“What does Otterley say about this?” Sneja asked, pushing away her chair and standing. “Surely she doesn’t believe that they have the strength to perform a summoning. The practice is all but extinct.”
“Mother,” Percival said, his voice strained with emotion, “we lost everyone in the attack.”
Sneja looked from Percival to her husband, as if only his reaction would make her son’s words true.
Percival’s voice faltered in shame and despair as he continued, “I was at a distance from the convent when the attack occurred, but I could see the terrible whirlwind of angels. They descended upon the Gibborim. Otterley was among their number.”
“You saw her body?” Sneja said, walking from one end of the room to the other. Her wings had pressed closed against her body, an involuntary physical reaction. “You are certain?”
“There is no doubt,” Percival said. “I watched the humans dispose of the bodies.”
“And what of the treasure?” Sneja said, growing frantic. “What of your trusted employee? What of Gabriella Lévi-Franche Valko? Tell me you have gained something from our losses?”
“By the time I arrived, they were gone,” Percival said. “Gabriella’s Porsche was abandoned at the convent. They took what they came for and left. It is over. There is no hope.”
“So let me get this straight,” Mr. Grigori said. Although Percival knew that his father adored Otterley, and must be in a state of unspeakable dispair, he displayed the icy calm that had so frightened Percival in his youth. “You allowed your sister to go into attack alone. Then you let the angelologists who killed her escape, losing the opportunity to retrieve a treasure we have sought for a thousand years. And you believe that you are finished?”
Percival regarded his father with hatred and yearning. How was it that he had not lost his strength with age and that Percival, who should be at the height of his powers, had become so weakened?
“You will pursue them,” Mr. Grigori said, standing to his full height, his silver wings fanning open about his shoulders. “You will find them and retrieve the instrument. And you will keep me informed as the hunt progresses. We will do whatever necessary to bring victory.”
Upper West Side, New York City
Evangeline turned onto West Seventy-ninth Street, driving slowly behind a city bus. Pausing at a red light, she glanced down Broadway, squinting to see the afternoon streetscape, and felt a rush of recognition. She’d spent many weekends with her father walking these streets, stopping for breakfast at any one of the cramped diners tucked along the avenues. The chaos of people slogging through the slush, the squish of buildings, the incessant movement of traffic in every direction-New York City was deeply familiar, despite her years away.
Gabriella lived only a few blocks ahead. Although Evangeline had not been to her grandmother’s apartment since her childhood, she remembered it well-the subdued façade of the brownstone, the elegant metalwork fence, the slanted view of the park. It used to be that she had recalled these images with care. Now thoughts of St. Rose filled her mind. Try as she might, she could not forget how the sisters looked at her as she left the church, as if the attack were somehow her fault and their youngest member had brought the Gibborim upon them. Evangeline kept her gaze fixed upon the pathway as she left them. It was all she could manage to get to the edge of the garage without looking back.
In the end Evangeline had betrayed her instincts and looked into the rearview mirror to see the sooty snow and the baleful sisters collected at the riverside. The convent was as dilapidated as a ruined castle, the lawn coated with ash from the fires. She, too, had changed. In a matter of minutes, she had shed her role as Sister Evangeline, Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, and had become Evangeline Angelina Cacciatore, Angelologist. As they drove from the grounds, birch trees rising at each side of the car like hundreds of marble pillars, Evangeline believed she saw the shadow of a fiery angel glinting in the distance, beckoning her onward.
On the journey to New York City, Verlaine had sat in the front seat, while Gabriella insisted upon taking the back, where she had spread out the contents of the leather case and examined them. Perhaps the silence imposed upon Evangeline at St. Rose had come to wear heavily on her-over the course of the drive, she had spoken frankly with Verlaine about her life, the convent, and even, to her surprise, her parents. She told him about her childhood in Brooklyn, how it was punctuated by walks with her father over the Brooklyn Bridge. She told him that the famous walkway that runs the length of the bridge was the one place where she had felt a carefree, undiluted happiness and for that reason, it was still her favorite place in the world. Verlaine asked more and more questions, and she was amazed by how readily and openly she answered each one, as if she’d known him all her life. It had been many years since she’d talked to someone like Verlaine-handsome, intelligent, interested in every detail. In fact, years had passed since she’d felt anything at all about a man. Her thoughts of men seemed, all at once, childish and superficial. Surely her behavior struck him as comically naive.
After Evangeline had found a parking spot, she and Verlaine followed Gabriella to the brownstone. The street was strangely barren. Snow swept the sidewalk; parked cars were encrusted with a thin layer of ice. The windows of Gabriella’s apartment, however, glowed. Evangeline detected movement beyond the glass, as if a group of friends awaited their arrival. She imagined the Times spread in sections on thick Oriental carpets, cups of tea balanced at the edges of end tables, fires kindled in gratings-those were the Sundays of her childhood, the afternoons she had spent in Gabriella’s care. Of course, her memories were those of a child, and her thoughts were filled with nostalgia and romance. She had no idea of what awaited her now.
As Gabriella unlocked the front door, someone pushed the dead bolt aside, turned a great brass doorknob, and opened the door. A bearish, dark-haired man with a hooded sweatshirt and a two-day stubble stood before them. Evangeline had never seen the man before. Gabriella, however, appeared to know him intimately.
“Bruno,” she said, embracing him warmly, an uncharacteristic gesture of intimacy. The man looked to be around fifty years old. Evangeline looked at the man more closely wondering if, despite the age difference, Gabriella could have remarried. Gabriella released Bruno. “Thank goodness you’re here.”
“Of course I’m here,” he said, equally relieved to see her. “The council members have been waiting for you.”
Turning to Evangeline and Verlaine, who stood together on the stoop, Bruno smiled and gestured for them to follow him through the entrance hallway. The smell of Gabriella’s home-its books and gleaming antique furniture-was instantly welcoming, and Evangeline felt her anxiety dissipating with each step into the house. The overloaded bookcases, the wall of framed portraits of famous angelologists, the air of seriousness that fell over the rooms like mist-everything in the brownstone was exactly as Evangeline remembered.
Removing her overcoat, she caught her image in a mirror in the hallway. The person standing before her startled her. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her skin had been streaked black by smoke. She had never seemed so drab, so plain, so out of place as she did now, in the presence of her grandmother’s highly polished life. Verlaine stepped behind her and put his hand on her shoulder, a gesture that only yesterday would have filled her with terror and confusion. Now she was sorry when he took it away.
In the midst of all that had happened, she found it almost inexcusable that her thoughts were drawn to him. Verlaine stood only inches from her, and as she met his eyes in the mirror, she wanted him to be closer. She wished she understood his feelings better. She wished he would say something to assure her that he felt the same shock of pleasure when their eyes met.