by Jane Kindred
“Right now? A group called the Malakim wants Anazakia’s daughter.”
“And why do the Malakim want her?”
“Because they think she’s some kind of angelic royalty. The last heir of a celestial dynasty.” Love tried to shrug, and winced as her muscles strained against the ropes. Her hands were growing numb.
“The Nephilim clan I belong to believes Ola is a threat.”
Her stomach knotted. “You haven’t done something to Ola?”
“Ola is fine. For the moment.” He stopped in front of her, so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. “Some of us would prefer the House of Arkhangel’sk—the celestial Arkhangel’sk—leave the stage for good. But Vashti is softhearted. She convinced me to have Ola put away, out of reach of idiots like the Malakim.”
“Belphagor was finding a safe house. I was about to make contact with someone in Provence.”
Zeus waved his hand dismissively. “Belphagor is a small-time grifter. Easily duped. Easily caught out when he thinks he’s being clever and subtle. Might as well put a big red X on top of any safe house he sets up.” Zeus shook his head, the wings flapping back as if in irritation at the very idea. “No, this is too important to leave to an ex-con and his fire demon boy-toy. Vashti and I have found the perfect ’safe house’ here at the monastery.”
So this cold cell was in the Solovetsky monastery. Love could vaguely recall Zeus carrying her down a flight of stairs after dazing her with a blow to the head, but she couldn’t remember how they’d gotten inside this fortress. The bruised lump and the throbbing headache, however, were starting to bring back the stunned moment on the beach in painful detail. Zeus had swung at her with something that felt like a heavy log while she bent to pick up a piece of driftwood.
“We have an inside man among the brothers. He can keep the contents of these cells sealed tighter than a virgin’s ass.” Zeus smirked at Love’s expression of disgust. “The remaining problem now is you.” He straddled her over the chair and gripped her face. The wings flapped up around them, making her shiver as they stirred the air. “Can we count on you to do as you’re told?”
She made an effort to nod, though his fingers were digging into her flesh.
“That’s good.” With his free hand, he reached under her shirt, and Love squirmed as he grabbed her breast. “You won’t make much of a wet nurse. But I’m sure Ola won’t mind the bottle.” Laughing as her cheeks burned, he pinched her roughly beneath the shirt before letting go. He patted her cheek a bit too hard. “You’ll do just fine, Lyubov. Welcome to slon.”
As he climbed off, the wings retracted and disappeared behind him with a flourish, and with a quick wink, his eyes returned to their normal cold blue. She blinked at Zeus as he went out through the low wooden door, stooping to keep from hitting his head. The iron latch clattered with finality from the outside.
The phrase “Welcome to the elephant” confused her for a moment until she remembered Belphagor talking about the monastery on the short flight from Arkhangel’sk. Slon, the Russian word for elephant, was also the acronym for the Solovetsky Lager Osobogo Naznachenia—the Camp of Special Designation. The first and worst camp of the Soviet Gulag had been established here. Belphagor had described the place as if he had intimate knowledge of it, the way he often spoke of Russian history.
The latch lifted and a young, bearded monk entered, his eyes on the floor, the soft step of his sandals beneath the black podryasnik and ryasa robes almost soundless. He crossed to the chair and loosened the ropes.
She tried to rub the feeling back into her wrists. “Spasibo.”
The monk shook his head at her. “No Russian. Only angel tongue. You speak only when I speak you.” The halting words were in the language the others at the dacha called angelic. It was clear he knew even less of it than Love did.
From under his vest, he produced a rolled-up set of garments like his own, with a pair of sandals tucked inside them. “You will put. Leave you clothings here. Knock when you have put.”
She didn’t like the idea of wearing a dress, and especially didn’t like leaving her good boots behind, but when he’d closed the door, she did as she was told, hoping cooperation would get her out of this as soon as possible. Her leather belt, however, she fastened around her waist before she put the heavy garments on; it was expensive, and it might come in handy later. There was an extra piece of cloth when she’d finished getting dressed—a nun’s head covering: the apostolnik. With a sigh, she put it over her head and shoulders.
