by Jane Kindred
Gaspard’s eyes widened. “The others are going to want to hear about this. There’s a gathering tonight to discuss the future direction. There’ve been some new developments. Can you join us there at nightfall? The same house as before.”
Vasily nodded and drank his ale. It seemed to impress patrons when he managed it in one swallow. He winced with surprise when Gaspard’s hand went to the side of his neck while he was throwing the drink back.
“You have a new decoration.”
He set the empty glass down with a shrug. “Belphagor likes sticking me with things.” Vasily’s cheeks went warm when he realized how that had come out.
Gaspard put his hand over Vasily’s on the table, his expression dark. “You don’t deserve such treatment. Promise me you’ll return home with me this evening after the salon. We can send someone for your things in the morning.”
Vasily had to work to keep from yanking his hand out from under Gaspard’s with revulsion. He stared down at it, approximating shyness. “I don’t know how to thank you,” he managed in a low rumble that anyone who knew him better would have recognized as utter contempt.
Gaspard squeezed his hand. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
By nightfall, everything had been arranged. Belphagor had sent word to Phaleg that a gathering was imminent, and the messenger had returned with the reply: “Understood.” The angel had done his part and his Powers would be in attendance, and Vasily was on his way. But just as Belphagor headed out himself, Tilli arrived with unexpected news from Silk. Anzhela had been missing since the night before.
Belphagor frowned as he dragged him over to the bar. “What do you mean missing? Why am I just hearing this now?”
“She went out while Silk was at the club. Told us she was going to visit Koshka. Silk came back around dawn and went to bed while the rest of us were still sleeping. And then he found this in his room when he woke up.” Tilli slid a piece of paper across the bar.
Belphagor perused it and swore aloud. Anzhela had gone to the Virtue’s villa to demand the return of the girls. Even if she hadn’t been harmed, she was no doubt Auria’s prisoner, and her presence would have alerted the Virtue to the fact that demons were aware of the existence of his girls. And he’d had almost a full day to do something about it. Meanwhile, if Gaspard knew of Vasily’s connection to Anzhela, he was likely walking into a trap. Belphagor wouldn’t have time to warn Phaleg of this new development.
He pocketed the note. “Thanks, Tilli. Tell Silk I’m on it.” Anzhela had used a visit to her mother at The Cat as her cover story for the boys. Perhaps a trip to the brothel was actually in order, not to see Koshka, but to enlist some aid in a little change in his plan.
Pyatnadtsataya
The snow had begun coming down heavily as he’d crossed the bridge to the Left Bank, and Vasily was glad of the cold. The few angels braving the weather gave him hostile looks and hurried away as if he were a criminal. It was a bit insulting. He hadn’t picked a pocket in at least three years.
Admitted without question at Auria’s villa, he found Gaspard already there, as well as the angels, including two Powers he hadn’t seen before. Phaleg had come through.
“Vasily. So good to see you.” The Virtue’s sincerity was almost believable. Auria took his arm and led him into the parlor as though they were old friends. “We were worried you might have suffered your compatriot’s fate. My contacts tell me he was apprehended at the scene of the accident after a group of young hooligans happened by at just the right time and rescued the occupants of the supernal sleigh.”
The Virtue’s information was disturbingly accurate. Phaleg had said the official story mentioned nothing about demons being involved in the queen’s rescue. Auria must have had inside information.
The angel’s smile lost its warmth. “Gaspard tells us you’re closely aligned with a group of young hooligans.”
“I…” Vasily hadn’t expected this. He glanced at Gaspard, whose usual solicitous expression was absent. In fact, his gaze slithered away from Vasily’s like oil repelling water.
“It seems an odd coincidence,” the Virtue went on, “that you should manage to evade capture and escape the fate of your compatriot at the very same moment a group of hooligans matching the description of demons in your acquaintance just happen by. In the middle of Elysium.” Auria withdrew his arm and sat in the gilded armchair that was the only other unoccupied seat in the parlor, leaving Vasily standing awkwardly in the entrance of the room with everyone’s eyes on him. “One might surmise,” said Auria drily, “you had double-crossed us and betrayed poor Kazbeel to the gendarmes.”
