Voices lifted to the balcony as waiters moved through the crowd, distributing glasses of champagne.
“This,” Dr. Raphael said, gesturing to the hundreds of revelers below, “is what I wanted you to see.”
I looked over the crowd once again, feeling as if I might be sick. “Such merriment while France starves.”
“While Europe starves,” Dr. Raphael corrected.
“How do they have so much food?” I asked. “So much wine, such fine clothing, so many pairs of shoes?”
“Now you see,” Dr. Raphael said, smiling slightly. “I wanted you to understand what we are working for, what is at stake. You are young. Perhaps it is difficult for you to fully realize what we are up against.”
I leaned against the reflective brass railing, my bare arms burning against the cold metal.
“Angelology is not just some theoretical chess game,” Dr. Raphael said. “I know that in the early years of study, when one is mired in Bonaventure and Augustine, it seems that way. But your work is not solely winning debates about hylomorphism and drawing up the taxonomies of guardian angels.” He gestured to the crowd below. “Your work is happening here, in the real world.”
I noticed the passion with which Dr. Raphael spoke and how closely his words echoed Seraphina’s warning to me as I came to in the Devil’s Throat. Our duties lie with the world we live in and must return to.
“You realize,” he said, “that this is not just a battle between a handful of resistance fighters and an occupying army. This has been a war of attrition. It has been one continuous struggle from the very beginning. St. Thomas Aquinas believed that the dark angels fell within twenty seconds of creation—their evil nature cracked the perfection of the universe almost instantly, leaving a terrible fissure between good and evil. For twenty seconds the universe was pure, perfect, unbroken. Imagine what it was like to exist in those twenty seconds—to live without fear of death, without pain, without the doubt that we live with. Imagine.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture such a universe. I could not.
“There were twenty seconds of perfection,” Dr. Raphael said, accepting a glass of champagne from a waiter and another for me. “We get the rest.”
I took a sip of the cold, dry champagne. The taste was so wonderful that my tongue recoiled as if in pain.
Dr. Raphael continued, “In our time evil has overcome. Yet we continue the fight. There are thousands of us in every part of the world. And thousands—hundreds of thousands, perhaps—of them.”
“They have grown so powerful,” I said, examining the wealth on display in the ballroom below. “I have to believe that it wasn’t always this way.”
“The founding fathers of angelology took special delight in planning the extermination of their enemy. However, it was a much-studied fact that the fathers overestimated their abilities: They believed that the battle would be swift. They did not understand how petulant the Watchers and their children could be, how they reveled in subterfuge, violence, and destruction. Whereas the Watchers were angelic creatures, retaining the celestial beauty of their origins, their children were tainted with violence. They, in turn, tainted all they touched.”
Dr. Raphael paused, as if thinking over a riddle.
“Consider,” he said at last, “the desperation the Creator must have felt at destroying us, the sorrow of a father killing his children, the extremity of his actions. The millions of creatures drowned and the civilizations lost—and still the Nephilim prevailed. Economic greed, social injustice, war—these are the manifestations of evil in our world. Clearly, destroying life on the planet did not eliminate evil. For all their wisdom, the Venerable Fathers had not examined such things. They had not been fully prepared for the fight. They are an example of how even the most dedicated angelologists might err by ignoring history.
“Our work took quite a blow during the Inquisition, although we made up lost ground soon after,” Dr. Raphael said. “The nineteenth century was equally worrisome, when the theories of Spencer and Darwin and Marx were twisted into systems of social manipulation. But in the past we’ve always recovered lost ground. Now, however, I’m growing worried. Our strength is diminishing. Death camps overflow with our kind. The Nephilim have scored a major victory with the Germans. They have been waiting for quite a while for this kind of platform.”
I found that I had the opportunity to ask a question that had been at the back of my mind for some time. “You believe the Nazis are Nephilistic?”