When she knocked, the monk let her out and directed her through a series of corridors and stairways to another cell, more intimate than the first, containing a cot and a small window—too small to climb through, but she might be able to see outside if she stood on her toes. The monk turned to the door, a dark blond ponytail visible beneath the skufia pulled down around his ears.
“What do I call you?” She was careful to ask in angelic.
Startled, he looked up at her, revealing wide eyes of aquamarine beneath long lashes. Without the beard, he might be handsome. “I am called Brother Kirill.” He stroked the thin length of beard awkwardly. “But you must not speak, Sister Lyubov. I tell brothers you have take vow of silence.” With that, he went out and bolted the door.
Love sat on the cot with frustration. She was thirsty and she hadn’t had a chance to ask him for water, and now her stomach was starting to growl. Fortunately, she didn’t have long to wait. A key turned the bolt in the door some minutes later and Brother Kirill opened it to admit Vashti, with Ola in her arms.
“Ola!” Love jumped up, relieved. “Thank God she’s okay. I think your friend Zeus has gone mad—”
“Shut up,” Vashti interrupted. “Someone will hear you. You’re supposed to be silent.” Ola squirmed in her arms, reaching for Love, and Vashti handed the baby over.
“Lub.” Ola tugged on the apostolnik as if she wanted Love to take it off and look like her usual self.
Love lowered her voice. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on,” said Vashti as she handed her the diaper bag, “is that you’re the nanny. So just…nanny, and stop asking questions.”
“Are you going to keep us here? In this little room?”
“Those sound like questions to me, nanny.” Vashti swung her long braids behind her and folded her arms. “Zeus said he’d explained everything to you.”
“Not exactly. How long are we supposed to stay here? Where’s Belphagor?”
Vashti shrugged. “He was taking a nap last time I saw him. I think he was relieved to have Ola out of his hair.”
Love bounced Ola on her hip. “What about Anazakia and Vasily? Do they know about this? Are they coming here?”
“No, they are not coming here. Just do your job and take care of the baby. I’m not answering any more questions—and if you open your mouth again, humani, I may just slap it shut.”
Love scowled. There was that word again, humani. She had a feeling it wasn’t just one of their made-up words, but an insult of some kind. Though it was one she’d never heard before today, it had an air of antiziganism to it. She’d met enough Roma-haters to recognize the disdain with which the word was said.
Vashti seemed satisfied by her begrudging compliance. “There are several cans of baby food, along with powdered formula and fresh water in the bag. And enough diapers to last a couple of days. It’s too late for you to get anything to eat tonight, but Kirill will bring you breakfast in the morning.”
“And what if I need to go to the bathroom?”
“Then you wait until Kirill comes to take you, don’t you.” Vashti gave her a dark look of warning and Love closed her mouth on any more questions. “You’re not to speak to anyone, understand? Kirill will bring you everything you need. If he doesn’t bring it, you don’t need it.”
Love nodded sullenly.
“Just keep the baby fed and quiet. That’s your job.”
…
Finally alone with Ze
us later at the little cabin they’d rented on the island, Vashti tossed her brown lambskin coat onto the spare bed and peeled out of her matching pants while Zeus watched her, hands clasped behind his head against the carved wooden headboard, his broad chest bare. The place was charmingly appointed, with two little twin beds covered with red and white bedspreads in traditional Russian embroidery. They were barely big enough to hold one of them, but Vashti wasn’t about to sleep alone.
Pulling her ribbed ivory tank top over her head, Vashti climbed onto Zeus’s lap and yanked the belt free, unbuttoning his fly until she had what she wanted.
He grinned as she straddled him. “Long day.”
“God, that was a bloody fortunate fuck-up, him bringing that girl along.” She moaned appreciatively as he grasped her hips and pulled her down hard while he thrust himself into her. “Now I won’t have to play nursemaid after all.” Her braids swung over her shoulders like a curtain cocooning them as she looked down at eyes as blue as Onega Bay. There was nothing like Nephil cock. She was convinced their race had gotten the best of the sorry genes on both sides. She’d been called an abomination by both demon and human, but if this hard, beautiful god beneath her was an abomination, she’d take one any day over the “pure.”
