by Pavel Kornev
The whole side was occupied by a logo reading: "Dupre," and I was reminded of a recent newspaper article saying that company had bought up several of New Babylon’s steam tram lines, replacing the cars with their own. Installing wires for an electric tram was a rather costly affair, so the motors were powered directly from a gigantic electric battery, housed in the iron box in the back.
I walked across the road, jumped onto the back platform and looked around, but no one had noticed my haphazard maneuver. At the very least, none of the passers-by had torn off after me, and no cabbies had started whipping their horses to catch up before I rolled down the slope and out of sight.
The conductor walked up; I paid for passage and started looking out at the changes that had taken place over the year of my absence and found that it was surprisingly unchanged. The main innovation was this electric tram car.
Not far from the Imperial Academy, I jumped out onto the paving stone and headed for a park that lured me with its green, intending to walk into a couple shops not far away, then drop in on Alexander Dyak – my inventor friend who kept a shop on Leonardo-da-Vinci-Platz...
I felt awfully uncomfortable armed only with a knife, though, so I first popped into the gun shop Golden Bullet.
"What can I help you with?" the order-taker smiled as soon as I stepped over the threshold. The massive door was thrown wide open and propped with a piece of wood, but even like that, it was sweltering in the room.
"My good man, could you please tell me if you have any Cerberuses in stock?" I asked.
Cerberus was the name of a three-barreled, or rather barrel-less pistol with electric igniters that shot powder rounds. Instead of proper barrels, there were long tubes attached one atop the other in a quick-remove cluster. Neither malefic charms nor the unnatural wiles of underworld emigres could prevent this weapon from firing. Electricity is stronger than magic!
"Cerberus?" the salesman asked, somehow too thoughtfully and furrowed his brow. "Ah, yes, Cerberus! I do! And rounds with silver bullets, right? I remember you asking about them before. I have an excellent memory for faces."
"Your memory really is remarkable," I admitted, not showing my vexation. "But no, I don't need silver bullets. Standard ones will do, aluminum-jacketed."
Silver was traditionally considered a metal capable of damaging all unclean beings, but it was only truly guaranteed to kill werebeasts. Recently, however, I had lost all need for such a thing. I wasn't trying to kill myself.
Aluminum, though, was a different story! Over the long centuries, otherworldly creatures had acquired an invulnerability to iron, copper and other traditional metals, but as humans had only recently learned to work aluminum and titanium, their defensive spells did nothing. At the very least, I had yet to hear such a thing was possible.
The order-taker set the brand-new Cerberus on the counter, checked the charge in its electric jar and placed it into the handle.
"How many rounds will you need?" he asked after that.
"Nine," I decided. The compact pistol could only be used as a last resort. The weapon was not made for prolonged firefights. And it was also only useful over a short distance, because its clustering left something to be desired.
"Extra magazines?"
"Naturally."
I handed the man a fifty-franc bank note and started placing the rounds in the removable magazines. The salesman opened the cash register and clarified:
"Anything else? I remember that you asked before about ten millimeter. I have some new wares..."
"No, no," I shook my head. "That was for a gift. Let's look at pistols."
But I didn't manage to find a suitable number. The shop mostly stocked snub-nose pocket pistols, like the Mauser I'd given to Liliana. More consequential weaponry, for carrying concealed under the clothes, was not available.
"Well, alright then," the salesman tried to hide his vexation, counting out my change, "see you later?"
"Without fail," I promised, sticking the Cerberus in the side pocket of my jacket and going outside. And then, something surprising happened: entering the store, I hadn’t particularly noticed the heat, but now it was like walking out into a pre-heated oven. And it was going to be evening soon!
After wiping the perspiration from my face with a kerchief, I tossed a mint sugar drop into my mouth and walked off to a sewing studio where they sold and tailored premade suits at a very reasonable rate. This sewing parlor had the habit of being patronized by police leadership of less than highest rank. I had never possessed sufficient finances to visit it before. With my police salary, it was beyond my means to even visit a ready-made clothing store.
