with every step. I gritted my teeth and kept going. If I hadn’t got completely turned around, Kowalski’s office was just around the corner.

Kowalski.
I walked a little faster.

His light was on at the end of the corridor. Still there. A phone started ringing in his office. I shuffled along, the gun slippery in my hand. My eyes kept going in and out of focus. I felt like I had a hole in my foot and everything inside me was leaking out.
Too bad. No time for bitching
. Nearly there.

The ringing stopped. A muffled voice came from the office. “Yes?”

I put my shoulder against the door and shoved it open. It barely made a whisper. Kowalski faced away from me, the phone at his ear. He turned as my shoe landed on the cream-colored carpet that covered the floor of his office.

The guy looked older than I remembered. Then again, I probably did too. He squinted at me from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, his forehead creasing into a frown.

“Mr. Franco?”

I raised the gat. The weight of it almost made me topple over. I was beginning to enjoy the looks people gave me when I did this. Maybe this was why the gun-nuts loved their weapons so much.

“You remembered,” I said. “How sweet. Put the phone down.”

I heard a voice squawking from the phone. The sound cut off abruptly as Kowalski laid it back in the cradle.

For such a modern building, the office was pretty old-fashioned. The desk and bookshelves were some nice stained wood. A few photographs sat in the recesses of the bookshelf, and an old copy of the
Journal of Interdimensional Physics
was framed and fixed to the wall paneling. The whole back wall of the office was a window, looking out over the city and the Bore, like I’d guessed. The blue light stung my eyes to look at.

“What are you—?” Kowalski said.

I shook my head and crossed the room. “We really don’t have time for that. Hands above the desk. No point hitting the silent alarm. Your boys’ll be here soon enough.”

I rounded the desk until I was within spitting distance of Kowalski. He was in a business suit—tailor-made, probably, and it looked like it must’ve cost him the better part of a grand. I rubbed my bloody shoe against his trouser leg and grinned. He trembled slightly.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” I said. “I got a million questions for you, but let’s start with the one that’s been driving me crazy. Why? Why’d you do it?”

He was nearly going cross-eyed staring down the barrel of my gun. I brought it closer to give him a better look.

“I don’t…” he said. “Please, you have to—”

“Please? Please?!” I lurched forward and grabbed him by his tie. “Is that what Claudia said to you? She was my fucking friend, you understand? You killed her. You killed her to get to me and now I can’t sleep and I can’t eat and I’m dying too and that’s okay because all I want to do is this one little thing before I can finally rest and you’re going to tell me why!” My teeth were bared and I was spitting blood on his shirt. I didn’t give a fuck.

“I…I didn’t,” he said. The shrewd, cold businessman was gone now. There was only a broken, scared man in its place. I had no sympathy, no restraint left in me. I only had enough room in my heart for so much guilt, and I was all filled up.

I pressed the revolver barrel against Kowalski’s forehead. “One.”

“It wasn’t me, I swear—”

“Two.” I pulled back the hammer of the revolver. The metallic click it made was satisfying. A shiver went down my spine.

“It wasn’t me!” he screamed. The scent of urine filled my nostrils. He’d pissed himself. “It was her!”

His finger pointed wildly past me. I glanced in that direction, but there was only the bookcase. He was stalling. My finger touched the trigger and I turned back to him. But something in his eyes stopped me from finishing the countdown.

“Who?” I asked.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

I turned back to where he was pointing.
The photos, maybe
. I licked my cracked lips. Everything was swaying. I didn’t have time. But I had to be sure.

I let go of his tie and lurched toward the bookshelf, using the desk to steady me. There were two photos. One showed a younger Kowalski with a woman and three children in front of a black background. Was he pointing at his wife? No, that was stupid. I inspected the other picture. Kowalski was even younger in this one, but his spectacles made him easy to pick out. He was in a suit in the picture too, but it wasn’t as nice as the one he was wearing now. And he wasn’t alone. He was in some sort of classroom or research lab, with half a dozen other people, most in their late twenties or so.

I picked out another face instantly. There was one Vei in the group, and it was hard to forget the face of the guy who’d sent me off to be grinded. Daniel Bohr. This was their research group, the one who’d written the papers. The one who’d speculated on the nature of worlds other than Heaven and Earth. So was Kowalski saying Bohr did it? No, he said “she”. There was only one woman in the picture, a blond woman with glasses. I stared at her, trying to place her. My head was thick with fog and slime. Something about her tried to turn on the light bulb in my memory, but it couldn’t quite get there.

I glanced back at Kowalski to make sure he hadn’t moved, and looked at the door. No guards yet, but they’d be here any second. Goddamn it. I returned my attention to the photo. Why was she so familiar?

I grabbed the framed photo off the shelf and turned it over. My thick, clumsy fingers wouldn’t let me work the catch. “Ah, to hell with it.” I slammed the frame against the bookshelf. The glass shattered. I ripped the photo out, not even feeling where the glass cut me.

There were names on the back, Kowalski’s and Bohr’s among them. And a single woman’s name. Faye Weyer. That was the name from the papers Doc McCaffrey had given me.