King of Thieves

by Jane Kindred

  “Lice?”

  Belphagor resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Angels were unbelievably sheltered. “Like fleas on a dog. Only on a person. It’s what happens when you don’t have personal servants to launder your clothes daily and fetch you clean water, and when you’re forced to live in cramped conditions because you can’t afford a bloody palace.”

  Phaleg’s pallor quickly turned to a flush of pink. Angels also seemed to blush more than anyone he’d ever known. Except perhaps Vasily, who was at the mercy of his mercurial temperament and the heat in his blood. The thought made him yearn for the things he knew would bring out the flush in the firespirit skin, but he pushed the longing away. There wasn’t time to indulge in it.

  “Sorry,” said Phaleg. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

  Belphagor touched his hand fleetingly. “I know you didn’t. Anyway, never mind that. See if your sergeant will set up a meeting with one of his suppliers, and then you and I can get together to work out how to set up a trap. We’ll head over to the Stone Horse for an evening of it. You could come in glamour if you’re worried about being seen.”

  Phaleg gave him a sly smile. “There’s another unspoken rule, about not reporting someone you see ogling male prostitutes if you happen to also be ogling male prostitutes at the time. I think I can chance it. But aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “What am I forgetting?”

  “That I’m acting as your second. Armen Nekirevich is still in need of a thrashing on the field of honor. I spoke with his appointed second just after I met with Veloas. He’s chosen the dueling method, as well as the time and place.”

  “Ah, the duel.” Belphagor sighed. “I was hoping he’d prove a true a coward and flee Raqia. So what’s his weapon?”

  “Dueling pistols from the world of Man.”

  Belphagor couldn’t help the outburst of laughter. “Dueling pistols? Doesn’t he realize gunpowder is inert in Heaven?”

  “He does. These are charmed pistols, apparently. The marvelous things you demons get up to. I’d never even heard of pistols until his second showed them to me. He gave me a brief history of how they operate in the world of Man.” Phaleg shook his head. “The emotionless efficiency of the weapon is quite chilling. At any rate, this pair, according to Armen, is from your Russia, an authentic nineteenth-century set, except that its firing mechanism has been altered. Instead of firing with gunpowder, the lead ball is expelled via elemental combustion.”

  “Elemental combustion?” It wasn’t a term he was familiar with—unless one considered Vasily’s talent.

  “The mechanism responds to the element of the demon holding it. At least that’s how it was explained to me. I didn’t really follow the specifics, and I confess I don’t quite get the whole elemental-magic thing. Manipulating one’s element isn’t strictly forbidden among the angelic class, but it’s frowned upon. At best, it’s regarded as peasant superstition. Regardless, I’ve been assured that you’ll be able to examine them before you agree to the choice of weapon.”

  Belphagor folded his arms and crossed one boot over the other, leaning into the bar as he considered it. “So when does he want to do this thing?”

  “Tomorrow at dawn. Under the Hell’s Gate Bridge on the Raqia side.”

  “Well, then.” He allowed himself a sly grin. “We’d best enjoy ourselves this evening.”

  Shestnadtsataya

  He hadn’t planned to go the Stone Horse a second night in a row, but Silk guilted him into it. Or possibly tortured him into it. It was difficult to distinguish with the slippery demon. Coming home after sunrise, Silk had stripped out of his suit and fallen into bed, after Vasily himself had just climbed into it. When they woke in the late afternoon, Silk asked him how his night had gone, and when Vasily admitted he’d come home without taking the angels’ money, Silk had given him a wounded pout that made Vasily feel he’d robbed him outright.

  Climbing over Vasily, who was still dressed in the ridiculous getup from the night before, Silk had sat in his lap completely naked, rocking subtly against him while he complained about how hard he himself had worked at the Horse while Vasily had trotted off to play and come back with nothing to show for it.

  “I worked very, very hard,” he said, emphasizing it with sensuous thrusts that made both of them manifest his words.

  When Vasily reached up to put his hands on Silk’s hips, Silk rose onto his knees and pinned Vasily’s arms under them, teasing Vasily’s mouth with his erection, pushing across his lips but refusing to be taken in.