But now, I could afford to get a suit sewn at the most expensive tailor. Unfortunately, though, there simply was no time. Money and time – it's rare that someone can boast of having both. They are like the snake Ouroboros, eating its own tail. One becomes the other.
I found the tailor’s without much difficulty. It didn't take much time to come to an agreement on getting a couple suits fitted either – one light traveling suit and one dark-blue official suit made of a denser material. And that was the last thing I managed to do quickly. The nimble boy took my measurements and spent a long time digging through their assortment. He gave me one to try on, then another, then the tailor got to work. I asked him to make sure the suits wouldn't bulge out from my holstered pistols, as I was not preparing to limit myself to just the one Cerberus. The craftsman nodded and told me to hold my arms out. And so it began...
In the end, I only left the shop around twilight and still in my old suit; they promised to bring the new ones up to snuff by the next morning. Standing on their veranda, I took a deep breath and quickly started coughing. Although the heat had retreated by evening, the smog hadn't gone anywhere. The smoke engulfing the city just cut into the throat.
I looked at my timepiece – the arrow had already passed the golden eight – and decided not to drop by Dyak’s. It was late, I hadn't eaten a proper meal since the day before, and also I was just plain burnt out. I'd come to him tomorrow. Now, I had to eat dinner.
I returned to the hotel by cab. Thankfully, I hadn't noticed any signs I was being followed all day. I wasn't planning on breaking the law, so that was good. The receptionist at the counter was new, but as soon as I introduced myself, he handed me my key.
"Have a nice evening, Mr. Shatunov!"
I smiled in reply and headed up into my room. There, I poured myself a couple glasses of water, looked thoughtfully over the contents of the bar, but didn't touch the bottles with mismatching colors and knocked on the adjoining door.
"Lily!"
On the other side, the lock clicked open. The door flew wide and Liliana nearly ran into my guest room. She jumped to the mirror and spun around before it in her new floor-length dress with short sleeves and a deep cut down the patterned-lace back.
"So, how do you like it?" Lily asked, looking distractedly at her own reflection as if my mirror was somehow different from the one in her room.
"Your father will not approve," I decided.
"Well, I wasn’t asking his opinion."
"I like it. Will you be you wearing it to dinner?"
Lily stopped spinning before the mirror, looked at me and wrinkled her nose.
"Dinner?" she asked, casting a quick glance at her room, packed to the ceiling with towers of cardboard boxes. "You know, Leo? I don't want to go anywhere. I've run around so much all day I can barely stay on my feet!"
"Well, we don't need to go anywhere: there's a restaurant in the hotel."
"Yeah, I got some stuff, but not too much." Lily led her hand over her waist and sighed. "And I need to watch my figure..."
"And sort through your purchases," I smiled understandingly.
"And my purchases!" she confirmed and, unbuttoning her long gloves as she walked, ran into her room. "I say we go somewhere tomorrow!" she suggested before closing the door.
"Sure," I muttered and rubbed my chin in thought.
&
nbsp; There was one thing I knew I didn't want – to go to bed on an empty stomach. What was more, I had no sleep in either eye. I'd slept plenty in the train.
I locked the door, went down to the second floor and walked into the restaurant. There were not many people in the dusky room. An orchestra was playing the El Choclo tango, which was in vogue this year, and someone was even dancing. I took a free table at the window and asked the waiter to bring me a double portion of roast beef with fried potatoes on the side.
"What will you have to drink?"
"Tea. Black."
To my considerable surprise, a clarification followed:
"Indian or African?"
"African," I decided, then added: "Also bring me a lemon posset, large cup."
"Alright."
The waiter went off to send my wishes to the kitchen and bar, while I gave a fated sigh, loosened my neckerchief and looked from side to side without particular interest. Not so long ago, visiting such an establishment would have been a true occasion for me. But now, I simply wanted to eat dinner and get back to my room. Once upon a time, I found it fun to look in on the life of luxury, so foreign to me. The ladies and their evening dresses, the pompous cavaliers at their side. But now, that just smelled of boredom.
