The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  Despite the mobilization of the Grigori, there had been no sign of Ola. Surveillance of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the old Circum-Baikal line from which the portal of Heaven could be reached turned up no indication of movement among the Malakim. Dmitri was certain Belphagor had moved fast enough after the abduction that the Malakim couldn’t have eluded them if they were intent on Heaven. There was no time. Even if they or the Nephilim had flown, it would have been known to the Grigori.

  As for the Roma, they’d become stubbornly mum, refusing to say whether they knew Love’s whereabouts and refusing to claim responsibility for Ola’s abduction or deny involvement. Fallen relations with the gypsy underground had immediately ceased. One thing was certain; if the Malakim hadn’t been in on the abduction from the first, they were well aware of it now.

  It was maddening not to be able to question anyone who might be able to shed light, to have no demand for ransom nor any sign of Heaven’s involvement. Zeus’s clan had declared mutiny against the authority of the Grigori. The only motive we could discern from their declarations was that they believed the Grigori had broken their covenant first in aiding one of the Host. Dishearteningly, the celestial-born Fallen who now lived in the terrestrial plane had sided with the Angliski Nephilim. Belphagor and Vasily were pariahs to them. Thanks to Aeval’s proclamation, we were now infamous.

  As weeks wore on with no leads as to Ola’s whereabouts, life in the dacha became strained. Dmitri had convened the Grigori Duma, a governing body that was rarely assembled and whose inner workings were for Grigori eyes only. We were strongly counseled against leaving the dacha in search of Ola, the Duma’s consensus being that she had been taken to draw us out. He and his network would follow any leads and police all possible routes to Heaven to be certain Ola was not smuggled out of the world of Man. This sat hard with all of us. There was little concrete action we might have taken, but leaving it to the Grigori was like being bound hand and foot, with everything beyond our control.

  To enforce the Duma’s “recommendation” in a manner that seemed to me like barring the stable door after the horse had bolted, Dmitri set a rotating detail of Nephilim to guard the perimeter of the dacha property, leaving us feeling like prisoners in our own home. Though it was for our own protection, I could not help thinking of the family mine had resembled in its tragedy—the last of the House of Romanov. At the start of the Bolsheviks’ October Revolution, they had been placed under house arrest in their palace at Tsarskoe Selo, the pastoral town outside the metropolitan center of St. Petersburg where the tsars had once retreated from the bustle of the city.

  I had read accounts of the indignities they suffered as their house arrest turned to confinement in a commandeered home in Yekaterinburg, where they would end their days in a cellar, shot down like dogs. The Nephilim treated us with no obvious disrespect, but it was clear in their demeanor when one of us crossed their paths that the Exiles were not all of one mind. They obeyed Dmitri because of their dependent relationship with the Grigori—none of them wanted to end up with the uncertain fate of the Angliski—but privately, they displayed an icy civility that did nothing to reassure me of their loyalty.

  And it was privately that the strain was greatest. Despite Belphagor’s tireless efforts to learn all he could of Love’s former connections, tracking leads on her computer and liaising with the Grigori to make certain no stone was unturned, Vasily hadn’t apologized to him for his cutting words as I’d expected. Instead, he became more distant with the waning summer sun, refusing to confide even in me.

  Again it brought to mind the gradual loss of Kae’s confidence, like a cancer spreading through him, and the sorrow I still felt over my cousin’s death compounded my guilt at the rifts between each of us. Was I to lose everyone? I could not think of Ola’s absence as permanent or something inside me might break. In the delicate chrysalis of hope and worry in which I had enveloped myself, Vasily’s withdrawal hit me even harder. As a consequence, I turned increasingly to Belphagor for solace.

  From the contemptuous glowers Vasily bestowed on both of us, it was clear he looked on this as a betrayal.

  With the tension among us, the house seemed doubly quiet. We had all become used to the whims of Ola’s infant temperament. The absence of her mercurial tears at frustrations and disappointments, and of her sudden squeals of pure delight when she discovered something new—or something recognized, like Belphagor playing peek-a-boo behind a chair—left a ghastly emptiness between the walls. We could not fill the silence with words, knowing what words might come forth, and so it swelled until it deafened.

