The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia

Frost grinned. “Ah, you've got your head on straight. All right, sonny.” He stomped his boots, shaking off imaginary snow, and sat at Fyodor's table.
    The domovoi brought over two shots of moonshine, the foul liquid with a strong undertaste of gasoline.
    "That's the stuff,” Father Frost said. “Warms you right to your bones, doesn't it?"
    Fyodor nodded; he indeed felt warm. “You won't freeze me, will you?"
    "Not as long as you keep buying me booze.” Father Frost motioned to the domovoi bartender. “Keep them coming."
    Fyodor searched his pockets, and came up with a roll of several rubles.
    Father Frost looked at them skeptically. “Paper money is no money at all,” he said. “What about your coin?"
    Fyodor found it disconcerting that everyone was suddenly interested in his talisman. “It's against the evil eye,” he said. “I need it."
    Father Frost laughed with such deafening glee that the beams in the ceiling shook, spooking several barn owls who were apparently nesting there. “That's a nerazmennaya moneta,” he said once he stopped laughing. “Changeless coin."
    Fyodor smiled. “Really?"
    "Come on, I'll show you,” Father Frost said. “Clueless folk on the surface, gods forgive me. Everything needs to be taught and if it weren't for me you'd be all speaking French now. Assholes.” He beckoned the domovoi, and urged Fyodor to take off his coin. When Fyodor gave it to the domovoi, the coin underwent a metallic mitosis, one remaining attached to the chain, while the other was clenched in the domovoi's tiny and slightly dirty fist.
    "Cool,” Fyodor said. “Does it work like that on the surface?"
    "Sure does,” Father Frost said. “Only the coin is useless. That's irony, isn't it?"
    "Not really,” Fyodor said. “What was that about French?"
    Father Frost heaved an exasperated sigh. “Have you dum-dums ever noticed that the moment there's a foreign invasion, you get a record cold winter? Who do you think is doing that, huh?"
    "You?” Fyodor answered, and threw back another shot of the foul liquid. “Why?"
    "Because I care,” Father Frost said, drunken sincerity coloring his deep voice. “I care about you surface motherfuckers, unlike your stupid wimpy god."
    "We were atheists for a while there,” Fyodor said. “Materialists, even."
    "So am I,” Father Frost said. “A materialist, I mean. Berendey is too, but the gods are all solipsists. Especially the one you've picked; those who are here are all right, even though they're mostly big fish in a small pond, demigods and such. And you, you… you stupid surfacers, all of you either depressed or melancholy.” He cast a wild gaze around, finally focusing on the bar. “Hey, what did I just say? Keep ‘em coming."
    Fyodor paid with the changeless coin again, and the domovoi dutifully took the spawned copper, as if he saw nothing at all unusual or wrong with being paid with the same coin again.
    "As I said,” Father Frost continued. “All you know how to do is to wreck what the others have built and mope around as if you were the ones wronged.” Father Frost spat, and the gob of saliva froze in the air and shattered as it hit the floor.
    "Not all of us,” Fyodor said. “So, why do you help us if we're so worthless?"
    "It's not about you. It's about the land. It is mine, and I am keeping it that way. No matter what you do and how much of it you sell, bit by bit, until you have nothing left. And then, there would be no one left but us, those who were here before you, holding on to it like a handful of sand in the river, feeling it wash away grain by grain, but never letting go. We hold it together, stupid, so don't you ask me why."
    Fyodor tossed back another shot, and waited for the familiar alcohol fog to drown out his sense of loathing of the world. Father Frost was right-the surface world had failed its denizens. And the
    underground world was a mystery, hidden from the majority, affecting things in an oblique and uncertain way. Their