☨
THE DEVIL COMES TO ANGELOVSK
01: The Cat in the Cupboard
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Sasha Demchuk was the best vint dealer south of Daniil's Descent. That was the praise whispered on the streets of Angelovsk, in its slums and steel factories, in the coal dusted alleys of the rail yard district. The addicts who bought from him didn't have a reason to go to anyone else; his stuff was pure, cooked right in front of clients, and handed over for little money and even fewer words.

Fewer words meant fewer rats, Rodion reminded himself as he crossed the Prospekt and ducked into a dimly lit alley littered with crumpled newspapers and cracked syringes. The streets were full of informants foaming at the mouth over the chance to report crime to the militsiya or volunteer squads. Sasha had to be careful and keep his customers clean like his product. That's how he'd become the best: he'd dealt wisely and outlasted his competition.

Rodion shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. Bitter winds had been rolling off the River Rusalka for the past week, freezing the city into submission. His khaki fish fur afghanka offered little protection against the cold, but it was the best, and only jacket, he had.

He straightened up when he stepped out of the alley onto Sasha's street. A group of street gang members, six boys of about fourteen to twenty, passed around a cheaply rolled cigarette on the corner. Two swaggered towards Rodion after he passed through the light of a flickering street lamp. Their comrades, recognizing what he wore on his back, heaved them away. Rodion smirked. His afghanka served him better at home than it ever had in the mountains of the country it was named for. Whether acting in respect or out of fear or both, nobody, not even criminal groupies, messed with afghantsy.

He turned his back on the boys and glanced up at the row of shuttered apartment windows. As he strolled, he counted them, stopping when he came to number thirteen and ducking into the nearest entrance. The housing authority clerk had passed out on the lobby bench. Rodion tiptoed past her like he always did, taking the stairs instead of the lift to Sasha's apartment. At the door, he performed the coded knock. Seconds later, Sasha emerged from the darkness to clasp Rodion's hand and pull him in for a slap on the back.

"About time I saw you again," he said, flashing a smile checkered with metal replacements. "Come in."

Rodion shut the door behind him, hiding any passerby's view of Sasha's apartment. All the lights were off, the windows and curtains cracked to let in fresh air. There was a primus stove set up on the floor between two tattered sofas and peeling yellow wallpaper all around. The stove was a pinprick of glow in the middle of the room. Beside it were two spoons stolen from the communal kitchen and a hollowed out copy of Dead Souls.

"Want it for here or to go?" Sasha asked. He crouched and cracked open the book, pulling out a packet of tan powder.

"Are you offering me an extra dose?"

"Just this once."

"Then you know my answer," Rodion said and settled onto the couch across from Sasha. He interlocked his fingers and hung them between knees bouncing with anticipation. Sasha shook the packet. The powder sifted, and the plastic crinkled as he peeled it open.

"Got funds for that?"

Rodion forked over a scattered assortment of rainbow rubles and dull coins. Sasha counted, squinting to make out the denominations. He was a man of contrasts; dark hair and brows, moonlight skin, bags beneath bright eyes. Rodion found it hard to understand how Sasha had served as an intelligence captain. He figured his friend had too memorable a face for a secret keeper.

"Enough for five," Sasha said, tucking the money into his sock. "You bring your own stuff to slam it with?"

Rodion pulled out his spoon, syringe, filter, and lemon juice. They dropped to the floor on either side of the primus stove, lit the burner, mixed and drew their solutions. When he shot up, Rodion didn't look at his arm. The skin and veins in the crook of his elbow were discolored, collapsed, and marked up with decay he had wrought upon himself. He rolled his sleeve down over his forearm, hiding his shame until his next high, and slumped against the couch as the vint started to hit.

Sasha was the first to stretch out and lay back-down on the slat floor. Hands above his head, he started humming a barrack ditty wildly out of tune. When his limbs started feeling as heavy as steel anvils, Rodion flopped down into the position too. Lying there, he felt like he'd dove into a pool of warm honey and was now floating in it. Everything was flowing and fluid and golden. There was destruction and pain and suffering in the world, but not in that room. Not on the floor. It was only bliss. Pure bliss free of the thoughts that wanted to eat the back of his brain–thoughts of the Panjshir, of his brothers Kostya and Gleb, of the nightmares that woke him the second he fell asleep.

