The Wind-up Forest

by L. J. LaBarthe

  “Good.” Gabriel continued to walk, sheathing his sword and then holding out his hands to show the people on the sleds that he was harmless.

  They kept coming toward him and he kept walking, and ten minutes later, feeling the reassuring presence of twenty-four hundred Seraphim hovering above him, unseen, Gabriel found himself face to face with the sledders.

  They wore snow clothes and scarves that covered their mouths and noses. Their eyes were hidden behind snow goggles, and they stopped their sleds and waited for Gabriel to speak. Gabriel took a deep breath and pitched his voice so that he could be heard at the farthest end of the group.

  “Hi,” he began. “You probably know who I am. I’m Gabriel, Archangel of War. Can I be of assistance to you this evening?”

  One of the sledders dismounted his vehicle and pushed back the hood of his coat. He tugged down the scarf and pushed up the snow goggles, revealing an ordinary face of a man in his late forties. He inclined his head to Gabriel.

  “Good evening, my lord. I’m Horace. My people and I have been sent to collect a shifter and bring them to our employer for questioning on a private matter.”

  “I see.” Gabriel frowned thoughtfully. “May I ask which shifter?”

  Horace quirked an eyebrow. “You may, but would you tell us where he was if we did tell you who we were looking for?”

  “Probably. Something for something, after all, yeah?”

  “That depends on the something that you want,” Horace said. “Meaning no disrespect, my lord, but there are some things that we cannot tell you.”

  “I understand.” Gabriel regarded the man and his companions. “Who do you work for?”

  “That is one of the things we can’t answer.” Horace smiled apologetically. “Our employer has placed certain enchantments on us that prohibit us from revealing her identity.”

  Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. “Her?” he asked. “Is she a witch?”

  Horace’s smile became sly. “You said it, not me.”

  Gabriel grinned. “I see. All right, that’s a start. You can’t tell me her name, though?”

  Horace shook his head.

  “What about her nationality? Is she European?” Horace again shook his head. Gabriel ran through every Earth nationality, each one met with a no, and finally, out of frustration, he asked, “Is she human?”

  “I don’t believe she ever was,” Horace said. “But it would take a scientist or a relative to really say for certain.”

  Gabriel pursed his lips once more. Far from irritating him, this was fueling his curiosity. “I see.” He mulled that over. “Is she a demon?”

  Horace shook his head again in the negative.

  “Angel?”

  “No.”

  Gabriel frowned. “Monster?”

  Horace hesitated. “Of a sort.”

  Gabriel’s frown deepened. “There are a lot of monsters around.”

  “There are,” Horace agreed. “My lord, I would gladly spend the rest of the night talking with you, but we are under contract. I’ve answered your questions to the best of my ability. Now, perhaps you can answer mine.”

  “If I can,” Gabriel said, smiling.

  Horace chuckled. “Understood. We’re looking for a shifter named Arkady Ilyavich Kovsky. Is he here?”

  “Let me ask.” Gabriel sent his thought to Raziel. “You hearing all this, I presume? Is this shifter here?”

  “I am, all three of us are. And no, he’s not. Odd choice to ask for, he’s just a low-ranking soldier who works for Lyudmila. He left for Moscow this morning.”

  “Did he go alone?”

  “No. His partner went with him. I don’t know that shifter’s name. Just that he’s a little older than Arkady.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Gabriel shook his head and smiled apologetically to Horace. “I’m told he’s not here. He was, but you’ve missed him by a good twelve hours at least. He went to Moscow this morning.”

  Horace sighed. “Dammit. All right, we’ll travel on to the city then. Thank you, my lord.”

  “Just one last question,” Gabriel said, as Horace prepared to pull his hood back up on his head. “What has this shifter done that requires him to be collected by a group of mercenaries?”

  Horace smiled. “You’ve worked out who we are then.” It wasn’t a question. “The Order of Midnight does not work cheaply, after all.”

  “Your reputation precedes you,” Gabriel said. He inclined his head. “And I recognized the insignia on your coat.”

