The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) (5 page)

I imagined sapping the nurse over the head. She would fall, blood streaking from her forehead, while I sprinted back into the isolation room. I could Tunnel myself a hole in the wall and snatch Penny out of bed. She was sick; she wouldn’t weigh much. I’d put her over the back of my bike and take her somewhere I could get answers. And I would get those answers, whatever it took.

Reality snapped back in front of me. I tasted bile, and sweat poured from my forehead. Jesus Christ, what the hell kind of person was I? A year ago I wouldn’t have hurt a fly if my life depended on it. Now…

I released the Kemia and clutched my hands together, not trusting myself. The nurse dragged my sorry ass back along the corridor, and in every doorway we passed I saw Claudia standing there.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

The nurse gave me a look, but said nothing. The male nurse followed us to the front doors, but he didn’t lay hands on me. I went passively now.

The nurse shoved me out the door with more grace than I deserved. “Don’t even think about coming back,” she said in Vei.

I nodded, shoved my hands in my pockets, and trudged out to the driveway, eyes on my feet. I could feel the nurse’s eyes on my back as I walked away.

Well, Miles, didn’t that go well?

All I could think of was riding to the nearest bar and drinking until I went blind. What the hell was I thinking, taking advice from a ghost? Not even a ghost, just a figment of my imagination.

A footstep crunched on the gravel behind me. I didn’t register it until two pairs of hands grabbed hold of my shoulders.

“Hey, what—?”

Something hard slammed into my gut. My eyes bugged, the air driven out of me. I went down in a heap, pain arcing through my body.

“Get him up,” a male voice said in Vei.

The hands tightened on my shoulders and hauled me to my feet. I jerked my head around, trying to see who’d tagged me. Someone sapped me across the head. The hospital gardens blurred, dimmed.

When the world came back into focus I was being dragged off the driveway and into a clump of trees and low-lying bushes. The scent of pine mingled with my sweat and the body odors of the Vei carrying me. I tried to kick out, get loose, but all I did was twist myself more off-balance.

I panted, head swimming, as the hospital disappeared from view behind a patch of greenery. The men threw me to the ground at the base of a tree, right on top of a root. Another wave of pain shot up my tailbone.

I got my first look at the men, and I wasn’t impressed. All three were Vei, though they dressed in human clothes; button-down shirts for all. I pegged them in their thirties—Vei aged around the same rate as humans—although the tallest one could be a bit older. It took me a second before I remembered the tall Vei from the hospital lobby, the one who’d been eyeing me. The other two I didn’t recognize. They were stockier, not to mention uglier, and I didn’t take kindly to the way they’d treated me so far.

“That,” I said, “was uncalled for.”

One of the stocky ones put his boot into me. I doubled over, retching.

“See if he’s carrying,” the tall one said when my vision returned.

One of them held me still while the other turned out my pockets. He tossed my wallet, cell phone, and my bottle of Kemia to the older one, who studied me with dead eyes. When I was relieved of all my belongings, Stocky the First cuffed me again, then stood and backed away.

I eyed the tall Vei as he crouched down in front of me. Nonchalantly, he pulled a switchblade from his trouser pocket and flicked it open inches from my face.

I gulped.

“Not much to say now, eh?” he said, waving the knife in front of my nose. “Maybe we can change that.”

“Look, buddy, I don’t know who the hell you are—”

“Hold him.”

One Vei grabbed my arms, the other, my head. The tall one pressed the point of the knife against my chin, and a sharp sting followed. I felt a pressing need to keep my trap shut.

“You don’t learn fast, do you?” the tall one said. “Keep quiet. We’ve got questions for you. You understand me, hairball?”

I did, and I tried to convey that without moving my head.

“Good,” the tall one said. “We seen your picture in the papers, Miles Franco. We know you’re not with the police, like you told the nurse in there.”

I kept my mouth shut.

“So tell me this, Mr. Franco,” he said. “Who are you working for?”

The pressure of the knife on my chin lessened enough for me to open my mouth without skewering myself. “I’m working for nobody.”

The knife point returned, harder this time. I cringed and strained against the stocky Vei’s headlock.

“Liar!” the tall Vei said. “Are you with AISOR?”