"You hear the Priest died a couple days ago?" Sasha asked.

"Who?"

"Angelov. Volya Angelov. Big thief in law. Infamous. He went to Siberia twice and then the Crosses and escaped."

"Nobody can escape the Crosses."

"Angelov did."

"According to city myth, sure."

"He didn't do it alone. It was an inside job done with outside help."

Rodion shook his head. The honey glided up to his neck. It warmed his spine, soaked his jaw, and loosened his tongue. "Don't be so gullible."

"Gullible? It's truth. His wife confirmed it. She was there for the break."

"His wife who became a thief in law herself? Right."

"From what I understand, she is more trustworthy than he ever was. He redeemed himself with her help, you know. She loved him more than she loved God and that does wondrous things for a man."

"And I love vint more than I love God because it's done a hell of a lot more for me. Does that make me as trustworthy as her?"

"Not to a Christian. But maybe to a fellow addict?"

"Prove it. Am I trustworthy?"

"You're loyal."

"Yes, but if you were still a captain, and I was your lieutenant, would you trust me to have your six?"

Sasha grimaced. "You're high."

"If I wasn't. If you weren't."

"Probably."

"Alright. Why not absolutely?"

"Because I don't think you would trust me," Sasha said. "I don't think you trust anyone. You doubt everything. You'd end up doubting me, my orders."

Rodion rolled over and grinned. "Probably. Now call me a cynic–"

"You're a cynic."

"–but you claimed Angelov redeemed himself. Through love, of all things. Except you're missing the fact that criminals like him, career criminals, reach a point where there's no coming back from their crimes. They'll simply keep murdering and raping and stealing and tainting our society. Once they reach that point, it's a waste of time and effort to rehabilitate them. Because even if they somehow redeemed themselves, society would never accept them. If criminals were proven to have recoverable souls, who would the politicians and concerned mothers have left to scapegoat for social problems? Addicts? Schizophrenics? Veterans?"

"Anyone they don't like."

"Precisely. Do you want to be a scapegoat?"

"No," Sasha said like it offended him to have to answer.

"Neither do I. Keep it that way by not perpetuating the idea criminals can be redeemed."

"The stuff about Angelov is merely something I heard. Don't get it twisted."

"It's rumor. Dangerous rumor."

"This city is full of things of that sort."

"And it always has been," Rodion said as he rolled up onto his feet.

Quickly realizing standing was more like swaying, he flung himself down on the closest couch. His head roiled with colors and his mouth was a desert. Convinced his voice would come out as a hoarse rasp if he tried to speak, Rodion elected not to say anything more. Instead, he pulled his jacket close and smiled like a holy fool as the warm honey began to drip down his face.

☨ ☨ ☨

Rodion woke to the shaking of his shoulders and the distant hiss of Sasha's voice. He jerked his head, neck cracking against the wooden sofa arm. He opened his eyes and found Sasha hovering above him. The dealer had turned on the lamps scattered about the apartment and opened the window across from the sofas. A chilly draft poured into the room, prickling Rodion's exposed skin with gooseflesh.

"Fuck, I thought you were out," Sasha said.

He moved aside and Rodion blinked thrice, trying to clear his vision of the sparkles and make sense of where he was and what time it was. He'd come to Sasha's to buy and get high, not to sleep. Head still thick with vint, he pushed off the sofa and staggered the couple steps to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I've got to get a tin of herring," Rodion said. He grabbed the back of his neck and pinched it harshly to see if he would feel pain. A brief sting shot out beneath the skin but dulled rapidly. Still a little high.

"Herring? The shops aren't open."

Rodion looked down at his wrist and found it was bare. He'd forgotten his watch in his apartment. "What time is it?"

"Just past two. You were out for four hours."

