Prince of Tricks

by Jane Kindred

  The angel was still distraught. Belphagor had to change his tactics.

  He lifted Phaleg’s head with his hands gripped firmly against both sides of the smooth jaw. “I’ll be the one to tell you if you’ve failed me, do you understand me?” He pushed him toward the bed. “Up on your knees. Unlace. Now.”

  Phaleg scrambled upright. Facing the bed where Belphagor had thrust him, he swiftly unlaced his pants. Belphagor slid his hands down inside the back of them over the smooth ass and around to the front. Phaleg, agonizing with self-doubt a moment ago, was now hard as a crystal facet.

  “Arms out on the bedspread.” He waited until Phaleg had done as he was told before grabbing hold of the angel’s cock. “I decide whether you’re a good boy or bad boy. And I decide how to deal with you in either event.” Phaleg groaned against the bed at his firm strokes. “You have abdicated all judgment about such matters, just as you’ve abdicated your will to resist me. I own your will, your judgment and your pleasure, and I will work them as I’m working your pretty cock, until you’ve lost all sensibility.”

  “Da, ser,” Phaleg moaned.

  Belphagor brought his mouth close to the angel’s ear. “I think I’ve trained you well enough to know that you no longer have the right to think for yourself when it comes to matters of your obedience to me.” Phaleg made a vague, guttural sound of agreement. “Do you get to decide whether your actions please me?”

  “Nyet, ser.”

  “You will please me best by maintaining your integrity as an officer in the Supernal Army. You’re of no use to me as a fallen soldier—literally or figuratively. And as you are far more familiar than I with what is required of an officer, it is your duty to me to tell me when I have asked something of you which will compromise that.”

  Phaleg let out a low moan of pleasure at the pressure of Belphagor’s hand.

  Belphagor paused. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Da, ser.”

  “I don’t think you are.” Belphagor released him and stood. “Turn around.”

  Phaleg straightened and turned about on his knees, his erection standing at attention between them.

  “Lace up your pants.”

  “Ser?”

  “Do you question me?”

  The angel’s face fell. “Nyet, ser.” He dutifully laced himself up, trapping the unassuaged erection inside the elkskin.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do for me, boy.” Belphagor stepped in and stroked his bare foot over the painful-looking bulge. Phaleg closed his eyes. “Eyes front!” snapped Belphagor, and the angel swiftly opened them. Belphagor kept his foot where it was. “I will accept Duke Elyon’s invitation, and you will see that the principality hears of my reputation at The Cat. Find an excuse for the principality to summon me for private questioning, and I will put my proposal to him myself, suggesting that he indulge me in facilitating the entrapment of the angel responsible for the attempt on his life.” Belphagor pushed his heel into the base of Phaleg’s erection. “Will you do this for me?”

  “Da, ser,” Phaleg groaned.

  Belphagor observed the angel groveling before him, begging to be used. It would certainly not be the demeanor of his Vasily in a similar position. Vasily would be glaring fire at him, his body tense and hard with defiance, his face full of temporary hatred, fueling Belphagor’s own fury…and desire. He felt the ache of the cleats against his chest, marks that had faded a bit externally, though beneath the surface, his ribs were still horribly bruised. Those bruises reminded him of the words he’d said to Vasily when they’d parted, that he’d let Vasily believe he’d abandoned him as punishment for Vasily’s own infidelity.

  He dropped his foot from the angel’s groin. “Go home, Phaleg.”

  Phaleg got to his feet, his expression crestfallen. “I’m sorry, ser—”

  “Have I said I’m displeased with you?” Belphagor snapped.

  “Nyet, ser.”

  “I’ve told you to stop making such assumptions, and here we are back at the beginning. That displeases me.”

  Phaleg reddened. “Da, ser.”

  “Go home and be a good boy, and I will see you tomorrow for my ‘makeover’.”

  Phaleg nodded and went to the door.

  “And Phaleg.” The angel paused and looked back. “When you get home, kneel on your kitchen table with your pants around your ankles and make yourself come.”

  The angel’s cheeks went red. “Da, ser,” he answered roughly.