Vasily glanced at the two Powers presumably here by Phaleg’s doing, but got nothing but grim stares from them.
“No need to confirm it.” The Virtue crossed his legs beneath his Aravothan robe, his arms draped elegantly on the arms of the chair. “I’ve received independent confirmation. Fortunately for us, your cowardly actions have resulted in a favorable outcome. The principality has withdrawn his pledge to sign the Liberation Decree. While he is still not an ideal ruler and must be closely watched, the urgency to encourage his more competent brother to supplant him has been ameliorated for the time being.” The cool smile never left the angel’s face. “This society will continue to hold the principality’s feet to the fire over the issue of special demon rights and uphold the truth and rightness of angelic supremacy. And as you can see, our cause has even grown in support.” The Virtue’s luminous silver eyes pinned him with an inscrutable gaze. “You, however, are an unfortunate problem that must be dealt with.”
“You promised no harm would come to him.” Gaspard, the only other demon in the room, seemed to have finally realized what his role was in bringing Vasily here this evening.
Auria didn’t bother to look his way. “It was a mistake to believe demons of any class could be trusted.”
Vasily still hadn’t said anything, expecting Phaleg’s Powers to make their move. Why were they just sitting there?
Gaspard rose, sputtering with indignation that seemed to be covering panic. “What do you mean by making such a gross generalization? I’ve supported this movement from the start, as have many of my contemporaries—though I see they have not been invited to this meeting.” He glanced around the room with a frown. “I’m beginning to think I’ve been brought here under false pretenses.”
“You were brought here,” said Auria, “to tie up loose ends.”
“Tie them up? Tie them up how?” The demon’s voice rose with a pitch of alarm. “I brought my protégé here just as you asked, to answer for himself.”
“Yes, and you brought him here in the first place. A spy, bent on foiling our aims.” Auria’s unnerving gaze fixed on Vasily once more. “Who has said nothing to refute our accusations.”
It dawned on Vasily that perhaps the Powers couldn’t act until Auria confessed to treason. Fine. If the angel wanted him to talk, he’d talk. “I did nothing more than you asked me to,” he insisted. “On your orders, I helped weaken the ice where the supernal carriage was supposed to be diverted so it would break through and plunge into the river. How was I to know she’d come by sleigh instead? Or that Kazbeel would be such a poor driver and a coward? He didn’t stay to see the job was done, just took off and left me to it. There weren’t any hooligans there when the ice cracked. No one saw what happened. They must have come later, after I stayed to make sure the sleigh sank.”
Infuriatingly, the Virtue wasn’t taking the bait. “You see, gentlemen? This is what I mean. Demons understand nothing but violence. They’ve perverted the noble aims of this group. Our loyalty is to Heaven and the House of Arkhangel’sk. A demon’s loyalty is only to himself.”
Beating around the bush wasn’t going to work. Vasily went straight for the jugular. “You’re the one who said the queen had to die.”
“I?” Auria was unperturbed. “Has anyone here heard me say such a thing?” No one said a word, though the two new Powers were ex
changing looks. “It’s clear, Gaspard, that you and your ‘houseboy’ have become a liability. We cannot afford to have our good name tainted by the ravings of radicals.”
“Now, see here—” Gaspard’s indignant squeak was cut short when the Power next to him—not one of Phaleg’s—rose and belted him in the mouth. Stunned, Gaspard fell back into his chair, his lip split down the middle and blood spattered on his long merchant’s coat.
Auria frowned, shifting in his seat and drawing his long platinum hair forward over his shoulder. “Not here, Major General. Look, you’ve gotten blood on my carpet.”
The Power glared back at the Virtue. “Exactly what do you want us to do with them, then?” It was the first time anyone else had spoken.
Auria looked Vasily over for a moment. “Take them to the cellar. We can dispose of them later. Perhaps one of my guests at tomorrow’s affair would be interested in breaking this one. I hear he actually enjoys it.”