Sasha came up beside him, held out a cup of water. Rodion chugged it, swishing the water back and forth over his tongue as if that would magically relieve his dry mouth. He stared at Sasha in disbelief after trading the cup for five individual packets of vint. It'd been weeks since he'd slept over four hours in one stint. High or not, he was grateful for the chance to rest without any nightmares.

"Do you have any herring? Or, or ocean paste?"

"What the hell do you need either of those things for? Emergency soup?"

Rodion patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys and vint kit. "This little black cat followed me home a few days ago. If I come back empty-handed, she's going to feel duped."

"Forget the cat. Go home. Take care of yourself."

☨ ☨ ☨

The cat, Shutka, did feel duped. When Rodion stumbled into the apartment a quarter to three, she jumped off her perch on the windowsill and came running to greet him with hungry mews.

As consolation, he scooped her up and pressed her to his chest. She purred; the vibrations in her throat revving like a truck engine. They stayed like that, close and content, as Rodion paced the tiny cupboard that was his apartment.

It was a dilapidated place, a residence he had long overstayed his welcome in, running it down as he wore out himself. There were clotheslines zigzagging between the walls, a red and gold oriental carpet tacked to the wall, and little furniture; two carved chairs circled up around a rickety table, a bookshelf piled with illegal copies of the banned manuscripts, curiously colored pottery from Afghanistan, military medals in a little box collecting dust. A full bed occupied the whole of the wall beneath the window and half the floor space. There was a set of pilled sheets and one hand sewn quilt thrown haphazardly over the corners. Rodion rarely went to sleep under the blankets. Instead, he slept in a position he come to by falling on the bed: still in his day clothes, bundled in his afghanka, Shutka at his feet, his head resting on the thin pillow under which he'd stashed yesterday's laundry.

He sat himself down on the railing and scratched under Shutka's chin some more. Her green eyes scrunched into slits of black, her neck pulsing with joy. When she'd had enough, she slinked away from him and hopped back up onto the windowsill. She tucked her paws under her little black body and became more bread loaf than feline.

Rodion, drowsy as the vint's effects tapered off, collapsed onto the springy mattress. Shutka's frisky tail flicked above his face. The tip of it skimmed his forehead a couple times, reviving him from his fitful sleep if only for a few seconds.

The third time, he reached up to brush it away, but there was no tickling fur, no warm body. Startled, Rodion sat up and peered into the dark. He breathed a sigh of relief when he located Shutka sitting before the door, licking her paws. He wasn't going insane. She was still there. He'd made it back to the cupboard. The high was wearing off, but that was alright because it needed to be; he had to be at the docks by seven for work.

Rodion rubbed his face. He watched Shutka play with the shadows he'd cast by sitting in front of the moonlit window. She pounced and batted at them as he laid back down. A minute later, she had retired and was sitting stiff and hunched like a gargoyle at the bedside.

Then suddenly a woman appeared where Shutka had been, though only teachings from the occult could explain how she'd come to be there. She was young and fair, with thick midnight black hair that trailed down her back onto the floor. A hint of girlish mischief seemed to lurk behind her feline eyes, which glowed green and were heavily lined. She wore a black, almost amethyst, dress studded with red stones, a dress far more appropriate for a winter ball or funeral of White émigrés than the grimy state of his apartment. A massive ruby stone glittered on her left ring finger, and a set of six silver bangles, three on each arm, shifted over her wrists.

Rodion shot up and observed her in maddening silence. She did the same, staying on the floor at the bedside, arms wrapped around her shins, awaiting instructions or further reaction with prim patience. She kept attentive and pleased and ready to make conversation whenever he got ahold of himself and reined in the expression of shock etched onto his face.

"How can I still be high?" Rodion muttered.

"You're not," the woman replied. "I'm really here. Here like I have been."

"You're a hallucination. Sasha has warned me about you."

"Even with a warning, you can't really prepare for me. Besides, I made you see me, not the other way around."

Rodion let out a nervous laugh. He looked to the ceiling and pinched the back of his neck like he had by Sasha's door. The pain persisted. It did not dull or slink away or become honey dripping down his spine.

"If I'm not high," he began, "Then I'm dreaming. That means you're still a hallucination."