  I woke often in the night believing I heard Ola crying, and on one occasion it seemed so real that I slipped on my tapochki and ran down the stairs calling for her. Belphagor, on the couch, stumbled out of sleep and caught me as I ran into the garden. Autumn was falling fast, and I stood shivering beneath the half-bare trees. Belphagor held me and let me cry as I realized I’d only been dreaming. Above us, Vasily’s window slammed shut.

  Something rustled within the dead leaves on the ground. I breathed in sharply and stepped back, reminded of the terrible images of the syla I’d put out of my head the moment my own loss had overshadowed them. “The flower of the fern.”

  Belphagor looked down at the leaves as if expecting to see the flower there. “What about it?”

  “The syla—the Seraphim forced them to tell what they knew, what they saw in the future. And they saw Ola taking the flower. I think that’s why Aeval sent the Malakim after her.”

  Belphagor’s wingcasting face wavered on his features before he sighed and looked up at the stars. “Nazkia, I doubt the queen cares a whit about some Russkie fairy tale. If she wants Ola, it’s not because of unseen spirits and magic flowers. It’s because of her element.”

  He hadn’t truly believed anything I’d told him about that night in Novgorod, or what I’d seen on this last midsummer’s eve. “You actually think I’m mad.”

  Belphagor frowned. “Of course I don’t. But you’ve been through a great deal. It’s only natural you might be prone to…” He paused, as if realizing he’d said more than he meant to.

  “Prone to what?” When he didn’t answer, I folded my arms and stared him down. “Prone to what?”

  “To…flights of fancy.”

  “Flights of fancy?” Tears of anger sprang to my eyes. “So I’m just imagining things, just imagined the syla were killed in front me.”

  His eyes were unbearably kind. “Sweetheart, you saw your entire family killed in front of you.”

  “Don’t you dare patronize me.”

  “I’m not patronizing you; I’m suggesting there may be other factors to consider regarding your perception. And it doesn’t matter whether I believe you or not. What matters is that we find Ola, whether the queen wants her because of some flower or because of Vasily’s fire and your—ice.”

  I sucked in a breath of frosty air. “What did you just say?”

  Belphagor licked his lips. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just something the Fallen call the Fourth Choir Host, ice instead of water. It came out automatically.”

  I ignored his apology; I wasn’t interested in the slur. “Ice and fire—that’s what the syla called the flower of the fern. And it’s what Aeval said she used as an object of focus to call the elements.” I shook my head slowly. “But she doesn’t know Vasily is Ola’s father. I never told her. She couldn’t know Ola might have both.”

  Belphagor put his hands in his pockets, looking down at the ground as he rocked back on his heels. “I told her. Or rather, I told him. Kae must have passed it along to her.” He raised his eyes with the look I’d seen in them so often lately: guilt and a longing to be absolved of it.

  “Why? Why in Heaven’s name would you do that?”

  He shook his head. “It didn’t seem to matter anymore. I didn’t think it could matter. I was tired.”

  “You were tired?” I had the urge to strike him as Vasily had done.
“What have you not said to the queen of Heaven?” I tried to hold the words in, but they were swarming to get out. “With every syllable from your mouth, you have done me nothing but harm. If you hadn’t gone to make your deal with her, if you hadn’t taken her my ring in your misguided attempt at ’protecting’ Vasily and me, none of this would have happened.”

  I had finally said it. He’d suffered at Aeval’s hand and at Kae’s because of his own mistake in judgment. As well-intentioned as his actions had been, a small, mean part of me had felt he deserved it.

  “Ola wouldn’t have happened,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, and I wouldn’t feel this hole in my heart!” I hated him at that moment for making me say it, for making me acknowledge the thought I’d tried to ignore even before her disappearance: how much easier things would be if Ola had never been born.

