Russia. From the lexicon of angels Verlaine owned, he knew that the Raiphim were phoenixlike
monsters who rose again and again from the dead. They were known as “the dead ones” for their pale
pink eyes and their ability to return to their bodies after death. He had never seen one up close. He
found them ghoulish, their pallor that of bloodless flesh.
Verlaine blinked as the passenger side door opened and a second Raiphim emerged. One of the
Russian hunters ran at the first creature, aimed, and kicked, trying for the chest. A second hunter
stunned it from behind. The beast collapsed onto the pavement, gasping for breath, as a third angel
hunter leaped onto the felled creature and slapped a collar around its neck.
“Easy does it,” Bruno called. “They come back stronger and meaner if you kill them.”
Verlaine saw, from the corner of his eye, that the Russians had cornered the second Raiphim. A
hunter lunged forward and grabbed one of its stalky wings. The creature struggled and fell backward,
its wings whipping through the air. In the frenzy, it sliced a gash across the exposed skin below the
hunter’s motorcycle helmet. He gasped and fell to the pavement, holding a gloved hand to the wound.
The creature moved in, sensing weakness, and—just as he was about to come down on the wounded
man—Verlaine stepped between them, trying to hold him off. The monster struck Verlaine and his
mouth filled with fresh blood. He spit, trying to clear the taste. The creature was coming at him a
second time when one of the Russian hunters slapped a collar around its neck. As if a switch had been
flipped, the angel fell to the ground, its wings folding under it.
The twins stood at the center of the road, watching the fight with cool detachment. They were exact
replicas of Percival Grigori—not the decrepit Percival Verlaine had known in New York City ten
years before but the young and healthy Percival from Angela Valko’s film. He studied them,
perplexed, wondering who they were and how it had happened that there was no record of them
anywhere. According to Bruno—and to the rest of the hunters who relied on profiling—if a creature
didn’t exist in their database, it didn’t exist at all.
Whoever these Nephilim were, Eno was serving them. She stepped forward, protecting them, her
wings outstretched. The twins allowed her to shield them, standing at a remove, watching the angel
hunters with growing alarm.
“They’re looking for something,” Bruno said, scanning the crowd.
Verlaine glanced over the plaza, hoping to find a backup team of angelologists ready to fight. They
were at the very heart of St. Petersburg, across from the Hermitage, a location that complicated
matters. There would be police there any minute, and Verlaine couldn’t be sure that they would be
friendly. The sky began to glow pink with twilight in the background, smoky and dim. Lights around
the square were coming on, throwing a pale, eerie glow over the Winter Palace, its stone creamy as
white chocolate.
Bruno was right: Eno was looking for something. Wiping blood from his eyes, Verlaine tried to
anticipate what she would do next. If she were waiting for other Emim, it would be next to impossible
to fight them. If they hoped to find Evangeline, they would need to take Eno down carefully, without
killing her. They approached in tandem, one man on each side, Verlaine centering his attention on
Eno.
“If you manage to get the egg,” Bruno whispered, “get on the motorcycle and get the hell out of
here. Don’t stay to help and don’t look back.”
Motioning for the hunters to follow him, Verlaine closed in. When Eno didn’t back away, Verlaine
made a grab for the egg, hazarding a guess that it was in a pocket of her cape, and hit the jackpot. He
scooped it up, feeling its cold weight in his hand, and made his way toward his motorcycle. As he
threw his leg over the bike, he felt a cold shadow fall over him, an icy sensation that penetrated his
clothes and chilled him to the bone. Suddenly, quick as a viper striking its prey, Eno pulled him to the
ground. He pulled his gun from his belt, aiming it at her chest and—although she was moving and he
couldn’t be certain of his shot—pulling the trigger. A burst of electricity knocked the gun from his
hands, eliminating all hope for a second shot, but he could tell from the strength of the surge that he
wouldn’t need one.
He had stunned her. She clasped her arms over her chest, moaning in pain. A female angel hunter—
Verlaine guessed her to be one of their elite by the skillful way she reacted—threw him a collar.
Verlaine opened it and went for Eno’s neck. He had been trained to act quickly, to disarm while the