“Come,” Gabriella said to Verlaine, clutching a brown leather case under her arm. “We haven’t
time to waste.”
“But the Porsche has only two seats,” Verlaine said, realizing the problem even as he articulated it.
Gabriella stopped short, as if her inability to foresee the dilemma at hand annoyed her more than
she wished to let on.
“Is there a problem?” Evangeline asked, and Verlaine felt himself drawn to the musical quality of
her voice, the serenity of her manner, the ghostly shade of Gabriella in her features.
“Our car is rather small,” Verlaine said, wondering what Evangeline might be thinking.
Evangeline looked at him a moment too long, as if verifying that he was the same man she’d met the
day before. When she smiled, he knew that he had not been mistaken. Something between them had
taken hold.
“Follow me,” Evangeline said, turning on her heel and walking swiftly away. She traversed the
courtyard quickly, with purpose, her small black shoes breaking through the snow. Verlaine knew that
he would have followed her anywhere she cared to go.
Ducking between two of the utility vans, Evangeline led them along an icy sidewalk and through the
side door of a brick garage. Inside, the air was stagnant and free of the dense smell of the fire. She
lifted a set of keys from a hook and shook them.
“Get in,” she said, gesturing to the brown four-door sedan. “I’ll drive.”
THE HEAVENLY CHOIR
Soon, the angel began to sing, its voice climbing and falling with the lyre.
As if taking cue from this divine progression, the others joined the chorus,
each voice rising to create the music of heaven, a confluence akin to the
congregation described by Daniel, ten thousand times ten thousand angels.
—The Venerable Father Clematis of Thrace,
Notes on the First Angelological Expedition,
Translated by Dr. Raphael Valko
The Grigori penthouse, Upper East Side, New York City
December 24, 1999, 12:41 P.M.
Percival stood in his mother’s bedroom, a spare, meticulously white space at the very apex of the
penthouse. A wall of glass overlooked the city, a gray mirage of buildings punctuated by the blue sky.
The afternoon sun slid along a series of Gustave Doré etchings on the far wall, gifts to Sneja from
Percival’s father many years before. The etchings depicted legions of angels basking in sunlight, tier
upon tier of winged messengers arranged in rings, images magnified by the ethereal cast of the room.
Once Percival had felt kinship to the angels in the pictures. Now, in his present condition, he could
hardly bring himself to look at them.
Sneja lay sprawled upon her bed, sleeping. In her slumber—her wings retracted into a smooth skin
upon her back—she looked like an innocent and well-fed child. Percival placed his hand upon her
shoulder, and when he said her name, she opened her eyes and fixed him in her gaze. The aura of
peacefulness that had surrounded her drained away. She sat up in bed, unfurled her wings, and
arrayed them about her shoulders. They were perfectly groomed, the layers of colored feathers
meticulously ordered, as if she’d had them cleaned before going to sleep.
“What do you want?” Sneja said, looking Percival up and down as if to take in the full scale of his
disappointing appearance. “What has happened? You look terrible.”
Trying to remain calm, Percival said, “I must speak with you.”
Sneja threw her feet over the edge of her bed, hoisted herself up, and walked to the window. It was
early afternoon. In the waning light, her wings seemed glossed in mother-of-pearl. “I should think it
obvious that I’m taking a nap.”
“I wouldn’t disturb you if it were not urgent,” Percival said.
“Where is Otterley?” Sneja said, glancing over Percival’s shoulder. “Has she returned from the
recovery effort? I am anxious to hear the details. We haven’t employed Gibborim in so very long.”
She looked at Percival, and he saw at once how worried she was. “I should have gone myself,” she
said, her eyes glistening. “The blaze of the fires, the rush of wings, the screams of the unsuspecting—
it is like the old days.”
Percival bit his lip, unsure of how to respond.
“Your father is in from London,” Sneja said, wrapping herself in a long silk kimono. Her wings—
healthy and immaterial as Percival’s had once been—slipped effortlessly through the fabric. “Come,
we will catch him at during his lunch.”
Percival walked with his mother to the dining room, where Mr. Percival Grigori II, a middling
Nephilim of some four hundred years who bore a striking resemblance to his son, sat at the table. He