The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  Nebo looked ill, as if his worst fears were coming true.

  When Vashti entered the terminal, she stopped short in dismay, taking inventory of the furious faces awaiting her and the look of dread on Nebo’s. She pulled the collar of her fur coat close around her neck as if afraid she was about to lose her head.

  Belphagor dug his nails into his palms, ready to oblige. He’d never hit a woman before, but not only did this one have it coming, Vashti was bigger than he was, and trained in combat. He was willing to compromise his principles this once.

  Anazakia was the one to dart forward and swing Vashti by the arm to face her. “Where’s my baby?”

  “It’s all right.” Vashti, who had nearly a foot on Anazakia and a good fifty pounds, shrank from her. “I sent her with Love yesterday. She’s already home.” She winced as Anazakia’s fingers dug into her arm. “I thought you’d be at the dacha already. I thought you knew.”

  Belphagor grabbed her other arm. “How do we know you’re telling the truth? How do we know your little gypsy friend didn’t just decide to take off with Ola on her own? She wasn’t offered asylum.”

  Vashti’s mouth hung open for a moment, and then she straightened and took a slow, steady breath. “I didn’t realize you weren’t aware. Love was a prisoner. Zeus took her.” There was something else in Vashti’s eyes she wasn’t saying. “He thought it would make things easier if there was someone to take care of the baby so we wouldn’t have to.”

  A loud slap rang out through the airport as Anazakia struck her across the face. Vashti took it without flinching but kept her eyes lowered. Nebo was the only one regarding her with sympathy.

  Vasily wrenched himself away from Dmitri and the Nephil. “Let’s go,” he growled. “I want to see my daughter. Now.” He shoved past Vashti with a scowl that said he was barely holding back the tightened fist clenched at his side.

  As the others turned to follow, the cell phone in Belphagor’s pocket chirped, announcing a message. He pressed the voicemail button as they escorted Vashti to the door.

  “It’s Love,” he called out with relief as he listened. “She’s at the dacha. Ola’s fine.” He cringed as he listened to the apologetic voice. She’d heard the threatening message he’d left her and she was trying to assure them she hadn’t been part of the conspiracy to take Ola. He’d have to make it up to her. He felt foolish for assuming she would do such a terrible thing. It had never even occurred to him she could have been a victim herself.

  “Say hello to Mama,” she said.

  Ola’s little voice piped up from the background, saying, “La’s Mama!” and Belphagor nearly wept. She sounded so grown up already.

  “That’s right. Ola’s Mama. We’re going to see her very—”

  There was a sudden, loud burst of static that nearly split his eardrum, and the phone clattered repeatedly, as if tumbling across the floor. He could hear Ola crying, and someone else he didn’t recognize pleading for mercy. Just before the message cut off, he heard it as clearly as if he were standing beside them: the metallic, thundering voice of a Cherub.

  …

  There was something wrong with the man’s face. Love blinked against spots in front of her eyes as she looked up at him, but the man standing over her seemed to blur and morph when he turned his head, as if his appearance weren’t fully formed. It had to be a trick of the light. A bright, white glow with the bluish hue of ivory under an ultraviolet bulb illuminated his skin where his golden robe didn’t cover it, as if he’d painted himself with a phosphorescent substance.

  She looked away from him, trying to clear her head. Immense walls of pale stained blue glass surrounded her, revealing a wavering landscape of pines and hills. Though covered in snow, it wasn’t the countryside of Arkhangel’sk. They were no longer in the dacha.

  Love was certain she hadn’t blacked out, but she couldn’t explain how they’d gotten here. Perhaps the lightning that struck her through the phone line had dazed her more than she realized. Her lungs felt peculiar, as if the air she was breathing wasn’t the substance she was used to—like the air of a high altitude, only…sweeter. It burned in her throat like ice.

  She was lying on her stomach on a cold stone floor carved with curious symbols, and Kirill was beside her, his head bowed to the ground, murmuring his frantic prayer. Realizing she couldn’t hear Ola crying any longer, Love sat up, gripping her head.

  “Ola?”

