by Jane Kindred
I’d given birth to Ola in this very palace, in the wing just opposite, spending most of my labor chained to a cot in a servant’s quarters with no one attending me. Aeval had sent a chambermaid to check on me twice a day during my confinement and Inga had been there when my water broke, but since I’d recently accosted the girl in an attempt to escape, she felt no particular sympathy for me when I begged her to unchain me and send for the midwife. She’d left me laboring alone for several hours in a puddle of amniotic fluid, screaming and terrified. I’d known nothing of childbirth, like Lively, certain I was going to die. And then Kae had come to me, unchaining me and helping me through the delivery when no one else would.
He hadn’t been particularly tender or kind. Deeply under Aeval’s influence with his blood still bound to her, he was the spoiled, sadistic puppet she’d made of him. And yet some part of the beloved cousin I’d known in my youth had remained within him and he’d come to help me in my distress. I hadn’t forgotten that.
Just when it seemed there was no hope for Lively, she insisted with a sudden surge of strength she needed to push. She wasn’t fully dilated, Margarita said, and I was doubtful, but there was no point in telling her to hold back. If she didn’t deliver soon, we would lose them both. She clutched Margarita’s hand until it turned white, quiet for the first time during her contractions, focusing all her remaining strength and energy on bringing the child into the world. I had no idea whether the spell she’d woven for putting the demons to sleep could be used to will anything else, but I willed with all I had in me for the child to be born, and born alive.
The baby came at last just after dawn. I’d never seen an infant so tiny and thin. His skin was like glass, with veins and sinews visible beneath it. He cried weakly through his immature lungs, but at least he drew breath. Exhausted after such a long labor, Lively collapsed into Margarita’s arms in a state that was more unconsciousness than sleep, and I took her little boy and let him suckle on me for comfort. I was surprised to find a small amount of milk still let down after so many months away from Ola.
The baby was weak, however, and didn’t feed for long. Margarita and I kept him warm, bundled in pillowcases, with a clean sock for a hat to keep him from losing heat, until Lively roused an hour later.
She woke in a panic, grabbing at her empty womb with a cry as if someone had stolen the child from her. I shuddered at the thought of my sister waking to just such a fate and tried not to think of the possibility Helga mightn’t have used a sleeping draught to accomplish this outrageous violation. I’d have heard it if she hadn’t, I told myself. Surely, I would have heard it.
Rocking the baby in the sunlight by the window, Margarita turned at the sound and hurried to Lively’s side. “It’s all right. Here’s your boy.”
Lively took him, her eyes wide and frightened. She held him for a moment, smiling when his tiny hand curled around her finger, and then burst into tears.
Margarita sat on the bed beside her. “I know he’s tiny, but he seems to be breathing all right. We’ll take care of him. He’ll be okay.”
I wasn’t so sure of this, but I kept my doubts to myself.
“It’s not that.” Lively stroked his cheek. Her eyes darted guiltily at me and then back to the baby. “He’s not Vasily’s.” She spoke so quietly I almost missed it. I’d entirely forgotten over the past few hours that Vasily had supposedly fathered her child.
It was true the baby looked nothing like him, with darker hair than Lively’s and a hint of dusky color to his translucent skin, but he hardly looked like anyone, so barely formed, and I knew a baby’s coloring could change drastically in the weeks and months after birth. Even if it didn’t, not every child looked like its father.
“What makes you say that?”
“The apothecary taught me how to identify the elements in the blood by looking—the skin, the hair, the eyes…” Lively tried to dry her tears. “He’s a waterspirit, with a little bit of earth, like me. No fire at all.”
“Well, who else’s could he be?”
“The stable boy’s,” she said, and cried harder.
I’d forgotten the stable boy—a youth Lively had seduced to get us out of a predicament when we first fled the queen’s men on our way to Aravoth. If it weren’t for Lively’s distress, I’d have laughed with relief.
“I just knew it would be. I knew from the beginning, really, but I thought there was a chance.” Lively leaned against Margarita hopelessly as the Nephil put an arm around her. “Helga’s going to kill me.” She soon forgot her distress, however, in marveling at her newborn child.
