A Hideous Beauty (28 page)

That gave me an idea. I turned west. A few blocks later I walked into Emerald Plaza, a hotel and business center. At night its neon-green lights circling the tops of a series of towers of varying levels are a distinctive landmark in the San Diego skyline.

I crossed the highly polished tile floors to the elevators in
the tallest tower and pushed the highest button. Minutes later I stood at the top of one of the tallest buildings in San Diego overlooking the bay, and beyond that, the Pacific Ocean.

The view was similar to the view from the airplane as we were coming in for a landing—the bridge, Coronado Island, the bay with sailboats.

Wind whipped through my hair and brushed my cheeks. With my heightened senses it felt positively exhilarating, which gave me an idea. If I had any sense at all I'd find an upscale restaurant and order the biggest steak on the menu.

Leaning against the guardrail, I breathed in the ocean air and tried to clear my mind. I closed my eyes.

When I awoke this morning, my thoughts had focused on ways to tell the professor that I didn't think much of his fantasy world of angels. Now I was one.

I still wasn't convinced. It was easy for Alice. Fall down a hole and you're in Wonderland having tea with the Mad Hatter. I was still in the world . . .

. . . that isn't what you think it is.

I looked over the edge of the building. Maybe this was Wonderland.

Standing over Broadway Avenue from on high reminded me of another scene. This one from the Bible.

The way I remembered it, the devil took Jesus to the highest point of the temple with the wind blowing through their hair like mine was now.

The devil taunted Jesus. Prove yourself. Throw yourself down from here. If you are who you say you are, surely your angels will catch you so that you do not hurt yourself.

I leaned over the edge and looked at the street below. Why had I remembered that story right now? Was someone trying to tell me something?

I guess one way of proving I had angel blood in me would be to throw myself over the guardrail. Would one of my relatives swoop down to save me?

Cars backed up at the lighted intersection. Pedestrians crossed the street in front of them.

Who would most likely come to my rescue? Surly Uncle Abdiel? Or evil Uncle Semyaza?

CHAPTER
21

I
nstead of throwing myself off the Emerald Plaza tower, I took the elevator down. Returning to the U.S. Grant Hotel, I entered the lobby and headed for the elevators.

The concierge hailed me.

Then, looking past me, he hailed two security guards. In quick order they flanked me.

“Is something wrong?” I asked them.

Now the concierge made a phone call and within seconds two Secret Service agents appeared. It's easy to spot Secret Service agents, they all look alike. It's easier still to spot them when you've spent an afternoon with them in a tiny interrogation room. My hand moved involuntarily to my backside.

“Agent Cunningham. Agent Phillips,” I said.

Phillips, the one with the rogue curl that made him look like Superman, smoothed it back. It instantly fell to his forehead again.

A bellboy appeared with my luggage. He was instructed to set the bags down in front of me.

“Am I checking out?” I asked.

“I'm sure you'll have no difficulty finding alternative lodging, Mr. Austin,” Agent Cunningham said.

There was a seating area off to my right. A television was tuned to a live news report from North Island Naval Air Station. The picture showed Air Force One landing.

The president was in San Diego.

Agent Phillips said, “The concierge has been kind enough to call a taxi, and these two fine gentlemen will escort you to it.”

One security guard grabbed my bags. The other grabbed my arm.

“Wait!” the helpful and efficient concierge called from behind the counter. He turned to some files behind him and retrieved an oversized white envelope. “This was delivered to Mr. Austin a short time ago.”

He rounded the end of the counter and on long spindly legs danced his way toward us. He held out the envelope to me. Agent Cunningham intercepted it and opened it.

“That's my mail!” I cried. “That's a federal offense!”

“No stamp,” Agent Cunningham said.

He pulled out a half-inch-thick stack of letter-sized pages. The pages flopped over and I could see that they were additional pages of the professor's manuscript. A note was attached to the first page with a paper clip.

