Angelology

Devil’s Throat Cavern, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria
November 1943

We drove through the narrow mountain roads, climbing through mist and tall, clipped canyons. I had studied the geology of the region before embarking upon the expedition, and still the landscape of the Rhodope Mountains was not as I had pictured it. From my grandmother’s descriptions and my father’s childhood stories, I had envisioned villages enclosed in an endless summer of fruit trees and vines and sun-baked stone. In my childish imaginings, I had believed the mountains to be like sand castles in the onslaught of the sea—blocks of crumbling sandstone with flutes and runnels bitten from their pale, soft surfaces. But as we ascended through sheets of fog, I found a solid and forbidding mountain range of granite peaks, one layering upon the last like decaying teeth against the gray sky. In the distance, ice-capped pinnacles rose over snowy valleys; fingerling crags grasped at the pale blue sky. The Rhodope Mountains loomed dark and majestic before me.
Dr. Raphael had remained in Paris, making preparations for our return, a delicate procedure in light of the occupation, one that left Dr. Seraphina to head the expedition. To my astonishment, nothing whatsoever appeared to have changed in their marriage in the aftermath of my conversation with Dr. Seraphina, or so it seemed to me, who studied them with avid attention until the war descended upon Paris. Although I had prepared myself for the disruptions the war would bring, I could not have known how quickly my life would change once the Germans occupied France. At Dr. Raphael’s request, I lived with my family in Alsace, where I studied the few books I had carried with me and awaited news. Communication was difficult, and for months at a time I heard nothing at all of angelology. Despite the urgency of the mission, all plans of our expedition had been suspended until the end of 1943.
Dr. Seraphina rode in the front of the van, speaking with Vladimir—the young Russian angelologist I had admired from our first meeting—in a mixture of broken Russian and French. Vladimir drove fast, riding so close to the edge of the precipice that it seemed we might follow the swift slide of the van’s reflection, slipping down the glassy surface never to be seen again. As we ascended, the road narrowed into a sinuous path through slate and thick forest. Every so often a village appeared below the road. Clusters of mountain houses sprouted in pockets of vale like hardy mushrooms. Beyond, in the distance, the stone ruins of Roman walls grew from the mountain, half buried in snow. The stark, foreboding beauty of the scene filled me with awe for the country of my grandmother and father.
Every so often, when the tires fell into a snowy rut, we unloaded and dug ourselves out. With our thick wool coats and rugged sheepskin boots, we could have been mistaken for mountain villagers stranded in the snowstorm. Only the quality of our vehicle—an expensive American K-51 radio van with chains wrapped about its tires, a gift from the Valkos’ generous patron in the United States—and the equipment we placed inside, carefully secured with burlap and rope, might give us away.
The Venerable Clematis of Thrace would have envied our halting pace. He had made the journey on foot, his supplies carried by mules. I had always believed the First Angelological Expedition to have been much less hazardous than the Second Expedition—we were endeavoring to enter the cavern in the dead of winter, during a war. And yet Clematis faced dangers we did not. The founders of angelology had been under greater pressure to mask their efforts and conceal their work. They lived in an era of conformity, and their actions would have been under constant scrutiny. As a result, advances came slowly, without the great breakthroughs of modern angelology. Their studies brought them laborious progress that, over the centuries, created the foundation for all I had learned. If they had been discovered, they would have been declared heretics, excommunicated from the church, perhaps imprisoned. I knew that persecution would not have stopped their mission—the founding members of angelology had sacrificed much to further their cause—but it would have caused severe setbacks. They believed that their orders came from a higher authority, just as I believed that I had been called to my mission.
While Clematis’s expedition had faced the threat of theft and the ill will of villagers, our greatest fear was that we would be intercepted by our enemies. After the occupation of Paris in June 1940, we had been forced to go into hiding, a move that postponed the expedition. For years we’d prepared for the journey in secret, collecting supplies and gathering information about the terrain, sealing ourselves in a tight network of trusted scholars and council members, angelologists whose many years of dedication and sacrifice assured loyalty. Security measures changed, however, when Dr. Raphael found a patron—a wealthy American woman whose reverence for our work drove her to assist us. Accepting the support of an outsider, we opened ourselves to detection. With our benefactress’s money and influence, our plans moved forward even as our fears grew. We could never know for certain if the Nephilim had detected our intentions. We could not know if they were in the mountains, following us each step of the way.
I shivered inside the van, feeling ill from the violent lurching as we made our way over ice and uneven roads. I was aware that I should have been frozen from the lack of heat, but my entire body tingled with anticipation. The other members of our party—three well-seasoned angelologists—sat nearby, speaking of the mission ahead with a confidence I could hardly believe. These men were much older than I and had worked together for as long as I’d been alive, but it was I who had solved the mystery of the location, and this gave me special status among them. Gabriella, who had once been my only rival for this position, had left the school in 1940, disappearing without so much as saying good-bye. She had simply taken her belongings from our apartment and vanished. At the time I believed that she had been reprimanded in some fashion, perhaps even expelled, and that her silent departure was one of shame. Whether she had gone into exile or gone underground, I did not know. Although I understood that my efforts had earned me my place on the expedition, I was left with doubts. Secretly I wondered if her absence was why I had been selected for the mission.
Dr. Seraphina and Vladimir analyzed the detail of our descent into the gorge. I did not join their discussion however, so lost was I in my own nervous thoughts about our journey. I was acutely aware that anything at all could happen. Suddenly every possibility arrayed itself before me. We might complete our work in the gorge with ease, or we might never return to civilization. One thing was certain. In the next hours, we would win everything or lose everything.
With the wind howling in the distance and the faint roar of an airplane droning overhead, I could not help but think of the terrible end Clematis had met. I thought of the doubt that Brother Francis had expressed. He had called the expedition party a “brotherhood of dreamers,” and I had to wonder, as we emerged at last at the peak of the mountain, driving past a crag of ice-covered granite, if Francis’s assessment did not hold for us so many centuries later. Were we chasing a phantom treasure? Would we lose our lives to a fruitless fantasy? Our journey could be, as Dr. Seraphina believed, the culmination of all that our scholars had striven for. Or it could be the very thing Brother Francis had so feared: the delusion of a group of dreamers who had lost their way.
In their great passion to understand the details of the Venerable Clematis’s account, Dr. Raphael and Dr. Seraphina had overlooked a most subtle fact: Brother Deopus was a Bulgarian monk of the Thracian region who, although trained in the language of the church and fully capable of taking down Clematis’s words in Latin, was also most certainly a native speaker of the local language, a variation of early Bulgarian forged in the ancient Cyrillic of St. Cyril and St. Methodius in the ninth century. The Venerable Clematis was also a native speaker of early Bulgarian, having been born and educated in the Rhodope Mountains. As I read and reread Dr. Raphael’s translation that fateful night four years before, it had crossed my mind that in Clematis’s maddened retelling of his descent into the cave, he had perhaps reverted to the comfort and ease of his native tongue. Clematis and Brother Deopus surely would have communicated in their common language, especially when speaking of traditions that would not translate easily into Latin. Perhaps Brother Deopus had written these words in Cyrillic, his native script, riddling the manuscript with early Bulgarian words. If he had felt ashamed of such inelegant literary execution as this—for Latin was the educated language of the time—he may have recopied his transcription into proper Latin. Assuming that this had occurred, it was my hope that the original version had been preserved. If Dr. Raphael had used this copy to assist in his translation of Brother Deopus’s transcription, I could check the words to be sure that no errors had occurred in rendering the Latin into modern French.
After coming to this conclusion, I recalled reading in one of Dr. Raphael’s numerous footnotes that the manuscript had contained the stains of faded blood, presumably from Clematis’s injuries in the cave. If this were indeed the case, Deopus’s original manuscript had not in fact been destroyed. Given the opportunity to look upon it, I would doubtless comprehend the markings of Cyrillic scattered through the text, a script I had learned from my grandmother, Baba Slavka, a bookish woman who read Russian novels in their original and wrote volumes of poetry in her native Bulgarian. With the original manuscript, I could extract the Cyrillic words and, with the assistance of my grandmother, find the correct translation from early Bulgarian into Latin and then, of course, French. It was simply a game of working backward from the modern to the ancient languages. The secret of the cave’s location could be discerned, but only if I could study the original manuscript.
Once I’d explained the circuitous path my mind had taken in coming to this conclusion, Dr. Seraphina—whose excitement over my speculations grew as I spoke—brought me straightaway to Dr. Raphael and asked me to explain my theory again. Like Dr. Seraphina, Dr. Raphael approved the logic of the idea, but he warned that he had taken great care in translating Brother Deopus’s words and had found no Cyrillic in the manuscript. Nonetheless the Valkos brought me to the Athenaeum vault, where the original manuscript was kept. They both slipped on white cotton gloves and gave me a pair so I could do the same. Dr. Raphael lifted the manuscript from a shelf. After unwrapping it from a thick white cotton cloth, Dr. Raphael placed it before me so that I might examine it. As he stepped away, our eyes met, and I could not help but remember his early-morning encounter with Gabriella, nor could I help but wonder of the secrets he had kept from everyone, including his wife. Yet Dr. Raphael appeared as he always did: charming, erudite, and utterly inscrutable.
The manuscript before me soon absorbed my attention. The paper was so delicate that I feared damaging it. Sweat had streaked the ink, and flecks of blackened blood marred a number of pages. As I had expected, Brother Deopus’s Latin was imperfect—his spelling was not always accurate, and he tended to muddle his declensions—but to my great disappointment Dr. Raphael was correct: No Cyrillic letters were to be found in the transcription. Deopus had written the entire document in Latin.
My frustration might have been overwhelming—I had hoped to impress my teachers and secure my place on any future expedition—had it not been for Dr. Raphael’s genius. Even as I began to give up hope, his expression filled with exuberance. He explained that in the months that he had translated Deopus’s section of the manuscript from Latin to French, he had come across a number of words that were unfamiliar to him. He had speculated that Deopus, under extraordinary pressure to reproduce Clematis’s words, which must have been spoken at a maddening pace, had Latinized a number of words from his native tongue. It would be only natural, Dr. Raphael explained, as Cyrillic was a rather recent development, having emerged with systemization merely a century before Deopus’s birth. Dr. Raphael remembered the words well, and their place in the account. Taking a paper from his pocket, he uncapped a fountain pen and began to write. He copied a series of Latinized Bulgarian words from the manuscript—“gold,” “world,” “spirit”—forming a list of fifteen or so.
Dr. Raphael explained that it had been necessary to rely upon dictionaries to render the list of words from Bulgarian into Latin, which he then translated into French. He had searched a number of early Slavonic reference texts and found that there were indeed correspondences to the sounds represented in Latin. Endeavoring to smooth the inconsistencies over, he supplied what he believed to be the correct terms, checking each one with the surrounding context to assure that it made sense. At the time the lack of precision had struck Dr. Raphael as unfortunate but routine, the kind of guesswork one must make in any ancient manuscript. Now he saw that his method had corrupted the integrity of the language at the very least and, at worst, had led him to egregious errors in the translation.
