The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) (16 page)

I turned the ignition. For a few seconds, the engine groaned and spluttered like a lifelong smoker getting up in the morning. The noise didn’t stop until I released the key. The car didn’t start.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “Your car’s screwed, pal.”

The car rocked with his fidgeting. I glanced in the rear-view mirror and got a glimpse of a pale face with sweat on his forehead. “Try it again.”

I did, keeping the Pin Hole open. The car sounded like someone was throwing cats at a lawn mower.

“You want me to get out and push?” I asked.

“Shut up,” he growled. “Give it some gas while you do it.”

“You sound a little stressed,” I said. “I can call a mechanic if you like. I won’t try to run away until it’s fixed, I promise.”

He shoved the gat against my head so hard I was looking at my own chest. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. Let me think!” The pressure of the gun barrel disappeared. “Let me try.”

He leaned past my head, reaching for the ignition with his free hand. The pistol came into my field of view.

I released the Pin Hole that was screwing with the car’s engine and clamped my fingers around his wrist. Tugging on his arm, I slammed his gun hand against the steering wheel. He screamed. A moment later, the gat went off. The windshield shattered and my ears rang like the world’s most annoying alarm clock. That got my heart going.

I smacked his fingers into the steering wheel again. The pistol barked, ejecting its hot casing into my lap. I barely noticed it. He screamed again and tried to gouge at my face with his free hand. The gun dropped to my feet.

I rammed my elbow backward. It was an awkward angle, and all I managed to do was hit my funny bone on one of his bony prominences. Electricity rocketed up and down my arm. His fingers dug harder into the flesh of my cheek. I turned my head and bit. His fingers tasted like oil. His scream turned into a screech.

Blood spurted into my mouth as he jerked his hand back. I spat the taste out, fumbled at the lever for the door, felt it pop open. There were hands grasping for the back of my jacket, but I was already scrambling out of the seat. He caught me by the belt, just for a second, and it was enough to throw me off balance. I came down on my forearms in the parking lot and scrambled the rest of the way out of the car on my hands and knees.

My heart jumped around inside my chest. A glance back showed me he was wriggling through the gap between the front seats, trying to retrieve the gun. No time for subtlety. It was never my strong point anyway. I crawled around the side of the next car over and put my back against the muscle car’s tire. I fished in my pocket for another coin and pulled out the bottle of Kemia. Somewhere, a dog was yapping like crazy.

Another gunshot split the air. The round slammed through the muscle car door a few inches from my head. I ducked as the pale-faced bastard let off another shot. Kemia splashed over the coin in my hand. A new whirl of unreality took my mind. I hummed in tune to the madness while my heart kept the beat. The Pin Hole opened. My ears popped. I stood up and faced him over the muscle car’s hood. He leaned awkwardly over the Corolla’s handbrake and leveled the gun at me.

I don’t think he expected me to leap at him. It’s not the thing you tend to do when a rod is pointed in your general direction. But more than that, I don’t think he expected me to have turned into something that resembled an agile gorilla.

With one huge, unfamiliar hand I snatched his outstretched arm and jerked it upward. He fired again and again, but he wasn’t hitting anything except the sky. Then he pulled the trigger once more and nothing happened. I could smell the sweat pouring from him.

I dragged him out of the car by his arm, my muscles bursting with animal strength. His finger continued to switch uselessly on the trigger. Snarling, I grabbed the wiry bastard by the front of his shirt and pulled him close.

“Who do you work for?”

He just whimpered. My nostrils flared.

“I’m sick of you guys,” I said. “Ambush me once, shame on you.”

I slammed him back against the car. His eyes bugged and his mouth resembled the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner.

“Ambush me twice…” I headbutted him in the nose, and he cried out. Blood poured from his nostrils. “…shame on me. Ambush me three times—”

“Franco!”

I glanced toward the voice. Detective Wade stood with his legs spread at the edge of the parking lot, his golden hair blown perfectly by the wind. A pistol was in his hands. It was pointed at me. A small crowd of onlookers—the people who had been at the funeral—gaped at me.

“Let him go,” Wade said.

“Come on,” I said, “we’re just having a chat.”

