The Dormant (The Sublime Electricity Book #4) Read online

  The Dormant

  a novel

  by Pavel Kornev

  The Sublime Electricity

  Book #4

  Magic Dome Books

  The Dormant

  (The Sublime Electricity Book #4)

  Copyright © Pavel Kornev 2018

  Cover Art © Vladimir Manyukhin 2018

  Translator © Andrew Schmitt 2018

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2018

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 978-80-88231-53-0

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction.

  Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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  The Sublime Electricity Series:

  The Illustrious (The Sublime Electricity Book #1)

  The Heartless (The Sublime Electricity Book #2)

  The Fallen (The Sublime Electricity Book #3)

  The Dormant (The Sublime Electricity Book #4)

  Leopold Orso and The Case of the Bloody Tree (Sublime Electricity: The Prequel)

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  You're in Game!

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  Table of Contents:

  Part One. Target

  Part Two. Patient

  Part Three. Oracle

  Part Four. Arrow

  Part Five. Anarchist

  Part Six. Angel

  About the Author

  New Babylon is the capital of the mighty Second Empire. Dirigibles drift over the city, steam trains race down its tracks, and the factory chimneys never stop billowing smoke. The hegemony of science is unquestioned, and yet magic hasn't disappeared from the world entirely. It remains dissolved in the blood of those who are called illustrious. Hardline reductionists find that hard to accept, but it is not in their power to change the longstanding status quo.

  Everything threatens to change with the death of the widowed Empress, and Leopold Orso, an illustrious gentleman, can sense the looming changes clearer than most.

  He feels the draw of far-away lands, but a gloomy past holds him in place like a deadly snare. Will the whirlpool of coming events pull our troubled illustrious hero to the very bottom or throw him up to unimaginable heights? And will anything remain to throw him up to? It's impossible to say. After all, there are highly placed conspirators willing to do whatever it takes just to get what's theirs.

  Bullets from hired killers, anarchists' bombs, blood magic of Aztec priests and electroshock therapy in a psychiatric clinic. Leopold will have a difficult time overcoming everything fate has in store for him and remaining himself through it all.

  A HEART PRESERVED IN A TIN CAN

  BEGINS TO BEAT AGAIN.

  Steamphonia (Russian Steampunk Band)

  Song Title: Heart

  Part One

  Target

  Silver Bullets and a Smokescreen

  1

  ANY RAZOR, in its essence, is akin to the ritual sickle of the Celtic druids on the holy day of the renewal of nature. A pull of the hand and the skin becomes clean, while the face grows younger as if the weight of many days is hewn away together with the stubble.

  I appraised my reflection in the mirror and nodded, agreeing with my judgement. After that, I shook the foam from the razor into the basin of warm water, led the blade along my soaped-up cheek, and again - a strip of clean.

  For the last week, I hadn't bothered with shaving, so it was as if the sharpened metal was carrying away time itself. I was growing younger right before my very eyes.

  By the way, there’s a good reason people say razors are dangerous: if you get distracted, you’re sure to cut yourself.

  I didn't get distracted. Someone distracted me.

  "My dear!" I heard from the bedroom. "Have you given any thought to our wedding day?"

  My arm quavered, and the blade painlessly slit my skin with ease. A droplet of blood leaked out. With a condemned sigh, I stuck a little piece of paper over the cut and continued getting myself in order. After that, I spritzed my hands with cologne, clapped them on my cheeks, then left the bathroom in no rush whatsoever.

  "Did you say something, my dear?" I addressed Liliana with all possible tranqui
lity. She was lying on the bed with a ladies' magazine in her hands.

  She tore herself from her reading and repeated the question:

  "Have you given any thought to our wedding day?"

  "Are you in the family way?"

  "Oh, Leo!" my girlfriend rolled her eyes. "You're just like my mom! She asks about that incessantly!"

  "And are you...? "

  "No, I'm not pregnant!" Lily snorted indignantly. "Where do such thoughts even come from?"

  "Well, where do your questions about marriage come from?" I parried.

