When they reached the core of the panopticon, the immensity of the space pulled her eye up, and then, just as her vision adjusted to the scale and grandiosity of the structure, closed in on the rows and rows of creatures locked in their glass-and-metal cells, each angel back-lit by harsh neon.
Yana glanced at Bruno and then Verlaine, wondering what they would think of the state of their underground prison. Unlike other facilities she’d visited, where the ambiance was sleek and clean, orderly and antiseptic as a hospital, the panopticon was a dungeon of the classic medieval variety. The floors were concrete and stained with blood. Dim lights shone overhead, creating pools of murky light. There was, somewhere in the mass of cells, a lab where countless men and women labored over biological samples of angelic creatures. Every living being could be opened, studied, and classified. There was a pretension toward research and scientific progress, of course, but in the end they were there to exploit the prisoners for their own benefit. Every creature, Yana knew from her own experience, belonged to its captor.
“The security offices are this way,” Dmitri said, walking toward an alcove off the panopticon.
Yana slowed her pace to match Verlaine’s and, speaking quietly, so that the others wouldn’t hear her, said, “If your Evangeline is here, she’s in one of these cells.”
Verlaine gave her a grateful look. She squeezed his arm and gestured for him to come closer before she pulled a wad of material from under her sweater and pushed it into his hands. He looked at it, puzzled, and then smiled: It was the drunk security guard’s jacket. She’d lifted it off his chair as they passed through the elevator doors with Dmitri.
III
This is one of the only spots in the facility without security cameras,” Dmitri said, bringing them into an office and locking the door. “It’s safe to talk here.”
Verlaine paced the room. “There isn’t much to talk about,” he said. “We just need to know where Godwin is holding Evangeline.”
Bruno didn’t know if he should admire Verlaine’s obsessive pursuit or if he should tell him to back off and let Dmitri guide them. It was Verlaine’s nature to push harder the closer he came to his target: He always wanted to go in shooting, no matter what risk was involved. It was an admirable quality when they were on familiar terrain, with plenty of backup and weapons at their disposal. Being a million miles underneath a Siberian nuclear wasteland, in a security office loaded with plasma screens displaying hundreds of Russian angelologists and thousands of creatures in their cell pods—that was another story. Yana had assured them that Dmitri would be safe, but he couldn’t help but be wary of a man who had spent most of his career in the frozen tundra.
Bruno searched the video monitors for Godwin, but all he could make out were various office spaces filled with people in lab coats. “You ever get Godwin on one of these things?”
“I have been monitoring Merlin Godwin for fifteen years,” Dmitri said, waving a hand dismissively at the plasma screens. “Believe me, it would be a pleasure to nail him. But I can tell you that Godwin and his crew would never be stupid enough to let me see anything too important.” Dmitri leaned against his desk and crossed his arms across his chest. “My surveillance only goes so far.”
Bruno tried to imagine Dmitri spying on Godwin—eavesdropping on phone calls, monitoring his electronic correspondence. He was beginning to understand how frustrating it might be. “Let’s hear what you’ve got on Godwin first.”
“I should start by making one thing clear,” Dmitri said. “I’m not easily impressed by criminal behavior. Russia is full of thieves. But most of them want money and power and prestige. Not Godwin. He’s after another thing entirely.”
“Such as?” Verlaine asked.
Dmitri said, “Godwin has been working with the Grigori family to remove weak Nephilim from the general population, testing them for certain genetic qualities, and then disposing of or incarcerating them if they fail to yield the desired results.”
“Sounds like the bastard has been doing us a favor,” Yana said.
“He might have been helpful if he’d just continued on his genocidal path,” Dmitri said. “Unfortunately, his ultimate goal seems to be to repopulate the world with creatures superior to the Grigori—a master race of angels, if you will. For this he needs a superior angelic specimen.”
“We have reason to believe he acquired a creature he has been pursuing for a very long time,” Bruno said.
Dmitri glanced at Verlaine. “This is the Evangeline you mentioned?”
“The very one,” he replied, his manner measured. He turned back to the bank of plasma screens. “Could she be here?”