“Huh?” I said.

“The Collective then? Eh?” I could swear the knife was drawing blood. “Tell me!”

The one holding my arms spoke up. “Aran, be calm.”

Aran didn’t seem too enthralled with that idea, but he stopped baring his teeth at me and let the knife point leave my skin.

“Look, you crazy son of a bitch,” I said, getting off to a good start, “I haven’t got a goddamn clue what you’re talking about. I came to talk to the Coleman girl because I thought she could help me with something.” His arm twitched, and I scowled. “And if you put that knife on me one more time, so help me God, I will tear your nuts off with my teeth.”

He snarled, breathing halitosis breath in my face. I met his stare, forcing myself not to look away. After a minute, he lowered the knife a fraction.

“A friend of mine just punched out,” I said. “Cops think whatever is making the Coleman girl sick killed my friend. I’m inclined to agree.”

Silence passed between us. Not even a bird chirped. Then the Vei holding my arms spoke again. “He could be telling the truth.”

“I am,” I said to the tall one, the one they called Aran. “Scout’s honor. Question is, who or what are these things you’re so concerned about. A-something? The Collective?”

Aran rolled his tongue along his pointed teeth. “If I find out you’re lying, I’ll gut you, Franco.”

“I get that a lot.”

His cheek twitched. “Keep your nose out of this. And don’t come near my sister again.”

“Sister?” I said. “You mean…Penny? The Coleman girl is your sister? What the hell is going on here?”

He bared his teeth. “You just don’t listen. Fucking idiot human.” He glanced at the others. “Keep him still.”

He brought the knife past my face. My heart hammered, my gut clenched.

“Hey, wait, what are you—?”

Pain tore through my left ear. Someone was driving hot pokers into it. My vision spotted, vomit threatened to spill from my throat.

When the pain faded from intense torture to mild agony, I was alone. I lay huddled on the ground, shaking, drenched in sweat.

When I could move, I gingerly touched my ear. A new wave of pain surged through me, and my vision went blurry again. My hand came away streaked with red.

I lay there for a moment, breathing hard. I couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything except fear and pain. Slowly, ever so slowly, I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees.

Claudia watched me as I groped around on the ground. I found my things a few feet away in the grass, tossed carelessly aside. I returned my Kemia and wallet to their respective pockets.

I dialed a number on my brick of a cell phone. I nearly pressed it to my left ear, catching myself just in time.

Desmond picked up after four rings. “You’re calling from your cell. What are you into now, guy?”

“This and that,” I said, dabbing at my bloody ear with my shirt sleeve. “Fancy a drive? I could do with a pick up.”

He sighed. “You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”

FIVE

“You know,” Desmond said as I stumbled into the passenger seat, “I’m having trouble remembering a time when you didn’t look like shit. What on earth happened to your ear?”

Claudia appeared beside me. I slumped down in the seat and avoided looking at her. “I slipped and fell onto some knife-wielding maniac.”

“Jesus, guy, we gotta get you to a hospital.”

“Nuts to that. I just came from a goddamn hospital. Take me home, driver.”

Desmond frowned at me. He was a good-looking guy, I guess, in a youthful way. He still had the same mussed, sandy hair he’d had back at university, when we did our Tunneling training together, though he’d added a trimmed beard in recent months. He’d got a bit of a pot belly in the last couple of years, ever since he gave up the Tunneling gig. Still, if he had a merit badge for every time he’d dragged my ass out of some scrape or other, he could use them to wallpaper the apartment he and his boyfriend shared.

“What about your bike?” he asked, nodding toward the side of the road where it sat.

I shrugged. “I’ll pick it up tomorrow. If some hoodlum can manage to get the hunk of junk started, he’s welcome to it.”

Desmond nodded, started the car, and peeled away from the curb. He drove a sleek blue convertible. It was something of a miracle in this city that it hadn’t been boosted. Despite the power humming beneath the hood, Desmond kept to the speed limit, driving annoyingly carefully.

“Seriously, guy,” he said after a while, “what’s going on? You look like you’ve been twelve rounds with a kangaroo. I didn’t hear from you after the trial. And Tania called me this morning, saying you went off your nut at her last night.”