  “The grand duchess was not appropriately dressed for travel.” The strange voice had a disturbingly disjointed sound, like a quartet of voices speaking at once in different, discordant octaves. Love looked at the man sidelong, trying to avoid focusing on the peculiar, unsettling effect of his face. The others had occasionally referred to Anazakia as the grand duchess, so she supposed it stood to reason this title would extend to her daughter as well.

  “Who are you? What do you want with us?”

  He turned his head toward her and Love gasped as his profile flashed past her peripheral vision. What appeared to be the face of a lion had briefly wavered on his countenance.

  “We are the Fifth Order,” he said in his disturbing cadence. “We are the Cherubim.”

  Kirill began to murmur against the stone floor. “You have sinned, therefore I will cast you out from the mountain of God and destroy you, oh protecting Cherub, away from the fiery stones.”

  “Quaint,” said the man. “You quote the stories of the Malakim, used to control susceptible Men. But do not mistake us for the servants of your biblical god.”

  “God tests me because I have sinned against him. He tests me with demons in the guise of angels at the gates of hell.”

  The man came close to Kirill and bent low. His head turned on his shoulders with the agility of a bird, displaying a third wavering countenance that made Love think of Egyptian gods with the heads of hawks or eagles.

  “We are not demons,” he shrilled at Kirill. “We are pure! We are the angels of the element of fire. The Fifth Order. The Second Choir. Our brothers are the Seraph and the Ophan!”

  Kirill rocked forward against the floor as he chanted, his chotki clutched between his fingers.

  There was nothing in Love’s experience that could explain this. There were no contact lenses or prosthetic devices that could turn a man’s head one hundred and eighty degrees and give him the face of a lion or a bird. Nothing in what the others liked to call “the world of Man” could account for what was happening, except that she was no longer in it.

  Another being like the first entered through a pair of silver-embellished oak doors that opened in a ponderous arc. At his side, bundled in thick woolen garments like a snowsuit buttoned down the front, her feet laced into little boots of heavy suede, Ola stood holding his hand. Her stuffed dog dangled from her grip.

  “Lub!” She grinned happily, and the Cherub released her, allowing her to run into Love’s arms, though she moved awkwardly in the heavy garments. Love caught her and gathered her into her lap and Ola snuggled against her, looking shyly up at the Cherubim from the safety of familiar arms.

  The two Cherubim spoke to each other quietly in what seemed to be the angelic tongue, though they used words with which Love was not familiar. The one who had just entered nodded toward the doors, and two more of the creatures appeared. These two approached Love and Kirill and pulled them to their feet. Love lifted Ola in her arms and the Cherubim prodded them forward.

  Kirill was repeating “Iisuse Khriste” with a frantic desperation.

  “Enough of that.” The first Cherub growled at him, showing the wavering appearance of an ox as he turned his left side toward them. “We are growing tired of your superstitious incantations.”

  They were led through a corridor lined with the same stained glass under grey stone arches, the pale moonstone hue lending the snowdrifts piled beside the glass an ethereal blue cast. Beyond the drifting snow and the white-draped landscape of pine and cedar lay the stark outlines of high mountain peaks.

  The Cherub
im stopped at the end of the corridor and directed them into an atrium covered by a sweeping stained-glass dome. An empty pool stood beneath the dome, and the terraced stones around it held small potted fruit trees, out of place in this wintry desolation.

  Near the peculiar oasis stood a being so breathtaking Love couldn’t be certain whether it was a man or a woman. Long silvery hair hung over one white-robed shoulder, and the eyes focused on her seemed to have an equally silver-grey hue like none she’d ever seen.

  “Welcome.” The voice seemed to be that of a man. “And how fare our guests?”

  “The grand duchess and her companions will not be guests for long, Sarael. We’ve been instructed to take Her Supernal Highness to the Citadel of Gehenna.”

  Sarael observed the Cherub with an unreadable expression of calm. “Are you sure that’s wise, Zophiel? Why not keep her here at Aravoth where the Virtues will guide and guard her?”

