The Dormant (The Sublime Electricity Book #4)

by Pavel Kornev

  The boy ran off to wait for Ramon. I meanwhile searched for a free bench, sat down on it and immersed myself in studying the front-page article on yesterday's killing of the inspector general. I was interested in any details of the event gleaned by the savvy newspapermen from their contacts in the police.

  I didn't forget to glance at the park gates though, and when my clock struck four thirty, I noticed Ramon Miro walking from the nearest underground station. My messenger immediately hopped out to him then scurried away. His hands were burning with the honestly earned money.

  No one followed the boy but, in any case, I walked down a parallel street for a few blocks after Ramon, then ran off past my former partner and let him pass me, hidden behind a wooden cylinder with theater bulletins tacked to it. Only after that did I whistle and wave my hand.

  "What gives?" Ramon frowned, angered by the long walk, but I didn't even listen and dragged him into a small snack shop named Danube Rose with a huge red rose on the banner.

  There was no one inside and, with a calm heart, I walked through the small room with wooden tables and a time-darkened bar.

  "A bottle of Tokay, if you please," I asked the black-haired swarthy man, taking out my wallet. "And some goulash. You do have goulash, don't you?"

  The Magyar sized me up with an attentive gaze, then slowly nodded and walked out into the kitchen without a word. But Ramon couldn't hold back his annoyance.

  "Leo!" he hissed, beside himself with rage and nervously puffing out the nostrils of his wide flat nose. "What the devil are you up to?!"

  I reclined at the table and smiled:

  "Tokay is a white wine, isn't it? What are you so steamed about?"

  "I'm not talking about the wine!"

  "Sit down," I pointed at the chair opposite mine, "and listen to me. You’re already here, so it would be dumb to turn around and leave now, isn't that right?"

  After a moment of hesitation, Ramon sat down at the table.

  "Speak," he demanded.

  "Moran was appointed to von Nalz's position. After all, you did hear about the death of the inspector general, right? Now they're searching for me. That's as short as I can put it."

  The Magyar returned from the kitchen and set down plates of goulash, a wooden board of bread and an uncorked bottle of wine with glasses, so Ramon had to hold back. In the end, the hulking man suppressed his rage and, cracking his knuckles, asked:

  "What do you want from me, Leo?"

  I filled a glass with wine, but didn't drink it myself, instead taking a hunk of bread and dipping it in the goulash. It was hot and spicy.

  "Leo!" Ramon started fuming again.

  "Drink!" I pointed at the glass, wiping my lips on the edge of the napkin. Then I asked: "What happened to Professor Berliger? Did you find anything out?"

  The hulking man took a sip of the wine, gave a nod of approval and turned the bottle's label to face him.

  "Berliger is considered missing without a trace after the fire," Miro said after that. "There are more than a dozen bodies still awaiting identification."

  "I see," I sighed, but didn't feel particularly at ease after hearing about the now dead-ended investigation. It would be nice to find the professor alive and well, but that could wait. There was simply no possible way to put the Princess's mission on the shelf.

  "You asked me here just for that?" Ramon asked, reminding me of his presence and filling his empty glass.

  "Hm? No, not just for that," I shook my head and pushed the empty plate away from me. Surprisingly, the portion of satisfying grub didn't dull my hunger one bit. I wanted to eat badly, just as before. "You gonna eat that goulash?"

  The hulking man looked strangely at me and pushed his own plate across the table in silence. I, in my turn, pushed him a glass of wine and started going at the food again.

  Ugh, I could not even remember the last time I'd had such an appetite!

  Ramon sipped from the cup, then wiped his lips with a napkin and demonstratively placed his pocket watch out in front of him.

  "Yes, yes!" I nodded several times. "Time is money!"

  "And not just a little."

  "If you want to talk business, let's get to it! Once upon a time, one could buy anything in Foundry Town with the right connections. Is that still the case?"

  "What do you need?"

  "A machine infernale."