  “Are you going to make me do everything?” he complained as he stroked himself. “Work my fingers…to the bone?”

  Vasily tried to reach for him with his tongue, but Silk held his free hand to Vasily’s mouth and pressed him down against the pillow, trapping him there while he brought himself to completion. With a shiver and a moan that nearly made Vasily come, he squeezed his fist tight under the bursting head and let the warm drops spill over onto Vasily’s face.

  When he’d finished, Silk bent over him to lick the spunk from Vasily’s sideburns and drew his tongue over Vasily’s mouth, again refusing him the opportunity to touch as he straightened and sat on Vasily’s painfully hard cock. He moved his knees off Vasily’s wrists and untied the drawstring on Vasily’s pants, and then shook his head and sighed. “Not even going to lift a hand to help me, my selfish ruby plum?”

  Vasily peeled down the fabric to release himself and fisted his erection, and Silk simply waited with an expectant look until Vasily jerked himself off. As he came with a growl of relief, Silk scooted back and dipped his head down quickly enough to catch it in his mouth, making Vasily’s growl a low groan of surprised pleasure. Good thing he’d kept it cool.

  When he’d swallowed it all, Silk lifted his head and licked his lips. “You see what I do for you, Ruby? The least you could do in return is come for me tonight.”

  Against his better judgment, Vasily allowed Silk and Anzhela to make him up again, but this time he insisted on wearing his own clothes—or almost his own, at any rate. He didn’t mind the cosmetics so much; they made him feel like he was wearing a mask and could play at being someone else, as Silk suggested. But the costume had made him feel exposed and had drawn too much attention.

  On top of a tight pair of jeans tucked into a pair of knee-high calfskin boots Dmitri had given him—secondhand riding boots from the Soviet military that hadn’t fit him—Vasily wore a sleeveless black shirt made from a ribbed mesh fabric, courtesy of Lev. The two Grigori had plied him with “castoffs” when he’d started making plans to strike out on his own with Silk, and he’d tried to give them back when that fell through, but they’d been insistent, with Dmitri professing to take offense that he would refuse a gift.

  Silk ran his hands over Vasily’s chest through the shirt with a purr of approval when he arrived at the Horse. “If this is what they wear in the world of Man, I may have to visit again. It ought to be illegal to be this hot, you mouthwatering plum.”

  Vasily doubted he was all that alluring in it, but it was a size too small, and he had to admit, it defined his pecs quite nicely. He soon struck up a conversation with a demon merchant who seemed somewhat in awe of him but was far more solicitous than the ogling Dominions had been. It turned out the demon only wanted a hand job, but he was so shy about it that after he’d led his patron into a booth, Vasily stood behind him and reached around to the front so that the demon wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. He hooked his other arm around the demon’s chest and held him gently while he tossed him off, letting him feel the firespirit heat pressing against him.

  The demon paid him three times what a hand job was worth, all blushing grins after Vasily had finished him off, and thanked him far more than was warranted. Vasily felt a little sad for him, imagining he must be too afraid in his public life to indulge in his true desire. He had the feeling he’d given the demon the first male pleasure he’d had.

  When Vasily had cleaned up, he stepped
out and looked around to see how Silk was faring. His heart gave a frantic leap in his chest. On the lounging couch in the corner of the parlor, Silk was entertaining Belphagor, unabashedly rubbing a hand over his leather-clad crotch, while Khai lounged at Belphagor’s feet, his arms hooked over his knee. And on Silk’s other side, the angel Phaleg sat watching the three of them with rapt attention.

  Vasily stepped back into the doorway, not wanting them to see him, but Belphagor turned as if he felt Vasily’s heat from across the room and gave him a look Vasily couldn’t interpret. It was neither a smile nor a frown, but there was something charged about it. While he hesitated, not knowing whether to close the door between them or to step out and act as if everything were fine, Silk stood and moved closer to Phaleg, twisting the angel’s hair around his finger teasingly, and then yanked it hard, making Phaleg stumble to his feet.

