Angelopolis A Novel Page 0,31

nothing more serious than that. If it is released into the Nephilim population, however, it will cause mass extinction unlike anything you’ve seen since the Flood.” Angela lifted the syringe to the light, revealing a green liquid. She shook it slightly, as if swirling wine in a glass. “A biological weapon, some might call it. But I think of it as a way to level the field.”

A hint of cruelty shone in Angela’s eyes, and Verlaine understood that she had succeeded in turning the interview around. Percival Grigori was once again in her power.

Angela hesitated for a moment, and then, taking the syringe in hand, moved toward him. Verlaine sensed with growing alarm that he should not be there, should not be witnessing Angela Valko’s final interaction with her father. In the decades since the film had been made, the virus in her syringe had infected 60 percent of the Nephilim, killing and disabling the creatures with a vicious efficiency. The disease had been such a powerful force that many in the society had joked that it was a pestilence sent from heaven to help along their work.

But Verlaine knew a terrible truth that Angela did not: The personal wager she was making would fail. The angel would tell her his secrets, but there would be consequences. Soon, within days after the film was shot, Angela Valko would lose her life.

The Third Circle

GLUTTONY

Angelopolis, Chelyabinsk, Russia

Dr. Merlin Godwin noted the heaviness of Evangeline’s breath, the labored flickering of her eyes, the expression of despair that crossed her face whenever she came back into consciousness. The last time he saw her she had been a little girl. She had stared at him with intransigent curiosity. He had spent twenty-five years looking for her, all the while hoping to have her just as he did now, weak as a dragonfly dessicated in the sun.

“Come, come, have some water,” he said, when she opened her eyes once more. Smiling, he poured water over her lips, letting it drip over her chin. The drugs were effective. Even if the straps were loosened she wouldn’t have the strength to lift her head.

“Do you remember me?” he whispered, caressing her arm with his finger. When it was clear that Evangeline had no clue who he was, he added, his voice little more than a whisper. “It was so long ago, but surely you recall how you came to see me with your mother.”

At Angela Valko’s request, Godwin had handled the scheduling of the visits, asking only that he organize the sessions with Evangeline when the lab was empty. As a result, they had met early in the morning or later in the evening, when the others had left the building. He had examined Evangeline himself, taking her pulse, listening to her breathe. He couldn’t help being moved at how the stolid Angela Valko, renowned for her sangfroid in the most unnerving situations, held her daughter close, steadying the girl’s trembling body as the needle slid into the vein, the bright vermilion blood drawn swiftly into the barrel of the syringe. The clinical nature of the procedure seemed to reassure Angela but not Evangeline—she had an instinctual fear that seemed to Godwin to belong less to a little girl than to a wild animal caught in a cage.

During each session, Angela watched the procedure with rapt attention, and Godwin could never tell if she felt anxiety or curiosity, if she secretly hoped to discover something unusual in the blood. But there was never anything at all unusual about the results when they came back from the lab. Still, Godwin had kept a sample from each session, labeling the vials and locking them in his medical case.

“Your mother insisted on the exams herself,” Godwin whispered, dabbing a drop of water from Evangeline’s chin. “And although she demonstrated a reasonable concern for your well-being, it’s difficult to understand the motives of a mother subjecting her own child to such invasive scrutiny. Unless, of course, she was not entirely human.”

Evangeline tried to speak. She had been heavily drugged. Although her voice was weak, and she could not focus her eyes, Godwin understood her when she said, “But my mother was human.”

“Yes, well, Nephilistic traits can appear in a human being, manifesting like a cancer,” Godwin said, walking to a table of medical instruments. A series of scalpels, the edges of varying acuity, lay in a line as if waiting for him. He chose one—not the sharpest but not the dullest either—and