The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  By then, however, the monk’s innocent intimacy with the family—and his not-so-innocent intimacy with half the women in St. Petersburg—had done irreparable damage to the tsar’s reputation. Even if Aeval were to succeed in swaying Nikolai toward her control, there was no chance of redeeming him in the eyes of his people, so she whispered in the ears of willing revolutionaries that the time was ripe to topple the House of Romanov. Yet no matter what indignities were heaped upon Nikolai and his little family as the dynasty began to crumble and revolution swept the land, they maintained their joy in one another. Aeval had no choice but to destroy them utterly.

  And then once more, the foolish syla took their revenge on Aeval’s machinations, spinning queensdaughters in the celestial plane who might one day reign as queen of Heaven—a queen worthy of the flower of the fern. The intent had been to put their precious flower permanently out of her reach, but it had opened doors of possibility to Aeval that had never occurred to her before their meddling. Why seek to rule on Earth, when one could be a queen in Heaven?

  She’d taken delicious pleasure in disturbing the waters of supernal seed, completing the family picture the syla had begun with the birth of fragile Azel. Such flaws were uncommon among angels, but even angelic royalty carried recessive genes that could cause trouble, and Aeval had called these genes forth as the principality and his queen copulated.

  Out of a penchant for the theatrical, she waited until the children reached the ages of the slaughtered Romanovs before making her move. Now she no longer needed the flower the syla had kept from her. She held the Heavens in her hand. Kae had proven most valuable, though he’d gone above and beyond what she expected of him in cutting his own child from his beloved Ola’s womb. It had shocked even Aeval’s sensibilities. She feared she might have thoroughly destroyed his mind, making him useless to her, but he eventually recovered.

  She played the merciful angel to him for the benefit of the Firmament, nursing him back to health after slitting his throat herself and leaving him for dead. Only one thing eluded her, though she managed to pull every other memory from his head: she had never been able to get him to tell her how he’d disposed of the tiny corpse.

  With his blood in her command, he was nearly as empty as the bodies rotting in the Arkhangel’sk vault. Aeval molded him into a vessel, filling his empty carcass with whatever struck her fancy, though her efforts were particularly successful when she allowed him his volatile emotions. The jealousy and hatred he felt for her demon pet sparked a delightful streak of sadism in him, and she had happily turned the demon over to him to see how far he would go.

  Before the damned earthly Fallen had violated their exile and pierced the Heavenly barrier to rescue Belphagor, her puppet principality had come close to calling the blood of the demon himself through sheer brutality. It was a shame she’d never had the opportunity to see her slave create his own demonic version of himself. But Kae had beaten something out of the demon before his escape that intrigued her. Belphagor was not the father of the angel’s child as he’d claimed. His lover, the firespirit Vasily, had impregnated the girl.

  Aeval had known the infant couldn’t belong to Belphagor from the moment the child displayed her elemental radiance in Heaven. She had some natural immunity to the Seraphim that invoked it, as well as an immunity to Aeval’s ability to call the elements to do her bidding. Like the blue celestine stone worn by the angels of the supernal family to ensure the higher-order angels couldn’t harm them, the child protected her mother as well.

  No minor airspirit mutt like Belphagor could have produced such an intriguing mutation. Air and water blended to make nothing but vapor. But fire and water, which usually made no more than steam, could be a potent combination in just the right amounts. The diamonds she used as an object of focus to command the cardinal elements were one example of the elemental perfection known as ice and fire; the tsvetok paporotnika, the flower of the fern, was another. And the child, it seemed, was an embodiment of this perfection. Aeval had been a fool to let the little demon-spawn get away.

  Now that she’d achieved her objectives in Elysium, it was time to do something about it.

  Tritya: Safe as Houses

  from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk

  Following the news of the price on my head, Dmitri assigned a pair of Nephilim to stay with us in Arkhangel’sk. The product of Grigori unions with the humans they’d been sent to watch, the race of Nephilim were endowed with the celestial strength of their progenitors. Vashti, who’d helped storm Aeval’s palace to break me out, arrived from the earthly city of London with a Nephil I hadn’t met before.

