The Dormant (The Sublime Electricity Book #4)

by Pavel Kornev

  Hearing that family name knocked me off track. After all, he had clearly been speaking about Abraham Witstein, Vice President of the banking house that carried his family name. A chance meeting with him in the hotel vestibule threatened to quickly and definitively upend my anonymity.

  Devil! I shouldn't have given in to Liliana and stayed in the Benjamin Franklin again. Devil take this sentimentality!

  I winced, threw open the door with a nervous shove and walked outside up to a porter in livery with a flowery pattern. In reply to his business-like grin, I smiled no less formally, threw a quick gaze over Emperor's Square, packed with frolicking public, and clipped my dark glasses on my nose.

  I got distracted for an instant, but that short moment decided everything.

  "Don't move! Hands up!" sounded out from behind me, and I froze at half step.

  My hand jumped to my jacket's side pocket all on its own, and I was barely able to jerk it away before the strong uniformed men all around me opened fire. They were holding their revolvers at the ready, fingers frozen on the triggers.

  The investigator behind me gave another order without delay:

  "On your knees! Hands behind your head!"

  I hesitated, but immediately decided that not wanting to dirty my pants on the paving stones was hardly an adequate reason to experience the effects of an electric discharge device. All I allowed myself was to get down on my knees unhurriedly, in a vain attempt to maintain the remnants of my dignity.

  Somewhere nearby, a powder engine barked out in rage, and a sluggish police armored car rolled out abruptly onto the square from an alley. Gawkers just gushed in from all sides, and a paper boy was nearly caught under the wheel, hurrying to roll his hand-cart out of the way.

  The investigator approached from the back, put my hands behind me, clinked some steel cuffs onto my wrists and, with a bit of gravity in his voice, announced:

  "Leopold Orso! You're under arrest for murder!"

  I breathed out a silent curse.

  My past had finally caught up to me. And, as is typical, it caught me at the very worst moment.

  "On your feet!"

  Ungracefully, due to my hands being bound behind my back, I stood from my knees and clarified:

  "And who did I kill?"

  "You can ask the investigator about that!" came the laconic reply, and I was shoved into the dark innards of the armored vehicle.

  2

  AN ARRESTEE is a creature without rights. From the moment of detention and until someone of the legal persuasion comes to the prison, they simply disappear, and absolutely anything could happen. Right up to falling off a bridge into the cloudy waters of the Yarden. And just about every other arrestee is subjected to arm twisting, kidney punches and strangling.

  But not in my case. The uniformed investigators who'd shoved me into the armored vehicle didn't ask me a single question over the whole ride, just held me in the sights of their revolvers. It was as if they were afraid I would break the handcuff chain and throw myself at them with fists.

  Fear. I could sense their fear.

  There were six guards against one of me, but they were clearly afraid, and that was truly strange.

  Had they heard about my talent? I doubted that greatly...

  Be that as it may, I didn't make even the slightest attempt to draw the investigators into conversation and figure out what I’d been accused of. I just sat in silence on the bench. I simply didn't want to give the nervous boys a reason to shoot me full of holes. I knew for certain that they would fire to kill without the slightest hesitation.

  THE POWDER ENGINE of the armored vehicle was sneezing measuredly, its powerful wheels cushioning the uneven spots in the paving stones. It only really shook when hitting very severe potholes, careening on the bench from one guard to the other. And then the light of day went dark, the gray of the sullen sky beyond the side window grates changed into the gloom of a garage, and the heavy self-propelled carriage came to a stop.

  The armored vehicle led me into the garage of the metropolitan police headquarters. In the jargon of the New Babylon’s jailbirds, this was called "getting checked into the Box."

  The investigator to my right unclipped the chain holding my handcuffs to the floor. The investigator to my left threw open the side door.

  "To the exit!" The policeman opposite me ordered.

  Whew, so many men just for little old me...