The Nephilim chose their names at adulthood, and Zeus had chosen well. Her brother Nebo considered him arrogant, the name a fitting tribute to his ego, but Nebo had never had Zeus’s cock up his ass—Thank Heaven, she thought with a laugh.
Zeus pulled her down and cupped her breast as he brought it to his mouth. “You can play nursemaid to me instead.”
…
As promised, Kirill showed up bright and early with a tray of breakfast. When Love sat up, he nearly dropped the tray, whirling away from her, his ponytail swinging behind him as if it, too, were shocked.
“You must put clothings!”
“They’re too warm.” Love picked up the robe and shimmied into it over her bra and panties. “I can’t sleep in them.”
“No Russian. Angel tongue only.” When he faced her once more, Kirill’s cheeks were such a painful red that Love felt guilty. “Clothings not too warm in winter.” He set the tray on a hand-whittled pine stand in the corner. “You keep them put.”
“Winter?” Love gaped at him in dismay. “Will I be here in winter?”
He gave her a noncommittal shrug. “If baby stay, you stay.”
“How long?”
Kirill shook his head as he brought the tray stand to the side of the cot.
Love stared at the single bowl of kasha with jam, a serving of toast, and a pot of tea. “No food for Ola? For baby?”
“Baby eats…” He paused for a moment and then gave up and said, “Moloko.”
“She doesn’t just drink milk. She eats food also. She’s fourteen months old.” Love set the bowl of kasha aside. “I’ll share.”
“Nyet.” Kirill sighed, clearly frustrated by his unusual duties. “I bring more. What more baby need?”
“Juice, bread, anything I eat. She likes biscuits. And milk—moloko.” She gave up on the angelic, seeing he was struggling to understand her elementary vocabulary. “She doesn’t like the formula and she doesn’t really need it anymore. We just brought that along because it doesn’t spoil. And if you’re going to keep us in prison indefinitely, she’s going to need a lot more diapers and wipes. And more clothes. And some toys.”
“Is not prison.” Kirill looked offended. “No more speak. I bring paper. You write list for baby.”
“Her name is Ola.”
Kirill put his finger to his lips with a frown and went out.
When he returned with the pencil and paper, Love scribbled down everything she could think of, not knowing how long these supplies would have to last. The prospect of trying to keep Ola occupied and confined wasn’t a pleasant one. What could that fucking Zeus have been thinking? She couldn’t imagine how they’d expected their plan to work without dragging Love into it. Had they thought Ola would just sit quietly on a cot by herself, waiting patiently to be fed or have her diaper changed? It was as if they knew nothing at all about babies.
Kirill clearly didn’t. His mouth dropped at the size of the list. “This all for one baby?”
“A few things for me,” she conceded.
When the monk reached the bottom of the list, his face went red again, this time to the tips of his ears. She’d requested tampons.
“Don’t abduct fertile young women if you’re not prepared for it,” she snapped in Russian.
Kirill put the list in his pocket and turned on his heel.
The monk brought almost everything Love asked for, but he would say nothing more to her in the days to come, ignoring her or shushing her sternly whenever she tried to engage him in conversation. Ola was frustrated by the locked door but was soon engaged enough by the array of toys Kirill delivered that Love was able to keep her crying to a minimum. When the door opened for mealtimes, Ola would look up hopefully, asking in no particular order, “Mama?” “Beli?” “Papa?” But she asked for them less and less with each passing day.
She took her first unaided steps without Anazakia or Vasily there to see it, and her vocabulary was growing in little words every day as Love read to her from the children’s books Kirill had given them. As for Love herself, she thought she’d go mad from boredom until Kirill at last brought her some grown-up books and magazines, but she went through them quickly, with nothing more to do but play with Ola. The routine of waking, eating, and sleeping began to blur into an endless repetition and Love lost count of the days. The only indication of the passage of time was that the hours of daylight were growing shorter, and through their small window, the light had begun to change.
