The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  She looked to him for permission as she took hold of the knotted cord, and Kirill didn’t stop her. He breathed in sharply as she tugged at the knot, but remained stoic as she untied it and worked the spikes out of his thigh ring by ring. Trails of blood extended from the tiny prick-marks like the stigmata of a saint.

  She set the cilice aside, her hand against the mutilated skin. “Why did you do this?”

  He avoided her eyes. “Because the flesh is weak. And I am easily tempted.”

  “Tempted by what?”

  Kirill’s voice came out in a harsh whisper, as if it hurt his lungs to admit it. “By you.”

  Love reached up and touched his flushed cheek. His beard was soft against her palm. As he blinked his haunted eyes at her, she moved her hand to his chest, feeling his heart pounding softly in the dark, before buttoning him up and pulling her mittens back on.

  “Good night, Kirill.” She kissed him on the cheek and climbed between the covers, snuggling close to Ola. As she closed her eyes, she could still feel Kirill staring silently at her.

  In the morning, Love woke to find him gone. She scrambled out of the tent and left Ola sleeping, afraid he’d walked off into the snow, but Kirill was kneeling by the fiery river with two of the Cherubim standing over him.

  “I will ask you one more time, ’holy’ man.” Zophiel grabbed him by the beard. “What are you doing outside your tent?” When the Cherub got no response, he forced Kirill to his feet. “Perhaps you came out for a swim?” The Cherub shoved him toward the river.

  “Don’t!” Love ran forward as Zophiel held Kirill’s head twisted at an awkward angle to keep him from sliding into the molten river. “He was only praying! Kirill, answer him!”

  Kirill met Love’s eyes. “As you say.” He answered in angelic. “I pray to God.”

  Zophiel pushed him away with disdain, and Kirill caught himself as he swayed on the bank. “There is no ’God’ here,” the Cherub said.

  “I pray to God for deliverance.” Kirill stared at him defiantly. “From the Evil One.”

  Zophiel’s lion countenance turned toward him. “I’ve warned you not to insult us again.”

  Without flinching, Kirill began to recite another piece of scripture. “And the Devil was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever!” He stepped forward and shoved the furious Cherub toward the river with all his might.

  Zophiel shrieked with the voice of the eagle as he stumbled backward. Two sets of enormous golden wings that had seemed to be a part of his garment a moment before were flung wide, and he rose from the riverbank before he ever touched the river. The amber eyes in his human-like face appeared to burn as he focused them on Kirill. He flapped his upper wings toward the monk, and with a blinding flash of light and a crack like thunder, Kirill was gone.

  Odinnadtsatoe: Seraphic Light

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

  The others were surprised when it was I who tried to kill Vashti.

  The moment Belphagor stopped dead in the lobby of the Arkhangel’sk airport, fingers white around his phone, I knew. Something else—something worse—had happened, and Ola, so close at last, had been snatched from within our grasp. He’d passed the phone to me, and I had listened to Ola’s voice, happy and eager one moment, wailing and frightened the next against the mocking voice of a Cherub.

  We hurried home in a hired taxi, but our heavy hearts already knew what we would find there. The door stood open, with snow piling on the inside mat, the light from the kitchen casting a pale yellow triangle across the entryway. There was no one there.

  It was then I had calmly walked to the kitchen, taken a fish-scaling knife from the drawer, and turned and plunged it into Vashti’s flesh. I was aiming for the gut, but her reflexes were quick, and instead I buried it in her upper thigh.

  Only the others were stunned by my actions; Vashti didn’t seem surprised.

  Vasily pulled me away while Dmitri and the Nephil’s twin tended to her leg. A great deal of blood seemed to be flowing, but I apparently hadn’t severed the crucial femoral artery, and she would live. After Dmitri managed to stanch the blood, Nebo sewed her up. There was no anesthetic.

  I watched all this, and watched Vashti’s stoic response to it, from the chair by the fire where Vasily held me down. He didn’t chastise me—no one did, not even Nebo—only kept me from doing her further harm. His eyes, however stunned they appeared to be, nevertheless seemed dark with satisfaction. I suppose if I hadn’t done it, he or Belphagor would have, and they would have been more efficient at it. In the end, her death would have served nothing but to remove our only source of information, so it was just as well I was unaccustomed to killing.

