loupe to the writing, I was able to make out the names ALEXEI and LUCIEN, but the third word was written in
such a messy scrawl that I refused to accept the word my eyes deciphered: EVANGELINE. I removed the tiny
stopper of this third vessel and brought it to my nose. The smell was distinctly sanguine, sweet and
metallic at once, but still I could not believe that Godwin had kept a vial of my daughter’s blood.
After returning to my own workspace with a number of the most illustrative photographs—as well
as Gabriella’s red book and the Hen egg—I phoned Vladimir Ivanov, who aside from working
closely with Luca, has aided me in a number of projects relating to Russian Nephilim. I asked him to
bring his wife, Nadia, my assistant, who I knew to be an expert on tsarist antiquities, including
Fabergé’s eggs. Vladimir and Nadia joined me straightaway. As I began to run tests on the blood,
Nadia explained that the egg in Godwin’s possession—with its golden bird hatching from the center
—symbolized the hunt for the savior, the new creature that would arrive to liberate our planet.
Glancing through the stack of photographs, Vladimir explained that the violence of the images was not
at all unusual—the Nephilim reproduced through such extreme practices—but that he had never seen
it documented with such attention. I listened as I analyzed the blood, trying to understand how the
elements before me fit together.
The vials made an especially fascinating trio. By far the oldest of the three was the Alexei sample
—much of the blood had dried out and crusted black against the glass—but it was also the most
straightforward: Nephilistic through and through. The contents of the vial marked LUCIEN, on the other
hand, defied categorization. The color was a far richer blue than the Nephilistic cerulean—more like
the indigo prized by the elite of Rome—and bore none of the typical traces of human physiognomy.
Had I not been so anxious about the sample taken from my daughter, I would have begun to run more
complex tests on it. But it was the third and final vessel—the vial labeled EVANGELINE—that commanded
my full attention.
It was clear that the crimson blood was human, and yet, at the same time, there were abnormalities
atypical of Nephilistic contamination: The level of iron was extraordinarily high, and there was no
potassium present at all, which would be strange under any circumstance—no human being can live
without potassium present in the blood. I myself had authorized Merlin Godwin to run tests on
Evangeline’s blood—we had been monitoring her for years—but he had never disclosed such
obvious abnormalities to me. In fact, he had always claimed that her blood was human, without the
slightest taint of Nephil characteristics. The conclusion I am forced to draw from this revelation is
particularly shocking to me: Godwin has been taking samples of my daughter’s blood covertly and
using the blood for his own perverse purposes.
Dr. Raphael Valko’s compound, Smolyan, Bulgaria
Vera followed Valko into a squat stone building at the west end of the courtyard, Azov and Sveti
following close behind. Inside, she found a large room illuminated by gas lamps and filled with
ropes, boots, and belts with rock hammers. Windbreakers and backpacks had been piled on a couch,
and a large map of the Rhodopes hung on the wall, its surface filled with colored pins. From the state
of disorder it was clear that visitors were a rare phenomenon. As she looked over the mess, she
realized that she was exhausted. The few hours of sleep she’d had on the plane weren’t enough to
sustain her. The mission was beginning to wear on her.
“My explorations have taken me to nearly every part of these mountains,” Valko said, seeing
Vera’s interest in the map. “I left the Paris academy after Angela’s death because, quite frankly, I
couldn’t bear to be reminded of her. But I’ve come to realize that there was another reason I left: I
needed to go back to the source of my work, the inspiration for all of my efforts.”
Running his finger over the map, he stopped at the Devil’s Throat Cavern.
“My major discoveries have always occurred when I returned to the original dwelling places of
the Nephilim—the Alps, or the Pyrenees, or the Himalayas.”
“Or the Rhodopes,” Azov said.
“Correct. The places most important to the creatures are always located in the remotest regions of
the earth, away from human eyes.”
A door opened and a girl walked into the room. She appeared to be between ten and twelve years
old and wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a pale yellow sweater that matched her bobbed blond hair. She