“Not exactly,” Dr. Raphael said. “Nephilim are parasitic, feeding off human society. They are mixed, after all—part angel, part human. This gives them a certain flexibility to move in and out of civilizations. Through history they have attached themselves to groups like the Nazis, promoted them, assisted them financially and militarily, and made way for their successes. It is a very old, and very successful, practice. Once they find victory, the Nephilim absorb the rewards, quietly dividing the spoils, and go back to their private existences.”
“But they are called the Famous Ones,” I said.
“Yes, and many of them are famous. But their riches buy them protection and privacy.” Dr. Raphael continued, “There are a number of them here. As a matter of fact, there is one very influential gentleman I should like to introduce you to.”
Dr. Raphael stood and shook hands with a tall, blond gentleman in a gorgeous silk tuxedo, who—although I could not say how—was exceedingly familiar to me. Perhaps we had met before, because he examined me with equal interest, eyeing my dress with care.
“Herr Reimer,” the man said. The familiarity of his address, coupled with Dr. Raphael’s false name, signaled to me that the man had no idea who we really were. Indeed, he spoke to Dr. Raphael as if they were colleagues. “Haven’t seen you about Paris much this month—the war biting into your leisure?”
Dr. Raphael laughed, his voice measured. “No,” he said, “just spending time with this lovely young lady. This is my niece, Christina. Christina,” Dr. Raphael said, “this is Percival Grigori.”
I stood and offered my hand to the man. He kissed it, his freezing lips pressing my warm skin.
“Lovely girl,” the man said, although he had hardly glanced at me, so taken was he with my dress.
With that he removed a cigarette case from his pocket, offered one to Dr. Raphael, and, to my astonishment, lifted the very lighter that Gabriella had carried in her possession four years before. In an instant of horrid recognition, the man’s identity was revealed to me. Percival Grigori was Gabriella’s lover, the man I had found in her arms. I watched, stunned, as Dr. Raphael spoke lightly of politics and theater, touching upon the most noteworthy events of the war. Then, with a nod, Percival Grigori left us.
I sat in my chair, unable to understand how Dr. Raphael might know this man, or how Gabriella had come to be involved with him. In my confusion I chose the more prudent course: I remained silent.
“Are you feeling better?” Dr. Raphael asked.
“Better?”
“You were ill on the journey.”
“Yes,” I said, looking over my arms, which were redder than ever, as if I had been severely sunburned. “I believe I will be fine. My skin is fair. It will need some days to heal.” Wishing to change the subject, I said, “But you didn’t finish telling me about the Nazis. Are they completely under Nephilistic control? If so, how could we possibly win against them?”
“The Nephilim are very strong, but when they are defeated—and until now they have always been defeated—they disappear quickly, leaving their human hosts to face punishment alone, as if the evil actions were their own. The Nazi Party is rife with Nephilim, but those in power are one hundred percent human. That is why they are so hard to exterminate. Humanity understands, even desires, evil. There is something in our nature that is seduced by evil. We are easily convinced.”
“Manipulated,” I said.
“Yes, perhaps ‘manipulated’ is the better word. It is the more generous word.??
?
I sank into my velvet chair, the soft fabric soothing the skin on my back. It seemed to me that I had not felt so warm in years. Music began to play in the hall, and couples began to dance, filling the floor.
“Dr. Raphael,” I asked, the champagne making me feel bold, “can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he replied.
“Why did you ask if my eyes were blue?”
Dr. Raphael looked at me, and for a moment I thought that he might tell me something about himself, something that would reveal the inner life he kept hidden from his students. His voice softened as he said, “It is something you should have learned in my classes, my dear. The appearance of the Giants? Their genetic makeup?”
I recalled his lectures and flushed, embarrassed. Of course, I thought. The Nephilim have luminous blue eyes, blond hair, and above-average height. “Oh, yes,” I said. “I remember now.”
“You are quite tall,” he observed. “And thin. I thought I could get you by the guards easier if your eyes were blue.”
