McDonald’s marking the way. They passed dour concrete apartment buildings, a Lukoil station, and
any number of makeshift fruit-and-vegetable stands. Traffic was sparse, and Sveti took full advantage
of the open road, driving faster and faster. As they made their way south, the two-lane highway swung
out to the water’s edge, skirting the jagged coastline. They passed a shipping yard filled with
industrial barges and clusters of houses that seemed ready to tip into the water. The Black Sea glinted
in the sunlight, an enormous pool of green-blue, still and calm as a sheet of glass. The peculiarity of
the color, Sveti informed her, was due to a certain variety of algae that bloomed in the spring.
Normally the water was a steely gray, a shade more in keeping with its dark name.
“We’re nearly there,” Sveti said, turning off the highway and onto a winding road that overlooked
the water. A village rose before them, perched high on a promontory.
“Sozopol was once called Apollonia,” Sveti said. “The Greeks traded from the port, and it became
an important outpost on the Black Sea. Obviously much has changed since then: the Romans came,
and then the Ottomans, and then the Russians. I’ve been visiting this place since I was as a child,
when Sozopol was a small fishing village where families vacationed every summer.” Sveti slowed
on the winding road. “Then the village itself was contained on an arm of land that reaches into the
Black Sea. Since that time there has been massive development. Hotels and clubs have sprung up on
every vacant piece of land. A modern section of the town has taken over the opposite side of the bay.
It used to be a kind of paradise. Now, well, now it is like everything else: all about business. At least
it is still quiet in the spring.”
They drove along a harbor, past sailboats and fishing vessels, reams of net hanging from the sides.
Sveti stopped the jeep, cut the engine, and jumped out, gesturing for Vera to follow. She stretched,
feeling the sunlight on her skin. Suddenly the cold drafts of the wind from the Neva seemed a world
away.
Vera glanced up at the village. It rose behind the harbor, displaying a warren of narrow streets. She
studied a house poised upon the hill. The construction appeared to be ancient—the first floors were
built entirely of stone, windowless, as if to resist the onslaught of water, with a wooden second floor
that overhung the stone base. There was a small terrace laden with strings of drying peppers, bundles
of herbs, and wet laundry. An old woman stared down at them, a pipe hanging from her lips, her
hands crossed over her chest, incurious as to what was happening below.
Within minutes of their arrival a motorboat arrived at the water’s edge. Vera and Sveti climbed
aboard, took seats, and held tight to a metal railing on the boat’s edge. The driver turned the wheel
and the boat angled away from Sozopol as they headed into the calm waters of the Black Sea.
“The research center is on St. Ivan Island,” Sveti said, pointing to a landmass in the middle of the
bay, where a lighthouse sat at the highest point.
“The island was inhabited by Thracians between the fourth and seventh centuries B.C., but the
lighthouse—or an early version of it—wasn’t constructed until the Romans arrived in the first century
B.C. The island was considered holy, and has always been revered as a place of mystical discovery.
The Romans would have found temples and monastic chambers built by the Thracians. To their credit,
they preserved the nature of the island: A temple of Apollo was built and St. Ivan has remained a
place of contemplation, ritual, worship, and secrets.” Sveti said, “We’ll dock in a few minutes, which
leaves me just enough time to give you an update. As I understand it, you are well acquainted with Dr.
Azov, but perhaps it is best if we start from the beginning.”
“No need,” Vera said. “I know that Azov has occupied the center on St. Ivan Island for over three
decades—since before I was born. His outpost was created in the early eighties, when a body of
research pointed to the presence of well-preserved artifacts under the Black Sea. Before this,
angelologists stationed in Bulgaria worked near the Devil’s Throat in the Rhodope mountain chain,
where they monitored the buildup of Nephilim and, of course, acted as a barrier should the Watchers
escape. But as information came to light about the significance of the Black Sea—of Noah and the
sons of Noah, in particular—Azov petitioned for an outpost here as well.”
“Clearly you’ve followed his work,” Sveti said. “Yet I wonder if you or your colleagues are
aware that we are, at this very moment, working on the most exciting recovery project of the decade.”