Angelopolis A Novel Page 0,23
Some of the Nephilim paused, noticing her, recognizing her as one of their own, and Evangeline felt her whole being recoil. It was impossible that she was one of them. Yet she was no longer human. She noted the changes in her body as if they belonged to someone else. Her heartbeat was slow and shallow, the beat barely registering against her finger. Her breathing had sunk to such a depressed level that she took one or two breaths a minute. When she inhaled, the sensation was intense and pleasurable, as if the air itself gave her nourishment. She knew that Nephilim survived for five hundred years, a little more than six times the average life span of a human being, and she tried to imagine the years before her, the days and nights of unrelenting imprisonment in a body that needed little sleep. She was a monster, the very creature her parents had worked to destroy.
Evangeline strained against the leather straps once more, but they held fast. Her wings were open and pressed flat against the table. She could feel them against her skin, soft as sheets of silk. She knew that if she could move her wings, the straps would loosen, giving just enough for her to slip free. But as she twisted, a biting pain stopped her cold: She had been pinned to the table. The nails ripped into the skin of her wings.
A figure stepped into her peripheral vision. Evangeline could turn her head just enough to see a woman in a white lab coat.
“She’s a very unusual creature,” the woman said.
“I thought that was what Dr. Godwin was looking for,” a second voice responded.
Evangeline’s skin grew hot; her hands trembled against the metal cuffs. She recognized the name Godwin. She knew it from her childhood. If Godwin was behind this, she knew she was in terrible danger. It would be better to tear off her own wings than to be subject to his will.
She pressed her forehead against the leather strap, seeking the coolness of it, but the throb of the electrodes sent a current of heat into every part of her body. The pain caused her eyes to fill with tears. She blinked them away and they slid down her temples. A bright light burst on overhead, blinding her. When her eyes adjusted, she saw a syringe poised in a hand. As the nurse inserted the needle into her vein, she took a deep breath and struggled to stay conscious. She wanted nothing more than to drift to sleep. But she couldn’t let herself go. If she did, she might never wake up.
Angelology Research Center, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
As they walked down the narrow iron staircase and into the underworld of the Hermitage, Verlaine was subsumed by the smell of thick deoxygenated air shot through with the slightest hint of gunpowder.
“Stay close and be careful not to trip,” Vera said. She moved ahead, flipped a switch, and a naked bulb illuminated the space. They had descended into a long hallway made of old limestone. Vera grabbed a flashlight from a shelf, turned it on, and walked through a narrow, dark passageway. “This passage leads to chambers where the tsars once hoarded ordnance to stave off political agitators.” They turned a corner. Verlaine found the passage so tight that the walls brushed the sleeves of his jacket, leaving a film of powder behind. “You smell the gunpowder, yes?” Vera continued. “Whenever I smell it I remember the thousands of people gathered outside the palace and the crimes committed against Russians by their own army.”
Vera opened a door and led them into a room.
“Now these rooms belong to the society, and for decades they’ve been employed as a staging area for more than three million pieces of undocumented art. The first months of my time here were spent cataloging objects for my supervisor.” Stopping before a wooden door sunk into the stone, she took a set of keys from her pocket and unlocked it. “This is his private space. If he knew I was bringing you here, I would be out on the street.”
In a single motion, Vera opened the door and led them into the space. Verlaine walked inside, feeling awed by the chaos of objects.
“After Angela Valko’s death, her father, Dr. Raphael Valko, donated her research papers to the research academy.”
“I haven’t heard news of Raphael for years,” Bruno said. “He left the academy abruptly in the eighties to pursue his own research.