"You don't dream and I happen to be quite real."

She stood and came over to him. Icy fingers wrapped around his arm, guiding his hand to the center of her chest. She held his touch there, over her beating heart, until he tore away. He bolted for the door, which was locked, and then the window, which was latched.

"How did you get in?"

"You brought me here."

"I don't know you."

"Sure you do. You call me Shutka."

"You're not the cat."

"Sometimes I am."

"The law of conservation of mass says otherwise."

"Mechanical law doesn't exactly apply to me... or my circumstances."

"Circumstances?"

"I bear a curse. Sometimes I'm feline, sometimes I'm human. I can't exactly control it."

Rodion laughed again and stopped to slap himself in the face. He squeezed his eyes shut and believed that when he opened them, she'd be gone. She was not. Instead, she was more human-looking than before, sitting on the corner of the bed, her slender hands folded in her lap. He hadn't heard her footsteps cross the floor.

"Don't hurt yourself," she said when he lifted his hand to his cheek a second time.

"If you're here to save me, you're too late."

"I'm not. Someone else is coming to do that. He will be here soon."

"Whoever he is, he won't be able to. I can't be saved. More importantly, I don't want to be. Not in this life, not in this world. It's all fucking worthless."

"Is that why you shoot vint almost every day? Why you hide your injection bruises from your older brother when you visit him and refuse to see your younger brother?"

"Gleb is the one who refuses."

"I don't blame him. You're a wretch."

"Aren't I?" Rodion said with a vile smirk.

"Yes. Except that won't intimidate your visitor. He's the King of Wretches and quite the businessman."

The King of Wretches? The thought of such a man made Rodion take a disgusted step back. He took little liking to men with superfluous titles and flashy reputations. They rarely proved themselves worthy of their lofty monikers.

"A businessman wants to see me? Why?"

"To make a deal, of course. You have something he wants. Something valuable."

Shutka, or whoever she was, veered away, eyeing the clock ticking on his bookshelf with a meaningful stare. She moved for the door, hovering near it with her hands locked behind her back as if prepared to serve the king about to come knocking.

Meanwhile, Rodion paced. The heels of his palms rested on his temples. Unease bubbled in the bottom of his empty stomach. He still didn't know how to wake himself up from the drug tainted dream. Pain hadn't worked. Water probably wouldn't. Perhaps if he threw himself out the window? Maybe he would wake up before he hit the ground.

He moved across the cupboard, stopping himself before climbing up onto the bed. There were things the woman had done that did not fall in line with typical dream logic. Aside from the shapeshifting, everything she had said and done was rational. Most important, she was correct in her all-knowing assertion that he didn't dream. He only had nightmares, and since he wasn't crawling through blood-filled ditches, struggling to move a meter through the silt because of the stack of dead comrades piled on his back like logs, he knew some part of their interaction was real.

Rodion glanced at the clock and noted the time. It was three thirty-three. Just as he stepped up onto the windowsill and faced down the nine-story plunge, there was a knock at the door. It opened, and a silken voice called out to him:

"Rodion Maksimovich! Not yet, my pet! Let us make a deal in this life instead of the next!"

well, there you have him: rodion maksimovich popov, everyone.

i don't know what my fascination with miserable male protagonists is or where it comes from, but rodion is the third one to join my literary canon alongside taras (scream, nightingale, scream) and tolya (viktov lives!). maybe their bitterness and wretchedness makes them exciting to write and easy to characterize?? that seems to be the case with rodion, who is especially fun to put on the page because he is self-aware but choses to destroy himself instead of change for the better. we love messy and chaotic character flaws on this account lol.

but enough about my onc entry, how are yours going?! what prompts are you using? what is your favorite thing about the contest so far? is there anything giving you trouble? with those questions in mind, if you're looking for any onc-related tips or tricks, be sure to check out my community guidebook, "novellas & new roast." i update fairly frequently.

as always, thank you for reading and supporting my work! votes, comments, and library/reading list adds are much appreciated. ♡♡

happy reading and writing!

3.123/20.000
milestone no. 1 ✓