Margarita helped her put him to the breast and he made a brief attempt at feeding before falling asleep once more. “What are you going to call him?”
Lively sighed and gazed at the baby for a moment. “Early,” she said, rocking him. It seemed as good a name as any, and certainly apt. She looked at the sunlight now streaming through the window and her brow creased with worry. “They’ll be waking from the spell soon. I have to get back to my room.” She tried to climb out of the bed, but fell back with a gasp of pain.
Margarita held her shoulders. “You’re not going anywhere. You’ll just tell them you came to me because you didn’t have time to get a midwife. Nazkia can lock me up before she goes back to her room. No one will know about the spell or the passage.”
Lively considered, looking overwhelmed and tired. “I suppose they’d wonder what you’d done to the bed if I did leave,” she said with a weak laugh.
I put Margarita’s shackles on as she suggested, and she sat in the chair by the bed to watch over Lively, already drifting back into sleep with Early cradled in her arms. I crawled through the bookshelf panel into my room in time to hear Margarita’s door being unlocked. After a brief commotion, I heard Lively berating the demon guard for falling asleep, claiming she’d tried to rouse him and had been forced to take his key and seek help from Margarita herself when she’d gone into labor.
“And who else was going to help me deliver?” she yelled. “You? I suggest you do as I say or I’ll tell Aunt Helga you’ve been drinking on the job!”
I smiled ruefully as I undressed, setting my bloodied uniform on the dressing table chair. Whatever else one might say about Lively, she was as brilliant a player in her own way as Belphagor was at the gaming table. The poor demon was so thoroughly chastened he probably believed he had been drinking by the time she’d finished with him.
In spite of having been awake for more than twenty-four hours, I found myself unable to sleep. Holding and nursing little Early had brought Ola’s first days back to me in painful detail. I’d missed so much of her childhood already, and now I’d missed my chance to go in search of her. Except for the few weeks I’d spent with Ola as prisoners at Gehenna, it had now been nearly a year since she was first taken from us at Arkhangel’sk. The fear and anxiety of the last several hours had been exhausting, leaving me raw, and a flood of heartache suddenly overwhelmed me. I sobbed into my pillow, giving Lively’s volatile emotions a run for their money.
I’d thought I might be one step closer to Ola this morning. If I’d left at midnight, I would have reached the border of Vilon by now. I wanted to be with Vasily, to find out if he’d somehow rescued Ola. And if not, at least to know I was doing something, fighting Helga—making some kind of progress toward the promises I’d made to Sar Sarael and the Virtuous Court of the Elohim, to the Virtuous Army who’d pledged themselves to me, and to Vasily and Belphagor—as well as to myself.
I’d missed my only real window of opportunity. Lively had expected Helga within a day or two, and that had been two days ago. Even if we hadn’t used all the powder in keeping the palace asleep during Lively’s labor, there wouldn’t be another chance to use the spell before Helga arrived. Making a bold daylight escape with every demon occupying the city wide awake seemed an unlikely prospect.
If only I’d left a few minutes sooner, a few minutes before Lively had appeared at Margarita’s door. Margarita wou
ld have been there for her, I told myself. She hadn’t truly needed me. I sighed, hating to think so unkindly toward Lively. Whatever else she was guilty of, I couldn’t blame her for going into labor when she had.
The chastised guard entered my room with a tray of breakfast, dropping it on the dressing table with a sullen glare. He glanced at my uniform draped over the chair, now marked with Lively’s blood, and eyed me peculiarly. The blood was clearly fresh and not a stain from battle.
“Did you leave this room?”
“Of course not.” I sat up and drew the blanket to my chest. “How could I?”
“This blood is fresh.” He touched his fingers to it.
I stared at him for a moment and then managed to blush convincingly. “If you must know, I’m having my monthly.”
The demon yanked back his hand with a scowl and wiped his fingers on the edge of the jacket.
“In fact,” I added, enjoying his discomfort, “I’d appreciate it if you’d bring me something more practical than tearing up the bed sheets.”
