by Pavel Kornev
"Sit!" I ordered. "Sit and calm down. I'll deal with Moran."
Ramon sat down in his chair and nervously drummed his fingers on the edge of the tabletop. I didn't need to be a great physiognomist to read the obvious mistrust reflected on his face. And fear. The fear overcoming my former partner could be felt without any illustrious talent.
"And how will you deal with him, Leo?" Ramon frowned. "Are you planning to kill him?"
"No," I shook my head, intending to appeal to Inspector General von Nalz. "I have connections."
"If you've got connections, why did you need me?"
"I won't be bringing you in to this matter any further," I promised. "Take care of Professor Berliger."
"What do you mean?"
"Figure out if he died in the fire or not."
"And if he's alive?"
"Just find him. I'll talk with him on my own. That is all."
"What if they want to interrogate me about Lynch's case? I blew my cover asking about him, after all! What should I say to the police?"
I just shrugged my shoulders.
"Think of something. And don't forget to burn that drawing."
"Alright," Ramon nodded, taking out his wallet. Drawing out his words gloomily, continued: "After all, I just wanted to go to the Caribbean..."
"So some voodoo priest can curse you?" I chuckled, getting up from the table.
"What's wrong with that tongue of yours, Leo?"
"Nothing," I answered, taking my overcoat from the rack. "I'm dispelling your illusions."
"Don't waste your energy."
"As you say. Will you take me to Brandt's?"
"I won't go downtown," Ramon refused. "The traffic jams on the road are simply monstrous."
"Then go right to Gottlieb Burckhardt," and let me out near an underground stop.
"I can do that."
Ramon paid for breakfast, got a paper bag of pastries from the waiter for his nephew and threw the front door open.
"Let's go, Leo," he called. "The armored car is in the next alley over."
I grabbed the case and we headed off on our way.
IN THE VEHICLE, there was constant rumbling on the uneven paving stone. But when I got into the underground, I fell asleep a few times to the clinking of the train wheels. I dozed off and gave a start, scaring those around me with my sharp movements. A little while later, I did it again.
I walked outside feeling like a boiled vegetable. My head was spinning and my legs were giving out. The back of my shirt was soaked in sweat. But at least I wasn't nauseous...
On the steps of the underground station, a briskly striding boy tried to foist a paper advertisement on me. I waved him off and, nearly hitting a newspaper seller's cart, walked off. My mind was gradually growing clearer in the fresh air. By the time I’d returned to Yablochkov street, I had already come to my senses, although my heartbeat was still somewhat uneven due to all the coffee.
However, I felt a flood of strength and lost all desire to sleep. That pleased me.
It pleased me very much.
Then, much to my surprise, I heard a powder engine chirring unusually softly behind me, and a long self-propelled carriage rolled out of an alley onto the causeway. Its headlights were chromed barrels and its radiator had a fanciful grate design. I pulled my revolver from my belt but I saw William Grace peeking out of the flung-open door. At his side, the oracle was frozen motionless with her eyes closed. This time, she wasn't wearing any veiled hat, and her black hair was falling down freely on her shoulders. Under the seat were her shoes, which she'd thrown off her feet.
"Get in, Leopold!" the Imperial Guard lieutenant demanded. "Come now, faster! Faster!"
I hesitated a bit, but still crawled up onto the brown velvet seat, put the suitcase under my feet and slammed the door behind me.
William Grace knocked on the divider between the passenger area and driver without delay, and the carriage started off, gradually gaining speed. The lady-in-waiting didn't even give a slight movement. The oracle, beyond all doubt, was in a deep trance. Her fingers, clenching a pearl thread, were white in agitation. I could see her eyeballs darting from side to side under her eyelids, and her chest was heaving ever so slightly under her the deep neckline of her garment.
"Has something happened?" I asked, guessing why the inseparable pair had come around this time.
"You didn't sleep last night!" William Grace said. His tone was such that it seemed was accusing me of state treason.
