The Illustrious (The Sublime Electricity Book #1)

by Pavel Kornev

  "Take a seat!" Robert White ordered him, and asked: "Have you heard any rumors recently about a bank robbery?"

  "Nothing, total silence," the constable shook his head after a moment in thought.

  "Can you tell me anything about a tall, hunchbacked Judean with a tattoo either of an eel or a snake on his right arm?"

  This time, Jimmy answered without hesitation:

  "Uri Katz, alias: 'the Loach.' He was sentenced to five years breaking rocks for robbing a store. He might already be out."

  "Is that so?" The inspector said in surprise, then ordered: "Find out about him, Jimmy. And that's enough drinking. It’s looking like we have plans tonight..."

  I took advantage of the pause and took a few sips of my tomato soup. It was salty and hot.

  WE MADE FOR THE CRIME SCENE with the city already enshrouded in twilight. We walked quietly and unnoticed, like spies from an enemy nation. Our field team was rolling down Newtonstraat, which was illuminated by streetlights. All you had to do was turn off it, though, and the murk grew impenetrable once again. The darkness was somehow dispersed by nothing but the meager light of the gas lamps, just having finished being lit by the lamplighters, who ambled with their ladders under-arm from post to post before themselves disappearing. In the dark alleyways of the older neighborhoods, Nix reigned unchallenged, despite the fact that every restaurant was adorned with a flickering lamp, and dull beams of light shot out from the odd slit in cracked blinds.

  Jimmy was driving the carriage; he had lit the kerosene lamp, but it wasn't lighting our path so much as it was advertising our coming in the darkness. Without it, we might just run into someone or run over a drunk laying in the street. We also, naturally, were carrying electric torches, but using them would have been equivalent to loudly announcing that a police division was rolling down the street.

  And there was no reason to do that. Now, our carriage was visually indistinguishable from a private car. Jimmy had even changed his uniform out for a pair of scuffed-up trousers and a checkered jacket, while the others were hiding inside the vehicle from the immodest gazes of passers-by.

  Robert White was sitting on a bench, straight as a bayonet. Only his fingers running incessantly over the top of his electric torch betrayed his discomfort. Ramon set his still-unloaded lupara butt-first on the ground, leaned on it and started dozing off. Billy, though, was holding onto the semi-automatic carbines left near the wall, one for him and another for his partner, chewing measuredly on a wad of tobacco, which occasionally gave his already high-cheekbone-d face, with its wide slit of a frog-like mouth, a totally grotesque appearance.

  I took the tin from my pocket and threw a sugar-drop into my mouth; it was mint flavor.

  "You'll ruin your teeth," Billy smirked with an uncommon calm, like a neurotic after taking opiated patent medicine.

  "Look at your own," I retorted, pulling a face.

  There was no tooth powder in the world that could get rid of the brownish shade left by tobacco, but aficionados of the simple pleasure were left with no other choice since the manufacturer of patented rubber chewing gum had ceased operation due to lack of raw materials. And there was no reason to expect the rubber supply problem to improve in the next few weeks: the plantations in Ceylon and Zuid-India couldn't satisfy all the demand, and there was no discussion at all of renewing trade with the Aztecs. What was more, if there was another flare-up in the Sea of Judea, merchant vessels would have to be sent all the way around Africa, because the military fleets of Great Egypt and Persia were capable of covering both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Even air-superiority wouldn't be able to provide adequate support to the merchant fleet, in that our dirigibles would need to stay within range of our fortresses on the north of the Island of Arabia.

  Billy just chuckled at my remark, opened the curtain and spit onto the street. Ramon took a look over his shoulder, shuddered, chasing off his sleepiness, and snapped open the barrels of his lupara. After that, he removed a solid round from his bandoleer with a lead slug in an aluminum jacket and slipped it into one of the chambers in a well-practiced motion.

  There was no need for such a powerful weapon when arresting every-day burglars, but you never knew who you'd end up coming across on the dark little streets of our restless city. Regardless, fifty grams of white-hot death could bring down even a demon; not for long, but it was something.

