Atomic Underworld: Part One (15 page)

Then,
inevitably, she would steal off with a john after Madam Saraja gave her a sharp
look, and Tavlin would feel that same old bitter pain. He would start drinking
more heavily, and he would move to the piano. In later days he would simply
start buying Sophia for an entire evening, and still he would serenade her; it
might cost him several days’ pay, but he was a man in love. And she would sit
on the sofa watching him all evening, ignoring every john that came close.

He
sighed now and shook his head. “There’s too many people out there, and the
Octunggen are bound to be looking for us in Muscud by now. We can’t show
ourselves.”

“But
we can’t just stay holed up.”

“You
stay here. I’ll have one of the girls bring you some books to read.”

“You’re
going
out
?”

“I
have to meet with Boss Vassas,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay hidden.”

“You
get to go out and I don’t?”

“This
isn’t a game.”

She
groaned. “Fine. But be careful.”

He
escorted her back to their apartment. The other rooms in the Skirt were
thumping and pounding, groaning and gasping. It was like walking through a zoo.
Tavlin could even feel the rocking beds through the floorboards. He could
smell
the sex, all around him.

When
they reached the room, he stopped her at the doorway by taking her hand.
Surprised, she turned back to him.

He
started to say something, couldn’t figure out the words, and closed his mouth.
Embarrassed, he glanced away.

He
opened his mouth to start over again, but she placed a finger to his lips and
he shut up.

“Don’t
say anything,” she told him. She sounded sad, as if the words pained her. “I
... think I know what you want to say.”

“You
do?”

She
nodded. “And you can never say it. It ...” She sighed. “It’s over, Two-Bit.”
Her voice sort of cracked as she said it, and he felt something brittle inside
him begin to break. “We had it once, but it’s gone.”

“We
...” He swallowed. “We could try to get it back.”

She
shook her head. “Some things that are broken just can’t be fixed.”

“Maybe.
But …”

“Yes?”

“Maybe
this isn’t one of those things.”

Very
slowly, she shut the door in his face.

With a
lowered head, he made his way back downstairs, where he asked Abigail’s
permission (through an intermediary, as she was in the parlor) to root through
the lost-and-found. Johns were always leaving clothes behind. He found a
suitably ragged trench coat and hat and donned them. He also found a cane with
a dented brass handle and decided to take it along, just in case he had need of
a blunt object.

Draped
in his trench coat, with his hat pulled low over his face, he left the Twirling
Skirt through the rear entrance and picked his way down the alley. This alley
connected with another one, and this to another. He navigated through the back
ways of Muscud with all senses cocked. Dark figures eyed him, but his shabby
coat and dented cane did not entice them. One asked him if he had any
gunsai
on him, but he replied that he
was dry.

Inwardly,
he sneered.
Gunsai
. One of the many
alchemical drugs popular in Ghenisa at the moment. It was a sad thing that drug
use was so prevalent among the mutant population, but Tavlin supposed it was
understandable. He hadn’t had nearly as good an excuse back in his druggie
days.

He
shambled down streets and across rooftops, making for the Wide-Mouth by the
least visible route. As he drew closer to Boss Vassas’s territory, he noticed a
certain stillness, an unnatural calm. Few people were out and about, and those
that were kept to the shadows and stared out with watchful, grim expressions.
People hid in their homes, in their shops. Many kept their hands on bulges in
their pockets. Tavlin found one passed-out drunk with a newspaper over his
face—the
Muscud Statesman
—and plucked
it off. A quick scan showed that the entire front page was devoted to the mob
war between Boss Vassas and Boss Grund. Apparently there had been several
shootings, and two confirmed bombings, since Tavlin had been away. The death
tally was over twenty now, and a handful of these were regular civilians caught
in the crossfire.

Tavlin
approached the Wide-Mouth via rooftop. Just as he was passing a water tower,
someone grabbed him from behind. The assailant’s arms pinned Tavlin’s own arms
against his side and squeezed the air from his lungs before he could shout.

Another
shape appeared before him. A knife pressed against his throat—he could feel the
touch of steel—before a short, squat figure shoved a gun against his belly.

“It—it’s
me!” Tavlin gasped.

There
was a pause, then a flashlight blinded him. A chuckle came, and another. The
knife retreated.

“Get
that damned thing off me,” Tavlin said, shoving the flashlight to the side.
Blinking, he glared at Frankie, who was replacing the gun in its shoulder
holster.

Frankie,
a dim, toad-like form with spots dancing all about him, said, “Sorry about that,
Two-Bit. We’ve got all avenues covered. Nobody’s gettin’ to the Mouth without
our leave.”

Tavlin
brushed himself off. “This war’s really gotten going, then.”