  Zeus was as pale and blond as Vashti was richly ebony. Both were tall by any standards, but Zeus towered over even Vasily—or he would have, had Vasily not made himself scarce. It worried me that he hadn’t returned to the dacha since our disagreement, but Belphagor assured me he just needed time to himself. I hoped that was all there was to it, but Belphagor’s look was guarded, and I couldn’t be sure.

  Vashti was her usual aloof self—I had the feeling she didn’t approve of my pure angelic blood—but she seemed reluctantly charmed by Ola, who was awed by her difference. In particular, Ola seemed captivated by Vashti’s unfamiliar London accent, listening with rapt attention whenever the Nephil spoke.

  Among the Fallen dwelling in the world of Man, the human-descended Nephilim were the best equipped to provide us protection. Where angels of the Third and Fourth Choirs and their mixed-blood demon descendants could be easily overpowered by elementals such as the Seraphim, humans were invulnerable to their fiery touch. The Nephilim, half Host, were not completely immune to it, but they could withstand far more of a Seraph’s touch than a full-blooded celestial could without sustaining permanent injury.

  But it wasn’t the Seraphim we should have worried about.

  With our new protection in place, we procrastinated at Arkhangel’sk. I doubt any of us wanted to leave. The little dacha, though not big enough for six adults, had become a haven in our secluded plot in the Arkhangel’sk countryside. Love moved upstairs to share a bedroom with me and Ola, while Zeus and Vashti flipped coins for the couch and floor downstairs.

  There were also practical reasons the move couldn’t be rushed. The communications Love had been intercepting lately didn’t bode well for me. We heard nothing more from Heaven, but angelic messengers known as the Malakim had been sowing seeds of discord among the community of Travelers since Aeval’s rise to power, and it had apparently begun to yield its crop. The lie that I was the murderer of my own family, of countless numbers of the Ophanim Palace Guard, and of hundreds of demon peasants, had spread not only through the gypsy underground but had made its way among the small communities of the Fallen who relied on this network for communication.

  The larger enclaves of Nephilim and Grigori tried to counter the misinformation with the truth of what had happened on that infamous morning, but the trouble was that none of us had remained in Heaven long enough to see what had become of the demon uprising. There was no other likelihood than that Aeval had killed them all herself, but there were no witnesses; there was only Aeval’s word.

  The Malakim she sent to do her work in the world of Man had gained a significant following among the Travelers, even before the storming of the celestial Winter Palace. What came of that early morning’s work in Heaven merely served to strengthen the influence of the Malakim. As a result, communicating with the Fallen who were still on our side was becoming increasingly difficult.

  At least we had Love. For all her lack of belief, or perhaps because of it, she was stubbornly loyal to us, and members of her extended family who attempted to persuade her otherwise only infuriated her and hardened her resolve. To Love, these Roma were hopelessly deluded, being used by the slick-talking, charismatic outsiders who were the Malakim. She hadn’t made up her mind about who we actually were, but what we were, she firmly believed, was a group of ordinary huma
ns with intentions Love viewed as noble in its most basic sense.

  That Ola and I had escaped imprisonment, she had no reason to doubt, and that Belphagor had been beaten by someone within an inch of his life she had seen with her own eyes. I believe she thought of me as an heiress who’d strayed from a powerful earthly family who threatened my life. It was as close to truth as anything. For her steadfast heart, and because she had been brought to us by our dear friend Knud—who died defending me against Aeval—I trusted her completely.

  Because Belphagor and Vasily were known to be companions of the now-infamous “Bloody Anazakia,” finding a new safe house for us had become a challenge. Vashti had a brother in London who offered to put us up, but it would only be temporary, and from the sound of it, the space was small and not meant to accommodate a toddling child. Belphagor wanted to keep looking until we found something permanent, insisting stability was important for Ola, and I had no objection. I was content to remain at Arkhangel’sk as long as possible.

