eggs. Fabergé played on this obsession. His eggs were precious and intricate objects that, when
cracked open, revealed a surprise that spoke of the secret desires of kings—the most precious
surprise of all would be an heir hatched from an egg. The tradition of giving enameled eggs at Easter
stemmed from the imperial family’s longing for another such birth. Indeed, all the Nephilim of Russia
wanted an egg-hatched heir. Such an event would be prestigious, and would guarantee instant
advancement.”
“If this were the case, why aren’t we seeing eggs now?” Bruno asked.
“There’s no concrete answer to this question, but it seems that the Nephilim lost their ability to
create the eggs. There were no egg births after the seventeenth century, as far as I know, but that did
not kill hope. At the court of Louis XIV, there was such a fuss about the production of an egg that the
court confectioner created elaborate chocolate eggs and presented them to the king and queen at
Easter. The surprise at the center of the egg was something of an inside joke, one that the royal
families understood all too well. Suddenly eggs were everywhere. The fashion for eggs spread to the
masses. Ordinary human families began to color chicken eggs, and factories molded chocolate eggs
by the millions, some of which contained small toys inside, a direct reference to the surprise of the
jeweled eggs, which, of course, referred to the coveted angelic child. Human beings have copied
Nephilim habits without realizing that they were celebrating the hatching of their oppressors. It is a
great irony that chocolate eggs are now so common at Easter. When you eat a Cadbury egg you don’t
realize that you are following this tradition without understanding its origin, or the joke.”
“For Christians, the eggs symbolize the resurrection of Christ,” Bruno said. “There is nothing
Nephilistic about that.”
“On the surface this appears to be compatible with the Christian celebration of Easter,” Vera said.
“But if you look deeper you will see that the egg symbol has little to do with the church. The
decoration of eggs, the Orthodox practice of breaking eggs on Easter morning, the egg hunt—these are
all popular practices whose real origin is obscure. Of course, there is the pagan Germanic goddess
Eostre, whose feast day was celebrated in the spring, but ask the man on the street why he’s coloring
eggs at Easter, and he has no idea.”
“Wouldn’t there be Christmas eggs rather than Easter eggs?” Verlaine asked.
“Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’s human birth,” Vera said. “Easter, his second, spiritual,
immortal birth. One birth within the next. An egg within an egg.” Vera placed the flashlight on a table.
“Which brings us back to our purpose in this room. Someone—Angela Valko most likely—added the
metal card to the surprise at the heart of Fabergé’s Cherub with Chariot Egg. She intended for
whoever would discover the egg to watch the film stored in the archives.”
Vera walked to a gray plastic box at the far side of the room and carried it to the table. She flipped
a series of metal clasps and revealed an old film projector. Unwinding a cord, she plugged it into a
makeshift socket hanging from the wall, its wires dangerously exposed. An electric buzz hummed
through the projector, and, with a flip of a switch, a searing white light blazed onto the wall, cutting a
perfect square of light.
“Voilà,” she said. “Give me the reel of film.”
As Verlaine placed the film in Vera’s hand, he felt another tremor of anxiety. Perhaps it was filled
with nothing more than images of lab equipment, or, worse, it had been damaged and would spit out a
series of distorted and indecipherable images.
Vera locked the reel into place and fiddled with the levers until they were in the correct positions.
After feeding the film into the catch and turning the wheel so that it spooled, she pressed a button, and
the reels began to move. A flickering of sepia frames flashed over the limestone wall, and then, as if
by some feat of magic much stronger than any charm taught at the Academy of Angelology, Angela
Valko appeared before them.
Verlaine’s muscles stiffened at the sight of Evangeline’s mother, as if the electricity that powered
the projector had funneled itself through his spine. Angela’s face was serious, her blond hair tied
back in a ponytail, her large blue eyes staring into the camera, and into the eyes of the people who had
gathered together to try to understand the message she left behind.
Verlaine felt the irrational urge to speak to the woman on the wall, to reach out and touch the