  But from there, it only got worse. In the spacious garage, I was awaited by constables armed with semi-automatic carbines and four-barreled luparas. My ankles were immediately clinked into shackles and, to the jingling of a steel chain, I started to amble down the corridor like an especially dangerous recidivist.

  The police administration building, huge and monumental, occupied a whole block and even went a few stories under the earth. A random person might get lost for hours in its confusing nooks and crannies, searching for the right door. In my days as a constable, I'd heard plenty of frightening stories about coworkers who disappeared without a trace simply by turning down the wrong corridor.

  To be honest, I was seriously afraid of sharing their fate but, just a couple minutes later, I was led into a small windowless room flooded with the blinding light of electric lamps.

  The search didn't take much time, if what they did could even be called a search. I had to simply remove all my clothes and, in exchange, pull on the striped uniform of an arrestee. My personal effects were placed into a canvas bag without a glance, and it was stamped with red wax seal.

  Our next stop was in the photo room. There, I was sat in a wooden chair adorned with a plethora of clamps and fasteners, which bore a certain resemblance to an electric chair. The phlegmatic photographer clamped my head in a vice to take a full-face photograph, followed by a profile shot. After that, the photographer captured all my tattoos, and the police clerk took my finger prints, smearing my hands in black ink and forcing me to place them against a sheet of thick yellowish paper.

  What followed was a total bore, measuring height and composing a list of distinguishing features. But it took no less than an hour. It became clear that, unlike my previous arrests, this was completely serious, as I was being processed in full accordance with protocol.

  What the devil?!

  And although I was still shaking in nervous agitation, I was in no hurry to set upon my former colleagues with questions. Soon. Everything would become clear soon. And, perhaps, I would even have pity for the fact I hadn't remained in blissful ignorance.

  But one thing was already clear: this arrest had nothing to do with my troubles this summer in Montecalida, because Thomas Smith had managed to quash all the accusations of my involvement in the murder of the Indian bartender, while the death of the Tacinis was blamed on an accident all the way back at the preliminary stage of the investigation. The coroner's report contained nary a word about suicide or bullet holes. It just mentioned the many wounds sustained in the collapse of the ancient building's floor.

  My tremors passed, and my fears flooded me with a grievous weight. It was taking me more and more effort to hold back the shaking, but I clenched my teeth stubbornly and started waiting for the end of the formal procedures. One thing was clear, that was totally certain: this was an official arrest, and not done at the behest of her Majesty's inner circle.

  This wasn't the Imperial Guard, and that left a decent chance this wouldend in my favor. And it didn't matter how serious the charges were–the wealthy were treated differently. I was no longer a moneyless ragamuffin, I could afford to hire the most famous lawyers in New Babylon. In the worst case, the trial would draw on for years but, in the best, I could be set free tonight.

  I really wanted to believe that...

  AFTER PROCESSING, to the measured clop of my shackled boots, the guards took me into the interrogation room.

  The lightbulbs under the ceiling were shining right into my eyes, but there was really no reason to look at anything here. The walls were thick and had damp, cra
cking plaster. The floor was dusty, and the furniture was all worn. Discounting the electric lighting, a criminal could have been interrogated in an identical room one or even two hundred years ago.

  The only other thing that stood out was the phonograph machine in the far corner. It was totally inappropriate for the cell.

  FOR SOME TIME, I squinted, trying to get a better look at the sound recording device, then I sat back in the uncomfortable chair and closed my eyes. I didn't open them even when, to the creak of rusty hinges, the door flew open.

  There was simply no need. I recognized the man who entered even with my lids shut. The aroma of his cologne and the subtle scent of expensive cigarettes was just too characteristic, instantly breaking up the musty damp of the chamber.

  "It's been so long since we've seen each other, inspector!" I chuckled to my old acquaintance.

  "Senior inspector!" Moran corrected me, throwing a fat folder of documents in front of him on the edge of the table. "Senior inspector, Mr. Orso. Senior. Don't you know the difference?"