“On paper there isn’t anyone in the panopticon that I don’t know about,” Dmitri said. “All prisoners are checked by security before intake.”
“And in reality?” Yana asked.
“In reality, Godwin can do what he wants,” Dmitri admitted. “He has ways of getting around the regulations. He could have Evangeline here and I wouldn’t have a clue.”
“The question, then,” Verlaine said, scrutinizing the screens, “is where.”
“What about the nuclear plant?” Yana asked.
“Security at the plant is extreme,” Dmitri said.
“Godwin could get around it,” Yana said. “He could access the panopticon via the nuclear reactor itself.”
“That would be a suicide mission in the extreme, even for a psychopath like Godwin, but not beyond the realm of possibility.” Dmitri stepped to a screen and, releasing a catch, pushed the screen up, revealing a vast interior garage stacked with long white bricks of plastic explosives, blue and red wires twisting around them. “This belonged to Godwin.”
“PVV5A,” Yana said, astonished.
“I intercepted a shipment in January,” Dmitri said.
“You’ve got enough of this stuff to bring down the whole prison,” Bruno said.
“Considering the fact that we’re below a nuclear reactor, that’s what we don’t want to happen,” Dmitri said, taking one of the white bricks and placing it on his desk. “Godwin, on the other hand, has planted this stuff in every nook and cranny of the prison. After I intercepted the PVV5A, I knew he was up to something, and so I used dogs to find the rest of the explosives. What you see here is a collection of what was found in the panopticon itself. I can’t guarantee he hasn’t rigged his private research center or the nuclear reactor, and I can’t promise he hasn’t planted other kinds of devices.”
Bruno was surprised to see sweat dripping down Dmitri’s face. His voice cracked as he spoke. “So he likes to play with fireworks,” he said. “But to what end?”
“Godwin knows that explosions in the cells would trigger the panopticon’s security system,” Dmitri said. “A series of mechanisms are in place that, once activated, cause a large-scale self-detonation. The structure will continue to destroy itself over the course of several hours, tunnel by tunnel, level by level, until the entire prison is incinerated.”
“Melt down to what extent?” Yana asked.
“To the extent that everyone and everything—including the caged angels, the laboratories, and all the data collected in the past four decades—will be destroyed. It’s a protective mechanism,” Dmitri said, “like torching fields and villages to deprive the enemy of food. The tower will go first. Then the labs. When the various pieces of the facility have been destroyed, a gas will be released into the panopticon, and every living thing—human being or monster—left inside will be poisoned. The system was meant to cover all traces of our presence here. The panopticon was built underground for this very reason: If they need to destroy it, the ruins will be hidden below the earth, a tomb containing thousands of dead angels.”
“Makes sense to have a safety measure in place,” Bruno said. “But why would Godwin want to trigger it?”
“That I don’t know,” Dmitri said, quietly. “I can only guess that he has no intention of leaving his work unfinished. If he’s under threat, he’ll bring t
he whole thing down.”
“Then we have to get to Evangeline before Godwin has a chance to self-destruct,” Verlaine said.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of guards patrolling this compound,” Dmitri said, reaching into the recesses of the crawlspace and pulling out three canisters of gas, face masks, two semiautomatic weapons with ammo, two stun guns, and three bulletproof vests. “Godwin’s movements are like clockwork. He got here this morning, entered through the south tunnel, and went to his lab. He’ll leave for an hour at lunch. I estimate that you’ll have half an hour to get in, look around, get the angel, if you find her, and get back out. All of this depends, of course, on your ability to get to his lab without being detected. I can take care of the security cameras in the panopticon itself, but that’s as far as I go. You can leave Russia when this is over. I have to continue my career here.”
As Bruno slid into a bulletproof vest, he couldn’t help but wonder if what they were doing was worth the risk. Gabriella would have wanted him to go after Evangeline at any cost—he knew this in his heart, but he also knew that more was at stake than recovering a half-human half-angel traitor who may or may not turn against them. Yet Evangeline had touched him. He could almost see her as a little girl running through the courtyard outside the academy, a wild and happy child. It was impossible for him to imagine then that, one day, he might not be able to save her.