  The main disadvantages of this four-barreled monster, produced at the Heim Weapons Manufactory, were its strong recoil and considerable weight. In our division, the only one who could handle one comfortably was Ramon.

  Just then, a distinctive knock came on the wall, and the flickering of the kerosene lamps was immediately extinguished; Ramon loaded his last round and hurried to click the barrels shut.

  "Are we close by?" He clarified.

  "We are," the inspector said and, after throwing back the tails of his cloak, checked to make sure his six-chambered Hydra would come easily out of its holster.

  The Cerberus's older brother looked like a many-barreled revolver and was renowned for three reasons: its extreme resistance to malefic spells and the otherworldly attacks of infernal creatures – after all, electricity is stronger than magic! – and its unwieldiness and overly time-consuming reloading procedure. For those reasons, the Hydra did not enjoy particular popularity among policemen. And I generally shared the opinion that it would have been better if the engineers of the Tesla Weapons Factories had stopped at the three-shot Cerberus.

  Our carriage began slowing its pace, and then the inspector commanded Billy:

  "You, guard the exit. Stay on Mihelson Street."

  The constable flung open the doors, handed the second carbine to Jimmy and jumped out onto the paving stones, fading away instantly into the darkness of the night. The red-head took out his rifle, placed it on his knees, put out the kerosene lamp and pulled back on the reins, slowing the horses' gait even further.

  I placed my dark glasses into my breast pocket and unbuttoned the clasp on my holster. I pulled out my Roth-Steyr and placed a round in the barrel. But when the carriage turned at the intersection, leaving the barber shop behind, I was first to jump from the running boards and dart off to the gates. In one moment, I slipped between them, flicked the latch and cracked the gate open, letting Inspector White and Ramon Miro into the alley.

  Jimmy turned the carriage toward the next building over and stayed sitting in the driver's seat, carbine in hand; keeping watch suited him just fine.

  "Over here!" I called the inspector after me, and he immediately hissed back:

  "No noise!"

  My boss did not turn his electric torch on, and we had to make our way to the barber shop's back alley in the pitch black. Devil take this new moon...

  Fortunately, the dark wasn't quite as impenetrable in the back courtyard, so we were able to find the door just by crawling over the junk and construction debris that was strewn everywhere.

  "Keep quiet!" Robert White warned again when I put my pistol back in its holster and slipped the crowbar I'd brought with between the door and its jamb.

  I cautiously pushed, and the door gave a barely audible creak, then opened. Ramon, his lupara at the ready, was first to step over the threshold. The inspector slipped in after him and hurriedly flicked the switch of his torch.

  A bright beam ran across the back room of the barber shop – there was no one there.

  "Leo, check the room and wait here," Robert White ordered. "Ramon, let's go to the second floor. And keep qu-i-et!"

  I set my crowbar down on the buffet, held my pistol in two hands and walked down the corridor, trying my best not to upset any of the creaky floorboards. I looked beyond the curtain, and saw the silhouettes of two empty armchairs – it was clear! I turned into the back room to wait for my coworkers to come back down from the second floor.

  "Clear," I sounded off when the inspector was coming back down from the residential area above.

  "Nobody up there either," Robert White gr
umbled. "I hope you haven't led us on a wild goose chase..."

  "They must be in the basement!" I retorted.

  "Let's search the stairs," the inspector decided, shining his light out on the doors that went back into the entryway.

  Behind one was the cleaning room, and the second led us into a room with piles of bags, stuffed full and covered in dust. They almost occupied the entire space. The only part free was a narrow passage next to the wall.

  I took out my knife. With a quiet flick, I unfolded its blade and carefully cut into the plain fabric; dirt poured out.

  "Bingo!" I then sighed, not hiding my relief.

  "They’re in the basement!" The inspector came to life. "We'll catch them red handed!"

  We carefully made our way along the passage to a dark hole in the floor and surrounded it, not having any idea what to do from there. After some brief thought, the inspector nudged Ramon in the shoulder and pointed at the floor.

