by Jane Kindred
As she disappeared across the street, Vasily came out to join him.
Squinting after the gypsy, he lifted Belphagor’s cigarette from him and took a drag. “Who was that?”
Belphagor took the spectacles, still in their case. “Put these damn
things on, and maybe you’d be able to see.” He set them on Vasily’s
face, ignoring his angry glare. “I’ve been trying to reach Dmitri and
Lev before we get to Moscow.”
“If we get to Moscow.”
Belphagor shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to matter much at this point.
No room at the inn.” He took the cigarette back and finished it off.
“So now what?”
“Don’t know.” Belphagor flicked the butt to the sidewalk. “We
should have heard from the nurse by now.”
“What if the Supernal Guard nabbed her after we left? She could
have been the one who sold us out.”
“Seems doubtful after the risk she took and the fee she paid. More
likely, we’ve been had, and she never had any intention of getting the girl back.” Belphagor crushed the glowing embers beneath his boot.
“But I haven’t caught wind of any seraphic activity since we left St.
Petersburg. I think we’re safe here for the time being. I’ll figure out a new plan when the car is ready.”
§
Though Vasily complained they would do the opposite, the black
wire spectacles gave him an air of seriousness that caused people to
give him even more deference than they had—as if, previously, they’d
merely thought him a thug, but now perhaps suspected him of being a
well-connected, professional thug.
He removed the spectacles frequently, claiming they made him
look like a clown, but when new guests saw him dining and frowned at
him in disapproval, he slid the glasses on and gave them a pointed look that seemed to make them think better of staring.
“I suppose I ought to thank those damned Seraphim for giving me
more gravitas,” he said over afternoon tea after intimidating an older couple who’d been eyeing him with disdain. He dipped his bulochka
in his tea. “If they hadn’t cooked my eyes while they were tearing the flat apart, where would I be today?”
THE FALLEN QUEEN 113
Belphagor glanced up from his newspaper. “Tearing the flat
apart?”
“For whatever they were looking for.” Vasily popped the entire
bun into his mouth.
Belphagor frowned. “What else could they possibly have been
looking for but Malchik?”
“Beats me.” Vasily spoke around his mouthful. “But they certainly
couldn’t have thought Malchik was hiding in a drawer.” He looked
guilty under Belphagor’s continued stare. “I think they were looking
for names.”
“Names?” His skin prickled. “Of contacts in the underground?”
Vasily shook his head and took another bulochka. “Social
Liberationists. Maybe it was my fault they found us.”
“I doubt you’re to blame, Vasya.” Belphagor went back to his
paper, keeping his expression neutral, but an unnerving realization
that had thus far eluded him had suddenly fallen into place.
One other thing besides the angel had escaped Heaven that
the Seraphim might have been seeking: the signet ring of the grand
duchess. It was the only thing that made sense. If the Seraphim had
been convinced it was in the flat, the ring itself must have drawn them there. He’d been reckless to keep it, but he hadn’t understood what
they were dealing with.
By chance, he’d hidden the ring in the one place the Hounds of
Heaven were incapable of finding it. Not wanting to carry it with
him when he went out, but knowing it would be dangerous if Ilya or
Gosha found it, he’d hung the ring on a chain inside the toilet tank—
submerged in water. When he’d retrieved it on the way out of the
apartment, it had never occurred to him that he might have brought
the wrath of the Seraphim down on Vasily himself and gotten Gosha
and Ilya killed.
And if the Seraphim could track the ring, they had stayed far too
long in Novgorod.
Another message from the gypsy underground cemented his
decision. Passing him on the stairway after tea, the bellboy slipped a note into his hand. You’ve been noticed, it read. The hounds are on the trail and intend to take their quarry. They have also caught the scent of
114 JANE KINDRED
fire and will not stop until it is extinguished. It was signed “from one possessed.” A human, then, but one friendly with demons.
Belphagor shuddered. “The scent of fire” could only mean Vasily.
The Seraphim knew he’d survived, and they hated being thwarted.
And Vasily had thwarted them with more grit than anyone he’d ever
known. Belphagor would have given up his own mother—if he had
one—long before he’d reached the state in which Vasily had been left.
The game had changed again, like a multilayered tournament,
and the next round might be sudden death. This was easily the most
dangerous gamble of his career, and he wished to hell he’d stayed far
clear of the table.
That evening, Belphagor made a show of arguing with the hotel
clerk about the bill. The trick with the paper money had worn thin, he told Vasily. They had drawn attention to themselves and couldn’t wait
any longer for the car.
With his remaining cash and a modicum of misdirection,
Belphagor acquired accommodations by train to the city of Vologda
in a private, two-berth spalny vagon compartment. They would pass through Moscow, but there was no point in trying to find Dmitri now.
