I’m a former black hat hacker. A dying billionaire hired me to find a circus performer last seen in 1922.

Reid had attached a black and white photograph to his email. The photo showed an impossibly tall man with feathered wings standing on stage in a circus tent, surrounded by horrified onlookers.

I checked the photo for signs of manipulation, but I didn’t see any.

The man had been shackled to the stage floor. He was so thin his ribcage pressed through his skin.

“This man vanished in 1922,” Reid told me. “I need help finding out what happened to him.”

Reid was a cloud data entrepreneur worth around three billion dollars. In the news, I read that he’d recently been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. I wondered if he was still in his right mind.

I called the number in his signature. His secretary answered and then scheduled a meeting for me and Reid later that week.

I met Reid at his office downtown. He sat at his desk but stood to shake my hand.

He looked sick. Thin and frail. He’d lost all his hair. His handshake was firm, though, and he still had his confident, salesman’s smile.

“The famous Red Prymara,” he said.

“I just go by Vadym now.”

“How’d they catch you? I’ve always wanted to know.”

“The FBI hid a canary token inside a server I’d broken into. When I used the token, it leaked my IP address.”

“Did the FBI know you were coming?”

“I’ve always thought they did. So far, I haven’t been able to figure out who tipped them off, though. My partner, Alexei, did two years in federal prison. I did fifteen. Now, I strictly do white hat work.”

Reid coughed into his handkerchief. Then he sat at his desk again and turned his computer monitor toward me.

On the screen was an old newspaper article from The Bismarck Tribune, dated October 1922.

“The performer whose picture I sent you went by the name Chazaqiel,” Reid told me. “He performed as part of a traveling circus called Marchetti’s Palace of Wonders. The owner of the circus, Ignazio, claimed Chazaqiel was one of The Watchers from the Book of Enoch.”

“What’s the Book of Enoch?”

“An old religious text that claims there was a group of angels who abandoned heaven to sleep with human women. The women who became pregnant gave birth to hideous giants called Nephilim.”

Reid scrolled through the newspaper article. It described the different performers. A sword-swallower, a strongman, a fortune teller with milk-white eyes, and then Chazaqiel, the angel. The same picture I’d seen before.

“Chazaqiel was the circus’s star attraction,” Reid told me. “Stories about him spread all over the USA and eventually reached the ear of a railroad tycoon named Threll. Threll was obsessed with the occult. He was also a practicing Hermeticist, who sought to use the metaphysical world to control physical reality. He hired a Pinkerton detective to travel to North Dakota and find out if the stories about Chazaqiel were true. The detective arrived in North Dakota but never made it back to Threll. The Pinkertons sent a few more detectives to North Dakota to look for this missing detective, but they couldn’t find him. But they did learn that Chazaqiel had disappeared, too.”

“And nobody ever found out what happened to them?”

“That’s where the story gets stranger. In the late 1980s, this picture was posted to a BBS conspiracy board. It shows an angel lying on an operating table in some kind of medical lab.”

Reid opened the picture. The angel looked just like Chazaqiel. His head was shaved, his wings had been mutilated, and his flesh was covered with surgical scars.

I’ve seen things on the dark web that would put most people in therapy. Cartel executions, freak accidents, exploitation rings. I’ve learned to look at horror like data, separating the facts from the suffering. But this picture of Chazaqiel made my stomach turn.

“The person who leaked this photo claimed they worked at Parallax, a genetics company founded by Threll’s grandson.”

“So, you think the Thrells have had Chazaqiel locked up somewhere this whole time?”

Reid leaned across his desk.

“Threll’s grandson was a heavy smoker. He was around my age when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. I have a few friends who know him. They say he managed to cure his cancer. They say he’s stopped aging, too.”

***

I knew it all sounded crazy. I knew Reid was probably out of his mind. Work had been slow, though, and Reid’s contract was generous. I told him I’d look into Parallax and see what I could find. 

For the next three days, I searched archived Reddit and 4chan threads, old forum sites like Godlike Productions and Lunatic Outpost, and Tor sites like Dread and DarkForums.

