Angelology

Fifty-first Street and Lexington Avenue station, #6 downtown local train, New York City
As the train came into the station, a whoosh of hot air brushed against Evangeline’s skin. She took a deep breath, taking in the smell of stale air and hot metal. The doors slid open, and a stream of passengers stepped onto the platform. She and Gabriella had run less than a block to the station, but the effort had rendered her grandmother breathless. As Evangeline assisted her into a glossy plastic seat, she saw how weakened Gabriella had become. Her grandmother leaned back against the seat, trying to recover her equilibrium, and Evangeline wondered how long they would be able to continue if Percival Grigori had followed them.
The car was empty except for a drunk man stretched across a row of seats at the far end, and within a few sniffs Evangeline understood why there were no other passengers in their proximity. The man had vomited all over himself and the seats, leaving a pungent stench. She almost gagged from the odor, but there was no way she could risk stepping out onto the platform. Instead she tried to figure out which train they were on and, finding a map, she deduced their position: They were on the 4-5-6 green line. Tracing the line south, she saw that it ended at the Brooklyn Bridge—City Hall station. She knew the streets near the bridge intimately. If they could only get there, she would have no trouble finding them a place to hide. They must leave at once. And yet the doors, which Evangeline expected to close immediately, stood open.
A loud, jarring voice came onto the intercom system, speaking in a rapid string of words, each one running into the next. The announcement, Evangeline surmised, must have something to do with a delay at the station, although she couldn’t be sure. The doors sat open, leaving them exposed. Panic surged through her at the thought of being trapped, but her grandmother’s sudden agitation overshadowed her thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” Evangeline asked.
“It’s gone,” Gabriella said, grasping at her throat, clearly startled. “My amulet has fallen off.”
Evangeline instinctively touched her own throat, feeling the cold metal of her golden lyre pendant. At once she began to unfasten the clasp, to give the necklace to her grandmother, but Gabriella stopped her. “You will need your pendant now more than ever.”
Pendant or no pendant, it was too dangerous to remain standing there, waiting. Evangeline looked out at the platform, measuring the distance to the exit. She was about to take her grandmother by the arm and escort her off the train when, through a graffiti-etched window, the shape of their pursuer appeared. He limped from the stairwell and onto the platform, searching the train. Evangeline ducked below the window, pulling Gabriella with her, hoping he hadn’t seen them. To her relief, a bell sounded and the doors began to close. The car pulled away from the station, its wheels grinding on metal as they gained speed.
But when Evangeline looked up, her heart sank. A bloodied cane filled her vision. Percival Grigori leered down at her, his face twisted in rage and exhaustion. His breathing was so labored that Evangeline calculated they would be able to outrun him once they made it to the next station. She doubted he’d be able to follow them up even the smallest flight of stairs. But as Percival removed the gun from his pocket and gestured for Evangeline and Gabriella to stand, she knew that he’d caught them. Grasping a metal bar for support, Evangeline held her grandmother close.
“Here we are again,” Percival said, his voice little more than a whisper as he leaned over and took the leather case from Gabriella. “But perhaps this time we are dealing with the real thing.”
As the train made its way through the darkness of the tunnels, swaying with the curve of the underground passage, Percival placed the case on the plastic seat and opened it. The train stopped at a station and the doors opened, but as passengers stepped inside, they took one smell of the drunk man and changed cars. Percival didn’t appear to notice. He unwrapped the lyre’s body from the green velvet cloth, removed the plectrum from its leather satchel, withdrew the crossbar from its casket, and unwound the lyre’s strings. From his pocket he took the small bronze case Alistair Carroll had recovered from Rockefeller Center, worked it open, and examined the Valkine tuning pegs. The pieces of the lyre lay before them, rocking with the movement of the train, waiting to be fitted together.
Percival lifted the journal from the bottom of the case, its leather cover and golden angel clasp moving in and out of the flickering light. He turned the pages, flipping past the familiar sections of historical information, magic squares, and sigils and pausing at the point where Angela’s mathematical formulas began.
“What are these numbers?” he asked, examining the notebook with careful scrutiny.
“Look closely,” Gabriella said. “You know exactly what they are.”
As he read over the pages, his expression changed from consternation to delight. “They are the formulas you withheld,” Percival said at last.