Vasily snarled as the two officers came toward him to attempt to subdue him. “Poshli v na khui.”
“Is that some peasant curse?” Auria smiled. “Luckily, I don’t believe in elemental magic.”
“Well, you’ll believe in this,” he growled, and his eyes flared with heat as he flung the Powers off and lunged toward the Virtue. He managed to grab the angel around the throat and let him briefly feel the firespirit heat before the Powers tackled him and dragged him off.
Auria clutched his reddened skin in shock as he rose from the chair. “Get him out of here!” His voice, for once, was charged with emotion.
Gaspard, in the grip of another angel, made a snort of derision. “Oh, did I forget to tell you about his fire? He’s rather famous for it.”
Auria threw the merchant a scathing look—though it lacked the authenticity of a firespirit’s. “I want them both out of my parlor this instant. Filthy mongrels.”
Vasily could have easily tossed the two angels who held him, but if they were dragging him to the cellar, he needed to play along. That was precisely where he wanted to go. Gaspard stumbled after him in the grip of his captor, as if in a daze.
The cellar door turned out to be in the side of the grand kitchen—Vasily had never seen anything like this kitchen; it could have housed several demon families. He made a mental calculation of the distance from the cellar door to the front entrance of the building as they took him down the stairs.
But what met him at the bottom wasn’t the girls. Instead, a solitary demoness looked up at him from where she knelt with her arms bound behind her. The swollen black eye threw him, but only for a moment.
“Anzhela?”
“I screwed up.”
Behind him, the Power grabbed hold of his wrists to bind him, and Vasily submitted without protest, while Gaspard began to panic again, sniveling and begging for mercy. Vasily rolled his eyes, wishing the demon would shut up. Satisfied their captives were bound tight enough to keep them from making trouble, the angels left them. Vasily immediately concentrated the heat into his hands and burned through the ropes.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded as he moved to release Anzhela. “Where are the girls?”
“The angels moved them. Somewhere upstairs.” When the charred rope dropped away, she brought her arms from behind her back and rubbed her wrists with stiff motions. “I thought I could get them out.” Her last word ended on a wince as Vasily examined her eye. “I paid a demon to pretend to be a messenger delivering me as a gift from an anonymous admirer. I even came with a card: ‘To complete your set.’”
“You wrote a card to go with your own delivery?”
“I know. It was a stupid idea. But Belphagor wasn’t doing anything. I couldn’t leave the girls here another day. And the angel bought it. For a minute, anyway. But I made my move too soon. He tried to examine me, like I was a horse, and I pulled my knife on him.” She gestured to her eye. “He moves fast and hits hard for a fancy, pampered shit.”
Vasily shook his head. “He could have killed you. Belphagor has a plan to get the girls out. Gone a little haywire at the moment, of course, but we’ll find them. Don’t worry. This is just a setback.”
“What in Heaven’s name is going on?” The sharp interruption from Gaspard, probably meant to convey defensive anger, merely sounded panicked. “Who is this? What plan? What girls?”
Vasily turned on him with a growl of warning. “The young girls your upstanding Virtue bought from the Fletchery to have beaten for sport. I came here to find them.”
The demon gaped at him. “Preposterous. And what do you mean, you came to find them? I’m the one who brought you, to…” Gaspard trailed off.
“To what, Gaspard?” Vasily let him see the fire in his eyes. “To turn me in for deceiving you? What did you think the angels would do, scold me? Maybe give me a thrashing to teach me a lesson?” Gaspard shrank from him, apparently unable to respond to such plain truth. Vasily shook his head in disgust. “You’re an idiot.” He rose and helped Anzhela to her feet. “Come on. Belphagor should be letting himself in on the second floor about now from the garden. We’ll head upstairs while Auria’s busy congratulating himself in the parlor and meet Bel up there. The three of us will find the girls.”
“You can’t just leave me down here,” Gaspard protested as they headed for the stairs. “You do, and I’ll shout and give you away.”
