The Fallen Queen

by Jane Kindred

  nearly dropped his candle, unaware he was holding it.

  “Do you see the problem, my dearest angel?” The queen stood

  close behind him. When she took his hand, the fog in his mind cleared.

  “No?” She cocked her head to the side. “Then look more carefully.”

  Her voice lost the sweet, delicate flavor it normally held, like

  citrus-blossom honey trickling from a silver dipper, and turned frosty and hard as the winter ice on the Neba. She grasped his face between

  both of her cool hands and pointed his gaze once more toward the

  final resting place of the supernal family.

  “Seven shrouds,” she said. “But not seven bodies.”

  Kae stared, uncomprehending. Of course there were seven. It

  wasn’t as if he couldn’t count. They were all there—the little grand

  duke, the grand duchesses—but there was something amiss. On the

  last shelf, the shroud lay curved in the shape of a body, but it seemed

  THE FALLEN QUEEN 39

  to possess a curious hollowness.

  He pulled back the shroud. The cerement was empty, as if the

  corpse it held had disincorporated. There was nothing on the slab but

  a piece of jewelry. Kae picked it up and turned it in the candlelight. At first glance it appeared to be a supernal signet ring, but even a demon would have seen the gem was paste.

  Which meant the real ring was somewhere else, as was the finger

  upon which it belonged.

  §

  Belphagor could have kicked himself. The moment he’d opened

  the vial, he’d smelled the magic of it. Too late, he’d tried to put the cork back, but the color had already drained from the girl as if the shade

  had drawn it all into a vacuum. Belphagor had seen his meal ticket

  slipping away.

  Wherever the angel’s shade had been, it was mortally wounded.

  He’d given the go-ahead to the question on Vasily’s face. The wound

  in the angel’s radiance had to be cauterized, though it went against the natural magic of the shade. They were beyond the sphere of Heaven’s

  influence, both in deed and in fact, and Vasily’s skill with his element increased by magnitudes in the earthly plane. Traveling with a firespirit had many practical applications.

  At least the draught Belphagor had failed to pinch from the nanny

  was no longer needed. The angel spent the remainder of the journey in

  a state of torpidity—eating when she was told to eat, following when

  she was told to follow, sitting when she was told to sit—though this was not quite the empty stupor in which she’d languished before. She had

  seemed only a shadow of herself until the shade entered her. Which

  in practical terms, she had been. Now she was like the walking dead.

  §

  After switching trains once more in Moscow, they arrived at St.

  Petersburg’s Moskovsky Vokzal at eleven in the evening on the fourth day of their trip. The sky was still bright with the northern sun. Despite the prohibition against falling, a fair number of demons had settled in the world of Man over the centuries, and St. Petersburg, by far, had the most thriving population.

  In the years following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Belphagor

  40 JANE KINDRED

  had done a fair business smuggling demons out of Raqia and into

  Elysium’s “sister city” in the lower sphere. He’d never expected to

  smuggle an angel.

  Vasily headed toward the stairs to the metro station, but Belphagor

  shook his head. If anyone had observed their arrival, they’d be leading them straight to the safe house. In any event, it was unwise to allow the angel to get her bearings. Instead, they led her through the streets of St.

  Petersburg, turning and doubling back over bridges and cross-streets,

  finally crossing the Fontanka River along the main thoroughfare of

  Nevsky Prospekt and descending into the bowels of the underground.

  “The metro.” Belphagor answered the angel’s look of

  bewilderment as they rushed deep beneath the city. “There’s an entire

  underground network in the major cities of the world of Man. Much

  like the group we seek.”

  “Belphagor.” Vasily jerked his head toward an adolescent boy,

  head half-shaved and rings in his lip, eyeing them from the rear of the car.

  Belphagor shrugged. “Let him stare. He can’t understand us.”

  “How do you know? He could be Fallen.”

  “Trust me, when you’ve fallen as many times as I have, you can

  tell.” Belphagor lowered his voice, just to be safe. “The Fallen hide

  here in plain sight,” he told the angel. “That one’s human. But this

  one’s not.” He jerked his head in the opposite direction toward a girl with dark green eyes and a head of black, serpentine braids.

  She met his gaze, appraising him with a subtle nod, and a green

  flash danced for an instant over the surface of her skin.

  “Elemental radiance,” he said when the angel’s eyes widened.

  “Bold girl. It was probably too quick for the human eye to detect, but it’s dangerous to draw attention.”

  Their stop was called at Lesnaya station, and they took the long

  ride up to the dusty surface, past a queue of pallid lamps that flanked the moving staircase. The weak glow illuminated an interminable path

  of announcement boards splashed with provocative images that had

  not existed when Belphagor last visited.

  They headed to an apartment block within an empty courtyard

  behind the station, framed by stone thick with soot and crumbling at

  THE FALLEN QUEEN 41

  the corners. Belphagor approached one of the forbidding iron doors

  and pressed his palm flat against the electronic lock beside the handle until a buzzing sound announced the release. This was one of his minor terrestrial talents; the locals, of course, required actual keys.

