Prince of Tricks

by Jane Kindred

  “Da, ser,” Phaleg burst out, the rest of his face blushing to match the mark. “Please. Da, ser.”

  Belphagor smiled. “I want you to promise me something, Phaleg.”

  “Anything, ser.”

  “That you’ll find someone among your kind who will give you what you need and who’ll appreciate the extraordinary gifts you have to offer. I assure you, I’m not unique in my desires. You find someone who will make you crawl to him and love you for it.”

  Phaleg nodded silently, and Belphagor gave him the lightest of kisses, their lips barely touching, before turning to the door and opening it. He was half afraid Vasily would have thought better of it and taken off, but he stood where Belphagor had left him, his eyes still a bit huge as if he couldn’t quite believe what was about to happen. When he entered, both demon and angel blushed scarlet as their eyes met.

  “Phaleg,” said Belphagor. “I imagine you’ll want to take off your clothes. I have a feeling this is going to get messy.” He held out his arm like a valet.

  The angel trembled, unbuttoning his coat and laying it over Belphagor’s arm, then made swift work of undressing, giving everything to Belphagor. He stood vulnerable and naked between the fully clothed demons, too scared to be aroused.

  Belphagor sat on the bed. “On the ground, boy.” He noted Vasily’s jaw tightening at the word. “Come to me.”

  Phaleg got down on hands and knees and crawled to him, his eyes searching Belphagor’s.

  Belphagor lifted his chin. “He’s not likely to be gentle, you understand. If at any time you need it to stop—for whatever reason; if it’s too much for you, or you’ve just changed your mind—you say, ‘pozhaluista’. That means ‘please’. Can you repeat that?” The angel managed a close approximation, and Belphagor nodded. “Good boy.” He looked up at Vasily, whose face was twisting with conflicting emotion. Belphagor tossed him the bottle of almond oil from the nightstand, and Vasily caught it smoothly. “Whenever you’re ready, moi malchik. And don’t forget to—” At an irritated glare from Vasily, he aborted the admonition for the firespirit to temper his element. Phaleg had begun to tremble from head to toe, and Belphagor put his hand on the angel’s shoulder. “I suggest, malchik,” he said sternly, “that you get to it, before the poor boy dies of fright.”

  The sharp rebuke did the trick, and Vasily yanked open the buttons of his fly and let out his eager cock, making it slick with oil, and tossed the bottle back at Belphagor. Too tall to do it crouching, Vasily dropped to his knees, dug his fingers into the angel’s left buttock to brace himself, and guided himself in.

  Phaleg made a sharp sound as he was entered, and Belphagor snapped his fingers to get the angel to focus on him. “Relax. Breathe in deep and let it out slowly, and push back gently against him with your breath. There you go. That’s it.”

  Phaleg’s eyes were wide as Vasily pressed onward with an excited growl. He began to thrust, slowly at first, while the angel groaned, and then picking up speed. The room was silent except for the steady slapping of skin against skin and Phaleg’s soft vocalizations.

  “Does that feel good, malchik?”

  “Da, ser,” Vasily grunted, though he looked like he was concentrating rather too hard to be enjoying it.

  “You might have a concern for Phaleg’s pleasure,” he chastised. “I see he’s reacting positively to your attentions.”

  Vasily blushed and reached his hand around to grasp the angel’s half-erect cock. He began to stroke, and Phaleg responded swiftly, stiffening under Vasily’s tight grip. The moans he was making were no longer tentative, growing stronger as his breathing quickened, and Vasily’s enjoyment began to seem more genuine. He relaxed his left hand to smooth it across the angel’s ass, and then slid it up Phaleg’s spine to twist his fingers in the golden hair. Phaleg was definitely responding now, arching as Vasily tugged his head back, eyes closing, the moans coming in a steady, melodic staccato.

  Belphagor slipped off the bed and crouched next to Vasily to whisper in his ear. “I’d like to have his mouth, but if you say no, I’ll stay out of it.”

  Vasily looked him in the eyes, his own glowing dangerously. “Do it,” he growled.

  Phaleg’s eyes were still closed as he abandoned himself to his pleasure, and Belphagor slipped quietly back onto the bed and unlaced his leather breeches. When his cock pressed against Phaleg’s lips, the angel’s eyes opened in surprise.

