Angelopolis(12)

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