Angelopolis Page 11

  “As royal governess to Alexandra’s daughters, my mother was given a window into a more hidden dimension to her household. The empress was a formidable creature who dominated Nikolai from the very beginning of their marriage. While Nikolai was weak—he had small white wings that resembled the unimpressive plumage of a goose—Alexandra was a particularly pure breed, like her grandmother. Her mauve wings were strong and full, with a span of over ten feet; her eyes were deep-set and steely blue; her will was indomitable. Alix, as she was called by her husband, was extremely proud of her inheritance and her gifts. She spent hours and hours grooming her great pink wings. She would use her leisure time teaching her daughters to fly in the private garden of their country estate in the Crimea. All of this is to say that she was an extremely determined woman. Alexandra would stop at nothing to create an heir.”

  “And Our Friend was involved in all of this?” Bruno asked.

  “In a word, yes,” Nadia said. “But not in the manner you are imagining. Monsieur Philippe’s primary attraction for the empress was the predictions about her future heir. He used prayer and a form of hypnosis to win her trust, and when she became pregnant, he told her that the child would be a boy. Alexandra announced her pregnancy and dismissed the court doctors. The whole of Russia waited. In the end, no child was delivered. It was kept quiet, but the servants and doctors gossiped that the tsarina had a phantom pregnancy: She had believed M. Philippe so strongly that her body produced all the symptoms of a normal gestation.

  “But the biggest disappointment came years later. Another holy man, a seer and mystic like M. Philippe—with his knowledge of medicines and tinctures and potions—entered Alexandra’s life. That man came to be their closest adviser, her primary doctor, priest, and confidant. He, too, was referred to in many letters as Our Friend. This man eventually became notorious as the peasant who ruined the great Romanov dynasty and changed the course of the twentieth century.”

  “Grigory Rasputin,” Vera said, her eyes bright with recognition.

  Nadia turned to the first page of the album, where two Cyrillic words were scribbled in ink.

  “Can you read it?” Verlaine asked.

  “Of course,” Nadia said. “Your colleague is correct: It is the name Grigory Rasputin.”

  Bruno took the album and looked at it more closely. “This album belonged to Rasputin?”

  Nadia smiled, and Bruno knew their pathways had converged for a reason. “Rasputin was one of the most intriguing and, in my opinion, misunderstood men in the history of Russia. Father Grigory was the center of what we would now call a cult—he created a circle of largely upper-class female devotees, who gave him money, sex, social standing, and political power in exchange for his spiritual guidance. Rasputin came to St. Petersburg in 1903 and by 1905 had total access to the Empress Alexandra and, through her, to Nikolai and the children. Rumors have it that he seduced the tsarina, that he played sexual games with the grand duchesses, that he spent lavish amounts of state money for his own pleasure, and that he was actually ruling Russia during the crucial period of World War I, when the tsar left to command the military. All of these accusations were false, except for his influence on governmental policy. Alexandra believed Rasputin to have been sent by God. As such, she allowed him to choose state ministers from his friends. He duly filled the government with incompetents and sycophants, ensuring the Romanovs’ downfall. For the Russian people, Rasputin’s access to power was a mystery. They called him a magician, a hypnotist, a demon. He may have been all three, but the true reason for his power had little to do with magic or hypnotism. What the gossips of Moscow and Petersburg didn’t know about Father Grigory was that he was the only man who could keep the heir, Alexei, from dying of hemophilia.”

  “The Romanovs found Rasputin to be an effective doctor?” Bruno asked.

  “He wasn’t a doctor by training,” Nadia said. “There has been much speculation about what, exactly, he did specialize in. His power over Alexei certainly had much to do with a kind of medical treatment. Hemophilia was a deadly disorder at the beginning of the twentieth century. The disorder affected the blood vessels, which, when ruptured, could not heal, and thus the smallest bruise could lead to a hemophiliac’s death. Alexandra was a genetic carrier of the ‘bleeding disease,’ as it was called, inheriting it from her grandmother Queen Victoria. Women were carriers, but it only became manifest in men. Victoria’s sons and grandsons withered and died like cut flowers because of their inheritance. The tsarina felt horrible guilt over transmitting the disease to her son. She knew it to be a deadly disorder, requiring real medical care, and yet she trusted Rasputin, who was never trained as a doctor, to heal her son.”

