“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?
“One thing is certain,” the nun said, looking at her wristwatch. “They are still alive. We received the call approximately twenty minutes ago. I myself spoke with Seraphina.”
“Could she speak freely?” Dr. Raphael said.