IV
Verlaine had waited long enough; he couldn’t listen to any more talking. Bruno had his method—he would gather information, divide the hunt, and move out with a deliberate plan of attack—but Verlaine couldn’t follow him now. Evangeline was here, somewhere, and there was nothing on earth that would keep him from finding her. Tagging along behind Bruno wasn’t going to happen. His time for simply taking orders was over. He was going after Evangeline alone.
He slipped on the security guard’s jacket, left Dmitri’s office, and began walking the pathway alongside the cells, searching for Evangeline. The lower levels were filled to capacity with ragged, emaciated creatures. Never had he been so close to so many varieties of angelic beings. It was as though he had stepped into a museum packed with specimens.
Verlaine stopped and gripped the metal railing as he looked over the vast prison, the observation tower rising at the center. Suddenly the screens shifted and slats of light sliced across the walls of the panopticon. Verlaine saw the enormous sweep of the space, the chambers stretching away in a path of diminishing visibility. He turned once more to the honeycomb of cells, each one filled with an angel, many with unfurled wings. The cells were deep but narrow, leaving no room for full expansion of the wings, and, as a result, the creatures had pressed their wings against the glass until they curled with pressure, so that the details of feathers were imprinted upon the panes. Angelologists sat behind the glass of the observatory tower studying the creatures’ movements, their manner clinical. Suddenly the panels turned opaque, obscuring the observers behind a shield of smoky glass. It gave Verlaine the creeps to think that they were there, behind the glass, watching him. He didn’t want to be part of their experiment.
Heading up a set of metal steps, he climbed to the top level. If they had Evangeline in custody, she would probably be there, among the Nephilim. The lights were dim, enhancing the effect of the neon bulbs in the creatures’ cells. As he walked along the cells, he glanced inside. The prisoners were large, powerful Nephilim who scowled and hissed as he went by, thrashing their wings, spitting, and cursing at him. One of the creatures scratched at the glass, leaving streaks of blue blood behind. The conditions were horrendous and must have ensured that a steady number of the creatures died each year, perhaps making way for new ones. Over the years he’d lost all ability to feel empathy for the Nephilim, and yet, when he looked at the tortured state of the prisoners, he wondered if the Russian angelologists weren’t being too harsh in their methods.
The sound of footsteps broke his thoughts. Looking into the reflective glass of the window, he saw that a security guard was walking in his direction. He glanced over his shoulder and saw another guard, on the opposite side of the panopticon, staring at him. He turned up the collar of his jacket and walked away, realizing that the curve of the complex offered no escape. It was clear that if they caught him, he wasn’t going to be able to fool anyone with his disguise. He didn’t speak Russian, his face didn’t match the security badge pinned to his pocket, and he was wearing street shoes and jeans. He was an angelologist, and could prove his identity, but they would still take him into custody for questioning until someone in Paris came to the rescue. If these guards stopped him, it was all over.
The guard behind Verlaine called something to him in Russian. Verlaine walked faster, scanning the cells, as if the glass doors might magically open and reveal an escape route. The guard began to run—Verlaine heard the heavy clomping of shoes on the cement—and the second guard, taking his cue, came at Verlaine from the other direction. Looking ahead and behind, he saw that there was nowhere to go but over the railing. In a burst of movement, he leaped over the bar, holding tight as he swung onto the second level. He landed hard next to a cell packed with Mara angels.
He ran, pushing himself faster, his heart racing as he passed the cells, each one filled with a creature in various states of unrest. Verlaine increased his pace, the soles of his shoes hitting the concrete in a hard rhythm. Finally he came to a metal door at the far end of Level 2. Hearing the sound of more and more guards shouting behind him, he tried the knob.
The door was locked. Swearing under his breath, he rattled the lock, pushing against it, as if his weight might force the mechanism to spring open. The voices of guards ricocheted through the panopticon. Bruno and the others would be wondering what in the hell had happened.
Verlaine grabbed his gun and shot the lock. The report made a tremendous amount of noise, and the guards would now be able to follow the sound to his location, but there was a chance that he could escape through the door, and that was all he needed. He kicked it in and looked inside, unsure of what to expect. It looked like an empty closet, just big enough to hide in. Whatever it was, he didn’t have any choice but to take cover. He stepped into the space, slammed the door closed behind him, and flicked on a light.