  “You’re getting a little loud,” said Belphagor. “I thought I’d shut you up.”

  Phaleg opened his mouth eagerly and took him in, and Belphagor groaned with relief, having been going just a bit mad watching and having none. He’d never been good at self-denial. Phaleg moaned with enthusiasm around him, clearly enjoying having his mouth full.

  Belphagor looked at Vasily and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing himself slowly, knowing it excited him, and that his steady motion in Phaleg’s mouth with no hands for balance would excite him further. He wasn’t wrong.

  When Belphagor slipped the shirt off, Vasily leaned against Phaleg with a groan of surprise as he saw the new decorations Belphagor hadn’t shown him yet. Steel rings pierced both of his nipples. “Bozhe moi,” Vasily breathed. “When did you—? Ohhhh, fuck!” He drove himself hard against the angel and yanked on his hair with a low roar of pleasure through gritted teeth. The vigorous motion caused Phaleg to climax an instant later, both of them groaning in unison as Phaleg shuddered beneath him, his ejaculate shooting upward at his own chest.

  Pleased, Belphagor leaned forward and knitted his fingers through Vasily’s in the angel’s soft hair, thrust swiftly against Phaleg’s moaning throat, and let out a triumphant shout as he spilled into him. Phaleg swallowed without hesitation, with a final moaning crescendo of satisfaction.

  As Belphagor finished and pulled out, the angel looked up at him, eyes bright and eager for validation. Belphagor cupped his cheek. “You’ve been an extraordinarily good boy. Both of you have,” he added, looking up at Vasily, whose cheeks reddened a bit, as if after everything they’d just shared, being called “boy” in front of Phaleg embarrassed him. He eased himself out of the angel and buttoned up, and Phaleg went a bit limp against Belphagor’s knees as the demon let him go, as though Vasily’s efforts had been the only thing holding him up.

  Belphagor pushed him back onto his heels and grinned at the trail of spunk that rose all the way to the angel’s chin. “Told you it might get messy.” He stroked his fingers through it and put them in Phaleg’s mouth to suck them clean. While Phaleg knelt gazing up at him, he took the angel’s shirt from the foot of the bed and put it around his shoulders, helping him slip his arms into the sleeves. Phaleg took this as his cue and rose to put on the rest of his uniform.

  “Thank you,” he murmured as he put on his cap. Cheeks slightly flushed, he glanced at Vasily standing against the bureau with folded arms. “Thank you, both.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Vasily gruffly. Though he’d fucked the angel and obviously enjoyed it, he clearly wasn’t about to give him or Belphagor an inch even now.

  Phaleg’s blush deepened, and he gave Belphagor a sharp bob of his head as if bowing to a superior and went to the door. “It was a memorable first time,” he said with his hand on the knob. He looked back at Belphagor. “All of it.”

  “You remember what I said,” Belphagor admonished as he rose to see him out. “You find that angel. He’s out there.” He kissed Phaleg’s cheek. “Thank you for everything you’ve given me, dear boy. I won’t forget any of it either.”

  When he turned around after shutting the door, instead of glaring at him, Vasily was staring at him oddly. “What did he mean by first time? First time with two demons?”

  “No, malchik. First time getting fucked.” He crossed the room and kissed the stunned Vasily rather less chastely than he’d kissed the angel, pulling his head down to his level with a fist in his hair and tasting every smoky-flavored inch of his mouth. He raised a wicked eyebrow with a smirk when he released h
im. “You’re welcome.”

  Belphagor declined to attend the public hanging, and Vasily was glad of it. The politics of Heaven were of no concern to demons, and Raqia soon forgot about the extravagance and excesses of the Left Bank, leaving the bohemian set to entertain itself. Back at The Brimstone, Belphagor was still teaching him to “read” people at the wingcasting table but not letting him play.

  “You’d lose my entire purse in five minutes with that fiery scowl of yours. Patience, boy.”

  Vasily was restless. Their room seemed unbearably small, though he’d never noticed it before. Raqia seemed small. Even Heaven. He had nothing to be unhappy about. Belphagor loved him. Belphagor was his, and he’d given up that sweet piece of angel ass without complaint. Perhaps it was all the excitement of being a fugitive that had mixed Vasily up, as though he expected drama and intrigue around every corner. It was foolish. He didn’t want drama and intrigue, and he didn’t want to be in that state he’d been in of loving Belphagor desperately and waiting for the other shoe to drop at any moment, waiting to be abandoned. He wanted this. Vasily stroked the spikes of the piercing at his neck. And yet he wanted something…more.