Agent Cunningham read it aloud. “ ‘Honestly, Grant, I don't know if this will hurt or help you right now. I just felt compelled to send it to you.' ”

Agent Cunningham looked up. “Who's Professor Forsythe?” he asked.

“A colleague.”

“And this?” he asked, flipping through the pages, scanning the paragraphs.

“My family genealogy,” I said.

CHAPTER
22

A
fter relocating to the Red Lion in Mission Valley, I called Jana. Now more than ever I wanted to talk with the president. I'd spent over a year orbiting his world, conducting interviews that resulted in a portrayal of a life that now appeared to be all smoke and mirrors—and I was angry. My professional pride had been bruised and I felt like a patsy.

The questions kept stacking up:

Exactly who was behind the changes in my book and why?

What was the president's response to Doc's version of events in Vietnam and the medications while in the White House?

Why didn't the president want me here in San Diego?

“It's because there's going to be an assassination attempt, isn't it?” I said, practicing my anticipated interview. “But you know that, don't you? Why? Why would you, the president of the United States, consent to your own assassination?”

Even before I asked, I could hear his reply:
This world isn't what you think it is, Grant.

I was beginning to believe it.

Before my bags hit the bed in my second hotel room, Jana's phone was ringing and ringing and ringing. Just when I thought I was going to get an answering machine, Jana answered. “Grant?”

Her voice was shaky. I knew why.

“You talked to Sue Ling,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

Was this how it was going to be for me from now on? Grant, the cosmic freak.

“Jana, I'm not a monster,” I said. “I'm not going to reach through the phone and rip your face off.”

“You're angry.”

“You bet I'm angry! I'm angry, confused, hurt . . . And right now I could use a sympathetic ear. I'd expect as much from someone who has known me as long as you have.”

A stretch of silence was her reply.

I switched topics. “The reason I called is that I need to get the information you have on the president's itinerary. Would it be possible for us to—”

“Grant . . . I can't talk about this right now. I . . . I . . .”

“Jana, I need that information. Could you at least send me a press packet or—”

“Grant, I really have to go.”

She hung up.

Frustrated, I tossed my phone onto the bed. It landed next to the professor's envelope, the one with the additional pages of manuscript.

Setting the manuscript on the table, I stared vacantly out the hotel window. I couldn't read right now.

A trio of boys splashed and screamed in the hotel pool. On the golf course a foursome was teeing off at the tenth hole. A man with a large belly and plaid pants took a healthy swing, tracked his ball, leaning to his right, leaned farther, said something
I couldn't hear and probably didn't want to hear, slammed his club into his bag, then took off in a golf cart in search of his ball.

Not one of these people was thinking about angels. A few days ago I was just like them. I missed those days.

Pushing myself up out of the chair, I turned back into the room. My heart catapulted into my throat when I saw Myles Shepherd standing there.

CHAPTER
23

M
yles Shepherd. Looking very much alive.

It took several hard swallows for me to get my heart back where it belonged, and a couple more before I was able to form words. “Aren't you dead?”

“You're not that lucky, Grant.”

Two men appeared from nowhere behind him. Since they hadn't entered through the door I felt it was a safe assumption that they were angels, too, and the fact that they weren't attacking Myles meant they were probably on his side.

All of these appearings and disappearings were starting to get on my nerves.

“Reinforcements, Myles?” I said. “Are you afraid to face me alone?”

“Semyaza,” he said, sneering. “My name is Semyaza. That should be clear even to you by now.”

We faced off as we always had, whether it was across a tennis net or over a chessboard or sparring over Jana.

“A lot has changed over the last few days, Grant,” Semyaza said. “This world isn't what you thought it was, is it?”

“That's what everybody keeps telling me.”

“As a concerned friend, I thought I'd drop in and check up on you. See how you're doing.”

“Your concern is touching.” The fact he'd brought reinforcements troubled me. Unless they weren't reinforcements. “Is one of them—”

“Your grandfather?”

Semyaza exchanged grins with his buddies.