  “Ah,” Horace said. “Very well, my lord. This shifter, Arkady Ilyavich Kovsky, is wanted for murder in the first degree. Infanticide, to be precise. And he’s also wanted for theft of a family heirloom connected to the family of Joseph of Arimathea.”

  Gabriel blinked. “The last keeper of the Grail?”

  “The very one.” Horace moved toward his sled. “I’m sorry to be brief, but we must catch the shifter and bring him to our employer for questioning.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Understood. Good hunting to you.”

  Horace bowed. “Safe travels to you,” he responded. He pulled his snow goggles down over his eyes and his scarf up over his nose and mouth, got back onto his sled, and started the engine. The other men and women did the same, and the sound of ten sleds was like a dull roar. They took off, sending up a flurry of snow, riding in the direction of Moscow.

  Gabriel watched them go. “Shateiel,” he said after the sledders had vanished into the darkness.

  Shateiel appeared beside him. “Sir.”

  “Send one of the battalion commanders and two of his lieutenants to follow them. Make sure they keep themselves well shielded and report every two hours.”

  Shateiel saluted. “Sir.”

  As his second-in-command turned away to issue the orders, Gabriel turned to face Michael, Uriel, and Raziel, who had come up to join him. “That was weird,” he said to them. “Even for us.”

  “I agree.” Michael’s frown was hard. “The Order of Midnight are the most elite and dangerous human assassins available. That they are doing a simple collect and transfer tells me that this is no ordinary shifter and that it is connected to the Grail.”

  “Especially as he mentioned Joseph of Arimathea,” Gabriel said. “Bloody hell. Didn’t Joseph die after he entrusted the Grail to the monks at Glastonbury?”

  “Yes,” Raziel said. “Sammy took him home with great honor. Joseph was a very good man. He believed the Grail to be safe, and so did we.” He shrugged helplessly. “And see how that has turned out.”

  “What about this Arkady?” Gabriel asked.

  “No idea.” Uriel shook his head. “He seemed like a quiet, shy young man who was totally in love with his boyfriend and wouldn’t fart unless his boyfriend said it was okay. Lyudmila and Piotr liked him, and he wanted to go see his aunt in Moscow, so they let him go before you two got here. The other shifters arrived a few hours after he and his boyfriend left, and that’s when we called you. We didn’t think anything of it.”

  Gabriel was frowning now. He looked at his companions. “I think we’d better go down into that den and have a long talk with Lyudmila, Piotr, and their people.”

  “I think you are right,” Michael agreed. His expression had become grave and foreboding. “I like this not.”

  “None of us do,” Raziel said, “but point taken. Let’s go interrogate the shifters.”

  “Interrogate is such an ugly word,” Michael said.

  “What would you prefer?” Raziel asked.

  “I do not know,” Michael said. “Let us get this over with.”

  “SHATEIEL,” GABRIEL said as they reached the hole in the ground that led to the den, “stay with me and watch people’s faces. See if you can see anything that we might miss.”

  Shateiel nodded and saluted, and Gabriel followed the other Archangels down into the den, Shateiel a few steps behind him.

  Inside, the shifters were anxiously clustered together. Lyudmila and Piotr appeared relieved as the Archan
gels appeared, but Michael held up a hand to forestall any questions, and Gabriel noticed that the two young humans looked worried almost instantly.

  “Give us your reports,” Michael began. “Let us start first with what you have learned from the other kingdoms that were to send representatives to this conference in Paris.”

  Lyudmila gestured to another woman with mousey-brown hair, who nodded, stepped forward, and bobbed a curtsey to the Archangels. “My lords,” she said, “my name is Olga. We managed to contact all the other councils. Most of them had not yet had their delegations make landfall, as they were coming from some distance away. A few of the European delegations had reached Paris, but decided to wait for everyone else before going to the meeting place.

  “This was wise. On the morning the meetings were supposed to begin, there was an explosion. This was two days ago. The meeting was to take place at a building in Saint-Denis. This building, and the ones adjoining it, were destroyed in the explosion. The authorities decided that it had been a faulty gas link that had caused the explosion, but the only citizens who died were shifters or those who were friends of shifters.”