  “Why?” Bruno asked.

  “That is at the heart of this album,” Nadia said. “He had methods that went beyond the perimeters of medicine. Of course, much of his power also stemmed from the force of his personality,” Nadia conceded. “He was a mystic, a holy man, a cunning and manipulative social climber, but there was—at the center of it all—an incredible mastery of human nature. Nothing he did was by chance. Later, once he had made the friendship of the tsarina, and had learned that his power over her would be absolute if he could heal her son, things changed. He needed an effective medicine for hemophilia, and he desperately tried to find one. I believe he saved Alexei with his formulas.”

  Bruno glanced at the album. Nadia had opened it to a page filled with numbers.

  “I have access to all of the records of the imperial treasures,” Vera said. “And I’ve never seen anything about this album.”

  “It isn’t exactly common knowledge,” Naida said. “After the 1917 revolution, a committee was formed to make an official inquiry into Rasputin’s life, his influence on the tsar, and his murder. They interviewed people who knew him and collected firsthand accounts from his followers, patrons, friends, and enemies. A file was created about Rasputin. This file went missing during the Communist era—most people believed that it was burned with so many other tsarist-era documents.”

  “I have colleagues who believe the burning of the imperial papers a crime against humanity, as egregious as Stalin’s purges,” Vera said.

  Bruno shot Vera a look, wondering if she too believed the historical record more important than living, breathing human beings. It was this kind of thing that made Bruno feel allergic to academics.

  “Perhaps your colleagues would be assuaged to learn, then, that the Rasputin file was spared,” Nadia said, her voice terse. She was clearly unhappy at the idea of papers being more valuable than human lives. “I was working in the Soviet archives in the eighties when I discovered it, buried in a room full of moldering surveillance records. It was not long after Angela Valko’s death. Vladimir had relocated to New York and I here to St. Petersburg—Leningrad at the time—where the tight restrictions on my existence felt like a salve to the wounds I had sustained during my work in Paris. So I took the file and, after copying everything, gave it to a friend, who smuggled it to France. It was put up for auction at Sotheby’s in Paris in 1996 and was purchased by a Russian historian. The original file is now in the hands of this man, who has made its contents public, even going so far as to create an investigative television series on Rasputin’s life.”

  “You didn’t imagine that it could be important to our work?” Bruno asked, wondering how loyal Nadia was to the society.

  “At that point I was finished with angelology,” Nadia replied. “I wanted nothing to do with this dead Russian mystic. I was not alone, of course. After Stalin came to power you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Moscow or Leningrad willing to talk about Rasputin and the tsar. But my reasons were far more personal than the sour aftertaste of history. It was Rasputin and his album that put Angela Valko in danger. The power of this man, and his reach beyond death, was too strong—even now I fear what could happen as a result of this album.”

  “You believe that Rasputin is to blame for Angela Valko’s death?” Verlaine asked, incredulou
s.

  “When my mother died, bequeathing the eggs and the album to me, I showed the pages of flowers to Vladimir, drawing his attention to Rasputin’s name. He knew it was extraordinary, and so together we took it to Angela. She believed that the album was the most surprising link between ancient and modern methods of fighting the Nephilim to be discovered in the twentieth century. In my presence—indeed, using me to translate the contents of Rasputin’s writings—she identified this volume as a kind of medical recipe book. She believed it to contain the most precious, most dangerous of chemical compounds—a formula from the ancient world. It could be a poison or, depending upon your point of view, a medicine.”

  “Was it Angela who added this?” Vera asked, squinting as she pulled out the passage about Noah tucked in the leaves of the book.