  "Come on, then!"

  The constable got down on his knees, placed his lupara on the dusty boards and tried to see what was underneath.

  "There's a light on," he informed us almost instantly.

  "Keep quiet! You’ll spook them!" Robert White gasped with zeal, finally having forgotten all his doubts about me.

  As a matter of fact, leaving the light on in the basement of the barber shop was not at all the behavior you'd expect from a pious Judean.

  "Let's go! Let's go!" the inspector commanded. "Faster!"

  Ramon rolled down first. I darted off after him without delay, despite the fact that I was usually not too fond of basements. They scared me so badly that I got an uncomfortable chill; they made me feel ants on my back and started my knees shaking involuntarily.

  But what could I do?

  Push on!

  Practically stepping on the constable's heels, I ran into a small closet, practically half-way filled up by a huge pile of dirt. Here as well, there were fragments of wall lying everywhere. At the table, in a circle of light coming from a "bat" that hung down from the ceiling, sat the lanky Judean from earlier, his bald head no longer hidden under a black hat.

  Having heard the sound of our footsteps, he set a mug down on the table and turned, but when he saw the lupara barrels pointed at him, he froze, not wanting to do anything stupid.

  "Hands up!" Ramon ordered under his breath, and the man obeyed.

  I walked around the pile of hauled-in dirt, stepped over the upturned cart and took a seat next to the opening in the torn-down wall. I carefully looked at the wooden-beam-reinforced entrance hole. There was only one thing back there: darkness.

  "Clear," I reported to Ramon.

  "Inspector!" He called to our boss, not turning his weapon nor his persistent gaze away from our captive.

  Robert White went down into the basement in no particular hurry, walked up to the table and picked up the strange-looking pistol that was lying on it. With its bent grip and open cock-hammer, the back part of this strange weapon was reminiscent of a revolver, while the front part of the device was a copy of the Mauser K63, with the one difference being that, here, the magazine was removable.

  "Bergman, number five!" The inspector announced, adding tellingly: "A total greenhorn."

  He turned the weapon over in his hands and pointed the barrel at our captive, feigning that it was on accident.

  "Who else is in on this?" Robert White asked, playing with his thumb on the cock hammer.

  The lanky man swallowed loudly and hurried to answer:

  "No one."

  "Two others? Three?" Robert clarified, his eyes becoming whiter than chalk and more transparent than the freshest spring water.

  "No one!" our detainee once again lied.

  The inspector, in a rough motion, tore off one of the man’s fake payos, then the other and, with unhidden grief in his voice, said:

  "Why are you lying to me, Uri?"

  He shivered, but found himself not strong enough to tear his gaze from the eyes of my illustrious commander. He tried to turn his head, but was not able and, somehow all at once, collapsed.

  "Two," the criminal admitted.

  "Are they armed?"

  "Yes."

  "Ramon, go look for them," White then ordered the constable.

  "On your knees!" The inspector commanded. "Hands together on the back of your head!"

  Inspector White nodded in satisfaction, set the pistol on the table and walked up to me.

  "What's going on with you, Leo?"

  I looked into the darkness of the passageway and gave an involuntary shiver:

  "Just a touch of claustrophobia." I then asked: "Inspector, shall we call Jimmy and Billy?"

  "We'll manage without them," my boss cut me off, turned up the regulator on his electric torch to full power and took his Hydra from its holster. "Let’s go!" he ordered, the bright ray of light sliding over the wooden construction beams and stopping on a dirt wall.

  I, with a heavy sigh, crawled into the tunnel, doubled over and, pistol in hand, began moving forward. The inspector tried to light the way, but it did no good, the beam often falling only on the back of my uniform.

  Not able to restrain myself, I turned and suggested:

  "Let me hold it!"

  After that, torch in hand, I got to the point where the tunnel turned to one side and discovered that the robbers had encountered some old stonework there. They hadn't managed to make it through with a direct route, and had to make a turn to the right.