The closet opened into a number of metal airshafts, huge aluminum tubes that distributed air to distant parts of the prison. Hearing the guards in the distance, Verlaine pulled away the grating of the nearest one and crawled inside. Distributing his weight, he inched forward. If he moved too fast, the thin metal would begin to buckle under him. After thirty feet or so, a metal grating opened up below, and he could see that he was traversing the very top of the structure, crawling high above the concrete floor. His stomach lurched. He felt as if he’d found himself on a wire high above the world, looking down into a fathomless canyon. As he glanced down into the depths, he couldn’t help but imagine falling to the concrete below. In his mind, he plummeted into the space, gravity taking hold as he fell past the caged angels.
He swallowed and crawled ahead, listening to the guards shouting below. Metal gratings appeared at regular intervals, and he was able to glimpse what was happening in the panopticon. He saw the gray concrete of the pillars, the metal walls, the central tower, each part of the structure coming to him in fractured pieces that he reassembled in his mind. He saw the chaos of security guards running past the cells; he saw the caged creatures behind the glass. For ten minutes he moved onward, following the curve of the air pipe until the shaft abruptly tipped, and he found himself pulled downward. Catching himself as best he could, he struggled against gravity until, unable to resist, he let go.
• • •
Verlaine landed heavily at the bottom of the shaft, breaking through a metal grating and tumbling onto the hard concrete floor. For a moment he lay stunned, struggling to breathe, trying to discern if he’d broken any bones. In the past forty-eight hours he’d been beaten and burned and frozen. His muscles hurt, and he was bruised and brok
en. It was a miracle that he was still alive and, in reaction to the absurdity of his situation, he began to laugh. He drummed the opening beats to the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” with his fingers on the concrete. He wiggled his toes, feeling his muscles flex, and had the strangest feeling of joy as his body reacted to his will. One of these days his luck would run out. But for now, he’d made it.
He pulled himself up and began examining his new surroundings. It was clear that he’d fallen into an entirely different quadrant from the rest of the prison. At first glance it seemed that he’d landed in some kind of exterior hallway, perhaps an access route around the facility. There were doors on either side of the hallway. He tried one, found it locked, and continued walking until he heard voices coming through a wall. Checking over his shoulder to be certain he was alone, Verlaine pressed his ear close, straining to understand the muffled words.
“I’ve done my part,” a female voice said. “You can’t expect me to wait.”
Verlaine recognized the voice as belonging to the Emim angel he’d chased through St. Petersburg. Verlaine felt his entire being concentrate to a single point of attention. If Eno was there, Evangeline must be close by.
“And you cannot expect that I can work on her in her present condition,” a man replied. Verlaine assumed it to be Godwin. “The blood is still filled with sedatives.” Godwin’s voice softened. “Look, we’ve waited a long time for this. We can wait a few more hours.”
Verlaine heard footsteps as Godwin walked closer to the wall.
“In the meantime, I’ll tell you how the procedure will work. It’s a bit of a departure.”
Verlaine heard Eno grunt her approval, and Godwin’s voice grew still louder. He had walked closer to the wall.
“This machine,” Godwin said, “will extract the angel’s blood and filter it. We are interested in the blue cells, as you know, and this machine over here will separate the blue from the red and white blood cells. Evangeline is interesting to us, just as her father was interesting to the Romanovs one hundred years ago, because of the rare quality of her blood. Hers is red blood, not blue blood, but it contains an abundance of blue blood cells, which, if one were to get technical, contain stem cells of an extremely adaptable and creative variety, far superior in their generative power to human stem cells. The precision of this equipment gives us great advantage over blood used in the past. Rasputin, for example, used blood that had been withdrawn from an angel, but he could not filter it. It was an inseparable conglomeration of white, red, and blue cells. He must have fed it to the tsarevitch whole, which would have made the child desperately sick before he began to improve. Not us. We will use just the cells we need. And with these cells, we will continue the project I began with your masters. Soon we will see the results of our labors.”
Angelopolis: A Novel (ANGELOLOGY SERIES) Page 25