There was nothing surprising in that: boredom and loneliness typically go hand in hand.
Very soon, I started regretting having ordered roast beef instead of a simple steak, but I didn't cancel my order. I slowly sipped my tea, staring out the window. The view looked out onto Emperor Clement Square.
They finally brought out my roast beef and side. I scarfed it down in five minutes, paid up and went up to my room with the glass of lemon posset. A spiced dairy beverage, it was usually prepared with rum or strong ale, but the milk in this version had been curdled with lemon juice alone. There was no cause to intoxicate the mind with alcohol today: my forced return to New Babylon was already having a nasty effect on my nerves. My heart was not in the right place.
Heart not in the right place? I smiled involuntarily at the turn of phrase, but my agitated nervous system morphed it into a tooth-bared scowl. I tried forcing myself to calm down – it didn't work.
Some thought I was dead. Others were under the impression I had merely disappeared without a trace. But someone had managed to uncover my secret and that made me tense, constantly expecting a stab in the back.
I was already close to flying off the rails.
The door to my room unlocked. I slightly cracked it, listened and took a sniff – nothing. But I didn't try to chastise myself for the paranoia: the burning of my dirigible was not just the fruit of an overactive imagination, after all. Someone had wanted to kill me. For some reason, that thought was filling me with despair at this precise moment.
All that said, it was nothing surprising: a waning gibbous moon, not taking my medicine, returning to the capital...
I set my glass of posset on the table, removed my jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. Then, I walked up to the door to Lily's room and carefully, in order not to accidentally clang the metal, moved the bolt away from my side.
The posset had already gone warm by that time, but still I finished it with satisfaction and went out onto the terrace. I took a seat on a wicker chair, put up my legs and looked at New Babylon, immersed in twilight. I felt like the prodigal son, now back in the house of his father. I even started tearing up.
But that was all the smog. Nostalgia had never had much of a hold on me. To me, the good old times weren't really that great, and common sense told me to keep as much distance between myself and the capital as possible.
It finally grew dark. Over the hotel, there was a shroud of smoke covering half the moon as it hovered in the sky. The buildings had steep-sided roofs, towers and spires, forming monotone silhouettes against the backdrop of the sky. In places, I saw glowing triangles of illuminated windows, but a large part of the old town was completely dominated by shadows. Or so it seemed to me. From my seat, I couldn't see the gas lamps on the street because of the railing, but I didn't feel like getting to my feet.
I glanced at a shadow lingering on Liliana's balcony, and from out of nowhere, the thought flashed in my head to climb over the small board and catch a glimpse of her bedroom. I didn't even consider it seriously.
After finishing the posset, I walked out into the guest room and, as soon as I'd set my empty glass on the table, I heard a vile giggling behind me. My knife appeared in my hand all on its own. The titanium blade clinked out and I made a sweeping slash from bottom to top!
The white-haired pipsqueak, green camisole on his chest thrown open, was squeezing his hand to his throat. His eyes bulging, he started gurgling and fell onto the rug face up. His accordioned top hat rolled to the wall. His feverishly twitching leg beat out a short tattoo with the heel of his toeless boot, then the leprechaun went silent.
"Curses!" I swore aloud. "Where'd you come from?!"
The albino got up on one elbow and contorted his face.
"Bugger!" he cursed out. "I was giving it all I had! You might have pretended to be convinced! You could have grieved for an old friend, whose..." the pipsqueak gave a sniffle of pity, stuck his thumb out to the side and led it across his throat in an abrupt motion, "throat you slit!"
My legs instantly turned to cotton. I fell back into the chair, set my knife aside and looked at my left palm. The filament of the white scar cutting across it hadn't gone anywhere.
"Hey, boy!" the leprechaun picked his flattened top-hat up from the floor and sat it on his head. "You didn't happen to swallow your tongue, did you, nut-job?"
"You're slightly transparent," I announced in reply. "Light is passing through you!"
