Lucien continued. “Your story is famous in heaven and on earth. God imprisoned you. You have
waited for him to grant you reprieve, to bring you back to him. And now you are free. Come with me
to the surface. We will celebrate together. We will sing praises to heaven together. We will fight and
kill the enemy together.”
An angel stepped forward from the band of Watchers. He wore a silver robe, and his wings—
majestic white wings that matched Lucien’s—were wrapped about his shoulders. “Brother, we are
preparing for battle.”
“There is no fight between us,” Lucien said.
“Not with you, but with them,” the Watcher said, gesturing to Vera and Sveti. “They are the cause
of our fall from favor.”
“No,” Lucien said. “The war is between the Nephilim and human beings. We, pure creatures, made
of light at the beginning of time, do not notice the childish battles between them.”
Another Watcher stepped forward. “But the Nephilim are our children.”
“They are the result of your great sin against heaven,” Lucien said. “Accepting them is denying
your guilt.”
“He’s correct,” another Watcher said. “We must throw them back, deny the Nephilim, redeem
ourselves.”
“Come, now,” Lucien said, stepping toward the band of fallen angels. “We are made of the same
airy material, there is no stain of human reason in you. Join me. Together we will rehabilitate you.
Soon you will shine in the image of the highest angels. The creatures of the sun will meet the creatures
of the shadows. Beings of the ether will fight side by side with beings of the pit. Angels, prepare! The
war is soon upon us.”
Suddenly, a blinding light filled the cavern. Vera felt a wave of heat fall over her, glutinous and
sticky, as if she’d fallen into boiled tar. She heard Azov cry out in pain, and then the sickening,
beating movement of wings. Valko was out of the boat and wading toward the shore when a second
blast of searing heat seized her, this one more intensely painful than the first, as if her skin had been
peeled away in one clean sweep. Crouching to the ground, she tried to escape the pain ripping through
her body. Once she’d felt tremendous fear about dying. She had tried to imagine how she would fight
if she came up against one of the creatures. She had believed that she would find courage, that she
would lose herself in the battle, but she felt nothing of the sort now. There was only the simple truth
of her life and her death, the base reality of translating herself from one state of being into another.
• • •
The moment Vera woke it seemed to her that she had died and emerged on the other side of existence,
as if Charon had in fact taken her across the deathly river Styx to the banks of hell. Emerging more
fully from sleep, a seizure of pain overwhelmed her. Her body felt stiff and hot, as if she had been
dipped in wax. A glowing flashlight hovered above her. She felt someone’s touch against her arm, a
soft yet insistent pressure on her body, and she knew two things: first, she was not dead yet, and
second, the angels had escaped.
Vera tried to sit up. The boat rocked in the still water. A wave of nausea overtook her, and she
threw up over the gunwale.
“Wait a sec,” Azov said, putting an arm about her. “Take it slow.”
She knew that something terrible had happened. She glanced past Azov and saw Dr. Raphael
Valko, curled upon the rock floor, burned beyond recognition. Azov walked to the body and gingerly
—as if afraid to disturb a sleeping child—took the vessel filled with Noah’s medicine from Valko’s
hands and slid it into his pocket.
“Dead,” Azov said, his voice little more than a whisper. “He got the full force of the light.”
“Where is Sveti?” Vera asked, glancing through the boat and beyond, into the frightfully still
cavern.
For the first time in her life, she saw Azov at a loss for words. He simply gestured out over the
water, his hand signifying the dark, silent recesses of the Devil’s Throat. His eyes brimmed with
tears. Vera wanted to say something but couldn’t find her voice. She hoped her silence would be
understood as a kind of vigil.
Azov cleared his throat. “Right now we have to concentrate on getting out of here. You’re hurt.
You need medical attention.”
Azov touched her arm, and she flinched. Her body was filled with a sharp, searing pain. Slowly,
and with great care, Azov helped her stand. As she leaned against him, she knew that her face was
burned.
“You’re in bad shape, Vera,” Azov said. “I don’t know how I’m going to get you over the river