The Fallen (The Sublime Electricity Book #3)

by Pavel Kornev

  "Akshay Roshan, do you know him?" I asked, starting the interrogation.

  "That isn't a real name," he stammered, forcing it out of himself. "I don't remember the face, but that name was among the documents that came through me."

  "Forged documents?"

  "Yes."

  "When was that?"

  "Half a year ago. Maybe a year."

  "Anything recently? He hasn't come for new documents?"

  "No," the healer exhaled. "He hasn't."

  "Might he have gone to someone else?"

  The drooping old man shook his head:

  "I doubt that."

  With a gesture, I ordered Ramon to remove the cuffs and warned the healer:

  "We'll be back. I hope next time you'll be more willing to work with us." And I threw the bottle at the wall with force. With a soft clatter, glass flew through the room. I started smelling a heavy aroma of unfamiliar spices.

  "Let's go!"

  We went down to the first floor, came outside and, to the malevolent gazes of the local inhabitants, loaded into the armored vehicle. Ramon's cousin hurriedly climbed into the cabin. With a shudder, the self-propelled carriage rolled off. Curses flew off after us, along with rotten fruit and clods of earth.

  "So, a waste of time?" Ramon asked, having closed the window between the cabin and the back.

  "He wasn't lying," I sighed, wiping the sweat from my face. "We should declare a search for Roshan and drop by that forger again in a week."

  "That could be arranged… for additional pay."

  I counted out three hundred francs and extended the money to Ramon.

  "Will that be enough?"

  "Another hundred for my informant in the police. And fifty on top of that, if the Indian is found and we have to answer for the false arrest."

  "Will they let us talk with him before letting him go, if he's arrested?"

  "Naturally!"

  I added fifty francs, then rustled through some more bills.

  "Here's another twenty-five for the pistol."

  "What should I ask Roshan, if he does turn up?"

  "What should you ask?" I thought. "Ask him if putting something in my lemonade was his idea, or if someone paid him to do it. I'd bet on the latter. I need names."

  "Alright, I’ll see what I can do."

  The armored car gave a lurch; I looked out the barred window and saw that we had left the slums and were now on the road back to the factory outskirts. As before, freight carts were jamming up the road, so our speed was truly turtle-like. A steam tram honked in rage, demanding someone get out of the way. Somewhere nearby, a siren started. Our own horn cut piercingly into the general cacophony.

  I unbuttoned my collar and exhaled loudly. In the back, it was hot and sweltering. There was no air to breathe. And also, the powder engine was crackling incessantly. It was a source of incredible annoyance. I turned away from the grated window and asked:

  "Ramon, does this street lead downtown?"

  "Yes, and what of it?"

  "I'm getting out. What's the point of me going back to Foundry Town with you?"

  "If you say so," the hulking man shrugged his shoulders, getting up from the bench and knocking on the partition. "Stop the car!"

  The armored vehicle pulled up to the shoulder and stopped. I got out through the side door onto the sidewalk, waved farewell to my former partner and followed the tram rails, looking for the next stop that could take me into town.

  I was going to see Alexander Dyak, then I'd get my suit from the atelier and go back to the hotel. There, shower, lunch, goodbye to Lily, and after that... After that, I wasn’t so sure. But passport and checkbook back in hand – I could think something up. And Roshan wouldn't be going anywhere. He'd run and run but, eventually, he’d be caught. Try as he might, he'd be seeing a hangman's noose with thirteen loops and nothing less.

  The sun, having just barely come up over the roofs of the buildings, wasn't yet scorching. A refreshing breeze chased away the smoke and pleasantly cooled my overheated face. When an extended steam-tram honk sounded out over the buildings, I slowed my pace, preparing to cross the road.

  "Sahib!" suddenly sounded out behind me. "Sahib, stop right there!"

  I reached into my pocked, placed my hand on the Cerberus and turned around – there was a bare-footed swarthy boy hurrying down the sidewalk in a washed out old rag. His face seemed dimly familiar. Most likely, he had been standing in the crowd gathered around our armored vehicle.