  And it was no surprise – New Babylon was almost two thousand years old; there was history no matter where you dug in this city. And though old buildings were being demolished constantly to make room for new ones, the old foundations were typically left below the earth, newer and newer buildings rising up above them.

  This was no a city; it was an archeologist's wildest dream. But, given that, trying to dig tunnels was often a ruinous undertaking. Now, it was clear where the whole colossal pile of dirt had come from.

  I crept up closer to the turn and licked my dried-out lips.

  I was afraid. Very afraid, in fact. In the darkness, the burglars could simply be hiding with their pistols drawn or even...

  "Leo!" The inspector pulled me out of my thinking.

  His bark shook away my pent-up consternation, replacing it with annoyance and shame; I felt as if I had been caught doing something unseemly.

  I cannot bear basements!

  And despite my lame-brained premonition, I stepped around the corner. I walked at a crouch, torch held high over my head and pistol drawn, but it just led to another hallway dug out along the stone wall.

  "It smells bad in here, inspector," I whispered.

  White reacted as if he didn't hear me.

  "Move it!" He hissed at my back.

  I ducked down so I wouldn't bump my forehead on a ceiling board, and resumed my movement. I made it to the next turn and took a cautious look around the corner, not noticing anything suspicious. But after I took one more step, my leg immediately caught on an overturned stone from the old wall. I was lucky not to have tripped.

  As it turned out, the burglars had been lucky enough to discover a slit in the unfortunate wall, and they had widened it in the hope of cutting a path through the deserted catacombs the easy way. But these fairly heavy stones, unlike soil, were quite difficult to haul out, so they had simply tossed them away from the wall in a semi-circle pattern.

  Then I hesitated. The history of the Judean Quarter wasn't very well understood. These robbers may have simply hit upon a plague-stricken burial ground, or something worse.

  "Faster!" The inspector hurried me along once again.

  He had every intent of covering up the morning's fiasco by catching a dangerous gang, so there was nothing left for me to do than obey the order and crawl into the opening in the partially excavated wall. Beyond it, the corridor darkened. And now, it really wasn’t a tunnel anymore, but a proper corridor.

  "Be careful," I warned the inspector, steppin
g very carefully on the uneven soil- and stone-covered floor.

  In trying to make their work easier, the bandits had thrown the loose soil they removed all around, and now my shoes were becoming deeper and deeper immersed in the crumbly mass with every step.

  Gasping out a soundless curse, I set off in search of the wrongdoers, but soon stopped at a fork in the path.

  "Right?" I turned to ask my boss’s opinion.

  The floor was fairly well-trod. There was clearly just one set of tracks going to the left and it turned around fairly quickly. In the other direction, however, a fully-fledged path had been worn in.

  The inspector elbowed up to me, looked down at the floor and agreed.

  "Right!"

  Lighting the path with the electric torch, I walked on. Robert White was wheezing loudly behind me, and all that remained for me was to hope that the barrels of his Hydra were pointed at the floor, and not aimed right at my loins.

  An uneven floor, a slight descent – should I warn my boss?

  "Faster!" the inspector hurried me along once again.

  I got distracted by his nervous whispering and slapped my forehead on a stone ledge under the ceiling.

  "Damn!" I whispered, crouching down on my haunches from the unexpected pain.

  My thoroughly peeved boss took the torch and, not waiting for me to follow, stomped off decisively down the hallway.

  "Stop!" I gasped to his back, finding the derby hat that had been knocked off my head and hurrying after him. But before I'd managed to catch up, Robert White had already found a room with stone columns holding up a high ceiling.

  "Uri?" came an uncomprehending shout. "Uri, you putz, what the devil'd you limp down here for?!"

  The inspector's arm shot up, putting the caught-unawares criminal right in the sights of his Hydra and commanded:

  "Hands up! Drop your weapon!"

  In reply, the distinct clink of a hammer being pulled back rang out. And it came from the opposite corner, the one behind the inspector!

  "You first!" the second burglar exclaimed hoarsely, stepping out from behind the stone column with a pistol in his hands.

  In an instant, his partner filled with enthusiasm and pulled his pocket Colt.