Angelopolis A Novel Page 0,87

Angela was more calculating than she could have ever imagined. “Do you mean to say that she was fully aware of what she was doing? What did she expect Evangeline to become?”

“The ultimate weapon,” Valko said. “A weapon that derived from the natural hierarchy of angelic beings. There are the spheres of heavenly creatures—the archangels, seraphim, cherubim—and then there are the spheres of devils, fallen angels, the creatures disowned by heaven, demons. Angela knew these distinctions intimately. She knew the power of an angel must be measured against the power of another angel. She knew that false creation—the genetic modeling of automatons, golems, clones, or any such engineered animate being—would not work, as it went against the divine hierarchy of beings. Angela also knew that in order to defeat a creature of human and angelic origin—a monster of the heavenly order—she must create another, more powerful creature. And so she attempted to engineer a new species of angel, one that was stronger than the Nephilim.”

Azov’s voice strained as he said, “You make it sound like Angela was some kind of Frankenstein constructing a monster.”

“My daughter did something even more bold,” Valko said, and Vera could not tell if he was proud of or ashamed by his daughter’s work.

“Are you really saying,” Azov said, “that Angela created a child to be used a weapon?”

“‘Weapon’ is perhaps not the ideal way to classify the girl,” Valko said. “Examine her name. It contains the seeds of her destiny. She was called Evangeline. Eve Angel. The child was to be the new Eve, an original creature born to reconstruct a new world.”

“Semantics aside, it is difficult to believe that Angela used her own child as a kind of genetic experiment,” Azov said, his voice filled with doubt.

“In the end, it didn’t matter,” Valko said. “The experiment failed.”

“Because Evangeline turned out to be human?” Vera asked.

“A female human with ruddy, opaque skin, crimson blood, a propensity toward illness, a navel, and a startling resemblance to her human grandmother, Gabriella.” Valko looked away and his voice grew quiet as he said, “And so Angela tried again.”

“What?” Vera said and, realizing that she was nearly screaming, changed her tone. “I don’t understand. A lot of time passed before Angela could know that Evangeline wasn’t the creature she wanted to create. How on earth did she try again?”

“Angela went back to St. Petersburg in 1983 and renewed her relationship with the angel who had fathered Evangeline. She never told Lucien of Evangeline’s existence, nor did she reveal her reasons for renewing the affair. I don’t think Angela had any notion that she was being heartless or even irresponsible. She did it all with the belief that her second child would be a boy and that he would be the warrior angel she had been waiting for. With the birth of her son, her work against the Nephilim would be finished.”

“And did she succeed?” Vera asked.

Valko said quietly, “My daughter was pregnant when she was killed. During the autopsy it was discovered that an egg had formed in Angela’s womb. The child was a boy. I saw his corpse. His skin was golden and he had the white wings of an archangel. Angela’s second child would have been a warrior. He would have brought peace and tranquility to our world. But this savior child died with her.”

“What became of the angel?” Vera asked.

“After Angela’s death, I knew that I needed to find Lucien,” Valko said. “And after searching for many months, I found him imprisoned in Siberia.”

“They must have taken him to the panopticon,” Vera said. Rumors about the existence of a great Siberian prison were forever circulating among Russian angelologists. It was just the kind of detention center to be found in the wilderness—old-fashioned, aesthetically complex, flawlessly designed, and impenetrable. But no one had ever verified if the panopticon actually existed.

“The very one,” Valko said. “The same day Angela was murdered, Lucien was taken into captivity by the Russian hunters and transported by train to Siberia.”

“They wanted to study him?” Vera asked.

“Clearly,” Valko said. “With such a magnificent creature there would be much to examine and explore. The biological breakdown of an archangel’s son could occupy researchers for years.”

“But the society was founded to fight the Nephilim,” Sveti said. “How could someone get away with the imprisonment of a creature proven to derive from an altogether different, truly divine angelic form?”

“I’m not sure the guards would have known the difference,” Valko said. “And besides, that prison conducts its