  "Sahib!" the boy exhaled hoarsely, bracing his hands on his knees and panting. It was surprising that he even managed to catch up to the armored vehicle. Just skin and bones. Blow too hard and he'd fly away.

  "What do you want?" I asked. I shot a quick glance over the street, not noticing anything suspicious and took my hand out of my pocket.

  "I can help you!" the boy announced. He spoke with no accent, as if he was born here.

  "And how might that be?"

  "I spend all day every day in the shop opposite the healer’s. I see everyone that comes to visit him. I see them all! And I remember them! Sahib, were you looking for someone specific?"

  "Indeed," I confirmed after a brief hesitation.

  Even if this little snoop had gathered the courage to lie to a police officer, the most he could get out of me was ten francs. I could afford it. Ramon's rates were far higher.

  What was more, the steam tram was already thundering down the rails and was just past the curve, but I could just talk until the next one.

  "Who? Who are you looking for?" the boy asked, agitated.

  "Would you take a look at a portrait?" I threw out.

  The boy wriggled in place like an adder and retreated into a passage between buildings.

  "Not here," he said, his eyes widened. "If they see me, that'd be it! They'd kill me!"

  "Who?"

  "The thugees!" the boy exhaled soundlessly and backed into the alley. "Please, sahib! Not in public!"

  I hesitated and again stuck my hand in my jacket's side pocket. The last thing I wanted was to get a sandbag to the head and be left without my watch and wallet. But the passage between the impenetrable building walls was empty, and the boy's fears were not at all without basis. Any reasonable person would tell you that, in neighborhoods like this, the life of a police witness wasn't worth a single centime.

  Without taking my hand off the Cerberus in my pocket, I stepped into the passage and pushed the boy further into the alley, where no one could hear or catch us unawares.

  "Sahib, I'll help you, but I need money," the boy started begging predictably. "I need to feed my mother and three little sisters. We're going hungry, sahib!"

  "If you help me, I'll help you. Don't be afraid, I won't trick you."

  "Alright, alright!" the boy nodded. "Show me! I remember everyone, absolutely! Twenty francs! Twenty!"

  "Now, now. If you want twenty francs, you'll have to earn it," I grumbled, digging in my inner pocket for the drawing.

  The boy rolled his eyes as if not believing his luck and immediately, the silence of the alley was cut through by a sharp half-rustle-half-whistle.

  I rocked sharply to the side, and a yellow silk kerchief lashed against my hand, which I’d thrown up in a defensive gesture. It had been going at my throat. A small weight on the end hit the bridge of my nose. A piercing pain clouded my eyes for a moment, but I didn't let go of the slipknot when it was pulled back. I grabbed onto it and pulled.

  The man, who came out of nowhere, was stout and mustached. He rolled toward me in surprise, took a blow to the forehead and collapsed to the ground. I tried to get over to him, but was stopped from by the boy who'd lured me into the trap. He threw himself at my feet, but I jerked my knee up to meet him, and he flew back into the wall. But in that moment, the man whose face I’d smashed in – the bhutot?! – managed to pull back his slipknot kerchief.

  I stepped toward him and then someone threw themselves at me from behind and hung from my shoulders, pulling me to
the earth. I sharply arched up and launched the attacker over me. The bearded Indian I’d just thrown off my back shot to his feet; I had to push him away and turn my back, covering the pocket containing my Cerberus. But as soon as I reached the pistol, an unexpectedly strong blow landed under my knees, flipping me onto my back.

  My glasses fell off my nose. The walls spun before my eyes. I hit the ground and couldn't get back up. The bearded Indian fell onto my chest. His partner put his arms around my ankles and bared his teeth in strain, not letting himself be pushed aside.

  Not squirming in a vain attempt to loosen the vice-like grip of the simian shumseeas, I pulled the Cerberus from my pocket and stuck it under the shaggy beard of the man leaning on my chest. The shot was unusually quiet. The strangler fell to the side, gurgling blood from the hole in his throat. The second Indian looked at the smoking pistol in horror, but made no attempts to save himself. My second bullet hit him in the forehead, spattering brains on the wall. I wasted a valuable moment getting out of the man’s grasp, now truly dead.

