Atomic Underworld: Part One

by Conner, Jack

  The current librarian slouched behind the counter. He was a hulking creature with webbed hands, no nose, and covered in dark striations like tribal tattoos. He looked up when Tavlin entered, blinked, and then, in what seemed like a gesture he had used very little in his life, smiled. His teeth were white and shiny and sharp.

  “Two-bit!”

  Tavlin shook the man’s hand, careful not to let the fellow see him wipe his palm on his pants as he dropped his hand to his side. “Guyan! How are you?”

  “Good, good. Business is slow.”

  “There never were many readers here.”

  “It’s worse than that. It’s the ...” He paused. Sudden wariness entered his eyes, and he looked Tavlin over carefully. Gradually he seemed to find what he was hoping for. In a lower voice, he added, “It’s fucking Magoth. Or its worshippers, take your pick.”

  Tavlin had finished his bowl, and now he tapped it out into the misshapen clay ashtray on the counter. “Not big into reading, are they?”

  “Not unless it’s their damned bible.”

  “They have a bible now? Interesting.”

  “If you say so. Anyway, I shouldn’t be talking like this.”

  “You afraid of them?”

  Guyan shrugged his broad shoulders. “There have been some ... disappearances. People that speak out against them don’t speak out for long, if you get me. And they’re spreading like fungus. I thought they’d be satisfied when they had their own church. Not only were they unsatisfied, but they’ve taken over several other churches since then. Remember the House of the Laug? Theirs. The Laugians vanished overnight, killed or driven off, no one knows which. Same with the Satherists. And the Church of the Vygun-Iss.”

  “Might be time for you to set up shop elsewhere.”

  “And abandon the sacred trust? No. I’m in Muscud for the long haul.” Darkly, he added, “One way or another. Anyway, it’s good to see a friendly face. Been awhile since you’ve been around this kink of the Stink. Heard you were topside.”

  “I’m only back temporarily.”

  “You know, we could use you. You brought some color to this place.”

  “It’s colorful enough.”

  “What happened to you, anyway? You don’t look the same. You’re not still ...” Tavlin just watched him, and Guyan dropped his gaze. “Oh.”

  “Listen, I was hoping to look through the public records, see who owns a particular piece of property.”

  Guyan made a face. “You know how sketchy the records are, but I’ll do what I can. Which property?” Tavlin gave him the address, and Guyan yanked out a ledger and thumbed through it, dust pluming upward as he cracked the pages. His eyes scanned a page, then another. Finally he slammed the book closed—triggering an explosion of dust—and looked up. “Do you know anything about the public property records, Two-Bit?”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “Well, we didn’t used to have any, but as the city grew, over time parts of it would shift, break away from other parts. Much of it was made of trash and cast-offs, and it wasn’t meant to last. Whole sections would sink, or break away into little islets. Finally we elected a mayor and got some organization, and properties had to be approved before they could be built, and more of them were built of stone and wood, and pillars were sunk into the lake bed. Well, it’s been hundreds of years since then and the mayors aren’t what they used to be. Mayor Jensen, well ...”

  “Yeah.” Jensen was deep in the pocket of the mob; Boss Vassas had done quite a bit of business with him.

  “You have to get his permission to build or renovate, but he gives permission out of his wallet, if you know what I mean, and the more money’s exchanged the less likely he is to report the sale.”

  “So someone paid him off.”

  “Must be, because it’s not here.”

  Tavlin nodded slowly. “Well, at least I know where to start looking.”

  “Don’t expect Boss Vassas to tell on the mayor. People at that level know how to keep their lips sealed, at least about others at the same level.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Is there anything else I can help you with? I just got a new series by Marcus Synn. Wasn’t he one of your favorite writers? This one’s about that detective in the tropics. And only slight damage to the pages.”

  “Actually, I’m looking for more information on one of the old races. Pre-human.”

  “Which race?”

  “The Iuss’ha.”

  Guyan indicated with his chin. “Upstairs in the far corner. You’ll find them in the Arcane History section.”

