“Beliel kept her in the room as his pet until he recovered enough to go to the aerie. He had to report to Archangel Uriel. Something about a legendary angel who has been away for a long time.”

Raffe. Beliel must have reported that Raffe got away.

“Whatever it was,” says Doc, “Uriel was displeased. Beliel was in a seriously bad mood after that, and he took it out on your sister. After treating her like a pet for days—feeding her, confiding in her, taking her with him everywhere—he abandoned her to the medical team. He tossed her our way and didn’t look back.”

He pops out the video. “She kept asking for him until we—they—turned her into what she is now.”

“She asked for him?”

He shrugs. “He was the only one familiar to her in her new environment.”

I nod, wanting to throw up.

“And what exactly did you turn her into?”

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough punishment for the day?”

“Don’t pretend you give a damn. Tell me.”

He sighs. “The kids were Uriel’s pet project. Sometimes, I think he just likes playing God—something people used to accuse me of doing a lifetime ago. He wanted the kids to look like something he couldn’t even describe. Said he’d never seen the things that he wanted the kids to mimic but that no one who mattered had.”

I’m scared to ask but I do anyway. “What did he want them to be?”

“Abominations. They were to look like unnatural children who ate people. They were to roam the earth and terrorize the population as part of the angels’ endless political machinations.”

So he could pass them off as nephilim and blame Raffe for not doing his job. So he could ruin his competitor’s reputation and win the election for Messenger.

“You purposely made kids into abominations?”

He sighs, like he never expected me to understand. “The human race is about to come to an end and I, for one, am scared out of my skull. Unless we can figure out a way to stop it, this is it for us.”

He sweeps out his arm as if inviting me to look around at the scorpion factory. “I’m in a very special place to make a difference, to help figure out a way to stop it. I have access to their facilities and knowledge. I have their trust and a small degree of freedom to work under their noses.”

He leans back against the wall as if he’s tired. “But the only way I can help the human race is if I do what they tell me to do. Even if it’s horrific. Even if it’s goddamn soul-shredding.”