However, that might as well have been the case: I had stayed awake all night long not at all because of insomnia, but because I wanted to avoid meeting Princess Anna.
"There wasn't time for sleep," I shrugged my shoulders.
"Running from former colleagues?" the lieutenant chuckled.
"What do you mean?"
William Grace looked at me with unhidden incomprehension.
"Leopold, yesterday evening Department Three declared you a wanted man! You didn't know?"
"No," I answered, thunderstruck. "This must be a misunderstanding. The inspector general assured me..."
"A hand-held bomb was thrown into the inspector general's carriage yesterday," the lieutenant dumbfounded me again. "Friedrich von Nalz is dead. Anarchists have taken credit for the killing."
"Devil!" is all that tore out of me. "Who was appointed in his place?"
"The Minister of Justice, on a personal request from Duke Logrin, has entrusted the temporary leadership of the police to Senior Inspector Moran."
I exhaled loudly and stared point blank at the lieutenant.
"This is all Moran," I declared directly. "Son of a bitch! He wants to kill me!"
"Why does he want that?"
"It's personal. You have to protect me from him!"
William Grace just laughed.
"We will not do that," he cut me off. "The crown doesn't need such a scandal. Wriggle your own way out of it."
"If I'm arrested..."
"Well, don't get arrested!"
"You need to rein in Moran!"
"We are nothing now" William Grace exploded. "There's the heiress to the throne, who's in a coma, a disgraced Imperial Guard lieutenant and a morphine-addicted lady-in-waiting! And no one else! The rest..." The lieutenant calmed his breathing and cracked his knuckles. "Are taking a wait-and-see position. And that's the best-case scenario. Many are plainly working against us."
I sat back in the soft seat and exhaled:
"Bugger!"
At that very moment, the lady-in-waiting unclenched her fingers from the thread of pearls, took her hand off her chest and placed it on the lieutenant's groin.
"My dear Willy," she mewed out softly, not opening her eyes, "you must still be mad at me for that last pearl, but I ask you to please control your language! Those things in your knickers are not mere beads. If they get ripped off, they cannot be sewn back on!"
Her long thin fingers with bright red manicure clearly clenched. The lieutenant swallowed fitfully, and his broad masculine face turned a lilac crimson.
"I'll take it into account," he squeezed out a promise, pressing himself into the back of the chair.
That was enough for the lady-in-waiting. She returned her hand to her chest, but now her fingers weren't clenching the beads, but constantly letting the individual pearls pass through one after the next, like a rosary.
William Grace cleared his throat, unbuttoned his shirt collar and, looking somewhere to the side, assured me:
"Leopold, after you complete her highness's mission, everything will change for the better. We can protect you from the police, I promise."
"Can her Highness influence the regent in her sleep?" I suggested. "What would it cost her to intervene for a close relative?"
"Her Highness's talent is not all powerful. It can be hidden from. The Duke does not maintain a relationship with her Highness."
"I see."
Wanting to think over his words, I slid back the curtain covering the window and looked outside.
We just so happened to be passing Albert Brandt's house. I met eyes with a suspicious looking fellow in a uniform who was pretending to fix a bike chain. As soon as the spook was out of view, a freshly-painted self-propelled carriage turned out of a side passage and started tailing us.
"Are those your people?" I asked, throwing the side of my jacket off the revolver stuck in my belt.
"Calm yourself, Leopold!" the lieutenant hissed at me. "Just in case, we have covered the street from both sides."
I slammed my jacket shut and asked:
"What reason did you have to wait for me here?"
The lady-in-waiting gave a prolonged moan.
"Oh, men! You're always thinking about the wrong thing!"
The lieutenant glanced at his companion, slightly moving away from her to the door and suggesting:
"Get to business."
But I wasn't going to let this topic end so quickly.
"You were following me, after all, right?"
