The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) (3 page)

The cocky son of a bitch had never even noticed. He almost made it too easy.

It was one of those notebooks that flip open at the top, so you could easily hold it with one hand. Wade’s writing was neat, almost girlish. I flipped through until I found the names of the other victims. Other people dead the same way as Claudia.

Steve A. Tyler. Human. Dock worker. Deceased.

Robert Mooney. Vei. Transient. Deceased.

Leslie Croy. Vei. Cleaner (no work permit). Deceased.

Teresa A. Bruening. Human. Transient. Deceased.

Jerry K. McLawhorn. Human. Gang associate. Deceased.

Penny Coleman. Vei. Prostitute. Patient at Mercy of the Eight Hospital.

I read the last entry again. One of them was alive? I read the rest of the page. This Penny Coleman was in intensive care at a private hospital that only treated Vei. I’d ridden past the place a couple of times. It looked expensive. How could a Vei prostitute get treatment there?

And more importantly, what did she know about what’d happened to Claudia?

I read the brief entry a couple more times. It wasn’t far. I could go see her, do some snooping. Maybe find out…

I sighed and closed my eyes. What the hell was I doing? I’d screwed up enough already. I was barely out of court, and it wouldn’t take much to get me back in front of a judge. The cops could do their job. They’d find out what happened to Claudia.

I stood and tossed the notebook into the dumpster. The ghosts of the people I’d killed followed me as I walked back out onto the street, a new one at their head. I hailed a taxi, and Claudia climbed in beside me.

“Where to, chief?” the driver asked.

“Get me to a bar,” I said.

Claudia stared at me, unblinking. I tried not to notice.

THREE

It wasn’t even 9 p.m. when the bartender kicked me out. I’d only polished off half a dozen beers and a whiskey or three, but I was in the mood for self-flagellation. As it turned out, I got someone else to do it for me. Some associate of the Gravediggers gang was trying his moves on a plump girl that couldn’t have been more than twenty, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

By that time I was buzzed enough and angry enough to stick my nose in. I had a small bottle of Kemia in my pocket, and a couple of Pin Holes that would teach the bastard a lesson. Maybe I could even come up with something a bit more original. How well would his harassment work if I turned his underwear into a full-strength chastity belt?

But I never put my hand on the Kemia. As I pictured opening the Pin Hole, the image of a bloodied corpse flashed in front of my eyes. The ghosts had been absent since I drowned them in beer, but even the thought of Tunneling…

So I did it the old-fashioned way. I strode across the room, pulled the maggot off the poor girl, and shoved him up against the bar. “Who taught you your manners?”

If he answered, I didn’t hear, since his pal broke a pool cue over my head. I went down in a heap and took a couple of blows to the ribs before the gruff-looking barkeep broke it up. Wasn’t much of a bar brawl. I took it the wannabe Gravediggers were regulars, because it was me that got put out on my ass after they cleaned out my wallet of the lone twenty.

I wasn’t hurt bad, but I sat out on the corner just the same. A cop car blasted past, sirens blazing. A couple of ghosts watched me from across the road.

The girl who was being accosted stumbled out of the bar a few minutes later. She saw me sitting there and drew up short.

“You okay, kid?” I asked, clambering to my feet. “He didn’t touch you, did he?”

She sniffed and gave me the evil eye. “Fucking weirdo.” She turned on her high heels and clattered away down the street. I didn’t begrudge her it. She didn’t owe me anything.

All right, a goddamn “thank you” would’ve been nice, but I wasn’t bitter or nothing.

It was a warm night, so I slung my jacket over my shoulder and stumbled home with my ghosts in tow. Home, for me, was 2310 Marlowe Street, an apartment building next to a laundromat that I’m pretty sure was a front for a drug house. The apartment building was practically begging to be torn down. When it was windy the building threatened to do the job itself. Still, it was home.

I was deep inside my own head as the building came into sight across the road. I couldn’t get Claudia out of my thoughts. What the hell had she gotten into? Did I really know her as well as I thought I did? Most of our conversations had revolved around simple things. The finer points of Johnny Hodges’ saxophone work in “Don't Get Around Much Anymore”, or whether Stan Kenton’s jazz orchestra was too grandiose. She was normally a pretty quiet girl, but when it came to music, it was a different story.

