by Pavel Kornev
I got my glasses with round darkened lenses out of my pocket in silence and clipped them on my nose. Ramon snorted, turned around and walked out. He didn't even look back one time.
"Bugger, what a scene!" the leprechaun rasped back, forgotten by all and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. "A right tragedy!"
"You shut up," I grunted, chasing him off the running boards.
The pipsqueak ran over to the hood and shouted after Ramon:
"Jackass!" then turned to me stuck a thumb up.
I just frowned, threw open the armored car door and a heavy pack of Egyptian guineas fell out under my feet with an untouched bank package.
I was immediately reminded how glaringly Ramon's cloak pockets had been bulging, and it became clear that he and his cousin would no longer be having a problem buying the neighboring manufactory. They just didn't want to get caught up in currency speculation: an attempt to sell Egyptian guineas could even land one in jail. What was more, every second black market speculator worked as a police informant.
With a hopeless sigh, I threw the money on the passenger seat, then put down the hood and got behind the wheel.
"Are you gonna be driving?" the leprechaun asked, himself concentrated on pissing in a drainage ditch.
"Bugger! I'm car-sick!" he called out without turning around.
I just snickered, slammed the door shut and started up the motor.
I was getting pretty sick of that Lazarus...
2
IT TOOK ME twenty minutes to get to the city and, all that time, I was thinking over what to do next. But the thoughts crawling into my head were one more joyless than the next. Beyond the thoughts about rope nooses, strychnine and the metallic flavor of a barrel stuck in my mouth.
No, I didn't at all consider suicide a decent way out of all this, just the most painless. And though the vampire had long parted with emotions and the word "revenge" was now for him just an empty sound, my position was only made worse by that. A pragmatic person wouldn't tear off some unfortunate illustrious gentleman's head in a fit of rage; a pragmatic person would first tear out the arms and legs so that others wouldn't want to.
And what to do? Drive home?
Curses!
That was the first place the vampire would look for me when he got to town, and I was not at all sure that Elizabeth-Maria would manage to stop him. Though the succubus in human form had enviable strength and lightning-fast reflexes, she still wouldn't be able to tangle with Lazarus.
I couldn't go home, at the very least, until I found a proper weapon. Sure, perhaps I’d never find one that could kill him for certain, but I at least wanted one that could do irreparable damage.
Garlic didn't even cross my mind. Perhaps, a newly-turned bloodsucker would squirm a bit if he met an enemy with that strong, characteristic aroma, but Lazarus didn't scare so easy. A wooden stake might have done the trick, but I was hardly likely to catch the vampire asleep now. Lure him out under open sky? Devil, he ran out of the catacombs and didn't even wince!
Maybe, direct sunlight could hurt him, but the sky was full of thick dark clouds at present. Somewhere, an uproarious blast of thunder rang out. On the horizon, from time to time, I saw white, branching flourishes of lightning.
Bad weather had come to New Babylon, and it was making me feel just as gloomy inside as the sky looked up above.
Antiquated methods couldn't help. The most recent scientific discoveries for fighting vampires were of little use. Copper, silver and lead couldn't harm the living dead. With a titanium knife, I could theoretically cut off Lazarus's head no problem but, in practice, it would have been simpler to just slice my own veins, not torture myself and burden others with picking up my remains after they're strewn about the street.
Electricity? Yes! Electricity was destructive to all infernal creatures, but how long would Lazarus remain paralyzed after a shock from the battery hidden in my cane? And most important: I simply had no idea what I could do while he was stunned. Even armed with a wooden stake or titanium blade, I had no desire to get up that close to him, immobilized or not. I was under the firm impression that such a short-sighted act would be akin to a very roundabout suicide attempt. Alexander Dyak's miracle bullets couldn't harm this undead monster in any way. Kerosene was also powerless, so what could I do?
All in all, I'd reached a dead end.