  At my request, Vashti was given my bed in which to recover—not because I gave a damn about her comfort, but because I couldn’t bear to look at her, and being kept from the fireplace while she convalesced beside it would have driven me into a rage. Nebo would bunk with her, and Dmitri with Belphagor, while Vasily and I would sleep by the fire as Love used to do.

  Love was another matter that made my heart heavy. I was dismayed at how quickly we’d jumped to blame her, even assumed the Nephilim had been doing her bidding. Twice I’d failed to follow my gut, sending Ola farther from my arms. Out of heartbreak, I’d ignored what I knew and believed of Love’s nature, choosing instead to think the worst of her. And on the isle of Solovetsky, I’d thought myself foolish when my heart had told me Ola was there.

  I’d never been so immersed in darkness in my life as I was now, not even after the loss of my family and all I’d known when Kae took them from me. The short, dreary winter days of Arkhangel’sk were a just accompaniment to my mental state.

  In brief sessions of lucidity and wakefulness between the fog of painkillers upon which her brother Nebo insisted despite my heated disapproval, Vashti told us what she knew, though she was reticent to speak of Love. The Angliski clan of Nephilim were not in league with the Malakim, she said, but against them. She explained, to Vasily’s dismay, that it was a barroom brawl he’d provoked last summer that had prompted the clan to take action. Through the Night Travelers, they’d learned that the Malakim had been alerted to his presence by Seraphim in the region who had caught his scent. With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realized the Seraphim who had murdered the syla had been much closer than I’d dreamed. Vasily was quiet, avoiding Belphagor’s eyes.

  Knowing it was only a matter of time before the Malakim discovered the dacha, the Angliski had taken Ola to keep her from falling into Aeval’s hands, believing we couldn’t be counted upon to do what was necessary to prevent it. What was necessary, as perceived by many in the clan, was apparently the death of my child.

  I flew at her throat at this suggestion, once again held back by Vasily and Belphagor overriding their own instincts to strangle her. Vashti claimed she’d swayed Zeus from his intentions and insisted Ola be kept alive, but I wasn’t about to give her the benefit of believing anything that put her in a better light.

  When she said she’d arranged to get Love and Ola off the island, I didn’t believe her, but Dmitri confirmed that Nebo himself had worked with Vashti to obtain the aliases and plane tickets necessary for their escape. When we asked how she managed to deceive Zeus, she replied that she’d killed him. She broke down when she said this, grieving her lover, and it was the first thing out of her mouth I believed.

  She had no knowledge of the Cherubim, however, and we could only conclude that the Malakim had staked out the dacha, waiting for Ola’s return. Using the Cherubim, they’d been able to circumvent the careful surveillance of the Watchers. With nearly five months to come up with a way to spirit Ola into Heaven despite the vigilance of the Grigori and Nephilim, “spirit her” turned out to be exactly what they’d done. The Cherubim alone among the Host had the power to assume other beings directly into Heaven.

/>   I fell deeper into despair. If Vashti spoke the truth—and I hadn’t yet conceded that she did—we had no way of finding out where in Heaven Ola had been taken. What little contact we still had with the underground told us her presence in the Firmament hadn’t been mentioned. She wasn’t in the palace. She hadn’t been seen. It was Solovetsky all over again.

  Dmitri gathered us together, and I stared in open hostility as Vashti, with the help of Nebo, came downstairs to join us, but the Grigori chieftain asked for my forbearance. When we were seated about the kitchen table, he looked at me grimly. A wave of dread washed over me. I was certain he had news of Ola.

  “I’ve spoken with the clan heads. We’re in agreement. An expedition must be taken into Heaven to get your daughter back.”

  “An expedition?” This wasn’t what I’d expected. “You mean another breach?” The breach they’d opened to storm Heaven to rescue Belphagor and me had taken two hundred Fallen bursting onto the palace square, with the benefit of the element of surprise and the fortuitous convergence of a general strike among the demon workers. Afterward, Dmitri and the others had conceded it was the pandemonium created by the striking workers that had allowed a frontal assault to work.

