King of Thieves

by Jane Kindred

  While she stared at him, flustered and clearly at a loss for an answer, the curtain behind her opened, and Raum stepped out.

  “That’s all right, Kalee. I’ll handle this. Why don’t you take a little break?” Raum gave Belphagor a withering glance as Kalee rose and slipped inside the curtained partition to make herself scarce. “Your tricks aren’t welcome here.”

  “I’ve come with a proposition for a business transaction.”

  Raum’s gaze traveled over Vasily standing with folded arms at Belphagor’s side. “We’re well aware of the sort of transactions you and your ilk engage in. There is nothing you can hope to achieve here. This is a respectable establishment, and I must ask you to leave before I have to call in my security.”

  “I want to buy them all,” said Belphagor.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your entire inventory. I wish to take it off your hands.” He sensed Vasily’s incredulity beside him, but to his credit, the firespirit stayed silent, as he’d asked.

  Raum laughed in amazement. “You couldn’t possibly afford any of our inventory—even if we were in the business of trading in material goods, which we are not.” He shook his head. “And such an appetite you must have to think you could consume so many.”

  Belphagor grabbed the front of Raum’s shirt without warning. “Children are not for consumption, you sniveling worm.”

  “Children?” Raum made a strangled yelp when Belphagor yanked him closer.

  “Drop the act. I’m willing to pay whatever price you hoped to gain for them. I’ll see that they’re all apprenticed in respectable trades.”

  “You would waste them!” Raum hissed, no longer pretending not to understand him. “And for what? To convince yourself you’re morally superior? Well, I have news for you, Belphagor. You’re as dirty as the rest of Raqia. You’re a fucking demon. And you’re also wasting your time, because they’re beyond your grasp.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Having evidently reached the limits of his restraint, Vasily unfolded his arms, legs in a wide stance, poised to seize Raum and presumably toss him like kindling.

  The demon wrested himself from Belphagor’s grasp and stepped back, casting a dismissive glare at Vasily while addressing Belphagor. “Your bodyguard needs to learn his place. This conversation doesn’t concern him.”

  Vasily made a low growl in his throat that should have been a warning to the indignant demon. “I’m not his damned bodyguard.”

  Raum turned to face Vasily, forced to acknowledge him. “Well, who the hell are you, then?”

  Vasily took two swift steps toward the demon and gripped him by the neck. “Ruby,” he snarled.

  And there went any chance of keeping their deception under wraps.

  Raum gaped at Vasily’s obvious physical maturity. “I knew it!” he gasped, his hand on Vasily’s in a futile attempt to pull it away from his throat. Raum threw a look of outrage at Belphagor. “You came in here under false pretenses. This is your boy!”

  “I am no one’s boy.” Vasily tightened his grip.

  “I suggest you explain to us,” said Belphagor with eminent calm, “what you meant by beyond my grasp.” He made no move to stop Vasily or assist Raum in his efforts to fend him off.

  “They’ve been sold,” said Raum, beginning to sweat.

  “Sold to whom?”

  “Whoever it is takes them after they’re fletched,” he snapped. “It’s not my job to check identification. We have an arrangement. The used goods are picked up by a resale broker at the end of the week, who finds new buyers for them that don’t mind getting it secondhand.”

  Belphagor tried to control his fury at Raum’s cavalier attitude, reducing young demons to nothing more than product to be used and cast off. “You sold them all?

  “Thanks to your little stunt, snitching to the angelic authorities, we had no choice. You seem to spend an undue amount of time in the company of angels these days, Belphagor.” Raum, still trying to behave as if everything were normal and Vasily didn’t have his throat in a vise grip, glanced with scorn at Belphagor’s clothing. “Putting on airs. You seem to forget that what you are is a petty airspirit.” His last word morphed into an alarmed squeak in his throat as Vasily’s hand tightened around his airway. “Call him off!” he choked out.

  “I can’t help what Vasily chooses to do,” said Belphagor. “I don’t own him.”

  “Where’s Silk?” Vasily demanded, shaking Raum.

