classification of angelic systems. Lucien is derived from the highest order.”
“Is he here, in these mountains?” Vera asked, fixing Valko in her gaze, noting the determination
with which he spoke about Lucien, the ambition that burned in his eyes. It had been only days since
she had revisited the photographs Seraphina Valko had taken of the Watcher. That she might actually
see such a creature in the flesh, might touch it and speak to it, was hard to believe.
Valko nodded, an air of pride in his manner. “I gave him a room here, in my cabin, but he was
never able to stay there. He would leave to wander through the Rhodopes, spending days and then
weeks in the canyons. I would find him at the summit of a mountain, luminescent as a ray of sunshine,
singing praises to the heavens, and then I would find him in the caves, in a trance of introspection.
And so I took him down into the Devil’s Throat, where he has stayed for many years. Perhaps it is the
proximity of his fellow angels, but he finds comfort there, close to the Watchers. There is something
in his soul that finds peace in this circle of hell.”
The Seventh Circle
VIOLENCE
Smolyan, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria
Valko stepped into his hiking boots, bent over, and tied the laces. Spring in the mountains was cold,
and they would need heavy jackets and gloves to keep warm. He went into the greenhouse and found a
number of Gore-Tex parkas. He went to a metal cabinet, unlocked the doors, and began pulling out
tiny lacquered boxes, spoons fashioned of different metals, a mortar and pestle, and a number of glass
jars and put them carefully in his backpack. He wrapped a portable gas burner in a cloth and added it
to his supplies. Everything necessary had to be brought into the cavern.
As he zipped his jacket, he turned to the others, sizing them up. He distributed the parkas, and gave
everyone a cap and a pair of gloves. Both Sveti and Vera were potentially worrisome. Although trim
and tanned from her work on the Black Sea, Sveti was a linguist, whose greatest physical exertion
was the moving of books from one shelf to another, and—if he was a good judge of character—Vera
wasn’t much different. Neither of them had the training or the strength for a real expedition.
He tried to remember that he’d been a novice himself once too, and that he needed to be patient
with his younger colleagues. His first expeditions were in the Pyrenees Mountains, where he and his
first wife, Seraphina, had fallen in love. They continued to find remains of the Nephilim in mountain
sites in the years following their marriage. Her work in the Rhodopes had changed everything for
them both. The discovery of Valkine, contact with the Watchers, the series of photographs Seraphina
had taken of a dead angel, and—their greatest achievement—the recovery of the lyre: Such advances
had never been made before, and although nearly seventy years had passed, he’d never reached such
heights again. He had remarried twice, but he’d never forgotten his brilliant Seraphina. Maybe it was
nostalgia for their time together, but he felt closer to her in the mountains than anywhere else.
They set off toward the peaks above Smolyan, walking within the thick forest. They would avoid
the village roads near Trigrad and descend to the Devil’s Throat from behind. He’d done it many
times over the past years, filling his backpack with a video camera so that he could record his
observations about the site. Only now he didn’t pack his notebooks or his camera. He knew that this
was his last trip into the cave.
The snow had melted in March, and they climbed over a bed of pine needles and rock, safe under
the cover of enormous evergreens. A patch of sunlight appeared overhead, sliding between the barren
branches of a linden tree and casting a golden gleam over the forest floor. He glanced over his
shoulder as they ascended, noting the smoke rising from the chimney of his stone house—the smoke
grew fainter and fainter, until it dissolved away completely.
The sun had climbed into the sky by the time they reached the Devil’s Throat. The rocky surface of
the mountain seemed silver in the brightness. Valko led the way up the steep rise of the mountain and
through a dense patch of forest. Beyond the overgrown bramble stood the large, dark cave. Once,
many years before, this had been a much revered entrance to the Devil’s Throat. Thracians had
created shrines here; myths and legends grew around the site. The local people believed that Orpheus
descended to the underworld from the cave and that devils lived in the labryinthian structures deep
below it. Anyone who entered would be cursed, lost to life aboveground, forever mired in darkness.
Approaching the entrance, Valko remembered the first time he had seen it. It had seemed to him to