Traffic had all but halted at the NYPD headquarters, where police were making preparations for the
Millennial New Year’s Eve ball drop. Through the crowds of office workers on their way to work,
Verlaine could see the police welding manhole covers closed and setting up checkpoints. If the
Christmas season filled the city with tourists, Verlaine realized, New Year’s Eve would be a
veritable nightmare, especially this one.
Gabriella ordered Verlaine out of the van. Stepping into the masses of people clustered on the
streets, they fell into a chaos of movement, blinking billboards, and relentless foot traffic. Verlaine
hoisted the duffel bag over his shoulder, afraid that he might somehow lose its precious contents.
After what had happened at his apartment, he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched,
that every person nearby was suspect, that Percival Grigori’s men were waiting for them at every
turn. He looked over his shoulder and saw an endless sea of people.
Gabriella walked quickly ahead, weaving through the crowd at a pace Verlaine struggled to match.
As people surged around them, he noted that Gabriella cut quite a figure. She was a tiny woman,
barely five feet tall, extraordinarily thin, with sharp features. She wore a fitted black overcoat that
appeared to be Edwardian in cut—a tight, tailored, and stylish silk jacket fastened with a line of tiny
obsidian buttons. The jacket was so tight that it appeared to have been designed to be worn over a
corset. In contrast to her dark clothing, Gabriella’s face was powdery white, with fine wrinkles—the
skin of an old woman. Although she must have been in her seventies, there was something unnaturally
youthful about her. She carried herself with the poise of a much younger woman. Her sculpted, glossy
black hair was perfectly coiffed, her spine erect, her gait even. She walked fast, as if challenging
Verlaine to keep up.
“You must be wondering why I’ve brought you here, into all of this madness,” Gabriella said,
gesturing to the crowd. Her voice resonated with the same calm equanimity she’d had on the
telephone, a tone he found both eerie and deeply comforting. “Times Square at Christmas is not the
most peaceful place for a stroll.”
“I usually avoid this place,” Verlaine said, looking around at the neoninfused storefront windows
and incessantly flashing news ticker, a zipper of electricity dripping information faster than he could
read it. “I haven’t been around here in nearly a year.”
“In the midst of danger, it is best to take cover in the crowd,” Gabriella observed. “One does not
want to call attention, and one can never be too careful.”
After a few blocks, Gabriella slowed her pace, leading Verlaine past Bryant Park, where the space
swarmed with Christmas decorations. With the fresh-fallen snow and the brightness of the morning
light, the scene struck Verlaine as the image of a perfect New York Christmas, the very kind of
Norman Rockwell scene that irritated him. As they approached the massive structure of the New York
Public Library, Gabriella paused once again, looked over her shoulder, and crossed the street.
“Come,” she whispered, walking to a black town car parked illegally before one of the stone lion
statues at the library’s entrance. The New York license plate read ANGEL27. Upon seeing them
approach, a driver turned on the engine. “This is our ride,” Gabriella said.
They turned right on Thirty-ninth and drove up Sixth Avenue. As they paused at a stoplight,
Verlaine looked over his shoulder, wondering if he would find the black SUV behind them. They
weren’t being followed. In fact, it unnerved him to realize that he felt almost at ease with Gabriella.
He had known her all of forty-five minutes. She sat next to him, peering out the window as if being
chased through Manhattan at nine o’clock in the morning were a perfectly normal part of her life.
At Columbus Circle the driver pulled over, and Gabriella and Verlaine stepped into the freezing
gusts of wind blowing through Central Park. She walked swiftly ahead, searching traffic and looking
beyond the rotary, nearly losing her impenetrable calm. “Where are they?” she muttered, turning along
the edge of the park, walking past a magazine kiosk stacked high with daily papers, and into the
shadows of Central Park West. She kept pace for a number of blocks, turned onto a side street, and
paused, looking about her. “They are late,” she said under her breath. Just then an antique Porsche
rounded a corner, stopping with a sharp squeal of tires, its eggshell white paint shining in the morning
light. The license plate, to Verlaine’s amusement, read ANGELI.