by Jane Kindred
Dvadtsat Shestoe: Once More Unto the Breach
Vasily had fretted over the logistics of taking two hundred Grigori
and Nephilim through the back room portal of The Brimstone, until
Dmitri told him it wasn’t necessary. A Power of the Third Choir,
Dmitri had the ability to break Belphagor’s portal spell, but there was no need. They were going to make a breach, a vortex formed between
Heaven and Earth by the forces of opposing elements. It was how
the Grigori had fallen to their exile, by crossing elements like swords to form a swirling rift of concentric rings of earth, air, fire, and water.
Common lore said they’d been cast out of Heaven and thrown into a
lake of fire, but it was a “lake” of all four celestial elements, and they’d opened it themselves, cursing Heaven.
The safest way to create a breach was over open water. Vasily
didn’t care for the idea of being suspended above water in a maelstrom, but Dmitri assured him the water itself was immaterial. They’d never
touch it.
To avoid undue attention, the force of two hundred, comprised
of one-third Grigori and two-thirds Nephilim, had traveled in small
groups and pairs to St. Petersburg, where the Fallen were common
and the unique nature of their fallen status might go unnoticed. From
there, they chartered buses to Lake Ladoga, where a yacht waited to
take them out after sunset. A core group of twelve Grigori, the team
who would reopen the breach when they’d achieved their objective
in the Firmament, arranged themselves in four spokes for the four
elements, their hands placed one upon the other in the center.
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Neither Vasily, Knud, nor the Nephilim were permitted to watch
the execution of the ancient magic when the Grigori released their
wings and combined their elemental radiance. A loud thundering
and a gathering of dark clouds announced its commencement. Wind
whipped about the deck and Vasily felt his hair stand on end to the
extent his locks could do so. Knud’s hair stood straight up.
Dmitri gave them the “all clear” and they turned to see the wings
of the Grigori extended from their shoulders in stunning, glossy spans of sculpted onyx. Vasily couldn’t imagine how such ponderous limbs
could be used for flight, but when the Grigori moved, the stone rippled with an unexpected grace and fluidity. Any lingering doubts he’d had
about their prowess evaporated. Without question, they were in the
presence of the mighty Powers of Heaven.
In the center of the circle, a funnel of light and dark threads rose
out of the Grigori’s hands and spun into the black weight of the storm clouds overhead. A heavy rain began to fall, and the surface of the
lake chopped in turbulent waves.
Clasping hands and pumping them with each word like a sports
team before a game, the Grigori chanted a series of ancient angelic
incantations Vasily didn’t recognize. When their grips broke, Dmitri,
dark hair whipping about his head beside Knud and Vasily, shouted,
“Now!”
The breach tore open, spinning upward. Vasily found himself
surging toward it with the sensation of falling. He was so fascinated by the ritual, he had no time to release his wings, but this hardly mattered on the Heavenly entry, since wings dissipated within the celestial
sphere for all but pure firespirits of the Second Choir.
They burst into the square before the Winter Palace. Vasily
steadied himself against the flagstone, stepping up from the electric
crackling of the vortex rim. They had to move quickly now to take
advantage of the element of surprise. The Ophanim couldn’t have
missed their thunderous entrance.
Intelligence from their celestial contacts had placed Anazakia in
the private suites of the palace. Belphagor had fallen out of favor with the queen and was now in her new prison on the north bank of the
Neba. While Vasily and a team of Grigori stormed the prison and the
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rest kept the queen’s Ophanim occupied, Knud and select group of
Nephilim would take the palace. With their human blood, they stood
the best chance of resisting the radiance of the Seraphim certain to be guarding the interior.
The rest of the Exiles, though they had never set foot in Heaven,
had the advantage of belonging to special combat forces in the armies
of Man. It was an ideal profession for a person with special strengths, and they contrived to serve in platoons comprised solely of Grigori
and Nephilim to keep those strengths hidden. Vasily had spent the
past few weeks training with them and learning how to handle a
sword, a weapon he’d never even seen up close before. He would have
preferred a firearm—not that he was any more familiar with one than
the other—but the curious properties of the airs of Heaven rendered
such weapons inert. Angelic disdain for human technological advances
wasn’t the only reason Heaven remained in a more genteel age.
Beside him, Knud looked green and short of breath. Vasily hadn’t
considered what the atmosphere of Heaven might do to a human.
He’d never known of any who’d tried to enter.
He helped Knud to his feet. “Are you all right?”
The gypsy nodded, swallowing. “The air. It’s like breathing ice
water. But I’ll adapt.” He pulled a knife from his boot and snapped it open with a ratcheting click. Knud had declined the offer of a sword.
He preferred his own weapon. It would be easier for the close work he
needed to do in rescuing Anazakia. “Let’s go.”
