by Jane Kindred
“Do you have something to say to me?”
“Go fuck yourself.” Vasily held himself still and unresponsive for
the second blow.
“You know you’ve earned this.”
“Go. Fuck. Your. Self!” The pain of Belphagor’s abandonment had
been far worse than anything he could do to him now. Vasily steeled
himself for the next stroke, surprised by the three that followed in
rapid succession without warning. He dug his nails into the wooden
surface of the bureau to keep from crying out.
120 JANE KINDRED
Belphagor stepped back and examined the switch. “You didn’t
trust me. You just believed I would throw you away. After all you’d
meant to me.”
Vasily’s voice caught in his throat, and he steadied his breathing
before he tried again to speak. “I didn’t mean a thing to you.” He
stared with hatred at Belphagor’s reflection. “If I had, you wouldn’t
have let me leave.”
Belphagor pulled back his arm and struck Vasily with another
rapid succession of four.
Hot tears spilled out of him against his will. “I hate you!” Vasily
snarled.
“You hate me.”
“Da, ya nenavizhu tebya!”
Belphagor’s arm rose and fell again with the next strike, and
Vasily stumbled against the bureau. He remained stubbornly silent,
watching the switch blaze past the mirror until his glasses tumbled off and he could no longer see anything. He lost count of how many blows
Belphagor had given him, and his knees buckled beneath him. Only
his arms hugging the wood kept him from falling when the switch
stopped.
Belphagor yanked his head back by the forelocks and whispered
in his ear. “Well, I love you, malchik.”
Vasily choked back the sob that threatened. Belphagor released
him and struck him again.
“Pozhaluista,” gasped Vasily, and Belphagor paused. “Spasibo, ser,” he whispered. “Pozhaluista, daite mne druguyu.” Please give me another, he begged in the language of Men.
Belphagor stood behind him for a long moment before laying the
switch on the bureau. “Nyet. I think we’ve had enough.”
Wrapped in Belphagor’s arms, Vasily rocked with silent sobs.
“Come to bed,” said Belphagor, and kissed his neck, though it
would be hours before they slept.
§
Belphagor lay on his side cradling Vasily when the sun officially
rose from its lazy slumber at the edge of the world. In his imagination, he could have this forever, waking with Vasily in his arms, keeping
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house like a pair of old married humans in this forgotten corner of
the world of Man. They could play at being the angel’s aging bachelor
uncles, intimidating unsuitable suitors, giving their blessing at last when the right one came along and welcoming her to the house when
she brought the grandnieces and grandnephews in the summers.
He laughed to himself at the pedestrian turn of this fantasy. Any
future, no matter how uneventful or ordinary, that kept him here at
Vasily’s side would be preferable to the one he was about to gamble
on. But if he stayed, they’d have no future at all. It was madness to
think they could stay ahead of the Seraphim, even if they did the
cowardly thing and ran, leaving the angel to her fate. They’d gotten
lucky once, and that was all. He had been a hustler too long not to
know when his luck was about to run out.
Belphagor disentangled himself and gave Vasily a kiss when he
stirred. “Go back to sleep.”
The sleepy demon rolled over onto his stomach and hugged his
pillow, allowing Belphagor to admire the marked flesh with a surge
of pride and arousal. He relived the scene in his head, nursing the
luxurious ache of desire, until he remembered how weak Vasily had
been after the Seraphim’s attack. He’d forgotten how recently the
firespirit had needed help just to walk. While he was being punished—
and after, when Belphagor was equally rough with him—Vasily had
given no sign he wasn’t fully recovered, but Belphagor had been so
immersed in the moment he hadn’t considered it.
He wanted to wrap himself around Vasily and protect him, to be
sure he hadn’t gone too far and to care for him if he had, but there
wasn’t time. Belphagor pulled the sheet up over the stripes and bruises and kissed the tip of one mark that had gone too high. He wished he
had time to perfect the technique too long out of practice.
Downstairs, he left two notes on the kitchen table, written on the
trip from Vologda—one in angelic, and one in Russian—checked to be
sure the ring was still on the chain tucked into his shirt, and pulled the front door closed behind him without a sound.
On the garden path to the road where he expected to meet the
taxi, Belphagor stopped short. That insufferable Knud from the train
was hailing him from outside the gate.
122 JANE KINDRED
Trinadtsatoe: Letters from a Demon
from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia
Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk
I woke early, bothered by what I’d heard in the night. I was certain
Belphagor had beaten Vasily. It was hard to imagine the smaller
demon overpowering the larger, but Vasily often seemed dependent
on him and perhaps hadn’t the confidence to fight back. I wasn’t
sure if I should pretend I hadn’t heard it, or confront Belphagor, or
encourage Vasily to take me into his confidence. The deep affection
between the demons had been obvious since that awkward night in
the hotel; whatever I might have imagined between Belphagor and
myself was absurd, and I felt foolish about it now. But affection or not, something troubling had occurred and it seemed wrong to ignore it.
