The Fallen (The Sublime Electricity Book #3)

by Pavel Kornev

  The Indian emigrant community in New Babylon had never been very large or influential and, in my time with the police, had never caused any problems. I said as much to my friend.

  "Lots has changed in the last year," Ramon sighed. "Plague, uprisings, stranglers, famine. Many are leaving their home in search of a better life. And though a good number are making for the New World or London, some are also staying here."

  I nodded. Indians, as subjects of her Imperial Majesty, had a much easier time getting set up in New Babylon than immigrants from Great Egypt, Persia or the Celestial Kingdom.

  "And it isn't only law-abiding types either," my former partner explained.

  "Are you talking about the thugees?"

  "Call them what you will," Ramon frowned. "What difference does it make who does the strangling? Could be a cultist, an assassin or a mugger. The Indians have almost completely squeezed out the Persians. Even the locals have lost ground."

  "Are you trying to say no one will talk to us? They don't give up their own?"

  "There is someone you could try to pressure," Ramon suggested without particular enthusiasm. "I know a guy, who provides documents to new arrivals and finds work for them."

  "Who is he?"

  "The local healer. Trades in opium and fake passports. Wanna go have a talk with him?"

  "Sure, what’ll it take?"

  "Money," Ramon responded predictably.

  "For you or him?"

  "Us."

  "Us meaning...?"

  "Me, my cousin and my nephew. I'm not going down there alone."

  "I'll be with you."

  "Obviously," Ramon nodded. "I'll need a three-hundred-franc advance. If you get what you’re after, it’ll be another three. And another on top of that if there are any... excesses."

  "Look at you with the big words," I winced, but didn't try to talk him down and thumbed out three hundred-franc bills. "I need a weapon."

  "We can provide one."

  Ramon unlocked the safe, stashed the money and told me to follow him.

  "Let's go!" On the first floor, he ordered his cousin to get ready. He went into the back room, drove his knife blade between the floor boards and called: "Leo, a hand."

  The two of us lifted the hatch in the floorboards and went down into the basement. There was no light down there. Ramon turned on his portable electric torch.

  I looked around and whistled in amazement. The medium-sized room was filled with boxes of weapons.

  "How’d a guy like you come into all this wealth?"

  "I have connections in the port," he told me, jerking open the lid of one of the wooden boxes. Inside, there were pistols coated in machine grease and wrapped in paper. The upper pair were already cleaned and ready to use.

  I picked up one of the massive angular pistols, squeezed its straight wooden-plated handle, then pulled back the hammer with my thumb. The pistol had one very desirable feature: a titanium slide, making it less sensitive to otherworldly attacks and infernal creatures. And although that didn’t mean misfires were impossible, the risk of finding myself unarmed in a conflict with an underworld emigre was still reduced, and fairly significantly at that.

  "Feels nice in the hand," I said, setting forth my verdict and raised the weapon to the torch light. The slide was engraved with a logo: Steyr-1878, and a bit lower it said: Titan. "What’s the model?"

  "Steyr-Hahn," Ramon answered, setting out a leather holster, a couple clips and two boxes of bullets. "The caliber is nine by twenty-three. It packs a punch."

  "I've never even heard of such a thing."

  "It was released this year by the Austrians," said the hulking man, taking the second pistol for himself. "The entire first run was sent to the rebels in Rio de Janeiro."

  "Well, almost the entire run."

  "When being transferred between ships in port, a few boxes may have gotten lost," Ramon snorted and pulled two rifles with unfamiliar looking conoid drums from a gun rack.

  "Finding bullets will be a big problem," I noted, leaving the basement up the stairs.

  "All you have to do is ask," Miro laughed. "Wanna try it out?"

  "Could you set that up?"

  "You offend me!"

  We went into the back yard, and Ramon threw open the creaky warehouse door. The room was long and empty, with sturdy stone walls and boxes stacked on top of one another at the far end. Light penetrated only through a skylight in the ceiling.

  "Sometimes, we store goods from the manufactory here when a big order comes in," my former partner told me.

