The Fallen Queen

by Jane Kindred

being detained indefinitely with Belphagor in a cell designed for four, all awaiting trial. The prisoners ranged from a mere boy accused of

  petty theft to a police officer who’d beheaded an alcoholic mother and son and dissolved their bodies in lye in their bathtub to obtain their apartment. The officer had considered it a service to eliminate such

  drains on the system.

  Many of the prisoners’ crimes were written on their bodies in the

  tattoo code of the unrepentant, elaborate designs of religious icons

  and cathedrals, skulls and spider webs, crosses and stars—and closest

  to Belphagor’s heart: the four suits of the playing cards used in the

  world of Man. There was no hiding who you were here, or where you

  belonged in the hierarchy.

  Men and demons were on equal footing in this system. The usual

  tricks never seemed to work in the zona, perhaps because the inmates were well-versed themselves in misdirection and sleight of hand.

  Belphagor had managed to last nearly three months with only

  minor incidents, but had recently earned the ire of a new arrival to

  whom he’d not given proper deference. Nikolai Stepanovich was a

  career thief who’d spent more of his life in prison than out of it. He’d taken an instant dislike to Belphagor, even before seeing the crown of hearts tattooed on his lower back. Belphagor had failed to offer him a

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  smoke before lighting up.

  In the shower the following day, Nikolai Stepanovich publicly

  called him out on his status. Blocking the way to the outer room, he

  demanded to know to whom Belphagor belonged.

  Belphagor made the mistake of replying scornfully, “No one,” just

  before he noticed the absence of the guards at the door. Behind the

  thug stood a small crew of fully-dressed men.

  Nikolai Stepanovich opened the towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Suck my cock.” It was almost casual, like a demand for a cigarette. He wasn’t hard, but arousal wasn’t the point of this power play. Belphagor refused. Nikolai Stepanovich moved aside, and two of the men waiting

  behind him stepped forward. Belphagor swung at the first, but the slick shower floor was a poor arena for a fistfight, particularly while the

  others had the advantage of boots. His swing fell short. The other man grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him, and something popped in

  Belphagor’s shoulder as he slipped and hit the floor.

  He picked himself up, but his arm hung awkwardly, making it

  difficult to fight back when the first two shoved him against the wall of the shower while the others took turns beating him. When he hit the

  floor again, he stayed down. Curling into a fetal position to protect his internal organs from their boots, he covered his head with his arms,

  but he took half a dozen kicks to the back and groin and a few to the

  head before Nikolai Stepanovich called off his goons.

  Belphagor pushed himself up with his good arm and vomited

  into the shower, watching it circle with his blood down the drain. The veteran thief stood over him, half aroused by the beating, and uttered the command once more. Belphagor spat blood at his feet.

  Had he performed the requested service voluntarily, Nikolai

  Stepanovich might have left it at that, but Belphagor had long since

  ceased to be the frightened boy who would lie still for a little abuse to avoid a great deal of it—though in retrospect, he supposed it would have been a wiser course of action to have simply offered the bastard

  the cigarette in the first place.

  Nikolai Stepanovich showered casually beside him when he’d

  finished with him. “I let you off easy this time. Perhaps now you’ll

  remember your place.” He toweled off, and spat on Belphagor for

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  good measure. “You have no business wearing that vor ink. Next time I’ll carve it out so you don’t forget.”

  As if miraculously, the guards reappeared as Belphagor’s

  tormentors took their leave, berating him for exceeding his time limit while he pulled himself along the wall to his clothes after discovering he couldn’t stand without great pain. Unwilling to wait for him to

  crawl down the corridor once he’d managed to dress, they dragged

  him to his cell and deposited him on the floor. Nikolai Stepanovich

  didn’t bother to look up from his poker hand, blowing smoke in

  Belphagor’s direction. Beside him on the bed lay the pack he’d taken

  from Belphagor’s pocket.

  No one paid Belphagor any attention. He crawled to the only

  corner of the cell not currently occupied—the floor next to the

  toilet—and curled into as tight a ball as he could manage, trying not to vomit again while he popped the dislocated shoulder back into place.

  Mercifully, the guards left him alone during dinner, and he managed

  to catch a few minutes of rest on one of the rarely empty bunks. He

  couldn’t have eaten if he’d wanted to.

  By morning, he could only open one eye partway, and discovered

  after he managed to pull himself up to the toilet that he was pissing

  blood. When he couldn’t walk to breakfast, the guards admitted him

  to the infirmary, where he received a bed all to himself for an entire night and an armful of morphine. How Kresty had improved since his

  last stay here in 1982.

  §

  The charges were dropped at last, as the Seraphim had promised.

  Belphagor took his leave of Nikolai Stepanovich with an obscene

  gesture and an insult to the bastard’s mother.

  Dressed in what he’d worn to the prison in August, Belphagor

  found the sleet and snow of late November an unwelcome surprise.