I finished the rest of the champagne in one quick sip. I did not like to be wrong, especially in the presence of Dr. Raphael.
“Tell me,” Dr. Raphael said, “do you understand why we sent you to the gorge?”
“Scientific purposes,” I replied. “To observe the angel and collect empirical evidence. To preserve the body for our records. To find the treasure Clematis left behind.”
“Of course, the lyre was at the heart of the journey,” Dr. Raphael said. “But did you wonder why an inexperienced angelologist such as yourself would be sent on a mission of this caliber? Why did Seraphina, who is only forty, lead the party and not one of the older council members?”
I shook my head. I knew that Dr. Seraphina had her own professional ambitions, but I had found it odd that Dr. Raphael had not gone to the mountain himself, especially after his early work on Clematis. I understood that my inclusion had been a reward for uncovering the location of the gorge, but perhaps there had been more to it.
“Seraphina and I wanted to send a young angelologist to the cave,” Dr. Raphael said, meeting my eye. “You have not been overexposed to our professional practices. You would not color the expedition with preconceptions.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, placing the empty crystal flute upon the table.
“If I had gone,” Dr. Raphael said, “I would have seen only what I expected to see. You, on the other hand, saw what was there. Indeed, you discovered something the others did not. Tell me the truth: How did you find it? What happened in the gorge?”
“I believe that Dr. Seraphina gave you our report,” I replied, suddenly anxious about Dr. Raphael’s intentions in taking me here.
“She described the physical details, the number of photographic records you made, the time it took to climb from top to bottom. Logistically, she was very thorough. But that isn’t all, is it? There was something more, something that frightened you.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean.”
Dr. Raphael lit a cigarette and leaned back into his chair, amusement illuminating his features. I was unsettled still more by how handsome I found him. He said, “Even now, safe in Paris, you are frightened.”
Arranging the satin fabric of the bias-cut dress, I said, “I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. There was something deeply horrifying about the cavern. As we descended into the gorge, everything grew so very . . . dark.”
“That seems quite natural,” Dr. Raphael said. “The gorge is deep below the surface of the mountain.”
“Not physical darkness,” I said, unsure of whether even in this I was giving too much away. “It was another quality altogether. An elemental darkness, a pure darkness, the kind of darkness one feels in the middle of the night after waking in a cold, empty room, the sound of bombs falling in the distance, a nightmare in the back of one’s mind. It is the kind of darkness that proves the fallen nature of our world.”
Dr. Raphael stared at me, waiting for me to continue.
“We were not alone in the Devil’s Throat,” I said. “The Watchers were there, waiting for us.”
Dr. Raphael continued to assess me, and I could not tell if it was an expression of amazement or fear or—I secretly hoped—admiration. He said, “Surely the others would have mentioned this.”
“I was alone,” I said, breaking my promise to Dr. Seraphina. “I left the party and crossed the river. I was disoriented and cannot recall the exact details of what transpired. What I do know for certain is that I saw them. They stood in darkened cells, just as they had when Clematis encountered them. There was an angel who looked upon me. I felt its desire to be free, to be in the company of humanity, to be favored. The angel had been there for thousands of years, waiting for our arrival.”
Dr. Raphael Valko and I got to the emergency council meeting in the early-morning hours. The location had been set hastily, and everyone had relocated from the previous meeting space to the center of our buildings in Montparnasse, the Athenaeum. The imposing and noble Athenaeum had fallen into disuse in the years of the occupation. Where once it had been filled with books and students, with the rustle of pages and the whisper of librarians, now the shelves were bare and the corners filled with cobwebs. I had not set foot in our library for many years, and the transformation made me long for a time when I had no worries greater than my studies.
The change of location had been made as a simple safety measure, but the precaution had cost us time. Leaving the ball, we had been given a message by a young soldier on a bicycle that told of the meeting and requested our presence immediately. Once we arrived at the designated point, we were given a second message, with a series of clues meant to bring us to the location undetected. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning before we took our seats at high-backed chairs on both sides of a narrow table in the Athenaeum.