“No, Grant. I'm afraid Azazel couldn't make our little meeting today. He's rather busy at the moment, what with the assassination extravaganza. There are so many things to consider in a presidential assassination and Azazel wants to make sure that every detail is perfect. He likes to put on a good show.”

“I can imagine,” I quipped. “Deciding on a design for the cocktail napkins must have kept him up nights.”

Semyaza bristled. It annoyed him when I didn't take him seriously. He'd always been that way and I always got a kick out of annoying him. And then he'd smash me at whatever it was we were competing over and he'd get the last laugh.

With more conviction than I felt, I said, “I'll stop the assassination. You know that, don't you? But then, that's why you're here, isn't it? What do you plan to do, Myles? Get your buddies to tie me up and stick me in a closet until it's over?”

Semyaza sniffed indifferently. “You know they hate you, don't you?”

I glanced at the two angels behind him. “They don't even know me.”

“Not them. Abdiel and the others. They despise you because you're one of us.”

“I'll never be one of you.”

Semyaza chuckled wickedly. “Oh . . . I beg to differ, Grant. I do beg to differ . . .”

The room grew dark and the ceiling began to stir. I glanced up to see it populated with demons, just as the ceiling in Myles Shepherd's office had filled with hideous gargoyle things. They clustered in the corners, straining as though on a leash.

“You don't choose family,” Semyaza said. “That's what they are. Your family. Think of this as a family reunion.”

The flesh on my arms and neck began to tingle.

“This is your destiny, Grant. Because of who you are, you have no hope of a blissful afterlife. Your future is with them, elbowing for ceiling space, in constant torment, aching for a moment of peace, pleading with the God who has turned his back on you for annihilation so the pain will stop.”

Above him the activity increased like a beehive disturbed. Gargoyle mouths twisted in silent cries.

The thought of being one of them . . . of writhing among them on the ceiling . . . chained . . .

“So that's the plan, is it, Myles? Because I learned the truth, now you're going to kill me?”

“The truth?” He laughed hard. “The truth? You've read the ramblings of an ancient fool and you think you know the truth? I'll show you the truth.”

When would I learn not to goad Myles?

At his signal a lone demon dropped from the ceiling onto the bureau. I recognized him from Myles Shepherd's office. It was the same demon that had dropped onto the file cabinet and clutched the tennis trophy.

“Call me sentimental,” Myles said, “but I just love family reunions, don't you?”

I was too horrified to reply. My eyes were locked on the tortured soul on the bureau. It stared at me and drooled like I was a T-bone steak.

Semyaza said, “Grant Austin . . . meet your father.”

Before I had time to blink, the demon hit me in the chest and clawed its way inside. I clutched at my clothing, ripping open my shirt, as though I could go after it and tear it out. My fingers ripped away the shirt and began clawing at the flesh, digging deep red channels. But I made no progress. My own flesh, my own rib cage, kept me from getting at him.

I could feel him inside me. Restless. Stirring. Gnawing. I could hear him in my head, whimpering and moaning. He babbled words I couldn't understand, but I understood his anguish . . . oh, how I understood his anguish . . . an anguish so thick, so heavy, it dripped inside me and coated my soul with an oppressive, oily depression.

I dropped to my knees, my hands clenched helplessly in fists as I fought the torment and the mounting anxiety.

Semyaza stood over me, grinning that insufferable grin he'd perfected as Myles Shepherd. His cohorts flanked him. Above them, on the ceiling, gargoyle demons danced with glee at the thought of one of their number finding a measure of satisfaction at my expense.

“Let's leave Grant and his father to get better acquainted,” Semyaza said. “I'm sure they have a lot of catching up to do.”

The three rogue angels disappeared. The ceiling cleared. I fell onto my back, clutching at my head, writhing on the floor.

CHAPTER
24

I
t was night when my demon father vacated me. The hotel drapes were open and from the floor I could see stars. I don't know why he left when he did. Maybe he had dinner plans. All I know is that he left me completely exhausted. I felt like I'd spent the afternoon wrestling a grizzly bear.