  Vasily’s chest rose, and he stepped forward once more, ready to come to Silk’s defense if Phaleg had said something offensive to him. But Silk had grabbed hold of the angel’s cravat and turned about, drawing him away from the couch as though dragging him on a leash, and he held out a hand to Khai, who stood to accompany him as he went. Phaleg’s skin was flushed and his eyes wide as he hurried after them to keep from being choked at the end of his cravat. Vasily watched in disbelief as Silk headed down the basement stairs. He’d set up a sort of “dungeon” room below for clients who wanted discipline.

  Belphagor, still watching him with that same intent gaze that gave nothing away—his “wingcasting face”—rose after a moment and made his way through the crowd to the foyer and left. Vasily stood motionless, trying to will down the anger that wasn’t warranted. Silk was here to take facets from angels and demons alike. Vasily had just done the same. But Belphagor had brought that angel here deliberately to mess with Vasily, knowing it would bother him. There was no other explanation. More games, same as his efforts to push Vasily’s buttons by buying Silk fancy clothes.

  And if Belphagor was toying with him, trying to get a reaction out of him, all the more reason to ignore him and not give him the satisfaction. But he couldn’t.

  With swift, angry strides, he followed Belphagor out into the street, turning about to see which way he’d gone, and spotted him heading into the side entrance of the bakery—the stairs to the apartment. What the hell was he doing? Before Vasily reached the door to follow him up, something came hurtling out of the darkness and struck him above the eye, smashing onto the cobblestones beside him.

  He put his hand to his forehead and found blood dripping from a cut through his eyebrow. The smashed object on the ground was a bottle of ale, spilling its contents among the shards of glass. Vasily turned in the direction it had come from, his eyes glowing with radiance to see better in the dark. Two demons who looked about his age stood in the opening of the alley. Even from here, he could see them start at his fiery gaze. Probably, they’d intended worse but thought better of it upon seeing him.

  “Filthy sodomite!” one of them yelled before they ran.

  Anger warred with shock, compounding the tempest of emotion already buffeting him over Belphagor’s tricks, as he climbed the stairs to the apartment. Part of him wanted to sit down on the stairs and bawl like a child.

  Inside the apartment, Anzhela was making Belphagor a pot of tea. Vasily slammed the door.

  At the table, Belphagor turned, his brows drawn together in consternation, but the irritation on his face was quickly replaced with concern as he got to his feet. “Vasya? What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Vasily growled. When Belphagor came close, he jerked back with a violent motion before Belphagor could touch him. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

  Belphagor searched his face, staring up at him in a way that accentuated the differences in their heights. “It’s mine, if you want to be technical. I came to talk to Anzhela.”

  “After throwing your angel toy at Silk just to fuck with me.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You can’t just throw me out and then manipulate me endlessly for your own amusement. If that’s what accepting this apartment means, then I’m out of here.”

  “Vasya—”

  “Sit down,” Anzhela snapped at Vasily. “Right now.” She approached with a wet cloth. “You’re bleeding.” Surprised at her tone, Vasily sat at the table without argument and let her clean the wound. “Whatever ‘nothing’ happened, it missed your eye by a hair’s breadth. We might need to sew this up.”

  “It was just a bottle of ale,” he protested. “And I don’t need stitches.”

  Belphagor folded his arms, leaning against the frame of the wall that separated the kitchen from the parlor. “A bottle of ale that just happened to make contact with your eye? Did someone at the Stone Horse get out of hand?”

  “No.”

  A slow sigh of breath escaped Belphagor that said Vasily was pissing him off with his reticence. Good.

  Vasily winced at Anzhela’s ministrations. “You haven’t told me what you’re doing here. What do you want with Anzhela?”

  “I believe that’s Anzhela’s business, not yours.”

  “I believe Anzhela is standing right in front of you,” she countered, perturbed.

  Belphagor glanced at her. “I just thought you might prefer if I made my proposal in private. It concerns your future.”

  “You have proposals for everyone, haven’t you?” Vasily couldn’t help the bitter retort.

  Anzhela spoke over him. “I can’t imagine any potential future that I wouldn’t want Vasily to hear about.”

  The teakettle began to whistle, and Belphagor went to get it. “I’ve purchased The Cat,” he said as he poured the water over the leaves in the pot.