  "You don't want to take me as your wife?"

  I did want that. And who in their right mind wouldn't desire to legally marry such a girl, who was pretty, smart and the heiress to a considerable fortune?

  Admittedly, I was rich enough not to take such factors into account. I simply enjoyed the company of the only daughter of the Marquess Montague regardless of mercantile considerations.

  Liliana tossed a black lock off her face and grabbed my attention, losing patience:

  "Leo!"

  "I do want to!" I shuddered. "Of course I do. As a matter of fact, I was just thinking about that momentous date..."

  "You little liar!" Lily easily sussed out my cleverness.

  "In fact, I'm simply lost in admiration for you."

  And now that was the purest truth. Liliana and I had been together for three months, and my feelings for her only grew stronger every day.

  Sounds like something from a romance novel? Maybe so, but I really did... love her? Probably. The most important thing was that, when I saw Liliana, my soul felt warm, and the rest meant nothing. No matter what anyone said...

  Liliana caught a pensive gaze from me and adjusted her peignoir, slightly covering her bare legs with the long skirt.

  "Leo, don't get distracted!" she demanded.

  I took a seat on the bed next to her and gave her a kiss.

  "Leo, no!" Lily laughed, moving away. "Not now! My mom keeps saying I'm riding you too hard!"

  "She keeps saying that?" I asked, so dumbfounded that I even stopped stroking her lithe feminine leg.

  "Well, not to me..." Liliana said in embarrassment. "To my dad. I heard it by accident."

  "You were eavesdropping."

  "Leo, you're avoiding the topic!"

  I tousled a lock of Lily's black hair, admired her beauty and classical profile, then admitted with a smile:

  "Yes, I've lost weight. And what of it?"

  Over the summer, I really had lost fifteen kilograms, but I wasn't even close to my former sickly emaciation and was still quite large and powerful. I hadn't become slim, but lean. And our amorous liaison had absolutely zero relationship to these changes. A somewhat larger role was played by the fresh air of the mountain resort town, dumb-bell workouts and proper nutrition.

  And also, I stopped being a werebeast.

  Yes, the family curse had left me in that ill-fated basement in Montecalida, and my shaving cuts now healed just as slowly as they did for everyone else.

  To be honest, I had long since grown accustomed to my new reality.

  "Leo!" Liliana waved her hand before my face. "Leo, your head is in the clouds!"

  "Yes, my dear?"

  "We weren't talking about your weight, but our wedding day!"

  I got up from the bed and walked over to the window. The hotel Benjamin Franklin was situated atop a promontory and, from its fourth floor, the view over the historical part of town was amazing. To be more accurate, there would have been a great view, if there wasn’t a damp haze hanging over the city. The nasty September weather and the capital's usual smog enshrouded the building like a wet towel, so I could see only the silhouettes of roofs and the high spires of palaces.

  "Our wedding day?" I drew out my words in thought. "You want to know the exact day?"

  Liliana swished through the pages of the magazine.

  "It says here that Duke Logrin announced the engagement of his eldest daughter to Baron Alston. The wedding will be on the twentieth of October, Emperor Clement Remembrance Day. A very symbolic date, Leo, don't you find?"

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  "I'm ok with any day."

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes. But not here, not in New Babylon. Tomorrow, we're flying to the continent, did you forget? We could stop for a week in Madrid, and head to Barcelona from there. How do you like that idea?"

  "It's an amazing idea!" Liliana smiled, but then wrinkled her forehead. "Wait, Leo! Did you say tomorrow? Will I have time to see my parents?"

  "The flight is scheduled for five thirty in the evening," I reassured her and turned away from the window. "Do they even know we're leaving?"

  "There hasn’t been a good time to tell them," Lily answered frivolously. "We'll tell them tomorrow. You are coming with me, after all, right?"

  "If need be..."

  "Leo, don't worry! Mom and dad are crazy about you. They won't lock me up at home!"

  "I greatly hope so," I snickered.

  "Although..." Liliana sighed. "Are you sure you don't want to stay in New Babylon for a bit?"