Vasily glanced around and found a pile of cleaning rags. “You’re right. We can’t have that.” Gaspard took a nervous step back and let out a strangled yelp as Vasily stuffed his mouth. Anzhela offered her hair ribbon to tie it in place, but before Vasily had secured it, the door at the top of the stairs swung open with a bang.
The Virtue stood glaring furiously down at him. “You think you can tangle with me, demon? I will be the next Sar of the Virtuous Court of the Elohim!” Auria obviously thought this meant something to him, and his silvery eyes sparkled with menace when Vasily apparently didn’t show the appropriate level of awe at this statement. “Bringing loyalist Powers to my home and trying to entrap me was a foolish move.”
Auria stepped aside, and behind him, the major general and the brigadier shoved Phaleg’s Powers down the stairs. The angels tumbled to the ground, blood dripping from their slit throats. Vasily stared in shock.
“You just brought about the deaths of two of the Host.” The Virtue regarded him coolly. “I shall see that you hang for it.”
Gaspard made an incoherent sound of fear, spitting the rag from his mouth as the light from above illuminated the vacant eyes of the corpses. “I had nothing to do with this. I am loyal to the cause!”
Auria gave him a dismissive sneer. “You’re a demon. An abomination.”
“And what are you?” Vasily moved toward the stairs, the harsh growl of his natural cadence thick in his throat. “You’re nothing but a flaccid angel who can’t get it up without inflicting pain on someone weaker than yourself. I had no idea impotence was a virtue.”
The natural pallor of Auria’s face had gone even whiter with fury. He took a step down, hands convulsing at his sides. A distant bell sounded above, someone calling at the front entrance of the house. The Virtue motioned brusquely to one of the Powers. “Secure those two—and this time use something sturdier. Chain them to the posts. And Major General?” The Power, reaching the cellar floor, turned back toward him. “Break the merchant’s neck.”
It took Gaspard a moment to register that this instruction was about him. His horrified protest was cut short with a snap of the Power’s broad hands against his spine before he dropped to the ground.
“It’s not going to work,” Natalya hissed at him from the bushes where they hid. “He’s never going to let in a demoness whore.”
“You’re the one who insisted Tabris be allowed to make the attempt,” Belphagor hissed back. “Now you’re getting cold feet?”
“Not cold feet. Just bitterly resigned to Plan B.” The raven-haired demoness glared at him. “B.”
Belphagor’s smile was smu
g. “There’s a reason my best plans start with B. I never come to the table expecting A to work. It’s basic wingcasting strategy.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Light flooded the entry as the door opened, shining a glaring illumination on Tabris’s torn bodice and bleeding lip.
“I can’t believe you punched her,” Belphagor murmured.
“I didn’t punch her, you bastard. She grabbed my hand and struck herself. Now be quiet so we can hear.”
There wasn’t much chance of missing it. Tabris had begun to wail at an alarming pitch. “He won’t take no for an answer, sir! Please! Don’t let him beat me again!”
Belphagor had been adamantly opposed to bringing Tabris in on this, but he had to admit, she was doing an outstanding job. He’d only intended to get Natalya’s help, as she was far more adept at spells than he. The demoness had been instrumental in helping shut down the trade in underage demons on the Celestial Silk Road. But Tabris had overheard Anzhela was in trouble and insisted on being included. Though she’d suffered from mental confusion ever since the Ophanim had tortured her during the Duke Elyon affair, it was evidently one of her good days. She was quite lucid, and furious that Belphagor was treating her as if she were feebleminded.
“This is a proper angelic home,” the angel announced with disdain. “You are not in Raqia.” The angelic servant tried to close the door, but Tabris launched herself at him and clung to him, sobbing.
“She might actually do it,” Belphagor observed with admiration. If Tabris managed to get inside, the charm tucked into her bosom would activate Natalya’s spell. Natalya would be able to constrain the inhabitants of the house for long enough to give Polina—the demoness whore who called herself Pussy Familiar—time to warn Phaleg and get reinforcements, while Belphagor would break in the back way as originally planned and find Vasily and the girls—and Anzhela, assuming she was still alive.