The Dormant (The Sublime Electricity Book #4)

by Pavel Kornev

  Squeezing the cigar between his thick fingers, the Beast started smoking and breathed a stream of stinky smoke in my direction. It was not a cheap cigar.

  "You don't want to ask what's wrong with me?" the albino finally broke the prolonged silence.

  "Chicken pox?" I joked.

  "Bugger!" the Beast cursed out and leaned over the table. "In the madhouse, they scrubbed your brains clean, boy! You stopped believing. You stopped believing in me, that's what's wrong with me!"

  The tobacco smoke made my eyes tear up; I pushed the cigar out of my imaginary friend's fingers and threw it in the tiny bit of rum at the bottom of the glass. It gave a hiss and went out.

  "When I was five, I completely forgot you existed and didn't remember until I was a legal adult! What's changed now?"

  "Power!" the albino barked, jumping off the table, the fringes of his torn jacket shooting upward like ghostly wings. "Everything was changed by that damn power!"

  "Power?" I didn't understand.

  "The power of the fallen one!"

  "And why did you eat his heart?"

  "Why?" the albino gnashed his teeth. The luster of his sunken eyes filled with a gloomy purple. "Well, do you know any other way to destroy such a monster once and for all?"

  I didn't.

  "I simply didn't have a choice," the Beast stated dully.

  "But you also wanted to devour it."

  "I did," the albino admitted and licked his lips with his long pink tongue. "Bugger! If only you knew how nice it is..."

  "Get to the point!" I demanded. Due to the rum I drank, I was feeling hazier and hazier, and I had no idea how long I would be able to remain conscious.

  The albino pointed a clawed finger at me and demanded:

  "Show me some respect! I saved your ass!"

  "Get to the point!" I repeated, getting up from the table and stumbling over to the washbasin with the uneven gait of a drunk. "Speak or bugger off!"

  However, I already knew. The leprechaun had swallowed too great a piece of power, and that had messed him up.

  "The power!" the Beast shouted out. "It burns from the inside! It is changing me! Turning me into something different! But I don't want to change! Do you understand? Bugger! I don't want to change!"

  "Does your back itch?" I asked, leaning over the sink.

  "Yes, and what of it?" the albino asked in simpleminded confusion.

  "You’re sprouting wings."

  "Bu-u-uger!" the Beast exhaled and, in his exclamation, I heard unhidden fear. He understood everything.

  I vomited; I turned on the water and washed up.

  "You shouldn't have eaten the fallen one's heart."

  "And you?!" the albino roared. "What about you? You ate one too! That redheaded vixen fed the whole thing to you!"

  "I'm a human, a higher being, and you're just a phantom created by my imagination. I stopped thinking about you, and you should have returned to nonexistence. But you couldn't. The strength of the fallen one held you on a hook and kept you in reality. Now, it is forming your appearance, not me."

  "So, turn it all back! I want to be like I was!" the Beast spoke up. "I don't want to change!"

  "No one does. But such is the order of things."

  "Put it all back!" the albino demanded. "Or this will not end well! You'll regret it!"

  I drank my fill of water, closed the tap and straightened up.

  "Look me in the eye," I demanded, touching my temple with my pointer finger. "Look and tell me what you see. Or to be accurate, what you don't see!"

  The Beast gave a loud sniff but kept silent.

  "Talent!" I hinted. "My talent was taken from me! And there's nothing to be done."

  But the albino didn't think so.

  "Find them, find them all," he demanded. "Find them and scare them to death. Or just kill them."

  "Do you think that will help?"

  "Oh yes!" my imaginary friend melted into a ghastly grin. "Don't you doubt it, boy. That always helps."

  "I'm not so sure."

  "Not sure?" the albino frowned and suddenly shouted: "Well, check! Try to make me like I was!"

  "I'll try."

  "Bugger!" the Beast cursed out, grabbing a glass from the table and throwing it full force at the wall. "Help me, Leo," he pleaded. "Help, otherwise I won't last long."

  I returned to the table and, without strength, collapsed onto the chair.