Examining the list together, we soon isolated the early Bulgarian words that had been misrepresented. As the words were fairly elementary, I picked up Dr. Raphael’s fountain pen and demonstrated the errors. Deopus had written the word 3лOTO (evil), which Dr. Raphael thought to be 3лaTO (gold), and had translated the phrase “for the angel was formed of evil” as “for the angel was formed of gold.” Similarly, Deopus had written the word Дyx (spirit), which Dr. Raphael had mistranslated as Дъx (breath), rendering the sentence “It is thus that the spirit dies” as “It is thus that the breath dies.” For our purposes, however, the most intriguing question became whether Gyaurskoto Burlo, the name Clematis gave for the cavern, was an early Bulgarian place-name or if it had been corrupted in some fashion. With Dr. Raphael’s fountain pen, I transcribed Gyaurskoto Burlo in my remedial Cyrillic and then in Latin letters.

Γяypското Ъърло

GYAURSKOTO BURLO

I stared at the paper as if the exterior form of the letters might break open, seeping the essence of meaning upon the page. For all my efforts, I could not see how the words could have been misconstrued. While the question of the etymology of Gyaurskoto Burlo was well beyond my capabilities, I knew that there was one person who would understand the history of the name and the misrepresentations it had suffered at the hands of its translators. Dr. Raphael packed the manuscript into his leather case, wrapping it in its cotton cloth to protect it, and by nightfall the Valkos and I had arrived in my native village to speak with my grandmother.
The privilege of my access to the Valkos’ thoughts—not to mention their manuscripts—was something that I had long wished for. Only months before, I had been outside their notice, a mere student who wished to prove herself. Now the three of us were standing in the foyer of my family’s farmhouse, hanging our coats and wiping our shoes as my mother and father introduced themselves. Dr. Raphael was as polite and affable as ever, exemplifying the very embodiment of decorum, and I had to wonder if my image of him with Gabriella had been correct. I could not quite reconcile the perfect gentleman before me with the rapscallion I had witnessed holding his fifteen-year-old student in his arms.
We sat at the smooth wooden table in the kitchen of my parents’ stone house as Baba Slavka examined the manuscript. Although she had lived in our French village for many years, she had never come to resemble the women born there. She wore a bright cotton scarf tied over her hair, large silver earrings, and heavy eye makeup. Her fingers flashed with gold and gemstones. Dr. Raphael explained our questions and presented her with the manuscript and the list of words he had extracted from Deopus’s account. Baba Slavka read the list and, after considering the manuscript for some time stood, went to her room, and returned with a collection of loose sheets I soon understood to be maps. Opening a page, she showed us a map of the Rhodopes. I read the village names written in Cyrillic: Smolyan, Kesten, Zhrebevo, Trigrad. The names were those near the place of my grandmother’s birth.
Gyaurskoto Burlo, she explained, meant “Hiding Place of the Infidels,” or “Infidels’ Prison,” as Dr. Raphael had rightly translated it from Latin. “It was no wonder,” my grandmother continued, “that a place called Gyaurskoto Burlo has never been found, as it does not exist.” Placing her finger near the town of Trigrad, Baba Slavka pointed out a cavern that fit the description of the one we sought, a cavern that had long been held to be a mystical site, the place of Orpheus’s journey to the underworld, a geological marvel and a source of great wonder to the villagers. “This cave has the qualities that you describe, but it is not called Gyaurskoto Burlo,” Baba Slavka said. “It is called Dyavolskoto Gurlo, the Devil’s Throat.” Gesturing to the map, my grandmother said, “The name is not written there, or on any other map, and yet I have walked to the opening in the mountain myself. I have heard the music that emanates from the gorge. It is what made me wish for you to pursue your studies, Celestine.”
“You have been to the cavern?” I asked, astonished that the answer to the Valkos’ search had been so close at hand all along.
My grandmother gave a strange and mysterious smile. “It is near the ancient village of Trigrad that I met your grandfather, and it was in Trigrad that your father was born.”
After my part in locating the cavern, I had expected to return to Paris to assist the Valkos in preparations for the expedition. But with the danger of invasion looming, Dr. Raphael would hear nothing of it. He spoke with my parents, arranging for my belongings to be sent to me by train, and then the Valkos left. Watching them go, I felt that all my dreams and all my work had been for naught. Abandoned in Alsace, I waited for news of our impending journey.
At long last we were approaching the Devil’s Throat. Vladimir stopped the van at a dull wooden sign with a scattering of black Cyrillic letters painted upon it. At Dr. Seraphina’s instruction, he followed the sign toward the village, driving along a narrow, snow-covered road that lifted sharply up into the mountain. The incline was icy and steep. When the van slid backward, Vladimir downshifted, grinding the gears against gravity. The van’s tires spun on the packed snow, gained traction, and carried us lurching ahead into the shadows.
When we reached the top of the road, Vladimir parked the van at the ledge of the mountain, a vast snowy wasteland opening before us. Dr. Seraphina turned to address us. “You’ve all read the Venerable Clematis’s account of his journey. And we have all been through the logistics of entering the cavern. You are aware that the dangers we’re facing ahead are unlike any we’ve encountered before. The physical process of descending the gorge will take all of our strength. We must go in with precision and speed. We have no margin for error. Our equipment will be of great use, but there are more than the physical challenges. Once we are inside the cavern itself, we must be prepared to face the Watchers.”
“Whose strength is formidable,” Vladimir added.
Looking carefully at us, the full gravity of the mission etched into her expression, Dr. Seraphina said, “‘Formidable’ doesn’t adequately describe what we may find. Generations of angelologists have dreamed that we would one day have the capability to confront the imprisoned angels. If we succeed, we will have accomplished something no other group has before.”
“And if we fail?” I asked, hardly allowing myself to think of the possibility.
“The powers they hold,” Vladimir said, “and the destruction and suffering they could bring to humanity are unimaginable.”
Dr. Seraphina buttoned her wool coat and pulled on a pair of leather military gloves, preparing to face the cold mountain wind. “If I’m right, the gorge is at the top of this pass,” she said, stepping out of the van.
I walked from the van to the mountain ledge and looked over the strange, crystalline world that had materialized around me. Above, a wall of black rock rose to the sky, casting a shadow over our party, while ahead a snow-covered valley fell steeply away. Without delay, Dr. Seraphina trekked toward the mountain. Following close behind, I climbed through drifts of snow, my heavy leather boots breaking my path. Clutching a case filled with medical equipment tightly in my hand, I tried to bring my thoughts to focus upon what lay ahead. I knew we would need to be precise in our efforts. Not only were we to face the rugged descent into the gorge, it might be necessary to navigate the spaces beyond the river, the honeycomb of caverns in which Clematis had encountered the angels. There would be no room for mistakes.
As we entered the mouth of the cave, a heavy darkness descended upon us. The interior space was barren and chill, filled with the ominous echoing rush of the underground waterfall Clematis had described. The flat rock at the entrance had none of the pockmarks and vertical shafts I had expected from my studies of Balkan geology but had been mantled with a thick, even layer of glacial deposit. The amount of snow and ice packed into the rock made it next to impossible to know what lay beneath.
Dr. Seraphina turned on a flashlight and brought the beam over the craggy interior. Ice clung to the rock face and, high in the dome of the cave, bats clung to the stone in tight mounds. The light fell over the razor-shorn walls, flickering upon mineral folds, along the rough-hewn stone floor, and then, with the slightest adjustment, the beam dissolved into blackness as it disappeared over the edge of the gorge. Looking about the cavern, I wondered what had become of the objects Clematis had described. The clay amphorae would have crumbled in the moisture long ago if they had not been taken by villagers to store olive oil and wine. But the cave contained no amphorae. Only rock and thick ice remained.
Holding the case of medical equipment with both hands, I walked toward the ledge, the rush of water growing more distinct with each step. As Dr. Seraphina moved the beam of the flashlight before her, something small and bright caught my eye. I squatted to the ground and, placing my hand upon the freezing rock, felt the icy metal of an iron stake, its head hammered flush with the cave’s floor. “This is a remnant of the First Expedition,” Dr. Seraphina said as she knelt at my side to examine my discovery. As I traced the cold iron stake with the tip of my finger, a great sense of wonder came over me: Everything I had studied, including the iron ladder that Father Clematis had described, was real.
And yet there was no time to ponder this truth. In haste Dr. Seraphina knelt at the precipice and examined the steep drop. The shaft plunged in a straight, lightless verticality. As she removed a rope ladder from her pack, my heart began to beat faster at the idea of stepping away from the ledge and relinquishing myself to the dark insubstantiality of air and gravity. The crossbars of the ladder were fastened to two strips of synthetic rope the likes of which I had never seen before, most likely the very newest technology developed for the war effort. I crouched at her side as Dr. Seraphina dropped the rope into the gorge.
Using a hammer, Vladimir secured the iron spikes into the rock, pinching the rope under iron clasps. Dr. Seraphina stood over him, watching his movements with great attention. She gave the ladder a hard shake, a test to determine that it would hold. When satisfied with its strength, she instructed the men—who carried the sacks of equipment, heavy burlap bags of twenty kilograms each—to secure their packs and follow us down.
I listened to the depths, trying to determine what lay beyond. In the stomach of the cavern, water pounded against rock. Looking over the ledge, I could not be sure if the earth below me remained stable or if it was I who had begun to tremble. I placed my hand upon Dr. Seraphina’s shoulder, to hold myself steady against the nauseating spell the cavern had cast upon me.
She took me by the hand and, seeing my distress, said, “You must calm yourself before you proceed. Breathe deeply and do not think of how far you have to go. I’ll lead you. Keep one hand on the crossbar and the other on the rope. If you somehow slip, you won’t lose your footing completely, and if you should fall, I will be directly below to catch you.” Then, without another word, she descended.
Gripping the cold metal with my bare hands, I followed. Trying to find comfort, I recalled the joyous account Clematis had written about the ladder. The simplicity of his pleasure had inspired me to memorize the words he’d written: “One can hardly imagine our delight upon gaining passage into the abyss. Only Jacob in his vision of the mighty procession of Holy Messengers might have beheld a ladder more welcome and majestic. To our divine purpose we proceeded into the terrible blackness of the forsaken pit, filled with expectation of His protection and Grace.”
We formed a line, each angelologist moving slowly down the rock face into the darkness, the sound of crashing water growing louder as we descended. The air became frigid as we moved deeper and deeper into the earth. A startling heaviness began to spread through my limbs, as if a vial of mercury had been released in my blood. It seemed that no matter how often I blinked, my eyes were filled with tears. In my panic I imagined that the narrow walls of the gorge would pinch together and I would be trapped in a granite vise, fixed in a stifling darkness. Clutching the cold, wet iron, the rush of the waterfall in my ears, I felt as if I were moving into the heart of a whirlpool.
