Angelopolis(6)

for weeks. Eno had reported everything back to Axicore. He learned that Evangeline was short, thin,

dark haired, and utterly human in appearance. She lived simply, did not exhibit her wings, had no

Nephilistic contacts, and spent the majority of her time moving among normal human beings. She bore

none of the typical characteristics of the Nephilim, nor any of the various identifying markings that ran

through purebreds, much less the Grigori family traits.

The contrast between them could be drawn by a simple comparison with his own bearing, a perfect

exemplar of the Grigori. He was a head taller than human beings, his skin fine and pale, and his eyes

white blue. He dressed impeccably, as did Armigus—they often wore matching attire and never the

same suit twice. That morning’s shipment had come from their grandfather Arthur’s favorite Savile

Row tailor, the brushed velvet smooth and black as the coat of a jaguar. With their elegant clothing

and thick blond hair that fell over their shoulders in a chaos of curls, the twins were stunning,

classically handsome, startling enough to make the most beautiful women stop and stare, especially on

the exceedingly rare occasions that the twins went out into the human world together. In this they

resembled all the Grigori men, and the late Percival Grigori in particular. The twins were princes

among peasants their mother used to say, regal creatures forced to walk the earth, drawn into the

material plane when they should be among the ethereal beings in the heavenly spheres.

Of course, with the dilution of their race over the past millennia, such physical traits were only

superficial. The true markings of the Nephilim were more subtle and complicated than that of

complexion, eye color, and body type. If Evangeline was, in fact, Sneja’s flesh and blood, Axicore

concluded, she was the ugliest Grigori ever born.

Tapping a long, white finger on the window glass, Axicore tried to put aside his repulsion and

concentrate upon the task at hand. He had retrieved Eno from an establishment on the Champs-

Élysées, and although she sat next to him in the limousine, she was so silent, so ghostly, that he barely

registered her presence. He admired her enormously, thought her one of the most fierce Emim he had

ever seen, and—although he would never openly admit this—found her much more attractive than

most lower angelic creatures. Indeed, Eno was a beautiful killing machine, one he admired and

secretly feared, but not the most clever angel in the heavenly spheres. Her outbursts of rage could be

violent. He had to handle her with care. And so it was with some delicacy that Axicore resumed the

explanation he had begun on the phone. Eno had made a grave error. Evangeline was alive.

“You’re certain?” Eno said, the yellow fire of her eyes piercing the lenses of her dark sunglasses.

“Because I never make mistakes.”

She was angry, and Axicore wanted to use her ferocity to his advantage. “Absolutely certain,” he

said. “And I’m not the only one—an angelologist is hunting her at this very moment. An angel hunter.”

Eno took off her sunglasses, the light from her eyes breaking through the darkness. “Have you

identified him?”

“One of the typical crew,” Axicore said, feeling uneasy at the thought of what she would do to this

angel hunter if she caught him. Axicore had seen Eno’s victims. Such gruesome violence almost

evoked his sympathy.

“We’ll take care of this now,” Eno said, sliding her sunglasses back over her eyes. “And then we

will go home. I want to get out of this horrid city.”

Axicore sat back in his seat, remembering his childhood in Russia. They would leave their city

apartments and spend months in the Crimea, where their family estate stood at the edge of the water.

The Grigori clan would gather for tea, and he and his brother would unfurl their wings—great golden

wings that shimmered like sheets of pounded foil—and lift themselves into the air, performing tricks

for their adoring relations. They would do twists and turns and acrobatics that elicited the approval of

the older generation, four-hundred-year-old Nephilim who had given up on such athletic

maneuverings long before. Their parents were there, dressed entirely in white, gazing up with pride.

They were the golden children of an ancient family. They were young, beautiful, with all of creation

at their feet. There seemed to be nothing at all that could bring them down to earth.

Passage de la Vierge, seventh arrondissement, Paris

Verlaine felt a cold presence deep in the shadows of the passage and knew that Evangeline was

there, standing in the darkness, so close he could feel the icy chill of her breath against his neck.