  “Silk? The sissy dorm boy?” Raum made another squeak of alarm. Skin reddened on his neck and throat. Vasily’s ire was raised, and the heat of his element streamed out through his pores. Raum pried at Vasily’s grip with both hands. Steam was rising between them. “We sold him!” he cried, shuddering as blisters began to form on his skin.

  Belphagor put a hand on Vasily’s shoulder. “Vasya, I suggest you put him down.”

  The Palace Guard might pay no heed to the sale of demon children, but outside of a duel or a drunken brawl, they weren’t likely to ignore a murder if charges were brought. And absent due process or incarceration, the only remedy the Heavens had for gross disregard for the law was hanging.

  Raum’s skin had begun to sizzle by the time Vasily dropped him onto the ground. Belphagor placed his boot against the burning flesh before the demon could cry out. “The boy. Silk. He was beaten by Kezef. How bad were his injuries?”

  “Messed him up,” Raum gasped. “But he was on his feet, more or less, when they took him away.”

  “Who?” Vasily demanded. “Who took him?”

  “I told you, I don’t know! I only see the broker when he comes.”

  The sound of Raum’s security pounded toward them down the corridor. Kalee had apparently alerted them.

  Belphagor took Vasily by the hand to bring his focus back to him. “Come on. There’s nothing more we can learn here. We have to go.”

  Vasily turned on him as if to rebuke him, but the fire had gone out of his eyes. He stared at Belphagor a moment before acquiescing, and they hurried out the front before Raum’s security detail arrived to make things complicated.

  “They’ve sold him,” Vasily repeated, his face grim, as Belphagor turned down a side street to avoid attention. “He’s gone.”

  “And we’re going to find him,” Belphagor promised. “Silk and Anzhela, and as many of the others we can track down.”

  Vasily was still holding his hand, whether because he wasn’t aware of it or by design, Belphagor wasn’t sure, but he took comfort in it just the same. They might draw ridicule if they were spotted, but right now he didn’t care. All that mattered was the warmth of Vasily’s touch, the proof of their connection. Things weren’t hopelessly fucked up beyond repair. He had to believe that.

  Setting his sights on the impossible goal of bringing down a highly sophisticated child sex ring might be a means of sublimating his fears about their relationship, but it was something that needed to be done. No one else was going to champion the Fallen, and Fallen children were among the most vulnerable, at the mercy of any opportunistic demon who felt like using his own powerlessness as an excuse to exploit those weaker than himself. And Belphagor knew what it was to be a downcast among the downtrodden. A prison in Petrograd in 1916 in the world of Man had taught him that.

  Shestaya

  As it turned out, Belphagor didn’t have to go far to find someone who knew who the “broker” was. The broker came to him. Armen had been busy spreading the word that Belphagor had patronized the Fletchery.

  Oza stopped them as they passed through the back of the bar on the way to their room, his expression dark, and tossed a calling card on the bar in front of Belphagor. “Demon left this for you,” he growled.

  The card read Balam Morouyevich Imov, Procurer of Specialty Goods.

  “I told him we don’t welcome his sort of business here. And I have to ask you outright, Belphagor, is there any truth to what Armen Nekirevich is saying? Because if there is, I may have to reconsider
your tenancy. I won’t tolerate that sort of trade in the Brimstone.”

  Belphagor tucked the card into his breast pocket. “What is Armen saying?”

  Oza lowered his voice. “That you’ve been purchasing the intimate services of young boys.”

  Belphagor leveled an icy stare at him. “Of course it isn’t true. I’m offended you’d think so.”

  Oza relaxed visibly. “Well, I didn’t think so, but then I remembered Vasily coming in yesterday, magicked to look like a youth, with some other boy—”

  “Khai was glamoured too,” put in Vasily. “He’s as old as I am.”

  Belphagor sighed. “Armen roped me into a scheme to blackmail the nobles frequenting the Fletchery. Vasily and I infiltrated the establishment, and when things went sideways, Armen promised to ruin my reputation. I see he’s off to a good start.”