  “Not a breach. The Queen’s forces would be ready for that. I propose we take a small contingent up through the portals at Baikal and try to blend in as Raqia locals. We’ll infiltrate the ranks of the queen’s workers on her Urban Renewal projects. And then we’ll get ourselves sent to work among the camps.”

  I stared for a moment, realizing what he was suggesting. I’d spent time in Aeval’s first House of Correction, the model for her Relocation Camps. It was time I didn’t like to remember. Pregnant with Ola, believing Belphagor had betrayed me, I’d been at the mercy of Aeval’s dehumanizing system. If Ola was there—I could barely stand to entertain the thought. We had to get her out.

  I began to plan at once. “We’ll need the badges the Fallen are made to wear. Red disks of felt embroidered with black pentacles. And I’ll need some of the potions they sell in the Demon Market to disguise myself.”

  Dmitri frowned at me. “We can’t allow you to do that, Anazakia. It’s too dangerous. We mean to take a small group of our people.”

  I stood up and dared him to fight me on it. “She is my child. I have wasted enough time being safe.” I looked to Vashti with bitterness. “And I’m afraid my faith in your people has been rather damaged.” I stared the same challenge at Vasily and Belphagor, waiting for them to oppose me on this, but Vasily’s grim expression conveyed no objection.

  Belphagor glanced at Vasily before responding. “If something happens to you, Nazkia—”

  “Nothing will happen to me if I’m with Ola. When I held her, Aeval couldn’t touch me. Her Seraphim couldn’t touch me. It’s why Aeval wants her. She knows that without Ola I’m powerless against her.” I sighed at their doubtful expressions. “You didn’t see what happened. You weren’t there. Ola’s radiance combined with mine.”

  “Her radiance?” Vasily gave me a dubious look. “Ola hasn’t shown any sign of her element yet. We don’t even know which of us she favors. And even if she had, how much radiance could she actually manifest in Heaven? How much could you? Certainly none that was visible.”

  “I saw it.” Vashti had remained silent beside Nebo, avoiding drawing attention to herself until now. For the first time since stepping off the airplane, she met my eyes straight on. “You don’t even know what it was, do you?” Her voice was soft, almost awed.

  Dmitri frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

  Vashti kept her eyes on mine. “The radiance. The baby’s radiance…it’s seraphic.”

  This was preposterous. I had no idea what game she was playing at now, but I wasn’t about to stand for it. I came around the table, and Nebo stood up and stepped between us. The expression on his face was sorrowful, as if he was compelled to defend her though even he knew she didn’t deserve it.

  “It’s all right, Nebo.” She waved him away, her eyes still on me. “The Queen knew. I could see it by the way she behaved—as if she feared you.”

  “There’s just one problem with your theory,” I snapped. “Ola’s father is not a Seraph.”

  “Not entirely. But I’m guessing half.” She looked at Vasily as if expecting him to confirm this.

  He burst out with a laugh of utter amazement. “You’re completely insane.”

  “You don’t see it?” Vashti appealed to the rest of us. “The fire inside him? The heat he radiates? He smells like a chimney, for Heaven’s sake!”

  “I’m a firespirit!” Vasily shoved his chair back from the table in exasperation.

  The rest of us were regarding Vashti as if she’d truly lost her mind, but Belphagor’s expression was peculiar.

  Vasily scowled at him. “Don’t tell me you’re entertaining this nonsense. My father was no Seraph.”

  “How do you know? You never met him.” Belphagor ignored the withering look Vasily gave him, the flames burning deep within his pupils as they did when he was furious or aroused. “You can light a cigar with your tongue. You can breathe glowing embers. And you are extremely…warm.” Heat rose in his own cheeks as he said this, and I felt a corresponding heat in mine.

  “Obviously, I have a Seraph somewhere in my line.” Vasily was dismissive. “Generations ago. Just as one of your ancestors was from the First Choir. But neither of us bears any resemblance to those creatures.”

  Vashti shook her head at him. “No. You’re a true hybrid, just as we are. The Nephilim have a special interest in celestial genetics. We strive for purity.”

