Angelology (11 page)

The crisp air in his lungs—so delicious after the stifling warmth of the library—only served to add to the exuberance he felt about his success. Somehow, to his astonishment and delight, he had pulled it off. Evangeline—he couldn’t bring himself to think of her as Sister Evangeline; there was something too alluring, too intellectually engaging, too feminine about her for her to be a nun—had not only given him access to the library but she had shown him the very item he’d most hoped to find. He’d read Abigail Rockefeller’s letter with his own eyes and could now say with certainty that this woman had indeed been working on a scheme of some sort with the sisters of St. Rose Convent. Although he hadn’t been able to get a photocopy of the letter, he recognized the handwriting as authentic. The result would surely satisfy Grigori and—more important—bolster his own personal research. The only thing that could have topped this would have been if Evangeline had given him the original letter outright. Or, better yet, if she had produced as many letters from Abigail Rockefeller as he possessed from Innocenta—and given him those originals outright.

Ahead, past the bars of the gate, a sweep of headlights broke through the blur of snowflakes. A matte black Mercedes SUV pulled into sight, parking next to the Renault. Verlaine ducked sidelong into a thicket of pine trees, an act of instinct that sheltered him from the harsh headlights. From a needling crevice between the trees, he watched as a man wearing a stocking cap followed by a bigger, blond man carrying a crowbar emerged from the vehicle. The physical revulsion Verlaine had felt earlier in the day—from which he had only just fully recovered—returned at the sight of them. In the headlights’ glare, the men appeared more menacing, larger than was possible, their silhouettes blazing a brilliant white. The contrast of illumination and shadow hollowed their eyes and cheeks, giving their faces the stark aspect of carnival masks. Grigori had sent them—Verlaine knew this the moment he saw them—but why on earth he had done so was beyond him.

Using the edge of the crowbar, the taller man brushed at a line of snow clinging to one of the Renault’s windows, running the metal tip over the glass. Then, with a show of violence that startled Verlaine, he brought the crowbar down upon the window, shattering the glass with one swift crack. After clearing away the shards, the other man reached inside and unlocked the door, each move quick and efficient. Together the two of them went through the glove compartment, the backseat, and, after popping it open from inside, the trunk. As they tore through his belongings—disemboweling his gym bag and loading his books, many on loan from the Columbia University library, into the SUV—Verlaine realized that Grigori must have sent his men to steal Verlaine’s papers.

He wouldn’t be driving back to New York City in his Renault, that was for certain. Endeavoring to get as far away from these thugs as possible, Verlaine dropped to his hands and knees and crawled along the ground, the soft snow crunching under his weight. As he crept through the thick evergreens, the sharp scent of pine sap filled his senses. If he could remain under the cover of the forest, following the shadowy path back toward the convent, he might escape unnoticed. At the edge of the trees, he stood up, his breathing heavy and his clothes mottled with packed snow: A stretch of exposed space between the forest and the river gave him no choice but to risk exposure. Verlaine’s only hope was that the men were too preoccupied with destroying his car to notice him. He ran toward the Hudson, looking over his shoulder only after he’d reached the edge of the bank. In the distance the thugs were getting into the SUV They hadn’t driven off. They were waiting for Verlaine.

The riverbed was frozen. Looking at his wing tips—the leather now completely drenched—he felt a rush of anger and frustration. How was he supposed to get home? He was stuck in the middle of nowhere. Grigori’s monkeys had taken all his notebooks, all his files, everything he’d been working on for the past years, and they’d trashed his car in the process. Did Grigori have any idea how hard it was to find replacement parts for a 1984 Renault R5? How was he supposed to walk through this wilderness of snow and ice in a pair of slippery vintage shoes?

He navigated the terrain, striding south alongside the riverbank, taking care not to fall. Soon he found himself standing before a barricade of barbed wire. He supposed that the fence marked the boundaries of the convent’s property, a spindly and sharp extension of the massive stone wall that surrounded the St. Rose grounds, but for him it was yet another obstacle to his escape. Pressing the barbed wire with his foot, Verlaine climbed over, snagging his coat.