  The corner of Belphagor’s mouth turned up in a dark smile. “And repeat that while you do it, so you remember who owns your pleasure.”

  When Phaleg had gone, Belphagor pleasured himself in the manner to which he’d become accustomed of late, picturing the angel’s cock spurting over his hand as he perched naked on his table. He knew Phaleg would do as he’d been bidden, to the letter. It was incredibly arousing to know this with certainty, but it wasn’t what he needed.

  A small part of him rebelled at the idea of needing anyone as he did Vasily, but he’d been hopelessly enslaved since the night they’d met, and there was nothing he could do about it. And the rest of him was eternally grateful.

  Phaleg returned as bidden the following morning to call on Beatrix, and the two of them went out together, ignoring the good-natured teasing from the others girls at The Cat. The angel turned out to be well-versed in women’s fashions, which Belphagor found intriguing, and after a few hours in the Left Bank, they were armed with a conservative but playful gown with a peekaboo décolletage, a host of absurd undergarments, a fancy hooded cloak with a matching fur muff, and an expensive pair of button-up kidskin shoes. Belphagor tried to pay for the purchases with his stipend from Masha and Anzhela, but Phaleg insisted that the duke had provided generously for Beatrix. Belphagor wondered just what the duke would believe he was owed for the price.

  “You’ll be the envy of every woman there,” said Phaleg as Belphagor tried the garments on all together back at The Cat, with some assistance from Anzhela with the abominable corset.

  “I always am,” said Belphagor with a smirk, and then winced as he tried to take a normal breath.

  Phaleg presented him with a string of pearls, and Belphagor ignored Anzhela’s snicker as she let herself out while Phaleg put them on him.

  “I have to get back,” said Phaleg, and kissed Belphagor’s hand without the slightest sense of irony. “But I’ll come to fetch you for the salon on Friday evening.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” said Belphagor. He stroked the pearls. “And afterward, I may show you how to make better use of these.” Phaleg looked puzzled. Belphagor twisted them around his finger. “They can increase the intensity of orgasm…when they’re being pulled out of you.”

  Phaleg went red to his pale roots and bowed and took his leave.

  On the appointed evening, Phaleg arrived smartly attired in his emerald dress uniform, and Beatrix, with her hair done in an elegant upsweep by Anzhela, accompanied him in her new garments and pearls to the supernal carriage awaiting them outside The Cat. Phaleg, Belphagor noted, was pointedly avoiding glancing anywhere near the string of pearls.

  “You remember what I’ve asked you to do?” Belphagor murmured as they rode toward Elysium in comfort.

  “Da, ser,” the angel replied. “I won’t let you down.”

  Belphagor squeezed Phaleg’s gloved hand with his own. “And you won’t let yourself down, either, dear boy. There’s no need to do anything that goes against your conscience. All I require is an audience.” He realized this last word was ambiguous, but it wasn’t safe to make himself clearer in case the driver was listening, so he had to trust that Phaleg knew he meant an audience with the principality.

  At the palace, Phaleg escorted him to where Duke Elyon’s salon was already in progress in the green-marble-decorated Malachite Room. Elyon glanced up from the arm of the chair he was perched on next to a young male angel of fine form as Beatrix was announced. Phaleg had presented her as the Lady Beatrix Astelovna of
Arcadia.

  “Ah, my dear Beatrix. I was afraid you weren’t coming.” Elyon rose to greet him, giving him a nod of approval as he took Belphagor’s hand and took in the elegant dress before he brought the gloved hand to his lips. “Your presence brightens the room.” The Malachite Room sparkled with flame reflecting off the massive crystal chandeliers and the gilded surfaces.

  “I can’t imagine how you’d notice such a thing, Duke Elyon,” said Belphagor, pulling back his hand coquettishly. “This room is positively dazzling as it is. I’ve never seen such grandeur. I must say I feel a bit out of my element.”

  “Nonsense,” said Elyon, and murmured against his ear, “You’re just not used to wearing so many clothes.”

  “Is that what feels different?” Belphagor winked while picturing himself kneeing Elyon in the groin. “At any rate, it’s all quite impressive. I had no idea you were among the supernal favorites.”