The man trembled in my hands. His eyes were wide as his gaze swept up and down my new body. “It’s…it’s not possible. Tunnelers can’t do that.”

“Anything’s possible if you put your mind to it. Isn’t that right, Detective?”

“Franco.” If his voice was filled with any more warning, it would have a sign and flashing lights attached.

I grunted. The queasiness in my stomach was coming back anyway. I let go of the man, releasing his head right into the car door. He yelped and toppled dizzily. As he fell, I slipped his wallet from his back pocket, using my body to hide the action from Wade.

“Now,” Wade said, still aiming his gun at me, “return to your normal state.”

“Ain’t I pretty enough for you, Wade?”

He didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t crack anything at all.

I sighed, closed my eyes, and severed the Pin Hole’s connection to Heaven. The chaos in my mind stopped swirling, and my ears popped again. When I opened my eyes, I was the same old me again. I met Wade’s eyes across the parking lot. “Happy?”

He holstered his weapon. The crowd behind him started whispering furiously to each other and comparing the footage they’d captured on their phones. While Wade crossed the parking lot, I pocketed my attacker’s wallet and picked up my bottle of Kemia from next to the groaning, half-conscious man.

Without a word, Wade rolled the man onto his stomach, cuffed his hands behind his back, and hauled him to a dark blue sedan. The pale-faced guy wasn’t really hurt. He bled from a nice cut above his eye, but I’d probably done him a favor. Ladies like scars.

I made my way to my motorbike, doing my best to ignore the whispering crowd. My gut was groaning, and I was feeling a little light-headed. That was unusual. Tunneling drained me a bit, but it didn’t usually leave me feeling like shit.

I was halfway to my bike when Wade called out again. “Franco. You’re coming with me.”

I stopped and shoved my hands in my pockets. “Like hell I am,” I said without turning around.

“This is out of control. Detective Reed told me what you’ve been doing. You’re going to get yourself killed out here.”

“So nice to know you care.”

“Someone wants you out of the picture.” Wade came up behind me. “You think he was the only one they’ll send?”

I shrugged. “I’ve handled things all right so far,” I lied.

“You need our protection.”

I would’ve laughed if I didn’t feel like hurling. “Protection. Right. I’ll take my chances on the street, thanks.”

I took a step forward, and then a hand gripped my upper arm. A white-hot flash went through my head. Christ, I wanted to take a swing at him.

“I’ll arrest you if I have to.”

I could still taste the man’s blood in my mouth. I spat it out. “What charge?”

“We’ll start with assault and Tunneling on a suspended license.”

Son of a bitch. I had things to do. I needed to nail AISOR, and I couldn’t do that cooling my heels in a police station. For a brief moment, I considered attacking Wade and making a break for it. I could probably manage it, if I didn’t get shot. Come to think of it, the risk of getting shot was becoming a major impediment to me achieving my goals.

I kicked at a loose stone with my shoe. Hell, I didn’t have a choice, did I?

“Would you really have shot me?” I asked.

“I still might.”

I grinned and let him lead me back to his car. That damn dog was still yapping.

SIXTEEN

Detective Wade insisted on bringing my pale-faced attacker to the station in his car, so I got to sit in the front seat and not behind the mesh. The guy groaned in the back seat for a while, and then he lapsed into nervous silence as he came around. The paramedics wanted to take him to hospital and make sure I hadn’t slammed him around enough to knock anything important loose, but Wade said he wanted to get the guy talking. I had to agree; this son of a bitch must know something about Claudia. Of course, I didn’t tell Wade I was on his side here.

The pretty boy drove in silence, his hands at exactly ten and two on the wheel. After he cracked the window, the breeze turned his hair into a men’s shampoo commercial. My initial impression of him hadn’t dimmed in the slightest. There was something smarmy beneath his exterior, and I didn’t like it. Physically, there wasn’t much similarity between him and Vivian’s previous partner, but something about him reminded me of Detective Todd. I found myself clutching my bottle of Kemia while the sun-drenched streets rolled past.

Wade got a uniformed cop to take my attacker to booking when we reached the station. I didn’t get the same privilege. I signed my name at reception, then Wade dragged me past the vending machine and we took an elevator up a few floors. He didn’t say a word. I followed his example.