  He lost his temper at the wingcasting table when Belphagor played his game of ignoring him just to try to rile him. He was riled all right. He felt like he was going to jump right out of his skin.

  “Malchik.” From the doorway, Belphagor watched him where he sat silently fuming on the bed after Belphagor had sent him to their room and played out the rest of the game. “Are you unhappy with me here?”

  Vasily’s head jerked up at the worried tone. “No! No, Beli, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think I was unhappy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He ran his fingers over the locks that were settling into a smooth sheaf. “I’ve never been so happy.” Incongruously, he frowned. “I know I sound absurd.”

  Belphagor came and knelt beside him, something he never did, crossing his arms on Vasily’s lap and resting his chin on his hands. “Sweet boy. Moi malchik milochki. I think you need to hear the bells ring.”

  “The bells?” Vasily stared down at him, baffled and somewhat discomfited by the reversal of their customary positions.

  Belphagor glanced up with mischief in his eyes. “What do you say we take a little fall?”

  Leningrad looked like a winter fairyland, trees sparkling with a glaze of snow, and little lights lining the bare branches along the Neva. St. Petersburg, Belphagor had to remind himself. Times changed rapidly in the world of Man.

  They walked down Nevsky Prospekt at dusk after arriving by train at Moskovskiy Vokzal, and Vasily stared with wonder when they reached Dvortsevaya Ploshchad, uncannily similar to Palace Square in Elysium with its earthly copy of the celestial Winter Palace.

  “How?” he breathed.

  Belphagor shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps the Malakim influenced Peter the Great when he established the city.” He gave Vasily a sly sidelong look. “Or perhaps Heaven is merely a lovely dream we’ve been having.”

  Vasily snorted. “Not all lovely.”

  “But you are, sweet boy. That’s all I see.”

  Vasily blushed and ducked his head, and Belphagor itched to kiss him. He’d have to watch himself. They’d already been called unsavory names by a drunk who’d pegged them instantly as “the wrong sort” when they’d emerged onto the surface from the train. Although he’d seemed uncertain whether he objected to their perceived perversion or ethnicity, as he’d added, “Gypsies go home!” before draining the bottle of cheap vodka in his hand and throwing it at them, missing by a mile. Surprisingly, they’d blended in more in Moscow. Here, they seemed to stand out, rough and unusual against the refined architecture and gilded spires.

  Another passerby had snarled “Khuysos!” when they’d taken a detour along the Fontanka River to see the beautifully sculpted Horse Tamers that decorated the four corners of the Anichkov Bridge. Of course, that might have been because Belphagor had leaned too close to Vasily to whisper against his skin that “this wild, untamable beast rearing up on his hind legs reminds me of you.”

  “I suppose you’re the naked man holding the bridle, then,” Vasily had said with a laugh, to which Belphagor had raised his eyebrow and replied, “Was that in question?”

  As they got closer to the palace, Vasily asked why so many commoners were just wandering about. “They don’t let them just walk in?” he exclaimed as he saw a group head through the gates.

  Belphagor smiled. “They do, and we can, if you want. It’s a museum now. The tsars are long gone.”

  Vasily did, and for a handful of rubles, they bought tickets and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the opulent rooms. Belphagor had a chance to see the stark similarity of the interior to the wing he’d seen as Beatrix. He’d visited the Hermitage before, but it had been years, and he’d forgotten. There was the Malachite Room, impossibly identical. He half expected Principality Helison to walk into the room flanked by shimmering Seraphim.

  When the museum closed and the dour docents kicked them out, they strolled along the embankment beside the frozen Neva, even more dreamlike under the night sky with its garland of lights, as though tiny flames winked in the dormant trees.

  Vasily paused and gazed across the river when they passed the forbidding edifice of Kresty Prison. “What’s that building?”

  “A place you never want to see the inside of,” said Belphagor, and hurried him along. He hadn’t brought Vasily here to see the ugliness of the world of Man but to marvel at its beauty. But there was something more breathtaking than all the terrestrial marvels themselves, and it was within them.

