strength. Nephilim are kept in a car filled with a high-frequency electric current that renders them comatose. Eno is in a freezer car, a space reserved for the most violent angels—warrior angels such as Gibborim and Raiphim, as well as Emim like herself. As you’re well aware, the lower temperatures slow the heart, diminish the power of the wings, and bring the level of violence to a minimum.” Yana smiled and pushed the door open. “Eno is in bad shape. You may not even recognize her.”
They stepped into a narrow, lightless passage that opened to the holding cars. As they walked, Bruno stopped at each car to examine the creatures. There were three angels bound together in one cell—a Leogan, a Nestig, and a small red Mendax, three creatures whose words could never be trusted. They didn’t notice Bruno, so busy were they muttering among themselves. At the end of the train, at the front of the last car, there was a plate-glass door covered in ice.
“This is my week’s transport,” she said, pride in her voice.
“Impressive,” Bruno said, careful to not reveal the extent of his admiration.
“Eno is an extraordinary catch, one that I’ve been hoping to make for years. I don’t think I could have managed her alone, and so I have you to thank.” Yana stopped before the frozen door. “Come and look at our angel.”
Yana unlocked the door and Bruno stepped into the compartment, his skin prickling from the cold, his breath rising and fogging in the air, his shoes slipping on the frost-covered floor. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He saw Eno’s bare leg, its blue-gray skin a curl of fog; he saw her face, drawn in sleep, her eyes closed, her violet lips. Her head had been shaved, and thick veins snaked over her skull, pulsing and blue, living. Now that her beauty was stripped away, Bruno could perceive, with visceral poignancy, how inhuman she was. As he knelt beside her, he heard her breath sticking in her chest, as if the freezing air had lodged itself into her lungs. He ran a finger over her cheek, feeling the old electric attraction to her. The train jerked and Eno opened her eyes. Their reptilian sheaths retracted. As she trained her gaze on him, he saw that she knew him, that she wanted to speak to him, but all her strength was gone.
She opened her mouth and her long, black tongue fell from her lips, its end forked like a snake’s. Bruno felt an irrational urge to draw her close, to feel her breathing on his neck, to feel her struggle under him. From the way she looked at him, he could feel her rage. Their game was over. Bruno had won.
Yana said at last, “Do you have any clue how difficult this Emim is?”
Bruno let his gaze linger a moment longer. Half of his life had been spent hunting Eno. Yana had no idea how well he understood how difficult and dangerous she could be. “Unfortunately, I do,” he said, following Yana back into the corridor of the train.
“You think she’ll talk?”
“Maybe,” Bruno said. “Now that she’s isolated from the Grigoris, we have a better chance.”
Yana took a cigarette from a pack and offered it to Bruno. He didn’t smoke under normal circumstances, but the past days were not at all normal. He took a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled, feeling his mind clear.
“I have to admit, this is the first time a foreign angel hunter has assisted me with a hunt,” she said, blowing the smoke from her cigarette away from Bruno.
“Your team isn’t very large, is it?” Bruno asked.
“It’s become more active in the past five years, but that is only because the oil companies have brought a lot of action back to this part of the world. Old Nephilim families—families that left Russia after the revolution—are building mansions and setting up corporations here. The new oligarchs have worked in tandem with the Grigori family to create massive wealth. Before this rush of new blood, it was just me, the occasional lost Anakim angel, and Siberia’s godforsaken winters.” Yana threw her cigarette onto the metal floor of the train car, its embers melting a nebula into the frost. “All this is to say that if you’re looking for Nephilim in western Siberia, I know how to find them. I have files on every creature that has passed through here in the last fifty years.”
“You have an enormous field