It wasn’t until he had walked for some time and had left the convent grounds for a dark, snow-covered country road that he realized he’d sliced his hand climbing over the fence. It was so dark that he couldn’t make out the cut, but he guessed it to be bad, perhaps in need of stitches. He removed his favorite Hermès tie, rolled up his bloodied shirtsleeve, and wrapped the tie around the wound, forming a tight bandage.

Verlaine had a terrible sense of direction. With the snowstorm obscuring the night sky, and his utter ignorance of the small towns along the Hudson, he had no idea of where he was. Traffic was sparse. When headlights appeared in the distance, he stepped from the gravel shoulder into the trees at the edge of the forest, hiding himself. There were hundreds of small roads and highways, any one of which he might have stumbled upon. Yet he couldn’t help but worry that Grigori’s men, who by now would be looking for him in earnest, could drive by at any moment. His skin had already grown raw and chapped from the wind; his feet had gone numb as his hand began to throb, and so he stopped to examine it. As he tightened his tie around the wound, he noticed with stunned detachment the elegance with which the silk absorbed and retained the blood.

After what felt like hours, he came across a larger, more heavily trafficked county highway, two lanes of cracked concrete with a sign that posted the speed limit-fifty-five miles per hour. Turning toward Manhattan, or what he assumed was the direction of Manhattan, he walked along the ice and gravel shoulder, wind biting into his skin. Traffic grew heavier as he walked. Semitrucks with advertisements painted across their trailers, flatbed trucks piled high with industrial cargo, minivans, and compacts sped past. Exhaust mixed with the frigid air, a thick, toxic soup that made it painful for him to breathe. The seemingly endless stretch of highway ahead, the bitter wind, the mind-numbing ugliness of the scene—it was as if he had fallen into a piece of nightmarish postindustrial art. Walking faster, he scanned the passing traffic, hoping to flag a police car, a bus, anything that would get him out of the cold. But the traffic moved by in a relentless, aloof caravan. Finally Verlaine stuck out his thumb.

With a whoosh of hot, gaseous air, a semi slowed and stopped a hundred yards or so ahead, the brakes creaking as the tires ground to a halt. The passenger door was flung open, and Verlaine broke into a run toward the brightly lit cab. The driver was a fat man with a great tangled beard and a baseball cap who eyed Verlaine sympathetically. “Where you headed?”

“New York City,” Verlaine said, already basking in the warmth of the cab’s heater.

“I’m not going that far, but I can drop you in the next town, if you’d like.”

Verlaine tucked his hand deep into his coat, obscuring it from view. “Where’s that?” he asked.

“About fifteen miles south in Milton,” the driver said, looking him over. “Looks like you’ve had a hell of a day. Hop in.”

They drove for fifteen minutes before the truck driver pulled over, letting him off on a quaint, snowy main street with a stretch of small shops. The street was utterly deserted, as if the entire town had shut down due to the snowstorm. The shop windows were dark and the parking lot before the post office empty. A small tavern on a corner, a beer sign illuminated in the window, gave the only sign of life.

Verlaine checked his pockets, feeling for his wallet and keys. He’d buttoned the envelope of cash into an interior pocket of his sport jacket. Removing the envelope, he checked to be sure he hadn’t lost the money. To his relief, it was all there. His anger grew, however, at the thought of Grigori. What had he been doing, working for a guy who would track him down, bust up his car, and scare the hell out of him? Verlaine was beginning to wonder if he’d been crazy for getting involved with Percival Grigori at all.

T
he Grigori family had acquired the penthouse in the late 1940s from the debt-ridden daughter of an American tycoon. It was large and magnificent, much too big for a bachelor with an aversion to large parties, and so it had come as something of a relief when Percival’s mother and Otterley began to occupy the upper floors. When he had lived there alone, he had spent hours alone playing billiards, the doors closed to the movement of servants brushing through the corridors. He would draw the heavy green velvet drapes, turn the lamps low, and drink scotch as he aligned shot after shot, aiming the cue and slamming the polished balls into netted pockets.