  Tavlin climbed up the creaking, peeling ladder to the platform that encompassed the upper half of the building, lined by thick, sagging bookshelves exuding the stink of mold, age and, yes, there it was, sewage. Tavlin donned a pair of gloves to read by, a common practice down here, and selected a volume that was so crumbly he feared it would disintegrate in his hands. The tome covered a span of years long before man had evolved, back during the age of the Iuss’ha.

  Tavlin sat down at a listing table, swept the dust from it with a brush of his hand and commenced to read.

  Little was known of the strange race. They had lived millions of years ago and few of their writings had survived. It was known that they had been highly advanced technologically, and that some of their technology had been quite otherworldly, unlike anything men knew. Nothing was known of the reasons behind their disappearance, though other races of the same time had left bas-reliefs of some awful cataclysm. Early man had worshipped in the ruins of the Iuss’ha, thinking whatever race had left them must be gods, but they were not unique in this. Beyond that nothing was known, at least in the volume Tavlin had before him.

  There was certainly no mention of the jewels Boss Vassas and Madam Elana claimed came from them. Nor was there mention of mysterious ghost women.

  Tavlin tried several more books, found nothing of any further use, then spoke with Guyan.

  “Perhaps another library,” Guyan suggested.

  “This is the only one in Muscud.”

  “Try the one in Urst, or Hadmar. There’s more than just this one. You don’t remember the raids the Urstian librarians pulled a few years back? We’re just now recovering from them. Had to replenish the entire letter H.”

  “Well, I’m off.”

  Tavlin left the library and set out for the Wide-Mouth, and Boss Vassas. He had a few questions to ask of his old employer.

  *

  “The mayor won’t say jack,” Boss Vassas said. “Not because he’s tight-lipped—shit, he’s as loose as Jasmine downstairs—but because he’s scared shitless. Those boys in that factory aren’t your usual renters.”

  Tavlin was stuffing his pipe. He raised his eyebrows without looking up and said, “How so?” They sat in Boss Vassas’s study, which was part of the suite that had been attacked last night, though this room had seen no violence. Rich rugs covered the floor and murky oil paintings of mutant heroes and battle scenes covered the walls. A fire crackled in the fireplace, and the whole room smelled of smoke. Tavlin knew the smoke from the chimneys of Muscud gathered at the apex of the cistern chamber, where a vent with a fan in it drew the smoke out; every now and then the motor running the fan would break down and the whole town would fill with an acrid cloud. Fortunately that was a rare occurrence.

  Boss Vassas stared out the window overlooking the city. Turning, he said, with a half smile on his face, “Because they’re not. Remember, I own a good chunk of those warehouses and factories. The boys in that particular one came to me first, looking for a place to rent, but I didn’t have any vacancies, so I directed them to the mayor, who owns a couple himself, and one I knew happened to be empty.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Hell if I know, my friend. But I’ll tell you one thing. This one day, after they’d been comin’ round for a while, tryin’ to build up trust, I guess, ‘cause they were from outta town, well one day they asked to use my phone. There ain’t many
in Muscud and they were willin’ to pay for it, so I said alright. I even left the room for ‘em.” His face was hard. “I listened at the keyhole.”

  Tavlin lit his pipe and sucked in the first mouthful. He swirled it around his tongue, then breathed it out. Seeing that Boss Vassas needed prompting, he said, “Yeah? And?”

  Firelight crackled in Vassas’s eyes. “They spoke with an Octunggen accent.”

  A shudder coursed up Tavlin's spine. Perhaps the chill came from the open window. It was certainly hot enough in here. “A lot of people have Octunggen accents,” he said. “Octung used to control a bunch of countries, you know.”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t speak with any accent when they were in front of me. Only when they were by themselves, when they didn’t think anyone was listening. And then only a little, like it just slipped out.”

  Tavlin frowned. “So what do you think they’re up to?”