Even if Belphagor found him, and even if he could convince Dmitri to
give them sanctuary, they’d only be putting more friends in peril. Not even the Grigori chieftain could help them now.
The schedule would give Belphagor just enough time in Vologda
to make the necessary arrangements for the last leg of the trip. He
mentioned none of this to Vasily or the angel. There would be time
enough on the train to reveal what he intended of his plan.
They bought piroshki to eat as a late dinner from a babushka outside the station on one of the stops, and Belphagor sprang for a
bottle of vodka. By the time they’d finished it off, the angel was curled up asleep on her berth. Sitting on the other berth with his knees drawn up, Belphagor slipped the arm holding the vodka bottle around Vasily
and drew the larger demon back against him. He kissed Vasily lightly
below the spikes on his neck.
Vasily allowed it for a moment before pulling away with a guilty
glance at the angel. “I promised we wouldn’t do that again while she
was sleeping.”
THE FALLEN QUEEN 115
Belphagor raised an eyebrow. “When did you plan for us to do it
again? While she’s awake?” He slipped off Vasily’s spectacles and laid them aside. “You did plan for us to do it again?” Belphagor wrapped
both arms around Vasily and pulled him back against his chest. “Relax.
I’ve had too much vodka to do anything anyway. I just want to hold
you.” He closed his eyes and breathed in the warm scent that always
reminded him of a campfire. “I miss your skin.”
“You have had too much to drink.”
“I’m sorry we argued,” murmured Belphagor.
&nbs
p; “Argued?”
“That last time.” He pressed his lips to the warm nape. “Before
you left me.”
Vasily’s body tensed with anger. He tried to turn around, but
Belphagor held him tight. “You son of a bitch. I left you? You stole from me, Bel! You took everything I’d saved and pissed it away at the
wingcasting table.”
“Hush. You’re going to wake the angel. You know I was going to
put the money back when my luck turned.”
“Your luck?” he growled. “Is that what you were betting on when
you wagered my ‘services’?” Vasily broke Belphagor’s grip with a
thrust of his shoulders. Myopic or not, his eyes smoldered with fire, as full of rage as on the day they’d met.
Despite the dulling of drink, Belphagor’s entire body was suddenly
raging for him. “That’s not what happened, Vasya. You challenged me.
You told me I might as well offer you to the highest bidder since you
were going anyway.”
“I was angry,” Vasily snarled. “I didn’t expect you to sell me!”
Belphagor felt he was clutching the vodka bottle in his hand hard
enough to break it. “I would never sell you.” He set the bottle on the table. “You went willingly.”
“Because you forfeited, Belphagor. You never showed.”
“I never showed because the bet was called off.”
“Because you welched!”
“No. Because the highest bidder called in a marker and the bet
was off before the game began.”
Vasily was livid with fury. He stood, his radiance dancing at the
116 JANE KINDRED
surface of his skin in a roiling scarlet wave. “And so you left me to the highest bidder.”
“I was the highest bidder, Vasya. I called in the marker.”
The color went out of Vasily as if a switch had been thrown. He
tripped over his own boots, and sat hard on the floor. The angel stirred, but didn’t wake with the gentle rocking of the train.
Belphagor took the pouch of crystal from his pocket. “I’ve had
your money the whole time. You might as well have what we’ve earned
for this job.”
“You what?” Vasily stared at the pouch Belphagor dropped into
his hand. It was ten times the amount Belphagor had “borrowed.”
“I never spent your money. I was just mad at you for thinking of
leaving me. You kept talking about going off to Araphel for a ‘real’
education. I should have given the money to you then, but I thought
I’d never see you again if I did. I was waiting for you to come ask for it. And you went anyway.”
“You… what? Why?”
“Because I’m an idiot. Almost as big an idiot as you, apparently.”
Vasily’s radiance flared again for an instant. Leaning forward on
the bunk, Belphagor drew the back of his hand against the scarlet fire at Vasily’s jaw. He let it burn against his skin before it disappeared.
“Malchik,” he said softly. He knew it had stung Vasily to hear him use the name for the angel. “I never thought you were stupid. You
didn’t need an education.”
Vasily kept his eyes on the pouch. “This is what you received from
the nurse?”
“As I said, I’ve had your money for years, so I don’t need the
facets. I understand they’re even more valuable here. They call them
diamonds.”
“Belphagor…” The train was pulling into the station.
Belphagor swung his feet over the side of the bunk and lifted
Vasily’s chin. “You always liked to take the punishment for both our
mistakes.” He was gratified by the tremor of fear and anticipation
beneath Vasily’s skin. “I promise to discipline you properly when we
reach Arkhangel’sk.”
His campaign of misdirection left Vasily too baffled and distracted
THE FALLEN QUEEN 117
to question their destination. Belphagor gave him instructions to hold their place in the ticket line with the angel while he took care of other business.