Vasily gave a sharp nod and started forward, but a commotion
rose in the square before they’d even set foot in it. The breach had
alerted more than the Ophanim to their entrance. Elysium was in
chaos. Scores of demons, a mob who’d clearly assembled long before
their arrival, filled the square. The appearance of the earthly Powers lit by the backdrop of a glowing elemental vortex had turned the riot in
progress into a frenzy.
Demons dashed for the breach, and several managed to make the
leap before the Nephilim closed in on them and began hurling them
back. Vasily couldn’t see what the fuss was. If they wanted to fall, why not let them? And then he heard the screaming. With a chill running
down his spine, he looked into the breach to see demons thrashing in
276 JANE KINDRED
a snarl of elemental threads. The vortex was shredding their skin like razor wire.
“It only goes one way, dammit!” Dmitri shouted over the uproar,
his voice deepened impressively by the air of Heaven. “It has to be
closed!” He gave the signal to the twelve who’d invoked it to shut it
down.
“You have no jurisdiction here,” a demoness yelled, struggling
against a Nephil twice her size. “You can’t keep the whole world of
Man to yourselves!” The Nephil shoved her back, and Vasily watched
in horror as she fell beneath the oncoming mob and was trampled by
the frenzied rioters, heedless of her screams in their eagerness to get to the breach before it closed.
“You have a sword!” one of the Nephilim snarled at him. “Use it!”
Vasily gritted his teeth and drew his blade. Somehow he’d
imagined he wouldn’t actually have to wield it. He forgot everything
rioting demons were untrained and unarmed except for bricks, bottles,
and the occasional knife, and they were hemmed in by Exiles on one
side while Ophanim closed in on the other.
His aimless swinging cleared a path along the perimeter of the
square to the Palace Embankment as demons scrambled out of his
way, revealing his objective several hundred meters along the opposite bank: the dark edifice of a building that hadn’t existed when he was
last in Elysium. And Belphagor was in there. Somewhere.
When his team reached the prison, they found a smaller version
of the riot in progress, with demons beginning to scatter as though the riot had started here some time earlier and spread to the square.
Vasily cursed at the young demon currently dodging his sword
after taking a nick in the arm from a piece of jagged glass. “I’m not
your enemy,” he growled. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and
fight the Ophanim?”
“Why don’t you?” the demon countered.
“I would, if you’d get out of my way!” Vasily lowered his sword
and wiped his brow, and the youth stopped slashing at him.
“You’re just a common demon.”
Vasily pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and cracked
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his neck with a ripple of his shoulders. “Thanks for noticing.” He was pleased when the boy took a step back.
“Why are you with the militsiya?”
“Militsiya? Those are Grigori.”
The young demon looked dubious. “I thought they were a myth.”
He glanced at the Exiles engaged in battle around them. “They look
like Powers, though. They’re not the Queen’s Army?”
Vasily laughed. “Not by a longshot. We’re here to break someone
out of her prison. Spread the word. Maybe you can talk sense into
some of your comrades.” He jogged past the youth toward the walled
complex.
In front of the large iron gate, he encountered the cold glow of
an Ophan. Vasily tucked his head down. He knew better than to look
another firespirit in the eye. Or eyes. However many there were. He
swallowed, steadying himself. Perhaps he’d looked an instant too long.
The Nephilim had trained him to watch his opponents’ feet if he
couldn’t look them in the eyes. Of course, looking at an Ophan’s feet
was hardly easier. The angels’ rapid motions gave the impression of
standing still when they were moving, and moving when they were
standing still. All Vasily could do was be ready.
He ducked low as he parried the first move, and the electric ripple
of the Ophan’s blade passed an inch above his head. The Ophan made
a sound of irritation that grated with the fluttering click of a beetle’s wings inside Vasily’s head. He resisted the shudder of revulsion
threatening to unnerve him.
The white-hot blade hissed through the air again. This time
Vasily dove to the ground, slashed at the blur of the Ophan’s legs,
and managed to graze the angel. The Ophan’s blade came down at
the same moment, and Vasily rolled aside just in time to miss being
speared in a very intimate place. The tip of the heavy blade rang like an anvil against the stone, and his scrotum clenched involuntarily.
Executing a quick upward lunge, he landed a slicing blow to the
Ophan’s side. The angel loosed an angry roar that rattled Vasily’s brain, then moved in its shifting manner too swiftly for him to scramble
away. As the fiery sword came down on Vasily, he hunched inward and
braced for the blow, but the blade faltered. He stole a glance at the
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angel stumbling backward, its unfocused features still for once with
astonishment. The sword fell from the Ophan’s hand, and the cold fire
of the blade scattered sparks along the flagstone. The angel shuddered and collapsed.