Two small lamps lit at the center of the meeting table threw a dim, watery light upon all who sat there. There was a sense of tension and energy in the room that gave me the distinct feeling that something momentous had occurred. This perception was verified by the sobriety with which the members of the council greeted us. It appeared to me that we had interrupted a funeral.
Dr. Raphael took the seat at the head of the table, gesturing for me to sit on a bench at his side. To my great surprise, Gabriella Lévi-Franche sat at the far end of the table. It had been four years since I had last seen her. In appearance Gabriella was much the same as I remembered her. She wore her black hair in a short bob, her lips were painted bright red, and her expression was one of placid watchfulness. Yet while most of us had fallen into an anemic state of exhaustion during the war, Gabriella had the look of a pampered and well-protected woman. She was better clothed and better fed than any of the angelologists in the Athenaeum.
Noticing that I had arrived with Dr. Raphael, Gabriella raised an eyebrow, a hint of accusation forming in her green eyes. It was plain that our rivalry had not ended. Gabriella was as wary of me as I was of her.
“Tell me everything,” Dr. Raphael said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I want to know exactly how it happened.”
“The car was stopped for inspection at the Pont Saint-Michel,” replied an elderly angelologist, the nun I had met some years before. The nun’s heavy black veil and the lack of light made her appear to be an extension of the shadowy room. I could see nothing but her gnarled fingers folded upon the glossy tabletop. “The guards forced them from the car and searched them. They were taken.”
“Taken?” Dr. Raphael said. “Where?”
“We have no way of knowing,” said Dr. Lévi-Franche, Gabriella’s uncle, his small round spectacles perched upon his nose. “We’ve alerted our cells in every arrondissement in the city. No one has seen them. I’m sorry to say they could be anywhere.”
Dr. Raphael said, “And what of their cargo?”
Gabriella stood and placed a heavy leather case on the table. “I kept the lyre with me,??
? she said, resting her small fingers over the brown leather case. “I was traveling in the car behind Dr. Seraphina. When we saw that our agents were being arrested, I ordered my driver to turn around and drive back to Montparnasse. Fortunately, the case holding the discoveries was with me.”
Dr. Raphael’s shoulders sank in a clear sign of relief. “The case is safe,” he said. “But they are holding our agents.”
“Of course,” the nun said. “They would never let such valuable prisoners go free without asking for something equally valuable in return.”
“What are the terms?” Dr. Raphael asked.
“A trade—the treasures for the angelologists,” the nun replied.
“And what exactly did they mean by ‘treasures’?” Dr. Raphael asked quietly.
“They were not specific,” the nun said. “But somehow they know we have recovered something precious from the Rhodopes. I believe we should comply with their wishes.”
“Impossible,” Dr. Lévi-Franche said. “It is simply out of the question.”
“It is my opinion that they do not know what the group actually found in the mountains, only that it is prized,” Gabriella said, straightening in her chair.
“Perhaps the captured agents have told them what they extracted from the cavern,” suggested the nun. “Under such duress it would be the natural outcome. ”
“I believe that our angelologists will honor our codes,” Dr. Raphael answered, a hint of anger in his response. “If I know Seraphina at all, she won’t allow the others to speak.” He turned away, and I could see the faintest glistening of sweat forming upon his forehead. “She will endure their questions, although we all know that their methods can be horribly cruel.”
The atmosphere turned grim. We all understood how brutal the Nephilim could be to our agents, especially if they wanted something. I had heard tales of the methods of torture they used, and I could only imagine what they would do to my colleagues to extract information. Closing my eyes, I whispered a prayer. I could not foresee what would happen, but I understood how important the evening had become: If we lost what we had recovered from the cavern, our work would have been for nothing. The discoveries were precious, but would we willingly sacrifice an entire team of angelologists for them?