Quickly I went, letting gravity take me. As the shaft deepened, the darkness thickened to a cool, opaque soup. I could see no farther than the whites of my knuckles wrapped around the ladder’s rung. The wooden soles of my boots slipped on the metal, knocking me ever so slightly off balance. Clutching the case tightly to my side, so as to regain balance, I slowed my pace. Measuring each step, I positioned my feet carefully, delicately, one after the other. The blood rushed in my ears as I looked up at the dissolving track of the ladder. Poised at the center of the void, I had no choice but to continue into the watery darkness. A biblical passage rushed into my thoughts, and I could not help but whisper it, knowing that the crashing waterfall would wash away my voice the moment I spoke the words: “‘And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’ ”
As I reached the bottom of the descent, the soles of my boots leaving the last swinging rung of the rope ladder and brushing the solid earth, I knew that Dr. Seraphina had discovered something momentous. The angelologists quickly unpacked the burlap sacks and lit our battery-operated lanterns, placing them at intervals across the flat rock floor of the cavern so that a fitful, oily light opened the darkness. The river, described in Clematis’s account as the boundary of the angels’ prison, coursed by in the distance, a glimmering black ribbon of movement. I could see Dr. Seraphina ahead, shouting orders, but the sound of the waterfall consumed her words.
When I reached her, she stood over the body of the angel. Upon taking my place at her side, I, too, fell under the trance of the creature. It was even more beautiful than I had imagined it to be, and I could do nothing for some time but stare, so overwhelmed was I by its perfection. The creature’s physical properties were identical to the description I had read in the literature at the Athenaeum: elongated torso, gaunt features, massive hands and feet. Its cheeks retained the vivacity of a living being’s. Its robes were pristine white, woven of a metallic material that wrapped about the body in luxurious folds.
“The First Angelological Expedition occurred in the tenth century, and still the body has the appearance of vitality,” Vladimir said. He bent before the creature and lifted the white metallic gown, rubbing the fabric between his fingers.
“Be careful,” Dr. Seraphina said. “The level of radioactivity is very high.”
Vladimir considered the angel. “I’ve always believed that they could not die.”
“Immortality is a gift that can be taken as easily as it is bequeathed,” Dr. Seraphina said. “Clematis believed that the Lord struck the angel down as vengeance.”
“Is that what you believe?” I asked.
“After its role in bringing the Nephilim into the world, killing this devilish creature seems perfectly justified,” Dr. Seraphina said.
“Its beauty is incomprehensible,” I said, struggling to reconcile the fact that beauty and evil could be so intertwined in one body.
“What remains a mystery to me,” Vladimir said, looking beyond the body of the angel to the far side of the cavern, “is that the others were allowed to live.”
The party split into groups. Half stayed to document the body—extracting cameras and lenses and the aluminum case filled with biological testing apparatus from the heavy burlap bags holding them—and the other half set off to search for the lyre. Vladimir led the latter group, while Dr. Seraphina and I stayed with the angel. At our side, the remaining members of our party examined the half-buried bones of two human skeletons. The bodies of Clematis’s brothers had remained exactly as they fell one thousand years before.
At Dr. Seraphina’s orders, I put on protective gloves and lifted the angel’s head in my hands. Running my fingers through the creature’s glossy hair, I brushed the forehead, as if comforting a sick child. My touch was blunted by the gloves, but it seemed to me that the angel was warm with life. Smoothing the metallic gown, I unfastened two brass buttons at the clavicle and tugged at the fabric. It fell away, revealing a flat chest, smooth, without nipples. A clutch of ribs pressed against taut, translucent skin.
From head to foot, the creature looked to be over two meters tall, a length that, in the ancient system of measurement the founding fathers had used, translated to 4.8 Roman cubits. Other than the golden ringlets falling about the shoulders, the body was completely hairless, and, to Dr. Seraphina’s delight—she had staked her professional reputation upon the very question—the creature had distinct sexual organs. The angel was male, as all the imprisoned Watchers had been. As Clematis’s account attested, one of the wings had been torn away and hung at an odd angle to the body. There could be no doubt that this was the very creature the Venerable Clematis had killed.
Together we lifted the creature and turned it on its side. We removed the robe entirely, exposing the skin to the harsh light of the lantern. The body was pliable, the joints limber. Under Dr. Seraphina’s direction, we began photographing it with care. It was important to capture small details. Developments in photographic technology, especially multilayered color film, gave us hope that we would achieve great accuracy, perhaps even capture the color of the eyes—too blue to be real, as if someone had ground lapis in oil and brushed it over a sun-filled windowpane. These attributes would be documented in our field notes and duly added to the appropriate accounts of the journey, but photographic evidence was essential.
After we had completed the first series of photographs, Dr. Seraphina removed a measuring tape from a burlap camera bag and squatted at the creature’s side. Placing the tape along the body, she took its measurements and converted the results to cubits, to better compare them with ancient documentation of the giants. As she calculated the measurement into cubits, she shouted the numbers aloud so that I might record them. The measurements were as follows:
Arms = 2.01 cubits
Legs = 2.88 cubits
Head Circumference = 1.85 cubits
Chest Circumference = 2.81 cubits
Feet = 0.76 cubits
Hands = 0.68 cubits
My own hands shook as I jotted the findings in a notebook, leaving a track of nearly illegible markings that I retraced, reading the numbers back to Dr. Seraphina to make certain each measurement was correct. From the numbers, I estimated the creature to be 30 percent larger than the average human being. Seven feet was an impressive height, awe-inspiring even in our modern era, but in ancient times such height would have seemed nothing short of miraculous. Such extreme height explained the terror that ancient cultures associated with the Giants and the dread that had surrounded such Nephilim as Goliath, one of the most famous of their race.
A sound rose from the cavern, but when I turned to Dr. Seraphina, she didn’t seem to notice anything except me. She was observing me as I executed the field notes, perhaps worried that the task had overwhelmed me. My distress had grown more visible. I had started to shake and could only imagine how I must appear to her. I began to wonder if perhaps I had taken ill on the journey through the mountains—the ride had been cold and damp, and none of us were dressed well enough to protect us from the mountain winds. My pencil trembled in my hand, and my teeth chattered. Occasionally I stopped writing and turned to the darkness that stretched in a seemingly endless cavity beyond. Again I heard something in the distance. A terrifying sound echoed from the depths.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her gaze falling upon my shaking hands.
“Don’t you hear it?” I asked.
Dr. Seraphina halted her work and walked away from the body, to the edge of the river. After listening for some minutes, she returned to me and said, “It’s nothing but the sound of water.”
“There is something else,” I said. “They are here, waiting. They expect us to free them.”
“They have been waiting for thousands of years, Celestine,” she said. “And if we are successful, they will wait for thousands more.”
Dr. Seraphina turned back to the angel and commanded me to do the same. Despite my fear I was drawn in by the angel’s strange beauty—its translucent skin, its soft and continual light, the sculptural poise of its repose. There was much speculation about angelic luminosity, the predominant theory being that angelic bodies contained a radioactive material that accounted for their endless brightness. Our protective clothing only minimized exposure. Radioactivity also explained the horrid death suffered by Brother Francis during the First Angelological Expedition and the sickness that claimed Clematis.
I knew that I should have as little contact with the body as possible—it was one of the first things one learned when preparing for the expedition—and yet I could not restrain myself from drawing nearer to the creature’s body. I peeled away my gloves and knelt at its side, placing my hands upon its forehead. I felt the skin, cold and wet against my palm, retaining the elasticity of living cells. It was like touching the smooth, iridescent skin of a serpent. Although it had been submerged in the depths of the cavern for over a thousand years, the white-blond hair shone. The shocking blue eyes, so disconcerting at first glace, now had the opposite effect upon me. Looking into them, I felt that the angel sat by my side, calming me with its presence, lifting all my fears away, and granting me an eerie opiate comfort.
“Come here,” I said to Dr. Seraphina. “Quickly.”
My teacher’s eyes widened at the sight of my hands on the creature—even an angelologist as young and inexperienced as I should have known that physical contact broke our safety protocol. Yet, perhaps she was drawn to the angel as I had been. Dr. Seraphina sat next to me and placed her palms upon the forehead, resting her fingertips in the roots of its hair. I saw the change in Dr. Seraphina in an instant. She closed her eyes, and a sensation of bliss appeared to wash over her. The tension in her body eased into pure serenity.
Suddenly a hot, sticky substance seeped over the skin of my palms. Lifting my hands, I squinted, trying to determine what had happened. A gummy golden film, transparent and glistening as honey, coated my hands, and when I held them in the light of the angel’s skin, the substance refracted, scattering a reflective dust over the cavern floor, as if my palms were coated in millions of microscopic crystals.
Quickly, before the other angelologists saw what we had done, we wiped our hands against the rocky surface of the cavern wall and slipped them back into our gloves. “Come, Celestine,” Dr. Seraphina said. “Let’s finish with the body.”
I opened the medical kit and placed it at her side. Everything—scalpels, swabs, a packet of straight blades, tiny glass vials with screw caps—had been strapped inside with elastic bands. I lifted the creature’s arm over my lap, steadying it at the elbow and wrist as Dr. Seraphina scraped the grain of a fingernail with the edge of the razor blade. Flakes broke from the nails, collecting at the bottom of a glass vial, chunky and mineral as sea salt. Turning the blade at an angle, Dr. Seraphina made two parallel incisions along the inner surface of the forearm and, careful not to rip the skin, pulled. A layer of skin peeled away, leaving exposed musculature. Pressed between plates of glass, the swath of skin glittered golden, brilliant and reflective in the weak light.
A wave of nausea passed over me at the sight of the exposed muscle. Afraid that I might be sick, I excused myself, apologizing as I left. At some distance from the expedition party, I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. The air was bitter cold, filled with a thick moisture that hung in my chest. The cavern opened before me, a series of endless, dark concavities that pulled me into them. As the feeling of nausea dissipated, a sense of wonder took its place. What lay beyond, hidden in darkness?
I took a small metal flashlight from my pocket and turned it toward the cavern’s depths. The light grew fainter as I moved deeper into the cavern, as if eaten by the sticky, ravenous fog. I could see only one meter, perhaps two, in front. Behind me, Dr. Seraphina’s strong, impatient voice directed the others as they worked. Ahead, another voice—a soft, insistent, melodic voice—called me forth. I paused, letting the darkness settle around me. The river was before me, separating me from the Watchers. I had ventured too far from the others, putting myself at risk. Something awaited me in the granite heart of the gorge. I needed only to discover it.