At this, he blushed more deeply than I had and fled the room.
I stifled a giggle into my blanket as I burrowed back under the covers, thinking how Love would laugh when I told her. And then I remembered I wouldn’t be telling her. If she’d gotten safely home to Arkhangel’sk, I wouldn’t be speaking to her again. How I wished at that moment Heaven had telephones.
Chetyrnadtsataya: En Passant
Standing in front of Dmitri’s building at two in the morning on the dusty track that passed for a sidewalk, Belphagor leaned in close to the intercom. For once, it was actually functional. “I’m sorry to bother you so late, but it’s urgent.”
Dmitri had obviously been deeply asleep. “You get reception in Raqia?”
“No, Dmitri, I’m downstairs. Let me in.”
After a blank pause, Belphagor heard the phone rustling against something as if it had been put into a pocket.
“Dmitri?”
More rustling sounds followed, and then a light came on above the staircase, revealing through the thick glass panel next to the door Dmitri’s silhouette shuffling down the four flights in his tapochki. He pushed open the door and stared in bewilderment at the apparent group of hooligans standing behind Belphagor.
“Lyosha,” Belphagor prompted the angel.
Loquel removed his hood and dark glasses so his silver hair fell over his shoulders and his eyes glowed in the dark.
“Bel, what on earth?” Fully waking in the cool night air, Dmitri stepped back and held the door. “Hurry up. This isn’t a safe house anymore.”
After the Virtues followed Belphagor upstairs to Dmitri’s apartment and filed inside, Dmitri shut the door and leaned back against it. “What are you doing here?”
“We came to talk to the Night Travelers. But right now I need to know where to find the Angliski Nephilim.”
Dmitri looked from the Virtues to Belphagor. “I don’t understand.”
“I think they’ve taken Love.”
“From Heaven?” exclaimed Dmitri.
Belphagor was growing impatient. “Not from Heaven, from Nevsky Prospekt. There’s apparently someone masquerading as one of the Malakim among the Travelers, and he’s been asking about Love. Someone with a British accent. And now she’s missing.”
“So you wake me up in the middle of the night to ask me about Angliski Nephilim.” Dmitri walked through the open double doors to the living room and sat down on the couch. “That makes about as much sense as shit in a blender. Someone you think has a British accent might have talked to someone who knows Love and you immediately think Angliski Nephilim have kidnapped her again.”
“The name he’s using is Micah.”
“Oh.” Dmitri picked up a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Belphagor, mumbling around his as he lit it. “There’s a pretty notorious Nephil named Micah from the Angliski clan.” He shook out the cheap cardboard match before he burned his fingers and handed the cigarette to Belphagor to light his own.
“It’s more fun the way Vasya lights them for me.” Belphagor winked as he passed it back.
“Well, we can’t all be hot, Seraph half-breeds.” Dmitri took a drag.
They grinned at each other and embraced as if they hadn’t parted under the worst of circumstances.
Belphagor regarded him as he sat back with his cigarette. “How are you holding up?”
Dmitri shrugged. “A lot of sleeping. Because when I’m awake, I accidentally make breakfast for two and call Lev’s cell phone when I’m out to ask if he wants anything at the market.”
“I’m sorry.”
Dmitri tapped off his ashes into a cauldron-shaped ashtray. “Lev bought it,” he said at Belphagor’s raised eyebrow. “The perfect accoutrement for the urban terrestrial demon.” He glanced up at the Virtues still standing in the foyer and murmured under his breath in Russian. “Will you tell them to sit down or something? I feel like I’m at my own funeral.”
Belphagor nodded to them. “Sit anywhere you like.”
The Virtues looked about at the mostly empty living room. A few sat on the floor, while the others went to the adjoining kitchen and sat at the table. Loquel curled up at Belphagor’s feet.
“O, nyet,” said Dmitri.
“O, da.” Belphagor grinned. “Ya treniruyus yevo,” he added. I’m training him.
“Khrystos, Bel.”
