connection between one of our best scientists and this collection,” Bruno said.
“Quite,” Vera responded crisply. “I won’t bore you with my research any more than necessary, but one of my pet projects at the moment has to do with Nephilim reproduction. It just so happens that once upon a time egg births were common among the purest breeds, their offspring superior in strength, beauty, agility, and intelligence.”
Verlaine’s eyes fell upon an illustration from Albrecht Dürer’s famous Manual of Measurement propped up among the eggs. He had heard of Dürer’s theory of the egg line, and his obsession with the egg, with its perfect euclidean shape, as the vessel through which pure angels were born. Verlaine had dismissed the idea. It seemed to him that when angelologists couldn’t prove their work with hard facts, they fell to creating airy theories. He wasn’t sure whether Vera’s support of such an idea granted it credence or if it proved that she was out of her mind.
Vera continued. “Many of the royal families in Europe longed for an egg-born heir, and they mated with this in mind, arranging marriages with other royal families based on their reproductive prospects. Nevertheless, as time went on, Nephilim eggs became more and more rare.”
“Enter Carl Fabergé,” Verlaine said.
“Indeed,” Vera replied. “Clearly, the Romanovs were not immune to the ostentatious fuss over the eggs. Fabergé played on this obsession. His eggs were precious and intricate objects that, when cracked open, revealed a surprise that spoke of the secret desires of kings—the most precious surprise of all would be an heir hatched from an egg. The tradition of giving enameled eggs at Easter stemmed from the imperial family’s longing for another such birth. Indeed, all the Nephilim of Russia wanted an egg-hatched heir. Such an event would be prestigious, and would guarantee instant advancement.”
“If this were the case, why aren’t we seeing eggs now?” Bruno asked.
“There’s no concrete answer to this question, but it seems that the Nephilim lost their ability to create the eggs. There were no egg births after the seventeenth century, as far as I know, but that did not kill hope. At the court of Louis XIV, there was such a fuss about the production of an egg that the court confectioner created elaborate chocolate eggs and presented them to the king and queen at Easter. The surprise at the center of the egg was something of an inside joke, one that the royal families understood all too well. Suddenly eggs were everywhere. The fashion for eggs spread to the masses. Ordinary human families began to color chicken eggs, and factories molded chocolate eggs by the millions, some of which contained small toys inside, a direct reference to the surprise of the jeweled eggs, which, of course, referred to the coveted angelic child. Human beings have copied Nephilim habits without realizing that they were celebrating the hatching of their oppressors. It is a great irony that chocolate eggs are now so common at Easter. When you eat a Cadbury egg you don’t realize that you are following this tradition without understanding its origin, or the joke.”
“For Christians, the eggs symbolize the resurrection of Christ,” Bruno said. “There is nothing Nephilistic about that.”
“On the surface this appears to be compatible with the Christian celebration of Easter,” Vera said. “But if you look deeper you will see that the egg symbol has little to do with the church. The decoration of eggs, the Orthodox practice of breaking eggs on Easter morning, the egg hunt—these are all popular practices whose real origin is obscure. Of course, there is the pagan Germanic goddess Eostre, whose feast day was celebrated in the spring, but ask the man on the street why he’s coloring eggs at Easter, and he has no idea.”
“Wouldn’t there be Christmas eggs rather than Easter eggs?” Verlaine asked.
“Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’s human birth,” Vera said. “Easter, his second, spiritual, immortal birth. One birth within the next. An egg within an egg.” Vera placed the flashlight on a table. “Which brings us back to our purpose in this room. Someone—Angela Valko most likely—added the metal card to the surprise at the heart of Fabergé’s Cherub with Chariot Egg. She intended for whoever would discover the egg to watch the film stored in the archives.”
Vera walked to a gray plastic box at the far side of the room and carried it to the table. She flipped a series of metal clasps and revealed an old film projector. Unwinding