  Vasily gaped at him. “How many whorehouses do you intend to own?”

  “Hold that to your head,” Anzhela ordered, pressing the cloth against the cut. “If you’re going to constantly interrupt him, perhaps it would be better if Belphagor tells me what he has in mind without you here.”

  Vasily took the cloth, chagrined. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  While Anzhela brought the teapot and sugar to the table, Belphagor brought the cups, waiting until she was seated to continue. “I’ve purchased The Cat, and I’d like you to be the procuress if it’s what you still want. It should have been yours.”

  Anzhela gazed up at him in surprise. “Belphagor…I don’t know what to say. I do, of course I want to. But we’d have to work out an equitable arrangement.”

  “It should have been yours,” he repeated. “I don’t intend to interfere in its operation. But I would ask something of you in return.” Anzhela waited as he poured the tea. “It’s my opinion that you’re too young to be taking on such responsibility. Though I’m sure you’re perfectly capable,” he added hastily. “I just don’t think it’s a suitable environment for a young woman of your age.”

  “Belphagor, I grew up in the brothel. There’s nothing I haven’t seen.”

  “Nonetheless, that’s my condition. And I’d like you to serve as a governess to the boys until they’re of age, after which, each of you will be free to choose whatever livelihood for yourself you see fit.”

  Anzhela stared at her cup. “Are you…?” She took a sip, looking flustered. “Are you proposing to serve as our legal guardian?”

  Belphagor threw a glance at Vasily as if he hadn’t wanted to discuss this in front of him. “I don’t know about legal. In the eyes of the princedom, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be deemed suitable, though celestial law has no problem viewing you as my property. Which you are not,” he emphasized. “But insofar as the law would see it so, I’m prepared to take responsibility for you and the boys until you come of age, at which time I’ll formally release you for legal purposes. I hope that doesn’t sound too—”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Anzhela smiled. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, and you’re very sweet.”

  Belphagor gave her an awkward smile, quickly erased when he caught Vasily�
�s attempt at an icy stare. “At least someone thinks so,” he muttered into his tea.

  Vasily had no intention of letting him off the hook because he was “sweet”. “You’re just buying people and property up left and right. Or is that the same thing? I suppose it beats selling them like you did with me. But then perhaps that’s what you’ve done with your fancy angel this evening. Did he go with Silk to please his master?”

  Belphagor set down his cup and took a breath, but Anzhela rose before he could speak and took the damp cloth from where Vasily still held it to his brow.

  “The bleeding’s stopped, but that cut’s too deep for my taste. I’ll fetch a needle and thread.”

  “I don’t need it,” Vasily protested, but she slipped out of the room, and he had no doubt it would take her a while to find her sewing box.

  Belphagor spun his cup back and forth in the saucer. “I don’t own Phaleg. And I have no interest in him.” Vasily couldn’t help the snort of derision that escaped with a puff of steam. Belphagor dropped the cup. “For Heaven’s sake. All right. I have an interest in just about anyone with a cock, as you damned well know, but I am not interested in pursuing any kind of relationship with Phaleg. Ever.”

  “What the hell makes you think I care?”

  Belphagor held his gaze. “Have you stopped loving me?”

  Infuriatingly, tears prickled behind his eyes. “How dare you ask me that?”

  “Because I haven’t stopped loving you. I haven’t stopped wanting you.” The dark eyes took in Vasily’s mesh-hugged pecs. “And look at you. Bozhe moi, you’re killing me.”

  “You threw me away. Because I wouldn’t play your game and kneel for you like your new boy, Khai.”

  “Is that what you think?” Belphagor shook his head and ran his fingers through the stiff, dark spikes of his hair, the tattoos disappearing into its camouflage. “I’ve been trying to play this one close to the vest. It’s crucial to the influence I’m attempting to work that I project a very specific, believable persona. But I’m troubled that you’ve accepted it so easily.” His hand dropped back to the table, where he played with the cup once more. “I’ve purchased Khai’s time to play a part for me. Nothing more. I want you to understand that, if you understand nothing else. He is not my boy.”