  Without explaining where they were going, he booked them on another train into the dark night, where Vasily promptly fell asleep against his shoulder. Belphagor eased him down onto his lap and stroked his locks as the train rushed onward.

  They arrived at Vladimir, east of Moscow, early in the morning. Belphagor had chosen the town on a whim, remembering the pretty Uspensky Cathedral from when he’d passed through that way once working his game on passengers on the train. With a little shared vodka and cards, he’d managed to make his way across the continent accruing stacks of rubles more than once. He’d calculated that they’d arrive just before Russian Orthodox matins.

  Vasily followed sleepily from the train. “What are we doing here?” he yawned. “Where are we doing here?”

  “In Vladimir,” said Belphagor. “Going to church.”

  “Come again?”

  “I told you about churches, the places where the faithful beseech God in Heaven.”

  “Yes, I remember,” said Vasily drily. “I’m just wondering why a couple of Raqia demons are going to one.”

  “We’re not going in,” said Belphagor, being deliberately mysterious.

  They arrived in front of the white edifice topped with five golden cupolas and a central spire, looking aethereal in the gray predawn light among the snow. No one was about. Another advantage of going a bit out of the way for the experience. Belphagor slipped his arm around Vasily’s waist.

  Vasily jumped at the touch, already attuned to the dangers of this world. “What if someone sees us?”

  “I doubt if anyone’s out this early. And if they are, they’ll see something else in a moment that will make them forget.”

  The firespirit heat kept him warm while they waited, though he had to stamp his feet now and then. And then it began: the tolling of the bells. Vasily pulled closer to Belphagor with a start as it commenced, and gazed up at the towers ringing with sound. It was both joyful and mournful in a way Belphagor couldn’t explain, except that if he had a soul, the bells spoke to it. Even when he’d been most down on his luck—and he’d been down as far as anyone in any sphere could go—they’d given him a strange hope, though they belonged to a faith impossible for him to believe in.

  Belphagor kissed Vasily’s warm neck as the ringing finally died down.

  “Did we come here for the bells?” Vasily whis
pered, caught by the magic of their spell.

  “Every time a bell rings,” said Belphagor.

  Vasily tilted his head. “What’s that from? It sounds familiar.”

  “The American movie, It’s A Wonderful Life.”

  Vasily grinned. “Oh, right! Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.” He laughed. “I guess a ton of them just sprouted.” Belphagor just smiled at him. It took Vasily a few moments before it finally dawned on him. “You mean—are we going to? Am I?”

  Belphagor unbuttoned Vasily’s coat and removed it, then took his shirt as well. The firespirit hardly shivered. “You are, my dear boy. I’ll hold these for you in case the heat is too intense.”

  “The heat?”

  “Your fire, malchik.” He pulled Vasily’s head down for a soft kiss. “Let it build inside you, like it does when I’ve pissed you off,” he said, cupping the rough beard on either side of Vasily’s face between his hands. “Imagine I’ve told you to drop to your knees and service me right here in front of anyone who might walk by.”

  Vasily pulled back with a jerk. “I am not sucking your cock in a churchyard in the world of Man!”

  Belphagor lifted an eyebrow. “Well, now you’ve issued me a challenge, malchik. But let’s keep that for sometime later. Right now, concentrate on how you’re going to feel when that happens. Imagine an angelic soldier or two standing by watching.”

  Vasily’s eyes were sparking. “I don’t like this. What are you doing?” The edges of his skin had begun to dance already with a scattering of ruby flame, like filaments of plasma against the inner surface of a glass orb.

  “Maybe I’ll have you work me up until I’m ready to peel down the pants of one of the angels and bend him over your back while you’re on your hands and knees and take him—”

  “Fuck you!” Vasily roared, and then he jerked his shoulder blades back with a grimace of surprise, turning like a dog trying to chase its tail as he tried to see what was tearing at his flesh.

  Belphagor took a wide step back—wisely, it turned out. Ruby flame erupted from Vasily’s shoulders like molten metal and shot out toward the sides, the “feathers” of the span gleaming with shades of scarlet and vermillion. They were wings of elemental fire, as solid and well defined as the wings of any bird, yet their fire ever moving within the shape as though trapped in a kind of liquid amber.