  “Indeed?” Elyon beamed. “The principality himself has appointed me his Lord Chancellor while he recovers from his recent misfortune. It was I who caught the demon brute assassin, after all.” His story was growing more favorable to himself with each recitation.

  “And lost him,” said Belphagor.

  Elyon’s eyes darkened with anger. “It was, in fact, your friend Phaleg who lost him, if you must know.” He glanced up to sneer in Phaleg’s direction but found the angel was nowhere to be seen. “He claims he was beset by demons in the commotion.”

  “But where were you?” Belphagor couldn’t resist asking and had to stifle a chuckle at the answer he provided in his head in Elyon’s pompous voice. Pinned under the fiery foot of a Seraph, my dear Beatrix, squealing like a stuck pig.

  “Defending the principality,” Elyon snapped. “But why am I boring you with this tale when you’ve not yet had a drink?” He clutched Belphagor’s elbow with unnecessary roughness to steer him toward a servant bearing a tray of sparkling nepenthe, plucked a flute from the tray and placed it Belphagor’s other hand. “Your disposition seems rather the worse for your outward trappings, my dear,” he murmured as Belphagor took a sip, trying not to draw attention to himself. He gave “Beatrix” a swift, derisive visual inventory. “How ironic that you’re so much more agreeable when your tits are in a man’s mouth where they belong.”

  It took everything Belphagor had not to throw the nepenthe in the duke’s face and pummel the living hell out of him right there on the shiny marble floor. “And how ironic that when you’re among your civilized society you behave like an uncouth swine,” he returned. Not caring if he drew attention or not, he yanked his elbow from Elyon’s grasp and turned on his heel to find someone else to mingle with until Phaleg returned—hopefully to escort him to a secret meeting with the principality.

  He stepped toward a pair of the angels he’d brought to a happy climax at the duke’s villa and opened his mouth to utter some banal pleasantry, but Elyon had swiftly stepped up behind him and slipped a firm arm around his waist.

  “Gentlemen,” he said pointedly, as if to remind “Beatrix” that she was not one of their peers. “You remember the lovely Lady Beatrix?”

  One of the angels took Belphagor’s hand to kiss it, giving him a sharp little bow. “You look rather different this evening,” he said with an appreciative appraisal.

  “Most likely the lack of a cock in her mouth,” said Elyon, his tone just low enough not to carry beyond their group. Even these angels of his intimate circle had the good graces to look a bit horrified by the duke’s crudeness.

  Belphagor felt his face go hot. He hadn’t blushed since he was a boy flirting with a set of equally offensive Malakim in the world of Man. This wasn’t just embarrassment. This was unique to the power dynamic between the duke and a demoness. But it wasn’t about Beatrix’s station. It was about her sex. This was shaming and putting a woman in her place. For once, he found himself completely without a comeback, paralyzed by the power of that simple and pernicious exchange.

  Before anyone broke the shameful silence, a dazzling light burst over the glittering surfaces of the room. Two Seraphim had entered from one of the adjoining concert hall doors, which could only mean one thing.

  They parted to make way for the principality himself to enter.

  Chetyrnadtsataya

  Sneaking out of the flat while Dmitri and Lev were at work had been a simple matter. Finding his way to the train station and getting himself tickets to the right destination had been quite another.

  Vasily had eventually lucked upon one of the people Belphagor called “Night Travelers”, humans who spoke angelic and acted as liaisons between their race and the various groups of terrestrial Fallen. The boy looked like any street demon in Raqia, and he’d taken one look at Vasily and pegged him for demonic. And a lost tourist. For a fee, he helped Vasily buy the tickets and told him which train he was to board and when. Vasily had to trust that the boy wasn’t fleecing him—and if he was, there was little he could do about it; Belphagor had left him a billfold of paper rubles for expenses, but he hadn’t specified their worth.

  Soon he was on his way to the world’s far east, watching the frozen terrain as it sped by. He hadn’t had much opportunity on the initial trip to just sit and look out the window. Belphagor had been busy tormenting him. The memory depressed him. It had been like a honeymoon period, groping and being groped, sucking and being sucked, fucking—well, being fucked, anyway—for days on end, and being utterly under Belphagor’s control. He’d been livid the entire time, literally as well as figuratively, and it had been bliss.