  “I don’t know, but I got a bad vibe from them, and so did Jensen. He wouldn’t have rented to them if he thought they’d let him say no. Those bastards seem to get what they want, every time, and they have connections outside, I don’t know where, but more of ‘em would arrive, and then more. I don’t even know how many are in that damned factory, but they seem to live there, most of ‘em.”

  “What could they be doing there? And why would they need jewelry from some race who’ve been fossils for gods know how long?”

  Boss Vassas rubbed his heavy jowls. “And why would they kill high-profile targets to get them? You’d think they’d at least have enough sense to not piss off people like me.”

  “Does that mean you’ll hit them?”

  Boss Vassas looked at Tavlin, then turned his gaze to the flames. After a long moment, he said, “I don’t know.”

  Tavlin studied him. “You don’t know how strong they are.”

  “And I don’t know what resources they have. They have weapons that can turn people into ... well, whatever. Nothing human-looking. White mush.” His face twitched, and Tavlin knew he must be thinking about Nancy, about what his beloved had been turned into. “Maybe that makes sense if they’re Octunggen. They say Octung has been developing extradimensional weapons for a long time in preparation for their war. Maybe the boys in the factory have more than just the one weapon.” He grunted, as if something had just occurred to him. “Maybe that’s why they used it, to scare people like me off, if we should find out who did it.”

  “So what then? Sit and let them continue doing whatever they’re doing, right in your own backyard? That doesn’t sound like the Boss Vassas I know.”

  Vassas’s expression darkened, and when his eyes swiveled to Tavlin, they were sharp as knives. All of a sudden Tavlin remembered whom he was speaking with.

  “What was that?” Vassas said, his voice eerily neutral.

  Tavlin made himself swallow. “Nothing, Boss.” He busied himself with renewing the flame on his pipe, which had gone out.

  Vassas cracked his knuckles and paced back and forth before the fire. He had asked to speak with Tavlin alone, but now Tavlin half-wished someone else were in the room. If nothing else, it would give the Boss someone else to focus on if he got mad.

  “I need to know more about them,” Vassas said. He opened his mouth to say something more, but just then gunshots pierced the night.

  As one, Tavlin and Vassas ran for the door.

  They dashed downstairs to the first floor, then made their way through the chaos toward the front entrance. Most everyone else was rushing away from it. Vassas’s men had moved toward the front, and from that direction more gunshots rang out. Vassas pulled out a pistol and Tavlin pulled out his stolen piece as they reached the entrance, and they stepped out into the street.

  A dozen motorcycles roared off spitting black smoke. Each one had a sidecar, and gunmen in the sidecars turned and fired back at the men who stood before the Wide-Mouth. Tavlin hit the ground shooting. Several of Vassas’s other men hunkered low, as well, and the cracks of their guns popped like fireworks. When Tavlin glanced back, he saw Vassas standing tall and indomitable, eyes narrowed, smoke curling up from his large, oiled revolver as fire spat from its barrel.

  The motorcyclists swerved out of sight and the gunfire stopped.

  Several men were down, and Vassas and his people knelt over them and gave what help they could. Someone called the house doctor. Tavlin assisted in staunching wounds and tying tourniquets. His head spun, and his heart performed a mad jig in his chest. Four men had been shot, and one was clearly dead, his brains leaking on the sidewalk, shards of skull flecking the puddle.

  Another body lay twisted in the street further from the Wide-Mouth’s entrance than the others. When the wounded were seen to, Vassas, with Frankie beside him, made his way to the body and stared down at it. Tavlin joined them. The corpse was that of a man, naked, beaten and mutilated. His scrotum had been removed, leaving a bloody wound, and it had been stuffed between the man’s jaws. Ragged bits of flesh stuck out between cracked teeth.

  “Fuck,” said Frankie, “it’s Serat.”

  Vassas placed a hand to his forehead, as if a headache had come on him all of a sudden. “Damn it all.” He swayed for a moment, then shook his head. For a long time he said nothing, and Tavlin became aware of the sounds of the doctor moving patients into his little office in the back of the building next to the kitchens.