  What kind of mother could think such a thing? I loved her dearly, but there had been times already in her short life when the weight of being responsible for another person, of being always at her beck and call, instinctive and innocent though it was, made me wish for a moment—or a night, when she cried all through one for no reason I could discern—that she didn’t exist. Perhaps the fates had answered my selfish wish, and I deserved this. I deserved it especially for wishing she hadn’t been born merely to spare myself the misery of losing her. Staring at Belphagor, mute with his eyes full of guilt, I hated us both.

  Before I could say anything more, before I could take anything back, the leaves rustled again, the autumn wind lifting them into a tiny whirlwind that almost took a solid shape, as if a syla were trying to reach our world, but couldn’t quite.

  I forgot my anger. “Did you see that?”

  Belphagor lifted his shoulders with effort. “It was just the wind.”

  The funnel rose up once more, and something fluttered at its center, a filmy auburn silk whipping like a flag wrapped about a pole.

  “There!” I cried as the leaves dropped back to the ground. “She was there! You must have seen it.”

  Belphagor regarded me as if I might have snapped under the strain of grief. “It’s much too cold out here, Nazkia. Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  I had seen them before only on the two opposing poles of the year, the summer and winter solstices. Perhaps he was right, and I simply wanted to see what wasn’t there. I turned with him on the stone path leading into the dacha, but from the corner of my eye, I saw the outline of a form once more in the half-denuded branches of a birch tree. I gripped Belphagor’s arm as the bark of the trunk took on the silky, rippling texture I’d seen before. The wind whispered Tsarskoe Selo, and the image vanished. Belphagor was still staring blankly.

  “But you heard her, didn’t you?” I asked incredulously. “Tsarskoe Selo?”

  The lines of worry deepened on his brow as he shook his head.

  When he took my arm to lead me inside, I pulled away from him. “I’m not imagining them. They come to me. Ola has seen them; we’ve worn their garlands. They showed me the flower—the stupid, useless flower that has caused all this!”

  Belphagor gripped my arms to steady me and looked me in the eyes. “I believe you. I believe you’ve seen them. But perhaps this once, you’re simply overtired…worn down with worry.”

  I searched his face to see if he meant to be spiteful, pretending not to have perceived the syla out of hurt at my blaming him, but he seemed truly baffled by my insistence that something had been there.

  He let me go, and I went past him toward the dacha. A cold nod from the Nephil at the end of the footpath seemed to punctuate the disconnect between the solid and tangible and what I was certain I had seen.

  I paused at the stairway as Belphagor followed me in and closed the door. “You really didn’t see? You didn’t hear anything?”

  He shrugged. “I’m sorry, Nazkia. I didn’t.”

  Staring at the ceiling after I’d gone back to bed, I remembered Love’s face when she’d followed me out of the garden to the bower where the syla lay dying. Love had denied seeing anything as well, but her face had told a different story. And Ola, young as she was, had clearly interacted with them when they came. It couldn’t be my imagination. The syla spun the cords of queens, they’d told me. Did they mean women? Could only women see them?

  Love had seen. I was certain of it now. She’d heard everything the syla told me. There was no other way the Malakim could have learned that Ola’s element and the tsvetok paporotnika were one and the same.

  When I finally fell into a fitful sleep, I dreamt of the syla repeating like an Orthodox prayer the words I’d heard in the garden: Tsarskoe Selo. The syla had spoken them for a reason, and I meant to find out what it was.

  I rose early and sat at Love’s computer while I drank my tea, careful not to wake Belphagor on the couch. I had gained a rudimentary understanding of the machine from Love before she left, and I could use it for a simple search.

  Tsarskoe Selo, I discovered, was the St. Petersburg suburb now called Pushkin. I scribbled a crude map on a piece of notepaper and put it in my pocket. I would not sit here impotently for another minute not knowing what Love and the Nephilim had done with my child. If the syla who’d escaped Aeval’s wrath wanted me to go to Tsarskoe Selo, I would go there. They were the only hope I had.