  Though the syla’s plight still nagged at me, I’d seen nothing more of them and there had been no reports of Seraphim sightings in the world of Man. Whatever had happened, it seemed to be over.

  Night began to return to the north, and I spent as much time outdoors with Ola as I could while the sun still graced us. Though we had little more than two hours of full dark now, in two months’ time, we would have more than twelve. The temperature was already dropping a little each day and we could no longer go about in bare sleeves; soon it would be time to put away our warm-weather things. Winter came early to Arkhangel’sk, with barely four hours of daylight at the deepest of it, and lingered long. The ice on the River Dvina had lasted this year into early May.

  If we were to leave Arkhangel’sk, the long winter would be one thing I wouldn’t miss, though it almost broke my heart to think of the beauty of the Northern Lights over the rime-frosted trees. And if there were no ice or snow where we ended up, would the snegurochki syla come to us at Winter Solstice? I couldn’t be sure. Though I would be glad of a warmer climate, I’d discovered the starkness of northern winter could be exquisite. As Vasily might have said, there was ecstasy in suffering I had never imagined in my sheltered, celestial life.

  Vasily, however, had me deeply worried. He stayed away for nearly a week after the news of Kae’s death put a strain between us. Belphagor remained unconcerned—it was Vasily’s way, he said—but I couldn’t imagine where Vasily could go in Arkhangel’sk without courting trouble. Though I rarely went into town, the rest of our household was looked on with some suspicion when they did, and had been accused a number of times of being gypsies. Love warned that if anything went missing while they were in town or any illness struck someone nearby, they’d be blamed for it. She was used to such discrimination; it seemed gypsies in the world of Man had much the same status as the Fallen in Heaven.

  When Vasily did return, it was with a hangover that made even the Nephilim stay out of his way, and a conspicuous black eye. The smoldering glower in his pupils from within the purpling bruise was a clear challenge to Belphagor. The two demons retreated behind closed doors for the confrontation I knew Vasily had been aching for. As mystifying as it was to me, Belphagor’s anger was like air to Vasily, and he’d taken nothing but shallow breaths since Belphagor’s return from Elysium.

  The rest of us took refuge in the sitting room and kitchen while Vasily rattled the ceiling above us with his furious pacing and shouting, and even Ola, seated on my lap, stayed unusually quiet, with a wide-eyed solemnity. Belphagor’s voice was barely raised. I knew before he returned downstairs that Vasily hadn’t gotten the precious drink of air he so desperately needed—the string of obscenities that followed in Belphagor’s wake before the door slammed shut again was merely a formality.

  After his return, Vasily barely spoke to me. I couldn’t reach him, and his coldness was as painful as an Arkhangel’sk frost. The sting was doubly so for its echo of the change in Kae before his madness. My cousin had been my dearest friend until Aeval’s enchantment had chilled his blood. It was like dull steel in my breast to feel such a similar intemperateness from Vasily, who was the embodiment of heat.

  It was clear there was an even greater strain in Vasily’s relationship with Belphagor, and I hated that I was the cause. If Belphagor would only rebuke me for my grief over the death of my cousin, I was certain the impasse between them would end. But he had not, and would not, and I could see it eating away at Vasily, pushing them further apart like a wedge being gradually driven between them.

  Before the end of August, Belphagor decided to take Ola on a short cruise to see the white beluga whales off the coast of the nearby Solovetsky Islands. It would be an opportunity, he said, for me to have a break from mothering. I hadn’t spent a single night apart from Ola since I’d brought her home, but I had no desire for a break. I was anxious at the idea of her being away from me, but Belphagor said the whaling cruise was a once in a lifetime experience. I argued that she was too young to remember it, but he was insistent, and I guessed that the real reason he’d planned this was to give me time alone with Vasily.

