The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  “Please don’t. I shouldn’t have said that.” She knelt down with him. “You’re not the one who hurt me, Kirill.”

  He sobbed and kissed her hands like a penitent, and like the saint to whom he prayed, she kissed him on the forehead, hoping this wouldn’t offend him.

  “I am a sinner.” He lifted his head, his eyes deep with sorrow. “I am just like him—for wanting you.”

  “You are not like him. He didn’t want me. He wanted to hurt me.” She smoothed her fingers against his hair, pulled back in its ponytail. “I’m the sinner.” She regarded him sadly. “Wanting you to break your vow.” She started to get up, but he pulled her back.

  “Then God forgive me,” he whispered. “Let me break it.”

  …

  Kae’s arrival changed things. The talk with Vasily would have to wait. Belphagor went to check on Lev, hoping he was feeling well enough to be a sounding board for his anxieties, and found Dmitri reading to him from the Aravoth Verity.

  “Ah, the celestial Pravda.” Belphagor winked from the doorway. “What news today?”

  Dmitri straightened the paper in front of him with an exaggerated flourish. “Apparently, Pyr Amaravati is the talk of the town. Did you know demons were overrunning the place?”

  “Shocking. Speaking of which, how is my favorite little demon doing?” He sat down on the side of the bed and took Lev’s hand.

  Propped against a nearly decadent pile of pillows, Lev struggled to sit up straighter and Dmitri rearranged the pillows behind him. “That can’t be me.” It was worrisome how weak his voice sounded. “Surely Vasily is your favorite little demon—or big, anyway.”

  “Apparently, Vasya is my favorite little big something else.”

  Dmitri and Lev exchanged puzzled glances.

  “I think it’s clear that Vashti was right about his father being a Seraph. But apparently we’ve been misinformed about his other half as well. Loquel tells me the Virtues were introduced to him as His Supernal Highness the Grand Duke Vasily of the House of Arcadia.”

  “Arcadia?” Dmitri folded the paper. “How the hell—?”

  “How the hell, indeed? I’m as baffled as you are. And it seems our grand duke already has his own little army of angels.”

  Dmitri dropped the Verity in his lap. “How’s that?”

  “The Virtues who shared Gehenna’s dungeon with us. They’ve signed on to do…what, exactly, I don’t know. But they’ve offered their services to Vasily. Well, to me, but only because they thought I was him—the ’grand duke.’ ”

  Lev shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”

  “Yes, I’m right there with you in the dark. Marco.”

  “Marco?”

  “You’re supposed to say Polo. Then I grope about for you.”

  Lev squinted at Belphagor as if he was hurting his head.

  “It’s a game from the Americas. Never mind. Point is, I’m feeling more than a little lost this morning. Particularly now that Anazakia’s ’unpleasant’ cousin is here.”

  Dmitri rolled up his paper and wagged it at him. “None of this is in the Verity. I don’t know if I believe you.”

  “Kae’s here?” Lev frowned. “I thought we’d seen the last of him. Are you all right with that?”

  “Not really.”

  Dmitri rose and picked up a breakfast tray from the nightstand that looked like it had hardly been touched. “I’m sensing you’re about to do some of that ’processing’ the two of you are so fond of.” He smiled and kissed Lev. “I’m going to return this to the kitchen and see what’s left of lunch.”

  Belphagor took the seat Dmitri had vacated. “I should be letting you rest.”

  “Bozhe moi. Please. I do nothing but rest. It’s not as if I can do anything more fun in this bed at the moment.” He made a rueful face. “And it’s been a ridiculously long time since I have.”

  Belphagor smiled. “Try two years. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Two years?” Lev looked horrified.

  “A bit more, actually, but who’s counting?” He laughed at the expression on Lev’s face. “It’s my fault, really. First I went off and got myself imprisoned. And then beaten. And then I lost my nerve.” Gratefully, he took the hand Lev held out. “But I think I found it again last night.” He grinned. “At least some of it.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. You were scaring me there for a minute. If you’re not getting any, the worlds might be ending.”