"What a pain in the butt!" the lady-in-waiting said, drawing out her words and opening her eyes. They were barely shining today and looked reddened. "Leopold, my boy! You thought exactly right. As long as you don't go to sleep, her highness cannot reach you. But the mind cannot get by without rest. You drifted off a few times in the underground, and her Highness informed us of that. But none of that matters. You should be asking a different question."
"And what is that?"
A playful smile slid over the oracle’s brightly colored lips. Something foxlike slipped through on her thin face, which made shivers run up my spine.
"Ask: 'What do you want from me?'" the lady-in-waiting demanded and, peeling herself off the back of the seat, shot forward. "Well? Ask! It’s just words!"
I lead my gaze away from her deep neck line and asked:
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Oh, nothing particular, my boy! You just need to fall asleep."
"Fall asleep?"
"Hearing problems?" the lady-in-waiting cocked a plucked brow. "Yes, Leopold, just fall asleep. Right now."
William Grace looked at his companion in uncertainty and started doubting:
"Is that really necessary?"
The lady-in-waiting turned with a fated sigh and reminded him:
"What did I say a minute ago about the male mindset, William? You joke about women's logic, but always ask stupid and pointless questions, the answer to which should be obvious even to creatures with such limited intellectual abilities as yourself."
"You didn't manage to get through to her Highness?!"
"Is your full name William Obvious Grace?"
The lieutenant pursed his lips and turned away, the oracle meanwhile turned back to me:
"You'll have to fall asleep, Leopold."
Now, nothing depended on me, so I didn't protest. Instead, I fell back in the seat with a smirk and kicked out my legs.
"I can try. To be honest, I recently drank a half liter of coffee, so I'll have to wait for some time."
But the lady-in-waiting was in no mind to wait. She pulled a small glass bottle from her reticule. It was filled to the very cork with small gray tablets.
"Right now means right now, my boy. This will help you fall asleep."
"Are you serious?"
"We've already wasted too much time!" William Grace supported his companion. "We cannot wait any longer. and don't forget: you gave your word."
"Don't be stubborn!" The lady-in-waiting smiled charmingly, twisting off the top of the vial. "Be a good boy, and I'll give you a kiss!"
She shook a tablet out onto her palm, extended it to me and with a harsh tone that wouldn't bare objections, demanded:
"Swallow this, Leopold. Now!"
Part Five
Anarchist
Demons and bombs
1
NOTHING IS A STRANGE WORD. Nothing means there isn't anything, but is that really possible?
Take away any given thing–emptiness remains. Pump the air out of a laboratory flask, you get a vacuum. Not a single scientific experiment can produce this proverbial nothing. After all, it is a purely philosophical concept, and by no means a physical one.
Nothing useful. Nothing important. Nothing to worry about. All just something that has no importance here or now.
Or so I thought until nothingness spread out around me and swallowed me head and all, dissolving me.
The world ceased to exist, and my thoughts disappeared. My desires and motivations turned to dust. I was nothing and everything at the same time.
It could probably also be called nirvana.
Fading, diminishing, wearing thin, peace.
Death?
No, nothing of the sort. Although I didn't fully understand what it was like to die, I subconsciously expected death to be a fleeting spark of pain, like a cut from a deadly razor, followed by the long icy cold of the grave. Here, there was nothing of the like. Not even close.
With electromagnetic radiation, I pierced the ether, and it was neither cold nor hot. My feelings were left far behind. My body was left in the same place – the back seat of a self-propelled carriage, unhurriedly rolling down the narrow alleyways of the Old City.
The lady-in-waiting's tablets were a true wonder.
THEN I WAS BLINDED by the unbearable luster of the sun beating right into my eyes. I raised a hand to cover my eyes and realized with horror that I was floating in the ether amongst an endless cosmic wasteland. Somewhere unbelievably far away, there were huge burning stars but they were simply lost on the backdrop of the orange ball of the sun with its shaggy plasma corona.