  In a half-turn, I threw up the pistol and caught the main strangler in my sights, but my arm jerked down a moment before the shot, and the bullet ricocheted off the ground. I elbowed yet another Indian off me – where were they all coming from?! – threw open my jacket and pulled at the strap to the Steyr holster, and the bhutot immediately gave his silk kerchief a sharp flick. My raised shoulder didn't stop the rumal. It lashed at my neck. The weight on the end struck my throat at full speed, instantly filling my head with a ringing luster.

  The strangler's helpers quickly piled on me and pressed me to the earth, depriving me of mobility and not allowing me to reach my pistol. The slipknot dug harder and harder into my neck. The luster in my head grew brighter and brighter, while somehow also filling my mind with an impenetrable blackness.

  I died and fell into darkness with rabid speed. My soul raced out to a meeting with myself, but that other me was in no way prepared to part with life.

  A convulsion twisted through me. My joints cracked, and my tendons flushed with a mindless pain. My lips were quickly drawn back to reveal a set of bared teeth. My left arm grew muscular. My fingers grew longer, my nails stretched out, turning into the claws of a predatory beast.

  The mustached Indian pressing down on my chest didn't even manage to scream when I grabbed him by the neck and clenched my fingers, crushing his throat with ease. It cracked, my claws pierced the skin and dug deep into the man's skin. Dark blood sputtered out of the would-be assassin's throat. And it was as if that gave me the strength of ten men. After releasing his lifeless body, I cast the bhutot from me with a back handed swipe. After that, with a careless prod of my heel, I rid myself of the last attacker.

  The boot strike to his chest didn't manage to settle the young Indian, though. He threw himself at me with fists and, in an attack of mindless rage, I grabbed him by the chest and slammed him full force into the wall. With a knock and a crack, the resilient boy collapsed to the earth, his head split.

  But as for the main strangler, he was a sly fox. He knew the score perfectly well and ran to escape, but the beast inside of me was not planning to let him go alive. I was not planning to let anyone go alive.

  I was filled with the rage and fervor of a predatory animal. I burst from place, intending to rip the bhutot to shreds with my bare hands. Just then, my old tattoos of religious symbols and prayers started sparking. A seizure rattled my body, and the earth shot up to meet me. My face struck it full force. My nose broke with a squelch. Pain pierced me from head to toe. It twisted itself around everything in my mind with a net of the finest invisible razors, cut me to pieces and put me back together again, but this time a bit different.

  My strength subsided. I was now a man again, and not a beast. My left arm was numb. My fingers were swollen. Blood started seeping out from under my blackened nails. In my head, the uneven beats of my heart struck like blacksmith's hammers. Before my eyes, everything blurred into an indistinct gray fog. I felt like my fingers were crushed, each having been broken into at least a few pieces, so the slightest movement would cause unbearable torment.

  I only managed to get up onto one knee by gathering all my will up into a fist. My teeth clenched in pain, I pulled my Steyr from the holster, removed the safety and thumbed back the hammer. After that, I caught the back of the strangler running down the alley in my sights, held my breath and boomed out a shot.

  The kickback was forceful and nearly jerked the pistol from my numb fingers, but I hit. It was as if the bhutot was struck with a hammer in the back. He stumbled, went from a run to a walk and leaned against a wall to stop from falling to the ground. On the side of his shirt, a spot of blood started quickly spreading through the white fabric.

  Wincing, I aimed and shot a second time. This time, the bullet hit the strangler between the shoulder blades and he crawled from the wall to the earth. A strip of ruddy blood was left on the brick masonry.

  Hoarsely exhaling a curse, I got to my feet, and my eyes went gray instantly. I started hearing a sound. I sighed – my ribs were exploding in pain. But I persisted. The second step was easier, and with every subsequent heartbeat, the rhythm of my circulation became more even and calm.

  Leaving a trail of blood behind him, the bhutot crawled along the earth. He was nearly out of the alley when I walked up, raised the pistol and shot him in the back of the head. After that, I leaned heavily on the wall, catching my breath, but somewhere not far away there rang out the trill of a police whistle. It would have been awkward for me to meet a former colleague looking like this, so I turned and started hobbling down the alley toward the other stranglers collapsed on the earth.

