“This should be ten times more fun than what you did for my masters,” Eno said. “If you can pull it off.”
“No creator since God has been as successful in fashioning a living being as I have been,” Godwin said.
“That may be true,” Eno said. “But can you do it again or are you going to disappoint my masters?”
“The panopticon cannot possibly disappoint,” Godwin said.
“Don’t be so sure,” Eno said. “The Grigori capacity for disappointment is very high. They have me here to make sure you don’t fuck this up.”
Suddenly the door flew open, and he stood face-to-face with a man with a deathly white face topped by a shock of carrot-orange hair. Verlaine stepped back in surprise and grabbed for his gun, but Godwin took hold of his jacket and pulled him violently into the room. Eno glared at him, her eyes narrowed, her whole manner that of a predator. Verlaine couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. Godwin had sensed that he was behind the door, waited until the optimal moment, and jumped him. Before he could fight back, Godwin pushed him into a restraining cage and slammed the door closed.
In his ten years as an angel hunter, Verlaine had been exposed to almost everything he could imagine. He had seen every variety of creature, he understood the physical conditions in which the angels lived, and he accepted the level of violence necessary to bring the Nephilim in. But in all his time in the service of angelology, he had never witnessed anything quite like the scene before him. It took him a few seconds to fully process what he was seeing.
At the center of the room, strapped to two examining tables near Godwin and Eno, were the Grigori twins. Verlaine couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead: They’d been stripped and laid out like corpses. Their golden wings were wrapped around their bodies, covering them from chest to ankle in scintillating plumage. Their skin was bluish gray, the color of ash. Surely they must be dead, Verlaine thought, but then he saw one of them blink his eyes, and he knew that they were somehow part of Eno and Godwin’s experiment.
Verlaine heard a voice behind him.
“I knew you’d come,” Evangeline said.
Verlaine turned and found her sitting cross-legged in the far corner of the cage, her wings folded over her and her body subsumed by shadow.
“I felt you standing outside the door. I wanted to warn you, but Godwin got to you first.”
“I can’t believe it’s you,” Verlaine said at last, lacking the words to describe his relief and joy at finding her.
“Hard to believe, I know,” she said, smiling slightly.
As Evangeline spoke to him, Verlaine felt as if the order of the universe were changing shape. Somehow when he was near her, he understood everything perfectly. He knew why he had thought of her so often; he understood why he’d followed her halfway around the world. Verlaine’s heart was beating too hard, sweat falling from his forehead and dripping down his neck. This woman had changed everything. He couldn’t go forward without her.
“We have to get out of here,” he whispered, sliding his hand over her hand and squeezing it. He looked from one end of the laboratory to the other, trying to find a way out. Their prospects didn’t look good. He pushed against the wall. The Plexiglas was impenetrable. “We’re going to have to perform some serious Houdini to get out of this.”
• • •
It was only a matter of minutes before Verlaine heard a commotion at the door—Bruno and Yana had broken into the lab. Verlaine strained to see what was happening, but his view was blocked as Godwin unfurled a white sheet and threw it over the Grigori twins, as if to protect them. Bruno went after Godwin as Yana snatched a set of keys and ran to the cage. As she unlocked it, Verlaine grabbed Evangeline and pulled her free, leaving the others to fight.
They were in the hallway when a great explosion shook the air. Within seconds, smoke and ash billowed from the lab. An alarm began to sound; it rang through the panopticon, echoing and distorting. The toxic smell of burning plastic, mixed with the syrupy sweet scent of scorched flesh, created a noxious and sickening aroma. Verlaine tried to navigate his way through the smoke, desperate to find a way out. As a second series of explosions went off in the distance—the blasts stronger, more pronounced than the first—Verlaine knew that they were in danger.
Suddenly, he made out Godwin ahead, running into the fire. He tried to follow, but felt Evangeline resist.
“We’re going in the wrong direction,” she said, pulling him back.
“How do you know?”
“I can’t feel the presence of angelic creatures any longer,” she said. “I don’t know why, but it’s as if I’m wired to sense them. There are definitely no Nephilim this way. The panopticon must be in the other direction.”
They turned around and ran in the opposite direction. Soon the floor began to shake, as if something nearby were being detonated. As the sound of explosions grew louder, he realized that they were approaching the very center of the destruction. The hallway opened into the panopticon and, as they sped past the wide arc of the Level 1 cells, Verlaine found nothing but deserted chambers, many of them encrusted in dried plasma, its golden hue charred to gray. Verlaine could see creatures across the panopticon, running toward the tunnels, trying to escape. The prisoners were disoriented and stunned, assessing their surroundings with wariness, as if they suspected that they had fallen prey to a cruel test. At the tower, a group of Raiphim formed a mob. They screamed and struck at the tower with whatever was at hand—metal folding chairs and rods broken from the cots in their cells. A pair of Gibborim leaped from the railing and swooped down over the scattering humans below, snatching them up, lifting them into the air, and dropping them to the ground. Men and women lay bloody on the concrete floor of the moat, some screaming in agony, others unconscious or dead.