On an archived alt.conspiracy Usenet chain, someone calling themselves NullSequence claimed they were the one who’d first posted the Parallax angel photo. Their email was NullSequence at netcom dot com.

I took a chance and tried to email the address. “Did you take this picture?” I asked, and I attached a copy of it.

I’d nearly given up on them when, two weeks later, they wrote me back with an invite to join a Signal chat group.

I joined.

“Who are you?” they asked.

“My name’s Vadym. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired to look into Parallax’s angel experiments.”

“Send me a picture of your face with your driver’s license beside it.”

I didn’t like to give strangers copies of my ID cards, but I didn’t have any other leads. I needed to know what they did. I could always get a new driver’s license if I had to.

I sent them the picture.

An hour later, they called me.

A woman spoke. “You’re not working for Parallax, are you?”

“Just for someone they’ve screwed over.”

“They’ve screwed over a lot of people.”

“How long ago did you work for them?”

“I didn’t. My father, Jose, did. He’s NullSequence. He worked at Parallax from 1986 until he was found dead in his apartment on June 5, 1992.”

“How’d he die?”

“The police said it was a heroin overdose, but he’d never touched heroin in his life. He hated drugs. He wouldn’t even take Tylenol when he had a headache.”

“Did your father tell you anything about what Parallax was working on?”

“They called it Project Nephilim. They were trying to sequence the angel’s DNA. They thought his DNA held all kinds of secrets and, if they could map it, they’d unlock the truth about the universe.”

She paused.

“My father had more pictures. He kept a journal, too. I can send you everything, but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“If you find proof that Parallax killed my father, you need to give it to me.”

I agreed.

She sent me the photos and a text file containing her father’s journal entries.

In the new photos, Chazaqiel’s body had been even more mutilated. Wires had been embedded in his arms and chest. Plastic tubes sucked the blood from his veins, transferring it into test tubes.

In a journal entry dated January 14, 1992, Jose wrote, “I managed to get a camera into the basement of the New Mexico lab and take a few pictures. I don’t know where Parallax found these surgeons. They can’t speak English, just Italian. They took six vials of blood out of the angel and then sent them upstairs to Gideon, our Ontological Geneticist.”

Jose’s final entry was dated June 2, 1992. In it, he wrote: “Gideon thinks Threll has lost his mind. Threll thinks the angel wants revenge. He wants to keep it chained up in the lab forever. Or at least for as long as he’s still alive.” 

I called Reid and told him what I’d learned.

“This is great work,” he said. “Now we just need to get you into that lab building.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Work faster.”

Searching through New Mexico real estate listings, I learned the old Parallax lab building had been put up for sale by its new owner, a company called Ophidia Global. I called Reid and asked if he could get me a tour of the building. He called me back the next day and said the tour had already been scheduled.

I got on a plane to New Mexico.

***

During the flight, I had a strange dream. Chazaqiel leaned over me, smiling in my face, while his wings flapped behind his back.

I stared up at his hideous smile, frozen. Unable to move. Unable to scream.

He ran his long, bony fingers over my face.

“I’m waiting for you, Vadym,” he said.

I woke as the plane landed, covered in sweat.

I took a cab to my hotel. I spent the night looking through pictures of the old lab, trying to figure out where Threll might have Chazaqiel hidden.

The next morning, I met the realtor, Katie, at the building. She looked like a typical suburban mom. Curly blonde hair. She wore a black blazer. She shook my hand and asked me how long I’d worked for Reid.

“About two years,” I said.

“What’s he planning to do in New Mexico?”

“I really can’t say anything. Reid wants to keep this project quiet.”

She said she understood, and then she brought me inside the Parallax lab.

The first floor was filled with cubicle dividers. Gray carpet covered the floor. Gray blinds covered the windows.

“It’s really a great building,” she told me. “Lots of space, lots of potential.”

“The building’s been empty since Parallax shut down?”

“Yes. Ophidia Global acquired the building recently, but they haven’t been able to find a buyer yet.”

“The building has been on the market a while, hasn’t it?”

“Unfortunately, there used to be some rumors going around that this building is haunted.”

She led me past the cubicles.

