The Illustrious (The Sublime Electricity Book #1)

by Pavel Kornev

  "You’ll have to catch him first," I snorted, replacing a spent shell in the magazine of my Cerberus with a new round, and placing the pistol in my jacket's side pocket.

  After that, I pulled out the lower drawer of my bureau, and took my towel-wrapped Roth-Steyr from it. This one was my property though, not police-issue. I hesitated for a moment as to whether to bring it or not, but remembered the Chinese men who might be following me and decided another barrel couldn't hurt.

  But basically, the earlier I called on Mr. Chan to assure the old skinflint that I would soon return my debts to him, the better it was for me. At the same time, I remembered that some nebulous factor in the formulation of our loan contract should stop him from insisting unilaterally that I immediately pay back the whole debt, so I just had to be patient.

  I figured we'd come to an agreement somehow. If I'd learned one thing in life, it was how to find a common language with loan sharks.

  I GRABBED MY DERBY HAT in the entryway, and walked out under the very, very cloudy sky. I snapped my dark glasses to my nose in a habitual motion, I opened the gate, walked outside and froze like I’d been buried. There were three automatic Madsen-Biarnoff carbines pointed right at me.

  "Hands on your head!" A red-mustached detective sergeant commanded. It was the same man who had handed me the investigation report forms. "On your knees!"

  Sometimes you have to carry out orders without delay or any unnecessary questions. Just do what they say, then try to figure out what's going on.

  And now was just such a time. With the fingers of the three constables trembling on their triggers, there was no point in talking about rights or demanding explanations; one of them might just have a nerve snap.

  So I got down on my knees and put my palms on the back of my head.

  Slowly and in silence.

  The detective sergeant walked up behind me, dexterously spun one of my arms behind my back, then the other, clipped me into a pair of handcuffs, then started rooting through my pockets.

  "What is happening?" I stopped short, but the investigator just hissed in reply, deftly pulling my Roth-Steyr from its holster.

  It was scary; the constables were far too on edge. I could simply feel their nerves tingling, as if their hands were itching to open fire at the first sign of disobedience.

  And that scared me. It scared me with how wrong-headed it was.

  What bad luck must have befallen me that they were now looking on me as an enemy?

  Some foolishness...

  At that moment, the leprechaun came out of the self-propelled carriage. Stroking his neck, he turned away to the back wheel of the armored car and started pissing on it in a business-like manner, calmly and without the slightest hint of hurry. But when the nearest constable looked over, the imp had already hidden in the bushes. The only thing left was a yellow puddle pooled on the ground.

  "Dogs..." the police-man frowned uncertainly.

  The detective sergeant meanwhile deprived me of my knife, my Cerberus, my lighter, my wallet and my watch. He then took a step back and commanded:

  "Get up," and immediately warned: "Slowly!"

  I jerked forward, stood to my feet and took a look around:

  "Would you mind explaining this?"

  "No such luck!" The detective sergeant simply shoved me toward the armored car. I had to crawl into the cabin with barred windows; the armored door was instantly clapped shut, and the lock clicked.

  Curses! What the hell happened?

  THEY TOOK ME STRAIGHT to the Newton-Markt, but didn't let me out of the car at the front door, or even in the normal garage. I didn’t get out until we reached the room for arrestees. And it would have been fine if I'd just been let out there, but no, with rifles pointed at me, they cuffed my legs together.

  Usually, this was done only to especially dangerous recidivists and malefics, so my back immediately soaked through with sweat. It turned out to be surprisingly easy to deal with the panic, though.

  No one had even tried to detain Elizabeth-Maria, which meant that they simply didn't know about the succubus, and no matter what they were going to accuse me of, associating with infernal creatures would not be part of it. That meant this wasn't about the death of Inspector White...

  So I calmed myself down, clanking together the shackles that forced me to walk in very short steps like a Chinese concubine before the eternal Emperor. I was led through the Newton-Markt by three investigators with police-issue revolvers drawn and the detective sergeant walking in front. We shuffled past a few empty intersections and incomprehensible corridors, but when we stopped in front of the familiar door of Department Three, I wasn’t surprised in the least.

