The Armies of Heaven (28 page)

The cards comprising the body of the message (the self, the home, what might be, and what would be, according to Lively) were the Dominion, Splendor, and Ophan, all in the suit of tricks, followed by the Ophan of knives. The best Vasily could cobble together from Lively’s disjoined interpretations was
great numbers are hidden; what is hidden is revealed; guard what is hidden; guard to the death.

He shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of any of this.”

Lively put the cards back into her pocket. “I can’t help you.”

“Not even a hint?” he asked with an apologetic smile. “Nothing came to mind when you looked at the cards?”

Lively put her hands over her eyes as if trying not to see the images. “Yes, of course it did. I already know too much about this message, even out of order.” She looked up again. “The more I tell you, the more I will tell
her
,” she said, and then sighed. “I think you can safely assume the message is about the breach. All those tricks in the spread are about things hidden, so my guess is they’ll conceal it somehow.”

“Could hidden also mean ‘unseen’?”

Lively nodded. “I suppose it could, but please don’t tell me what that means to you. I’m serious, Vasily. I can’t know any more.” She started to get up, but Vasily stopped her with a hand on her arm and she jumped at his touch.

“Lively, I wanted to tell you something.” He took off his spectacles to make the telling easier. “When Nazkia told me little Early had died, I didn’t know yet he wasn’t mine and I was devastated. I hadn’t realized until that moment I was… Well, I mean to say…I realized…I wanted him. I wanted the baby. I just thought you ought to know that. I wanted it to be mine.”

Though he couldn’t focus on her, he could feel Lively’s shocked stare. “I treated you poorly for the mother of my unborn child. And I’m very sorry. Regardless of how it happened, you were carrying my child—at least, I believed you were—and I should have taken care of you.”

Lively looked down at her hands. “No. No, I deserved what I got. But thank you for telling me you wanted him.” She stood, obviously uncomfortable with his frankness. Before she left, she gave him one more reluctant hint about the cards. “Heavenly sweetness is flowers, and Heavenly light is daybreak.”

Those two words seemed to act as keys that unlocked the rest of the message for Vasily. It took him some hours as he sat cross-legged on the bed in the dim light of the oil lamp going over the paper, but at last he felt he understood it as well as he was going to. The successful or triumphant work was the opening of the breach and the Heavenly light and flowers meant it would be at daybreak in the garden. Because the Unseen were involved, he had to assume all the references to “hidden” things meant unseen, and the breach would be invisible as they came through.

The “great numbers” had to be the army of Grigori and Nephilim. He wasn’t sure how the hidden would be revealed, but he could certainly follow the simple directions of “guard what is hidden; guard to the death.” He had to make certain the breach stayed open, which meant he would have to stop Lively—with whatever force necessary.

Lively hadn’t seen the order of the cards, but with the knowledge of “Heavenly light and Heavenly sweetness” she must know the gist of the message herself. Whether simply knowing would force her to tell all to Helga, he couldn’t be sure. But she must also know she’d just delivered a message to Vasily instructing him to kill her if need be. How he was supposed to get out of this room to do so, he had no idea.

That problem, however, was taken out of his hands.

His window looked onto the courtyard garden where he assumed the breach would be opened. He wasn’t disappointed. As the garden began to glow with dawn’s light, another light far brighter burst into the center of the courtyard. For an instant, he saw the silvery threads of a spinning vortex and he swore he could see straight through it into the world of Man—and then it vanished. He worried it might have been Lively already and not the work of the Unseen, but in a moment, a wild burst of wind struck the glass and seemed to rush through it, though the window remained closed. It surged into the room and blew the lock right off his door, throwing it wide open.

The demon guard stationed outside the room jumped to attention and drew his knife, but the blade flew from his hand and spun across the floor to land at Vasily’s feet. He picked it up and approached the demon, who backed away from him and fled as Vasily flashed fire in his eyes.

He had no idea which way to go, but the Unseen wind began to blow through the corridor, knocking pictures about on the walls, first close to him and then farther away as if leading him. Vasily ran after it to the study at the end of the corridor, where a fire blazed on the hearth in the otherwise darkened room. Lively stood before the fireplace holding a burning candle, which she tossed into the fire; three other candles were already melting in the blaze.

