Clock Egg given to Grace Kelly on her wedding day, and one of the most elaborate and lovely of
Fabergé’s eggs, a masterpiece made with the quatre couleur technique of gold, diamonds, and royal
blue and opalescent white enamel. Most interesting is the diamond-encrusted serpent coiled around
the base, its head and tail pointing to the hour on the face of the clock—the ouroboros, the symbol of
eternal renewal and immortality.”
“But what does that have to do with a chemical wedding?” Vera asked. “Especially considering the
fact that Monsieur Philippe’s sole legacy was Alexandra’s phantom pregnancy.”
Valko smiled and said, “Bear with me. The quest of the alchemist, once upon a time, was to find
the Philosopher’s Stone, which supposedly had the power to turn base metals into gold. This has been
discredited many times over as an impossible dream of the avaricious and mad. But the Philosopher’s
Stone also signified another human desire, a longing so universal, so persistent in culture and
mythology as to be considered integral to the human psyche: The Philosopher’s Stone was believed to
be a panacea with properties that could grant eternal life.”
“The Elixir of Life,” Azov said.
Valko continued. “It has gone by many names throughout history: Aab-Haiwan, Maha Ras, Chasma-
i-Kausar, Amrita, Mansorovar, Soma Ras. The earliest written records of such a phenomenon emerge
in China and denote a substance that is made of liquid gold. In Europe the substance often took on the
properties of water, and many well-known drinks that soothed the body were called Water of Life, in
French eau de vie, in Gaelic whiskey. There is a biblical precedent to this as well in John 4:14: ‘But
whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in
him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. ’”
“Is that what you’re growing up here in your garden, Raphael?” Azov asked. “While the rest of us
work to fight the Nephilim, you’re concerned about self-preservation?”
“It is not surprising that I would exploit the resources at my disposal to stay alive,” Valko said, his
voice soothing. “But I’m afraid that you’re missing the point, my friend, when you say that this is not
engaging in our fight. From the moment Vera removed Rasputin’s book from her satchel, I knew what
you had come here to do.”
Valko pressed open the book and Vera saw his long fingers frame the heart symbol that had
inspired them to travel to Smolyan in the first place.”
“I can imagine the sequence perfectly,” Valko said. “You correctly deciphered Rasputin’s silphium
symbol here. And then you turned a few pages and determined that Valkine was all you needed to re-
create the medicine of Noah. Voilà, here you are in my home, waiting for it all to come together. But I
would like you to take a step back and consider the language of this volume on the whole—including
Tatiana’s illustration of the egg and ouroboros. OUR FRIEND, both Monsieur Philippe and Grigory
Rasputin, were heavily immersed in the sexual and mystical properties of the alchemist tradition.
Their Book of Flowers is much more than a recipe book for the medicine of Noah. In language,
symbol, and aesthetic, it is a paean to the chemical wedding—the apotheosis of alchemy, the height of
human spiritual aspiration. To understand Angela’s interest in the Russian artifact, you must consider
its symbols and Enochian jargon on a metaphoric plane, a moral plane—even an anagogical plane.”
Something clicked in Vera’s mind. Just twenty-four hours earlier she herself had lectured Verlaine
and Bruno on Angela’s Jungian approach to the society’s most revered texts. “This Book of Flowers
was her Jacob’s Ladder,” Vera said, reaching for the journal.
“I could not have chosen a more apt analogy myself,” Valko said, releasing the book into her hands
and walking to an oak armoire from which he removed a thick collection of folders. “This
extraordinary collection of firsthand accounts of Rasputin’s life was smuggled out of the USSR. It
was my daughter who first found the files more than twenty years before I bought it, during her search
for documentation about Rasputin. She read through it and then buried it in a Soviet paper graveyard
when she was done. Angela had hoped to find some mention of the flower book. There was nothing at
all, but she did find allusions to Rasputin’s friendship with an herbalist. This man practiced medicine,
Tibetan medicine in particular. Badmaieff, as he was called, had the honor of making tinctures for the