leather shoes.
Her father stopped at the end of a dingy, trash-strewn street. Evangeline watched him pound upon
the doorway of a great corrugated-steel warehouse. Preoccupied with whatever business was at hand,
he didn’t notice her walking toward him. She was almost close enough to call out to him when a door
swung open. He stepped inside the warehouse. It happened so quickly, with such finality, that for an
instant Evangeline stopped in her tracks.
Pushing the heavy door open, she stepped into a dusty corridor. She climbed a set of aluminum
stairs, balancing her weight carefully, lightly, so that the soles of her shoes would not alert her father
—or whoever else was in the depths of the warehouse—to her presence. At the top of the stairs, she
crouched down, resting her chin upon her knees, hoping that no one would discover her. In the past
years, all his efforts had been to keep Evangeline at a distance from his work. Her father would be
furious if he knew she had followed him there.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the sunless, airless space, but when they did, she saw that
the warehouse was vast and empty, except for a group of men standing below three suspended cages,
each one as big as a car. The cages were hung with steel chains from steel girders. Inside, trapped
like birds in cubes of iron mesh, were three creatures, each in a cage. One of them appeared to be
nearly insane with rage—it clutched the bars and screamed obscenities at its captors standing below.
The other two were listless, lying limp and sullen, as if drugged or beaten into submission.
Studying them more closely, Evangeline saw that the creatures were completely naked, although the
texture of their skin, a luminescent membrane of clarified gold, made them seem encased in pure light.
One of the creatures was female—she had long hair, small breasts, and a tapering waist. The other
two were male. Gaunt and hairless, with flat chests, they were taller than the female and at least two
feet taller than the size of a grown man. The bars of the cage were smeared in a glittering, honeylike
fluid that dripped slowly down the metal and onto the floor.
Evangeline’s father stood with the men, his arms crossed. The group appeared to be doing some
kind of scientific experiment. One man held a clipboard, another had a camera. There was a large lit
board with three sets of chest X-rays clipped to it—the lungs and rib cage stood out in ghostly white
against a faded gray background. A nearby table held medical equipment—syringes and bandages and
numerous tools Evangeline could not name.
The female creature began to pace in her cage, still screaming at her captors, tearing at her flowing
blond hair. Her gestures were executed with such strength that the bearing chain creaked and groaned
above the cage, as if it might break. Then, with a violent movement, the female creature turned her
body. Evangeline blinked, unable to believe her eyes. At the center of her long, lithe back grew a pair
of sweeping, articulated wings. Evangeline covered her mouth with her hands, afraid that she might
call out in surprise. The creature flexed her muscles, and the wings opened, spreading the entire
length of the cage. White and sweeping, the wings shone with mellowed luminosity. As the cage
swayed under the angel’s weight, tracing a slow parabola through the stagnant air, Evangeline felt her
sense sharpen. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears; her breath quickened. The creatures were lovely
and horrifying at once. They were beautiful, iridescent monsters.
Evangeline watched the female pace the length of her cage with wings unfurled, as if the men
below her were little more than mice she might swoop down upon and devour.
“Release me,” the creature growled, her voice grinding, guttural, anguished. The tips of her wings
slid through the interstices of the cage, sharp and pointed.
Evangeline’s father turned to the man with the clipboard. “What will you do with them?” he asked,
as if referring to a net filled with rare butterflies.
“We won’t know where to send the remains until we’ve had the final test results.”
“Most likely we’ll send them back to our labs in Arizona for dissection, documentation, and
preservation. They certainly are beauties.”
“Have you made any determinations about their strength? Do you see any signs of diminishment?”
Evangeline’s father asked. Evangeline could detect a strain of hope in his questions, and although she
could not be certain, she felt that this had something to do with her mother. “Something in their fluid
tests?”
“If you’re asking whether they have the strength of their ancestors,” the man said, “the answer is no.