Angelopolis A Novel Page 0,59

with any of this,” Vera said. “Though I have to confess, I am dying to meet him. Especially if he has some connection to this elixir.”

“The real question is: Can we mix this potion?” Sveti asked.

“And if such a potion will do anything at all to the Nephilim,” Azov said, returning his gaze to the album. “If we take the flower petals from behind the wax paper and grind them together in the correct proportions, and in the order designated in Rasputin’s equations, we would have the base for a chemical reaction. That leaves silphium, which we might be able to grow, although in minute quantities.”

“More difficult is the last ingredient,” Sveti said, pointing to a page in the album. “This calls for a metal that was not even verified to exist during Rasputin’s lifetime.”

“I know what it is that you’re going to say,” Vera said. “It is a metal that was used in great quantities before the Flood but had virtually disappeared after the death of Noah. It was given various names by Enoch, Noah, and others in the ancient world who had contact with it. It was rediscovered and classified by Raphael Valko, who renamed it Valkine.” Vera thought this over for a moment and said, “There hasn’t been a piece of Valkine available for more than sixty years.”

“If you exclude the Valkine lyre that was recovered in New York in 1999, then you’re right. The last person to have even a tiny amount was Raphael Valko himself. He came across significant quantities of the substance at the beginning of the twentieth century, when he took possession of one of the celestial instruments, a beautiful lyre that was believed to have been the very instrument Orpheus played. Before he found the lyre there were speculations about the substance that made up the instruments. Some angelologists believed they were made of gold, others of copper. No one knew for certain. And so Valko took a file and scraped shavings from the base of the lyre, analyzed the metal, and came to understand that it was an entirely unique material, one that had never been studied or classified. He named it Valkine. While the lyre itself was packed up and sent to America for safekeeping during the war, the shavings were his. He kept them for some years, and then, the story goes, he melted them down and made three lyre pendants.”

“Dr. Raphael Valko fashioned the pendants. He must have more of the metal, even if it is just a trace amount,” Vera said.

Azov stood and slid on a brown leather jacket. “There’s only one way to find out for sure,” he said, putting his hand on Vera’s shoulder and leading her from the room.

The Fifth Circle

FURY

Trans-Siberian Railway

Verlaine’s ears rang with a steady, grating buzz. He opened his eyes and saw an indistinct space, foggy and insubstantial, its gray walls bleeding into a gray ceiling, giving him the impression that he’d awoken in a cave. His whole body was consumed in heat, so much so that even the crisp cotton sheets under his shoulders burned his skin. He couldn’t figure out where he was, how he had ended up on such a hard mattress, why his whole body throbbed with pain. Then it all came back: St. Petersburg, the black-winged angel, the electricity moving through his body.

The outline of a woman appeared at his side, a shadowy presence that seemed both comforting and menacing at once. He blinked, trying to make out her features. For a second he was in his recurring dream with Evangeline. He felt the icy coolness of her kiss, the electric attraction as he touched her, the strength of her wings as they wrapped around his body. He was disoriented by her presence, confused about whether he had seen her at all, afraid that—when he awoke completely—she would be lost to him again. But his eyes were open and she was at his side. The beautiful creature he had been longing for had come back to him.

Verlaine blinked again, trying to focus on his surroundings. “You might want these,” a voice said, and Verlaine felt the metal of his wire-rimmed glasses against his skin. Instantly the world contracted into focus, and he caught sight of the Russian angel hunter he’d seen just before he lost consciousness. Without her helmet she looked softer than he remembered—less the professional killing machine and more a regular person. The woman had long blond hair and an expression of concern on