  "A bomb?" Ramon's eyes went wide. "You need a bomb?!"

  "Shh!" I shushed him. "Not so loud! Can you get one?"

  "I can get you grenades."

  I shook my head.

  "Army weaponry will not do. According to the papers, a homemade bomb was thrown into the carriage of the inspector general."

  Ramon Miro exhaled loudly, drank some wine and drummed his fingers on the edge of the table.

  "Just don't tell me you want to investigate that case. It isn't our level, Leo. Better stay out of it."

  "I'm not investigating that case, and I do not plan on drawing you into it, either," I admitted honestly, and didn't say one more word of truth after that. "I simply need to... frighten someone. If they blame it on anarchists, that would be ideal."

  I would have to kill Duke Logrin in any case, so I decided to do everything in my power to set the investigation down the wrong path. The Princess had promised to solve my problems with the police, but I knew I shouldn't rely too much on a person who hadn't come to her senses once in the last two months.

  Ramon looked attentively at me, as if he saw my tricks straight through and gave a heavy sigh.

  "Alright!" he turned his head decisively and smoothed over his short bristle of coarse black hair. "I'll help."

  "Do you have anyone particular in mind?"

  "There's a guy who owes me a favor, but you'll have to pay him."

  "I need the bomb tomorrow by ten in the morning," I warned.

  "Seriously?!" Ramon gasped. "Leo, this isn't just some trip to the grocer's!"

  "Tomorrow by ten."

  "I'll see what I can do."

  Ramon got up from the table, draining the glass in a few gulps and advised: "Call in the morning," then went out the door.

  I finished the goulash, asked for a link of salami and bottle of slivovitz to be packed in brown paper. I stuck them in the case, paid up and left the shop.

  It was now after six, and autumn's early twilight had begun to gradually creep up. The wind turned freshness into plain chill; I put on my peaked cap, raised the collar of my overcoat and walked to the nearest underground station. I went down and rode to the opposite end of the city, the port area. That neighborhood was not so familiar to me, so I'd need to take a look around when I got there.

  Shivering from the gusts of chilly wind, which raced over the cloudy water in high ripples, I stood for some time on the viewing platform. I watched the steam ships and opposite bank, lost in a haze of smoke then, with a heavy sigh, I walked onward.

  The street along the river was dammed with carts, but as for the pedestrian part of the embankment, there were few city dwellers; over my whole walk, I saw just a few hurried passers-by, two boys flying a snake kite, and a bearded caretaker sweeping the sidewalk with obvious laziness.

  Soon, around a bend in the river, I saw a small island totally occupied by a tall gloomy building. It had narrow barred loophole slits, sturdy walls of stone masonry, a sharply peaked parapet on a flat roof and towers fitted with machine-gun nests. The spotlights on the corner towers were not yet lit. The posted watchmen were carrying rifles, and the sunlight occasionally flickered off their barrels.

  Riverfort, where the Imperial Mint had been located for the last half century, was linked to the shore by an ancient wide arched bridge, but it wasn't used often. Usually, visitors arrived via the dock on the opposite side of the island fort.

  After evaluating the arch of the bridge, the slope of the sidewalk and the width of the embankment, I wiped sweat off my forehead and walked onward. The gunshot wound in my thigh was hurting more and more, but I was not so lazy I c
ouldn't make it a few blocks. Then, I turned off the embankment and started back down a parallel street. Here, my interest was piqued by the pass-through courtyards of apartment buildings with sharply peaked tiled roofs, chimney pipes billowing smoke and dormer windows. I was particularly drawn to a shed-covered wasteland between two manors, which just so happened to be opposite the entrance to the mint.

  On first glance, this seemed like an easy place to run after throwing a bomb. My plans could only be upset by nosy locals. On the benches in the shady little courtyards, there were gray-haired old ladies drinking beer with men who’d just gotten home from work. On the street there were groups of boys chasing rag-filled balls, and near the fences, younger kids swarmed around heaps of trash.

  But this was evening. What about midday?