  “It’s the ’some of it,’ though, that troubles me.” Belphagor sighed. “Last night I thought I might be able to get it all back. Don’t misunderstand; it was good—more than good. But I couldn’t give Vasya what he really needed. I couldn’t be the person with him I need to be. Every time I think of touching him that way, I remember how I groveled and begged when Kae did it to me.”

  “I don’t know exactly what you went through, but that was hardly the same thing. What Kae did to you was no more like what you do with Vasily than being raped is like having a good fuck.”

  Belphagor was dismayed to realize this was exactly how he’d been treating it. Well aware of the difference between consensual exchange of power and having one’s power robbed, he’d nevertheless fallen into the bland, angelic way of thinking that equated eroticizing pain with abuse.

  “Maybe you need to confront the bastard. He may have been under the queen’s control, but he’s still responsible for what he did to you. I don’t know what he’s doing here, but he doesn’t have the right to take away something so special between you and Vasily.”

  Belphagor pressed Lev’s hand on top of the thick Aravothan fleece. “Why are you so smart?” He kissed Lev’s pale cheek. “You need to get well so I can show you how much I appreciate you.”

  Lev grinned. “That’s what I like about you, Bel. You never miss an opportunity to put the moves on a fellow.”

  Sarael confirmed it was Kae’s arrival that had called Anazakia away at breakfast. He showed Belphagor the tunnel that led to the stables where Kae had been detained, but Belphagor hadn’t quite worked up the nerve or determined what he’d say to him when he did.

  He was wandering the corridors of Pyr Amaravati while ice rained down on the glass bricks, trying to decide whether to talk to Vasily first, when Love stepped out of one of the rooms and nearly ran into him. She was dressed in a robe from the bath but was coming from the opposite direction. She looked up at him, her cheeks pink with heat from the bath or embarrassment—or some other blood-warming activity. He raised an eyebrow, fairly certain it was the latter when she glanced back at the door with a guilty start. The monk might be mad, but he was apparently no fool.

  “Quite rejuvenating, isn’t it?” He smiled at her furious blush. “The bath. I wanted to stay there all day.”

  “Oh…yes. Very.” She nibbled her lip and turned to go, walking in the direction of the bath and not away from it.

  He remembered something that had been nagging him for some time. “Love.”

  She turned back, her face even pinker than before, as if she thought he meant to call her out on where she’d been.

  “I’ve been wanting to apologize for that horrible message I left you.”

  “Message?”

  “On your cell phone. Back home.”

  “Oh.” She looked intensely uncomfortable. “No, you don’t have to apologize.”

  “I do. It was ugly. I insulted you and threatened you. I should have known better than to think you were part of it. You’ve always taken the best care of Ola.”

  Her lip trembled and she blinked back tears. “I tried to. You don’t know how I tried.”

  “You did. We all know what you’ve done for—for our family.”

  Love looked away, wiping her eyes.

  “She looked well,” he said wistfully.

  Love’s eyes widened. “Oh, Belphagor. You didn’t get to spend any time with her.” She touched his arm. “I’m sorry. She really wanted to see you, too. She kept asking.”

  “She remembers me.�
�� He was enormously consoled by that.

  “She does. She’s very smart.” Love paused a moment. “Wait, I have something for you.” She went down the hall to her room—not the room she’d come from, he noted—and he followed, waiting outside her open door. As he watched, Love dug in the pocket of her overalls lying on the bed and pulled out something that looked like a worn and dingy sock.

  He regarded her quizzically as she handed it to him, and then he saw one button eye on it and a felt nose. It was a stuffed dog he’d given Ola on her birthday.

  “She picked that up when we stopped at the dacha. She never wanted to put it down. She slept with it.”

  He clutched the little toy, his heart aching as if the cilice Kirill had taken from the dacha were being tightened around it.

  “Belphagor?”

  He hugged her, and then put the dog in his pocket and turned away before Love could see the tears in his eyes.

  Belphagor found himself walking toward the passage Sarael had shown him, his sorrow turning to anger at being robbed of Ola, and his anger turning toward the only object he had to project it onto. Kae might not have taken Ola from him, but he’d taken enough.

