Without warning, Percival slammed the top of the case shut and yanked it away from Evangeline, breaking the spell the instrument had cast upon her. A violent surge of despair took hold of her as she lost her grasp upon the case, and before she understood her actions, she fell upon Percival, wrenching the case from him. To her surprise, she had been able to take the instrument with ease. A new strength moved through her, a vitality she had not known only moments before. Her vision was sharper, more precise. She held the case close, ready to protect it.
The train car stopped at another station, and the group of people sauntered off, aloof to the spectacle. A chime rang, and the doors slid shut. They were alone again with the malodorous drunk at the far end of the car.
Evangeline turned away from Gabriella and Percival and opened the case. The pieces were there, waiting to be assembled. Quickly, she fastened the crossbar to the lyre’s base, screwed the tuning pegs into the crossbar, and attached the strings, winding them slowly about the pegs until they were taut. While Evangeline had expected the procedure to be complicated, she was able to fit each new piece to the previous one with ease. As she tightened the strings, she felt vibrations under her fingers.
She ran her hand over the lyre. The metal was cold and smooth. She slid a finger over the firm silk of a string and adjusted the tuning peg, listening to the note change register. She withdrew the plectrum, its surface glinting under the harsh lights of the subway car, and drew it over the strings. In an instant the texture of the world changed. The noise of the subway, the menace of Percival Grigori, the uncontrollable beating of her heart-everything stilled and a lilting, sweet vibration filled her senses once again, many times more powerful than before. She felt both awake and asleep at once. The crisp, vivid sensations of reality were everywhere around her-the rocking of the train, the ivory handle of Percival’s cane-and yet she felt as if she’d fallen into a dream. The sound was so pure, so powerful that it disarmed her entirely.
“Stop,” Gabriella said. Although her grandmother stood only inches away, her voice sounded to Evangeline as if it had come from a distant room. “Evangeline, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
She looked at her grandmother as if through a prism. Gabriella stood close by her side, and yet Evangeline could hardly see her.
Gabriella said, “Nothing is known about the correct method of playing the lyre. The horrors you could bring upon the world are unimaginable. I beg you, stop.”
Percival stared at Evangeline with a look of gratitude and pleasure. The sound of the lyre had begun to work its magic upon him. Stepping forward, his fingers trembling with lust, he touched it. Suddenly his expression changed. He fixed her with a look of horror and awe, equal parts terror and admiration.
Gabriella’s eyes became filled with fear. “My dear Evangeline, what has happened?”
Evangeline could not understand what Gabriella meant. She looked at herself and saw no change. Then, turning, she saw her reflection in the wide, dark glass of the window and caught her breath. Curling about her shoulders, glittering in a nimbus of golden light, hung a pair of luminous, airy wings so mesmerizing in their beauty that she could do nothing but stare at herself. With the slightest pressure of her muscles, the wings unfurled to their full expanse. They were so light, so weightless, that she wondered for a moment if they might be an illusion of the light. She angled her shoulders so that she might look upon them directly. The feathers were diaphanous purple veined with silver. She breathed deeply, and the wings shifted. Soon they beat time with her breathing.
“Who am I?” Evangeline said, the reality of her metamorphosis suddenly dawning upon her. “What have I become?”
Percival Grigori edged close to Evangeline. Whether from the workings of the lyre’s music or his new interest in her, he had changed from a withered, bent figure to an imposing creature whose height dwarfed Gabriella. His skin appeared to Evangeline to be lit by an internal fire, his blue eyes glittered, his back straightened. Throwing his cane to the floor of the subway car, he said, “Your wings are the likeness of your great-great-grandmother Grigori’s wings. I have only heard my father speak of them, but they signify the very purest of our kind. You have become one of us. You are a Grigori:”
He placed his hand upon Evangeline’s arm. His fingers were icy, sending shivers through her, but the sensation filled her with pleasure and strength. It was as though she’d been living in a constrictive shell all her life, one that had, in an instant, fallen away. All at once she felt strong and alive.
“Come with me,” Percival said, his voice silken. “Come to meet Sneja. Come home to your family. We will give you all that you need, everything that you have longed for, anything you might wish to have. You will never want again. You will live long after the world of here and now has disappeared. I will show you how. I will teach you all that I know. Only we can give you your future.”
As she looked into Percival’s eyes, Evangeline understood all that he could bring her. His family and his powers could belong to her. She could have everything she had lost-a home, a family. Gabriella could give her none of these things.
Turning to her grandmother, she was startled to see how Gabriella had changed. She appeared suddenly to be little more than a weak and insignificant woman, a frail human being with tears in her eyes. Evangeline said, “You knew I was like this.”
Gabriella said, “Your father and I had you examined as a little girl, and we saw that your lungs were formed like those of a Nephilistic child, but from our studies-and the work Angela had conducted on Nephilistic decline-we knew that a large percentage of Nephilim do not grow wings at all. Genetics are not enough. There have to be many other factors present.”
Gabriella touched Evangeline’s wings as if taken in by their shimmering beauty. Evangeline pulled away, repulsed.
“You meant to trick me,” Evangeline said. “You believed I would destroy the lyre. You knew what I would become.”
“I had always feared that it would be Angela-her resemblance to Percival was so strong. But I believed that even if the worst happened and she became like him physically, she would transcend him in spirit.”
“But my mother wasn’t like me,” Evangeline said. “She was human.”
Perhaps sensing the conflict raging in Evangeline’s thoughts, Gabriella said, “Yes, your mother was human in every way. She was gentle, compassionate. She loved your father with a human heart. Perhaps it was a mother’s delusion, but I believed that Angela could defy her origins. Her work led us to believe that the creatures were dying out. We hoped for a new race of Nephilim to rise, one in which human traits would overcome. I believed that if her biological structure was Nephilistic, it would be her fate to be the first of this new breed. But it was not Angela’s destiny. It is yours.”
As the train rattled to a stop, and the doors slid back, Gabriella drew her granddaughter close. Evangeline could hardly make out Gabriella’s words. “Run, Evangeline,” she whispered urgently. “Take the lyre and destroy it. Do not fall prey to the temptations you feel. It is up to you to do what is right. Run, my darling, and do not look back.”
Evangeline rested a moment in Gabriella’s arms, the warmth and security of her grandmother’s body reminding her of the safety she had once felt in the presence of her mother. Gabriella squeezed her once more and, with a small push, released her.
Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station, New York City
Percival took Gabriella by the arms and pulled her from the train. She was light in his grasp, her wrists thin and breakable as twigs. She had never been a match for him, but in Paris she’d been strong enough to put up some resistance. Now she was so feeble, so unresisting that he could harm her without effort. He almost wished she were stronger. He wanted to watch her struggle as he killed her.