  Zophiel made a motion like a shrug, but seemed to involve another bird-like revolution of his head. “Gehenna is where she wants the child to be taken. Gehenna is where we shall take the child.”

  The graceful Sarael bowed as if deferring to the Cherub.

  Zophiel directed Love and Kirill through the atrium to the vestibule of the building, where they were outfitted with heavy ankle-length coats, woolen mittens, and suede boots like the ones Ola had on. Love drew up the hood on Ola’s outfit and pulled the drawstring tight beneath her chin before putting mittens on both of them as Zophiel led them outdoors. Two more Cherubim were waiting by a large horse-drawn sleigh at the end of a circular drive.

  Love refused to climb up onto the seat when she was bidden. “You haven’t told us where we are or where we’re going.”

  One of the Cherubim took Ola from Love’s arms. “The Grand Duchess Ola Vasilyevna of the House of Arkhangel’sk is heir to the throne of All the Heavens. Where she goes is none of your concern. You are inconsequential. If you will accompany her, do so. Otherwise, you will be transported to the nearest Relocation Camp.”

  Love didn’t like the sound of that, and she wasn’t about to let these brutes take Ola away from her. She climbed into the sleigh without further questions, and the Cherub handed Ola up to her. Kirill followed, sitting next to Love and staring ahead with an expression of shock and hopelessness. She found a somewhat grim, reluctant satisfaction in his misery after the months she’d spent confined in the cell at Solovetsky. Perhaps he’d begun to understand what his complicity in Zeus’s plan had meant to her and Ola.

  They rode with two Cherubim at their backs and two facing them as the driver took the reins and the sleigh moved forward, pulled by two powerful draught horses with shining coats of black. The horses were a stark contrast to the white, empty landscape and the light colors of the Cherubim and the sleigh itself. Even the garments she’d been given and the blanket provided to cover her lap were a pale, creamy wool. Love tucked the blanket around Ola, who, despite the strangeness of the countryside and the conveyance, was soon fast asleep in Love’s lap.

  The grand estate behind them became indistinct as Love looked back, and with it the peaks of the mountains beyond. Before them was nothing but a flat, white expanse. Lightheaded from the peculiar air, she soon found herself being lulled to sleep as well by the monotonous white.

  After driving all day, they camped at dusk in canvas tents erected by the Cherubim in the midst of the endless ice. A circle of stones glowed with an unearthly golden heat, conjured somehow between a Cherub’s hands. Though she’d slept for much of the day, after a bland but filling dinner of smoked venison and a kind of flat cracker bread, Love was more than ready to climb into the tent with Ola and Kirill. The soft murmur of the monk’s endless prayer soothed her as she drifted off to sleep.

  In the morning, the smell of something cooking roused her early, but Kirill again refused breakfast. Love had seen him consume nothing in two days. When she urged him to eat he turned his back and she gave up and went out with Ola into the bright, white morning. The Cherubim provided a watery porridge and hot water for tea. Perhaps Kirill would at least drink a little.

  She left Ola happily working on her porridge and took a tin cup of tea to the tent, but nearly dropped it when she opened the flap. Kirill sat with his robes open, tightening a cord on his upper thigh that held a sort of chainmail garter in place. He tried to cover himself, but Love set the cup down and pulled his robes out of the way. She gasped when she saw the garter was composed of dozens of spiked metal rings forced into his inflamed skin.

  “Kirill! What the hell are you doing?”

  He frowned at her language as he pulled his robe away from her and covered the device. “Mortification of the flesh.”

  “Where did you get that thing?”

  “It’s a cilice. I found it in a drawer in the bedroom at the dacha.” Kirill stroked his beard and refused to look at her. “Someone there apparently understands the need for penitence.”

  Love knelt down beside him. “Kirill, please. You have to stop this.”

  He raised his pale aquamarine eyes to her, full of anguish and terror. “I have been brought to hell for what I’ve done. I am tormented by demons—though I can’t understand why God has brought this upon you and the child as well.” He shook his head. “The flesh must die so the spirit may live.”