Pushing through the smoke, he and Evangeline found a metal staircase that brought them down past the second- and third-level cells. The smoke grew thicker as they descended; the chaos Verlaine had witnessed from above grew harder to navigate as he moved into it. Evangeline’s hand was small and cold in his. He held it tight, as if she might disappear into the smoke.
Together they hurried toward the tunnel exit, stepping over creatures that had collapsed, their bodies trampled and broken. Verlaine could feel Evangeline hesitate. Men in uniforms lay in pools of blood on the concrete floor, some with their guns still in hand. The guards had been slaughtered while fighting to keep the creatures from escaping. The great iron security door began to roll closed.
“They are trying to contain the angels,” Evangeline said.
Verlaine held his hand over his mouth and nose, but it was impossible to breathe without taking in the thick chemical fumes. Another explosion sent shards of glass through the air. Within an instant, the panopticon plunged into darkness.
“There go the lights,” Verlaine said. Although he had no way of knowing for sure, he had a terrible feeling that the nuclear reactors were connected to the panopticon’s power source.
Evangeline’s hand slipped from his grasp. He stumbled forward, trying to reach her. “Evangeline,” he called, but the noise had become deafening as thousands of creatures stampeded past.
“I’m here, above you,” she said, and he saw, floating in the darkness, a concentration of brilliant light.
Verlaine blinked, coaxing his eyes to look at her hovering like a hummingbird overhead. The dome of the panopticon filled with a strange, warm light. It seemed to him as if the sun had been captured and concentrated into a single point. Evangeline could not possibly be a Nephil, nor a descendant of a lower order of angel, nor any of the common creatures serving the Nephilim. She was not one of the Anakim, Mara, Golobians, or Gibborim. It was such a simple truth that he was astonished he hadn’t understood it before: No angelologist could possibly gauge how far the Nephilim had fallen from grace until beholding the beauty of a pure angel.
“We need to find an exit tunnel that hasn’t been blocked,” Verlaine called up to her. “If the nu
clear reactor is affected, this is going to be a death trap. If we don’t find an open tunnel, we’ll die here.”
“Maybe there’s another way out,” Evangeline said.
Verlaine looked up, trying to imagine her perspective. She was at the top of the structure. “Can you see something from up there?” he shouted.
Evangeline swooped close and Verlaine grabbed hold of her without giving it a moment’s thought. She flew fast and reckless through the panopticon, rising up and falling back, as if she were afloat on a stormy sea. Verlaine clung to her, overwhelmed by the pure adrenaline of losing contact with the ground. The thrill of their ascent made him giddy. He wanted to hold Evangeline closer, to move as her body moved, to fly higher and higher with her. He was sure that all of the thoughts and all of the desires that he’d ever felt had collected in his heart at that moment. It didn’t matter what happened, as long as he was with Evangeline.
Another explosion ruptured through the panopticon, sending a cascade of fire in their path. Evangeline dipped and rose, and Verlaine felt breathless as he lost hold of Evangeline’s body. He fell, reaching for something solid to grasp, his hands flailing in the air. Before he had a chance to call her name, Evangeline appeared, her green eyes sharp, her body as bright as the sun as she swooped underneath and caught him. He never wanted to let her go.
He looked at her in wonder. There was a profound serenity in her features and—despite the fact that she was much stronger than him and had just saved his life—a gentleness he admired.
“Thank you,” he whispered into her ear. “I owe you one.”
“I wouldn’t let you fall,” she said. “Ever.”
They flew to the ground and he stepped away from her, examining her among the ruins of the panopticon. In the smoke, with her wings retracted, she looked almost human.
“Can you see?” he asked, gesturing toward a tunnel. “Can we get out that way?”
Evangeline nodded. “It’s open,” she said. “It’s probably the only one, though.”
Verlaine grasped her ice-cold hand and pulled her toward the tunnel. Thick, toxic smoke obscured his vision. “We have to go now, before it closes.”
Ahead, at the end of a passage, grew a golden light. As he approached, the light grew stronger until, in a burst of brilliance, it consumed the darkness entirely. Verlaine stood in a blaze of illumination. The walls of the panopticon—polished titanium with bolts the size of his head—gave off a wavering reflection. The light seemed to twist through the air, creating a cone so distinctly overpowering he could not make out what was before him. He removed his eyeglasses and the source came into sharp focus. Verlaine found a creature of such marvelous beauty he was certain it had come directly from heaven. He fell to the ground, covering his eyes with his arm, blinking against the light, falling into a painful blindness.
By the time Verlaine recovered his sight, the angel stood with Evangeline. Despite his huge white wings, there was something simple, something almost childlike about him.
He could see Evangeline staring at the archangel, her eyes narrowed, her body tense. “What are you?” she asked at last.
“You know very well what I am,” the angel said, opening his enormous white wings. “And I can sense what you are, too. Nevertheless, I’ll stand on convention and tell you my name. I am Lucien. And although it is merely an exercise, and I know who and what you are, I will ask you to identify yourself.”