“Yeah.
Boss thought Grund would back down if we showed some force, so we bombed one of
his storehouses and mowed down some of his men. The prick’s just pissed off
now, and the fuck of it is he’s stronger than we thought he was. We don't know
where he's getting his gear—his guns, his motorcycles. Could be a real
problem.” The spots started to fade, and Frankie swam into focus. “Well, you’re
back. Where the hell you been?”

“Never
mind. I need to talk to the Boss.”

“You’ll
need to hurry. He’s just leavin’.”

“Leaving?”

“You’ll
see. Sam, show Two-Bit through. Don’t want him getting waylaid again.” He
laughed. “Shoulda seen the look on your face!”

Following
Sam, Tavlin made his way down a crumbling fire escape, up a final alley and
then onto
Ilusthane
Avenue. The Wide-Mouth stood
there, proud and tall, made of stone, its batwing doors aglow with light.
Windows blazed above, shining through the unnaturally foggy night, and here and
there lamps glowed in the murk, spreading a creeping sort of illumination,
making the vapor phosphorescent. Moths battered the lamps, a thousand soft
furry thuds in the stillness. Tavlin half-expected tall dark shapes to emerge
from the fog at any moment, teeth gleaming, eyes alight. Or maybe shrimp-like
antennae.

He
sensed forms on the rooftops: snipers. Even now crosshairs would be centering
on his back. He felt himself hunch his shoulders and tried to stop it, with
limited success.

Sam
pushed before him into the Wide-Mouth, which was as dead as Tavlin had ever
seen it, only a few desultory drinkers at the bar, a few gamblers tossing dice
or staring at each other over their cards. As soon as Sam and Tavlin entered,
all eyes swiveled to them, and everyone tensed. They relaxed when they saw who
it was, but not altogether. Sam led Tavlin through into the back rooms, where
Tavlin expected to find Boss Vassas beating the shit out of another of Grund’s
goons. Instead he found Vassas’s own goons strapping on shoulder holsters,
shoving ammunition into shotguns and even a few submachine guns. Most smoked
cigarettes anxiously.

Boss
Vassas himself smoked a foul-smelling cigar and called out to someone through
the trapdoor below, apparently to a boat. “Closer, you idiot! And tie that
thing up!” He turned to the first group of men. “It’s ready, boys. Let’s get in
and get
crackin
’.”

Led
by Galesh, Vassas’s lieutenant, the group descended through the trapdoor and
out of sight.

When
Vassas noticed Tavlin, his eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Well, look who
decided to show up. Good timing.”

“Yeah,”
Tavlin said. “Glad I caught you before you—”

“Grab
a gun.” Vassas directed the next group down into a waiting boat.

“What,
no, I just came to report in—”

“Shoot
first, report later.”

“No,
really, I—”

Someone
shoved a shotgun into Tavlin’s hands, and another propelled him toward the
trapdoor. Despite Tavlin’s protestations, when the next group went down the
hole, Tavlin was carried with them. Half cajoled, half forced, he found himself
crouching in a boat on the water beneath the Wide-Mouth, with several other
boats around him—there was more than he’d thought, maybe five, no, an even half
dozen. Above, Vassas stood framed in the slow amber light, directing the last
teams into their boats. The Boss himself dropped into the final boat, still
smoking his foul-smelling cigar, and the other vessels gathered around him.
When the trapdoor slammed shut, Vassas’s cigar was the only light in darkness,
a glowing red ember that made his black eyes glimmer. All that could be heard
was the slap of water on rotting hulls, and the fast breathing of the men.

“Well,
this is it, lads,” Vassas said. “We’re goin’ to hit Grund so hard he’ll wish he’d
wedged himself in his mamma’s fun tube and never come out. We’re gonna end this
fuckin’ war right now, and when we come out the other side of this I’m gonna
mount Grund’s head over the bar
and use
it for fucking target practice!”
This was greeted by rough cheers, and
Vassas’s teeth gleamed briefly in something that was not quite a smile.
“To war!”

Boss
Vassas revved his engine personally, and as his boat blasted off into the
darkness with him at the bow, still smoking, submachine gun clenched in his meaty
fists, it seemed as if the breath of everyone nearby was let out in a great
rush—even Tavlin’s—and then, one by one, the boats stormed off after him, six
boats laden with cursing, heavily armed men and a few women.

“Where
are we off to?” Tavlin asked Harry Scraggs, a man he used to drink with back in
the day.

“One
o’ Grund’s strongholds.” Scraggs was a big man, heavily bearded, with
wartstar
encrusting his arms. “A warehouse where he stores
drugs he sells. Nasty shit, like
gunsai
.
All alchemical.”

Tavlin
knew Vassas turned his nose up at dealing drugs, especially the alchemical
kind. Grund must smuggle them in somehow, because Vassas actively discouraged
such industry in Muscud.

“Will
this really end the war?” Tavlin asked.