  “Indeed,” Nadia said. Taking it from Vera’s fingers, she read: “We instructed him concerning every kind of medicine. Thus the evil spirits were precluded from harming the sons of Noah.”

  Bruno couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Could Angela Valko really have interpreted a book full of pressed flowers in this way? The famous passage from Jubilees was considered to be one of the great textual conundrums surrounding Noah and the Flood. It posited that a medicine was capable of killing off the Nephilim, and that Noah created and used the medicine, but every first-year student of angelology knew that the Nephilim had survived the Flood. In fact, they continued to thrive in the postdiluvian world.

  “Did Angela believe that Rasputin was trying to kill the Nephilim?”

  “We all speculated about his motives. Vladimir believed he was from a Nephil family, and that this was why Alexandra trusted him. The name Grigory is a common one, often shortened to Grisha, a name popular among Russians. But there has been evidence that Rasputin’s mother had a hint of Nephilistic blood, and that she gave her son the name Grigory in homage to the great Grigori family, known throughout Europe in the nineteenth century. Rasputin’s physical strength, the hypnotic power of his blue eyes, as well as his reputed sexual domination of female devotees—these were all traits that would lead one to believe so, although this theory is difficult to prove, as his lineage is pure peasant stock. Even his surname had a vulgar connotation in Russian. It displeased the tsar so much that he officially changed Father Grigory’s family name to Novy, or ‘the new one.’”

  “But even if Rasputin attempted to create such a quote-unquote medicine, he failed,” Bruno said. “The Nephilim still live.”

  “You are right,” Nadia said. “Whatever his intentions and capabilities, he did not succeed. Nor did Angela. But you, with this album, might.”

  Vera stood and, taking the album in her hands, said, “In my first years with the society I tried working with my fellow Russian angelologists. It was simply impossible. They are a territorial bunch, wary of new ideas and dismissive of research that doesn’t dovetail with their own. And so I turned to the only person I knew who could help me, an old family friend named Dr. Hristo Azov, an angelologist working on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. Soviets were allowed to travel to the Black Sea when I was a girl, and my family spent holidays there. Azov supported my early work. He is a brilliant man, and his research quite startling.”

  “Do you think Azov would be interested in looking into this?” Bruno asked, realizing even as he spoke that Vera was two steps ahead of him.

  “Of course,” Vera said. “Despite the distance, Azov has been a close contact for the past few years. He’s advised me in every aspect of my research. I’m sure I could arrange to see him immediately.” She looked at her watch. “It’s nearly lunchtime. If I start now, I could probably be there tonight.”

  “You will report back the second you learn anything,” Bruno said.

  “Of course,” Vera said, kissing each of them good-bye. She extricated herself from the situation so gracefully that Bruno had to admire her. If only he could get out of there with such skill.

  Taking the album in hand, she looked to Nadia. “I’m sure that you don’t want to let this out of your sight, but Azov can’t help us unless he sees it.”

  “You will take it then,” Nadia said, hesitant. “But you must be extremely careful. This album has been hidden for many years. If the Grigori know you have it, they will want it. And I believe you understand what they will do to get what they want.”

  Vera looked momentarily concerned and then, finding a plastic bag in the corner, she slipped the album inside and walked into the labyrinth of Nadia’s home. Within seconds Bruno saw her through the dusty glass, hurrying along the street, her blond hair filled with midday sunlight.

  The corner of Mokhovaya Street, St. Petersburg

  The blow struck Verlaine before he’d fully stepped out into the street. The world seemed to waver and tip; he hit the cobblestones hard and rolled as the sharp wooden sole of a shoe sliced into his hand. A warm, wet substance dripped over his forehead and into his eye. He blinked, trying to clear his sight. He was blinded by blood.

  In the seconds he lay on the cobblestones, he put together the facts of the ambush: The car they’d spotted at the Neva must have followed them. The creatures had waited outside the antique store, preparing to attack the moment he and Bruno stepped out of Nadia’s door. It had been planned and executed perfectly.

  Wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, he saw that there was not one but two Nephilim. As he moved his gaze from one to the other, he realized that they were identical in every aspect, from their lush blond curls to their Italian leather shoes. The twins seemed eerily familiar to him. He recognized their build, their features, even the way they dressed. And yet it was impossible that he’d seen them in Paris. Nephilim rarely did their own dirty work.

  He jumped to his feet and kicked at the closest twin, aiming for the solar plexus. He felt his shoe connect, but it had no effect. His target—it must be a Grigori, he realized; there was no other family that looked quite like them—simply smiled, as if Verlaine were nothing more threatening than an insect. Bruno fought, taking on the second Nephil, but it pinned him to the ground. Verlaine patted his jacket, feeling for the egg. For the moment, it was safe.

  Then, quick as a flicker of light in the corner of his eye, he saw Eno. She stepped from the shadows, her skin translucent in the early afternoon light. Her wings were hidden under a sable cape, but he knew that if she were to open them, they would span the width of the street.

  Time seemed to stop as Eno walked coolly to Verlaine and kicked him in the stomach. He tried to stand, but she pushed him back to the ground and, feeling his pockets, took his gun, which she looked at with disdain and threw aside. She paused and felt his jacket a second time. Verlaine knew even before she removed it that she’d found the egg. He struggled to grab it from her fingers, but the other two creatures held him down. Bruno jumped up, gun in his hand, and fired at Eno, who turned on her heel and ran. The twins climbed back into a car and drove off, disappearing as quickly as they’d attacked.

  “Come on,” Bruno said, brushing himself off. “We’ll follow them.”

  “We’ll be more efficient if we split up,” Verlaine said, spying Eno in the distance.

  Bruno eyed him, wary. “Think you can handle her?”

  “We’ll soon find out.” A moment of doubt came over Verlaine. Bruno had warned him that taking her on alone was suicide. Yet she was the kind of creature every angelologist dreamed of hunting. She would either be the biggest catch of his life, or she would kill him.

  “Okay, move,” Bruno said. “Stay on her. She’ll know you’re following, but it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to put the pressure on. I’ll go after the car. They’re sure to meet up with Eno at some point.”

  Verlaine picked up his gun, tucked it into his pocket, and ran, knowing he had to catch her, corner her, stun her, and restrain her, skills Bruno had drilled into him year after year. Verlaine had done it time and time again, first on the Golobium, working his way up to the Gibborim, and then, finally, to the Nephi
lim. He had learned to match the pace of the creature, choose the precise moment to reveal his presence, and then, when he had maneuvered it into position, capture it. And yet he had never tasted the sweetness of a creature like Eno.

  She turned onto Nevsky Prospect, a wide thoroughfare lined with boutiques and galleries, and ducked into a shop, its polished window filled with leather luggage, scarves, and handbags. Pausing outside the door, he wondered if he should go in after her or wait. Neither choice presented itself as a good option. She knew he was following her. If he went inside, she’d run. If he stood outside, she might find a way to escape through another exit. Verlaine leaned on the glass and squinted. Beautiful, well-dressed women filled the shop. Eno stood at a glass display filled with wallets and accessories. She dialed a number and brought her phone to her ear, all the while examining the pattern of a silk scarf—a white foulard with black flecks that matched, as she tied it around her neck, her white beret, and black cape. After a few minutes she turned off the phone, slid it into her bag, paid for the scarf, and walked back out onto the street. Verlaine hid and watched her walk away.

  If Eno had detected Verlaine, she didn’t alter her behavior in the least. She stepped off Nevsky Prospect, toward the Neva, her pace quickening. Verlaine increased his speed, his determination to catch her growing stronger each second. Her stiletto heels made her seem enormous among the human beings around her. He walked faster and faster, until finally he broke into a run, the cool wind blowing through his hair. It was not a question of whether he could catch her—he was determined to apprehend her no matter what it took. Rather it was a question of how far she would go to evade him. If he knew anything at all about the Emim, he knew that Eno would keep going.