“How did the Nephilim attain this?” I asked.
“Their dominance?” Dr. Seraphina asked. “It is very simple. After the Middle Ages, the balance of
power changed. The Nephilim began to recover lost pagan texts—the work of Greek philosophers,
Sumerian mythologies, Persian scientific and medical texts—and circulate them through the
intellectual centers of Europe. The result, of course, was a disaster for the church. And this was only
the beginning. The Nephilim made certain that materialism became fashionable among the elite
families. The Hapsburgs were just one example of how the Giants infiltrated and overwhelmed a
family, the Tudors another. Although we agree with the principles of the Enlightenment, it was a
major victory for the Nephilim. The French Revolution—where the separation of church and state and
the illusion that humans should rely upon rationalism in lieu of the spiritual world—was another. As
time passed, the Nephilistic program unfolded on earth. They promoted atheism, secular humanism,
Darwinism, and the extremes of materialism. They engineered the idea of progress. They created a
new religion for the masses: science.
“By the twentieth century, our geniuses were atheists and our artists relativists. The faithful had
fractured into a thousand bickering denominations. Divided, we have been easy to manipulate.
Unfortunately, our enemies have fully integrated into human society, developing networks of influence
in government, industry, the newspapers. For hundreds of years, they have simply fed off the labor of
humanity, giving nothing back, taking and taking and building their empire. Their greatest victory,
however, has been to hide their presence from us. They have made us believe we are free.”
“And we are not?” I asked.
“Look around you, Celestine,” Dr. Seraphina said, growing irritated by my naive questions. “Our
entire academy is being disbanded and forced underground. We are utterly helpless in the face of
their advances. The Nephilim seek out human weaknesses, latching on to the most power-hungry and
ambitious; then they advance their causes through these figures. Luckily, the Nephilim are limited in
their power. They can be outsmarted.”
“How are you so certain?” Gabriella asked. “Perhaps it is humanity who will be outsmarted.”
“It is entirely possible,” Dr. Seraphina said, studying Gabriella. “But Raphael and I will do
everything in our power to prevent it from happening. The First Angelological Expedition marked the
beginning of the effort. Father Clematis, the erudite and brave man who led the expedition, dictated
his account of his efforts to find the lyre. The account of this journey was lost for many centuries.
Raphael, as you surely know, recovered it. We will use it to find the location of the gorge.”
The momentous discovery of the account of Clematis’s expedition was legendary among those
students who adored the Valkos. Dr. Raphael Valko had recovered Father Clematis’s journal in 1919,
in a village in northern Greece, where it had been buried among papers for many centuries. He’d been
a young scholar at the time, with no distinction. The discovery catapulted him to the highest levels of
angelological circles. The text was a valuable account of the expedition, but, most important, it
offered the hope that the Valkos might reenact Clematis’s journey. If the precise coordinates of the
cavern could have been discerned in the text, the Valkos would certainly have embarked upon their
own expedition years ago.
“I thought Raphael’s translation fell out of favor,” Gabriella said, an observation that, no matter
how true, struck me as insolent. Dr. Seraphina, however, appeared unfazed.
“The society has studied this text extensively, trying to understand exactly what happened during
the expedition. But you are right, Gabriella. Ultimately, we have found Clematis’s account to be
barren.”
“Why?” I asked, astonished that such a significant text could be disregarded.
“Because it is an imprecise document. The most important portion of the account was taken down
during the final hours of Clematis’s life, when he was half mad from the travails of his journey to the
cave. Father Deopus, the man who transcribed Clematis’s account, could not have captured every
detail accurately. He did not draw a map, and the original that brought Clematis to the gorge was not
found with his papers. After many attempts we have accepted the sad truth that the map must have
been lost in the cave itself.”
“What I do not understand,” Gabriella said, “is how Clematis could fail to create a copy. It is the