Evangeline circled the angel, sidestepping to the left and right. Then, in an elegant flourish, she snapped open her wings, displaying them in the glow of Lucien’s body. The purple and silver feathers seemed electric in comparison to Lucien’s white wings. Verlaine felt his heart beating in his chest as he realized that Evangeline’s beauty, her luminosity and grandeur, were on par with the creature before her. Together, they were the most pure and rare angels he had ever seen.
“You are lovely,” Lucien said, smiling slightly. “And unusual, too.” He stepped forward and bowed to Evangeline. “I have waited many years to see you again.”
Evangeline stared at Lucien a beat too long, and Verlaine knew that something had passed between the two angels, something that he could never understand completely.
“We’ve met before?”
“Once, when you were just a baby, I held you in my arms. Your mother brought you to me.”
“You knew my mother?” Evangeline asked.
“You were so fragile when I held you, so small, so human that I could only bear to keep you in my arms a moment. I was afraid I would hurt you. I could never have imagined what you would become.”
“But why?” Evangeline asked. “Why did my mother bring me to you?”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for many years,” Lucien said.
Verlaine stepped forward. “Evangeline,” he said, holding out his hand. “We have to get out of here.”
“I am here to tell you everything,” Lucien said. “But in your heart you know already that I am your father.”
Evangeline stood in silence for many minutes. Then she looked from Lucien to Verlaine and, before Verlaine could prepare himself, she kissed him, pressing her body against his with passion and tenderness.
“Go,” she said, pushing him gently away. “Get out of here. You have to get aboveground before it’s too late.”
The Ninth Circle
TREACHERY
Chelyabinsk, Russia
As Verlaine opened his eyes, he understood that he was lying in a snowy field. He couldn’t say how long he had slept. The snow around him was stained with blood; he realized that it was his own. His leg was injured; the wound to his head had opened yet again. As he examined the cut to his leg, he remembered crawling out of the panopticon, fire rising around him, the noise of explosions ringing in his ears. Looking back toward the prison, he saw that the only landmark remaining was a plume of smoke rising in the far distance. The whole compound had collapsed.
A sound grew in his ears, a buzzing as grating and persistent as an insect. It was a truck approaching through the snow. As it got closer, Verlaine could make out Dmitri at the wheel of a Lada Niva. Yana jumped out of the backseat, leaving Bruno—whom Verlaine could see was badly injured—hunched against the door. A man Verlaine didn’t recognize followed behind Yana and Dmitri. He greeted Verlaine and offered his hand, introducing himself as Azov and explaining that he’d come at Vera’s request.
“What happened in there?” Verlaine asked Dmitri, brushing the snow from his clothes.
“Exactly what Godwin hoped would happen,” Dmitri said. His face was streaked black, his clothes singed.
“Is he inside?” Verlaine asked.
“There’s no way to know for sure,” Dmitri said.
Verlaine felt his heart sink. Godwin could be inside, or he could have escaped. He could be anywhere.
“What about the nuclear plant?” Verlaine asked.
“It’s supposed to be able to resist this kind of rupture,” Dmitri said, glancing over his shoulder at the rising smoke. “But I don’t think we should stay and take our chances. We have to get as far from here as we can. Now.”
“We can’t leave,” Verlaine said. “Not yet.”
“If we stay,” Dmitri said, pointing to the far side of the field, “we face that.”
The escaped prisoners—every variety of angel—filled the landscape. Verlaine scanned the chaos of movement, searching for Evangeline, spotting her everywhere and nowhere at once until, in the center of it all, he found her. She walked hand in hand with Lucien at the edge of the panopticon. Verlaine saw, as they walked closer, the image of the father in his child. The delicate shape of her face, the large eyes, the luminosity that surrounded her—it was obvious that Evangeline and Lucien were made of the same ethereal substance.
“Evangeline has to come with us,” Verlaine said, feeling more helpless by the second.
“I don’t know if Lucien will allow that,” Azov said, looking circumspect. “We traveled together for thousands of miles.
I know his strength, but also, more important, I know that he is a gentle and kind creature, one whose motives are good. Evangeline, if I can believe what I’ve heard about her, would never fight against him, or allow you to harm him. If you want to bring Evangeline with you, there is only one certain way.”
Azov removed a vessel from his pocket and showed it to Verlaine. He remembered Vera’s confidence that Azov could help her understand Rasputin’s journal. Somehow they had succeeded in making the formula.
Verlaine reached for the vessel, but Azov stopped him. Instead he started toward the angels himself, calling their names, his voice filled with a desperate hope that Verlaine understood: He felt the same violent need to call Evangeline back, to convince her to leave Lucien behind. To Verlaine’s surprise, Azov caught Evangeline’s attention—she walked across the snowy field, approaching them, Lucien at her side.
“Who are you?” she asked. “And what do you want with us?”
Lucien glanced at the vessel in Azov’s hand. Whatever Azov was doing, Lucien understood it immediately. “Don’t go closer,” he said, opening his wings and wrapping them in a protective gesture around Evangeline’s shoulders.
Angelopolis: A Novel (ANGELOLOGY SERIES) Page 26
