floor, over the metallic steps leading up to the rings of cells, over the thick glass of the cells
themselves, giving the space the texture of an aquarium filled with exotic fish. Whenever the creatures
stood at the glass, pressing their incandescent hands against it, it seemed to Godwin as if thousands of
white starfish floated in a murky sea. At so many feet below the earth, there was no natural sunlight,
and so the creatures were suspended in a perpetual bath of neon. The absence of the rhythms of night
and day proved useful—the captured angels existed in a zone of timelessness, floating in a state of
suspension, where—Dr. Godwin imagined—a creature must mark the passing time by the slow,
shallow beating of its inhuman heart.
For the most part, his prisoners were unusable creatures, undesirables picked out and captured by
the Russian angelologists. Many were Nephilim affected by the virus that Angela Valko had
introduced into the angel population decades earlier; others had strong human characteristics,
physical and behavioral, that set them apart from the Nephilim ideal; others had betrayed their clans
by marrying a human being.
The irony of his position wasn’t lost on him. Godwin was working for the enemy, plain and simple.
There were Russian agents who had sold out to the Nephilim—he wasn’t unique by any stretch of the
imagination—but the extent of his betrayal was unprecedented. He blamed the baser elements of
human nature, of course. He was greedy, vain, and power hungry. He had helped to create an angelic
containment program far superior to anything the angelologists could have made alone, and he offered
its use to the enemy. When he was feeling self-analytical, he wondered if he weren’t rebelling against
his parents, dedicated British angelologists who had insisted that he follow their calling. Once he had
tried to please them. He had been an earnest young angelologist whose work was used as a weapon
against the Nephilim. He had assisted Angela Valko in exploring the genetic codes of the creatures so
that angelologists could destroy them. And now, years later, he’d built upon this research to assist the
Grigori family, performing the experiments that Angela had only fantasized about. If he succeeded in
creating the population density they required, he would be the most powerful human being in the new
world.
Even after all these years, he marveled at the irony of his apprenticeship to Angela Valko. She had
been the society’s most devoted soldier when it came to overcoming the Nephilim. And she had
nearly succeeded in doing so. Developing an avian flu designed to attack their wings was the act of a
thoughtful scientist; releasing it into the angelic population through the Grigori family was the act of a
genius. Percival Grigori spread the virus to all the major Nephilim families, ensuring that many of the
elite died. For decades Godwin admired and cursed Angela for it. The virus eluded every cure he had
attempted to develop. Even now he’d only found a way to halt its progress, to alleviate the symptoms,
and to contain it.
After his recruitment, when the Russians brought Godwin to Siberia to survey the site, he’d stood
at the edge of a vast field, an eternity of ice stretching before him, and he understood the incredible
potential of the prison that existed below his feet. But the true, secret goal of his work was far more
exacting, and momentous, than to re-create the strength of the original Nephilim—to elevate their
race, as Arthur Grigori had liked to say, with the qualities of the angels that they had lost over the
millennia. For several years he had been riding on the promise of his first and only triumph: The
twins were an impressive feat of breeding, genetic manipulation, and luck. The successful cloning—
twice over—of the late Percival Grigori—using frozen cells harvested from Percival during his
lifetime—had bought him carte blanche with the Grigori money. Godwin had been left in peace,
working without interference.
Godwin looked up, taking in the full height of the observation tower, an edifice bound by
impenetrable panes of glass. Inside, along the spiraling floors, were angelologists on duty, some busy
at computers, others at observation posts, watching, making notes, updating inmate files. The night
shift would go home and the day shift would arrive, a routine that ensured the perpetual motion
machine of the panopticon.
Godwin always felt an odd, phantasmagoric sensation when he traversed the moat of concrete
surrounding the observation tower. Thousands of eyes trailed his movements, and he couldn’t help but
feel the unnerving power of their gaze. Sometimes it seemed to him that their positions were reversed,
and that he had become a prisoner, a spectacle paraded out for the pleasure of the Nephilim. Each day