"A dream!" I remembered. "This is all just a dream!"
And this dream, beyond all doubt, belonged to someone else.
As if responding to the awakening of my conscious mind, space stirred and, right opposite the blinding ball, there appeared a winged silhouette. The light blinded the eye as before, and I couldn't make out any details. But for some reason, it seemed to me that the silhouette was female.
Using the power of my imagination, I tried to extinguish the shining of the overly bright star, but nothing came of it. I tried to move away but found no success in my attempts once again. This person's dream was unresponsive to my mental orders.
"Cousin!" Princess Anna started with reproach. "You disappoint me!"
With her dreamer talent, the heiress to the throne had given herself an angelic appearance, and so wasn't experiencing any discomfort from being in outer space. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I only had to cut an invisible thread and I would immediately fall down and, like a meteor, burn up in the atmosphere of Earth, its blue and green ball hovering right under our feet.
"Cousin!"
I shuddered from the cry but immediately got myself together and chuckled.
"Why all these moral arguments, cousin? Tell me what you need of me, and let's finish this!"
The angel's wings gave a graceful flutter. The Princess came subtly closer but, as before, her figure was an impenetrably black silhouette, as if this had nothing at all to do with the rays of the sun beating at her back.
"You are aware that it is in my power to strand you here forever?" Anna whispered. "Cousin! You cannot hide from me, you gave your word. I can appear in any of your dreams and confine you to whichever dungeon I desire! Continue dodging meetings with me in the future, and I will create the most terrifying nightmare I can find!"
"Get to the point!"
A fierce rage wafted over me, as if I had touched the plasma corona of the sun.
"Cousin, you do not realize the full gravity of the situation!"
"No!" I barked back. "It is you that has ceased to distinguish between dream and reality! If I am killed, I will not complete your mission! Think about that! To save my own life, I had to not sleep, and I did not sleep. One must know how to prioritize!"
"And where among your priorities is the fact you gave me your word?"
I considered how to answer, but not for too long, as not to further aggra
vate the situation.
"Second. First, as with any other person, is my own life."
"As with any other person!" the Princess grew enraged. "But for me, your delay was akin to death! What do you have to say to that, cousin?!"
I wanted horribly not to explain myself, but the heiress to the throne had spent too much time wandering from dream to dream and wasn’t in the best mental state. So, I tried to smooth the situation over.
"You said: 'kill,' but didn't say who."
"We were cut off," the Princess said, now back in her usual tone.
"What was that fiery rain?"
I personally suspected that it was all the fault of the Princess's unstable mind or, perhaps, the effect of my physiotherapy leaking into the dream, but the answer stung me to the depths of my soul.
"Not what, but who."
"There's another dreamer?!"
"More than just a dreamer. The one who lies dormant in our blood, the blood of the illustrious," my cousin answered and went silent, but not for long. "I've dreamed of a burning rain cleansing the capital since childhood," she informed me after a pause. "Back then, it was simple nightmares. After the operation on my heart, though, the dreams became indistinguishable from reality. I am ghastly tired of burning alive over and over! If this was the price of curing me, wouldn't it have been better to just calmly live out my time?"
"The price of curing you? What do you mean?" I asked in surprise, rubbing mechanically at the scars splitting my chest.
"My heart was replaced with yours," Princess Anna reminded me. "But our forbearers spilled too much blood of the fallen, and you and I have far too much power for just two people. No one was given to hold so much in themselves."
My cousin's words put me in a dead end.
The one who lies dormant in our blood?
What nonsense was this?!
"I don't understand!" I admitted honestly.
Princess Anna broke down laughing and asked:
"Do you know why the illustrious were removed from all important posts and assigned to sinecures in the colonies and distant provinces?"
There was no reason to hide my awareness, so I said calmly:
"A conspiracy. After the death of Emperor Clement, some of the illustrious decided to support the Duke of Arabia in his claims to the throne."