I stood at the edge of the river. The black water rushed by, sweeping into the darkness beyond. As I stepped along its bank, a wobbling rowboat materialized, the twin of the boat Clematis had used to navigate across the river. His image, or perhaps a shade of his voice, beckoned me to follow his path. The edge of my trousers skimmed the water as I pushed the boat from the riverbank, the heavy wool darkening as it brushed the surface. The boat had been fastened by rope to a pulley—evidence that others, perhaps local historians, had ventured to the river—so that in tugging the rope I was able to pull myself across without the assistance of oars. From my perch I saw a waterfall at the head of the river, the thick mist rising before the endless hollow of cave, and I understood why legend designated the river as Styx, the river of the dead: Pulling the boat across the water, I felt a deathly presence descend, a dark emptiness so complete that it seemed to me that my life would be pressed away.
The waters brought me swiftly to the opposite shore. I left the boat, which was securely fixed to the rope pulley, and climbed onto the bank. The cave’s mineral formations grew dramatic the farther I moved from the water: There were spires of rock, clusters of minerals, crystal formations, and a comb of caves opening on all sides. The indecipherable summons that had drawn me away from Dr. Seraphina grew clear. I could hear the distinct sound of a voice, rising and falling, as if in time with my footfall. If only I could reach the source of the music, I knew that I would see the creatures that had lived in my imagination for so long.
Suddenly the rock floor dropped from underfoot, and before I could catch my balance, I fell headlong onto the wet, smooth granite. Training my flashlight over the floor, I saw that I had tripped upon a small leather satchel. I picked myself up, took the satchel in my hands, and unbound it. The worn material felt as if it might disintegrate at my touch. Passing the flashlight over the interior of the sack, I saw a brilliant metallic glimmer. I peeled away a layer of tattered calfskin and held the lyre, its gold shining as if freshly polished. I had found the very object we’d prayed we would discover.
I could think only of bringing the lyre to Dr. Seraphina. Quickly, I wrapped the treasure in the satchel and began to make my way through the darkness, taking care not to fall again upon the wet granite. The river was near, and I could see the boat lifting and falling upon the black water, when a flickering of light from within the depths of a cave caught my attention. At first the source of the illumination remained obscure. I believed that I had found the members of our expedition party, their flashlights trailing over the rocky cavern walls. Walking nearer so that I might look closer, I sensed that the light had an altogether different quality from the harsh bulbs we’d brought into the gorge. Hoping to better understand what I saw, I ventured even closer to the mouth of the cave. A being of wondrous appearance stood within it, its great wings open, as if preparing for flight. The angel was so brilliant I could hardly bear to look at it directly. To soothe my eyes, I glanced beyond. In the distance stood a choir of angles, their skin emitting a tempered, diaphanous light that illuminated the gloom of their cells.
I could not take my eyes from the creatures. There were between fifty and one hundred angels, each one as majestic and lovely as the last. Their skin appeared molded of liquid gold, their wings of carved ivory, their eyes composed of chips of bright blue glass. Luminous nebulae of milky light floated about them, ringing their masses of blond curls. Although I had read of their sublime appearance and had tried to envision them, I’d never believed that the creatures would have such a seductive effect upon me. Despite my terror, they drew me to them with an almost magnetic force. I wanted to turn and flee, and yet I was unable to move.
The beings sang out in joyous harmony. The chorus thrumming through the cavern was so unlike the demonic nature I had long associated with the imprisoned angels that my fear all but melted. Their music was unearthly and beautiful. In their voices I understood the promise of paradise. As the music drew me under its spell, I found myself unable to walk away. To my astonishment, I wanted to pluck the strings of the lyre.
Holding the base of the lyre upon my knees, I ran my fingers over the taut metal strings. I had never played such an instrument—my musical training had been limited to a chapter in Ethereal Musicology—and yet the sound that emerged from the lyre was lush and melodious, as if the instrument played itself.
At the sound of the lyre, the Watchers left off their singing. They looked about the cave, and the horror I felt as the creatures fixed their attention on me was tempered with awe—the Watchers were among God’s most perfect creatures, physically luminous, weightless as flower petals. Paralyzed, I held the lyre close to my body, as if it might give me strength against the creatures.
As the angels pressed themselves against the metal bars of their prisons, blinding light dizzied me, throwing me off balance. An intense heat came over me, hot and sticky, as if I had been drenched in boiling oil. I cried out in pain, although my voice did not seem my own. Collapsing upon the ground, I covered my face with the satchel as a second blast of searing heat seized me, more intensely painful than the first. It felt to me that my thick wool clothing—meant to protect me from the cold—would melt away, as Brother Francis’s robes had dissolved. In the distance the voices of the angels rose once again in sweet harmony. It was under the spell of the angels that I fell unconscious, the lyre wrapped in my arms.
Some minutes passed before I rose from the depths of oblivion to find Dr. Seraphina hovering above me, an expression of concern upon her face. She whispered my name, and for a moment I believed that I had died and emerged upon the other side of existence, falling asleep in our world and waking in another, as if Charon had in fact taken me across the deathly river Styx. But then a seizure of pain overwhelmed my senses, and I knew that I had been hurt. My body felt stiff and hot, and it was then I recalled how I had been injured. Dr. Seraphina took the lyre from my hands and, too stunned to speak, examined it. Helping me to sit, she tucked the instrument under her arm and, with a surefootedness that I longed to emulate, led me back to the boat.
She pulled us across the waters, gripping the rope attached to the pulley. As the prow lifted and fell with the current, Dr. Seraphina removed wax plugs from her ears. Prepared as usual, my teacher had been able to protect herself from the sound of the angels’ music.
“What in the name of God were you doing?” she demanded without turning to me. “You should know better than to have wandered off alone.”
“The others?” I asked, thinking that I had somehow put the expedition party in danger. “Where are they?”
“They’ve ascended to the cave and will be waiting for us,” she said. “We searched three hours for you. I was beginning to think we’d lost you. Surely the others will want to know what happened to you. You must not under any circumstances tell them. Promise me this, Celestine: You must not speak of what you saw on the other side of the river.”
As we reached the shore, Dr. Seraphina helped me from the boat. When she saw that I was in pain, her manner softened. “Remember, our work has never been with the Watchers, my dear Celestine,” she said. “Our duties lie with the world we live in and must return to. There is much to be done. Although I am terribly disappointed in your choice to cross the river, you have discovered the object that fulfills our mission here. Well done.”
My body aching with each step, we returned to the ladder, passing the remains of the angel. Its robe had been cast aside and the body carefully dissected. Although it was little more than a shell of its former self, the ruins of its body gave off a dim, phosphorescent glow.
Aboveground all was dark. We carried the burlap bags filled with our precious samples through the snow. After packing the equipment carefully in the van, we climbed inside and began our descent down the mountain. We were exhausted, covered in mud, and injured—Vladimir had a gouge over his eye, a deep and bloody cut from a rock ledge he had hit on his ascent, and I had been exposed to a sickening light.
As we made our way through the mountains, moving swiftly along the icy roads, it was clear that snow had been falling for some time. Drifts piled heavy on crags and new snow fell thick against the sky. Ice coated the road ahead and behind, determining our meandering pace. I looked at my wristwatch and was surprised to learn that it was nearly four o’clock in the morning. We had been in the Devil’s Throat for over fifteen hours. We were so behind schedule that we could not stop for sleep. We would only pause to refuel with petrol packed in canisters at the back of the van.
Despite Vladimir’s efforts we arrived many hours late to meet the plane, just as the sun was rising. A Model 12 Electra Junior, twin-engined and ready for flight, sat on the runway, just as we’d left it the day before. Ice hung from the wings like fangs, proof of the bitter cold. It had been difficult to fly to our destination but it would have been utterly impossible to have driven. We had been forced to take a number of detours in our flight to Greece—we had flown first to Tunisia and then to Turkey to avoid detection—and our return would be no less difficult. The plane was large enough for six passengers, our equipment and supplies. We loaded our materials on board, and soon the plane climbed through the snow-filled air, rising into the sky in a flurry of noise.

Twelve hours later, as we landed at the airfield outside of Paris, I saw that a Panhard et Levassor Dynamic waited in the distance, a luxurious vehicle with a polished grille and sweeping running boards, an object of wonder among the intense deprivations of the war. I could only guess how we had acquired such a treasure but suspected that it, like the Model 12 and the K-51, had been arranged through foreign patrons. Donations had kept us alive in the past years, and I was grateful to see the car, but how we had managed to keep such a treasure from the Germans was another question altogether, one I dared not ask.
I sat in silence as the car sped through the night. Despite hours of sleep on the plane, I was still exhausted from the trip down the gorge. I closed my eyes. Before I knew it, I had fallen into a deep sleep. The tires bumped over the battered roads, and the others whispered at the edge of my hearing, but all meaning of their words was lost. My dreams were a mélange of images of everything that I had seen in the cave. Dr. Seraphina and Vladimir and the other party members appeared before me; the deep and terrifying cavern opened below; and the legion of luminous angels, their brilliant pallor radiating about them, danced before me.
When I woke, I recognized the deserted cobblestone streets of Montparnasse, an area of resistance and utter poverty during the occupation. We drove past apartment buildings and darkened cafés, barren trees rising on each side, snow frosting their branches. The driver slowed and turned into the Cimetière du Montparnasse, stopping before a great iron gate. He gave a short honk from the horn, and the gate opened, rattling aside as the car crawled forward. The interior of the cemetery was still and frozen, coated in ice that glimmered in the headlights, and I felt for a moment that this one shimmering place had been spared the ugliness and depravity of the war. The driver cut the engine before a statue of an angel perched upon a stone pedestal—Le Cénie du Sommeil éternel, The Spirit of Eternal Sleep, a bronze guardian gazing over the dead.
I stepped out of the car, still groggy with exhaustion. Although the night was clear, the stars glowing above in the sky, the air hung wet upon the tombstones, giving the faintest aura of fog. A man stepped from behind the statue, clearly assigned to meet the car, but all the same I started with fright. He wore the clothing of a priest. I had never seen the man before, not at any of our meetings or assemblies, and I had been trained to be suspicious of everyone. Only the month before, the Nephilim had tracked down and killed one of our senior council members, a professor of ethereal musicology named Dr. Michael, taking his entire collection of musicological writings. It was one instance of a senior-level scholar’s losing priceless information. The enemy waited for such chances.
Dr. Seraphina appeared to know the priest and followed him readily. Urging the group to come with him, the priest led us to a dilapidated stone structure in a far corner of the cemetery, one of the remaining buildings of a long-abandoned monastery. Years before, the building had served as the Valkos’ lecture hall. Now it remained empty. The priest unlocked a swollen wooden door and led us inside.
None of us, not even Dr. Seraphina, who had close ties to the most senior council members—indeed, Dr. Raphael Valko led the resistance in Paris—knew exactly where we would meet during the war. We had no regular schedule, and all messages were delivered by word of mouth or—like this one—in silence. Assemblies convened in impromptu locations—out-of-the-way cafés, small towns beyond Paris, abandoned churches. Even with these extreme precautions, I knew that we were most likely being monitored every moment.