  "I don’t have the power."

  The albino just snorted.

  "After changing, becoming different, I'll come after you, do you understand that?" he asked.

  I nodded.

  "Then get your ass out of that chair and start saving us!"

  Instead of an answer, I stuck up my middle finger.

  "Bugger!" the albino cursed, sharply turning and, in one moment, melting into the shadows, as if he had never been here at all.

  And maybe he hadn't, and this had all happened only in my head. I didn't delve too far into the issue. I just fell chest-first on the tabletop placed my hands under my head and closed my eyes.

  Did I fall asleep? No, more likely, I simply stopped existing in the here and now...

  2

  RAMON RATTLED ME when the sun had already begun to shine through the window, which was not totally obscured by its curtain.

  "Leo!" he said, grabbing me by the shoulder. "Leo, get up!"

  I peeled myself off the table and looked around, not having the strength to realize where I was, or how I'd come to be here.

  "Leo!" Ramon shook me again. "Are you alright?"

  "No," I answered shortly, getting up from the table and hurrying to the wash basin on my failing legs. I drank right from the tap, washing away the nasty sugarplum flavor, then washed up and looked in the mirror with hope, but there hadn't been a miracle: my eyes were still clear as glass.

  "Tito said you were speaking in two voices," Ramon said thoughtfully. "I don't believe in the story of Jekyll and Hyde, but understand what I'm saying: they don't just take any old people off the street and plop them in Gottlieb Burckhardt..."

  The hulking man stopped short; I turned and saw that he was looking at a glass with a cigar put out in the rest of some rum.

  "What the devil?!" Ramon gasped.

  I walked over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and looked him in the eyes.

  "Fifty thousand."

  The grandiose sum instantly distracted my friend from all the discord and lunacy. He shook his head, winced in annoyance and pointed to the door.

  "Let's go, I found your poet. He lives on Yablochkov Street. It's downtown."

  We went outside, and I shivered in the brisk wind. It was chilly. The autumn sun, dimmed by smog, was peeking out in the gap between the dense clouds. And suddenly, I felt unbelievably calm and nice. There were no walls around me, no bars. Sky, fresh air, sun. A godsend. It made my head spin...

  "Want a cloak?" Ramon offered, having changed his sergeant's uniform into pants and a jacket of a subdued brown shade.

  "Give me a pistol," I asked, coming down from the porch.

  Ramon gave a loud sniffle and, I saw doubts roll over his ruddy high-cheekboned face.

  "We'll take you there," he reminded me.

  "Take me there," I nodded and leaned on the porch railing. "But a pistol still wouldn't hurt."

  "I no longer keep an arsenal at home," the hulking man refused and clapped a rumpled cap on the crown of his head. "And I'd imagine you know why, isn't that right?"

  Department Three investigators could show up here at any time with a search warrant, and I didn't have to doubt my friend's words, but I also wanted to acquire a firearm and wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  "Barrel, Ramon. I need a barrel. I am in no state to run or fight right now, and I am not going back to Gottlieb Burckhardt. I know for certain that you have something on you..."

  "You said it was a misunderstanding!"

  "I still need time to smooth over the formalities!"

  Ramon r
olled his eyes, then pulled the Webley-Fosbery from his belt holster and handed it to me.

  "Will this do?"

  I agreed without a second thought.

  "Perfect!"

  "Need a holster?" Miro asked, beginning to undo his belt.

  "Keep it," I refused, waggling the gun in my hand. The huge revolver weighed just over a kilogram and, at that, its six-round drum turned automatically after firing, and the hammer also cocked on its own. Four-hundred-fifty-five caliber rounds were distinguished by a respectable stopping power; once upon a time, Ramon had managed to stop a werebeast by filling it with seventeen-gram bullets practically at point blank range. It hadn’t stayed down for long, but still. A person would be easily laid low by just one such lead pill.

  Miro ran his gaze over the revolver with pity, shook his head and walked to the garage. In its wide-open doors, the mud-streaked nose of the armored car glistened. The investigator's nephew had already poured water into the radiator and was now filling the engine with granulated TNT.