As time passed, he remodeled various rooms of the apartment but left the billiard room exactly as it had been in the 1940s—slightly tattered leather furniture, the transmitter-tube radio with Bakelite buttons, an eighteenth-century Persian rug, an abundance of musty old books filling the cherrywood shelves, hardly any of which he had attempted to read. The volumes were purely decorative, admired for their age and value. There were calf-bound volumes pertaining to the origins and exploits of his many relations—histories, memoirs, epic novels of battle, romances. Some of these books had been shipped from Europe after the war; others were acquired from a venerable book dealer in the neighborhood, an old friend of the family transplanted from London. The man had a sharp sense for what the Grigori family most desired—tales of European conquest, colonial glory, and the civilizing power of Western culture.

Even the distinctive smell of the billiard room remained the same—soap and leather polish, a faint hint of cigar. Percival still relished whiling away the hours there, calling every so often for the maid to bring him a fresh drink. She was a young Anakim female who was wonderfully silent. She would place a glass of scotch next to him and sweep the empty glass away, making him comfortable with practiced efficiency. With a flick of his wrist, he would dismiss the servant, and she would disappear in an instant. It pleased him that she always left quietly, closing the wide wooden doors behind her with a soft click.

Percival maneuvered himself onto a stuffed armchair, swirling the scotch in its cut-crystal glass. He straightened his legs—slowly, gently—onto an ottoman. He thought of his mother and her complete disregard for his efforts in getting them this far. That he had obtained definite information about St. Rose Convent should have given her faith in him. Instead Sneja had instructed Otterley to oversee the creatures she’d sent upstate.

Taking a sip of scotch, Percival tried to telephone his sister. When Otterley did not pick up, he checked his watch, annoyed. She should have called by now.

For all her faults, Otterley was like their father—punctual, methodical, and utterly reliable under pressure. If Percival knew her, she had consulted with their father in London and had drawn up a plan to contain and eliminate Verlaine. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise him if his father had outlined the plan from his office, giving Otterley whatever she needed to execute his wishes. Otterley was his father’s favorite. In his eyes she could do nothing wrong.

Looking at his watch again, Percival saw that only two minutes had passed. Perhaps something had happened to warrant Otterley’s silence. Perhaps their efforts had been thwarted. It wouldn’t be the first time they had been lured into a seemingly innocuous situation only to be cornered.

He felt his legs pulsing and shaking, as if the muscles rebelled against repose. He took another sip of scotch, willing it to calm him, but nothing worked when he was in such a state. Leaving his cane behind, Percival drew himself up from the chair and hobbled to a bookshelf, where he removed a calf-bound volume and placed it gently upon the billiard table. The spine creaked when he pressed the cover open, as if the binding might pop apart. Percival had not opened
The Book of Generations
in many, many years, not since the marriage of one of his cousins had sent him searching for family connections on the bride’s side—it was always awkward to arrive at a wedding and be at a loss for who mattered and who did not, especially when the bride was a member of the Danish royal family.

The Book of Generations
was an amalgamation of history, legend, genealogy, and prediction pertaining to his kind. All Nephilistic children received an identical calf-bound volume at the end of their schooling, a kind of parting gift. The stories told of battle, of the founding of countries and kingdoms, of the binding together in pacts of loyalty, of the Crusades, of the knighthoods and quests and bloody conquests—these were the great stories of Nephilistic lore. Percival often wished that he had been born in those times, when their actions were not so visible, when they were able to go about their business quietly, without the danger of being monitored. Their power had been able to grow with the aid of silence, each victory building upon the one that came before. The legacy of his ancestors was all there, recorded in
The Book of Generations
.

Percival read the first page, filled with bold script. There was a list of names documenting the sprawling history of the Nephilistic bloodline, a catalog of families that began at the time of Noah and branched into ruling dynasties. Noah’s son Japheth had migrated to Europe, his children populating Greece, Parthia, Russia, and northern Europe and securing their family’s dominance. Percival’s family was descended directly from Javan, Japheth’s fourth son, the first to colonize the “Isles of the Gentiles,” which some took to mean Greece and others believed to be the British Isles. Javan had six brothers, whose names were recorded in the Bible, and a number of sisters, whose names were not recorded, all of whom created the basis of their influence and power throughout Europe. In many ways
The Book of Generations
was a recapitulation of the history of the world. Or, as modern Nephilim preferred to think, the survival of the fittest.