She glanced up, unsurprised by his presence. “The Chora was too insistent. Once you gave me the word ‘unseen,’ I could hear it all, even without knowing the order.” Lively closed her eyes and recited. “
From one who makes mischief: The breach will be opened. Look to the dawn in the courtyard of flowers. The Unseen will enter and the breach will be unseen. Ten thousand will enter unseen, but the unseen will be seen beyond the garden. You must not allow the breach to be closed.
” She opened her eyes as she spoke the last of it. “
Do whatever you must to stop her from closing it.
”

“Ten thousand?” he gasped despite himself as he stepped closer.

“If I let them.” She looked down at the smoke-stained ring on her finger. “Helga got the message out of me.” She turned the back of her hand toward him as she met his eyes and the ring sparkled in the firelight. “This is the last piece of the spell. Because it was given to Rita by Dmitri, it ‘remembers’ his energy. If I throw it into the fire, the breach closes.”

“So don’t throw it,” Vasily growled. “How hard is that?”

“You have no idea,” she whispered. She began to draw it from her finger as she turned toward the fire, but he leapt at her and knocked her to the ground before the hearth. Lively made a sharp gasp of pain beneath him and he realized he’d just tackled a woman who had almost died in childbirth not a week ago. He scrambled off her, but she shook her head violently.

“No, Vasily. You can’t let me.” Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “Do what you must.” When he hesitated, looking down at the knife in his hand, she rolled toward the fireplace and reached out her fingers.

“Don’t!” he cried. She’d stuck her own hand into the fire, and the flames were licking about it as if trying to decide where to bite. He tried to pull her hand out, but she was suddenly resisting him with more strength than she ought to have. The skin on her hand was turning black as she reached farther, trying to get the ring deep into the flame, sobbing as he pulled at her arm.

“Do what you must!” she begged.

Sick at heart, Vasily lifted the knife to plunge it into her, but something struck him from behind and knocked it from his hand. He stumbled to his knees.

His assailant tossed a pitcher of water over them both, dousing the part of the flames where Lively had thrust her hand, then kicked Vasily aside and fell upon her. The red-haired Nephil enveloped Lively in her arms and swung her body with her as she rolled away from the hearth, and the three of them lay gasping in shock.

In a moment, Lively began to whimper. “She’ll bleed me, Rita. Why didn’t you let him do it?”

“Hush,” said Margarita against her hair. “She won’t. I won’t let her.”

“Not quite the way I’d have handled it.” The disembodied voice had a cadence Vasily knew all too well. Misha was somewhere in the room with them. “But it seems to have done the trick. The breach will stay open.” A breeze blew past Vasily almost smugly. “I should have known you were the wrong person to send that message to. She must weigh all of fifty kilos.”

“
Poshol na khui
, you son of a succubus.” Vasily scrambled to his feet. “Some magic was holding her there.”

“Stooping to insults to my mother.” Misha clucked his tongue from somewhere behind him. “It’s a good thing I found Red, here. The two of you took the Chora far too literally. There’s no need to bring knives into it just because the suit is knives.”

“Why the hell didn’t you just tell me yourself, then, you bastard? You can obviously speak.”

“It took me a few minutes to get used to breathing the aether. And it was rather fun to watch you stumbling about.” A light breeze ruffled Lively’s hair as Margarita rocked her. “Poor girl,” said Misha in a more serious tone. “Vasya, don’t you have some kind of healing power?”

“Healing fire,” Vasily corrected ruefully. “I’m afraid fire’s no good on a burn, magical or not. If Nazkia were here, the aether might do it.”

A loud commotion broke out in the foyer below and the sound of fighting rose from the marble hall.

“Ah,” said Misha, and Vasily could almost hear him smiling. “The hidden are revealed.”

Dvadtsat Pervaya
: A Flower in Heaven’s High Bower

from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk

There was no sign of Kae again this morning. He avoided seeing Azel, I knew, but I couldn’t face the day’s battle without my field marshal and I was growing impatient with his moods. According to Belphagor, thousands of troops waited to join us as soon as the breach reopened, but we needed a plan to make sure we used them effectively. Both Aeval and Helga had at least as many men as we had, so the outcome was far from certain.

