The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) (34 page)

I swung the chair leg into his face. His head snapped to the side, a grunt escaping his lungs. Toto ran in circles, yipping. There was no guilt. This wasn’t me, but it was who I had to be right now.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said as I watched him grunting, his mouth half-open. “Did I dislocate your jaw? Hurts, doesn’t it? Let me fix that for you.”

I slammed the chair leg into his chin. He let out a scream this time. Blood trickled from his chin.

“Do you understand yet?” I shouted as I brought the chair leg down on his sternum in an overhand blow. My muscles were too scared to protest. “Do you see the kind of man I am?” I smashed the chair leg into his kneecap so hard the wood splintered.

I stopped, panting, watching him writhe.

“There’s just one question I have,” I said. “How do I get to McCaffrey?”

He turned his head and spat blood on the floor. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. “I don’t know where she is.”

I brought the chair leg down, driving the splinters into his thigh. An inch to the left and he wouldn’t be much of a man anymore. “Try again.”

“Goddamn it,” he said through gritted teeth, his eyes squeezed shut. “I have her phone number.”

I released the pressure, and his face slackened. “That’s a start. A cell phone number? She’ll have it with her?”

He nodded, his eyes on the chair leg. “My phone is in my coat pocket. Her number’s under the name Abigail.”

I fished the phone out of his pocket, getting a noseful of his body odor, and checked the contacts. I copied the number for Abigail into my phone.

“If you’re lying…” I said.

He spat more blood and nodded.

“While I’m here,” I said, “you can tell me which of these numbers is Bohr’s. Just in case.”

“The number under Jimmy.”

“He does look like a Jimmy, doesn’t he?” I found the number and copied it down as well, then tossed Stretch’s phone onto the ground next to him. I realized my hands were shaking, so I shoved them back in my jacket pockets. “Thanks for your help.”

“My pleasure.” He coughed a couple of times. Toto gnawed on his boots. “Since you’ve treated me so well, I’ll give you one more thing for free.”

“Yeah?” My legs were getting wobbly again. I regretted smashing the chair. “Cough it up, then.”

He rolled onto his side and worked his neck back and forth, cringing as he did so. “That apartment building in the Avenues your cop friends are going to, where they think they’ve got Bohr buttoned up?”

Shit.
“It’s a trap, isn’t it?”

He smiled.

“Goddamn it.” I flipped through my phone contacts, found Vivian’s number, and dialed. It rang three times. Four. My stomach knotted.

Then she picked up, and I sighed with relief. “Detective Reed,” she said.

“It’s me. Are you at the apartment building yet?”

“I’m two minutes away. It took me a while to get to the hospital and drop the others off.” I could hear the sound of the car engine in the background.

“Wait,” I said. “The tall asshole with the shotgun reckons it’s a trap. Can you raise Wade and the rest of your cop buddies and see if they’re alive?”

I could practically hear her frowning through the phone. “Detective Wade won’t have moved in yet without me there.”

“Just call him, will you? And call me back.”

I hung up and leaned against the wall, gripping the phone in my hand. It was a long wait.

“What does she want?” I asked Stretch.

“Who?”

“McCaffrey. What does she want to do with the crystals?”

He shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her.”

“Right. You’re just the dumb muscle.”

“I’ll come for you one day. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I said. “But your grudge is with me. Only me. Remember what I do to people who hurt my friends.”

We glared at each other beneath the flickering light. The seconds ticked away. Then my phone rang. I stood up straight and answered before the first ring ended.

“I can’t reach Detective Wade,” Vivian said. “Or the sergeant who was supposed to lead the raid. Dispatch is still trying, but no one’s responding.”

“Shit,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stretch smile. I ignored him. “Can you see the apartment building from where you are?”

“Yes. No movement. I can see the police vans and Wade’s car down the end of the street, but there’s no one there.”

“All right. Get out of there before they get you too.”

“I’m not stupid, Miles.”

“I know.”

There was a pause. I rubbed my forehead with my free hand.

“I’m going to make some calls,” I said. “Do you think they’re still alive?”

“There’s blood on the street. But not a lot.” She was holding it together well, but I could sense the strain in her voice. I didn’t care a lick about Wade, but the asshole was Vivian’s partner, which meant she cared about him.

“Lay low for a while, and do whatever cop stuff you need to do.”

“You’re not going to go off half-cocked again, are you?” she said.

I consulted the anger boiling through me, the disgust. The urge to pick up the chair leg again and beat in Stretch’s head until his skull was nothing but powder.

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 leather 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.