The priest brought us into a hallway off the sanctuary, stopped before a door, and gave three sharp raps. The door opened, revealing a stone room lit by exposed bulbs—more precious supplies bought on the black market with dollars from America. The narrow windows were covered by heavy black cloth, to block out the light. The meeting appeared to be under way—members of the council sat at a round wooden table. As the priest ushered us inside, the council members stood, examining us with great interest. I was not allowed to attend the council meetings and had no method of gauging their usual proceedings, but clearly the council had been waiting for the expedition party to arrive.
Dr. Raphael Valko, acting chair of the council, sat at the head of the table. The last I had seen him had been as he drove away from my farmhouse in Alsace, leaving me in exile, an abandonment for which I could not forgive him, even though I was aware that it had been for the best. He had changed significantly since then. His hair had grayed about the temples, and his manner had taken on a new level of gravity. I would have taken him for a stranger if I’d met him in the street.
Greeting us tersely, Dr. Raphael gestured to a number of empty chairs and began what I knew would be the first of many rounds of questioning about the expedition. “You have much to report,” he said, folding his hands upon the table. “Begin as you wish.”
Dr. Seraphina gave a detailed description of the gorge: the steep vertical drop, the rock shelves that studded the lower regions of the cavern, and the distinct sound of the waterfall in the distance. She described the body of the angel, giving a list of precise measurements and outlining the characteristics she had recorded in her field notebook, mentioning with obvious pride the distinct genitalia. She reported that the photographs would reveal new truths about the physicality of the angels. The expedition had been a great success.
As the other members of the party spoke, each giving an elaborate account of the journey, I felt myself turn inward. I stared at my hands in the dim light. They were eaten raw from the cold and ice of the gorge and burned from the angel. I wondered at the sense of dislocation that had overtaken me. Had we been in the mountains only hours before? My fingers trembled so severely that I tucked them into the pockets of my thick wool coat, to hide them. In my mind the aquamarine eyes of the angel stared up at me, bright and polished as colored glass. I recalled how Seraphina had lifted the creature’s long arms and legs, weighing each limb as if it were a piece of wood. The creature seemed so vital, so filled with life that I could not help but believe that it had been living only minutes before we’d arrived. I realized that I had never quite believed that the body would be there, that despite all my study I had not expected to actually see it, to touch it, to puncture its skin with needles and draw fluid. Perhaps at the back of my mind I’d hoped that we were wrong. When the skin had been cut from the arm and the sample of flesh held into the light, I had been overcome with horror. I saw it again and again: the razor edging under the white skin, slicing, lifting. The glimmering of the membrane in the weak light. As the youngest among them, I felt that it was imperative I perform well, carrying more than my share. Always I had pushed myself to spend more hours working and studying than the others. The past years were spent proving myself worthy of the expedition—reading texts, attending lectures, equipping myself with information for the journey—and yet this had not helped to prepare me for the gorge. To my chagrin, I had reacted like a neophyte.
“Celestine?” Dr. Raphael said, jarring me from my thoughts. I was startled to see the others looking intently at me, as if expecting me to speak. Apparently Dr. Raphael had asked me a question.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling my face burn. “Did you ask me something?”
“Dr. Seraphina was explaining to the council that you made a crucial discovery in the cavern,” Dr. Raphael said, examining me carefully. “Would you care to elaborate?”
Fearful that I would give away the secret promise I had made Dr. Seraphina, and equally terrified of exposing how foolhardy I had been to cross the river, I said nothing at all.
“It is obvious that Celestine isn’t feeling well,” Dr. Seraphina said, interceding on my behalf. “If you don’t mind, I would like her to rest for the moment. Allow me to describe the discovery.”
Dr. Seraphina explained the discovery to the council members. She said, “I found Celestine near the riverbank, the careworn sack in her arms. I knew at once by the worn leather that it must have been very old. There is, if you recall, mention of a satchel in the Venerable Father’s account of the First Angelological Expedition.”
“Yes,” Dr. Raphael said. “You are correct. I recall the line exactly: ‘With all haste, I collected the treasure from the fallen creature, cradling the object in my charred hands and placing it in my satchel, safe from harm: ”
“Only after opening the satchel and examining the lyre did I know for certain that it had belonged to Clematis. The Venerable Clematis must have been too stricken to carry the sack to the surface of the gorge,” Dr. Seraphina said. “It is this very satchel that Celestine discovered.”
The council members were awestruck at this news. They turned to me, clearly expecting that I would give the account in greater detail, but I could not speak. Indeed, I could hardly believe that I, of all the members of their party, had made such a long-awaited discovery.
Dr. Raphael remained silent for a moment, as if contemplating the magnitude of the expedition’s success. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he stood and turned to the council members.
“You may go,” Dr. Raphael said, dismissing the group. “There is food in our rooms below Seraphina and Celestine, would you please stay a moment?”
As the others left, Dr. Seraphina caught my eye, giving me a kind look, as if to assure me that everything would be fine. Dr. Raphael guided the others from the room, radiating a confident serenity that I admired, for his strength of character to contain his emotions was a virtue I wished to emulate. He said, “Tell me, Seraphina—did the party members perform to your expectations?”
“It was, in my opinion, a great success,” Dr. Seraphina said.
“And Celestine?” he inquired.
I felt my stomach twist: Had the expedition been some kind of test?
“For a young angelologist,” Dr. Seraphina said, “she impressed me. The discovery alone should be enough to prove her skill.”
“Fine,” Dr. Raphael said, turning to me. “You are pleased with your work?”
I glanced from Dr. Seraphina to Dr. Raphael, unsure of how to respond. To say that I was satisfied with my work would be a lie, but to speak in detail of what I had done would be to break the promise I had made to Dr. Seraphina. Finally I whispered, “I wish that I had been more prepared.”
“We prepare all of our lives for such moments,” Dr. Raphael said, crossing his arms and looking at me with a critical gaze. “When the time comes, we can only expect that we have learned enough to succeed.”
“You were quite capable,” Dr. Seraphina added. “Your work was superb.”
“I cannot account for my reaction to the gorge,” I said simply. “I found the mission deeply troubling. Even now I have not recovered.”
Dr. Raphael put his arm around his wife, kissing her on the cheek. “Go to the others, Seraphina. There is something I would like to show Celestine.”
Dr. Seraphina turned to me and took my hand. “You were very brave, Celestine, and one day you will make an excellent angelologist.” With this she kissed my cheek and departed. I would never see her again.
Dr. Raphael ushered me from the meeting room and into a corridor smelling of earth and fungus. “Follow me,” he said, stepping quickly down the steps and into darkness. At the bottom of the stairs, there was another passageway, this one longer than the first. I felt the sharp decline in the floor as we walked and adjusted my weight to bolster myself. As we hurried onward, the air grew cooler and the smell became intensely rancid. The damp air moved through my clothes, penetrating the thick wool jacket I had worn into the cavern. Brushing my hands against the wet stone walls, I realized that the uneven fragments were not stone but bones piled into the cavity in the wall. At once I understood their location: We were moving below Montparnasse by way of the catacombs.
We climbed through a second corridor, up a stairway, and into another building. Dr. Raphael unlocked a series of doors, the last of which opened to the crisp, cold air of an alleyway. Rats scattered in all directions, leaving half-eaten scraps—rotting potato peels and chicory, a wartime substitute for coffee. Dr. Raphael took me by the arm and led me around another corner and into the street. We soon found ourselves a number of blocks from the cemetery, where the Panhard et Levassor idled, waiting for us. As we approached the car, I noticed that a square of paper written entirely in German had been fastened in the window. Although I could not make out what it said, I guessed it to be a German permit or license that would allow us to pass checkpoints throughout the city. Now I understood how we managed to keep such a luxurious car and obtain fuel: The Panhard et Levassor belonged to the Germans. Dr. Valko, who oversaw our undercover operations in the German ranks, had managed to obtain use of it—at least for the evening.
The driver opened the door, and I slid into the warm backseat, Dr. Raphael moving in next to me. Turning, he took my face between his cold hands and gazed at me dispassionately. “Look at me,” he said, examining my features, as if searching for something particular. I returned his gaze, seeing him up close for the first time. He was at least fifty, his skin lined and his hair even more flecked with gray than I had noticed earlier. Our proximity startled me. I had never been so close to a man before.
“Your eyes are blue?” he asked.
“Hazel,” I responded, confused by the strange question.
“Good enough,” he said, opening a small travel suitcase between us. He lifted a satin evening gown, silk stockings and garter belt, and a pair of shoes. I recognized the dress instantly. It was the same red satin dress Gabriella had worn years before.
“Put these on,” Dr. Raphael said. My astonishment must have been apparent, for he added, “You will soon see why this is necessary.”
“But they are Gabriella’s,” I said, objecting before I could stop myself. I could not bring myself to touch the dress, knowing all that I did about her activities. I recalled Dr. Raphael and Gabriella together, and I wished that I had said nothing.
“What of it?” Dr. Raphael demanded.
“The night she wore this dress,” I said, unable to look him in the eye, “I saw the two of you together. You were in the street below our apartment.”
“And you believe that you understand what you saw,” Dr. Raphael said. “How could I misinterpret it?” I whispered, glancing out the window at the dull gray buildings, the progression of streetlamps, the dismal face of Paris in winter. “It was very clear what was happening.”
“Put the dress on,” Dr. Raphael said, his voice stern. “You must place more faith in Gabriella’s motives. Friendship should be stronger than idle suspicions. In times like this, trust is all we have. There is much you do not know. Very soon you will understand the dangers Gabriella has faced.”
Slowly, I unbound myself from my thick woolen clothing. I unbuttoned my trousers and slid the heavy sweater—worn for protection against the icy mountain wind—over my head and wiggled into the gown, careful not to tear it. The dress was too big; I felt it immediately. Four years ago, when Gabriella had worn it, the dress would have been too small for me, but I had lost ten kilos during the war and was little more than skin and bones.
Dr. Raphael Valko went through a similar costume change. As I dressed, he withdrew the black jacket and trousers of an Allgemeine SS Nazi uniform from his case, pulling a pair of stiff, glossy black riding boots from under the seat. The uniform was in perfect condition, without the wear or smell of black-market hand-me-downs. I supposed it to be another useful acquisition from one of our double agents in the SS, one with Nazi connections. The uniform sent chills through me—it transformed Dr. Raphael completely. When he had finished dressing, he brushed a clear liquid onto his upper lip and pressed a thin mustache upon it. Then he slicked back his hair with pomade and attached an SS pin to his lapel, a small but precise addition that filled me with repulsion.
