of the killer, the peculiar way the body had been mutilated. He took a deep breath and tucked his
phone into his pocket. Nothing had changed. Eno was as sadistic as ever.
In his twenties, he had come under Eno’s spell during a hunt. She was unbelievably deft at evading
their best agents, a vicious Emim who had been wanted for over a hundred years, and Bruno was
determined to capture her. He’d known she was deadly. One of the murdered agents cited in Eno’s
profile had suffered third-degree burns over his chest, indicative of electro-induction shock, and his
body had been found with rope burns to the neck, wrists, and ankles, signifying that he’d been tied up
and tortured. Lacerations to the face, torso, buttocks, and back confirmed this. He had been castrated
and dumped in the Seine.
Bruno understood the kind of creature he was dealing with, but when he was near Eno, it was as if
he had stepped into a field of electricity, one that made all rational thought impossible. Of course, the
original attraction between the Watchers and humans was purely physical, a dark and persistent
sexual allure, a phenomenon of sheer lust, something that didn’t disappear over time. So it shouldn’t
have come as a surprise that he’d fallen into a dangerous, obsessive pattern of hunting her. That he
could lose his place in the society, that he could be disgraced or even killed—all of this had faded in
the pursuit of Eno. She was beautiful, but that wasn’t what interested Bruno. There was something
hypnotic about her very existence, something dangerous and exciting about the knowledge of what she
would try to do to him if he succeeded in capturing her. She made him feel alive even as she planned
to kill him.
Passage de la Vierge, seventh arrondissement, Paris
Verlaine climbed onto the ledge of a window, grasped the iron bars of the balcony, and, swinging
his legs to gain momentum, pulled himself up toward the rooftop, the soles of his wing tips slipping as
he climbed. He took a breath and continued. There were four more balconies above him, each one
just out of reach, each one a step closer to Evangeline. He could see her there, above, perched on the
roof tiles like a gargoyle.
By the time he’d hoisted himself over the balustrade of the final balcony, his muscles burned. The
resistance felt good. His body was lean, his muscles tight and long, his endurance high. He would be
forty-three years old in less than a week and he was in the best condition of his life, able to run for
miles without breaking a sweat. Verlaine threw one leg over the ironwork balustrade and pushed
himself onto the slate-roof tiles.
The Emim angel swooped past him, the wings brushing against his back as she flew into the sky.
He felt the shiver of air against his skin, felt the strength of the creature’s body as it slid past. If he
were to grab her wings, she would take him with her into the air. He watched her twist upward, the
lights and rooftops of Paris stretching beyond. As the Emim angel lowered herself to the rooftop,
Evangeline rose. Soon the two creatures stood at the center of the rooftop, one facing the other, their
wings moving in time.
There was no doubt in Verlaine’s mind that the Emim was an exceptionally powerful angel. There
was a rarefied, ghostly transparency to her skin and a certain distinction to her carriage that marked
her as the higher order of warriors. As he examined the creature’s bone structure and facial features
he saw that everything—her large, alien eyes and her sinuous body—coalesced to form a strange and
inhuman beauty. One rarely came across such a striking Emim. He took a deep breath and wondered
what kind of god would fashion such a seductive and evil being.
Verlaine heard something behind him and turned to see Bruno emerge from a balcony just below.
He knew that he should have called for assistance right away, that following Evangeline without
backup went against all that he’d been trained to do, but Verlaine hadn’t even thought to alert Bruno.
“I see you have a death wish,” Bruno said.
“I thought that was one of the criteria for this job.”
“Going solo against a creature like Eno is suicide,” Bruno said, gasping for breath as he pulled
himself over the ledge. “Believe me, I’ve been there.”
Verlaine noted the hesitation in Bruno’s movements and the self-conscious way he spoke, and
strained to imagine what sort of connection to Eno could provoke this reaction in his boss. Veraline
turned to the two angels facing off at the center of the rooftop. “I think there’s something else
happening here.”
Verlaine stared at Evangeline and Eno for a moment, as if considering their actions with the eye of