Angelology(168)

weighing upon Evangeline’s shoulder. When the doors opened, the old nun stopped her. “Go, my

dear,” she said. “I will distract the others so that you may exit unnoticed.” Evangeline kissed

Celestine’s cheek and left her in the elevator. The moment Evangeline walked away, Celestine

pushed a button and the doors swept closed. Evangeline was alone.

Upon reaching her bedroom cell, Evangeline tore open the drawers and collected the objects of

value to her—a rosary and a small amount of cash she had saved over the years—which she put in her

pocket. Her heart ached as she glanced around her room. Not long before, she’d believed she would

never leave it. She’d imagined that life stretched before her in an endless progression of ritual,

routine, and prayer. She would wake each morning to pray, and she would go to sleep each evening in

a room looking out upon the dark presence of the river. Overnight these certainties had melted,

dissolving like ice in the Hudson’s current.

Evangeline’s thoughts were interrupted by a great cacophony of rumbling from the courtyard. She

ran from her room, threw open a window, and looked over the grounds as a procession of black

utility vans pulled into the horseshoe driveway curling before Maria Angelorum. The van doors slid

open, and a group of strange creatures climbed out onto the convent lawn. Squinting, Evangeline tried

to see them more clearly. They wore uniform black overcoats that brushed the snow as they walked,

black leather gloves, and military-style combat boots. As they moved across the courtyard, coming

closer to the convent, she observed that their number quickly multiplied—more and more arrived, as

if they had the ability to appear from the chill air. As she examined the periphery of the convent

grounds, she saw the creatures step from the darkened forest, climb the stone wall, and walk through

the great iron gate at the drive. They might have been waiting, hidden, for hours. St. Rose Convent

was completely surrounded by Gibborim.

Clutching the leather case close, Evangeline turned from the window in fright and ran through the

hallway, knocking on doors, rousing the sisters from study and prayers. She turned the lights to full

brightness, a harsh illumination that ripped away the air of coziness of the fourth floor and exposed

the tattered carpeting, the peeling paint, the dreary uniformity of their enclosed lives. If there was one

thing to be learned from the previous attack, it was that the sisters must leave the convent

immediately.

Evangeline’s efforts brought the Elder Sisters from their rooms. They stood throughout the

corridor, looking about in utter confusion, their unveiled hair in disarray. Evangeline heard

Philomena calling from somewhere in the distance, preparing the sisters to fight.

“Go,” Evangeline said. “Take the back stairwell to the first floor and follow Mother Perpetua’s

orders. Trust me. You will soon understand.”

Resisting the urge to lead them down herself, Evangeline pushed through the clusters of women,

and, making her way to the wooden door at the end of the hall, she opened it and ran up the winding

steps. The room at the top of the turret was freezing cold and shadowy. She knelt before the brick

wall and pried the stone from her hiding place. In the recess in the wall, she found the metal box

containing the angelological journal, the photograph tucked safely inside. She turned to the last

quarter of the notebook. Her mother’s scientific notes were there, copied out in Gabriella’s clean,

precise script. Her mother had died for these strings of numbers. Evangeline could not lose them.

The turret windows had frozen over, creating blue-white fractals upon the glass. Evangeline

attempted to clear a circle in the ice with her breath, rubbing the pane with the palm of her hand, but

the glass remained foggy. In a panic to see the grounds, she removed her shoe and shattered the

window with the heel, swiping the barbs of glass from the frame with quick sweeps, opening a small

vantage over the courtyard.

Bitterly cold air gushed into the turret. She could see the river and the forest below, framing the

courtyard on three sides. The creatures had collected at the center of the grounds, a mass of dark-

cloaked figures. Even at a distance, their height foreshortened, they sent a chill through Evangeline.

There were fifty, perhaps a hundred of the creatures below her window, quickly composing

themselves into rows.

Suddenly, as if responding to a command, they shed their great cloaks in unison. The creatures’

limbs were bare, their skin throwing halos of radiance over the snow. When they stood upright, their

immense height gave them the appearance of Grecian statues stationed on a desolate mall. Great,