  I set the pistol, clips and rounds on the dusty table and asked:

  "Where should I shoot?"

  "Just shoot at the boxes."

  Loading the Steyr-Han was no trouble. I just pulled back the bolt and popped three rounds into the breech. I took it off slide stop, held the gun in two hands, aimed at a box and pulled down on the trigger. With a thunderous clap, chips of wood went flying. Another two bullets sank down near the first hole; I was satisfied with the result.

  By the time Ramon and I had returned, his mustached cousin had changed out of his clean loose-cut shirt and into a set of police-issue trousers and a jacket with constable patches. I gave a bewildered chuckle, but didn't make any remark. Or rather, I kept silent at first, but then Ramon came down from the second floor in the very same getup.

  "Won’t you end up in hot water dressed like that?"

  "No," the hulking man answered calmly. He drew out his neck, trying to button up the high collar. "This isn’t our first time."

  "Let me help," I offered, fastening the button and noting that the collar was stiff and elastic, as if stiffened with whalebone. In my day, the collar had been free-standing.

  Ramon snapped his fingers at his neck and chuckled.

  "We took a lesson from our English colleagues."

  "So you can't be strangled?" I guessed.

  "Basically, yeah," he confirmed. "Some police were so afraid they stopped coming to work."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Leo, lots of water has passed under the bridge since your departure. Now, anyone can end up with a knot around their neck, and everyone will blame it on the thugees."

  "I won't dispute that." I sat at the table, opened the box of bullets and started loading a clip. "But how are you going to walk around town looking like that?"

  "It's easy!" Ramon laughed and pointed at the window. "Look!"

  I walked up to him and whistled in surprise. The gates, which I had earlier not even noticed, were now thrown wide open, revealing Ramon’s nephew pouring water into the radiator of a police armored vehicle.

  "Just don't tell me you stole it."

  "No, we bought it decommissioned," Ramon reassured me. "Alright, let's go. You can load the pistol on the way, let's not waste time."

  The investigator's cousin and nephew got into the cabin. Ramon and I climbed into the back, sitting on benches. The powder engine started up and the vehicle bed underfoot started shaking palpably, then the self-propelled carriage started off down the road.

  "So then, it's like this! You're a detective sergeant," said the investigator, raising my rank. "You'll be asking the questions. We're just backup. Sound good?"

  "Sounds good," I nodded and pulled back the slide. I placed the clip into the slot and pushed the bullets into the magazine in a well-practiced motion. As soon as I'd pulled out the empty stripper clip, the bolt moved back into place with a pleasant metallic clang.

  I placed the safety on the gun and stashed it in the holster.

  "Where are we headed?" I asked Ramon.

  "Northwest," the investigator waved his hand indeterminately and warned: "But still, try to take on the interrogation alone. I wouldn't want to have to beat the answers out of him. Plus, it'll be cheaper for you."

  "Do you doubt my abilities?"

  "Not really. But have you ever had to come up against thugees?"

  "I have not," I confirmed, in that I knew only that the stranglers' favorite we
apons were weighted kerchiefs called rumals, fine daggers and poison.

  "The leader of a thuggee group is called a jemadar," Ramon said. "The bhutot is second after him. They say only he has the right to strangle with a kerchief. The shumseeas are his backup. If something goes wrong, they hold down the victim's arms and legs until they're strangled. There’s also the sothaees. They’re the ones that trick the victims into hidden places."

  I sighed.

  "Good to know, but for now I don't see how that helps us."

  "I've never understood how your talent works." Ramon answered calmly. "It might come in handy."

  "Anything is possible."

  At first, the armored vehicle was driving quite fast, then the pace of the self-propelled carriage came down and we started palpably bouncing on the uneven paving stones. I took another look out the window and saw that the factory outskirts had been left behind and we were now rolling down a cart-jammed road, lined with the long facades of gloomy guesthouses.

  Residential areas for working folk. Smog, sorrow and despondency.

  "What did that Indian do?" Ramon suddenly asked.

  I could have easily avoided answering, but saw no reason for secrecy.