But I didn't tear out my hair too quick. I parked the armored vehicle in a now-familiar yard not far from the weapon store Golden Bullet and headed to visit Alexander Dyak.
I locked the self-propelled carriage and started walking to Mechanisms and Rarities in nothing but my jacket, not having brought my charred coat. Midway there, the rain grew noticeably stronger. I had to hide under the overhang of a street cafe, and ask them to bring me a large pot of Indian black tea and an order of cinnamon buns. Thankfully, there weren't any other visitors, and the stench of the smoke, still clearly on me, wouldn't be bothering anyone.
I began eating breakfast, and immediately a chill came over me.
I got scared. It just then hit me that, only because of happy coincidence and my imaginary friend had Lazarus not caught and disemboweled us just now. It was just that it had hit Ramon a bit earlier.
The buns were nearly gone, but the rain simply wouldn't stop, so I ordered another tea and continued sitting and watching the gurgling puddles. I didn't want to go anywhere, or do anything.
Apathy was weighing heavily on me.
I should have been fleeing the city, but I was just too deeply mired. I'd managed to annoy too many people. Lazarus would be searching for revenge, the gang of illustrious gentlemen – the contents of the aluminum box...
The box! It dawned on me that I’d left it at my uncle's estate!
Cretin! The investigators had probably already connected the Count with the bank robbery and now half the metropolitan police was searching for him! Devil!
I cursed out to myself, throwing a rumpled fiver on the table and hopping out of the cafe. The rain was starting to slightly calm down, and it seemed reasonable to take advantage of the lull and return to the armored car.
Plans had changed. If I had to stay ahead of my former colleagues, it followed that I should drop everything and concentrate on finding the Count. If only my attorney had found a clue, if only he had found any trace at all...
I drove up much too quickly and even almost put a hole in a fence with my bumper. I immediately forced myself to calm down and not step on the gas, no matter how much I wanted to make up for lost time. And that was exacerbated by the fact that the main apologists for the Sublime Electricity, Tesla and Edison, would be coming to town tomorrow, so the streets were just teeming with cops. There were constables standing like beacons at every intersection and driving all around in their self-propelled carriages; some were calling for people not to make crowds on the streets, others, on the other hand, were rounding people up to check their identity.
I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing the metropolitan police this active in all my years of service, but now, my armored car didn't attract any attention from either the locals, or my former colleagues. There were plenty of armored vehicles on the streets of New Babylon as it was.
I just had to not get in an accident. That would be a right laugh...
With that thought in mind, I nervously shivered and even started coming up with explanations in my head in advance for where exactly I found the self-propelled carriage that once belonged to the bank robbers and for what great reason I hadn't brought it straight to the Newton-Markt, but they turned out not to be needed. I drove through the historic center with no issues. Thankfully, amongst the high buildings of the business district all rushing up into the heavens, the activity grew noticeably sparser. The few cabs on the road made way in good time, and police officers started meeting the eye with reduced frequency.
After driving around the tall building that housed my attorney's office, I left the armored car behind some dumpsters and tied on a neckerchief in an atte
mpt to give my appearance at least a shade of respectability. My efforts were in vain though. The guard at the door had his nose buried in a newspaper and didn't even look at me. I walked calmly past his post to the third floor. While I walked up the steps, I mechanically checked my Roth-Steyr and Cerberus and even grew surprised at how deeply that habit had ingrained itself in me in recent days.
With a bullet chambered and the safety off, I felt much calmer. Paranoia? No, it was just that I'd made too many enemies...
Opening the door without knocking, I walked into my attorney's hovel, stood in the middle of the room and leaned on my cane.
The young man gave a shudder, glanced at me over the newspaper and immediately started squirming about as if his tender bits had been smeared in turpentine.
"Viscount!" he said after throwing away the morning edition of the Atlantic Telegraph. Then, he shot up from the table, saying: "I did everything just as we agreed yesterday and yet, this morning, I got a message from your uncle's lawyer!"