Dr. Raphael narrowed his eyes and examined me, checking my appearance with care. I crossed my arms over my chest, as if I might hide myself from him. Clearly I had not metamorphosed to his satisfaction. To my great embarrassment, he straightened the dress and fussed over my hair in the way my mother used to do before bringing me to church as a child.
The car sped through the streets, stopping at the Seine. A soldier at the bridge tapped the glass with the butt of a Luger. The driver unrolled the window and spoke to the soldier in German, showing a packet of papers. The soldier glanced into the back of the car, resting his gaze upon Dr. Raphael.
“Guten Abend,” Dr. Raphael said with what sounded to me to be a perfect German accent.
“Guten Abend,” the soldier muttered, examining the papers before he waved us across the bridge.
As we climbed the wide stone steps of a municipal banquet hall featuring a series of columns rising before a classical fa?ade, we passed men in evening attire and beautiful women on their arms. German soldiers stood guard at the door. Compared to the elegant women, I knew I must appear sickly and exhausted, too thin and pale. I had pulled my hair back in a chignon and applied a bit of rouge from Dr. Raphael’s case, but how unlike them—with their styled hair and fresh complexions—I was. Warm baths, powders, perfumes, and fresh clothing did not exist for me, or for any of us in occupied France. Gabriella had left behind a cut crystal bottle of Shailmar, a precious reminder of happier times that I had kept with me since her disappearance, but I dared not use a drop of the scent for fear that I might waste it. I remembered comfort as something of my childhood, something I had experienced once and never again, like loose teeth. There was little chance I would be mistaken for one of these women. Still, I clung to Dr. Raphael’s arm, trying to remain calm. He walked swiftly, with confidence, and, to my surprise, the soldiers let us pass without incident. All at once we stood in the warm, noisy, lush interior of the banquet hall.
Dr. Raphael led me to the far side of the hall and up a set of stairs to a private table on the balcony. It took a moment to adjust to the noise and odd lighting, but as I did, I saw that the dining room was long and deep, with a high ceiling and mirrored walls that reflected the crowd, capturing the nape of a woman’s neck here, the glistening of a watch fob there. Red banners stamped with black swastikas hung at intervals throughout the room. The tables were covered in white linen, matching china, bouquets of flowers blooming at the center—roses in the dead of a wartime winter, a minor miracle. Crystal chandeliers threw wavering light upon the dark tiled floor, catching upon satin shoes. Champagne, jewels, and beautiful people gathered in the candlelight. The room was aflutter with hands raising wineglasses—Zum Wohl! Zum Wohl! The abundance of wine being served from one end of the room to the other took me by surprise. While food was difficult to acquire in general, good wine was nearly impossible for those unconnected with the occupation forces. I had heard that the Germans requisitioned bottles of champagne by the thousands, and my family’s cellar had been drunk dry. To me even one bottle was an extreme luxury. Yet here it was, flowing like water. At once I understood how very different the lives of the victorious were from the lives of the conquered.
From the height of the balcony, I examined the revelers up close. At first glance the crowd appeared to be like any other attending an elegant gathering. But with further inspection, I found a number of guests to have an odd appearance. They were thin and angular, with high cheekbones and wide, feline eyes, as if they had been cut from a pattern. Their blond hair, translucent skin, and unusual height marked them as Nephilistic guests.
Voices lifted to the balcony as waiters moved through the crowd, distributing glasses of champagne.
“This,” Dr. Raphael said, gesturing to the hundreds of revelers below, “is what I wanted you to see.”
I looked over the crowd once again, feeling as if I might be sick. “Such merriment while France starves.”
“While Europe starves,” Dr. Raphael corrected.
“How do they have so much food?” I asked. “So much wine, such fine clothing, so many pairs of shoes?”
“Now you see,” Dr. Raphael said, smiling slightly. “I wanted you to understand what we are working for, what is at stake. You are young. Perhaps it is difficult for you to fully realize what we are up against.”
I leaned against the reflective brass railing, my bare arms burning against the cold metal.
“Angelology is not just some theoretical chess game,” Dr. Raphael said. “I know that in the early years of study, when one is mired in Bonaventure and Augustine, it seems that way. But your work is not solely winning debates about hylomorphism and drawing up the taxonomies of guardian angels.” He gestured to the crowd below. “Your work is happening here, in the real world.”
I noticed the passion with which Dr. Raphael spoke and how closely his words echoed Seraphina’s warning to me as I came to in the Devil’s Throat. Our duties lie with the world we live in and must return to.
“You realize,” he said, “that this is not just a battle between a handful of resistance fighters and an occupying army. This has been a war of attrition. It has been one continuous struggle from the very beginning. St. Thomas Aquinas believed that the dark angels fell within twenty seconds of creation—their evil nature cracked the perfection of the universe almost instantly, leaving a terrible fissure between good and evil. For twenty seconds the universe was pure, perfect, unbroken. Imagine what it was like to exist in those twenty seconds—to live without fear of death, without pain, without the doubt that we live with. Imagine.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture such a universe. I could not.
“There were twenty seconds of perfection,” Dr. Raphael said, accepting a glass of champagne from a waiter and another for me. “We get the rest.”
I took a sip of the cold, dry champagne. The taste was so wonderful that my tongue recoiled as if in pain.
Dr. Raphael continued, “In our time evil has overcome. Yet we continue the fight. There are thousands of us in every part of the world. And thousands—hundreds of thousands, perhaps—of them.”
“They have grown so powerful,” I said, examining the wealth on display in the ballroom below. “I have to believe that it wasn’t always this way.”
“The founding fathers of angelology took special delight in planning the extermination of their enemy. However, it was a much-studied fact that the fathers overestimated their abilities: They believed that the battle would be swift. They did not understand how petulant the Watchers and their children could be, how they reveled in subterfuge, violence, and destruction. Whereas the Watchers were angelic creatures, retaining the celestial beauty of their origins, their children were tainted with violence. They, in turn, tainted all they touched.”
Dr. Raphael paused, as if thinking over a riddle.
“Consider,” he said at last, “the desperation the Creator must have felt at destroying us, the sorrow of a father killing his children, the extremity of his actions. The millions of creatures drowned and the civilizations lost—and still the Nephilim prevailed. Economic greed, social injustice, war—these are the manifestations of evil in our world. Clearly, destroying life on the planet did not eliminate evil. For all their wisdom, the Venerable Fathers had not examined such things. They had not been fully prepared for the fight. They are an example of how even the most dedicated angelologists might err by ignoring history.
“Our work took quite a blow during the Inquisition, although we made up lost ground soon after,” Dr. Raphael said. “The nineteenth century was equally worrisome, when the theories of Spencer and Darwin and Marx were twisted into systems of social manipulation. But in the past we’ve always recovered lost ground. Now, however, I’m growing worried. Our strength is diminishing. Death camps overflow with our kind. The Nephilim have scored a major victory with the Germans. They have been waiting for quite a while for this kind of platform.”
I found that I had the opportunity to ask a question that had been at the back of my mind for some time. “You believe the Nazis are Nephilistic?”
“Not exactly,” Dr. Raphael said. “Nephilim are parasitic, feeding off human society. They are mixed, after all—part angel, part human. This gives them a certain flexibility to move in and out of civilizations. Through history they have attached themselves to groups like the Nazis, promoted them, assisted them financially and militarily, and made way for their successes. It is a very old, and very successful, practice. Once they find victory, the Nephilim absorb the rewards, quietly dividing the spoils, and go back to their private existences.”
“But they are called the Famous Ones,” I said.
“Yes, and many of them are famous. But their riches buy them protection and privacy.” Dr. Raphael continued, “There are a number of them here. As a matter of fact, there is one very influential gentleman I should like to introduce you to.”
Dr. Raphael stood and shook hands with a tall, blond gentleman in a gorgeous silk tuxedo, who—although I could not say how—was exceedingly familiar to me. Perhaps we had met before, because he examined me with equal interest, eyeing my dress with care.
“Herr Reimer,” the man said. The familiarity of his address, coupled with Dr. Raphael’s false name, signaled to me that the man had no idea who we really were. Indeed, he spoke to Dr. Raphael as if they were colleagues. “Haven’t seen you about Paris much this month—the war biting into your leisure?”
Dr. Raphael laughed, his voice measured. “No,” he said, “just spending time with this lovely young lady. This is my niece, Christina. Christina,” Dr. Raphael said, “this is Percival Grigori.”
I stood and offered my hand to the man. He kissed it, his freezing lips pressing my warm skin.
“Lovely girl,” the man said, although he had hardly glanced at me, so taken was he with my dress.
With that he removed a cigarette case from his pocket, offered one to Dr. Raphael, and, to my astonishment, lifted the very lighter that Gabriella had carried in her possession four years before. In an instant of horrid recognition, the man’s identity was revealed to me. Percival Grigori was Gabriella’s lover, the man I had found in her arms. I watched, stunned, as Dr. Raphael spoke lightly of politics and theater, touching upon the most noteworthy events of the war. Then, with a nod, Percival Grigori left us.
I sat in my chair, unable to understand how Dr. Raphael might know this man, or how Gabriella had come to be involved with him. In my confusion I chose the more prudent course: I remained silent.
“Are you feeling better?” Dr. Raphael asked.
“Better?”
“You were ill on the journey.”
“Yes,” I said, looking over my arms, which were redder than ever, as if I had been severely sunburned. “I believe I will be fine. My skin is fair. It will need some days to heal.” Wishing to change the subject, I said, “But you didn’t finish telling me about the Nazis. Are they completely under Nephilistic control? If so, how could we possibly win against them?”
“The Nephilim are very strong, but when they are defeated—and until now they have always been defeated—they disappear quickly, leaving their human hosts to face punishment alone, as if the evil actions were their own. The Nazi Party is rife with Nephilim, but those in power are one hundred percent human. That is why they are so hard to exterminate. Humanity understands, even desires, evil. There is something in our nature that is seduced by evil. We are easily convinced.”
“Manipulated,” I said.
“Yes, perhaps ‘manipulated’ is the better word. It is the more generous word.”
I sank into my velvet chair, the soft fabric soothing the skin on my back. It seemed to me that I had not felt so warm in years. Music began to play in the hall, and couples began to dance, filling the floor.
“Dr. Raphael,” I asked, the champagne making me feel bold, “can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he replied.
“Why did you ask if my eyes were blue?”
Dr. Raphael looked at me, and for a moment I thought that he might tell me something about himself, something that would reveal the inner life he kept hidden from his students. His voice softened as he said, “It is something you should have learned in my classes, my dear. The appearance of the Giants? Their genetic makeup?”
I recalled his lectures and flushed, embarrassed. Of course, I thought. The Nephilim have luminous blue eyes, blond hair, and above-average height. “Oh, yes,” I said. “I remember now.”
“You are quite tall,” he observed. “And thin. I thought I could get you by the guards easier if your eyes were blue.”