  "He slipped something into my lemonade."

  "But your lemonade is sacred!" the investigator laughed.

  "You're telling me," I chuckled and, in my turn, wondered: "Still not married?"

  "No. But I'm dating."

  "Understandable. And how's work?"

  Ramon patted the inner wall of the armored vehicle.

  "About like this. As I'm sure you understand, I don't often get called out to lure cats down from trees."

  I nodded, noting to myself the confidence with which the former constable held himself in uniform. This kind of masquerade was old hat to him.

  "And what about you?" Ramon asked, checking his pistol. "Where'd you disappear off to?"

  "I came into my inheritance and decided to see the world. Has anyone been asking about me?"

  "I was called to Department Three a few times," the hulking man told me, "but nothing for over a year. Oh yeah! Did you hear that Maestro Marlini was released without trial? Wasn't it you that caught him red-handed?"

  "I heard, yeah," I frowned, not wanting to discuss it. "Not a word about me, alright?"

  "Noted."

  At that moment, the armored vehicle turned off the packed street. The engine gave a bark and rolled down the alley, splashing up the mud and slop that abundantly filled the potholes and cracks in the road. An air horn honked out demandingly. A swarm of grubby little ragamuffins dispersed rapidly. The adult inhabitants of the slums weren't distinguished by particular cleanliness, either.

  The swarthy mustached men, many in turbans and traditional garb, followed our police armored vehicle with such unkind gazes that the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I started involuntarily feeling remorse that my jacket was missing a hard, standing collar like those on the police uniforms.

  Complete rot. If I were to suspect every Indian of being a Kali Strangler, I'd go utterly mad in short order. That would no longer be mere paranoia. At that point, it becomes bog-standard manic-depressive disorder.

  On the first floors of the buildings, there were small shops and stalls. One person was cooking right on the street. The unfamiliar aroma of exotic grub was so strong it even reached me in the back of the car. Ramon's cousin was driving the self-propelled carriage confidently, never reducing his speed. And although the local inhabitants looked unhappy to be made to clear the road, they managed to avoid falling under the car's wheel time and again. Sly dogs getting the knack...

  "We're getting close!" Ramon warned and put on his uniform peaked cap. "Are you ready?"

  "Was I ever not?" I laughed.

  The armored vehicle braked sharply, skidding a bit past our destination. Ramon was then the first to hop out of the side door. He handed a rifle to his cousin, and threw a second to his nephew, then jumped into a small snack bar on the first floor of the corner building with his billyclub and pistol. The cook grabbed a long carving knife and walked out to greet us. Ramon didn't pause, laying into him with the rubber-coated police baton. Electric shock sparked out. The Indian let the knife fall and collapsed to his knees.

  "Nobody move! This is a raid!" the investigator shouted out, waving his pistol.

  The visitors were still frozen in place. Then, Ramon walked up to a swarthy old man with a noble shock of silver hair and a thick mustache, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the second-story stairwell.

  "Move your feet!" he growled. "Come on!"

  The Indian tucked his head into his shoulders and started hobbling up the creaky steps. The chef tried to stand, but the investigator's cousin gave him a smack with the butt-stock and sent him to the floor. With a foot, he sent the knife aside and pointed his rifle at the visitors, who were starting to chatter. And silence came over the room again.

  I was in no hurry. I removed my glasses, wiped them carefully with a handkerchief and, before returning them to my nose, noticed the gawkers already gathering outside. They took a fast step back. Indians were afraid of illustrious, thinking we drew the evil eye.

  Although the clang of the bolt being pulled also had a role to play. Ramon's nephew had his rifle at the ready and placed his boot into the running board of the armored vehicle, preparing to open fire at the slightest sign of danger.

  I made sure the situation was under control and walked into the snack shop. The cook was lying on the floor as before. A middle-aged woman was staring at me in fear. Once on the stairs, I allowed myself a careless wave of the hand, and she ran over to her stunned husband holding a wet rag. Ramon's cousin walked away from him to the door and continued pacifying the crowd, rifle in hand.