I found my cousin still asleep, sprawled prone upon his bedroll with an empty bottle of spirits beside him. He’d never been one for drink—not even, so far as I knew, during his enchantment. He’d picked a hell of a time to start.

“Kae.” I crouched to shake him with a hand on his shoulder.

He surged awake with a wild shout, flinging me off. I feared for a moment he was under the influence of more than drink, but he gripped his head and moaned the ordinary misery of a man who’d over-imbibed.

I rebuked him as I picked myself up. “What are you thinking, getting drunk at a time like this? I need you sober, with your wits sharp. This is no time for complacency.”

“Please don’t shout.” He rose stiffly to his knees. “I assure you, Your Supernal Highness, I am the least complacent man you’ve ever known.” He straightened his mask, which had become askew, and I saw for an instant the perfectly unblemished flesh he fully believed was grotesquely scarred and disfigured. I wanted to stop him, to order him to leave it off for once—to see him as he was—but I suppressed the sentimental urge.

“Your generals need guidance.” I held open the tent flap impatiently as he moved with infuriating slowness.

“They are
your
generals.” He pulled on his frock coat awkwardly, as if in pain.

“And they need
your
guidance.” I watched him button the double-breasted frock with care while he ducked through the entrance. “Are you all right?”

“Maybe,” he said absently.

As we crossed the camp, Belphagor hailed us from outside the infirmary. I headed toward him and Kae followed with obvious reluctance.

I gave Belphagor a disapproving look. “Where have you been? I thought you were going to talk to Kae about the plans for the breach.”

“Oh, Kae and I talked.” He gave my cousin a peculiar look that cast his behavior this morning in a new light. “Besides, the breach has been accomplished.” He smiled. “I have it on good authority Elysium is fairly overrun with friendly forces. I wouldn’t be surprised if Helga sent a messenger with terms of her surrender within the hour.” He ushered us into the infirmary. “But right now, there’s something I thought you might want to hear.”

I had no opportunity to express my astonishment at this news as we passed rows of pallets lining the wall of the tent where Virtues and terrestrial Fallen lay wounded, most of them too drugged with laudanum to notice us.

I paused beside a Virtue who watched us with alert, shining eyes, his arm bandaged at the wrist where it ended in a stump, and thanked him for his bravery.

He grabbed my hand with his whole one. “It’s an honor to fight for you, Your Supernal Majesty.”

I smiled, touched by his devotion. “I’m not the queen of Heaven yet.”

“You are to us.”

I pressed his hand and turned away to keep from being overcome with emotion.

Belphagor led us into a private section screened off from the rest, where Kirill lay on a cot. The monk looked terrible, his skin pale and clammy and his eyes tinged red in both the iris and the whites as if he’d taken ruby oil—something I’d often done as a girl to try to disguise myself as one of the Fallen for a trip to Raqia. There was spittle in his beard and dried bile on his clothing from having vomited even the water they’d given him.

“What is it?” I bent down and took his hand. It was ice cold and I nearly shuddered, remembering how Kae’s skin had felt while Aeval called his blood.

Instead of Kirill’s response, a disembodied voice came from beside me: “He’s seen what he calls an angel of light.”

Kirill cried out in Russian. “There! Do you not hear it? Am I the only one?”

“Misha?” I looked around at the empty air.

“At your service, Your Supernal Highness.”

“Apparently, he’s an Ardor,” said Belphagor, and then hissed,
“Stop it!”
under his breath, jumping as though someone had pinched him, and his cheeks turned a rare pink. He tried to recover his dignity. “The leshi and the syla. They’re the missing First Choir.”

I was dumbfounded. “The First Choir of the Host?” I managed stupidly.

“Most of them,” said Misha. “As you can see, we haven’t the same substance here we do below, so it stands to reason there may be some still residing in Heaven of which we are unaware. And it seems your monk has found one of the elusive Tafsarim.”

“You hear the spirit?” Kirill tossed on his pallet. “I’m not mad?”

I put my hand on his damp forehead to calm him. “You’re not mad, Kirill.”