It felt peculiar to consider a demon someone for whom I ought
to intercede. It was as if I had discovered evidence of my cousin
mistreating Ola… but here was a train of thought I wished I had not
embarked upon.
I swung my feet out of bed and opened the drapes to let in the
northern sun. Wooden shutters opened onto a small veranda. I spread
them wide and breathed in the honeyed scent of wildflowers in the
early morning breeze, then leaned over the railing to see the colorful array in the garden below.
At the end of the garden path stood Belphagor—and the student
from the train.
I ducked down, certain I’d been privy to a meeting I wasn’t meant
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to see, but when I peered through the gap in the railing, Belphagor
hadn’t spied me. After scanning the window of the room he shared
with Vasily, he walked swiftly toward the road with Knud beside him.
What could he be doing with that irritating boy that he would sneak
out so early in the morning? I began to feel even more uneasy.
Regardless of what had occurred between the demons, I had my
own concerns. I sat cross-legged against the balusters and pulled the
locket from my shirt. I had to get back to the portal to Raqia. I knew where to catch the train, and I knew a train had brought us from the
distant east on that first flight from Heaven. Slyudyanka, I remembered B
elphagor saying when we first arrived. Lake Baikal. That was where I must travel in order to return to Heaven.
It was the only way I could be certain what had become of Azel. It
was the only way I could do what needed to be done.
§
I went down for breakfast later to find Vasily at the kitchen table
with his head bowed over a cup of tea. When I poured one for myself
and reached for the sugar bowl, Vasily glanced up. His eyes were red—
not in the manner of a Raqia demon, but of one who had been crying.
He pushed a folded piece of paper toward me, the outside marked
simply “N.” I picked it up and read.
Most Esteemed N:
Please understand it is not my wish to see you harmed—which is
to say, I have weighed the odds and believe what I am about to do to be the only winning scenario. And if it benefits me more than it does you, well… it is only my nature as one of the imperfect Fallen. As you may remember from our first meeting, my one indisputable skill is
playing the odds. My Vasily can tell you that I have in fact lost only one significant wager in my entire career, and that only temporarily. I played a long shot on that hand, which after many years of regret at the ham-fisted manner in which it played out, has finally yielded a sweet return.
What I am laying odds on now is another long shot, but one I
am confident will be equally rewarded. I have learned from my near-failure in the high-stakes game I mention above, and foresee a much less lengthy term of investment.
124 JANE KINDRED
I ask that until then, you remain with Vasily, who, for all his strength and bravado, may need more care than yourself. My departure at this moment will seem a betrayal to him. I have tried to assure him by
separate communication that this interpretation could not be further from the truth. But I know him, and it will be difficult for him to believe.
My skill at affairs of the heart (yes, N, the Fallen have hearts) is not as keen as my skill at the card table, and so it is not unreasonable of him to doubt me. Nevertheless, please take care with him. He is more dear to me than you can know.
I will communicate with you by courier when I can, though of
course I cannot say with any certainty when that will be. Please be assured that your situation at the dacha is secure. I have negotiated an ample sum with the soderzhatel for the term necessary to carry out my scheme, and longer.
Should my efforts result in an unfortunate outcome for you, you
have my regrets. I will find a way to send word (there is always a way).
Should that word come, you must flee the Russian Federation without hesitation. Get as far from it as you can. I hear the islands of the South Pacific are like the southern lands of Heaven.
With any luck, that is an eventuality you will never have to
contemplate. All the same, best use this missive for kindling.
Your faithful custodian,
B.
Belphagor had left us.
I raised my head in surprise, and Vasily looked away. “What’s
going on?” I scanned the cryptic note again, trying to understand
it. What I am about to do… it benefits me more than it does you…
Should my efforts result in an unfortunate outcome for you, you have my regrets. Dread settled in the pit of my stomach. “Has he gone to demand ransom?”
Vasily put on the spectacles he’d set aside on the table and studied
the note Belphagor had written in the language of Men. “He tells me
to trust him. I’m afraid he says nothing about whether you ought to. He says he’s meeting with a member of the ‘celestial GRU’—I suppose he
means the Seraphim. But how could he mean that? It’s as if the whole
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thing is in code.”
I glanced at the note he held. “Dorogoi moi mal’chik. Are you
sure that note isn’t for me?”
A storm of emotion washed over the demon’s face. “No, it isn’t
for you. He meant me.” He held the note against his chest, jealously
guarding it. “How do you know what it says?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what most of the words mean. But I
can make out the letters.” I picked up the carton of cream. “Moloko.
