frantic efforts to locate Gabriella and Evangeline. The details of the abduction replayed in his mind—
the Gibborim swarming the rink, Gabriella and Alistair descending to the ice, Grigori’s escape. But
as he withdrew into himself, his thoughts grew strangely still. Recent events had left him numb.
Perhaps he was in shock. He couldn’t reconcile the world he had lived in the day before with the one
he had now entered. Sinking onto a couch, he stared through the window at the darkness beyond. Only
hours before Evangeline had sat at his side on that very couch, so close he could feel her every
movement. The strength of his feelings for her baffled him. Was it possible that he had met her only
yesterday? Now, after so little time, she filled his thoughts. He was desperate to find her. To locate
Evangeline, however, the angelologists would have to pin down the Nephilim. It seemed as
impossible as grasping a shadow. The creatures had virtually disappeared at the skating rink,
dispersing into the crowd the instant Grigori had left. This, Verlaine understood, was their greatest
strength: They appeared from nowhere and evaporated into the night, invisible and deadly and
untouchable.
After Grigori had left Rockefeller Center, Verlaine joined Bruno and Saitou-san on the main
concourse and the three of them fled. Bruno flagged a taxi and soon they were speeding uptown to
Gabriella’s brownstone, where they were met by a van of field agents. Bruno took over, opening the
rooms at the top of the house to the angelologists. Verlaine watched his gaze stray intermittently to the
windows, as if he expected Gabriella to return any moment.
Soon after midnight they learned of Vladimir’s death. Verlaine heard the news—delivered by an
angelologist dispatched from Riverside Church—with an eerie feeling of equilibrium, as if he’d lost
the ability to be shocked by the Nephilim’s violence. The dual murders of Vladimir and Mr. Gray had
been discovered not long after Saitou-san had escaped with the sound chest. The bizarre state of
Vladimir’s body, left charred beyond recognition, not unlike Alistair Carroll’s, in what Verlaine was
beginning to see as the Nephilim’s signature, would surely be reported everywhere the next morning.
With one angelologist dead and two missing, it was clear that their mission had ended in disaster.
Bruno’s determination only increased after learning of Vladimir’s death. He began barking orders
at the others while Saitou-san stationed herself at the gilded escritoire and made phone calls,
requesting assistance and information from their agents on the street. Bruno hung a map at the center
of the room, divided the city into quadrants, and dispatched agents throughout the city, taking every
possible approach to finding a clue about Grigori’s whereabouts. Even Verlaine knew that there were
hundreds if not thousands of Nephilim in Manhattan. Grigori could be hiding anywhere. Although his
Fifth Avenue apartment was already under surveillance, Bruno sent additional agents across the park.
When it became clear that he wasn’t there, Bruno went back to the maps and more fruitless searching.
Bruno and Saitou-san each voiced theories, one more unlikely than the next. Though they didn’t let
up for a moment, Verlaine sensed that they were getting nowhere. All at once, the angelologists’
efforts to locate Grigori seemed pointless. He knew that the stakes were high and the consequences of
not finding the lyre incalculable. The angelologists cared about the lyre; Evangeline hardly registered
in their efforts. Only now, sitting on this couch they had shared the previous afternoon, was he struck
by the truth of the matter. If he wanted to find Evangeline alive, he would have to do something
himself.
Without a word to the others, Verlaine slipped into his overcoat, took the stairs two at a time, and
ducked out the front door. He inhaled the freezing night air and checked his watch: It was after two
o’clock on Christmas morning. The street was empty; the entire city was asleep. Gloveless, Verlaine
shoved his hands in his pockets and began trekking south along Central Park West, too lost in thought
to notice the biting cold. Somewhere in this bleak, labyrinthine city, Evangeline waited.
By the time he’d made his way downtown and had begun moving toward the East River, Verlaine
had grown increasingly angry. He walked faster, passing blocks of darkened storefronts, turning
possible plans over in his mind. Try as he might, he could not reconcile himself to the reality that
Evangeline was lost to him. He cycled through every strategy to find them he could imagine but—like
Bruno and Saitou-san—he came up with nothing at all. Of course, it was insane to think he might