insubstantial light that flickered in the dusty air, to draw close to the illusion. She was beautiful and—
Verlaine could only make the comparison now, after having seen Percival Grigori in person—a near
replica of her Nephilistic father. She wore a white lab jacket unbuttoned to reveal a black turtleneck.
The laboratory was sterile, orderly, with large glass windows and a polished concrete floor.
Droppers, tongs, tubes, and other equipment he couldn’t readily identify were arrayed on a shelf
behind her. A series of beakers had been placed at hand, some filled with liquid, others with
powders. Something flashed at her throat. Verlaine looked more closely until he made out a necklace
—the lyre pendant he’d touched only hours before—at her throat.
Suddenly Evangeline’s father stepped into the frame. Striking in his T-shirt and jeans, Luca looked
nothing like the man Verlaine had imagined him to be. In the film he was young and vibrant, filled
with energy and determination. He had long black hair that fell over his brow, tanned skin, dark eyes.
There was an aura of care in his movements—he stepped deeper into the frame and paused to be
certain everything was in place—but he had a buoyancy about him that seemed at odds with the
accounts Verlaine had heard. The founder of the angel hunter unit was, as legend had it, a darkly
laconic man, a warrior whose strategic mind allowed him to trap and kill angels with an ease most
angelologists found unnerving.
The couple exchanged a look of complicity—as if they had planned every last detail of the film—
and Luca leaned over and kissed Angela’s cheek, a quick gesture, one that he might have performed
without thought many times each day, but in the kiss it was clear how profoundly he had loved her.
A strange, guttural noise—half moan, half growl—caused Angela to turn. The camera, following
her gaze, panned over the lab and settled on a creature. The Nephil was suspended from a metal hook,
its feet dangling above the floor. Although the creature was male, the long, white-blond hair, narrow
shoulders, and elegant, tapering waist gave it a delicate beauty. Bright copper wings fell around its
body like the feathers of a dead bird. The creature had been stripped, perhaps beaten, most likely
sedated, as it seemed to be in a state of confusion.
As a captive of the flickering image, Verlaine was horrified and fascinated at once. It was beautiful
and grotesque, like a fairy caught in a spider’s web, its luminous skin creating the softest glow
through the glass. He recognized the honeylike liquid that oozed over its skin, sliding slowly over the
creature’s chest and legs, dripping from its suspended feet and pooling on the glass floor—it was the
same excretion that coated Evangeline’s skin when he’d touched her earlier. For an unsettling moment
he imagined how Evangeline would react to such bondage. Would she struggle if the ropes burned her
wrists? Would she fold her wings against her body like a shield as they interrogated her? Luca must
have beaten the creature—there was no other explanation for its condition—and it remained to be
seen whether he would resort to even more violent methods. A wave of nausea came over Verlaine,
and he wanted, suddenly, to walk out of the room and breathe the fresh cold air aboveground.
Angela Valko began to speak. “To those who object to our methods of obtaining information, I say
this: We can no longer submit to the moral code created two thousand years ago by our founding
fathers that requires us to fight with approved methods. We have acted with dignity, showing restraint
and judgment in our fight. As a result, our enemies have become more vicious than ever. They evolve
in their methods to harm us. We must, in turn, evolve in our methods of defense. Angelologists who
have worked with me, either in the academy or here at my laboratory, know that I am no reactionary.
My work has been a steady accumulation of facts gleaned through observation and experimentation. I
am a scientist, and I would prefer to be left in peace, to continue my work. My belief that the
Nephilim can be routed only by hard work over multiple human lifetimes hasn’t changed. But it is
clear that the reach of the creatures has grown and that we must respond. The angelic life-forms
around the globe multiply exponentially each year. The victory of the creatures over humanity is at
hand, and it seems that we must stand by and watch their ascendancy. We have fought too long and too
hard to lose our war against the Nephilim. I will not allow that to happen. It is to that end that I record
this communication. It is not an apology for what Luca and I intend to do but an attempt to demonstrate
our motives and, in the case of our deaths, which both Luca and I realize to be a very strong