  They ascended the unlit staircase, boots thumping against concrete

  steps, and found an old friend standing in a doorway at the top of the second landing. Gosha said nothing, letting them lead the angel inside.

  Introductions could wait.

  The girl swayed against Belphagor in confusion while he pulled

  off her boots and gave her a pair of tapochki from the rack of house shoes. Obviously overloaded with culture shock and exhaustion, when

  Belphagor pointed her toward a daybed in the sitting room, she fell

  into it, instantly asleep despite the pastel light of the midnight sun still streaming through the veranda doors.

  §

  “Never mind where she’s from.” Belphagor poured himself a cup

  of tea from the samovar when they gathered later in the cramped

  kitchen. He breathed in the sweet, pungent scent he had forgotten.

  Russian tea was once as common to him as water, second only to the

  earthly spirit he loved above all others he’d encountered: vodka.

  His host folded his arms in disapproval. “I think we have a right

  to know whom we’re harboring.” Gosha’s hair was plain and close-

  cropped, and his clothing unremarkable. He had assimilated well.

  “She’s obviously not one of us. Shaving her head and dressing her in

  your oversized clothing doesn’t make an angel into a demon.”

  Belphagor heaped sugar into his cup, stirring without looking

  up, and sat on one of the stools at the metal table. “She’s a paycheck, Gosha. Part of the fee is for not discussing whom we’re harboring.”

  “And what share of that fee are we going to see?”

  “A fair one.”

&n
bsp; “You put us in jeopardy,” Gosha’s flatmate Ilya interjected.

  “Things have changed here, but discretion is still necessary.”

  “I’d think the presence of a bit of tail in your flat could only help.”

  Belphagor started to cross his legs, but Ilya nudged his knee with his boot, jarring the tea in Belphagor’s hand.

  “Except you insist we refer to her as Boy. Don’t be an ass.” Ilya

  42 JANE KINDRED

  tossed him a pack of cigarettes, and Belphagor set one in his mouth

  and leaned toward Vasily for a light, but the other demon snatched

  it from him when Vasily stuck out his tongue. “Khrystos.” Ilya pulled a lighter from his pocket. “The two of you have been upstairs too

  damn long.” He lit the cigarette in the conventional manner in his own mouth and blew smoke at Vasily. “Don’t go flashing brimstone about.”

  With a scowl, the younger demon took the cigarette. “Konechna,

  tovarishch,” he growled, giving a mock salute. “Whatever you say.”

  “Otvali,” Ilya swore. “You’ve been playing in Heaven, and we’ve been here. We simply go on. That’s what we do here, we go on—no

  matter what faction is in power above or below, year after year, getting by, and all we want, tovarishchi, is not to be noticed.”

  Lifting the teacup, Belphagor inclined his head. “Fair enough.

  We don’t intend to stay in Len—in St. Petersburg for long. Maybe not

  even in Russia.”

  “Not in Russia?” Ilya’s eyes narrowed. “Just how hidden does this

  Boy need to be?”

  Beneath the table, Belphagor twisted the ring on his little finger,

  his thumb against the celestine stone etched with the two-headed

  Seraph of the House of Arkhangel’sk, six wings extended in pride.

  How hidden, indeed?

  This angel could be the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  Or the worst. If the forces seeking her discovered them before he

  had an opportunity to make his bargain with the governess, it would

  all be for nothing—worse than nothing, as all of them would pay

  dearly with flesh. But he had the advantage. No one here knew the

  angel’s connection to the supernal house. No one in Heaven knew

  his connections with the Fallen underground. And Helga would never

  find her here.

  “How about the Sutyagin House?” said Gosha. “You couldn’t get

  much more out of the way.”

  Belphagor lit another cigarette when it became obvious Vasily

  wasn’t going to share. “Who’s Sutyagin?”

  “He’s joking,” said Ilya. “He means Sutyagin’s Skyscraper, in

  Arkhangel’sk. Sutyagin’s a retired gangster—human, as far as I know.

  Built a wooden house without a permit and kept adding on rooms—

  THE FALLEN QUEEN 43

  straight up. To piss off the locals, I guess. Or for the notoriety. Who knows?”

  “Tallest wooden house in the world.” Gosha grinned as if it

  were an accomplishment of his own. “Maybe he was trying to reach

  Heaven.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Ilya shook his head. “But it’s too late.

  The lovely thing’s been demolished.”

  Belphagor chuckled to himself as he drank his tea, but not about

  the house. Arkhangel’sk. It was a northern port on the White Sea named for the Archangel Mikhail, fabled founder of the ruling house

  of Heaven from whom the modern principalities descended. Who

  would think to look in such an obvious place?

  And who but Mikhail’s followers—archangels responsible for the

  last celestial coup over a millennium ago, who made it their business

  to maintain Heaven’s mystique in the world of Man—could be behind

  this latest takeover? Belphagor knew better than to trade with the

  likes of the Malakim—they were no friends of the Fallen—but he had

  connections here with the Grigori, an ancient caste of angelic exiles

  who had the Malakim to thank for being cast out from the celestial

  sphere. He was sure they’d find the latest developments in Heaven

  fascinating.