“No one is to know where we’re going,” he told them. “Don’t even
say the word.”
The angel blinked at him, clearly not knowing which word he
meant.
§
By early morning, they were on their way north, but the
only accommodations they could get were in a four-berth kupe
compartment. Regardless of how much money Belphagor had offered
him, the station agent had refused to sell them an extra ticket for the fourth berth since there were only three traveling. The compartment
had been empty when they boarded, so Belphagor stayed awake to
keep watch.
The angel quickly went back to sleep, while Vasily, in the bunk
below her, lay for some time with his hands hooked behind his head,
staring at the underside of the bunk. Belphagor pretended to read a
paper to avoid any temptation for trouble; it was obvious what Vasily
was contemplating.
Vasily drifted off at last, and Belphagor abandoned the paper
to stare out the window. He hoped they’d made it out of Vologda in
time. The gypsies he’d spoken with had told him a hotel in Novgorod
had burned to the ground that morning—the hotel across from the
Dyetinets. The Seraphim were on the move.
Some hours later, Belphagor jolted awake. The door to the
compartment had slid open with a bang, caught on the inside latch. He
covered his eyes at the light blazing into the compartment, his sleep-
muddled brain thinking the Seraphim had caught them after all, but
it was only a young man with a flashlight. The newcomer shut off the
light and apologized for disturbing them, and Belphagor unlatched
the door.
The young man introduced himself as Knud, a student traveling
across Europe. He fumbled about the tight space with an oversized
pack and climbed over Belphagor to reach the bunk above him. He
spoke little Russian, and Belphagor didn’t know the other language
118 JANE KINDRED
Knud spoke, but it didn’t stop the lad from trying to make conversation.
When Vasily heaved a sigh and rolled over to observe him, the young
man grew silent immediately.
The commotion, however, had woken the angel. Knud found his
tongue once more and tried in vain to get her to speak to him.
“The boy doesn’t speak Russian,” Belphagor told Knud more
than once, having introduced her as his nephew, but the young man
was undeterred, speaking in his own tongue more often than not. It
hardly seemed to matter to him that no one understood him.
The train pulled into Arkhangel’sk just after seven o’clock. After
sharing a taxi at Knud’s insistence and dropping him at a local hostel, they took leave of their new “friend” with relief.
At Belphagor’s direction, the driver dropped them off in the
countryside just east of the city in what appeared to be the middle
of nowhere. Belphagor paid the man to keep his mouth shut about
his fare, quietly slipping him extra along with a note instructing him to come back and pick him up at the same spot early in the morning.
When the taxi went its way, Belphagor led the angel and Vasily
to a dacha down the road, rented with the help of some kids at an
all-night Internet café in Vologda. They had shown him how to make
his transaction and clear his
browsing history from the machine, but
Belphagor had waited until they’d gone to make the actual booking
to be sure there was no trail for the Seraphim to follow. He’d even
managed to get the tickets for the train under pseudonyms by using
his skill on the station agent.
Vasily and the angel would be safely hidden from the powers
ruling both Heaven and Earth when Belphagor departed.
§
Tucked into a charming garden plot full of flowers, the two-story
wooden dacha was larger and better appointed than the one near
Novgorod. It had two bedrooms on the second floor, a large kitchen
and sitting room on the ground floor, electricity, and functional indoor plumbing. With less night here than even St. Petersburg at this time of year, all the curtains had to be drawn when they eventually retired in order to get any sleep.
Vasily, however, was wide-awake. Judging by Belphagor’s expression
THE FALLEN QUEEN 119
as he closed the bedroom door, he had no plans to sleep.
Belphagor drew Vasily’s head down with both hands to kiss him
lightly on the forehead before his face slipped into the cold mask
Vasily both loved and hated. “Are you ready to atone?”
“Yes,” whispered Vasily, and then added, “sir,” at the frown of
disapproval.
“Da, ser,” Belphagor corrected.
“Da, ser.”
Belphagor picked up a fresh switch lying on the bureau. He must
have cut it in the garden sometime after their arrival without Vasily
noticing. The thought made his knees weak, though it also sparked a
hot thread of defiance.
“Drop your pants.”
When Vasily hesitated, Belphagor struck him with the switch
through his jeans, giving a promise of the sting to come.
“Now.”
Glaring, he unbuttoned his jeans and let them fall. His physical
response to Belphagor’s chastisement was unmistakable. Belphagor
spun him around and shoved him forward against the bureau to face
the mirror. Vasily braced his palms against the bureau, keeping his
face neutral as Belphagor reached around him to stroke his betraying
erection.
“You’ll give me the proper address in the tongue of Men,”
Belphagor growled in his ear.
Vasily met his reflection’s gaze. “Go to hell, Belphagor.”
The first strike was sudden and swift. Vasily rocked forward
against the bureau and exhaled with a hiss.