I finished the rest of the champagne in one quick sip. I did not like to be wrong, especially in the presence of Dr. Raphael.
“Tell me,” Dr. Raphael said, “do you understand why we sent you to the gorge?”
“Scientific purposes,” I replied. “To observe the angel and collect empirical evidence. To preserve the body for our records. To find the treasure Clematis left behind.”
“Of course, the lyre was at the heart of the journey,” Dr. Raphael said. “But did you wonder why an inexperienced angelologist such as yourself would be sent on a mission of this caliber? Why did Seraphina, who is only forty, lead the party and not one of the older council members?”
I shook my head. I knew that Dr. Seraphina had her own professional ambitions, but I had found it odd that Dr. Raphael had not gone to the mountain himself, especially after his early work on Clematis. I understood that my inclusion had been a reward for uncovering the location of the gorge, but perhaps there had been more to it.
“Seraphina and I wanted to send a young angelologist to the cave,” Dr. Raphael said, meeting my eye. “You have not been overexposed to our professional practices. You would not color the expedition with preconceptions.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, placing the empty crystal flute upon the table.
“If I had gone,” Dr. Raphael said, “I would have seen only what I expected to see. You, on the other hand, saw what was there. Indeed, you discovered something the others did not. Tell me the truth: How did you find it? What happened in the gorge?”
“I believe that Dr. Seraphina gave you our report,” I replied, suddenly anxious about Dr. Raphael’s intentions in taking me here.
“She described the physical details, the number of photographic records you made, the time it took to climb from top to bottom. Logistically, she was very thorough. But that isn’t all, is it? There was something more, something that frightened you.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean.”
Dr. Raphael lit a cigarette and leaned back into his chair, amusement illuminating his features. I was unsettled still more by how handsome I found him. He said, “Even now, safe in Paris, you are frightened.”
Arranging the satin fabric of the bias-cut dress, I said, “I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. There was something deeply horrifying about the cavern. As we descended into the gorge, everything grew so very . . . dark.”
“That seems quite natural,” Dr. Raphael said. “The gorge is deep below the surface of the mountain.”
“Not physical darkness,” I said, unsure of whether even in this I was giving too much away. “It was another quality altogether. An elemental darkness, a pure darkness, the kind of darkness one feels in the middle of the night after waking in a cold, empty room, the sound of bombs falling in the distance, a nightmare in the back of one’s mind. It is the kind of darkness that proves the fallen nature of our world.”
Dr. Raphael stared at me, waiting for me to continue.
“We were not alone in the Devil’s Throat,” I said. “The Watchers were there, waiting for us.”
Dr. Raphael continued to assess me, and I could not tell if it was an expression of amazement or fear or—I secretly hoped—admiration. He said, “Surely the others would have mentioned this.”
“I was alone,” I said, breaking my promise to Dr. Seraphina. “I left the party and crossed the river. I was disoriented and cannot recall the exact details of what transpired. What I do know for certain is that I saw them. They stood in darkened cells, just as they had when Clematis encountered them. There was an angel who looked upon me. I felt its desire to be free, to be in the company of humanity, to be favored. The angel had been there for thousands of years, waiting for our arrival.”

Dr. Raphael Valko and I got to the emergency council meeting in the early-morning hours. The location had been set hastily, and everyone had relocated from the previous meeting space to the center of our buildings in Montparnasse, the Athenaeum. The imposing and noble Athenaeum had fallen into disuse in the years of the occupation. Where once it had been filled with books and students, with the rustle of pages and the whisper of librarians, now the shelves were bare and the corners filled with cobwebs. I had not set foot in our library for many years, and the transformation made me long for a time when I had no worries greater than my studies.
The change of location had been made as a simple safety measure, but the precaution had cost us time. Leaving the ball, we had been given a message by a young soldier on a bicycle that told of the meeting and requested our presence immediately. Once we arrived at the designated point, we were given a second message, with a series of clues meant to bring us to the location undetected. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning before we took our seats at high-backed chairs on both sides of a narrow table in the Athenaeum.
Two small lamps lit at the center of the meeting table threw a dim, watery light upon all who sat there. There was a sense of tension and energy in the room that gave me the distinct feeling that something momentous had occurred. This perception was verified by the sobriety with which the members of the council greeted us. It appeared to me that we had interrupted a funeral.
Dr. Raphael took the seat at the head of the table, gesturing for me to sit on a bench at his side. To my great surprise, Gabriella Lévi-Franche sat at the far end of the table. It had been four years since I had last seen her. In appearance Gabriella was much the same as I remembered her. She wore her black hair in a short bob, her lips were painted bright red, and her expression was one of placid watchfulness. Yet while most of us had fallen into an anemic state of exhaustion during the war, Gabriella had the look of a pampered and well-protected woman. She was better clothed and better fed than any of the angelologists in the Athenaeum.
Noticing that I had arrived with Dr. Raphael, Gabriella raised an eyebrow, a hint of accusation forming in her green eyes. It was plain that our rivalry had not ended. Gabriella was as wary of me as I was of her.
“Tell me everything,” Dr. Raphael said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I want to know exactly how it happened.”
“The car was stopped for inspection at the Pont Saint-Michel,” replied an elderly angelologist, the nun I had met some years before. The nun’s heavy black veil and the lack of light made her appear to be an extension of the shadowy room. I could see nothing but her gnarled fingers folded upon the glossy tabletop. “The guards forced them from the car and searched them. They were taken.”
“Taken?” Dr. Raphael said. “Where?”
“We have no way of knowing,” said Dr. Lévi-Franche, Gabriella’s uncle, his small round spectacles perched upon his nose. “We’ve alerted our cells in every arrondissement in the city. No one has seen them. I’m sorry to say they could be anywhere.”
Dr. Raphael said, “And what of their cargo?”
Gabriella stood and placed a heavy leather case on the table. “I kept the lyre with me,” she said, resting her small fingers over the brown leather case. “I was traveling in the car behind Dr. Seraphina. When we saw that our agents were being arrested, I ordered my driver to turn around and drive back to Montparnasse. Fortunately, the case holding the discoveries was with me.”
Dr. Raphael’s shoulders sank in a clear sign of relief. “The case is safe,” he said. “But they are holding our agents.”
“Of course,” the nun said. “They would never let such valuable prisoners go free without asking for something equally valuable in return.”
“What are the terms?” Dr. Raphael asked.
“A trade—the treasures for the angelologists,” the nun replied.
“And what exactly did they mean by ‘treasures’?” Dr. Raphael asked quietly.
“They were not specific,” the nun said. “But somehow they know we have recovered something precious from the Rhodopes. I believe we should comply with their wishes.”
“Impossible,” Dr. Lévi-Franche said. “It is simply out of the question.”
“It is my opinion that they do not know what the group actually found in the mountains, only that it is prized,” Gabriella said, straightening in her chair.
“Perhaps the captured agents have told them what they extracted from the cavern,” suggested the nun. “Under such duress it would be the natural outcome. ”
“I believe that our angelologists will honor our codes,” Dr. Raphael answered, a hint of anger in his response. “If I know Seraphina at all, she won’t allow the others to speak.” He turned away, and I could see the faintest glistening of sweat forming upon his forehead. “She will endure their questions, although we all know that their methods can be horribly cruel.”
The atmosphere turned grim. We all understood how brutal the Nephilim could be to our agents, especially if they wanted something. I had heard tales of the methods of torture they used, and I could only imagine what they would do to my colleagues to extract information. Closing my eyes, I whispered a prayer. I could not foresee what would happen, but I understood how important the evening had become: If we lost what we had recovered from the cavern, our work would have been for nothing. The discoveries were precious, but would we willingly sacrifice an entire team of angelologists for them?
“One thing is certain,” the nun said, looking at her wristwatch. “They are still alive. We received the call approximately twenty minutes ago. I myself spoke with Seraphina.”
“Could she speak freely?” Dr. Raphael said.
“She urged us to make the trade,” the nun said. “She specifically asked Dr. Raphael to go forward.”
Dr. Raphael folded his hands before him. He seemed to be examining something minute on the surface of the table. “What are your thoughts about such a trade?” he asked, addressing the council.
“We don’t have much choice in the matter,” Dr. Lévi-Franche said. “Such a trade is against our protocol. We have never made such trades in the past, and I believe we should not make an exception, no matter how we value Dr. Seraphina. We cannot possibly give them the materials recovered from the gorge. Retrieving them has been hundreds of years in the planning.”
I was horrified to hear Gabriella’s uncle speak of my teacher in such cold terms. My indignation was assuaged slightly as I caught Gabriella glaring at him with annoyance, the very look she had once reserved for me.
“And yet,” said the nun, “Dr. Seraphina’s expertise has brought us the treasure. If we lose her, how will we progress?”
“It is impossible to make the trade,” Dr. Lévi-Franche insisted. “We have not had the opportunity to examine the field notes or develop the photographs. The expedition would be an utter waste.”
Vladimir said, “And the lyre—I cannot possibly imagine what the consequences of their possession of it would hold for all of us. For all the world, for that matter.”
“I agree,” Dr. Raphael said. “The instrument must be kept away from them at all costs. Surely there must be some alternative.”
“I am aware that my views are not popular among you,” the nun said. “But this instrument is not worth the cost of human life. We must certainly make the trade.”
“But the treasure we have found today is the culmination of great efforts,” Vladimir objected, his Russian accent thick. The cut over his eye had been sutured and cleaned and had the appearance of raw and gruesome embroidery. “Surely you do not mean that we destroy something we have worked so hard to recover?”
“It is exactly what I mean,” the nun said. “There is a point when we must realize that we have no power in these matters. It is out of our hands. We must leave it to God.”
“Ridiculous,” Vladimir said.
As the arguments erupted between the members of the council, I studied Dr. Raphael, who sat so close by that I could smell the sour-sweet aroma of the champagne we’d been drinking only hours before. I could see that he was quietly formulating his thoughts, waiting for the others to exhaust their arguments. Finally he rose, gestured for the group to be silent. “Quiet!” he said, with more force than I had ever heard him use before.
The council members turned to him, surprised at the sudden authority in his voice. Although he was the head of the council and our most prestigious scholar, he rarely displayed his power.
Dr. Raphael said, “Earlier this evening I took this young angelologist to a gathering. It was a ball, thrown by our enemies. I think that I can say it was quite a brilliant affair, wouldn’t you agree, Celestine?”
At a loss for words, I simply nodded.
Dr. Raphael continued, “My reasons for doing this were practical. I wanted to show her the enemy up close. I wanted her to understand that the forces we are fighting against are here, living next to us in our cities, stealing and killing and pillaging as we watch, helpless. I think the lesson made an impression upon her. Yet I see now that many of you might have benefited from such an educational episode. It is obvious to me that we have forgotten what we are doing here.”
He gestured to the leather case sitting between them.