  I had no idea.

  3

  WHEN A MAN has nowhere to go, where can he spend the night? Should he check into a hotel room, or just loaf around the empty streets until morning?

  My experience in the investigative police was telling me that doing such a thing was very unwise indeed. Beyond all doubt, my description had already been sent on to a detective posted at every large hotel, while the little boutique ones would most likely be passed through by investigators in uniform. Being detained for loitering in the city at night was a real hazard as well, though.

  Central Train Station? That would be scoured first of all. It would cost nothing to come across a police round-up there today.

  The capital was further and further immersed in twilight. In some places, the streets were lit with gas lamps. In others, there was bright electric lighting, both on posts and in glass displays and signs. Their glow stung my eyes and I wanted to clip my dark glasses on my nose, but I refrained. My predilection for black glasses certainly figured into all the lists of my distinguishing features.

  After taking an intrigued look, I stood at a wooden column to look at theater bills, but all my thoughts were occupied with where to spend the night. I did not want to crawl into some abandoned building or try and find shelter in a dusty attic.

  At that moment a police armored car turned my way from a neighboring street and, to the measured chirring of its engine, rolled unhurriedly along the curb. A constable standing on its running-board was illuminating the faces of passers-by with a swiveling light.

  I froze in place for a moment, but immediately cast off my consternation and walked down the sidewalk, feverishly looking down side passages. I felt an increasing urge to speed up, but my maneuvering would attract police attention even without that. If I were to begin making a fuss now, they would certainly decide to detain such a suspicious gentleman to determine his identity.

  As bad luck would have it, the buildings on my side of the street were pressed up one against the next, while the rare passages between walls were blocked by high fences. The powder engine rattled behind my back all the more distinctly, then I walked across the road right before the armored car with the confidence of a well-behaved citizen. I didn't stay long on the street and ducked quickly into an establishment with a characteristic name: Cinema.

  At the entrance, I had to pay for a ticket, then to the sounds of the dampened melody of the film pianist, I waited for the beginning of the next session in a smoky vestibule. There was no way to leave the building through the back door other than through the auditorium.

  Five minutes later, when the film changed over, I walked intentionally nonchalantly intending to slip unnoticed right through the exit. But much to my surprise, I found that I was interested in the title cards and took a seat on the edge of the next-to-last row. The movie was called La Momie, and, interestingly, it was in color. Done by hand, I supposed.

  The story had just begun to unfold when, behind me I heard the flick of a match, saw the reflection of a flame, and it began to smell tobacco.

  "A pitiful spectacle!" came a familiar voice with unhidden judgement. "You can make whole worlds in your head with the strength of your imagination, and you're sitting here staring at these colored pictures. Boy, you disappoint me."

  The albino exhaled a stream of thick stinking smoke at the ceiling, and shadows began flickering on the screen. The viewers started stirring and turning around; the ticket checker demanded the cigarette be put out with an angry whisper.

  By then, the beast had already dissolved in the darkness, and I showed my empty hands calmly. But my enjoyment was irrevocably spoiled. I didn't stay for the end of the film, walked to the back door and slipped outside. The dark narrow passage led back to the boulevard but, on a habit developed over years of policework, I evened out the edge of my peaked cap and froze in place, as if turned to a pillar of salt.

  A carriage rolling up to the cinema, and four strong boys in uniform with revolvers and electric torches hopped out. They ran inside, while the driver stayed on the driving box holding a four-barreled lupara on his knees.

  I turned sharply and walked away. As I did, I moved the case to my left hand, and stuck my right into my overcoat pocket for the revolver. But I made it. The darkness of the gloomy alley covered me.

  A few minutes later, I jumped onto the back square of a late-coming steam tram and rolled off toward Dürer-Platz. From there, I went on foot to Calvary, which was looming not far away. The hill, surrounded on all sides by the city, was only partially built on; it held the manors of retired army officers, diplomats and ministers hidden from the immodest gazes of the citizenry.