Knud had tempered Vasily’s blade with a gypsy spell that infused
the steel with elemental ice, which Dmitri said was poison to a
firespirit’s blood. The Grigori chieftain had warned Vasily not to let the sword pierce his own skin. While Vasily wasn’t a pure firespirit,
Dmitri wasn’t sure how susceptible he might be to the poison. Even so, Vasily hadn’t quite believed the spell would work.
Before he could congratulate himself on his success, a tingling
sensation, as if something had struck every nerve in his body,
shuddered through him. Another Ophan had come through the gate
too quickly for him to perceive, and it had him by the scalp, its frigid fingers digging through his locks to close around his skull like live
wires. His arm wouldn’t obey his brain’s order to lift the sword. He felt the rush of an ophanic blade once more and saw its light swing toward
him. And then a figure darted past him with a shout, and rushed at the Ophan.
With a sickening roar, the angel released Vasily, and he landed on
the flagstone on all fours. He stared in disbelief as the blazing sword turned and plunged into the throat of the young demon he’d sparred
with. His arm at last received the signal from his brain, and he gripped the blade’s hilt with both hands and swung, slicing into the Ophan’s
back before it could tear its sword from the demon. The boy dropped
to the ground, and the angel staggered back with an insect-like hiss.
Vasily clenched his teeth and charged.
Despite its injury, the angel moved too swiftly for him to catch,
and Vasily thrust into empty air. He tucked and rolled, tumbling away
from the fiery sword swinging down toward his head. One of his locks
was sheared off, and the white-hot metal sang against the stone. He
landed in a low crouch, and the flash of the fiery alloy reflected in his glasses. The Ophan followed through with the precision of lightning.
Vasily jumped, and the angel’s sword swept beneath his feet. He felt
its unnerving prickling through the soles of his boots.
The Ophan shimmered out of reach, easily evading Vasily when
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he advanced, pushing him back with each parrying thrust until his own
sword became little more than a narrow shield. His arms ached, the
force of each blow radiating through them. The next strike knocked
the air out of Vasily as he slammed into the wall. When the white heat of the sword bore down on him, he slumped down hard onto his ass,
the only move he could think of, and thrust his sword up blindly while the Ophan’s slashed down. The tip of his blade met something soft just as the heat of the Ophan’s sword pierced his shoulder. Had the weapon
gone deep, Vasily’s collar bone might have been severed, but the angel snarled and its dizzying movements wavered. Vasily struggled against
the electrifying sting of the elemental weapon, his left arm tingling to his fingertips.
The Ophan stepped back. Vasily made the mistake of looking up
when the angel’s gaze swung around. A gash he could only describe as
a lack of ophanic fire was spreading from the underside of the Ophan’s jaw. The angel pinned him with its dreadful glare, and dropped to its
knees with a caustic hiss that Vasily sensed as skittering electricity behind his eyes.
“Firespirit!” The snarled word from the shifting mouth jarred
Vasily. He hadn’t been sure this breed was sentient enough to speak.
“Betray
er of your own kind!”
“I’m not one of your kind,” Vasily said with a growl. He gritted his
teeth against the singing pain in his arm and the nausea induced by
the crackling voice.
The angel shook its head, its eyes shifting position to remain
pinned on Vasily even as its head lolled against its neck, unable to
straighten. “Bastard firespirit,” it hissed. “Abomination.” The white
glow dimmed, and then the angel dropped to the ground and went
still.
Vasily shuddered and scrambled over to the young demon who lay
staring up at the pale glow of the pre-dawn celestial sky. In the sparse light, the boy’s blood was a black pool in the hollow of his throat. He’d died instantly of shock.
“Damn you,” Vasily whispered.
He got to his feet, just as several Grigori from his unit broke
through the chaos. Shaking out his tingling arm, Vasily nodded
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toward the open prison gate, and together they advanced through
the courtyard to the main entrance where another pair of Ophanim
stood guard. Despite the disorienting motions of the angels, the
Grigori dispatched them with a frightening efficiency that put Vasily’s awkward scuffle to shame.
The Grigori weren’t just better trained; they were, as the name
of their order suggested, more physically powerful than any other
order in the Heavens. The firespirits might have the advantage of a
more fearsome element, but when it came to sheer brute force, the
Powers were unmatched. They wielded their heavy swords like they
were made of wood. Vasily had renewed respect for Dmitri. He hadn’t
looked all that impressive in the world of Man, but he was one fierce
sonofabitch in Heaven.
They entered the complex to find chaos reigned here also. Fire
burned in a large steel wastebin by the door, and the bodies of demons slaughtered by the Ophanim littered the floor. Beyond the unmanned
intake center, the large holding cells were empty except for trash and human waste. A glittering frost of glass lay over everything. Heavy
panes had been smashed from the outside through the barred windows.
An angelic guard had been hanged by his own belt, a ring of
keys still dangling from the leather. The demons who’d strung him up
apparently weren’t interested in helping to free their fellow inmates.