possibility, to help other angelologists to understand the secret structures the Nephilim are building.”
Another man stepped into the frame, and Verlaine was startled to see a young Vladimir Ivanov.
Verlaine calculated that he had encountered Vladimir in New York nearly twenty years after this film
was made. In 1999 Vladimir’s whole manner had been that of a man exhausted by life; in the 1984
film he was a man fully energized by his work. Next to Vladimir was a woman Verlaine did not
recognize. She wore a white lab coat over a brown dress. She was so still, so statuesque in her
manner, that Verlaine hardly registered her presence.
“That is Nadia,” Bruno whispered. “Vladimir’s wife, a lab tech who assisted Angela in her work.
After Angela’s murder, she quit her work at the academy. When Vladimir left for New York, she
didn’t go with him.”
Verlaine turned back to the film just as Vladimir was putting his arms around the angel’s chest and
lifting it from the hook. The creature was unwieldy—at least two feet taller than the men in the room
with it. Struggling, it hissed, its body contracting and writhing as Vladimir bound it to the chair, the
ropes cinching tighter as it moved. The creature’s wings hung outside of the stays, falling limp as bat
wings until suddenly, in desperation, the angel thrust them open, striking Angela in the face and
slamming her against the wall. Verlaine’s urge to protect Angela, to pull her away from the creature,
felt even stronger than before, a feeling mirrored by Luca: The camera jolted and wavered, then
stabilized as Luca set it onto the table and rushed into the frame. He grabbed the creature, wrenched
the wings closed, and, holding the angel steady, assisted Vladimir in binding the wings.
“Let’s get on with this,” Angela said, her voice hardened. The left side of her face had been
scratched. She pulled a chair close to the bound angel, balanced a notebook on her lap, and tapped a
pen against the paper. The metallic click of the spring pounded an even rhythm as Angela spoke.
“Interrogation of Nephil male, 1984, Montparnasse, Paris.”
Angela glanced at Luca, as if to check that he was filming the exchange, and then turned her
attention back to the angel. “The creature was captured on the rue de Rivoli at approximately 1:30 A.M.,
and injected with ketamine en route to our facilites in Montparnasse. Preliminary observations
suggest the creature to be between two hundred and three hundred years old, with the characteristics
of all Nephilim. Initial attempts to interview the subject were fruitless. He remains unresponsive.”
Angela looked at the angel, and Luca followed with the camera. The creature stared at his
interrogator through narrowed eyes. His face was flushed with anger, and his breathing—whether
from the cinch of the ropes or the strain of fury—came in labored bursts. Veins snaked over his skin,
as if they might explode with the pressure of his blood.
Angela looked at him with a cold, clinical eye and said, “Are you ready to begin?”
The creature’s nostrils flared. He displayed a level of belligerence consistent with Nephilim of his
rank and heritage. Verlaine recognized the insouciant, indignant anger of the fallen angel. Although he
had not read Milton for years, he couldn’t help but think of Lucifer—the brightest star of heaven—
falling to the depths of the earth, undone by beauty and pride.
“Speak, beast,” Vladimir said, stepping behind the angel and tightening the ropes.
The creature closed his eyes and said, “If words were shields, my voice would rally to my
defense.” His words seemed to float upon his light, buoyant voice, its tone taken from the pure
registers of the angels.
“Riddles will get you nowhere,” Vladimir said.
“Then I will remain stationary for the time being,” the creature said.
Vladimir assessed the angel and, with a swift movement, slapped him across the face. A stream of
blue blood slid over his lips and chin and dripped onto his chest. He smiled a vicious, devilish smile,
one filled with arrogance. “Do you really believe pain is an effective method? I have lived through
things you cannot begin to imagine.”
Angela stood, placed the notebook and pen on the chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and said
to Luca, “Perhaps he’ll be more cooperative if I speak to him by myself.”
The camera moved abruptly, and Luca—setting the device onto a table, leaving Angela and the
angel in view—stepped into the frame. “There is no way I’m leaving you alone with this thing,” he
said.
Angela placed her hand on his arm, as if to assuage his worries. “He can’t do much under the