  Walking up the path around the slope of the hill, I diligently looked from side to side, but didn't experience particular anxiety. I came to the reasoned conclusion that the investigators wouldn't even think of doing a roundup here. My family mansion had been auctioned off, and no one could know that I had bought it through middlemen.

  On the bridge over the gully, I heard the usual grumbling in the dense gloom below, walked another hundred meters and saw some familiar gates with a Diabolic Plague quarantine sign, now finally faded and peeling. The dead trees of the garden had long been felled by wind, and all that remained of the three-story mansion was its foundation. But I still walked through the fence around the ruins right across the lawn, overgrown with tall grass.

  The collapsed basement of the mansion seemed like a dark grave, and I didn't even want to look that way, so I didn't. I just stood for a few minutes at one gravestone, then went to another. After that, I walked out past the fence and continued up to the top of the hill where, tossing my head up, I stared at the iron tower that formed its crown. The gigantic tower was no less than two hundred meters high and, rumor had it this had inspired the renowned Gustave Eiffel’s design of his even more grandiose building in Paris.

  Before my eyes, a blindingly bright zig-zag of lightning came down from the heavens, and the earth shook below my feet. A deafening clap of thunder rolled over the surrounding area.

  I smiled at the tower like an old friend– that's just what it was! –and went up to the viewing platform, which had an astonishing view of the city in the evening. New Babylon was already fully immersed in thick twilight; the central streets shone with the nervous luster of electric bulbs and the light glimmer of gas lights, but the further I looked, the more darkened sleeping districts met the eye. On the top of the tower, there were signal lights. There were similar lights blinking in the sky, showing the movement of a great many dirigibles.

  The viewing platform was strewn with litter. This place wasn’t cleaned all that often, and common people couldn’t be bothered to pick it up. I placed a newspaper down on a stone bench, sat down on it, giving my tired feet a rest, then opened my suitcase and took out the link of salami. I cut the sausage with my pen knife, weighed the bottle of slivovitz in my hand in thought, but decided not to consume any alcohol.

  I simply didn't need to.

  Looking over the city from the top of the hill, I took a piece of salami and started chewing it pensively.

  When I heard a vile creak of glass, I didn't even cock an ear. The Beast had come out of nowhere and taken th
e bottle of slivovitz, stuck a fearsome claw into the cork and easily pulled it out of the neck.

  "You don't object?" he chuckled, flashing his ghastly smile.

  "Drink," I allowed. "Just as I thought, you came to see the lights."

  "Have I become predictable?"

  "Basically, yeah."

  The beast pouted and walked away from me. I was only glad. The white skin of the albino seemed to be glowing from the inside, and having my imaginary friend nearby was making my teeth grind. The power of the fallen one was overflowing from the Beast, dissolving and changing his bodily shell. Now, it threatened to break out at any time and engulf me head and all.

  The albino overturned the bottle and glugged at it for some time, then gave a burp of satisfaction and wiped his wide maw with the back side of his hand. He went to the very edge of the precipice with the scratched-up bottle and I immediately heard a measured babbling.

  "It is pleasant to recognize that there is something unshakable in this life," I noted when the albino had come back.

  "You're overintellectualizing, Leo!" the Beast reproached me. After some silence, he added: "Don't be a dweeb!"

  "If you say so," I chuckled and started wiping the salami grease off my fingers. I didn't want to eat anymore for some reason.

  The albino grabbed a piece of sausage with his claw and sent it into his mouth, then turned back to the city. Lightning flashed overhead. The bench shook palpably, and thunder blasted out. I thought I smelled ozone, and the white hair of the Beast stood on end like the needles of a porcupine.

  "What do you think, when did everything go topsy-turvy?" I asked my imaginary friend, knowing perfectly well that I was asking myself.

  The Beast took a swig from the bottle, put a clawed finger to his temple and made a screw-loose motion.

  "D'you fall off an oak? For you, Leo, everything is great!"

  "Are you serious?"