“This is not our fight to lose. The Venerable Fathers who risked heresy in founding our work, who preserved texts during the purges and burnings of the church, who copied the prophecies of Enoch and risked their lives to pass down information and resources-this is their fight we are carrying out. Bonaventure, whose Commentary on the Sentences so eloquently proved our founding metaphysics of angelology, that angels are both material and spiritual in substance. The scholastic fathers. Duns Scotus. The hundreds of thousands of those who have striven to defeat the machinations of the evil ones. How many have sacrificed their lives for our cause? How many would gladly do so again? This is their fight. And yet all of these hundreds of years have led to this singular moment of choice. Somehow the burden is on our shoulders. We are entrusted with the power to decide the future. We can continue the struggle, or we can give in.” He stood, walked to the case, and took it in his hands. “But we must decide immediately. Each member will vote.”
As Dr. Raphael called for the council to vote, the members raised their hands. To my utter amazement, Gabriella—who had never been allowed to attend a meeting, let alone help make decisions—had gained full voting privileges, while I, who had spent years working to prepare for the expedition and risked my life in the cavern, was not asked to participate. Gabriella was an angelologist, and I was still a novice. Tears of anger and defeat filled my eyes, blurring the room so that I could only just make out the voting. Gabriella raised her hand in favor of the trade, as did Dr. Raphael and the nun. Many of the others, however, wished to remain faithful to our codes. After the votes were counted, it was plain that many were in favor of making the trade and an equal number were against it.
“We are evenly divided,” Dr. Raphael said.
The council members looked from one to another, wondering who might change his or her vote to break the tie.
“I suggest,” Gabriella said at last, giving me a look that seemed laced with hope, “that we allow Celestine the opportunity to vote. She was a member of the expedition. Hasn’t she earned the right to participate?”
All eyes turned to me, sitting quietly behind Dr. Raphael. The council members agreed. My vote would decide the matter. I considered the choice before me, knowing that my decision put me at last among the other angelologists.
The council waited for me to make my choice.

After I cast my vote, I begged the pardon of the council, stepped into the empty hallway, and ran as fast as I could. Through the corridors, down a flight of wide stone steps, out the door, and into the night I ran, my shoes striking the rhythm of my heart on the flagstones. I knew that I might find solitude in the back courtyard, a place Gabriella and I had gone often, the very place I’d first glimpsed the gold lighter that Nephilistic monster had used in my presence earlier that night. The courtyard was always empty, even during the daylight hours, and I needed to be alone. Tears softened the edges of my vision—the iron fence surrounding the ancient structure melted, the majestic elephant-skinned beech tree in the courtyard dissolved, even the sharpened sickle of the crescent moon suspended in the sky blurred into an indistinct halo above me.
Checking to be sure that I had not been followed, I crouched against the wall of the building, hid my face in my hands, and sobbed. I cried for Dr. Seraphina and for the other members of the expedition party whom I had betrayed. I cried for the burden my vote had placed upon my conscience. I understood that my decision had been the correct one, but the sacrifice cracked through me, shattering my belief in myself, my colleagues, and our work. I had betrayed my teacher, my mentor. I had washed my hands of a woman I loved as deeply as I loved my own mother. I had been given the privilege to vote, but upon casting it I had lost my faith in angelology.
Although I wore a thick wool jacket—the same heavy coat I’d used to stave off the wet winds of the cavern—I had nothing underneath it but the thin dress Dr. Raphael had given me to wear to the party. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and shivered. The night was freezing, utterly still and quiet, colder than it had been only a few hours earlier. Regaining control of my emotions, I took a deep breath and prepared to return to the council room when, from somewhere near the side entrance of the building, there came the soft whisper of voices.
Stepping back into the shadows, I waited, wondering who would have left the building by that odd exit, the usual course being through the portico at the front entrance. In a matter of seconds, Gabriella stepped into the courtyard, speaking in a low, nearly inaudible voice to Vladimir, who listened to her as if she were telling him something of great importance.
I struggled to see them better. Gabriella was particularly striking in the moonlight—her black hair shone, and her red lipstick defined her lips dramatically against the whiteness of her skin. She wore a luxurious camel-colored overcoat, fitted snugly and belted at the waist, clearly tailored for her figure. I could not imagine where she had found such clothing and how she could have paid for it. Gabriella had always dressed beautifully, but for me clothes like Gabriella’s existed only in films.
Even after years apart, I knew her expressions well. The furrow in her brow meant she was pondering some question Vladimir had asked her. A sudden flash of brightness in her eyes, accompanied by a perfunctory smile, signified that she had answered him with her customary aplomb, a witticism, an aphorism, something biting. He listened with all his attention. His gaze did not leave her for even a moment.
As Gabriella and Vladimir spoke, I could hardly breathe. Given the events of the evening, Gabriella should have been as distressed as I. The loss of four angelologists and the threat of losing our discoveries from the expedition should have been enough to kill all merriment, even if the relationship between Dr. Seraphina and Gabriella had been superficial. But despite everything, the two had been exceptionally close once, and I knew that Gabriella had loved our teacher. Yet in the courtyard Gabriella appeared—I could hardly bear to think of the word—“joyous.” She had an air of triumph, as if she’d won a hard-fought victory.
A burst of light scattered over the courtyard as a car stopped, its headlights streaming through the iron gates and illuminating the great beech tree, whose branches stretched into the watery air like tentacles. A man stepped from the car. Gabriella glanced over her shoulder, her black hair framing her face like a bell. The man was striking, tall, with a beautiful double-breasted jacket and shoes that gleamed from polish. His appearance struck me as extraordinarily refined. Such wealth was an exotic sight during the war, and that evening I had been surrounded by it. As he stepped closer, I saw that it was Percival Grigori, the Nephilim I’d met earlier that evening. Gabriella recognized him at once. She gestured that he wait at the car and, kissing Vladimir quickly on each cheek, she turned and strode over the flagstones to her lover.
I crouched farther into the shadows, hoping that my presence would not be discovered. Gabriella was only meters away, so close I could have whispered to her as she passed. It was at that proximity that I saw it: the case containing our treasure from the mountain. Gabriella was delivering it to Percival Grigori.
This discovery had such an effect upon me that I momentarily lost my composure. I stepped into the plain light of the moon. Gabriella stopped short, taken by surprise to find me there. As our eyes met, I realized that it would not have mattered what the council had voted to do: All along, Gabriella had planned to give the case to her lover. In that moment the years of Gabriella’s strange behavior—her disappearances, her unaccountable rise in the angelological ranks, her falling-out with Dr. Seraphina, the money that seemed to come to her from out of the blue—all of it made sense to me. Dr. Seraphina had been correct. Gabriella was working with our enemies.
“What are you doing?” I said, hearing my own voice as if it belonged to another woman.
“Go back inside,” Gabriella answered, clearly startled by my appearance, her voice very low, as if she were afraid we would be overheard.
“You cannot do this,” I whispered. “Not now, after all we’ve suffered.”
“I am sparing you from further suffering,” Gabriella said, and, breaking free of my gaze, she walked to the car and climbed into the backseat, Percival Grigori following close behind.
The shock of Gabriella’s actions held me momentarily paralyzed, but as the car drove into the tangled obscurity of the narrow streets, I awoke. I ran through the courtyard and into the building, fear pushing me faster and faster through the vast, cold hallway.
Suddenly a voice called out to me from the end of the corridor. “Celestine!” Dr. Raphael said, stepping in my path. “Thank God you haven’t been hurt.”
“No,” I said, struggling to catch my breath. “But Gabriella has left with the case. I have just come from the courtyard. She’s stolen it.”
“Follow me,” Dr. Raphael said. Without further explanation he led me along a neglected hallway back to the Athenaeum, where the council had convened their meeting only half an hour before. Vladimir had also returned. He greeted me tersely, his expression grave. Looking past him, I saw that the windows at the far end of the room had been shattered and a cold, harsh breeze fell over the mutilated bodies of the council members, their corpses lying in pools of blood upon the floor.
The sight struck me with such force that I was unable to muster any response but disbelief. I supported myself upon the table where we had voted away my teacher’s life, unable to tell if the sight before me was real or if an evil fantasy had taken hold of my imagination. The brutality of the killings was horrifying. The nun had been shot point-blank in the head, leaving her habit soaked in blood. Gabriella’s uncle, Dr. Lévi-Franche, lay on the marble floor, equally bloody, his glasses crushed. Two other council members slumped upon the table itself.
I closed my eyes and turned from the awful sight. My only relief came when Dr. Raphael, whose arm encircled my shoulders, held me steady. I leaned against him, the scent of his body giving bittersweet comfort. I imagined that I would open my eyes and everything would be just as it had been years before—the Athenaeum would be filled with crates and papers and busy assistants packing our texts away. The council members would be arrayed about the table, studying Dr. Raphael’s maps of wartime Europe. Our school would be open, the council members would be alive. But upon opening my eyes, I was hit by the horror of the massacre again. There was no way to escape its reality.
“Come, now,” Dr. Raphael said, leading me from the room, steering me forcefully through the hallway and to the front entrance. “Breathe. You are in shock.”
Looking about as if in a dream, I said, “What has happened? I don’t understand. Did Gabriella do this?”
“Gabriella?” Vladimir said, joining us in the corridor. “No, of course not.”
“Gabriella had nothing to do with it,” Dr. Raphael said. “They were spies. We had known for some time that they were monitoring the council. It was part of the plan to kill them this way.”
“You did this?” I said, astonished. “How could you?”
Dr. Raphael looked at me, and I saw the faintest shadow of sadness register in his expression, as if it hurt him to bear witness to my disillusionment.
“It’s my job, Celestine,” he said at last as he took me by the arm and guided me through the hall. “One day you will understand. Come, we must get you out of here.”
As we approached the main entrance of the Athenaeum, the numbness brought on by the scene had begun to wear away, and I was overcome by nausea. Dr. Raphael led me into the cold night air, where the Panhard et Levassor waited to chauffer us away. As we walked down the wide stone steps, he pressed a case into my hand. The case was identical to the one Gabriella had held in the courtyard—the same brown leather, the same gleaming clasps.
“Take this,” Dr. Raphael said. “Everything is ready. You will be driven to the border tonight. Then, I’m afraid, we’ll have to rely upon our friends in Spain and Portugal to get you through.”
“Through to where?”
“To America,” Dr. Raphael said. “You will take this case with you. You—and the treasure from the gorge—will be safe there.”
“But I saw Gabriella leave,” I said, examining the case as if it were an illusion. “She took the instrument. It is gone.”
“It was a replica, dear Celestine, a decoy,” Dr. Raphael said. “Gabriella is diverting the enemy so that you can escape and Seraphina can be freed. You owe her much, including your presence on the expedition. The lyre is now in your care. You and Gabriella have gone your separate ways, but you must always remember that your work is for a single cause. Hers will be here, and yours will be in America.”