  When he arrived at the stables, he found Kae easily. Vasily had gotten there before him. He had the angel by the throat, slamming his head against the wooden stall. Blood ran down the angel’s face beside his mask, and he didn’t appear to be resisting.

  “You may have helped us escape,” Vasily was snarling, “but you’re still the son of a bitch who took Belphagor from me.”

  “Nobody has taken me from you.” Belphagor spoke from behind him and Vasily whirled around. He could see it in the smoldering eyes: he was no longer the Belphagor Vasily needed and hungered for. As far as Vasily was concerned, his words to Kae had been nothing but the truth. “Let him go,” he said as Vasily’s grip on Kae’s throat tightened.

  “I should have let him die that day at Gehenna.” Vasily shoved Kae away from him.

  The angel fell to the dusty floor, catching himself on his hands and knees. “Yes.” He coughed wretchedly. “You should have.”

  Belphagor took Vasily by the hand and led him out into the corridor to speak to him quietly. “If you had, we would still be the queen’s prisoners.” He reached up to put a hand on Vasily’s angry cheek. “I want you to leave him alone.”

  Vasily pulled the hand away. “I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. I’m the one who found you, remember? That image is burned into my head. And if you don’t have the yaytsa—” Vasily cut the sentence short, his face flushed with anger and embarrassment. Yaytsa was a Russian colloquialism for testicles. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Of course you did. Do you think I don’t understand why you’re so angry? You’re not angry at him, you’re angry at me. And I don’t blame you for being angry. I know I’m no longer the man you need me to be.”

  “That’s not true.” But he was avoiding Belphagor’s eyes.

  “Vasya, promise me you’ll leave him alone. You know Nazkia would never forgive you if you went too far.” He gave Vasily’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “I’m going to talk to him, and I want that to be the end of it.”

  “Talk!” Vasily yanked back his hand. “You do that, Bel. You and Kae just have your little talk and I’ll never mention it again.” He left Belphagor in the cold light of the stable lamps.

  Belphagor sighed and returned to the stall, where Kae remained on his knees. What showed of the angel’s face was a swollen mess, as if Vasily had punched him repeatedly and he’d put up no fight. “Why did you come here?”

  Kae looked up at him, his eye watering. “Because I didn’t have the stones to throw myself in the Pyriphlegethon. Nazkia was right. I’m a coward.”

  Belphagor was struck by how pathetic the former principality had become. For a moment, he almost pitied him.

  “Why did you come here?” Kae countered. “Back for more?”

  It was the same thing he’d said in Belphagor’s nightmare in the Hell Stairway. Rage surged up inside Belphagor. He yanked the pleti off Kae’s belt.

  Kae sat blinking that wretched eye at him as Belphagor raised the flogger, and he seemed almost eager for it. “What are you waiting for? I beat you half to death and you can’t even bring yourself to hit me once?” He was goading him, desperate for a beating that would somehow absolve him. Or maybe obliterate him.

  Belphagor lowered his arm and shook his head. “You must truly be Heaven’s most pathetic creature.” He echoed the words Kae had once said to him. He clutched the handle of the pleti, aroused by the feel of it in his hand. “I can’t give you what you want. When I use pain to transform a man’s suffering, it’s because I love him.”

  Kae stared at him wordlessly. It was no longer rheum running from the swollen, clouded eye. Belphagor hooked the pleti on his own belt and left the angel in the grip of pain far greater than anything he could administer.

  …

  Inside the manor, Vasily lay on the bed he shared with Belphagor, staring at the ceiling and seething with pent-up anger alternating with a feeling of hopeless oppression. When Belphagor had unexpectedly woken him in the middle of the night, kissing his neck where his piercings ought to be, he’d nearly wept with relief. Belphagor had finally come back to him. But Bel had shied from any aggression, almost passive in his touch. It was all the tenderness of Belphagor, but completely robbed of passion.

