Angelology(140)

you.”

Verlaine unlocked the window and heaved it open. A gust of freezing air swept his face. Leaning

out the window, he could see the men below. They spoke in low voices and then, inserting something

into the lock, pushed the door open, and entered the building with astonishing ease. The heavy door

slammed hard behind them.

“Do you have the letters?” Gabriella asked.

“Yes,” Verlaine said.

“Then go. Now. Down the fire escape. I will be waiting.”

Verlaine hung up the phone, threw the duffel bag over his shoulder, and crawled out the window

into the icy wind. The metal froze against the warm skin of his palm as he grasped the rusty ladder.

With all his effort, he pulled: The ladder clattered to the sidewalk. Pain shot through his hand as the

skin stretched, reopening the wound from the barbed-wire fence. Verlaine ignored the pain and

climbed down the rungs, his sneakers sliding on the ice-glazed metal. He was nearly to the sidewalk

when he heard an explosive crack of wood above. The men had broken down the door of his

apartment.

Verlaine dropped to the sidewalk, making sure to protect the duffel bag in the crook of his arm. As

he stepped onto the street, the white van pulled to the curb. The door slid open, and an elfin woman

with bright red lipstick and a severe black pageboy haircut beckoned for Verlaine to jump into the

backseat. “Get in,” Gabriella said, making room. “Hurry.”

Verlaine climbed into the van beside Gabriella as the driver threw the vehicle into gear, rounded

the corner, and sped uptown.

“What in the hell is going on?” Verlaine asked, looking over his shoulder, half expecting to find the

SUV behind.

Gabriella put her thin, leather-sheathed hand over his cold, trembling one. “I’ve come to help you.”

“Help me with what?”

“My dear, you have no idea of the trouble you’ve brought upon all of us.”

The Grigori penthouse, Upper East Side, New York City

Percival demanded that the curtains be drawn, so as to protect his eyes from the light. He had walked

home at sunrise, and the pale morning sky had been enough to cause his head to ache. When the room

was sufficiently dark, he discarded his clothes, throwing the tuxedo jacket, the fouled white shirt, and

his trousers on the floor, and stretched out upon a leather couch. Without a word the Anakim

unbuckled his harness, a laborious procedure that he endured with patience. Then she poured oil onto

his legs and massaged him from ankle to thigh, working her fingers into the muscles until they burned.

The creature was very pretty and very silent, a combination that suited Anakim, especially the

females, whom he found remarkably stupid. Percival stared at her as she moved her short, fat fingers

up and down his legs. The burning headache matched the heat in his legs. Deliriously tired, he closed

his eyes and tried to sleep.

The exact origin of his disorder was still unknown to even the most experienced of his family’s

doctors. Percival had hired the very best medical team, flying them to New York from Switzerland,

Germany, Sweden, and Japan, and all they could tell him was what everyone already knew: A

virulent viral infection had traveled through a generation of European Nephilim, attacking the nervous

and pulmonary systems. They recommended treatments and therapies to promote healing in his wings

and to loosen his muscles, so that he might breathe and walk with more ease. Daily massages were

one of the more pleasant elements of the treatments. Percival called the Anakim to his room to

massage his legs numerous times each day, and along with his deliveries of scotch and sedatives, he

had come to depend upon her hourly presence.

Under normal circumstances he would not have allowed a wretched servant woman into his private

chambers at all—he had not done so in the many hundreds of years before his illness—but the pain

had become unbearable in the last year, the muscles so cramped that his legs had begun to twist into

an unnatural position. The Anakim stretched each leg until the tendons loosened and massaged the

muscles, pausing when he flinched. He watched her hands press into his pale skin. She soothed him,

and for this he was grateful. His mother had abandoned him, treating him like an invalid, and Otterley

was out doing the work Percival should be doing. There was no one left but an Anakim to help him.

As he relaxed, he drifted into a light sleep. For a brief, buoyant moment, he recalled the pleasure of

his late-night stroll. When the woman was dead, he had closed her eyes and stared at her, running his

fingers against her cheek. In death her skin had taken on an alabaster hue. To his delight, he saw

Gabriella Lévi-Franche clearly—her black hair and her powdery skin. For a moment he had