She wasn’t talking much now, though. She walked beside me, her shoes not making so much as a whisper. Her eyes never left my face.
Please, Claudia,
I begged,
let me be. I can’t go round messing things up anymore. I can’t—

A sensation of fleeting chaos passed through my head.

I stopped dead. That was a Pin Hole. Someone was Tunneling, and they were close.

I cast my eyes around. Light trickled through a crack in the curtains on the ninth floor of my apartment building.

That was my apartment. But who…?

“Tania,” I whispered.

I dashed across the road, earning myself an angry horn blast from a passing motorist. No time to bother with the front door. The fire escape was faster.

I pulled my bottle of Kemia and a small silver coin from my jacket pockets as I ran. I couldn’t afford to be worried about Tunneling now. Blood pounded in my head. I tossed my jacket away and ripped the cork from the bottle. The expensive liquid splashed out as I upended the bottle over the coin. Silvery Kemia flowed into the grooves I’d carved into the coin. A new chaotic awareness pressed behind my eyes.

Kemia was a catalyst. Making a Tunnel or a Pin Hole without one was like trying to cook a steak with a candle. But give your prepared circle a dash of the good stuff, and you had yourself a goddamn bonfire.

I hummed as I ran, more out of habit than anything else, while I matched my thoughts to the chaos fighting for release. Tunneling worked by opening a link between this world and Heaven, a world where the only constant was change, where probability and instability controlled everything.

I balled up my rage and fear and delivered it to the coin in a blow of energy. Chaos exploded inside my mind for a moment before I walled it off. A black spot appeared in the center of the coin and started expanding.

Reality shimmered around me as I tapped into the madness of Heaven and let it expand into our world. Each Pin Hole is crafted for a specific purpose. A special delivery of controlled chaos. This one was new, something I’d only worked out a few months ago. It was powerful, and I’d be a wreck when I was done, but it was worth it. I turned the chaos inward and felt it change me into a reflection of what I could have been, had a few things in history been different.

My ears popped, then I wasn’t me anymore. Still running, I dropped down on all fours, coiled the muscles in my arms and legs, and leaped.

I reached the second floor fire escape platform in a single bound. Huge, simian hands had replaced mine. They snatched at the rusted iron handrail and swung me up. Animal strength surged through me, fueled by fear and adrenaline.

Above me, I could feel the other chaos. I gritted my teeth and leaped again and again, platform to platform.

I hit the ninth floor and wrenched open my bedroom window, nearly taking the thing out of its frame. Light flooded into my room from the living area. The sensation of unreality hit a crescendo.

“Tania!” I yelled as I dived through the window. A scraping sound came from the other room. I released my Pin Hole, allowing my body to snap back to its normal, scrawny self. I staggered out into the living room.

Tania sprang to her feet and nearly tripped over the couch as she backpedaled from me. My landlady’s daughter was a teenager, but she cowered like a toddler. Her hands slid quickly behind her back, but not quick enough.

“The hell you think you’re doing?” I said. “Release the Pin Hole.”

“But—”

“Now, kid.”

She narrowed her eyes and gave me one of her most practiced glares. I wasn’t buying it.

“Release it,” I growled, “or I swear to God I’ll march you downstairs and tell your mother what you’ve been up to.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” She took a step toward me, ponytail bouncing behind her. “Mom would crucify you.”

“Try me.”

The staring contest lasted nearly a minute. She was a petite thing, dressed in a V-neck T-shirt and a pair of shorts, but I’ll be damned if she didn’t look like a beat cop about to administer some street justice.

The sensation of chaos wavered. “You’re losing concentration,” I said. “Drop it.”

Her scowl deepened, and the chaos stabilized for an instant before starting to wobble like a spinning top.

“Kid,” I said.

She huffed and hurled something to the ground. A circular piece of wood not much bigger than a bottle cap rolled away along the carpet, leaving a trail of silvery Kemia behind it. A bouquet of wildflowers hit the ground as well, scattering leaves and petals across the floor. An instant later they disappeared, replaced by a scattering of plant seeds.

