let you take my blood—why?”
“Ah, you are curious about motives. For me the psychological component of my work with you—
the reasons for extracting your blood, the feelings of your mother when she subjected you, her only
child, to such exams—is uninteresting to me, to say the least. My work is a razor, cutting through the
unnecessary padding of human existence. Feelings, emotional attachments, maternal love—this means
nothing at all here in my lab. But, as you are interested in questions of ‘why,’ let me show you
something that might fascinate you.”
Godwin walked to his microscope and, after a clinking of glass plates—the changing of slides
under a lens—a new image appeared on the ceiling.
“These are the very unsophisticated images I captured of your blood, and your mother’s blood,
thirty years ago. It is amazing that I could work with such images at all, they are so imprecise.
Technology has changed everything, of course.” Godwin walked to the table and stood by
Evangeline’s side. “You cannot see the details, but if you were to look closely, you would note the
vast difference between your mother’s blood and your own. Your mother was not an angelic creature.
She was the child of Percival Grigori and a human woman. The angelic genes were, in her case,
recessive, and she always gave the impression of being human. She looked like her father, but her
appearance was just a shell for a wholly human organism. This can be seen in the genetic sequence.”
Godwin stepped sideways, so that he was under the second image. “Your blood, however, was
instantly recognizable to me—and to your mother as well—as something quite different, something
special. It is not at all like your mother’s mixed blood. Nor is it like your grandmother Gabriella’s
human blood.”
“But you said that my DNA was identical to theirs,” Evangeline said, squinting to see the image.
“Your mitochondrial DNA is identical,” Godwin said. “But it is not your mitochondrial DNA that
interests me. No, it is the genetic inheritance you received from your father that made you what you
are.”
Evangeline closed her eyes, trying to understand what Godwin meant. She could see Luca walking
at her side, filled with restless energy. He had done everything in his power to take her away from the
Nephilim, to protect her, and for this she had always seen him as a man with extraordinary powers.
But, in reality, her father was an ordinary human man, with ordinary human characteristics. Godwin
must be mistaken. What she had inherited from Luca could not be measured in her blood.
La Vieille Russie, Antiquaire, St. Petersburg
From the moment Bruno saw her in the film—her quiet, thoughtful demeanor obscured by the
brighter, more vivid personality of Angela Valko—he suspected that she had all the qualities of the
perfect witness, one who watched and listened with great care, filing her experiences away. As
Vladimir’s wife, she was both inside and outside of the action, allowing her to bear witness from the
sidelines. The trick would be to handle the situation the right way. Verlaine could hardly contain his
impatience with the situation, while Vera remained aloof, pretending that Nadia was some minor
player. Verlaine he understood, but Bruno didn’t know if he could trust Vera yet, and so he monitored
her reactions carefully. The best agents were often the most duplicitous.
Nadia pointed to the inside of the album cover. There was a copper plate with an inscription
embossed at its center, the words twisting through the patina with swirling flourishes: To OUR FRIEND, with
love, OTMA, Tsarskoye Selo.
“You see this?” Nadia said. “OTMA was the collective name for the four Romanov grand
duchesses: Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia, all of whom were brutally murdered with the tsar
and tsarina in 1917. Apparently the girls used to sign cards and letters with this collective name, and
when their brother, Alexei, was young, he referred to his pack of older sisters as OTMA.” She paged
through the album and pulled out a black-and-white photograph.
All four of the girls struck Bruno as remarkably beautiful, with their wide expressive eyes and
white linen dresses, their pale complexions and curled hair. What a crime it was to have murdered
such lovely creatures.
“Anyone who knows even the rudimentary facts about the Romanov family could tell you the
meaning of OTMA,” Nadia continued, running her finger over the copper plate. “But understanding
the nickname Our Friend is a bit more complicated.”
“Complicated by what?” Verlaine asked, his manner filled with impatience.
Bruno shot Verlaine a warning look— Cool off and let the woman speak—before turning back to