  The fact that they didn't release me from my shackles even in the interrogation room was an unpleasant surprise, though. What was more, my legs were also attached to a set of rings interred in the wall, and my handcuffs were attached to a set of iron loops on the table.

  I didn't ask the reason for such extreme safety measures.

  I already knew it would be useless.

  I had no desire to look at the bare, windowless walls anyway, so I threw myself into the high back of the chair and lowered my eyelids. The headache that had been bothering me since I woke up started taking a slight step back, but just as sleep started knocking, the lock on the door clacked open and Bastian Moran walked into the room.

  If the senior inspector was in fact disappointed with my calm demeanor, he didn't show it. He threw a stuffed folder on the table, took a seat opposite me and started smoking.

  I kept silent. He did too.

  "Aren't you wondering why you were arrested, Mr. Orso?" Bastian Moran asked when he had finished his cigarette.

  "When someone is arrested, they are told the reason immediately, senior inspector," I reminded him, suppressing an involuntary shiver, "so technically this is not an arrest, but a kidnapping. Just for the record."

  Senior Inspector Moran, beyond all shadow of a doubt, caught the treacherous quaver in my voice and smiled.

  "Leopold," he said softly, "take a look at these reports for me. Now you tell me why you're here."

  "I have no idea," I shrugged my shoulders as much as the handcuffs allowed.

  "You have no hunches?"

  I was simply overflowing with hunches, but I just shook my head:

  "No."

  "You don't seem too surprised."

  "A sudden arrest is usual business for people who find themselves in the field of view of Department Three."

  Bastian Moran raised a high brow in unhidden surprise.

  "Are you accusing me of bias?" He wondered, and an incomprehensible half-smile started playing on his thin lips.

  I didn't yield to the provocation and answered, not making it personal:

  "Your colleagues have earned a reputation as impatient people, inclined to rushed conclusions and even more rushed actions. But, for my part, I can't imagine why..."

  The senior inspector nodded, taking my words into account and opened the folder lying before him.

  "Some of my colleagues are not, in fact, very patient. But I am," he announced, tearing himself from the papers and immediately changing the topic: "I suppose that you are aware of the balance retention principle? If someone is balancing on one leg, he just needs a light push to fall over and hit the ground. But a person standing firmly on both legs cannot be overturned so easily. However, that same man, if riding a steam-tram, would have to hold a handle to avoid falling over at a stop, whether on two legs or one. And he’s likely to do it with two hands."

  In utter confusion, I took the senior inspector's reasoning into account, but couldn't figure out for the life of me what he was driving at.

  "I never accuse people of crimes based on just a single piece of tangential evidence. I wait until I have enough to bring the matter to court. Viscount, I can connect you with a crime, and I will."

  "Try," I answered simply.

  "The first connection is that you told Inspector White abou
t the planned robbery of the Witstein Banking House," Bastian Moran announced. "What was more, you had business at that bank."

  I didn't confirm or deny that, only demanding:

  "Keep going!"

  "You led the inspector into the basement of the barbershop where he was found murdered a few days later."

  "I wasn't there," I considered it necessary to remind him of my earlier affirmations.

  "I doubt that very much," Bastian Moran threw out sharply and set on the table a photograph of Jimmy, burned by the attack of the Diabolic Plague. "What do you think was the cause of the constable's death?"

  "I have no idea," I declared without delay. "Some kind of dark wizardry?"

  "The Diabolic Plague. To be more accurate, it was one of the rare curses that causes this disease."

  "And how does that connect me with the inspector’s death, exactly?" I couldn't hold back from asking, immediately recognizing my error, but it was too late.

  He had me in his trap.

  "Really? You're asking me how?" The senior inspector guffawed with a satisfied look. "Could you remind me what happened in your manor sixteen years ago? What was the reason for the death of your mother and all your servants?"