Aw, hell. I was going to get another lecture, I could feel it. “She was Tunneling.”

“So?”

“Unsupervised.”

“You’ve been teaching her, haven’t you?”

“She’s not ready yet.”

He grinned. “That so? How old were you when you started Tunneling?”

“You suggesting I’m some kind of suitable role model, Des?”

“I’m just saying, it’s not like you.”

“She needs protecting,” I said. I rummaged through the glove compartment, found some tissues, and pressed a wad to my ear to staunch the bleeding. “She nearly got herself killed last winter.”

“So did you, as I recall. But that doesn’t mean you can rant and rave at her.”

I gave him a sharp look that he didn't see. “I wasn’t ranting. I was just stating my views forcefully, is all.”

He shrugged and pulled onto the expressway going north. The morning was heating up already, making the air above the road shimmer.

“We’re worried about you, guy,” he said after a minute. “You ain’t been the same the last few months. Bluegate’s changing, things are getting better. But I’ve never seen you so miserable.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. The streets of South Bluegate rolled beneath the expressway as we drove. Things were getting better? Hell if I could see it. Over there, to the north, the six-hundred-foot-wide Tunnel called the Bore still sat in the river, glowing with unearthly blue. Every day the Immigrations and Customs officials got their hands greased by gangsters who wanted to ship in Ink and precious metals or smuggle out alcohol to Heaven. Sure, the gang landscape had changed since the Chroma Wars, but I couldn’t see anything getting brighter.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or what?” Desmond said.

I could see Claudia watching me in the rearview mirror. I sighed. “You remember that girl who sang with my band?”

“The blond one?”

“Yeah.”

He frowned, then shot me a look. “She’s not…”

“Yeah,” I said again. “She’s cooling off on a slab downtown.”

“Blood of the Eight,” he said. “Murdered?”

“That’s what I was trying to find out.”

He nodded and took the exit. “What about your new ear piercing?”

“Came afoul of some angry family members who didn’t want me getting cozy with their sister, seems like. Come to think of it, they mentioned a couple of names. You ever heard of the Collective?”

“You haven’t? They’ve been in and out of the news pretty constant these last few months. Where you been, guy?”

“Jail. And when I wasn’t there, I wasn’t too keen to watch the news. Saw myself on it more than I liked.”

“Oh yeah.” He scratched his new beard. “The Collective started taking corners on the east side about four or five months back. Dropped a lot of bodies, and swept away most of the remnants of the Andrews family. I heard a rumor they might be trying to get their hands on whatever Chroma’s left out there, but nothing’s come of it.”

Christ, more Chroma. The city was still rebuilding from the last time it hit.

“Vei?” I asked.

“Mostly, but they got some humans for muscle.”

“Anyone know who’s leading them?” I asked.

“Names get thrown around a fair bit, Daniel this and Clarke that. Aliases, all of them, as far as I know.”

I pulled the wad of tissues from my ear. They came away dark and sticky, soaked all the way to my fingers. I was bleeding like a shivved convict. I hoped I had some bandages at home.

“You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital, guy?” Desmond said. “That thing looks like it needs stitches.”

“I’ve had worse,” I said. “Remember that one time, outside Skytown, when those Flaming Aces tried to break my kneecaps?”

He grinned. “And they hit you in the shin instead? Ah, those were the days.”

“So how come you’re the expert on the Collective, huh? They banging in your area?”

“Yeah, moved into town about a month ago, started causing a mess. It took a while, but me and the watch finally got in touch with someone on the inside.”

I blinked. “What?”

“What what?”

“The watch? You mean…”

“The neighborhood watch, yeah. I told you I was getting something together.”

“Let me straighten this out,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “You and your neighborhood watch, your goddamn
civilian
neighborhood watch, you’re pals with someone inside this gang?”

“More or less.”

“More or less? Well is it fucking more, or is it fucking less?”

“It’s a good source. Anonymous, but close to the top.”

For a moment I forgot about the pain in my ear, the bruises on my ribs, the burning need for a drink deep in the pit of my stomach and the hallucination of my dead friend sitting in the back seat. “Are you shitting me? Tell me you’re shitting me, Des.”