  I did not want that. In the capital, it was far too easy to have a chance encounter with an old acquaintance, and I really didn't want to fall back into the field of view of Department Three or, even worse, people from her Majesty’s inner circle. So, I answered with one short categorical word:

  "No!"

  Liliana could perfectly hear the note of annoyance that slipped through in my voice and jerked her head up.

  "Leo, is something the matter?"

  I sighed. I really should have told Lily some of the secrets of my past a long time ago, but I simply hadn't had the spirit for it. I was afraid. I was afraid to scare her, afraid to push her away. So, I kept silent.

  I didn't reveal the true reasons for my worrying now, either. I turned away to the window and looked at the gray city then, with a heavy sigh, I said:

  "In the papers, they're writing that the Empress will meet her maker any day now. The heiress’s health isn't so very strong either. Laborers are striking. Socialists are demanding the dissolution of the Imperial council and the establishment of an elected senate. Some anarchist threw a bomb at the Minister of Justice, and only a miracle kept him from dying. There were shots fired at a Justice of the High Imperial Court. Bottles of kerosene were thrown at the military recruitment station. And every day it goes on like this. I want to be as far from here as possible when everything goes south."

  "If you say so, my dear. If you say so."

  I bowed down to kiss Liliana and warned her:

  "I'll be back in two hours."

  "I'll be waiting," she sighed, laying the magazine open and suddenly wondering: "Do you remember the first time we stayed here, in June?"

  "Yes. And what of it?"

  "At that time, I was lying in bed waiting for you to knock on my door. But I didn't wait long enough and fell asleep."

  "I could knock right now," I offered with a smile.

  "No!" Lily did not agree. "Go about your business. And I'll be languishing and waiting for a knock. You will knock this time, right?"

  "Most assuredly," I promised, kissing the girl again and going into my adjoining room.

  I didn't wait around there for long. I just changed into a new shirt, tied on a neckerchief and put on a jacket. I didn't take an umbrella or a raincoat. Although it was cloudy outside, it was dry. The season of autumn rains hadn't yet arrived.

  Pulling out the upper drawer of my writing desk, I got my passport, wallet and Cerberus from it, placed them in my pockets and went on my way.

  "Leo!" Liliana called out to me.

  "Yes?" I glanced into the door of the adjoining room.

  "Come back soon. And don't forget, we were invited this evening to Albert and Elizabeth-Maria's!"

  "Don't you worry, I'm not planning to take long," I calmly assured Liliana, although the dinner invitation had entirely flown out of my head.

  After the triumphant p
erformance in Montecalida, which had ended in fainting spells and mass hallucinations, Albert Brandt had acquired a scandalous fame as a true wizard of words and become a desired guest at New-Babylon society functions. Instead of heading to the New World, he had rented a place not far from the academy and was preparing to stage a play of his own authorship in the Imperial Theater.

  Ignoring the poet's invitation would be at the very least impolite on my part. Who could say when the chance to return to New Babylon would come again? And all that remained was to hope that Albert didn't have all the local Bohemians coming over tonight as well.

  I took my derby cap from the shelf and went into the hallway. I decided not to use the elevator, instead heading to the stairs and thinking about what little bauble to give Albert as a souvenir.

  Passing by the bell-boy's table, I greeted the sleepy clerk with an impolite nod, went down to the first floor and headed to the receptionist's stand, but I was cut off by a sprightly gentleman of middling years, quite gaunt and red of hair.

  "I'm here to see Mr. Witstein," he said with a clear Irish accent and, when the receptionist opened his journal, he introduced himself: "Lynch. Sean Lynch."

  The clerk looked for the last name in the guest list and pointed to the elevator in silence then, with an attentive smile, he turned to me:

  "How may I be of service, Mr. Shatunov?"

  I caught myself on the fact that I had been looking just too stubbornly at the redheaded Irishman as he walked away, shuddered and set my room key on the table.

  "I just wanted to leave my key!"

  "Any special requests?"

  "No, nothing," I shook my head and, nervously waving my hand, stepped through the vestibule.