I know that’s cream or milk. I’ve seen it enough times. I’ve heard you say it.”
Vasily took the spectacles off again and rubbed his eyes, no longer
listening to me. “Damn you, Belphagor.”
“I saw him leaving this morning.”
Vasily looked up sharply.
“He was with that Knud from the train.”
The demon crumpled the note and stood. With his hands balled
into fists, he stared at me, his face reflecting a torrent of emotion. “I don’t want to hear another word about it. He’s done what he’s done.
The son of a whore.” This last burst out of him in a low growl, almost involuntarily. He turned away from me and climbed the stairs with a
halting gait that seemed to hide physical pain. I stifled my impulse to ask what had happened. Belphagor was gone, and it was none of my
business.
I reread the note while I sat and drank my tea. Surely Belphagor
could not be meeting with the Seraphim. The idea, however, put his
words in a disturbing light. He was, as he’d continually reminded me, a grifter and a thief, and there was no doubt in my mind he had abused
Vasily. No matter how protective and honorable his behavior toward
me had seemed, I must not forget he was one of the Fallen.
Now he was gone, and with him any chance of lifting a few rubles
for train fare. I cursed myself for giving the billfold to the gypsy in Novgorod. Even as the syla had sent him to fetch me, I’d given him
the only means I possessed of using the flower they’d entrusted to
my care. If Belphagor didn’t return soon, I would have to find some
other way. There was nothing I could do for the moment except heed
Belphagor’s advice about his letter. I crossed to the fire, tossed in the
126 JANE KINDRED
note, and watched it burn.
I went out to the garden in search of distraction and found an ivy-
covered wooden toolshed on a corner of the small plot. In my mother’s
program of Good Works on behalf of the House of Arkhangel’sk, my
sisters and I had planted vegetable gardens for indigent members
of the Fallen in an attempt to help them to be productive citizens.
Only flowers grew in this earthly garden, but someone had left paper
packets of seeds in the toolshed, marked with their Russian names,
and I recognized a few of them as tomatoes, cucumber, and dill.
I cleared out a fallow bed among the flowers and began to plant a
garden for another house of another Arkhangel’sk. How strange that
here in this distant kingdom in the world of Man, my family’s legacy
had taken root in history. And now here I was, its last representative, quietly exiled to the place that bore our name.
Vasily, prodded out at last by the enduring daylight, came down
to see what I was doing. He had no interest in helping—vegetables, he
said with disdain, were not the fare of demons—but he seemed content
to watch me digging in the earth. He found an iron stool covered in
peeling white paint and dragged it out to sit in the sun. I pretended not to notice how gingerly he sat.
In the evening, having discovered the icebox and cupboards
stocked with goods to last us weeks, Vasily cooked a meal of potatoes
and sausage. After dinner, he investigated the fully stocked bar in a
/> cupboard in the sitting room. I abstained, but Vasily drank straight from a bottle of homemade vodka and became increasingly melancholy.
Belphagor had asked me to take care with Vasily, and I felt I
was failing at this one request. When I took the vodka from him, he
stumbled from his chair, revealing black and blue marks on the small
of his back where his shirt rode up.
Though I’d felt it was none of my business, I could no longer hold
my tongue. It was common, Mama had told me, for Fallen husbands
to beat their wives, even expected. Belphagor, it seemed, had assumed
the role of husband in this relationship and carried on the tradition.
I pulled the shirt up after helping the demon back into his chair.
“This is from him, isn’t it? He’s beaten you.”
Vasily jerked the fabric from my grasp and reached for the bottle.
THE FALLEN QUEEN 127
“Going-away present.” He swung and missed, and I held the bottle
behind my back.
“Why did you let him hurt you? He has no right.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he growled.
“Belphagor said in his letter to me that you were dear to him. That
is not the way you treat someone dear to you.”
“Nalchik—Menny— angel—” He stumbled furiously over the
words, swiping in vain at the bottle while I juggled it from one hand to the other. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. He takes his rage out on you for some
imagined fault and then tells you he’s sorry and promises never to do
it again. And you believe him. And now he’s run off with that… that
malchik.”
Vasily stood again and lunged for the vodka. This time he grabbed
my arm and wrestled the bottle from me, then hurled it against the
wall where it shattered and bathed the wood in a darkening stain.
His fingers gripped my arm hard enough to make me wince,
the smoldering of firespirit radiance dancing red at the back of his
pupils. “Don’t you speak of him. You think you have the whole Fallen
world figured out from your pristine pedestal among the sterile Host.
You think you know what we are? You know nothing. And you will
never feel anything half so dear between your cold legs or feel half so treasured and desired as I do when I kneel at Belphagor’s feet.”