“Everyone needs a hobby.” He took a drag on the cigarette. “So. Where do I find the Angliski?”
“What makes you think I know where to find them? They’re supposed to be in hiding.”
“Yes, they’re supposed to be. Yet one—notorious, as you note—is wandering around St. Petersburg getting fairly well noticed. And you say this isn’t a safe house anymore. Which seems a little odd to me, considering you’re the Grigori chieftain. It also seems a little odd it was so easy to find you. You’ve never stayed in one place this long. So putting two and three together, I’m guessing you’re not the Grigori chieftain anymore.”
Dmitri shrugged. “It seemed a little pointless.”
“Who’s in charge now?”
“Nobody, really. I didn’t step down. But nobody gives a damn about it all anymore, Bel.”
“Nobody does or you don’t?”
Dmitri shrugged again and lit a second cigarette from the butt of his first. He’d never been much of a smoker before.
Belphagor sighed. “So what’s happening with the Nephilim?”
“Officially, the Angliski are cut off. Officially, I could send a few Grigori after this Micah and take whatever action I like against him for showing his face in St. Petersburg.” He ground out the cigarette butt in the cauldron while smoking the other. “Unofficially, the Angliski are viewed as heroes by a lot of the Fallen around here.”
“Heroes? Kidnapping an infant makes you a hero?”
“For joining the Social Liberation Party and defying Heaven.” He exhaled almost angrily, though Belphagor had said nothing to criticize him yet. “Look, Bel, there are a lot of demons who believe these stories about ‘Bloody Anazakia,’ and they’re sick of angelic rule.”
“But you know the stories aren’t true.”
Dmitri shrugged.
“Are you going to tell me you think my little girl is an abomination?” Belphagor demanded. “After knowing Anazakia? After knowing Vasily, for Heaven’s sake?”
“Of course not. But Vasily, according to you, isn’t even a demon.” Dmitri flicked his barely smoked cigarette into the ashtray, avoiding his eyes. “When I committed the Exiles to come to your aid, it was because the Fallen help the Fallen.”
Belphagor ground out his cigarette carefully and stood, offering his hand to help Loquel up from the floor. It took a nearly supernal effort to keep his temper controlled. “Just tell me where to find Micah and you’ll never have to be bothered with any filthy angel-lovers again.”
“Belphagor—”
“The fucking Angliski, Dmitri! Before something happens t
o Love!”
§
Tyr was furious when Micah gave him the order to stop. They’d spent several minutes arguing in English, while Love huddled on the floor beside the daybed, too afraid to move. Eventually, Tyr stormed off into a back room and slammed the door.
Love had taken her cues from Micah, using half-truths along with the information he supplied when she pretended to hesitate, contriving a believable story about Vasily and the Iriyan Guard sneaking Ola and Azel out of Arcadia to return with them to Iriy. Micah seemed pleased. He’d even given her a kiss on the top of her head when she finished answering his questions. The gesture had reminded her of Kirill and she’d burst into tears, overwhelmed, and confused by his kindness. Micah had wrapped a blanket around her and told her to rest, and before she knew it, she’d fallen asleep. But the respite had been temporary.
Micah dragged her from the bed a few hours later, shaking her angrily. “I am very disappointed in you, Love.” His eyes had gone nephilic black, like slick pieces of obsidian. “You’ve made me look quite foolish for trusting you. I transmitted your story directly to Heaven, where your friend Vasily and his Iriyan Guard were engaged in battle with the Liberationists. It seems Vasily himself met with Helga and demanded to know where the children were.”
Love stood trembling before him, forced onto the balls of her feet as he seized her between both hands. “I tried to tell you I didn’t know where they were.”
Micah turned and pressed her into Tyr’s waiting arms. There wasn’t even time to cry out before Tyr swung her about and slammed her head against the half-open door of the kitchen. Stunned, she slipped to the floor against the threshold, one arm up to fend off Tyr, but it was Hera who picked her up by the hair and hauled her inside. When Micah appeared in the doorway, Love tried to speak, but Hera slapped her and growled, “Shut up!”