“What you mean to say,” Gabriella said, “is they are the formulas you killed our daughter for.”
Evangeline caught her breath, finally understanding the cryptic words Gabriella had uttered at the skating rink. Percival Grigori was her grandfather. The realization filled her with horror. Grigori appeared equally stunned. He tried to speak, but a fit of coughing overtook him. He struggled for air until at last he said, “I don’t believe you.”
“Angela never knew her paternity. I spared her the pain of learning the truth. Evangeline, however, has not been spared. She has witnessed firsthand the villainy of her grandfather.”
Percival looked from Gabriella to Evangeline, his haggard features hardening as he fully understood Gabriella’s meaning.
“I am certain,” she continued, “that Sneja would be quite pleased to know that you have given her an heir.”
“A human heir is worthless,” Percival snapped. “Sneja cares only for angelic blood.”
The car rushed into a station, the platform’s white lights flooding the interior, and jerked to a halt at Union Square. The doors opened, and a party of people trickled inside, merry from holiday celebrations. They didn’t appear to notice Percival or the stench in the air and took seats nearby, talking and laughing loudly. Alarmed, Gabriella moved to shield the case from view. “You must not expose the instrument in this fashion,” Gabriella said. “It is too dangerous.”
Percival gestured to Evangeline with the gun. She picked up the pieces one by one, pausing to examine them before replacing them in the case. As her fingers brushed against the metal base of the lyre, a strange sensation fell upon her. At first she ignored the feeling, thinking that it was simply the fear and panic Percival Grigori inspired in her. Then she heard something unearthly—a sweet, perfect music filled her mind, notes rising and falling, each one sending a shiver through her. The sound was so blissful, so exhilarating, that she strained to hear it more clearly. She glanced at her grandmother, who had begun to argue with Grigori. Through the music Evangeline could not hear what Gabriella said. It was as if a thick glass dome had descended around her, separating her from the rest of the world. Nothing at all mattered but the instrument before her. And although the dizzying effect had mesmerized her alone, she knew that the music was not a figment of her imagination. The lyre was calling to her.
Without warning, Percival slammed the top of the case shut and yanked it away from Evangeline, breaking the spell the instrument had cast upon her. A violent surge of despair took hold of her as she lost her grasp upon the case, and before she understood her actions, she fell upon Percival, wrenching the case from him. To her surprise, she had been able to take the instrument with ease. A new strength moved through her, a vitality she had not known only moments before. Her vision was sharper, more precise. She held the case close, ready to protect it.
The train car stopped at another station, and the group of people sauntered off, aloof to the spectacle. A chime rang, and the doors slid shut. They were alone again with the malodorous drunk at the far end of the car.
Evangeline turned away from Gabriella and Percival and opened the case. The pieces were there, waiting to be assembled. Quickly, she fastened the crossbar to the lyre’s base, screwed the tuning pegs into the crossbar, and attached the strings, winding them slowly about the pegs until they were taut. While Evangeline had expected the procedure to be complicated, she was able to fit each new piece to the previous one with ease. As she tightened the strings, she felt vibrations under her fingers.
She ran her hand over the lyre. The metal was cold and smooth. She slid a finger over the firm silk of a string and adjusted the tuning peg, listening to the note change register. She withdrew the plectrum, its surface glinting under the harsh lights of the subway car, and drew it over the strings. In an instant the texture of the world changed. The noise of the subway, the menace of Percival Grigori, the uncontrollable beating of her heart—everything stilled and a lilting, sweet vibration filled her senses once again, many times more powerful than before. She felt both awake and asleep at once. The crisp, vivid sensations of reality were everywhere around her—the rocking of the train, the ivory handle of Percival’s cane—and yet she felt as if she’d fallen into a dream. The sound was so pure, so powerful that it disarmed her entirely.
“Stop,” Gabriella said. Although her grandmother stood only inches away, her voice sounded to Evangeline as if it had come from a distant room. “Evangeline, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
She looked at her grandmother as if through a prism. Gabriella stood close by her side, and yet Evangeline could hardly see her.
Gabriella said, “Nothing is known about the correct method of playing the lyre. The horrors you could bring upon the world are unimaginable. I beg you, stop.”