  "The Diabolic Plague," I said, practically grinding my teeth in vexation.

  Dolt!

  "And there's another connection!"

  "That doesn't prove anything!"

  Bastian Moran measured me up with a haughty gaze, then took out a pack of Chesterfields and removed a cigarette.

  "But I don't need any proof," he declared, lighting his cigarette. "I know you are guilty. And I've known so all along."

  "That smells like bias."

  "Nothing of the sort." The senior inspector tapped his ash and set a few time-yellowed photo cards in front of me. "I suppose, Viscount, that you are familiar with these pictures."

  The word "Viscount" sounded out so politely, that it couldn't have been anything but subtle mockery. I didn't pay any mind to his poisonous intonation, though.

  I took a look at the photos.

  And they were, in fact, very familiar to me. They showed people who had died of the Diabolic Plague. It was our servants, who had just enough strength to make it out the gate and die on the street. Their bodies, baked from the inside, their twisted limbs, the dirt of the autumn street.

  It happened sixteen years ago, but the past wouldn't let me go and dragged me down.

  "I see that you are familiar," Bastian Moran nodded. "I assume you have also studied the investigation report, yes?"

  There was no reason to deny the obvious. They only let you check out old files from the archive with a signature, so I simply nodded.

  The senior inspector smiled and took a thin stack of sewn-together papers from his sacred folder. It was the very report that I had earlier signed off on with no hesitation.

  "Be so kind, Viscount," Bastian Moran asked me, "and open to the last page."

  I somehow pulled the report to myself and opened it to the place he pointed, then the senior inspector hinted:

  "Note the signatures."

  I looked at the very bottom of the page, then cast my eyes back up at Bastian.

  "Detective Sergeant S. Moran," read one of the lines that I had earlier not paid any mind.

  "Everything is accurate," Bastian Moran confirmed. "I took part in the investigation myself."

  "Investigation?" I snorted and threw the report back to him. "You call that an investigation? You didn't try very hard to find the murderer!"

  The senior inspector shrugged his shoulders indifferently and extinguished his butt on the burn-covered table top.

  "The reason for Department Three's interest was something slightly different," he told me.

  "And what was it?"

  "We were preparing to arrest your father for associating with Christians," Bastian Moran told me calmly. "Boris Orso was also suspected of involvement in the murder of Count and Countess Kósice."

  "Complete nonsense!" I snapped.

  "Oh, I assure you, Mr. Orso," the man shook his head. "We had more than enough evidence on the first point. And considering his strained relationship with his wife's parents, and the way they were murdered, I personally had no doubts on the second either."

  "Empty words!"

  "A bomb was thrown into the carriage of your grandfather and grandmother," the senior inspector reminded me. "That’s got anarchist written all over it."

  "There's no motive."

  "Your father was experiencing financial difficulties, in that a large portion of his personal funds were being sent to support illegal Christian cults. And, believe me, we collected more than enough evidence for that. It was simply in another file. The file on Boris Orso."

  Clanking my chains, I threw myself back into the uncomfortable chair and asked, wanting to steer the conversation away from the dangerous topic:

  "What does everyone have against Christians? They fought on the Emperor's side, but after the overthrow of the fallen, they suffered even harsher persecutions than before!"

  "Christianity is a destructive cult," Bastian Moran answered calmly. "They are dangerous. Mysticism and conspiracies never led to good things, and they were the Christians' bread and butter for many centuries. They invented themselves a god..."

  "They invented?" I groaned. "And what about the fallen? What about the infernal creatures? Hell exists. We have a plethora of evidence for that, and if that is so..."

  "Hell, heaven, the soul..." the senior inspector waved his hand contemptuously. "Obscurantism for the illiterate! They thought up a fairy tale and clamber after supposedly immortal souls, as if grasping at straws. It's all because of their fear of death. Did you, Viscount, not know that?"

  "Are you saying the fallen weren't real?"