“This angel of light, then,” said Kae. “You mean to say it was an Aeon?”

“I do mean to say so, yes.” A breeze lifted Kae’s untidy hair about his face, and he brushed at it as at cobwebs. “Oh, I see what you mean, Belyi,” Misha fairly purred. “Truly divine.”

“Enough,” Belphagor fumed. “This is serious.”

“Of course it is. As I said, I am always serious.”

Kae ignored the banter. “The monk claimed the angel told him to kill Her Supernal Highness’s nephew.”

“God tells me.” Kirill spoke mournfully in angelic, raising his eyes to Kae. “He sends angel to redeem.” He began to shiver uncontrollably and he grabbed my arm. “Please tell the demon I must have devil dust.
Ya umrayu
!”

Belphagor took the monk’s hand from my arm. “You will not die. You will sleep.” He held Kirill’s hand and drew the pale aquamarine eyes to his own, placing the black-lacquered nail of his thumb against Kirill’s forehead. “
Vy budite spat
.”

Kirill’s eyes flickered shut.

When we left him, I spoke with the intention of addressing Misha, hoping he’d left with us. “What does this mean? Why would an Aeon want him to kill Azel?”

“Because the boy doesn’t belong here,” said Misha. “He belongs in Irkalla.”

This was a name I’d never heard before. I looked to Belphagor to interpret.

“It’s the Realm of the Dead,” said Belphagor. “Misha, I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“You haven’t told him,” Misha said next to me and I shook my head. “The boy’s spirit is hopelessly entwined with that of Azel Helisonovich.”

“Your brother?” Belphagor looked at me, aghast.

I appealed to Misha as if he could do something. “Please, it’s not hopeless, is it? Can’t he be released?”

“It’s a unique situation. But I don’t see how, without the boy’s death. And if the captive spirit isn’t released, there’s bound to be more trouble with the Aeons. They are the guardians of the gates of Irkalla. I suppose you’d call it Gehenna.”

“You don’t mean the Citadel?”

“In a manner of speaking. The First Choir placed the gates within the Pyriphlegethon and built the Citadel around them to protect them. Regardless, as long as your brother’s shade isn’t allowed to leave the world of the living, the spheres will be out of harmony.”

“No.” Kae spoke up suddenly, with more force than his voice usually had. “No one else is going to the Realm of the Dead.” He turned swiftly and walked toward the pavilion.

While Belphagor stayed where he was, having an argument with the air, I hurried after Kae. “What are you doing?”

He answered without turning around. “I’m going to take Azel where he cannot be reached by Aeons. I’m going to fall.”

“Kae, you can’t.” I reached out to slow him with a hand on his shoulder and he gasped with pain and twisted out from under my grip. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

“Nothing.” He continued toward the pavilion, but when I touched his back, he twisted in pain once more.

Anger welled up in me, with an unexpected instinct of protectiveness. “It was Belphagor, wasn’t it?”

“So what if it was? What are a few stripes to the hours of torture I meted out to him?”

“You weren’t yourself.” I echoed the words I’d thrown back in my sister’s face, but this time I believed them.

“Then who in the name of Heaven was I?” He strained the limits of his voice. “Who am I now? Just leave me alone, Nazkia. Some things are not about you.”

I swallowed my retort. The words stung, but he was right. There was nothing I could do to get him through the pain and guilt he carried. They were his and he had earned them. Yet the confusing urge to protect him persisted. With disquietude, I recalled the dream I’d had in Iriy of comforting him as he wept.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but a tremendous crack of thunder stopped me. I looked up, but there were no clouds. Across the field of our encampment, however, a peculiar light glowed from within my pavilion, illuminating two golden pairs of wings through the opening of the tent.

I left Kae there, forgetting his misery as I ran, not knowing if he ran behind me or stood still in the dirt.

Inside the tent, Love struggled in the arms of a Cherub and Loquel lay on the ground beside another, as if the Cherub had stunned him with its wings. With a fist wrapped around the locket at her bosom, Helga crouched before Ola, her other hand outstretched.

“Come, now, child,” she snapped. “Just take my hand.”

