man—a man who may have descended from the Archangel Gabriel, I would now add—wouldn’t deliver the goods.”
“Angela discovered that the same is true for female Nephilim,” Valko said. “There is an exact replica of the maternal line in every female born, creating an enormous possibility to examine ancient DNA structures of female creatures.”
“But the Nephilim are descended from angels and women,” Vera said. “The mitochondrial DNA would, thus, lead back to humanity, not to angels.”
“Correct,” Valko said. “That was why Godwin ultimately found Lucien unusable. He was descended from an angel, sure enough, and was very, very pure. But with an angelic father and a very pure Nephilistic mother, Lucien’s genes were impossible for Godwin to sequence with the technology available in the 1980s. His mitochondrial DNA was a direct match to Alexandra Romanov’s. His nuclear DNA was a hodgepodge of his parents’ combined genes—human, Nephil, and an unidentifiable strain that Godwin couldn’t pinpoint and therefore deemed worthless to him and his project.”
“And Lucien?” Vera asked again. She couldn’t help but think of how alluring it would be to be able to see the creature, to touch it, to feel the heat of its skin.
“When I finally found Lucien in 1986, Godwin had him in their prison in Siberia. The terrible conditions didn’t seem to affect him—he is a transcendental being, quite literally, and the realities of the material world cannot touch him. Even so, I knew that I needed to get him out of there, and so I convinced Godwin that I had the one thing on earth more precious than Lucien—an ingredient in the elusive medicine of Noah.”
“Silphium,” Azov said.
“There were two seeds in the cache you gave me in 1985,” Valko said. “I gave one of them to Godwin in exchange for Lucien.”
“But why?” Azov said, his voice rising. “How could you do something so irresponsible?”
“First of all, if Lucien had remained in Siberia, he would have eventually been used by Godwin—and by extension the Grigoris—in some fashion or another. This is most certain. Second, and more important, I knew that they didn’t have a clue about the formula. It was recorded in one place and one place only.”
“Rasputin’s Book of Flowers,” Vera said. “Buried in an old lady’s antique shop, right under the Grigoris’ noses.”
“Until now, evidently,” Valko replied, glancing at Vera’s satchel, as if verifying that she was bringing it along. “But really, even if Godwin were lucky enough to get the silphium seed to grow, he couldn’t use it.”
“And so you took Lucien from Russia,” Azov said.
“I came here, to these mountains, with Lucien. I hoped to study him, to listen to him, to understand his nature. It is no small thing, having a seraph’s descendant at one’s disposal—our discipline is the classification of angelic systems. Lucien is derived from the highest order.”
“Is he here, in these mountains?” Vera asked, fixing Valko in her gaze, noting the determination with which he spoke about Lucien, the ambition that burned in his eyes. It had been only days since she had revisited the photographs Seraphina Valko had taken of the Watcher. That she might actually see such a creature in the flesh, might touch it and speak to it, was hard to believe.
Valko nodded, an air of pride in his manner. “I gave him a room here, in my cabin, but he was never able to stay there. He would leave to wander through the Rhodopes, spending days and then weeks in the canyons. I would find him at the summit of a mountain, luminescent as a ray of sunshine, singing praises to the heavens, and then I would find him in the caves, in a trance of introspection. And so I took him down into the Devil’s Throat, where he has stayed for many years. Perhaps it is the proximity of his fellow angels, but he finds comfort there, close to the Watchers. There is something in his soul that finds peace in this circle of hell.”
The Seventh Circle
VIOLENCE
Smolyan, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria
Valko stepped into his hiking boots, bent over, and tied the laces. Spring in the mountains was cold, and they would need heavy jackets and gloves to keep warm. He went into the greenhouse and found a number of Gore-Tex parkas. He went to a metal cabinet, unlocked the doors, and began pulling out tiny lacquered boxes, spoons fashioned of different metals, a mortar and pestle, and a number of glass jars and put them carefully in his backpack. He wrapped a portable gas