The gas lamps in the hotel were not on, but the moonlight coming in through the window behind me allowed me to make out the gilded wallpaper pattern behind the leprechaun. He looked somehow dull, reminiscent of the illusions created by clownish magicians with their smoke and mirrors.
"Bugger! News to me!" the pipsqueak broke down laughing. "I guess I'm a ghost!" He dug his finger into his nose, rubbed an unevenly gnawed fingernail on his pants and looked thoughtfully out the window. "Or am I?"
If there was anything the leprechaun was not, it was a ghost. My imaginary childhood friend was not just a creation of my subconscious and illustrious talent, he was a part of my very being. Not an alter-ego, he was something of a totally different nature. An embodiment of my curse, an animal familiar.
"What the devil?" I jumped to my feet. "Where the hell did you come from?!"
"You're asking me?!" the pipsqueak snapped back. "I should be asking you!" he shot out, jumping deftly onto the chair. From there, he climbed onto the table and, his hands crossed behind his back, started pacing the snow-white tablecloth. "Although you are me, and vice versa, so it doesn't matter which of us is asked. The fact remains – we do not know the answer."
"Nonsense!" I just exhaled in response to his assertion.
"You know best," the leprechaun lightly agreed with me and snorted: "Bugger! Look at you, talking to yourself! Not a good sign!" he removed the lid of the sugar-drop tin, pulled a pistol bullet from it, tried to bite at the round and threw it back in with disgust. "Tastes like shit!"
"That's no illusion..." I noted when the careless kick of his toeless boot sent the tin off the table, and the rounds flew out of it, rolling around the whole room.
"Bugger, I’m a poltergeist!" the albino began to whinny. "A right evil spirit, ha-ha!"
"Knock it off!" I boiled over. "Be a good little figment of my imagination and knock it off, I beg you!"
"And what if I don't?" the pipsqueak asked with a vile grin. "Are you going to spank me?"
I walked over to the buffet table in silence, filled a glass with water, drained it and only after that, said weightily:
"Knock it off."
"Alright, alright!" The leprechaun held his palms out in a gesture of appeasement, but without a shade of contrition.
"Ju
st where did you come from?" I asked again.
"You know where," the pipsqueak answered. "You know, boy."
"No-o-o," I said, drawing out my response, then throwing out louder and sharper: "No!"
"Yes!" As if to spite me, the albino melted into a frog-like smile from ear-to-ear. "It was fear, Leo. It was all your fear. Fear made you this way. Your illustrious talent, a vivid imagination and F-E-A-R..."
"Go to hell! I'm not afraid of anything! Not a thing!"
The leprechaun laughed.
"Boy, I can name a dozen of your phobias off the top of my head! Don't forget that you are me. It's just that you... how can I put this lightly enough not to offend you..." The pipsqueak paced the table once, then snapped his fingers and exploded: "Oh! I know! You're a cowardly nut-job, Leo! That's what you are!"
There was absolutely no sense in getting mad at my own hallucination, so I bit back the curses on the tip of my tongue and cracked my fingers, forcing myself to calm down, but my annoyance didn't go anywhere. It was devilishly unpleasant to hear such vile filth from my own mind. There was something wrong in that. And still, my biggest worry wasn't even remotely my mental health. Something simply wasn't right.
The leprechaun had first appeared when I was less than five. His initial cause wasn't fear at all. Boredom and loneliness had borne him. Boredom, loneliness and an imagination, bolstered by my illustrious talent. Back then, no one around me could see my imaginary friend. He was an immaterial shadow in my head, nothing more.
And the leprechaun's past appearance also had nothing to do with my phobias. I don't know exactly what had called him from nonexistence: my unnatural arrangement with a succubus and her otherworldly force, or the heart of the fallen one I'd eaten, but it definitely was not fear.
So, what is going on now? What is happening?!
"Started figuring what you've stepped in this time?" the leprechaun asked with a vile grin. He jumped off the table and started studying the contents of the buffet table, pulling out one drawer after the other. "It's fear, boy. Just fear."