  In the spacious second-story room, it smelled strongly of incense. There were cabinets everywhere with incomprehensible bottles and jars with tightly closed glass lids on the shelves. There were towering canvas bags and wreathes of herbs. The proprietor was sitting on a low sofa with his hands behind his head, while Ramon stood next to him, clapping the club in his hand. When I appeared, no one said a word.

  And I didn't rush things, either. At first, I moved a wooden stool into the center of the room and demonstratively wiped the dust from the seat, then sat, throwing one leg over the other and giving an expressive smile.

  I was fully aware that I was subconsciously imitating my former boss, the late Inspector White, but I didn't experience any discomfort over that fact. He had a strong grasp of his profession, and it’d be a sin to let his vast experience go to waste.

  "So then, he doesn't want to work with us," I said a minute or two later, having caught an uncomfortable gaze from Ramon. "Great! Let's take him down to the station, and teach him good sense."

  "Sir..."

  "That's detective sergeant to you!"

  "Mr. detective sergeant! I do not understand what is happening! No one has told me anything!"

  The Indian drew closer to me, and Ramon quickly shot out:

  "Hands on your head!"

  The healer sat back down. Meanwhile, I got up from the stool and unfolded the portrait of the bartender.

  "Recognize him?"

  "No," the Indian quickly answered.

  "Take a closer look." I suggested, twisting my lips into an unkind smile.

  This time, the Indian studied the portrait far longer, but still couldn't identify the runaway bartender.

  "I've never seen this man before," he declared.

  "Think harder."

  "I swear!"

  "Does the name Akshay Roshan ring any bells?"

  "I've never heard it," the Indian assured me, but I didn't believe him.

  His voice creaked. Recognition didn't flicker by in his eyes. His forehead didn’t even perspire, but still, behind the mask of composure, a fear fluttered up. There was a very slight flinch in the soul of the man sitting on the low sofa, and that was all I needed to latch into him and pincer the trut
h out.

  Figuratively pincer – that is. There simply wasn't time for proper torture. Based on the hubbub coming in through the window, the crowd on the street was only getting bigger. And it didn't matter if the local inhabitants tried to intervene in favor of their respected countryman, or the police showed up on a noise complaint – either eventuality threatened us with very serious troubles.

  "So that means you don't want to work with me," I sighed and commanded: "Cuff him. We're taking him with us."

  Ramon clinked the steel bracelets with a composed look. As he did, I paced the room, carefully studying the mixtures and potions. To be more accurate, pretending I was interested in the vials and flasks, but in fact observing the owner's reaction. His fear was fluttering faster and faster, and fear can function as a skeleton key that lets one open even the most inveterate diehard like an empty suitcase. I needed only to apply my talent...

  "On what charge?!" the old Indian shouted when Ramon pulled the man’s hands behind his back. "This is an outrage!"

  "Making poisons for the thugees – how's that for a charge?" I inquired, studying his herb collection. "And anti-scientific activity. I can’t promise the noose, but a person of your age won't last long in a Siberian work camp."

  "But none of that is true!"

  The truth was of no interest to me, though. I picked up one little bottle after the other and soon felt our detainee's heart seizing in mortal terror.

  "There!" I turned to the Indian with a small bottle, sealed with a resined wooden stopper. "This one is the poison, isn't it? No? I'm sure this is poison."

  "You've got it all wrong!" the old man moaned. "I'm a healer!"

  "And you make poison for the thugees on the side, it all adds up."

  "No! That one is for abortions!" the healer cried out.

  "Then it really is poison," Ramon noted with a fastidious grimace, demanding: "On your feet!"

  "No, please!" the Indian begged. "Please, don't do this! I'll tell you everything I know!"

  Tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks, and it was not merely some pitiful display; it was as if I could physically feel my illustrious talent sinking into the consciousness of this man, who was scared to death. He could already see himself in the midst of the snowy Siberian taiga. Quite an odd bird, really, to believe a threat like that. Charged with this crime, he'd be lucky to end up in the work camp. He'd be strung up and hung until expiration.