"And what did it say?"
"It's addressed to you. I’d already called the courier, but fortunately, hadn’t yet managed to send anything..."
I accepted the thick paper envelope. The address was written in an unfamiliar, sweeping handwriting: "To Leopold O., deliver to named recipient only;" for added security, it was sealed with an unused postage stamp, which looked untouched.
I inspected the envelope carefully, shook out the titanium blade of my folding knife and lifted the flap. I got out the letter, and with a certain measure of surprise, read the laconic missive:
"Four o'clock PM at the maître's. Come alone."
There was no signature, but there was no need for one: I recognized my uncle's handwriting easily.
"Is something the matter?" my attorney asked in surprise.
I shook my head.
"Everything is fine," I reassured him, hiding the letter in my pocket. All necessary documents on the inheritance should be prepared today by four o'clock in the afternoon.
"They've all been ready for some time!" the young man replied. He then fussily pulled out a thick stack of papers from the top desk drawer. "It's all here!"
I looked through the documents and, turning through them, asked:
"If you would be so kind, stay in the office today until at least seven. If need be, I'll send a courier for the papers."
"Viscount!" my attorney called out for me indecisively. "As for the commission..."
"Everything remains in force. Ten percent of the sum is yours," I assured the jurist, not at all doubting that my uncle wouldn't pay a single centime of the contested check.
To be perfectly honest, I simply didn't understand what the hell now made him want to meet with me, so the honesty of his intentions raised a mass of questions.
Why? What did he need this for?
In my place, an overly self-confident person might think he had his opponent cornered, but I personally considered such a supposition far-fetched. After searching the Count's damaged manor and finding the aluminum box with the black runic lightning on top, the investigators would have no choice but to declare a search for the Count, so any legal actions on my part wouldn't mean a thing now. And what was more, my uncompromising relative had set the meeting himself.
If I were a paranoiac, I would suspect malicious intent and even the desire to lure me into an ambush, but I knew the Count wouldn't be able to extract any profit from my death. And that meant he needed something from me.
But what?
With that very thought in mind, I climbed into the armored car and thoughtlessly stared at the rain-covered windshield.
Nothing. I had nothing that could interest my uncle, and recognizing that simple fact made me nervous and threw me off balance.
I looked at my timepiece. It was showing a quarter to one. There was more than enough time before the meeting, so I decided to drop by Alexander Dyak's. Not for a shoulder to cry on, nothing of the sort. But it couldn't hurt to find out what the inventor had spent his one-hundred-franc advance on. I still needed weapons to use against the vampire.
I started up the motor and got on my way.
WHEN I DROPPED into Mechanisms and Rarities a quarter hour later, Alexander Dyak was discussing a gold coin on the counter with the same assistant head of the archeology department from yesterday, and I didn't bother them. I just greeted the man and shook the tiny droplets of rain from my derby hat.
"Leopold Borisovich, one minute. We're almost finished," the shop owner warned me.
He talked a bit longer with the archaeologist, then the pair struck hands and Señor Ramillo, smiling radiantly, walked over to the exit. The inventor looked just as satisfied as his customer.
"A successful deal?" I asked, leaning on the cane.
"Mere trifles," the inventor shrugged his shoulders and asked: "I'd much rather hear, Leopold Borisovich, how things are going with you."
"Questionably," I snorted back.
"Problems with the flamethrower?"
"No, no!" I assured Alexander Dyak. "The flamethrower did its job, but the kerosene wasn't as effective as I would have liked."
"Is that so?" the shop owner asked in confusion. "Did it not light?"
"It lit, but it couldn't burn a vampire."
"Well, well, well!" the inventor replied, tapping on the counter with a pencil. He then rubbed his gray beard and demanded: "Tell me everything in order. Each detail is important."
"For science?" I joked.