  They would take a bus to the small airport in Arkhangel’sk on Monday and be back Wednesday afternoon. I was nervous about Ola traveling in an airplane, but Belphagor assured me it was safer than an automobile—not that I considered those particularly safe. Vashti and Zeus would go along to make sure Ola was protected and I insisted Love accompany them; with her along, Ola would be less likely to be anxious at my absence. Despite the threat, there had been no signs yet of anyone attempting to collect on Aeval’s bounty, and with half a dozen Nephilim just a telephone call away on Dmitri’s “Arkhangel’sk detail,” I felt safe enough with Vasily at the dacha. If only Vasily were speaking to me.

  He kept to his room, so I went out to work in the garden while there was still time for things to grow. My little vegetable garden had yielded several small cucumbers and tomatoes this year, and I was learning how to preserve them so we could enjoy them into the winter months. Absorbed in the pleasure of working the earth, I stayed out until it was late enough that the sun was heading toward its brief dip below the horizon. I was on my hands and knees in the dirt, patting down a new plot I’d sown, when the door to the dacha slammed and I heard Vasily coming with determined strides around the path.

  He stopped under the arched trees that covered my secluded garden, his arms folded over his chest, and stared furiously at me. “Well?”

  I sat back on my heels and squinted at him, baffled, holding one hand up against the low-lying sun. “Well, what?”

  “Well? Are you ever going to speak to me again?”

  “Am I? I thought you weren’t speaking to me.”

  He came closer, towering above me like the statue of Vladimir Lenin in Petrovsky Park, and growled between his teeth. “You ought to have rejoiced at the news that the sukin syn had died.”

  I stood slowly, wiping the dirt on my trousers. “Vasily, Kae was a brother to me. I grew up with him. He was my sister’s husband. The man who killed my family, the man who tortured Belphagor—that was a stranger, a madman. It’s not his death I mourn. I don’t even know who that was.”

  “I don’t care who he was! He nearly took him from me.” Vasily grabbed my wrist in his large hand and the violet radiance shocked me lightly as if he’d brushed the soles of his shoes across a carpeted floor. His face was white with rage—though as I studied it more closely, I thought it might be fear.

  “But he didn’t,” I said softly. “You saved him.”

  He was motionless, staring at me as if I were speaking another tongue.

  “It’s not me you’re angry with.” I understood the look on his face at last. “You’re angry with Belphagor.”

  “Of course I’m angry with Belphagor!” He grabbed my other wrist and pulled me up close. “The fucking son of a bitch.” His habitually hoarse voice was nearly a whisper, and his eyes were dark with pain. “He hasn’t come back to me, Nazkia. He’s sti
ll there. Still in that hole. He has nightmares, and if I touch him to try to wake him, he shrinks from me as if he thinks I’m going to hit him. Sometimes he even speaks to him in his sleep. ’I am His Supernal Majesty’s eternal slave.’ He says it over and over.”

  I gasped at this. The last words my cousin had said to me had been almost the same, only he’d said it of Aeval: I am Her Supernal Majesty’s eternal slave. It was a conditioned response; he had seemed barely conscious of saying it. Aeval told me she’d called his blood, that she controlled him in every way. Yet Kae had apparently demanded the same obeisance of Belphagor.

  “He’s not touched me since he’s come home. Not really.” Vasily looked down at his hands and softened his grip on my wrists when he realized how he was holding me. Our radiance flickered and he slid his palms up my arms and watched it follow his fingers before pulling me close. I lifted my face to him when he released me, and he lowered his head and kissed me as he hadn’t done in months, the spark of our elements playing like a tiny static charge against our tongues. He pulled back and looked into my eyes as if for permission, the deep flames of his element dancing in his.

  “I need someone to touch me.” His voice was low with desire.

  More than my eyes were giving him permission as I nearly melted under the heat of his gaze. He scooped me up in his arms and carried me into the dacha, leaving the door thrown open as he took me up the stairs and tossed me into the center of the bed he shared with Belphagor. I fell against the pillows, breathing in sharply at the reminder that he could toss me with such ease. I watched as he pulled his white T-shirt over the thick ropes of his flame-colored hair and yanked the buttons from his jeans, his muscles as hard as all of him was. I had always loved to watch him undress, seeing each part revealed as I waited to be possessed by him.