Percival stared at Evangeline with a look of gratitude and pleasure. The sound of the lyre had begun to work its magic upon him. Stepping forward, his fingers trembling with lust, he touched it. Suddenly his expression changed. He fixed her with a look of horror and awe, equal parts terror and admiration.
Gabriella’s eyes became filled with fear. “My dear Evangeline, what has happened?”
Evangeline could not understand what Gabriella meant. She looked at herself and saw no change. Then, turning, she saw her reflection in the wide, dark glass of the window and caught her breath. Curling about her shoulders, glittering in a nimbus of golden light, hung a pair of luminous, airy wings so mesmerizing in their beauty that she could do nothing but stare at herself. With the slightest pressure of her muscles, the wings unfurled to their full expanse. They were so light, so weightless, that she wondered for a moment if they might be an illusion of the light. She angled her shoulders so that she might look upon them directly. The feathers were diaphanous purple veined with silver. She breathed deeply, and the wings shifted. Soon they beat time with her breathing.
“Who am I?” Evangeline said, the reality of her metamorphosis suddenly dawning upon her. “What have I become?”
Percival Grigori edged close to Evangeline. Whether from the workings of the lyre’s music or his new interest in her, he had changed from a withered, bent figure to an imposing creature whose height dwarfed Gabriella. His skin appeared to Evangeline to be lit by an internal fire, his blue eyes glittered, his back straightened. Throwing his cane to the floor of the subway car, he said, “Your wings are the likeness of your great-great-grandmother Grigori’s wings. I have only heard my father speak of them, but they signify the very purest of our kind. You have become one of us. You are a Grigori:”
He placed his hand upon Evangeline’s arm. His fingers were icy, sending shivers through her, but the sensation filled her with pleasure and strength. It was as though she’d been living in a constrictive shell all her life, one that had, in an instant, fallen away. All at once she felt strong and alive.
“Come with me,” Percival said, his voice silken. “Come to meet Sneja. Come home to your family. We will give you all that you need, everything that you have longed for, anything you might wish to have. You will never want again. You will live long after the world of here and now has disappeared. I will show you how. I will teach you all that I know. Only we can give you your future.”
As she looked into Percival’s eyes, Evangeline understood all that he could bring her. His family and his powers could belong to her. She could have everything she had lost—a home, a family. Gabriella could give her none of these things.
Turning to her grandmother, she was startled to see how Gabriella had changed. She appeared suddenly to be little more than a weak and insignificant woman, a frail human being with tears in her eyes. Evangeline said, “You knew I was like this.”
Gabriella said, “Your father and I had you examined as a little girl, and we saw that your lungs were formed like those of a Nephilistic child, but from our studies—and the work Angela had conducted on Nephilistic decline—we knew that a large percentage of Nephilim do not grow wings at all. Genetics are not enough. There have to be many other factors present.”
Gabriella touched Evangeline’s wings as if taken in by their shimmering beauty. Evangeline pulled away, repulsed.
“You meant to trick me,” Evangeline said. “You believed I would destroy the lyre. You knew what I would become.”
“I had always feared that it would be Angela—her resemblance to Percival was so strong. But I believed that even if the worst happened and she became like him physically, she would transcend him in spirit.”
“But my mother wasn’t like me,” Evangeline said. “She was human.”
Perhaps sensing the conflict raging in Evangeline’s thoughts, Gabriella said, “Yes, your mother was human in every way. She was gentle, compassionate. She loved your father with a human heart. Perhaps it was a mother’s delusion, but I believed that Angela could defy her origins. Her work led us to believe that the creatures were dying out. We hoped for a new race of Nephilim to rise, one in which human traits would overcome. I believed that if her biological structure was Nephilistic, it would be her fate to be the first of this new breed. But it was not Angela’s destiny. It is yours.”
As the train rattled to a stop, and the doors slid back, Gabriella drew her granddaughter close. Evangeline could hardly make out Gabriella’s words. “Run, Evangeline,” she whispered urgently. “Take the lyre and destroy it. Do not fall prey to the temptations you feel. It is up to you to do what is right. Run, my darling, and do not look back.”
Evangeline rested a moment in Gabriella’s arms, the warmth and security of her grandmother’s body reminding her of the safety she had once felt in the presence of her mother. Gabriella squeezed her once more and, with a small push, released her.