  Michael’s frown wasn’t going anywhere, Gabriel thought.

  “I recall hearing of this,” Michael said. He sighed. “It was terrible.”

  “It was,” Olga agreed. “We lost forty-five shifters in the blast and another fifty civilians, including those who happened to just be passing by the building when it blew. We do not know who sent the message to go to the conference; none of our experienced IT people could trace it. The calls had come via electronic means and they had hidden their origins very well.”

  Gabriel stepped forward. “I spoke with the people who were approaching,” he began. “They were hunting for a shifter named Arkady.”

  Lyudmila looked puzzled. “Arkady? What for?”

  “Apparently, he’s murdered someone and stolen something of great importance,” Gabriel said. “No, we don’t know who the person is who hired the men. Just that the men who were coming for him were of the Order of Midnight.”

  An alarmed murmur went around the group at that. Lyudmila’s expression became even more puzzled.

  “But Arkady has not left Armenia in months. Has he?” She turned to Piotr.

  “Nyet, he has not.” Piotr was scowling. He seemed so much like Lenin then that Gabriel blinked several times to be sure he was looking at Piotr and not a ghost of an early twentieth-century Russian revolutionary.

  “If I may, Majesty?” Another shifter stepped forward, and Lyudmila nodded.

  “Speak, Larissa, disclose your thoughts to us.”

  Larissa licked her lips. “Arkady went to visit his family in Moscow last year,” she began, “and he was gone for quite a while. Three months, as I recall. When he returned, he was very agitated and would not speak to anyone. Not even his lover.”

  “I remember now,” Piotr said. “He locked himself in his apartment and would not be moved.”

  Lyudmila pursed her lips. “Piotr, call home. Have two of our most trusted generals search Arkady’s lodgings.”

  Piotr nodded and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He moved away from the little group and made a call, his head down. Gabriel shot him a quick glance and returned his attention to the group clustered in front of him.

  “So there were no members of the Order of Midnight among those who were trying to kill you on the train?”

  Lyudmila shook her head. “Nyet. Unless they had concealed their insignia or tattoos.”

  “There are too many things I do not like here,” Michael said. “Raziel will stay with you—Uriel as well, if he chooses. Gabriel and I must go back to America and organize my people to start hunting out information. Please keep us advised of anything that happens here and among the shifters.”

  Lyudmila nodded and curtseyed. “Of course, Most Holy.”

  Raziel was frowning. “I think we should go to Yerevan,” he said. “By now, whoever set those men on Lyudmila here will realize they failed. If we go to Yerevan and act like nothing is amiss, perhaps that will draw them out.”

  “As you say,” Michael agreed. “Let us do that.”

  “We’ll be off now,” Gabriel said. “I’m sorry for your losses,” he added. “A terrible thing has happened, and I know that words are little comfort, but they’re all I have.”

  “Thank you, Gabriel,” Lyudmila said.

  “A moment, before you leave, Gabriel, Michael.” Piotr returned to the group. “I have news. My men went to Arkady’s while I was speaking with them. He has cleared out his apartment. There is nothing left within, not even dust. It has been emptied and cleaned thoroughly. They encountered our landlady upon the landing, and she told them that he had moved out and returned the key to her a week before we left for Paris. She did not know where he was going.”

  “What about his partner? Vasily?” Lyudmila wrung her hands together.

  “I do not know.” Piotr was grim.

  “Sir.” A new voice interrupted them, coming from the hole above.

  Gabriel blinked and looked up. “Yes?”

  An angel jumped down. He wore full armor and held a sword. He was one of the commanders of the battalions that Gabriel had ordered Shateiel to deploy. Gabriel smiled at the angel, pleased to see him.

  “You have news for us?”

  “I do, sir.” The angel bowed. “It isn’t good, I’m afraid.”

  “Now there’s a damn surprise,” Uriel drawled.

  “Uriel, hush,” Michael scolded. “What is the news?”

  The angel took a deep breath. “We followed the assassins as they traveled toward Moscow. Halfway there, in a snowdrift, they found a body. We watched and listened, as we were ordered. The leader of the assassins, this Horace, found papers on the body. They identified the corpse as Vasily Andrevich Melokov.”