"Leopold Borisovich!" the inventor drew out his words in reproach. "You and I are working on a strictly utilitarian problem: how best to eliminate the living dead. Believe me, it isn't nearly as much fun as studying the effects of radiation on a body with heightened regenerative properties. You cannot write respectable scientific works on this material."
"I beg your forgiveness."
"Think nothing of it!" Alexander Dyak extended me a little sign and asked: "Hang this on the door, would you. And try to remember. I implore you, try to conjure up every detail."
The stenciled words on the little sign read: "Experiment in progress. Call in case of emergency."
When I hung it outside and locked the door, the inventor and I immediately went back into the work room. There, I lowered down into a chair with relief and leaned my cane against the wall. Alexander Dyak, meanwhile, started writing down my tale of the fight with the vampire in his notebook.
"What can you tell me about him?" he asked me near the end.
"Other than the fact that he introduced himself as Lazarus and gets his clothing from a very respectable tailor?" I chuckled.
"Any detail could be the key to the riddle!"
"He wasn't afraid of going outside under clear sky and mentioned that he was a few centuries old. Perhaps, he was somehow connected with the brilliant Rafael, and had spent the last few years living in Egypt."
Alexander Dyak looked at me somehow strangely, but I didn't pay it any mind, and snapped my fingers.
"And also, he called kerosene 'Greek fire!'"
"Greek fire?" the inventor shuddered. "Are you certain?"
"Absolutely."
"I may have spoken too soon then, when I called this assignment not quite as entertaining as the one with the werebeast," the shop owner muttered out thoughtfully. "An ancient being that has become impervious to the open flame of burning kerosene. I'm sure this was not a natural trait, but an acquired one."
"And what does that give us?"
"It's generally accepted that burning is the simplest method of destroying any unclean spirit, including vampires. Wooden stakes aren't merely last century, they're a holdover from deep antiquity. Nothing but stories."
"But that bastard won’t burn!" I exploded.
Alexander Dyak just laughed.
"Everything burns, Leopold Borisovich. What's important is choosing the right catalyst."
"What, excuse me?"
"I suppose you've heard of phosphorus?" the inventor asked out of turn.
&
nbsp; I nodded:
"Matches."
"That's right," the store owner confirmed. "But when producing matches, red phosphorus is used, and it isn't as dangerous as white."
"I didn't know there was more than one kind."
"White phosphorus," Alexander Dyak continued, "is extremely flammable. It auto-ignites when heated to any temperature over thirty-five degrees Celsius, can you imagine? For that reason, it is generally stored in airtight jars, underwater, and not exposed to light."
"What would light do to it?"
"Prolonged exposure to light turns white phosphorus into red," the inventor explained. "And you know, Leopold Borisovich, I am more than sure that your Lazarus will not have taken the care to make a protection against phosphorus."
I considered it and clarified:
"How hot does it burn?"
"Extremely. And also, the products of its combustion are toxic."
"That's not actually a good thing."
"What can you do?" Alexander Dyak shrugged his shoulders. "With the money you gave me, I bought a certain quantity of white phosphorus and with it, I could load up to two dozen hand grenades."
"And have you tested this?"
"I left that for you. Remember, I said its combustion products are toxic." The inventor rifled through a box and pulled out a cylinder that appeared to be made of aluminum. "Take this!" he said and suddenly threw me an incendiary grenade.
I barely caught it; even so, I was soaked with sweat.
"Don't you think we should be worried about accidental detonation?" I reproached the shop owner.
"We should," he confirmed. "But first, we need to fill it with the incendiary material and install a detonator. I suggest we make it an electric."
"Ah!" I caught my breath with relief and spun the nearly five-centimeter-diameter and fifteen-centimeter-long cylinder in my hands. On the lower end, there was an iron ring mounted on a spring.
"It doesn't have a safety clip," Dyak warned me, "so I implore you: be as careful as possible. It takes quite significant effort to remove the pin, though, so you can carry it in your pocket at ease."