“The building is still in very good shape, though,” she said. “The owners send cleaners in every two weeks. They’ve kept the place in very good condition.”

“Do you think I could see the basement?”

“I’m not supposed to take people down there.”

“Why not?”

“The cleaners don’t get to it as often.”

“I’d really like to see it. Reid’s going to need a space to set up his server racks.”

“I guess I could show it to you quickly.”

She brought me downstairs and flipped the light switch. Fluorescent tube lights lit up the concrete hallway.

“The furnace room is on your right,” she told me. “Then next to it is a storage room you might be able to use for servers or whatever other kind of equipment Reid needs to put in here.”

At the end of the hallway, I noticed a metal door.

“Where does that door go?”

“I have no idea. I’d need to ask the Thrells.”

I tried to open the door, but it was locked.

The handle felt strangely warm.

I began to feel dizzy, and I knelt on the floor. The room spun around me. My vision blurred.

For a moment, I saw Chazaqiel sitting in a cage inside a circus tent. A man in a suit and a hat stood next to him.

“Ignazio keeps his keys underneath his pillow,” Chazaqiel said. “He drank an entire bottle of rum tonight. Just reach under his pillow and take the keys. He won’t wake up.”

“And if I free you, you promise you’ll come back to California with me?”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Chazaqiel smiled, his lips stretching across his face.

Katie put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Sorry. I just lost my balance for a second.”

“It’s the air down here. It’s very dusty. We should go back upstairs.”

I agreed. I followed her back upstairs.

“So, what do you think?” she asked me.

“The building has a lot of potential. I really need to talk to Mr. Reid first, though, before I can say anything else.”

“Of course. As soon as you do, please let me know what he thinks.”

We shook hands and said goodbye to each other.

Then I went back into the city and rented a van. I drove around and bought everything I’d need to get through that metal door. A bolt cutter, a flashlight, a 20V drill, and a big pack of tungsten carbide-tipped drill bits.

I drove back to the lab at midnight.

I shut off the building’s alarm, got through the front entrance, and then made my way back down to the basement, where I started drilling out the metal door’s keyway.

The first drill bit lasted four minutes before it broke.

I looked over my shoulder, unable to shake the feeling that somebody was watching me.

I put in the second bit and kept drilling. Burning hot metal shavings sprayed across my hands, but I ignored the pain.

The drill hit the security pins and kicked sideways. But I grabbed onto it and held it tighter.  

Sweat dripped down my face.

Dull pain spread through my forearms.

The second drill bit broke, and I put in the third. The third bit finally got the door open.

Behind the door, concrete stairs led deeper underground.

I looked over my shoulder again, and then I turned on my flashlight and followed the stairs down into the sub-basement.

I came out into a lab filled with metal tables, overturned chairs, and computer monitors with shattered screens. Surgical instruments lay scattered across the floor. The counters were covered with broken syringes.

In the next room, someone moaned.

“Hello?” I yelled.

But no answer.

I walked through the lab, into the adjacent room.

An enormous shadow stretched across the back wall.

I raised my flashlight. I nearly dropped it on the floor when I saw him.

Chazaqiel.

His arms outstretched, his legs pressed together, as if he’d been crucified.  

I thought I’d prepared myself to see him. I thought I’d be fine. But my brain struggled to process the fact that he was real. Not just a photograph anymore.  

My legs buckled.

The longer I looked at him, the more horrific the scene became.

His body had been embedded into the wall. His hands, feet, and shoulders had been pinned to the wall with steel bolts.

Thousands of wires entered every part of his body. Some were thin; others were thick cables. The wires connected his body to junction boxes mounted on the walls.

What remained of his wings spread out behind him. Most of the feathers had been plucked out. In the gaps between the feathers, the veins of the membrane pulsed.

He slowly raised his head and locked his eyes with mine.

Another memory entered my head.

Threll’s grandson knelt on the floor in tears. “What have you done to me?”

Chazaqiel looked down at him from the wall. “I’ve given you everything you ever wanted.”

“You’ve cursed me.”

Chazaqiel’s voice brought me out of the dream.

“You found me, Vadym.”