  Angry now at Belphagor for entirely different reasons, it nevertheless put him into a similar state, and alone for the time being in the four-person compartment in which he’d purchased one seat, he quickly got himself off. There was something surreal and wonderful about it, despite his melancholy, watching the stunning landscape of crystalline ice hurtle past along the mountainside as firespirit heat boiled out of him without any need for him to temper it.

  And then he was there, at the stop where they’d departed for Moscow: Sludyanka. He wasn’t as lucky this trip with the timing and had to spend the night in a little inn before catching the last leg of the journey to the tunnel where he would climb back to Heaven. The grandmotherly babushka who rented him the room had treated him with such kindness and generosity, insisting that he join her and her son for a humble dinner of beetroot soup and potatoes she’d made herself—a meal he could honestly say was one of the best he’d ever had—that he felt a sad, sweet sense of nostalgia already for this world before he’d left it. He wanted to be home in Raqia with Belphagor, and he was relieved to be returning to the familiarity and comforts he knew, regardless of what came of it, but terrestrial magic had taken hold of him just as Belphagor had said. He hadn’t even had a chance yet to experience his wings, but he understood now what Belphagor had been trying to tell him. He knew why the Fallen fell.

  After the assembled guests had lapsed into shocked silence and given him the obligatory obeisance, Principality Helison Alimielovich strode through the parlor toward Duke Elyon. Phaleg accompanied the principality at his side and just a step behind, evidently as his non-seraphic personal guard.

  “Your Supernal Majesty.” Elyon’s complexion looked as though he’d been exsanguinated when he straightened from a trembling bow. Belphagor tried to copy the other ladies in attendance, hoping he’d made a passable curtsy. Court etiquette wasn’t something he’d ever had to learn, and certainly not that which was expected of a woman.

  “I hope you don’t mind my intruding on your little gathering.” It was difficult to tell from Helison’s placid demeanor whether he’d delivered this with sincerity or with the most deadpan supernal sarcasm.

  Elyon evidently couldn’t tell either. “I hope I haven’t overstepped my authority, Your Supernal Majesty. I took it upon myself to stimulate a bit of thoughtful discourse among the younger members of the peerage. I hadn’t thought it worth bothering you with in your convalescence.” He paused,
waiting awkwardly for a response, and hurried on when none seemed forthcoming. “Should you be on your feet, Supernal Majesty? I thought the doctor’s orders were to stay abed for another week or two. You don’t want to risk re-aggravating the internal bleeding now that it’s under control.”

  “Nonsense. The circulation can only be hindered by remaining stationary.” Belphagor decided the principality’s demeanor of gentle civility was sincere. He’d faced enough hypocrisy over the card tables to recognize it. “I’ve not met your lovely companion,” Helison prompted, and Elyon’s previously white face flushed with red.

  “Forgive me, Supernal Majesty. May I present Lady Beatrix Astelovna of Arcadia?”

  Belphagor genuflected again, hoping this was the expected behavior, and Helison lifted his hand slightly with a patient smile to indicate Belphagor ought to have offered his own. He remedied the misstep swiftly, and with a sort of tight bow as though toward a partner in dance, the principality gave the gloved hand the most chaste and respectful touch of his lips, so unlike the others who had greeted “Beatrix”.

  “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Beatrix. Have you known our duke long?”

  “Lady Beatrix is my mother’s cousin,” Elyon supplied before Belphagor had to come up with something. “She’s in Elysium studying music in preparation to apply to the Hermitage of Celestial Contemplation.”

  Belphagor nearly choked on an intake of breath and covered it with a dainty cough. The HCC was the equivalent of a nunnery in the world of Man. In Heaven, there was no religion but the admiration of Heaven itself. Women of breeding who had no prospects—those who had little to offer either in the way of physical attributes or material wealth—committed themselves to the contemplation of Heaven’s majesty among the celestial “sisterhood”. It was the closest thing in Heaven to what the world of Man imagined went on here.