  “But that Balam.” Oza’s expression was sour as he uttered the name. “You know what he is.”

  “I do. I presume he was given my name by someone who’s heard Armen’s slander—and from the sound of things, I suppose that could be anyone in Raqia by now. But the Fletchery appears to have sold him their entire ‘inventory’ to keep from running afoul of Ophanim, and I intend to emancipate any still in Balam’s custody.”

  Oza raised his eyebrows but went back to cleaning the bar top. “Said you could find him in the Market.”

  “Thank you, my friend. And I’d appreciate it if you’d correct any gossip you hear about me if you have the opportunity.”

  If he was going to find this Balam, he’d have to change his clothes. The fop look wasn’t going to get him anywhere in the Market. Vasily watched him change after they returned to their room, and out of habit, Belphagor kept his back to the door.

  Vasily nodded toward the tattoo on his chest. “I saw that cross symbol in the world of Man. Lev told me the buildings I saw them on were churches and that they worship a god there that’s supposed to live in Heaven. Were you—did you go to church?”

  Belphagor couldn’t help but laugh. “No—” He barely managed to catch himself from saying “malchik.” “No, Vasya, I didn’t. Our kind isn’t exactly welcome there. They think we’re evil beings sent to tempt Man.” He paused in buttoning his shirt and winked. “Well, some of us are, I suppose.”

  “Then why do you have that?”

  Belphagor tucked the black silk shirt into his leather pants, busying himself with the laces. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Vasily to know what the tattoos meant—at least, not all of them, anyway—but explaining their meaning meant explaining how he’d gotten them, and there were things he just couldn’t talk about.

  “You’re not going to tell me.” Vasily’s voice crackled in his throat like shifting coals.

  “It’s not important.”

  “What’s not important? The tattoo or telling me anything?”

  Belphagor tied off the laces with a sigh. “Korol vorov. It’s the king of thieves.”

  “Thieves?”

  “You may have noticed I steal things on occasion,” he said with a smirk. “It’s a symbol of honor among the Russian criminal underground. The vory v zakone. Thieves in law.”

  “How did you get it?”

  And there it was. Belphagor turned away from him to put on his boots. “I earned it. That’s all you need to know.” He expected the firespirit to fume at him, but to his surprise, Vasily seemed to accept this answer. “I’m going to the Market to find this Balam, but it’s probably better if you stay here. I don’t want to scare him off.”

  “What are you going to do if he has some of the children?”

  Belphagor shrugged and went to the door, pulling on his leather duster. “Buy them.”

  “You were just bluffing with Raum, though, right? About buying the lot of them?”

  Among the many things Vasily was better off not knowing, one was the degree of wealth he’d accumulated over the years. Belphagor smiled. “Of course. You don’t think I have that kind of crystal, do you?”

  The sneers and hostile looks he encountered as he headed through the Brimstone confirmed that Armen’s story had spread like wildfire. He supposed seeking out the “Procurer of Specialty Goods” in the Demon Market wasn’t going to do much for his reputation in that regard, but it couldn’t be helped.

  He asked after Balam at a few of the less savory booths along the seedier alleyways of the open-air market. There were several where a demon could enter behind a curtain and pay for five minutes’ entertainment with a whore, or even with an unknown participant through a hole between two booths. It might be interesting to take Vasily to one of these sometime and—Belphagor cut off the thought with a frustrated growl. Was he ever going to get used to Vasily not belonging to him? He didn’t want to get used to it. He wanted his boy.

  A few of these booths treated him with contempt for his presumed preference, but at one, he was directed straightaway to the end of the aisle, where a demon with the graying temples of one who’d spent time in the world of Man sat in an open tent with a notebook and a fountain pen, jotting things down.

  Belphagor made his way to the tent and the demon looked up at him quizzically until he introduced himself. “You left your card for me,” he said, holding it out.

  “So I did.” Balam nodded, closing the notebook with professionally manicured fingers. “I was told you might be in the market for a special piece that’s recently come into my possession.”