He was smiling now. The same smile from my dream.

“Are you in pain?” I asked him.

“I’ve suffered worse. Now, are you going to save me? Take me to see Reid?”

“How do you know about Reid?”

“I know everything that happens next. Everything that Reid wants from me. But what do you want, Vadym?”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“You want to know who betrayed you. I’ll tell you if you free me. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

So, I was betrayed then.

I knew it.

I’d always wanted the name. I’d always wanted the truth.

I picked up the bolt cutter and cut the steel bolts. Chazaqiel stepped forward from the wall. The wires stretched and then began snapping.

Chazaqiel leaned forward, bringing his face toward mine.

“It was Alexei,” he told me.

“Of course.”

It had always been so obvious. He’d made the mistake, not me. He must have hacked that crypto exchange, even after I’d warned him not to, and then gotten caught just like I’d warned him he would. To save himself, he’d traded my life for his.

All the tears. All the times he’d visited me in prison, trying to cheer me up.

I laughed.  

I’d make sure I paid him back. Before I died, I’d make sure he suffered just like I had.

Chazaqiel lifted me off the ground.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

His mouth widened. His jaw unhinged with the crack of splitting bone. Then the lower half dropped to his chest.

Inside his widening mouth, I saw a cave of pale, ribbed flesh.

“Stop!”

He swallowed me whole, like a snake devouring a rat.

My eyes filled with darkness.

Knives stabbed into my shoulder blades. The pain spread down my spine.

My veins squirmed like worms against my muscles.

I began bleeding from every part of my body. Soon, my clothes were soaked with blood.

Again and again, my veins emptied and then soaked up fresh blood.

I screamed in agony, begging Chazaqiel to make the torture stop. 

I don’t know how long it went on for. Hours or days.

But then I woke up on the floor. Black blood dripped from my mouth. My clothes were soaked with black blood, too. My body ached.

Chazaqiel hovered over me, the same black blood dripping from his mouth.

“What did you do to me?” I asked.

He turned and walked down the hallway.

“Where are you going?” I yelled.

I ran after him, but I became dizzy, and I leaned against the wall to steady myself.

Outside, I found Chazaqiel in the back of the van, waiting for me.

“Take me to Reid now,” he said.

I called Reid and asked him where he wanted me to go. Reid gave me the address for a warehouse in Northern California.

I drove all night. Fifteen hours. Only stopping for gas.

***

I felt relieved to be done with Reid and with chasing after missing angels.

I got back to work on other projects. But then the changes started, slowly at first.

The first few weeks, my muscles and bones felt sore, but I blamed the soreness on stress and lack of sleep.

But then I began growing. My shoulders had widened. My legs and arms lengthened. My hands and feet became longer and thinner. Soon, my clothes didn’t fit anymore.

I bought a tape measure and began measuring myself every morning. I grew from six-foot-one to six-two to six-three.

No matter how much I ate, I was horribly hungry. I couldn’t eat cooked food, either. Even the smell of it made me gag. All I could eat was raw meat.

Then, three months after whatever Chazaqiel did to me, wings began to grow from my back. They were small at first, but as they grew in size, they became difficult to hide under my jacket.

I thought about calling Jose’s daughter, but I didn’t know what to tell her. That I’d found the angel and freed him, but then he’d made me an angel, too? Cursed me just like he’d cursed Threll.

I kept trying to call Reid. I wanted to tell him what was happening to me. I wanted to warn him. But he wouldn’t answer his phone.

Then I saw Reid on TV, talking to a reporter. He looked different than he had before. He looked healthy and strong now. All his hair had grown back.

He told the reporter he’d just launched a new genetics company. He’d taken an interest in genome-editing technology like CRISPR. He was going to use his fortune to fund research that would explore how to unlock the true potential of human DNA. 

He would continue Threll’s work on Project Nephilim.

I went to the bathroom and took off my shirt. I barely recognized myself anymore. My ribs pressed through my skin. My flesh had become pale white.

And the wings on my back. I opened them and let them fill the bathroom. Then I closed them again, and I put my shirt back on.

I looked at my reflection one last time, and I wondered what I was becoming.