  He’d promised to retrieve the ring from where he’d buried it: in

  a lockbox at the bottom of the Neva, chained to a support of the

  Liteiny Bridge. He’d gambled that even if the Seraphim determined

  its location, they would be unable to endure the baptism required to

  retrieve it. He hadn’t even planned on the frozen surface that would

  have made it impossible for them.

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  As it was, still stiff and bruised from his beating, diving under the

  ice was the last thing he wanted to do, but there was no way around it.

  He crossed the Neva and walked along the Robespierre Embankment

  until he was out of view of the OMON loitering near the bridge. A pair of stone sphinxes with half-skeletal faces graced the bank opposite

  Kresty; a fitting spot to dive in.

  After finding a break in the Neva’s ice-slushed surface, Belphagor

  peeled off his clothes and boots and steeled himself for the bracing

  cold. Once under water, he released his wings, wrapped himself in

  them as a partial barrier against the cold, and swam as quickly as he

  could. With the additional insulation, he might have twenty minutes

  before hypothermia set in.

  When he reached the Liteiny, he came up for air beneath the span

  and clung to the stone support. His limbs had begun to feel thick, as if they were freezing from the inside out and had become blocks of ice

  beneath his skin. He couldn’t stay in this water much longer. His plan began to seem less clever.

  He forced himself to dive below once more, propelling himself

  toward the bottom. He could barely see the chain wrapped around

  the support, but he found it with his fingers and followed it until

  he found the steel box. Belphagor began to work his magic on the

  lock, but w
ith his fingers so numb he could barely move them, it took

  longer than usual. His lungs burned, and the urge to breathe became

  overwhelming.

  At last, he tripped the lock with a paperclip purloined from the

  release desk on his way out of Kresty, but when he reached inside

  the box, he fumbled in the cold and the gold chain that held the ring

  slipped from his grasp. Belphagor surged toward the surface and

  came up swearing. He gulped in air and hung onto the bridge support

  surrounded by chunks of ice.

  When he’d caught his breath, he swore again in a long bellow of

  frustration before making another dive. If he found the ring, it would be a miracle. If he didn’t, it would mean a return to Kresty if the

  Seraphim caught him—where he would be at the mercy of Nikolai

  Stepanovich.

  At the bottom, Belphagor slid his hand to the support and

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  searched outward on the stones of the riverbed. His only hope was

  that the gold chain had caught on the rocks and not been carried off

  by the current.

  With one hand and both feet, he scoured the rocks while he held

  onto the steel chain to keep from being pulled into the current himself, but he found nothing. He’d lost this gamble for certain.

  In despair, he considered letting go and allowing the Neva to take

  him—far preferable to the fate that awaited him. And then a surge of

  rage overwhelmed him that someone like Nikolai Stepanovich could

  make him so pathetic he’d happily take his own life.

  A burst of pure hatred spurred Belphagor to renewed

  determination. In the clarity of that hatred, his foot struck a length of chain wrapped around a rock he’d scoured a dozen times. He clutched

  the chain with his freezing toes, and then grasped it in his hand. Letting go of the links of steel, he bolted upward.

  Belphagor broke the surface gasping. Too weak to swim to the

  embankment, he found himself being pulled downriver. He put the

  chain around his neck and scrambled for the icy stone bank, but his

  limbs were not cooperating. Only a stretch of ice spanning several

  feet kept him from being swept away. Belphagor felt his body slowing.

  He’d been in the water just a few minutes too long. He didn’t even

  have enough strength to spread his wings and lift himself out of the

  water, which he was more than willing to do, despite the commotion

  it might cause.

  He was clinging to the ice barge as if it were a raft and beginning

  to slip into the freezing depths when two pairs of boots appeared

  before him. A strange hallucination, he thought, before he was pulled

  from the water and dragged onto the ice. The OMON officers he’d

  avoided were now his rescuers. Two of them hauled him over the

  snowy bank while another shouted orders. Someone wrapped a coat

  around Belphagor’s shivering body. The officer must be new.

  Nearby, a man spoke in broken Russian. “My friend has a little too

  much vodka. Other friend bets he cannot walk across Neva in—how is

  to say? With no clothes.” Bless that boy. The OMON turned Belphagor over to Knud, who carried Belphagor’s clothes and a warm blanket.

  The officer took back the coat. He eyed the tattoos while the

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  gypsy wrapped Belphagor in the blanket and helped him to his feet,

  bare against the snow. “You sure it wasn’t breaking out of Kresty that put him in the river?”

  “No, no, no. He was release earlier this day. Look, I have in his

  clothes papers of release.”

  The officer looked the documents over and then demanded a

  “review fee” before handing them back to Knud. “Tell your friend not

  to start drinking before three.”

  The gypsy helped Belphagor over the snow. The clothes were

  too damp and chilled to be of any use, so Knud wrapped the blanket

  tightly around Belphagor and led him onto the bridge.

  “Why didn’t you wait for me?” the young man chided.

  “Because. Idiot.” His frozen mouth couldn’t quite form a sentence.