“I had it under control until you came barging in,” she said. She put her hands on her narrow hips. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Of course you are.” I picked up the wooden circle and waved it under her nose. “You’re sixteen, for Christ’s sake. Everyone’s stupid at sixteen.”

“I’m seventeen. My birthday was two months ago.” She sniffed and wrinkled up her nose. “You reek, Miles. How much have you had to drink?”

I palmed the wooden circle and slipped it in my pocket. “Don’t go changing subjects on me.” I wiped my sleeve across my face and hoped the drink hadn’t made my nose look like Rudolph’s. “What are you doing here, kid?”

“Practising,” she said. “We were supposed to have a lesson. Four hours ago.”

“We were?”

She narrowed her eyes so much I didn’t believe she could see anything at all.

“All right,” I said, “I got held up. I had court.”

“I’ve seen the news. You were out before midday.”

“I had some other things I had to do as well.”

“Yeah,” she said, disapproval painting her face. “I’m sure you did.”

I massaged my forehead, then brushed past her and collapsed into the couch. “How many times I gotta tell you not to Tunnel without me around, huh? It’s dangerous, going round changing reality.”

“Oh, please,” she said. “It was just a tiny Pin Hole. A bunch of flowers. It’s not like it was a Limbus Tunnel.”

Limbus was what the bozos at Immigration had dubbed the new dimension I'd managed to stumble on last winter. Sounded like a stupid damn name to me, but I guess it fit better that Heaven did.

It was a different sort of place entirely, or at least I guessed it must have been, since as far as I knew no one had actually managed to make it all the way there without being ambushed by any of the bizarre creatures that prowled around. I hadn't told anyone about the Tunnel I opened, but it was powerful enough that any half-decent Tunneler within a quarter mile would have been able to sense it. Some secrets were impossible to keep.

“You can’t go around Tunneling on your own,” I said.

“How else am I supposed to do it when you’re never around? You promised to teach me, Miles. So where have you been?”

I shook my head, trying to keep the anger up in the face of overwhelming guilt. “Never mind me. If I’m not here, you don’t Tunnel. End of story. You're not ready yet, and I'm not cleaning your brains out of the carpet when you fuck up."

Tania stomped away from me and snatched up her school backpack. "Miles, the only fuck-up around here is you."

My gut twisted. "Where are you going?" I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

"Home." She brushed past me and wrenched open the front door.

“I’m trying to protect you, kid.”

She shook her head. “You just don’t get it, do you?” She turned away, then paused. “By the way, the mayor’s assistant called when you were out.”

I’ll be honest; I was grateful for the change of subject. “Huh? What the hell does she want now?”

“You’re invited to a fundraiser tomorrow night. Address is over there.” She jerked her head toward the phone, then spun away. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s an open bar.”

She slammed the door so hard the apartment shook.

I buried my face in my hands. I felt like a skeleton that’d forgotten to lie down. The look on Tania’s face….

I opened my eyes and found Claudia’s ghost standing over me.

“Oh Christ, don’t you give me that look too,” I said.

She didn’t reply. Of course she didn’t. Not even a figment of my imagination wanted to stoop to talking with a loser like me.

I sat there, damn near catatonic with Claudia standing in the corner watching me. Wouldn’t be so bad to just lie there forever. It’d save me from ruining anyone else’s lives.

Tania deserved a real teacher, not some schlub like me. Seventeen, she said she was now. She’d be out of high school soon, then she could go do her training proper. Provided she didn’t get herself killed first. She was headstrong, stubborn. Maybe I could take away her Kemia. I just needed her to be safe. After all she’d been through—all I’d put her through—I couldn’t let her end up another corpse.

When I couldn’t take Claudia’s stares anymore, I hauled myself up and went outside to find my jacket. It was still lying next to the fire escape, right where I’d tossed it. I couldn’t work out which stains were new and which were old. I went back inside, dragged myself back upstairs, and fed my goldfish. Munsey and Frank were swimming around in pointless circles in their bowl by the front door, stirring up light growths of algae on the surface. I could feel them judging me as I scattered the flakes in.

“Sorry, guys. I’ve been busy. I’ll clean it later.”

They munched on their flakes, eyeing me carefully, before swimming away to hide in the fake hollow log at the bottom of their bowl. Even my fish had a lousy opinion of me.