  Bastian Moran hadn't changed one bit since our last meeting. His gaunt face was still marked by an aristocratic pallor, while his pomaded hair, sharply curved brows and thin lips made him look more like a decadent dandy than a policeman. His well-kept hands fully conformed with this, and his stylish suit and expensive vest with diamond buttons didn't let me down one bit. But it was all spoiled by the cold gray eyes of a hardened taker of souls.

  A cop, that's what he was. That wasn't meant as an insult. It was more like a prisoner's brand. Work makes its impression on us all.

  "Everything is ready!" the assistant declared, a new roller now in the phonograph.

  "Begin the recording!" Moran commanded.

  The police clerk started the device and, to a quiet bassy hum, it started to softly quiver and creak. The light in the cell flickered a few times but, to my greatest disappointment, the electric system was fairly resilient and there were no power failures.

  The assistant left the chamber and I, perfectly aware that every word I said would reach the report, couldn't hold back a barb:

  "You just keep grabbing respectable subjects of her majesty on the street. That's a quick path to a demotion... senior inspector."

  Bastian Moran arched a crooked brow in muted amazement.

  "Respectable?" he asked with mock surprise in his voice. "There is only one respectable subject of her majesty in this room, and you are not it, Leopold Orso. Or should I say Lev Shatunov?"

  The senior inspector asked, taking my new passport from the folder and throwing it onto the table with a contemptuous snort. In reply, I just shrugged my shoulders calmly.

  "However you want to call me."

  But my calm demeanor hardly made any impression on Moran. He curved his thin lips up into an acrid smile and declared:

  "A respectable man has no need for forged documents."

  "So, was I cuffed just for that?" I asked, clanking the steel chain. "Shall I remind you of the Imperial law on national passports? Don't forget, senior inspector, my grandfather was Russian. He took the last name Orso on his induction into the nobility..."

  And now, I wasn't bluffing one bit. Documents under the name Lev Borisovich Shatunov had been passed through all Imperial registries and, as a result, it wasn't particularly difficult for my attorney to draw up an official petition for a new passport and get it attached to the file backdated.

  It cost a small fortune, but it was worth it.

  I couldn't say that Bastian Moran's faced changed at these words, but he did take on a rarely confused appearance.

  "Leopold, are you aware that this statement is extremely easy to check?" the senior inspector asked.

  "The sooner you send a telegram to Petrograd, the sooner you'll have your answer," I answered calmly. "And the lower will be my restitution for illegal detention. I have quite a talented attorney, you know."

  Moran got up from the table and left the cell but returned very soon, most likely having given his assistant the mission of sending a telegram to Petrograd. He didn't get right back to questioning. Instead, he took a pack of Chesterfields from his pocket, lit one up and exhaled a stream of fragrant smoke at the ceiling.

  I winced for show.

  The senior inspector didn't pay any attention to my grimace, tapped the ash onto the floor, sat at the table again and started leafing through the file of documents, as if wanting to refresh his memory on the case materials. The ease with which his first charge was overturned was an unpleasant surprise for him.

  The tobacco smoke started making my throat itch but, when Bastian Moran put his cigarette out, I wasn't glad at all. With a very sharp and decisive movement, he pressed the butt into the edge of the ashtray, the surface of which was already stained with many dark spots.

  "So then, let's get down to business!" the senior inspector declared. "Are you ready, Leopold?"

  "Always," I smiled in reply, but my smile was crooked, masking nervousness with irony. In fact, I had shivers running up my spine.

  "Where were you the seventeenth of June this year?" the senior inspector asked and even leaned forward, as if trying to catch me off guard with an unexpected question.

  And he did. I snorted in reply, totally sincerely:

  "I have no idea. Do you remember where you were?"

  "I do," Moran confirmed. "Thanks to you, I don't have the most pleasant memories of that day. And, considering my lengthy service, that is no trivial matter."

  "You must be confused. We haven’t seen one another for more than a year."

  "Where were you on June seventeenth?" the senior inspector repeated his strange question.