  "No, but who's to say they really came down from the heavens?"

  "Where else could they have come from?"

  "From Venus or Mars. From Jupiter, or the far side of the Moon. From other star systems. They could be from anywhere! Forget about mysticism and sacred mysteries and put some faith in science!"

  "You're still a reductionist..."

  "And what of it?"

  "It doesn't matter," I waved it off and asked: "My arrest was caused by my father’s support for Christians?"

  "Naturally, it was not!" the senior inspector smiled gently. "I just explained why you came into my field of vision. In order to refute your suspicion of my bias."

  "You have yet to accomplish that," I noted.

  "Is that so?" Bastian Moran asked in surprise. "Your father was suspected of involvement in the murder of a Count and Countess..."

  "He was never formally charged!" I interrupted him.

  "You're right," he didn't argue. "But only because everyone thought Boris Orso dead from the Diabolic Plague. Unfortunately, because of the quarantine, the investigators were unable to check the manor, but from eyewitness accounts, your father was home that evening. As, it should be said, were you and your mother. Now, you must understand the reason for my surprise when I found someone with the surname Orso among Inspector White's subordinates. Detective Constable Leopold Orso, just think! Ten years you’re missing without a trace, then you suddenly jump out like a devil from a box, register your father's death certificate and start living in a home that is still under quarantine!"

  "I had immunity."

  "Nonsense!" Bastian Moran waved it off. "I'll tell you what really happened! Your father found out about his imminent arrest and took to running, forcing everyone to think he was dead! He used the Diabolic Plague as a cover! He was the only killer in that house."

  "Not at all," I shook my head. "He never would have done such a thing to mother. He wouldn't have let her die..."

  But my denying the senior inspector's conclusions based on my own didn't deter him at all.

  "Your mother was gravely ill," Bastian Moran declared. "Bringing her with would have been unintelligent. I suppose that Boris simply wanted to keep her from unne
cessary suffering."

  "Unnecessary suffering?" I grew angry. "Have you ever seen someone die of the Diabolic Plague?!"

  "Have you?" The senior inspector asked. "Have you, Leopold?"

  "I have," I confirmed. "I was at home that night. I saw our servants die. My father saved me. The curse wasn't cast by him. We were all at home."

  Probably, Senior Inspector Moran was counting on his provocative questions getting me to tell him some facts about Jimmy's death, so he smiled sourly and carried on.

  "So, did your father love your mother? Or was she just a source of funds?"

  My eyes grew cloudy with a red film. I wanted unbearably badly to jump over the table and beat all the soul from this impudent man, but I managed to fight back the anger that had seethed up in me, and started taking measured breaths, calming myself down.

  I was helped by the clear understanding that this was the very reaction they were expecting from me. Of course, the shackles on my arms and legs did a fairly good job of making me more judicious. It would have been harder without that.

  I winced and looked at the senior inspector with unhidden skepticism.

  "So then, you have," I started to lay out the result of his interrogation, "my connection with the bank, the murdered police, and the crime scene. But what about motive?"

  Bastian Moran shrugged light-heartedly.

  "Inheritance, perhaps?" he guessed. He then suddenly declared: "But, enough of that! Leopold Orso, you're under arrest for the murder of Isaac Levinson, his family members and servants."

  It felt like a kick to the solar plexus.

  "What did you say?" I couldn't believe my own ears.

  "Yesterday, you broke into the manor where the victim lived and killed everyone inside. I am not sure if it happened on the grounds of some hostility between the two of you, or if the whole cause was a financial dispute, but the fact remains. You killed them! The women, the children..."

  "That's enough!" I snapped and, clanking my chains, slammed my palms on the table. "What nonsense are you bringing out now?"

  "This is not nonsense," the senior inspector looked at me with unhidden contempt. "It has been established in writing that you visited the residence of the banker last evening at six twenty-four P.M. No other people entered or left the house after that. When their cook returned at dawn, she found bodies. That is irrefutable evidence of your guilt!"