Angelopolis(24)

“Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy,” Verlaine said. The passage was from what had become a

veritable mantra of the angelologists, a text that referred to to a geological formation called the

Devil’s Throat Cavern, the mountainous cave where the Watchers were imprisoned, and where,

angelologists believed, they waited still for their release. He stepped closer, to get a better look at the

inscription, and saw that someone had written the words Dad’s translation next to the passage.

“Any ideas?” Verlaine asked Vera.

“This is an early draft of Dr. Raphael Valko’s translation of the Venerable Clematis’s notebook,

which was written during the First Angelic Expedition. The most obvious reference of the passage is

to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice—Orpheus rescued his beloved, but at the point of leaving

Hades, or Tartarus, he turned back and lost her forever. But Angela Valko thought that this passage

referred not just to the myth of Orpheus—and his lyre, which was recovered in the Devil’s Throat

Cavern, as you very well know—but to a spiritual journey, the emergence of the individual mind from

the darkness of self to find a higher purpose.”

“You make Angela sound like some kind of Sufi mystic,” Bruno said.

“True, she was a bit unusual,” Vera said. “Although a die-hard scientist, she interpreted much of

her work as part of a spiritual journey, believing that the material world was the expression of the

unconscious, and that this collective unconsciousness was God. The word of God brought forth the

universe, and each human being has access to this original language through the unconscious. You

might call her a Jungian, I suppose, but there was a history of such mysticism long before Carl Jung.

In any case, Angela was interested in this passage for its verticality—the upward trajectory from the

pit to the sky, from darkness to light, from hell to heaven. Each step up brought the seeker out of chaos

and into a place of beauty and order.”

“Like Jacob’s Ladder,” Verlaine said.

“Or,” Vera said, turning the flashlight into a room, “a passionate collector.”

Verlaine could hardly believe his eyes. There, displayed in glass cases, was an incredible

collection of eggs—thousands of varieties of bird eggs: plain bird eggs glazed with paint; dodo eggs

cut apart and labeled; robin’s eggs preserved in formaldehyde, with the chick still curled against the

shell, delicate as a bean in a pod. There were crystal eggs, jeweled eggs, eggs from the courts of

Denmark and France. The assortment was singular and obsessive, qualities that piqued Verlaine’s

curiosity.

“The egg you showed me in the research center would fit very nicely here, don’t you think?” Vera

asked.

“Perfectly,” Bruno said under his breath. “Where did they come from?”

“I haven’t uttered a word about this to anyone,” Vera said, “but I don’t come down here to simply

admire the eggs. I believe the fact that Angela Valko had one of Fabergé’s eggs in her possession—

and found a way to catalog the egg in our archives—is more than just a coincidence.”

“You can’t seriously think there is a connection between one of our best scientists and this

collection,” Bruno said.

“Quite,” Vera responded crisply. “I won’t bore you with my research any more than necessary, but

one of my pet projects at the moment has to do with Nephilim reproduction. It just so happens that

once upon a time egg births were common among the purest breeds, their offspring superior in

strength, beauty, agility, and intelligence.”

Verlaine’s eyes fell upon an illustration from Albrecht Dürer’s famous Manual of Measurement

propped up among the eggs. He had heard of Dürer’s theory of the egg line, and his obsession with

the egg, with its perfect euclidean shape, as the vessel through which pure angels were born. Verlaine

had dismissed the idea. It seemed to him that when angelologists couldn’t prove their work with hard

facts, they fell to creating airy theories. He wasn’t sure whether Vera’s support of such an idea

granted it credence or if it proved that she was out of her mind.

Vera continued. “Many of the royal families in Europe longed for an egg-born heir, and they mated

with this in mind, arranging marriages with other royal families based on their reproductive

prospects. Nevertheless, as time went on, Nephilim eggs became more and more rare.”

“Enter Carl Fabergé,” Verlaine said.

“Indeed,” Vera replied. “Clearly, the Romanovs were not immune to the ostentatious fuss over the