  Knud seemed to understand. “If you can make it to Finlyandsky

  Vokzal, we can warm you up inside. Just a few hundred meters.”

  “F-few to you, maybe.” Belphagor slowed. “I had b-boots.”

  “Someone stole them.” Knud led him onward. “I was heading for

  the bridge to meet you, and I saw your clothes at the Metaphysical Sphinxes. No boots.”

  “Meta-what?” Belphagor’s teeth were chattering so hard, speech

  was difficult.

  “The sphinxes on Naberezhnaya Robespyera. By Shemyakin.” He

  seemed astounded at Belphagor’s blank stare. “You’ve never heard of

  Shemyakin? Bozhe moi. It’s your country, Belphagor. I seem to know it better than you do.”

  “Not my country.”

  “Sure it is. Why else do you come here?”

  “Where the portal comes out.”

  “There are other portals.”

  “Didn’t fall through them.” Belphagor wanted to lie down. He

  slowed on the sidewalk and attempted to do so.

  “No you don’t.” Knud pulled him up. “Look, we’re almost there.”

  They had already crossed the bridge and were a block away from the

  station. Knud’s characteristically rambling talk was nearly as effective a distraction as Belphagor’s own airspirit influence.

  The gypsy led Belphagor through Finland Station into the Lenin

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  Square metro station and sat him down, holding his arms around him

  to warm his core. It garnered a lot of odd looks, but Belphagor was

  used to that.

  “We’ll warm you up and then get you dressed properly,” Knud

  promised. “I think I saw a boot kiosk in the vendor stalls under the

  street when I crossed earlier. And they have winter coats.” He took off his own boots while he talked and peeled off his socks to put them on

  Belphagor’s numb feet.

  “You speak fluent Russian,” said Belphagor, remembering the

  foreigner act Knud had pulled with the OMON and on the train when

  he’d first met the young man.

  “When it’s useful.” Knud grinned and put his boots back on his

  bare feet. “And when it’s not? What is word? I play game.” He pulled

  Belphagor up and held out the warmed jeans for him to step into.

  Belphagor steadied himself against Knud’s shoulder while the

  gypsy tugged them on. “This looks a little strange.”

  “It’s Russia.” Knud slid the pants up and buttoned them from

  inside the blanket with no one the wiser. “Strange is expected.” He

  tucked the blanket tightly around Belphagor once more. “What size

  boots?” Belphagor told him, and Knud headed off to the kiosks

  beneath the street.

  A short while later, he returned with a coat, a sweater, boots,

  gloves, and a fur ushanka with earflaps to keep Belphagor’s head warm. And from somewhere in his hands he produced a hot coffee in

  a paper cup.

  “Where did you get the money for all this?” Belphagor protested

  when Knud handed him the coffee and began to wrap him in layers. “I

  can’t pay you back right now.”

  “Don’t ask a gypsy where he gets his money.” When Knud seemed

  satisfied Belphagor was warming up and getting hot liquid into his

  sys
tem, he switched into the role of negotiator, speaking in the angelic tongue. “So you have the ring.” He nodded at the chain. “I’ve been

  instructed to take you to the rendezvous point—”

  “No.”

  Knud stared at Belphagor as if the cold had damaged his brain.

  “I will meet the damned Seraphim in front of the Winter Palace

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  in Elysium when I’m good and ready. I have no intention of delivering

  myself into their hands just to have them take the ring from me. The

  deal is they leave me the fuck alone until I bring the ring to the queen.

  Nothing else.”

  Knud continued to stare at him, trying to suss out whether he was

  serious. “If you don’t show, the principality releases them to do what they want with us.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Knud. I haven’t come this far to walk

  away.”

  Knud nodded, contemplating him. “All right. I’ll talk to the

  Seraphim if I can.”

  “If I even suspect they’re waiting for me at Baikal, I stay on the

  train and I take this ring with me. Make certain they understand. I will not go above with an escort.”

  The young man nodded. “I’ll relay your message that they’re

  to return above and wait. Though to tell you the truth, they seemed

  pretty eager to get back.” He grinned. “I don’t think they care for this weather.”

  Belphagor managed to laugh while Knud helped him to his feet.

  He’d calculated that the Seraphim would be unwilling to prolong the

  negotiation as it got colder and wetter. He hadn’t expected them to

  hold out this long.

  “One last thing,” said Belphagor. “I meant to send word through

  the underground to Vasily and my nephew when I had any news.

  Since you already know their whereabouts, I thought you might take

  a message yourself.”

  “I’d be glad to, as long as I don’t feel any heat. I wouldn’t want to

  lead the Seraphim straight to them after all this.”

  “Absolutely. In fact, give it a week or two. If all goes as planned,

  things should be quiet by then.”

  Knud agreed and wished him luck before slipping a wad of rubles

  into Belphagor’s coat pocket for which he would take no argument.

  Belphagor thanked him with a silent press of his arm. The money

  would save him having to influence the ticket agent—energy he wasn’t