  I moved my gaze away and started looking at the uneven cracking plaster on the walls, remembering the events of last summer. June? Where was I on June seventeenth?

  It was surprising but, as soon as I thought about it, the event of three months earlier rushed back into my memory. It wasn't so simple to forget being strangled around the neck by a garotte and falling into the abyss of unconsciousness.

  "No, I don't remember," I shook my head a little while later.

  "But you were in New Babylon on that day?"

  "That may well be."

  "You were," Bastian Moran declared confidently, and took the guest register from the Benjamin Franklin from the folder, with an official stamp from the hotel manager. "Here is indisputable proof of that fact."

  "May I?"

  "Please," the senior inspector pushed the sheet of paper to me.

  Next to the manager's signature was today's date, and that made me think for a long time. The arrest suddenly stopped seeming like the end of a prolonged search operation; more likely, I had merely fallen into the field of view of an old acquaintance.

  "I hope you will not claim that you were not yet Lev Shatunov then," Moran chuckled, taking a new cigarette from the pack.

  "You smoke too much," I warned him. "It's bad for the lungs."

  "Answer the question!"

  "In the middle of June, I did spend a few days in the capital, and it was at the Benjamin Franklin. Was that precisely the seventeenth? I can’t say I remember, but I have no reason to disbelieve the register. Let's suppose that, on that day, I was in New Babylon. What next?"

  Not showing any kind of satisfaction with my answer, the senior inspector took a deep draw on his cigarette, then put it out on the tabletop and calmly stated:

  "Your fingerprints were discovered at the scene of a crime."

  "Sure they were!" I laughed. "You're playing with me!"

  "Not at all."

  "I don't understand what you're talking about. This must be a misunderstanding."

  Bastian Moran was onto my game without a doubt but, because I was not denying or disavowing my presence in New Babylon, I had forced him to lay his last trump card on the table, whether he wanted to or not. To be more accurate, it was a pack of trump cards in the form of many spent pistol casings, photo-copies of fingerprints from my dossier and expert r
eports, reaffirmed by several blue stamps.

  "These casings were discovered at the scene of the crime," the senior inspector began laying out his version of events, "and the fingerprints taken from them matched yours, which we have on file. We have an expert report fully confirming that as well as a repeat investigation from today. And what, Leopold, do you have to say to that?"

  Sweat washed over me. It took considerable effort to hold a composed expression on my face. And did I even manage? I was sure Bastian could see straight through me.

  Wanting to draw out my time, I extended a hand for the photographs, but the chain was too short, stopping me from reaching them.

  "May I?" I then asked the senior inspector.

  Bastian Moran slid the stack of pictures over and shot me a relaxed smile.

  "No tricks, Leopold! And I'm sure that you will know even without my reminding you, that a full confession will lessen your punishment. Think about it! Think well!"

  I didn't answer at all, quickly looking at the pictures and moving my gaze to the Senior Inspector, but he had already returned the expert conclusions to the folder, not letting me familiarize myself with them. And that was truly strange: without expert testimony, all these photographs were a simple collection of unconnected shots. So, why then didn't Moran want to hammer the last nail into the top of my coffin?

  I was almost certain I knew the answer, and still my throat went dry, while my soul was pierced by a sharp attack of fear. My ears started ringing. Yes, I was afraid. And who could maintain their presence of spirit in my place? Life at a labor camp was not sweet, and the difference between being sent to harvest timber in snowy Siberia and being shipped somewhere nearer-by for hellish rock-breaking was not large. In any case, I would hardly be able to survive until the end of the term they’d give me for killing six people, even if they were Hindoos. It would not be too easy to prove that they were all Kali Stranglers and had attacked me first...

  Devil!

  Devil! Devil! Devil!

  Gathering my willpower, I suppressed the panic, turned my gaze away from Bastian Moran’s satisfied countenance and stared at a spot of falling plaster. The phonograph in the corner was humming measuredly as before, so I was in no rush to explain, carefully choosing the right words.