  I peeled myself off the porch railing and could barely stand but my vertigo soon passed, and I had no need for anyone's help.

  "Ramon!" I threw out to my friend.

  "Yes?" the big man turned around.

  "How'd you manage to score a TNT license?"

  "I have connections," Miro said, not revealing anything and extending me the hospital chart. "Here, this is yours."

  I sat down on the armored vehicle's running board, setting my revolver down next to me and, opening the cardboard cover, started quickly looking through the sheets of paper. I didn't discover anything interesting there, just standard medical records, an invention from the first to the last word. The professor hadn't entrusted his card cabinet with information about the experimental electroshock therapy and must have been keeping the real information some other place.

  I remembered his notepad, sighed and asked Ramon:

  "You got a light?"

  Miro patted down his pockets and pulled out a box of matches. Not waiting for me to ask, he struck the reddish tip on the rough sole of his boot and, with a loud hiss, a smoky fire started in the gloom of the garage. I set the edge of a sheet to it and the flame began to quickly devour the dry paper. A black, weightless ash flew up to the ceiling.

  The smoke attracted Tito's attention; he was looking at us with unhidden disapproval, but wasn't sure if he should tell his uncle. Instead, he walked over to the barrels in the corner of the yard and returned with a bucket. When the paper had burned through, the boy carefully poured water on the ash and smoldering cardboard.

  "Alright, let's go!" Ramon hurried me along.

  With a revolver in my hand, I got into the back and, without strength, fell back on the bench. Tito pulled on the driving gloves, took a seat at the wheel and, in a few turns, maneuvered the awkward armored car out of the garage and into the yard. It took long enough for Ramon to go into the house and return with a semi-automatic rifle in his hands.

  "There's always problems with you, Leo," he grumbled, answering my unasked question. He threw a travel bag of extra magazines on the bench.

  Ramon Miro was worried about potential problems, but the armored car drove through the gates and calmly rolled down the road between the manufactories, their smokestacks puffing away dismally. No one blocked our way, no one shot at us, and no one tried to make us stop.

  Such a start to the trip did nothing to calm Ramon's nerves. He loaded a round and started looking in agitation out the barred side window. I only laughed at his fears.

  Professor Berliger was highly unlikely to raise a stink. No board of doctors would pronounce me a madman, no court decision would ever put me back into Gottlieb Burckhardt. What was more, his attempt to turn the illustrious into normal people was not some scientifically pioneering research. It was just arrogantly playing god, metaphysics at its most provocative and, beyond that, state treason.

  I was also not at all afraid I would be accused of killing the orderlies, because no one had bothered gathering evidence of my guilt. As soon as the case reached court, it would fall to bits like a house of cards. With such process violations, even the craftiest prosecutor couldn't get a guilty verdict.

  I was somewhat more worried by the leprechaun's warning. My imaginary friend, who had undergone such a terrifying metamorphosis had not been exaggerating one bit: if the power of the fallen one took the reins, we would both be in for some shit.

  But how to return the albino pipsqueak his former appearance if my illustrious talent would no longer obey me?

  A little rain started sprinkling, droplets rustling on the roof. Ramon relaxed somewhat, sat back on the bench and asked:

  "How are you planning to pay up?"

  "Easily," I laughed, and when I saw veins bulging on my friend's face, I told him the address of my attorney's office.

  "And what should I do with that?" Ramon frowned.

  "Pick up the maître and take him to Brandt's. We'll fill out a transfer."

  "You can just slice off fifty grand no problem?" the hulking man doubted.

  "Why the devil did you pull me out of the clinic, if you didn't believe I could pay?"

  "I had no doubt, I simply supposed you would ask to pay later. And after all, you and I are friends, right?"

  "We are," I confirmed, sensing that my former partner hadn't quite finished his thought. "Something else?"

  "No," Ramon shook his head and looked back out the window. "We're almost there."

  "What has you worried?"

  "Other than raiding a psychiatric clinic?"

  "Other than that, yes."

  "The guy who came to tell me..."