  The boy who'd lured me into the trap had broken his neck in the fall, so I didn't have to catch him. I shot him through the head and placed the Steyr back in the holster. After that, I picked up my glasses, which had fallen off in the skirmish, and the unloaded Cerberus. I straightened up with a morbid grimace and hurried to leave.

  My consciousness finally cleared. The pain quieted down. All that remained was an unpleasant ache twisting my left arm, which was hanging down limp like a whip. On the way, I wiped my face with a kerchief and threw it onto a trash heap. My blood-soaked jacket had to be removed and thrown over my left arm, imitating a man out on a casual stroll, stewing in the daytime heat. I also removed the holster from my belt and placed it in the folded garment.

  There were no eye-catching spots on my shirt or trousers, so I walked calmly out of the passage between buildings and walked down the unpeopled street, narrow and secluded with gates for wholesale shops and warehouses on the first floors. There were no people around, only the leprechaun, who was sitting on the paving stones beating out a melody with a spoon on the variously sized bottles arranged before him.

  "Bugger!" he winced fastidiously on my arrival. "What a sight!"

  Without stopping, I spit blood into his top hat, which was sitting upside down to collect tips. The pushy pipsqueak scraped up the change he’d accumulated, threw the hat on his head and scampered off after me.

  "Get lost!" I growled and turned down an alley. There was a fine watery mist shimmering at the far end.

  Behind me, I heard hoof-beats. There was a police carriage racing down the street. The leprechaun turned, stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. Today, he was no longer a fleshless ghost, but the pipsqueak was still not casting a shadow.

  "I'll shoot!" I promised, totally serious.

  The albino stopped short. I hopped over a railing blocking passage to the river, and he followed me, slipping between the rusted rods. He ran over to a landing and started rinsing himself off.

  "Scoundrel," I exhaled hoarsely, walking onto the stone steps and throwing my hopelessly blood-caked jacket underfoot. After that, I slowly and carefully lowered down onto my haunches, grabbed a handful of water and washed up. My left hand was already moving slightly, but the swelling hadn't subsided one bit. My fingers could barely move. And that p
ain...

  A burning pain, biting into my bones, twisting my joints and tearing my tendons. It reverberated in my shoulders and stretched up to my neck in sharp pin-pricks, making me wince and hiss curses out through clenched teeth.

  It was devilishly hard not to notice, but there was nothing else for me to do now. An injection of opium or a bottle of shitty rum could help, but I wasn't intending to go down the same bad road that had ruined my father. I'd seen just what that kind of thing could do to a man...

  Then, I was reminded of the dry crack of a crushed throat and the warmth of human blood flowing over my hand; it shook me. Procrustes, my unfortunate father, liked to kill in that very fashion. When he didn’t lose control and simply tear his victims to bits, that is.

  In what other ways had I taken after him? What else might have been transferred by inheritance and was lying dormant in my psyche, just waiting to break free?

  What could it have been, huh?

  "By the way, boy! I'm just mad with joy to see you in good health!" the leprechaun said, after buttoning up the last button of his fly. "But your daddy wouldn't be too proud!"

  I unfolded the jacket lying on the stone step in silence. On seeing the pistol, the tiresome pipsqueak stuck a middle-finger up and walked from the landing into the river. I didn't hear a splash.

  "I hope you never come back!" I exclaimed in a fit of anger, unlatching the removable cassette from the Cerberus, popping out the shot casings and tossing them into the depths. I reloaded the weapon and placed it in my pants pocket.

  After that, I started washing the drops of blood I discovered on my cuffs. They were brown and already dry, so I didn’t bother getting them all the way out. My head was spinning. I started feeling the piercing sensation of hunger in my stomach.

  I hawked a wad of pink spit underfoot. With the back side of my hand, I rubbed my lips and, although the metallic taste of blood was still in my mouth, I didn't drink from the river. Instead, I placed a raspberry sugar drop on my tongue. And it wasn’t because I was feeling squeamish after the leprechaun's brazen exit, it was just that the water of the Yarden in the outskirts of New Babylon was contaminated with so many chemical compounds that it might kill a werebeast. It could even do in a zombie.