“I need to get out of here,” she told Kirill one morning as he brought breakfast. “I need to go outside. Ola needs to go outside. You can’t expect us to stay cooped up in here.”
As he often did when she pestered him with unwanted conversation, Kirill moved his hand to the knotted prayer rope in his pocket, as if it were a talisman against her. “I will ask Mr. Zey-us.” He looked alarmed as soon as the words were out.
“They’re still here on Solovetsky!” Love exclaimed. “Zeus and Vashti?”
He shook his head, flustered, fingering the knots of the chotki. “I have orders. There is…communication.” He would say nothing more when she pressed him.
The following day, he directed Love into the hallway before him. She and Ola had been allowed baths once or twice a week in a large bathroom upstairs, and she thought perhaps this was where they were headed, but instead, he steered her down the stairs, stopping at the room where she’d first found herself with Zeus.
“You will wait.” Kirill picked up Ola and left Love alone.
Love paced angrily, not liking the idea of not knowing what was happening to Ola.
After several minutes, Zeus entered, smiling. “And how are we doing?”
“We are going stir crazy,” snapped Love. “Why are you keeping us here? If you and Vashti are still on Solovetsky, why doesn’t Ola stay with you? Why are we in a damn prison?”
Zeus took off his coat and hung it over the back of one of the chairs. “Sit.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Love regarded him hotly. “I want some answers.”
Zeus moved her chair as if to hold it out for her, and then without warning, he slammed her in the gut and shoved her into it. “Kirill tells me you’re making things difficult for him.” He sat before her as if nothing unusual had happened, while Love groaned and hugged her stomach, trying not to be sick. “He’s told his brothers you’ve taken a vow of silence and come here in penitence to give your child born in sin to the house of God. Yet you continue to speak to him when he asks you not to. You make demands like you’re staying at Club Med.”
Love glared up at him, her voice tight. “Asking for tampons is hardly Club Med.”
Zeus smiled. “Yes, he told me something about that. Something about how fertile you are? Did you rea
lly discuss that with a monk?” When she didn’t answer, he yanked her chair toward him. “Is that why you’re going stir crazy, Lyubov? Cooped up like a nun not the thing for you?” He played with the buttons on the robe between her thighs, and Love slapped him away, only to have him belt her across the side of her face.
Love recoiled with a cry, her hand to her cheek. “What is wrong with you? I thought you people were Belphagor’s friends!”
“You people?” He pulled her from the seat with a fist in her bangs. “Who the fuck do you think you are, you little pikey cunt?”
Love clawed at him, but with frightening strength, Zeus captured her wrists in one hand, swung her over the back of the chair, and bashed the side of her head into the wooden seat until she was stunned into compliance. She tried to fight him once more as he unbuttoned his fly, but he was resting his weight on her so that any struggling was ineffectual.
“Please don’t,” she begged. “I won’t ask him for anything else. I’ll be quiet!”
“Make as much noise as you like.” He kicked her legs apart. “I like it when a girl shows a little appreciation. And no one can hear you down here anyway.”
Pyataya: Tsarskoe Selo
from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk
Love’s betrayal stung me far worse than that of Vashti or Zeus. Though Vashti had helped me escape from Heaven, she’d never warmed to me, and Zeus I knew nothing of. But Love had been a member of our unconventional little family. With her, I’d felt a small fraction of the closeness I would never have again with my sisters. I’d often found myself feeling shy around her easy and unapologetic manner—she was not afraid to speak her mind—but never for one moment had I felt I couldn’t trust her.
Belphagor had used her contacts to get a message to Dmitri. The Grigori chieftain, outraged at the betrayal, convened a meeting of every Grigori and Nephilim clan leader on the continent. Only Zeus’s clan didn’t show. Though Vashti officially belonged to the Karibskii Nephilim, she’d lived in London since her early teens and was under the protection of the Angliski clan. When she was found, Dmitri said—and he promised grimly that she would be found—Vashti would face a twofold punishment: one for her crime, and another for her deviation from the will of the Grigori. I cared nothing for their ancient laws. I wanted only the return of my child.