  “This isn’t hell.” Love rubbed her hands against her arms as she shivered. Wasn’t hell supposed to be hot? “The Cherub said it was Heaven.”

  Kirill buttoned his robes with the cilice still biting into his flesh. “Would God’s kingdom be populated with such terrible creatures who deny Him?”

  “Drink this, at least. You need something in your stomach.” She picked up the cup and handed it to him, and he took it and sipped reluctantly. “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt yourself again,” she reminded him, but he’d already tuned her out, his pale eyes staring at the canvas.

  The sleigh carried them onward into the frozen wilderness for another day, and then another. The flat whiteness stretched for miles around them in every direction, as if they were adrift in the White Sea in winter. Love had no idea how the driver knew his course.

  Late on the third day of travel, a low range of jagged mountains at last broke the monotony, growing steadily larger until they were passing between its peaks through a narrow gorge that seemed nothing more than a frozen river—though this desolate country didn’t look as though it ever reached thaw. Within a plain of ice beyond the mountains, something was giving off steam, a faint orange glow visible in a line along the horizon.

  “What is it?” she asked the Cherubim.

  Only the one called Zophiel bothered to speak to them. “The Pyriphlegethon. The source of Heaven’s elemental fire.”

  As they drew closer, she saw what looked like molten lava flowing as if from a volcanic eruption, but it didn’t seem to melt the snow around it. When they drew up beside it to make camp as dusk approached, Kirill became agitated.

  “It’s as I said! We are in hell!” He leapt from the sleigh, and Love watched helplessly as one of the Cherubim knocked him to the icy ground. Kirill rose on his knees and began to cross himself. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” When the Cherub turned its lion face to him, Kirill raised his voice. “The devil prowls like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour!”

  The Cherub made a sound like a metallic growl. “If you do not wish to be devoured, priest of the Malakim, you will not call us devils again.”

  Kirill bowed his head and resumed his prayer. While the Cherubim made camp around him, Love lifted Ola onto her hip and went to his side. He’d thrown off his coat and mittens, and would soon freeze if he remained this way.

  “Kirill, you have to get up. It’s too cold for you to kneel on the ground.” She took the coat and handed it to him, but he ignored her, closing his eyes as he rocked forward in his prayer.

  “Ki’ill sleepy,” said Ola.

  Love placed the coat around his sho
ulders, and at least he didn’t resist this. She brought him some food, but there was no reaching him, and when it was time to climb into their tents for the night, he wouldn’t budge. Love put Ola to bed with her stuffed dog and told her she’d be right back. Outside, Kirill’s rocking motions had ceased and he was trembling, his lips quivering and blue as he tried to continue his prayer.

  Love knelt down beside him. “Kirill, listen to me. This is not what God wants.”

  His eyes remained closed, but he paused to answer her. “How do you know what God wants? You don’t even believe in God.”

  “But you do. And you must believe he’s sent you here for a purpose.”

  “For my iniquities. I am cast into the outer darkness.”

  “But what if he’s sent you to be a guardian to Ola? She’s become very fond of you, and if something happens to you, I don’t know what it will do to her after everyone she’s lost. She’s depending on you. We’re both depending on you.”

  When he raised his head at last, the pain in his pale blue eyes made her heart ache.

  “And I’ve become very fond of you myself, despite your foolishness,” she said. “Now come on.” Love held her hand out to him, and he rose unsteadily and stumbled with her to the tent, falling onto his knees when they were inside. Ola was already fast asleep.

  Kirill bowed his head as if he meant to go back to his prayers, but Love knelt down in front of him, and he looked up at her in surprise.

  “Will you do something for me, Kirill?”

  “If I can.” His eyes were puzzled as she removed her mittens, and he flinched when she laid her hand gently on his thigh. She could feel the cilice beneath the robes.

  “Please take this off.”

  “The flesh must die,” he began, but Love was working her cold fingers through the buttons of his outer robe. He shook his head at her and tried to push her hands away as she moved to the inner buttons, but his own fingers were numb. Love opened the podryasnik and stared at the spikes in his inflamed flesh.