“Come, come, have some water,” he said, when she opened her eyes once more. Smiling, he
poured water over her lips, letting it drip over her chin. The drugs were effective. Even if the straps
were loosened she wouldn’t have the strength to lift her head.
“Do you remember me?” he whispered, caressing her arm with his finger. When it was clear that
Evangeline had no clue who he was, he added, his voice little more than a whisper. “It was so long
ago, but surely you recall how you came to see me with your mother.”
At Angela Valko’s request, Godwin had handled the scheduling of the visits, asking only that he
organize the sessions with Evangeline when the lab was empty. As a result, they had met early in the
morning or later in the evening, when the others had left the building. He had examined Evangeline
himself, taking her pulse, listening to her breathe. He couldn’t help being moved at how the stolid
Angela Valko, renowned for her sangfroid in the most unnerving situations, held her daughter close,
steadying the girl’s trembling body as the needle slid into the vein, the bright vermilion blood drawn
swiftly into the barrel of the syringe. The clinical nature of the procedure seemed to reassure Angela
but not Evangeline—she had an instinctual fear that seemed to Godwin to belong less to a little girl
than to a wild animal caught in a cage.
During each session, Angela watched the procedure with rapt attention, and Godwin could never
tell if she felt anxiety or curiosity, if she secretly hoped to discover something unusual in the blood.
But there was never anything at all unusual about the results when they came back from the lab. Still,
Godwin had kept a sample from each session, labeling the vials and locking them in his medical case.
“Your mother insisted on the exams herself,” Godwin whispered, dabbing a drop of water from
Evangeline’s chin. “And although she demonstrated a reasonable concern for your well-being, it’s
difficult to understand the motives of a mother subjecting her own child to such invasive scrutiny.
Unless, of course, she was not entirely human.”
Evangeline tried to speak. She had been heavily drugged. Although her voice was weak, and she
could not focus her eyes, Godwin understood her when she said, “But my mother was human.”
“Yes, well, Nephilistic traits can appear in a human being, manifesting like a cancer,” Godwin
said, walking to a table of medical instruments. A series of scalpels, the edges of varying acuity, lay
in a line as if waiting for him. He chose one—not the sharpest but not the dullest either—and returned
to Evangeline. “Both you and your mother appeared to be human, but angelic qualities could have—
how shall I say it?—blossomed in you like a black and noxious flower. No one can say for sure why
it happens, and it is quite rare for a human-born creature to transform, but it has occurred in the past.”
“And if there had been a change?” Evangeline asked.
“I would have been very pleased to have seen this happen,” Godwin said, his fingers rolling the
scalpel. Once upon a time he had been Angela’s most prized student, the first in years to be granted
his own laboratory, and the only one to be taken into her confidence. What she had not considered,
and what he had not allowed her to see, was the extent of his ambition. “Unfortunately, neither of you
showed signs of being anything but human. Your blood was red, for example, and you were born with
a navel. But if you had changed, or shown signs of changing, and the angelologists had discovered
this, you would have been handled in the usual fashion.”
“Which is?”
“You would have been studied.”
“You mean to say that we would have been killed.”
“You did not know your mother well,” Godwin said, lightly. “She was above all else a scientist.
Angela would have applauded the rigorous empirical study of any one of the creatures. She allowed
you to be tested. Indeed, she pushed to have you studied.”
“And if I were one of them?” Evangeline asked. “Would she have sacrificed me?”
Godwin wanted to smile. He bit his lip instead, and concentrated upon the cold metal of the
scalpel. “It makes no difference what she would have wanted. If there had been any sign of a genetic
likeness to the Nephilim, and the society was alerted to this fact, you would have been removed from
your mother’s care.”
Evangeline strained against the leather straps. “My mother would have resisted.”
“That her father was a Grigori was completely unknown at the time. Her heritage was hidden—
from herself, from other agents—out of necessity. Your grandmother Gabriella understood that if it