  §

  Vasily wandered down the hall while the others brought out maps

  and train schedules and discussed the best safe houses in the region.

  There was one just south of Novgorod, well-hidden and well-armed.

  If Belphagor meant to spend any amount of time tucked away in the

  Russian countryside, there was more to this angel than he was letting

  on. The glimmer in his eyes suggested what they were holding was a

  valuable bit of interest indeed.

  Vasily stood over the girl, just a slip of a thing, sound asleep in the midst of the endless summer daylight. He exhaled the cheap smoke

  and watched it curl in the light above her head. He’d seen her clothes, the crystal, and the ring on Belphagor’s finger. This angel must be one of the supernal House of Arkhangel’sk. No wonder the idea of hiding

  out in a town named for them seemed to tickle Belphagor so. But why

  would a grand duchess of the Firmament of Shehaqim be a fugitive,

  44 JANE KINDRED

  unless the House, like Sutyagin’s “Skyscraper,” had fallen?

  They had left Raqia too quickly. He ought to have taken a reading

  of the situation in Elysium before agreeing to help Belphagor. He

  should have known nothing with Belphagor was ever what it seemed.

  Everything came with a price.

  What had possessed Vasily to say yes to a deal with the airspirit?

  He had severed his ties with Belphagor. He had spent nearly a decade

  among the pampered angelic scholars in the princedom of Zevul just

  to avoid him. So why the hell had he jumped the first time Belphagor

  said “jump”?

  He could blame some of it on those fool Liberationists at The

  Brimstone. Vasily had traveled with them from Araphel, but he

  couldn’t have cared less about their radical ideals. Now his name was

  probably on a list somewhere. His drunken companions had probably

  named him as a conspirator.

  The money Belphagor had offered certainly sweetened the pot,

  but Vasily was beginning to doubt any amount of money could make

  this job worth the risk. Perhaps Belphagor had used influence against

  him.

  Vasily hissed out a smoke ring without the help of the cigarette.

  It was too late to make wiser decisions, but he wasn’t about to stand

  idly by and let Belphagor dig them in worse. They needed to get news

  from Heaven. They needed to know what the angel’s shade had seen.

  He sensed Belphagor behind him. “You need to get inside her

  head,” he growled.

  “I think I have a fair idea what’s inside it.” Belphagor’s breath

  against Vasily’s neck made the skin tighten along his piercings.

  Vasily twitched as if at a fly, refusing to give him the satisfaction

  of acknowledgment by moving away. “Why do we have her? Did you

  bother to ask? Has there been a coup? Who are we hiding her from?”

  His questions met with silence. “You need to go in.” If Belphagor was

  going to bandy about influence, he could damn well put it to good use.

  “We could try asking her.”

  “Wake her up, then. And if she isn’t saying, you go in.”

  Belphagor laid his thumb at the base of Vasily’s skull beneath his

  locks as if he might take knowledge from Vasily’s own mind. “She’s

  THE FAL
LEN QUEEN 45

  not the one I want to go into, Vasya.” He lowered his head to kiss

  Vasily’s shivering neck, summoning an unexpected wave of yearning

  and regret.

  Vasily shrugged him off and tossed his cigarette butt to the floor to

  grind it out. “Fuck you, Belphagor.”

  46 JANE KINDRED

  Pyatoe: Spirits of the Air

  from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia

  Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk

  A pair of glass-paneled doors in the little room where I slept

  opened onto a row of flowerboxes overhanging a busy street three

  stories below. I woke early—or perhaps late; the light in this place

  was no indicator of time—and pulled a chair before the open doors,

  thinking about what would happen if I went through them.

  The light distracted me. It lay over everything like a soft breath. A

  cool white, yet extraordinary in its intensity, it faded in the early hours into a blue that would break your heart. It remained in this dozing

  emptiness of color only an hour or two before spilling once more

  across the white stones of the city.

  “Byeli Nochi.” Belphagor had come in behind me. Like the light, he slipped in without sound. “The White Nights,” he said, guessing my

  thoughts. “Sun barely sets here at this time of year. Makes up for it in winter.” His hands closed on the back of the chair on either side of me.

  “The world of Man can surprise you with its beauty. Perhaps because

  it’s so unexpected here. Perhaps because we take it for granted in the Firmament, only seeing beauty when it’s juxtaposed with decay. It’s

  what makes an angel so obvious in Raqia.”

  I looked up to see him staring into the beckoning light. “You knew

  I wasn’t Fallen.”

  The demon chuckled. “You might as well have entered The

  Brimstone wearing a halo. I also know you’re of the House of

  THE FALLEN QUEEN 47

  Arkhangel’sk.” He spoke to the light. “What I don’t know is which

  one you are. I don’t want to know. But it complicates things. Means it’s more serious than I thought. You’re liable to be more profit and more

  trouble than your nurse let on.”

  “She didn’t know you were kidnapping me.”

  He met my stare, unmoved by my challenge. “That’s a matter of

  perspective.” Belphagor lifted his hand and snaked it through the air