  This struck me as an odd phrase. It was the same spoken by the Host. How could a being whose blood was by nature mixed aspire to genetic purity?

  “It’s what Zeus’s clan has devoted itself to.” She spoke his name with a mixture of sorrow and shame. “They keep meticulous records of our bloodlines, going all the way back to the Nephilic Genesis. Most Nephilim regard those who are more than once removed from a full-blooded Grigori-humani pairing as diluted. For Zeus’s clan, only those descended from successive nephilic pairs are pure.”

  Vasily rose and pushed away from the table. “This is derrmo. Ola is not Seraph. I am not Seraph. I can’t believe any of you are listening to this for one minute. She’s obviously deranged.” He turned his back on her and addressed Dmitri. “What do we need to do to make this expedition happen? I want it to start yesterday.”

  “You’re not going.” Dmitri held up his hand as Vasily’s eyes flared with anger. “I won’t have both of you at risk. And you’re far too recognizable. I’ll put a team together and we’ll move out first thing in the morning.”

  Dmitri had underestimated the firespirit stubbornness. I knew immediately that Vasily would not abide by his ruling. Certainly, Belphagor knew it. Early the next morning, when Vasily crept out from under the blankets he shared with me by the fireplace, I lay awake and watched him quietly put together a bag for travel. After leaving a note on the kitchen table, he glanced over and realized he hadn’t been quite as stealthy as he’d hoped.

  “Nazkia.” He started guiltily. “I’m just going ahead by a few hours so Dmitri can’t object when I’m already there.”

  I sat up and hugged my knees. “Take me with you. He’ll try to keep me back when he finds you gone. He thinks one of us needs to be here, safe for Ola if something happens to the other. But it’s a suicide mission. There’s no getting her out. We both know that.”

  His face twisted with emotion.

  “I want to see her again, Vasily, even if it’s the last thing I see. I want to say good-bye to her.”

  He nodded, unable to speak, and I rose and pulled some traveling clothes together. As an afterthought, I packed the knife Knud had bequeathed to me. Vasily added my name to the note before we slipped out, letting the others know we meant to see them in Heaven.

  As we stepped into the frozen darkness of the winter morning, he turned to me suddenly and gathe
red me into a rough embrace, kissing me with an almost desperate passion. I melted into him like a bit of supple wax beneath his heat, tasting the charged particles of our radiance between our tongues. He released me all too soon and I slipped from his arms with reluctance.

  “I love you, Nazkia.” He whispered it fiercely, words he’d never said before. “Whatever happens to us now, I wanted to tell you—”

  I put my fingers on his lips. “I know, Vasya. I know.”

  With his large hand enveloping mine, we walked the three miles into town in our felt valenki designed to keep our feet dry, the only sounds the crackling of tree boughs laden with snow and the crunch under our feet among the deep drifts. The verdant, wood-paved walks that bordered the rows of wooden houses in the azure light of summer were now but icy trails lined with naked trees in the dark.

  The train to Moscow took twenty-four hours. From Yaroslavsky Vokzal, we boarded the Trans-Siberian to Irkutsk—the same train that had once brought from the portals of Heaven a destitute and frightened girl in the company of demons.

  Vasily carried a large cache of bills, and he purchased tickets for us in a private spalny vagon compartment. We spent the three days on the train in near silence, but it wasn’t the bitter quiet in which we’d spent the months since Ola’s disappearance. It was the silence of needing no words.

  I lay against Vasily’s warm chest while the train pulled us onward through the frozen world, wondering if what Vashti had said could be true. When Helga had told me of Vasily’s parentage, she’d seemed angry about his mother Ysael’s familiarity with the demons of Raqia. Vasily hadn’t known either of his parents, but Helga remembered, having grown up in Raqia. She considered Ysael’s relationship with the unidentified demon father to have been an unforgivable transgression, trespassing into territory that wasn’t hers. If a Seraph had fathered Vasily instead of one of the Fallen, was it possible Helga hadn’t known? As before, I shuddered at the thought of intimacy with a full-blooded Seraph, even in their non-lethal celestial form.