  “Only one?” asked Belphagor.

  “How many were you hoping to acquire?”

  “I’m just curious how many you have. I understand a certain establishment recently offloaded their entire inventory.”

  “Yes, unfortunate business, that. But fortunate for my customers. And they’re always eager to acquire a piece in pristine condition, so I was lucky enough to be able to deliver all but one to my connection.” Balam rose and put an arm around Belphagor’s shoulder as if to share a confidence with him. “And let me assure you that this one is quite special.” He turned Belphagor toward a flap at the rear of the tent that Belphagor had assumed led outside, but he opened it to reveal a dark interior compartment.

  “Before I light the lamp for your inspection,” said Balam as he let the curtain fall behind them, leaving them temporarily in total darkness, “there’s just one small defect I should warn you about. And only a temporary defect, I assure you. But this piece of merchandise was damaged recently by a careless consumer.”

  He lit a match and held it to the hanging lamp just inside the flap, illuminating a boy curled in the corner on a straw mat. He was almost completely covered with a blanket, and Balam bent and moved the blanket aside to reveal a length of dark, shining hair beside a bruised and battered face. This could only be Vasily’s Silk.

  “Damaging such a lovely piece is not behavior I approve of, but I make no judgment about what a customer chooses to do with the merchandise once purchased. You’re welcome to examine the piece more closely.”

  Belphagor crouched beside him to feel his pulse, and the boy hardly stirred.

  “A sedative has been administered to ensure compliance,” Balam explained. “But you have my word that everything is in working order.”

  Belphagor dug his nails into his thigh to keep from punching the coward. “Can he be moved? I don’t want to injure him further.”

  “All merchandise can be delivered to your domicile or any other designated location.” Balam carefully avoided any reference to Silk as a person. “I can have the piece transported discreetly in an enclosed, ventilated container, but that will cost extra.”

  “And how much is extra?”

  “Fifty carats,” said Balam. “Firm.” Balam was shrewd and specified the crystal size instead of merely asking for fifty facets. It was a small fortune. Belphagor was astounded that Balam managed to move his “merchandise” so quickly.

  Belphagor straightened. “I don’t have it on me. But I can pay on delivery.”

  Balam frowned. “I’m afraid a substan
tial deposit is required. And make no mistake. This is only cosmetic damage. There are any number of customers waiting in the wings to grab up this opportunity.”

  Belphagor tried to keep his anger in check. “And how much is a substantial deposit?”

  “Half,” said Balam.

  He nodded. “I’ll be back with it shortly.”

  The serious look turned into a friendly smile once more. “Excellent! I’ll have the merchandise boxed up for you and ready to go as soon as you return.”

  Belphagor tried to dissuade Vasily from returning to the Market with him when he arrived back at the Brimstone with the news, but there was no arguing with him. A few days ago, Belphagor might have snapped his fingers and ordered Vasily down on his knees to wait until he bid him rise again. And other things would have risen with him.

  But that didn’t bear thinking on.

  “He’s going to be in a container when we get there,” said Belphagor. “There’s nothing you can really do.”

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s not exactly…mobile at the moment. Balam uses some kind of delivery crate for discretion.”

  “I don’t care about any damned discretion! What do you mean, he’s not fucking mobile?” Flame was practically leaping out of his eyes.

  “He’s unconscious, Vasya. He’s been drugged. And I’m not going to lie to you; he’s a mess. From what I saw of him, and from what you witnessed, I think he’s lucky to be alive.” Belphagor put a hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze of reassurance. “I don’t think he has any permanent injuries. But trying to cart him through Raqia in that condition ourselves wouldn’t look good.”

  Vasily wrenched his arm away. “I don’t fucking care how it looks. We didn’t beat him and drug him. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you put him in box! I’ll carry him myself!”

  Belphagor shrugged. His reputation could hardly get worse. “If that’s the way you want it.” He put a pouch of facets together, careful not to let him see how many were going into it, and headed out with Vasily at his side.