  “Who was he?” Tavlin asked, realizing that the motorcyclists must have dropped the body off.

  Vassas didn’t answer, but Frankie did: “One of our boys. Came after your time. Boss sent him to negotiate Peter’s return—that’s the fellow we, ah, questioned last night. We couldn’t just give him back to his gang, that would look weak, you know how it is, but we were gonna ransom him back and let them off with a good bargain.”

  “This is Grund’s crew you’re talking about, right, the ones you thought committed the murders?”

  “Yeah. Grund likes motorcycles. Don’t know where he got the cash for them all, though. That happened real recent.” Frankie looked down at Serat’s body, grimaced, and turned away. “Anyway, Serat was our envoy. No one touches envoys, not for a long time.”

  “Looks like Grund wants a fight.”

  Boss Vassas grunted, and when Tavlin peered at him he saw that the Boss had changed. The mob chieftain was harder, grimmer, and there was a strange light behind his eyes only hinted at by his unnaturally calm demeanor. “No,” he said. “It’s war he wants. And by the gods, it’s war I’ll give him.”

  Chapter 4

  Water lapped at the pilings, and Tavlin felt the skin between his shoulder blades draw tight. This really wasn’t a good idea, he told himself for the hundredth time. Yet Boss Vassas had been so distracted organizing for battle that he hadn’t been willing to give Tavlin the assistance he’d requested, which left Tavlin no choice if he wanted something to get done about the murders and the missing jewels. Now, however, as he rowed his boat beneath the raised pier of the warehouse district, draped in shadow and all too close to the water, he wondered if he had a choice after all.

  It wasn’t as if he had to be here. No one was making him. Sure, Boss Vassas was paying him, and the girls at the Twirling Skirt expected it of him, but who was he to do this sort of thing? He was a gambler, a former junkie and thief, a member of the mob, a lousy bastard all around. Did he think this bit of skull-duggery was going to make up for a lifetime of misspent energy? It was absurd. And yet, as if despite the rest of him, his arms continued rowing the boat forward.

  He made for the factory where the man who had killed Madam Elana had gone. 4302 Eversly. It was late at night, as the inhabitants of Muscud reckoned night, and few sounds filtered through the boards and cement overhead, and what few sounds did leak through were mostly soaked up by the vapor exuded by the water. Tavlin tried not to think of the slimy things that lived just below him, things that might regard an untainted human as a tasty snack.

  Rowing forward, he began to hear faint sounds. The vapor created a
fog of sorts, a nasty, acrid exudation that constantly made him spit, but it was thin at the moment, and concentrated only in pockets, so that he could see, from time to time, a boat crew make an overnight delivery or drop-off at the trapdoor entrances to certain factories and warehouses. There weren’t many such crews about, but they were in evidence.

  The trapdoors were marked with addresses so that the boat crews could find them. At the dormant doors, Tavlin rowed close to find out where along Eversly Blvd. he was. The numbers reassured him that he went in the proper direction. At last he came within sight of the trapdoor to what must be 4302. He did not venture near enough to check the address, but he verified the adjacent properties’ numbers and they left no doubt that he had found the right one.

  He stopped rowing when the boat reached a pillar, and in the shadow of the column—overgrown with barnacle-like encrustations about which hopped things that might have once been frogs—he sat and waited. The temptation to light a bowl came on him, but he kept it at bay. The light and the smell might alert his enemies, if enemies they were, and it was hard to imagine them as anything but. They were likely from Octung, the dreaded Lightning Crown, and they had killed Madam Elana and five of Boss Vassas’s people, several of which Tavlin had known. Nancy had been a close friend of Sophia.

  The trapdoor to 4302 was still. No traffic in or out. Yet he could hear sounds in the factory above, the creaking of boards, the groan of machinery, and he knew from his vigil earlier that this trapdoor was used frequently. He still wasn’t sure what his plan was, if he had one. He had entertained some vague notion of sneaking up through the trapdoor, but there was no lock on this side. Someone would have to let him in, and he didn’t like his chances of forcing his way up and through the factory.