  Shestoe: The Prayer of the Heart

  Zeus had buttoned up when he’d finished with the gypsy and given her a firm smack on the ass as he let the robe fall back down to cover her.

  “Come on, now. Pull yourself together.” He walked to the door as she stumbled against the chair. “Feeling sorry for yourself, Lyubov?” He winked at her when she raised her head. “Consider it a lesson in penitence.”

  At the end of the hall, the monk had waited with the infant, giving her cookies to keep her quiet. Zeus didn’t consider it a wise course of action to keep the abomination alive, but it wasn’t for Vashti that he’d hesitated to do what ought to be done. The clan leader feared retaliation. They’d already gone against the Grigori, which meant expulsion for the entire clan. Not that the Grigori had ever done anything for the Nephilim as far as Zeus could see. But it would mean all-out war if they were to kill someone under the Grigori’s protection, and the leader of the Angliski clan was not yet prepared for war.

  Zeus held out his hand. “Brother Kirill.” He nodded as Kirill clasped it. “I think you’ll find we’ve come to an understanding with Sister Lyubov. She was unclear on the seriousness of her vow—or of yours. But I’ve explained it to her.”

  Kirill eyed the scratches on his hand.

  “Ah, she’s a wildcat, that one.” Zeus laughed and nudged the monk with his elbow. “She was so excited to see me I nearly had to fight her off to have our talk first. But ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut. What woman wants, God wants, eh?”

  …

  When Zeus had gone, Love gripped her stomach, bruised and sore from being pressed under his weight against the chair. She’d been determined not to give him the satisfaction of crying, but a wave of tears threatened and she blinked them back angrily. She had to compose herself for Ola. She pulled the apostolnik into place over her head, trying to cover any marks from where he’d struck her, and straightened her robe as well as she could.

  Kirill arrived a moment later with Ola in tow, and he gave her a look of tight-lipped disdain.

  Ola held up a chocolate wafer in her fist. “Vaf,” she said proudly.

  “Oh, I see.” Love stifled a gasp as she lifted her. “You’ve got vafli.”

  Remaining silent behind her as she climbed the stairs to her cell, Kirill slammed the door on her once she was inside.

  Love tried to entertain Ola for the rest of the morning without behaving strangely, biting back cries of pain when Ola climbed or bounced on her. Ola was tantrumy, perhaps sensing something anyway, and wouldn’t go down for her midday nap. When dinnertime came and went and Kirill hadn’t come, Love tried reading to her. Usually, Ola was eager to point out any picture of her favorite animal
s, a kot or sobaka, but tonight she would have none of it. Eventually, she cried herself angrily to sleep after a particularly exhausting fit of kicking and rolling about on the floor.

  Love carried her to the bed and pulled the covers over her before taking a look in the toy mirror on Ola’s doll case. She pulled off her apostolnik and examined the swelling on the left side of her face. The right side of her head where Zeus had slammed her into the chair was actually caked with blood beneath her hair. She tried dabbing at it with a baby wipe, but it was too sticky and matted for the wipe to do anything more than hurt. With another wipe she cleaned between her legs, even inside herself as much as she could, though it stung like hell. She wanted a shower, and she wanted these damned clothes off, but the bruising would be too alarming if Ola were to see her undressed. At last, she lay down next to Ola and curled around her, holding her little sleep-warmed hand for comfort.

  Kirill was absent again in the morning, finally showing up close to lunchtime with the breakfast tray.

  “Thank you.” Love spoke to him curtly in angelic while Ola reached eagerly for her bowl of kasha. “Ola was getting very hungry.” She gave Ola a spoon and sat her before the tray. “I need to ask you for something.” Kirill followed reluctantly when she stepped over to the other side of the room. Love swallowed her pride, speaking in Russian to be clear. “I need…do you know what Postinor is?” She glanced up at him, but Kirill shook his head. “It’s a pill for women. To prevent pregnancy…after.”

  Kirill’s eyes bored into her as if he’d seen the Whore of Babylon. “Is mortal sin. I will not do such thing.”