  Vasily felt awful for wanting more, and when he found out Kae had joined them at Pyr Amaravati, he was overcome with rage at the one who’d taken what he loved. When he’d beaten the angel, his anger at himself for blaming Belphagor and all the anguish over losing Ola again poured out of him through his fists. It was as much a catharsis for that pain as for anything to do with the change in Belphagor. But Belphagor was the place he’d always taken his grief and rage. Belphagor’s ruthless possession of him was what made him feel whole, and safe, and loved.

  He hated what he’d said to Belphagor. He was lashing out, as he always did, at the one dearest to him. In the past, it had almost been a kind of mating ritual, with his smart mouth provoking Belphagor into reminding him whom he belonged to. It was going to be a hard habit to break, and knowing that every unkind word he uttered from now on would lie between them instead of earning Belphagor’s firm hand was all the more depressing.

  One of Sarael’s servants came to fetch him to dinner and Vasily rose with a sigh. He was heading for the dining room when Belphagor appeared in the atrium and seized him by the upper arm, turning him toward their room.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Vasily tried to still the rush of longing this stirred in him. Belphagor was only angry with him over his abuse of Kae, and they were only going to argue, and he hated that.

  “You were out of line.” Belphagor pushed him into their room and closed the door.

  “So you told me.” Vasily sighed. “Look, Bel, I don’t want to fight over this. We’re never going to see eye to eye on it.”

  “We don’t need to see eye to eye. You just need to do what I say.”

  Vasily was indignant. “I told you I’d never mention it again. Why can’t we just leave it at that?”

  “Because.” Belphagor grabbed him by his locks and twisted him about. “The correct response is, ’Da, ser!’ ” Belphagor shoved him to his knees and Vasily gasped as he yanked his hair. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Every inch of Vasily’s skin was tingling. He answered slowly and deliberately. “Pashol na khui.” He cupped himself with a rude gesture on the last syllable.

  Belphagor was deathly quiet for a moment, and then he leaned down next to Vasily and whispered into his ear. “Oh, I’m going there, malchik. But not just yet.” He hauled Vasily to the bed and pushed him forward onto it, and Vasily shivered as Belphagor reached beneath him to jerk his belt from its buckle, and then yanked his pants down to his knees. Belphagor pulled off the long undershirt Vasily was wearing and tossed it on the bed before laying something care
fully in front of him. It was the tool Kae had worn on his belt.

  “Do you know what that is?”

  “Yes.”

  Belphagor struck his face with it lightly, just enough to sting.

  Vasily jerked his head to the side, a bit offended that Belphagor would hit him with such a thing on his face. “Da, ser,” he snapped.

  “Ah, you’re angry.” Belphagor trailed the leather down his back and drew a delightful shiver from him. “What’s the matter? Too good to be hit with such a common instrument?”

  “No.” Vasily jerked and cried out, “Nyet, ser!” as Belphagor struck him across the shoulders. The sting of the lead balls was surprisingly intense.

  “You’ve been angry with me for a long time.”

  Vasily answered with reluctance. “Da, ser.”

  “That’s my malchik,” Belphagor whispered, stroking the leather thongs gently against his cheek. Vasily bit his lip to keep from weeping at the tenderness of this word. “You have every right to be angry, dorogoi moi malchik. I haven’t been here for you. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself.” He ran the flogger down Vasily’s spine, setting off an uncontrollable trembling. “I made a promise to you long ago. That I would always punish you for both of our transgressions. And I’ve failed to do that. Which is just about the greatest transgression I can think of.” He put his hand on the small of Vasily’s back to still the shaking, and then without warning, he began to flog Vasily with swift, alternating strokes.

  Vasily cried out into the blankets, shocked by how strong the sensation was. He’d been one of the few who hadn’t received one of Kae’s beatings while they’d been at Gehenna. He tried to breathe as Belphagor had taught him, but he was becoming rapidly overwhelmed, his chest tightening and his breath becoming shallow, and the pain increased dramatically as he lost his focus. He was hyperventilating, and Belphagor stopped and stroked his inflamed flesh with his hand.

  “This is too much for you.”

  Vasily shook his head and then began to weep. “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

  Belphagor sat down on the bed and put his arms around him. “Sshh, malchik, it’s all right.”