  "As I said, I don't know him!"

  "Understand what I'm getting at: there will be more problems with him," Ramon sighed. "And don't ask me to get rid of him, alright?"

  "I won't," I groaned, not feeling any certainty in that.

  At that moment, the armored car slowed its pace, then came to a complete stop. Ramon threw open the side door and pointed to a tidy two-story house.

  "Here's you."

  I got out of the armored car onto the uneven paving stone of the sidewalk, and suddenly had an attack of vertigo. I had to sit down on the running board.

  "Need help?" Ramon asked.

  "No," I refused, looking at the narrow street. Its houses were pressed up one to the next like stray dogs on a cold night. The only difference from one to the next was the darkened copper numbers on the walls and the planters of withered flowers on their windowsills. The pollution and soot of the city didn't leave the plants a single chance to brighten the view of passers-by.

  In every other way, the street also looked gray, wet and unremarkable. It didn't look at all like the places the poet had preferred to live before.

  "You're sure it's here?" I doubted.

  "I inquired with the Imperial Theater," Ramon confirmed.

  "Well, if you say so..."

  I extended a hand. The hulking man helped me up from the running board and warned:

  "We'll wait."

  "That's nice," I agreed, even though smoke was coming out of the pipe on the steep tiled roof.

  If Albert was not home, I would not be allowed in looking like this. I know I wouldn't listen to a thin barefooted wanderer with long gray stubble and clumps of unevenly cut hair, who was crammed into slightly dirty second-hand clothes that didn't fit right...

  But there was nothing to be done. I schlepped myself up the cold stone stairs to the house and gave a few raps of the knocker on its copper plate. At first, nothing happened, then I heard footsteps, the door peeked open and a middle-aged lady in an austere dress and bonnet stared out at me in astonishment.

  "We don't give charity!" the housekeeper declared with a clear English accent and tried to close the door, but I managed to block it with my bare foot. It squeezed and hurt.

  "Is Albert home?"

  The old lady with the prim and proper face of a grandmother hesitated for a moment, then said in anno
yance:

  "Go away, or I'll call the police!"

  In bygone times, Albert Brandt himself would come home looking like this quite often, but I didn't say anything about that, just asked:

  "What do you see behind my back?"

  Although the armored vehicle Ramon had stolen didn't have any emblems or side numbers, and the Gatling gun had been removed from the tower before its sale, few could distinguish it from a real police self-propelled vehicle on first glance. The lady had her doubts.

  "How do you know..." she started, but I immediately heard the fast clacking of heels behind her, as if someone was running down the stairs from the second story.

  "Has something happened?" asked a pleasant female voice and, without missing a beat, a joyful cry sounded out: "Leo!"

  Liliana jumped out of the house and threw herself around my neck, nearly knocking me off my feet.

  "Leo! You came back!" Laughing and overcome with tears at the same time, my girlfriend hung off me. "I knew it! I knew you'd come back!"

  It was as if Lily's arrival gave me strength and, by some miracle, I managed to stay on my feet.

  "Let's go inside," I suggested, sensing my knees giving out.

  Liliana wasn’t listening, and I had to walk in on my own, pulling my girlfriend after me. The housekeeper quickly closed the door behind us, not wanting to attract our neighbors' attention with such a piquant scene and, in that regard, I was in complete agreement.

  "Leo, my beloved!" Liliana squeezed herself to me. "I was waiting for you with bated breath, I was so hopeful!"

  I kissed her, forcing her to go silent, then quietly whispered in her ear:

  "Thank you for believing in me. Without your faith, I'd have never made it."

  It was as if Liliana woke up, took a step back and looked at me from the side:

  "Oh, Leo!" she gasped. "You look horrid! You're so thin! You need to get in bed right this instant!"

  "I'm completely fine!"

  "I won't even argue!" Lily cut me off. "When was the last time you had a hot meal? Missus Hardy, cook some..."

  "Broth," I asked, because there was nothing more my stomach could take at this point.

  "Yes, broth!" Liliana confirmed. "And call the theater, tell Albert that Leopold has returned."