We emerged from the elevator into a large room that could’ve come from damn near any office building in the world, if it weren’t for all the cops walking around. One side of the room was lined with large, grimy windows that let some of the day’s heat creep in, while the other held a few doors with stark metal name plates in holders. Most of the rest of the room was filled with desks and computers, vaguely separated into different teams. Every desk I could see was adorned with stacks of paper and a styrofoam coffee cup, or in some cases, five or six.

A few of the cops greeted Wade as he took me past, but no one glanced at me. I shoved my hands in my pocket and tried to not look like a mass murderer. A vice was slowly tightening around my chest.

“Wait here.” Wade pulled up a seat near the windows. The hard plastic stung a bruise on my ass. I didn’t let it show on my face.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Wade said. He turned and walked away before I could respond. Stupid? Me?

I glanced around once more at the cops to make sure none of them were paying me any attention, and then I pulled the pale-faced man’s wallet out of my jacket pocket. It was brown leather, nothing fancy, but with a lot less tears and holes than mine. I flipped it open and had a look inside. About a hundred bucks and assorted change inside, but no receipts to give me a clue what he’d been doing recently. Other than that, there was only a single Visa credit card and a driver’s license. My attacker had the unfortunate name of Anthony Gullet. I figured it was too terrible to be a fake identity.

I caught a whiff of reheated pasta, and my stomach rumbled. The petite female cop left the steaming container on a desk a few feet from me and wandered over toward the coffee machine. I’d never even got to enjoy the post-funeral snacks. I wondered if I could snag the cop’s lunch and eat it before she got back. Nah, I didn’t want to give Detective Wade any ammunition.

I took the cash and cards out of the wallet and went through them carefully again. Gullet sure wasn’t one of the scientists hanging around in the basement of AISOR, but he could easily work for them. Or maybe Zhi or Kowalski hired him to take me out. There were probably plenty of ex-gangsters out of work right now that would take a job like that in an instant. I didn’t get a gangster vibe from him, though. He was too inexperienced.

“You’re not going to try to bribe your way out of this, are you?”

I looked up to find Vivian standing in front of me. With her chin, she pointed at the wallet in my hands. She was wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt today, with just the top button undone. Her gun sat in a leather shoulder harness. It made me a little uncomfortable. She was sexy anyway. She could make wearing a burlap sack look sexy.

I shoved the cash and cards back in the wallet. For a moment I considered keeping my hands on it, but I’d got all I could out of it anyway. I tossed the wallet to her. “That belongs to my pal with the itchy trigger finger. Do me a favor and return it to him, will you?”

She turned it in her hands, checking the ID like I had, then nodded and pocketed it. I caught a glimpse of Wade hovering behind her, a vaguely satisfied smile playing around his lips. I raised my eyebrows at him.

“What’s up with you?” I asked. “You look like you’ve been tattling on me to my mother.”

He smirked and said nothing.

“I’m not your damn mother, Miles.” Vivian folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Let’s go to the interview room. We need to talk.”

I smiled as casually as I could, leaned back, and rested my arms on the seat backs to either side of me. “I’m comfortable here.”

“Fine,” she said. Without turning around, she grabbed an office chair, dragged it in front of me, and sat down. That threw me a little. I expected more of an argument. Maybe some good old-fashioned police brutality.

“We need you to go through everything,” she said. “Right from the start.”

“And then what?” I said.

“And then you’re going to drop this. Actually drop it this time. This situation is beyond dangerous, Miles. We’ll take you to hospital, or if you won’t go, we’ll bring a doctor here. And we’ll find whoever is responsible for killing your friend. But you have to talk to us.”

I licked my lips. There was fire in her eyes, and not some lousy candle flame either. And even I had to admit she probably had a point. Attempted kidnappings and gunfights in broad daylight probably wasn’t the best way to heal a recovering city. But every inch of me wanted to resist. It was me who failed Claudia. I was the one getting beaten up and poisoned. I should be the one to avenge her.

I rubbed my chin, feeling the sandpaper brush of stubble. For an instant, I thought I saw Claudia again, but then she was gone. Deep in my stomach, some thick, oozing pain lurked.