  “Oh no,” Lyudmila gasped.

  “Damn,” Gabriel muttered. “Well, that answers that. Any idea how he died, soldier?”

  The angel nodded. “It wasn’t pretty. I would suggest the ladies move away if they’re of delicate constitutions.”

  Gabriel noted that no one—lady or otherwise—moved out of earshot. He nodded. “Continue.”

  The angel took a deep breath. “He’d been hamstrung, sir, the tendons torn out of the back of his knees. Then he’d had his throat ripped out. Not by a wolf—Horace seemed to think the bite wounds were too small for a wolf’s mouth.”

  “Arkady’s shifter is a red fox,” Lyudmila said in a small voice.

  “Fucking hell.” Gabriel ran a hand through his hair. “Wait a moment, would you please?” he said to the angel, and the angel nodded. “Raz, Uri, I think you’d better get Lyudmila and her people here back home. If you need extra muscle, there’s a battalion of Seraphim not far away, I’ll put them at your disposal for the move and for extra guards.”

  Raziel nodded. “Thanks, Gabe, that will help.”

  Gabriel turned to the angel. “Go to your battalion, tell them of these orders and that, for the moment, they’re under the command of Archangels Raziel and Uriel. Then you come back here. I have another job for you and your two lieutenants.”

  “Sir.” The angel saluted and vanished.

  “Now we move,” Raziel said. “Everyone, gather up what you need and start heading out.”

  As the shifters began to gather up their belongings, Gabriel gestured to Michael, Raziel, Uriel, and Shateiel, and moved to the far side of the chamber. “This is bad,” he said. “The last few times we had shit to deal with, we knew who—more or less—was pulling the strings. It was only a matter of planning to take ’em down. This time, we’ve got no bloody idea. I think, once Raz and Uri and my Seraphim take these people back to Yerevan and stay with them, that Mike, Shateiel, and I should start sending out scouts to get information.”

  Michael nodded. “I agree. My people are trained for this. I will decide which squads to send where. Shateiel, if you would not mind helping move them?”

  “I will
do anything you require me to do, sir,” Shateiel said.

  “Thank you.” Michael regarded Gabriel. “Who is the angel you spoke with just now? I confess, I do not know all the Seraphim’s names.”

  “Camael,” Gabriel supplied. “He’s stayed beside the Throne for the last several millennia. I think the Seventy Years War was the first time he’d left Heaven since Adam walked the earth.”

  “That is a long time,” Michael said. “Is he transitioning all right?”

  “Yes. He watched things while he was upstairs and he had the benefit of taking his questions to the Source, so he’s handling the modern world pretty damn well.” Gabriel smiled. “I’m proud of him. And all my Seraphim.”

  Michael nodded. “I see. That is good to know. So, what will you have Camael and his lieutenants do?”

  “I think they should scout through the forests.” Gabriel was all business. “I think we should find out if there are other trees with keys in ’em. I don’t know if it’s important, but I think it’d be stupid not to know the locations, just in case.”

  “As you say. I share your thoughts on this matter, in any case.” Michael smiled. “I feel that now we have the beginnings of a workable plan, that we will prevail.”

  “I hope you’re right, Mishka,” Gabriel said.

  “Sirs, if I may interrupt,” Shateiel began diffidently, “Agrat just spoke to me.” His expression was confused.

  “What did your wife say?” Michael asked.

  Shateiel’s brow furrowed. “Sirs, she said that she just received a letter from her sister, asking to meet with her in the Sahara next Wednesday afternoon.”

  Gabriel blinked in surprise. “Her sister? Which sister?”

  Shateiel took a deep breath before replying. “Lilith. The consort of Lucifer and Mother of Giants.”

  Gabriel’s jaw dropped and he stared at Shateiel. Beside him, Michael had frozen as still as a statue.

  “Pardon, but did you say Lilith?” Michael said finally. His voice sounded strangled.

  Shateiel nodded.

  “Shit,” Gabriel muttered. “That’s all we need. Lilith muddying up the bloody waters.”