“Don’t you touch her!” I rushed toward them, but a third Cherub standing on the opposite side of the entrance grabbed me before I could reach her. There was no electrifying pain as with the touch of an Ophan, but like the not-quite-in-phase shifting of the fourfold image, his physical being seemed to shimmer in and out of this plane, tugging and pulling me with him through his constant metamorphoses. It left me too disoriented to speak.

Ola began to cry and Helga cursed at her with language that shocked me. She was obviously too frightened of my daughter fulfilling the prophesy of taking the accursed flower to dare to grab her, still trying to persuade Ola to take her hand so she could keep the locket out of reach and yet exercise its power.

When Kae appeared in the entrance, neither Love nor I could speak to warn him, and the Cherub with the outstretched wings whipped one toward Kae and knocked him to the ground. The room seemed to quake, and with another loud
crack
, the fourth of the Cherubim appeared. Gripped within his fierce hands was Lively, looking ill.

“What took you so long?” snapped Helga.

The Cherub thrust Lively forward and she stumbled as she joined the solid world outside his touch. Her left hand was wrapped loosely in gauze, fluid oozing from her skin into the bandage.

“Take the girl,” Helga ordered as she stood up. When Lively hesitated, Helga grabbed her by the ear and twisted it, pushing her toward Ola. Lively shrieked, holding her bandaged hand in front of her as if afraid Helga might grab it instead, and wrapped her right arm around Ola’s waist to lift her onto her hip.

“Mama.” Ola called to me plaintively, her little lip protruding, and it tore at my heart that I couldn’t respond.

Loquel had roused and tried to stand, but the Cherub struck him once more with a single wing, and the Virtue tumbled back to the ground. As the fourth Cherub reached for Lively’s arm, a violet spark shot from Ola to his hand, making him pull back with a roar of surprise from his leonine face. A column of flame rose around Ola and Lively—the fire I’d seen in my dreams.

Instead of the glow of elemental radiance, it burned white like the core of a molten metal, and though Ola was wailing, terrified, it didn’t consume them. Holding fast to Ola, Lively cried out and fell to her knees, her eyes wide with fear and her hair standing out as though electrified.

Helga cursed again and whirled about. Azel stood behind her. She grabbed his hand and with a deafening clap of sound as all four Cherubim flapped their wings, a brilliant light flashed and they were gone, taking Helga and Azel with them. Love and I collapsed onto the ground.

The column of flame dissolved, and I scrambled to Ola, who clung to me sobbing while Lively trembled with shock. Beside me, holding Loquel in his arms, my cousin began to weep. Only then did I see the blood pulsing from the Virtue’s throat where the Cherub’s wing had struck him.

Throwing the tent flap wide, Belphagor burst in and nearly tripped over them. After a moment of horrible stillness, he knelt down and lifted Loquel from Kae’s arms with such care that I was ashamed not to have noticed this dimension of his relationship with his “boys.”

“Gospodin,”
Loquel gasped, his eyes like quicksilver staring up at him.

Belphagor put his hand over the cut at Loquel’s throat and the blood pumped through his fingers like water through a hose.

“Prostite mnya,”
the Virtue said.

“No,” whispered Belphagor. “No, you’ve done nothing wrong,
malchik milochki
.”

“But the boy.” Loquel looked to Kae, still on his knees beside them. “They took his boy.”

Kae shook his head, wiping his sleeve against his watery eye as if to see more clearly, and grasped Loquel’s hand. His voice came out in a jagged whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Loquel smiled weakly at him. “No need. You were not yourself.”

Kae burst into wretched sobs and dropped the white hand as Loquel gazed up at Belphagor once more.

“Spasibo, gospodin,”
he sputtered, “for showing me my wings.” He closed his eyes and Belphagor grasped his head in both hands and kissed the pale eyelids, blood from his hand staining the silver hair. Loquel’s head dropped against his chest. Silently, Belphagor lifted him and stood, cradling the body as the soft, shimmering luminosity faded from it, and carried him from the tent.

In the painful quiet, Lively spoke with a soft voice of amazement. “My hand.” She unwound the gauze, revealing whole, perfect flesh. “It was burnt. I mean truly burnt; there was nothing left of it.” She looked at me. “Ola healed it.”