Harry
Scraggs rolled his lumpy shoulders. “Depends on what resources Grund has, I
guess. At any rate, we can’t just sit back and let him gore us up the ass like
he’s been doin’. Let
him
sit scared
for awhile.”

As
they motored through the blackness, Tavlin tried to control the rapid beating
of his heart. He realized he was sweating and trembling.
Can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.
The last thing he needed was
to get involved in a gang war, of all things. He’d been half hoping he could
simply tell Vassas the situation, the location of the briefcase, what the
Octunggen were after, and let him deal with it while Tavlin went back up to the
surface world. There was nothing here for Tavlin anymore, especially not after
what Sophia had said. And as far as Tavlin was concerned, he’d already cocked
things up enough. Vassas couldn’t do any worse. But now here he was, a gun in
his hand and likely a bullet in his future.

Thanks, Boss.

The
boats plowed on, stinking and smoking. All too soon they entered the Infested
Quarter, where Grund made his lair. Vassas sent two boats ahead with their
engines cut, presumably to deal with any sentries Grund might have placed on
the water—he was expecting attack, evidently—and they came back with their
blades bloody. Vassas had all the boats cut their motors, and as a small, grim
armada they rolled forward.

They
came up to a small dock with a ladder leading up to a trapdoor, and Vassas
whispered, “Here it goes, boys. Remember the war plan.”

“Plan?”
Tavlin whispered. “I didn’t ...”

Three
goons fired their shotguns up into the trapdoor, obliterating it. While they
fell back to reload, others scrambled up into the warehouse interior. Guns
roared. First the occupants of one boat, then Vassas’s boat, then, Tavlin’s
boat. Suddenly he found himself propelled up the ladder, and he was climbing,
awkwardly holding his shotgun at the same time, trying not to blow anyone’s
head off, trying not to think, and then he was hurled up in the warehouse
itself. Goons swarmed around him.

Guns
cracked. Boomed. One man’s head exploded right beside Tavlin, throwing bits of
brain matter and skull onto his right arm.

Tavlin
threw himself to the side, beside a crate. Chips flew from it. Dark shapes
fired at him from around a corner. He shoved the shotgun stock against his
shoulder and fired back. Then again. The gun rocked him. One of the shapes
ahead reeled back, but he wasn’t sure if it was from his blast or another. Guns
were shaking the hallways, and bodies were toppling everywhere. The smell of
gun smoke pervaded everything.

A
bullet whizzed by Tavlin’s cheek. He scurried to the corner, where he breached
the barrel of the shotgun and hastily reloaded—his fingers barely trembled, he
noted with bemusement—using shells Harry Scraggs had given to him. He snapped
the barrel shut. Looked up.

A
man was training his submachine gun’s sights on Tavlin from about twenty feet
away. Tavlin fired. The shotgun was double-barreled, and he fired first one
barrel, then the second when another shape replaced the first. He wasn’t sure
if he shot either of them, but they both dropped out of sight. More targets
appeared.

The
warehouse wasn’t what Tavlin had expected. The room he hunkered in was actually
fairly small, made of lichen-covered stone, the ceiling low and spanned by
cobwebs. Many hallways snaked off from this chamber, the loading chamber.
Shapes that must be Grund’s people vanished into them, and other shapes that
must be Vassas’s people followed.

Someone
slapped Tavlin on the back. “After them!” The shape—Galesh—vanished with two
others down a hallway in pursuit of a group of Grund’s men.

Gathering
his courage, Tavlin followed. Galesh and the other two fired at something up
ahead, then pressed themselves against the walls. Tavlin saw why instantly. A
broad figure up ahead let loose with a machine gun, and sparks split the
darkness as rounds filled the hallway faster than Tavlin could count.

Ducking
out of the way, he plunged into a doorway and saw a shape wheel to face him,
gun raised. Tavlin fired. The man toppled backward. Another man stood in the
far doorway. He had been headed out, likely leading the first man, and at the
sound of the gunshot, he turned and raised his own gun.

He
and Tavlin fired at the same time. A bullet whizzed by Tavlin’s neck; he felt
its heat. The man in the doorway stumbled, clutching his gun arm. With a glare
at Tavlin, he spun about and darted off.

Tavlin
gave chase. The halls twisted and turned, and he realized that the warehouse
was actually assembled out of a collection of preexisting buildings, some
smaller, some larger, some with high ceilings, some with ceilings so low he had
to stoop. It all stank of mold and chemicals. Gunshots crashed from the battle
all around. The halls had begun to stink of gun smoke.

Tavlin
followed his quarry up a flight of crumbling cement stairs to a second story.
There the man turned and fired. Tavlin dodged out of the way, but when he
glanced up the man was gone. Gritting his teeth, Tavlin rushed forward. He
rounded a bend, swiveled and turned, gun raised and ready. Nothing.