A Hideous Beauty (30 page)

Before I realized it I was on my feet, pacing and fuming. “I didn't ask for this,” I said. “And I didn't do anything to deserve it either . . . at least, I don't think I did anything to deserve it. There was that time with Karen in the backseat of her father's Buick, but . . . No! I may not be perfect, but at least I deserve a chance, don't I? It seems like I don't stand a chance here.”

“Grant, your anger is understandable.”

“Is it? Is it? Well, that'll be helpful the next time Semyaza sics his demon hounds on me! Or the next time he turns himself into a supernova and levels me. It's not fair, Professor! I'm not an angel, so I can't disappear or walk through walls and whatever else they do. And I'm not a human, so I'm not protected by God. And then, for good measure, when I die I go straight to the ceiling with a mess of shadowy green gargoyle demons, and I have done nothing to deserve any of this!”

I had lost the professor halfway through my rant. He stroked his chin in thought.

“What?” I asked him, hoping he'd remembered he had a magic sword in the back of his closet.

“You are part angel. Is it possible that you may have some of their powers?”

“I like this line of thinking. How do we find out?”

“I have no idea.”

“But you're the man with all the answers.”

“I've never encountered a Nephilim before.”

Falling onto the couch, I said, “Well, I have. Trust me, you're not missing anything.”

It was late. The professor rubbed his eyes. “The only thing we can do right now is to continue with what we know.”

“Which is?”

“Weapons.”

It was late and I was tired, too tired to get excited over the weapons the professor mentioned earlier, but at this point I was willing to try anything that might give me an advantage over Semyaza.

“Truth is a powerful defensive weapon,” the professor said, “especially when you're dealing with an enemy whose chief offensive weapon is deception. Stay alert. Don't let Semyaza trick you. And whatever you do, don't help him by deceiving yourself. It's more common than you might think. See things for what they are. Be honest with yourself. Face your challenges head-on and make your choices with your eyes open.”

For the next hour the professor gave me a primer of the spiritual weapons that were available to me.

“Be constant in prayer,” he said.

“Prayer? What good will praying do if I'm praying to a God who has made it clear He is not my Savior?”

“Pray to the Father. The Creator. You may be unique, but you are still part of His creation.”

“What do I pray for?”

“The ability to stand.”

“Bloodied, but unbowed?”

It was well after midnight when the professor showed me to the front door. “Read the Gospels,” he said. “You know what the Gospels are, don't you?”

“The first five books of the New Testament.”

“Four.”

“I thought it was five. Aren't they called the Pentateuch?”

“That's the first five books of the Old Testament.”

I sighed. It was late. “I guess I'll stop showing my ignorance and go home.”

He handed me his Bible to use.

“Thanks, but I can check one out of the library,” I said.

“I want you to have it.”

The offer touched me. I took it, not knowing what to say. I opened the front cover and saw an inscription.

PhD!!!

Congratulations, sweetheart! I'm so proud of you. I couldn't have chosen a more gentle man to be the father of my children—yes, you read that correctly, Daddy.

Yours forever,

Nora

I handed the Bible back to him. “Professor, I can't . . . really . . .”

“You're right,” he said, taking the Bible back.

Angling it so that light fell on the pages, he located a specific page and marked it with the ribbon bookmark. He handed the Bible back to me. “Now, you can,” he said. “Start there. Read that passage several times a day, plus the Gospels. Study Jesus, how he recognized and moved in the spiritual world while on earth. Study his tactics. Practice them.”

“But Professor, your wife gave you this Bible.”

He smiled. “Nora would have liked you. She was a lot of fun.”

Back in my hotel room I opened the Bible to the page the professor had marked.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this
dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

I placed the book on the nightstand. For me, the day of evil was fast approaching, and while I may have had a classroom session on spiritual weapons, I had no actual experience.

CHAPTER
25

G
roggily I raised my head off the pillow. The knocking wasn't in my dream. Someone was at my hotel door.

The room was dark, though it was morning. A sliver of sunlight sliced across the floor through a crack in the blackout curtains. Disoriented still, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and felt the carpet with my toes.

The knocking continued.

I'd been awakened out of a dream in which my father came to me, in demon form, and apologized for possessing me the way he had. We sat on a park bench and chatted.

“It's not so bad, son,” he assured me, “being a demon. Sure, it has its downside, but we get to travel . . . meet interesting people. Last year, for example. We went to Cannes . . .” He winked at me. “You'll like possessing French women.”

The knocking at the hotel door persisted. Caught in the noman's-land between the dream and being awake, without thinking, I opened the hotel door in my boxer shorts.

“Grant!”

It was a duet. Jana and Sue Ling reacted identically and in harmony, staring at my shorts, covering their surprised mouths.

Still in a fog, I misinterpreted their reaction for fear. “Look, I know you're frightened of me,” I said, “but I'm scared of me too.”

“At least last time he wore a robe,” Sue said to Jana.

“Grant, honey, it's hard to be scared of a man standing in nothing but his boxer shorts,” Jana said, amused.

Of course, it was at that moment I woke up, or came to my senses, or however you want to describe the feeling you get when you realize you're not dressed for the occasion, or hardly at all.

“How about if we . . . ,” Sue said.

“Yeah. Get dressed, Grant. We'll wait for you downstairs.”

To say I felt exposed is an understatement. My chest and legs were chilled while my face burned. And just when I thought it was almost over, it got worse.

“Grant!”

“Christina?”

She came up the hallway behind Jana and Sue. Her expression clearly registered her emotions—shock, followed by anger which bordered on nuclear meltdown.

“Christina?”

“Christina?”

The duet again. Jana and Sue in harmony.

Before Christina had a chance to storm away, Jana had her by the arm. “Girlfriend,” she said, “we have
got
to talk.” She led Christina down the hallway.

“We'll be downstairs,” Sue said, following them and grinning at me over her shoulder.

For a long moment I stood there, wallowing in my humiliation.

The door to the room across from mine opened. A middle-aged woman in a pink jogging suit holding a poodle with a pink bow scrunched up her face in disgust. “Put some clothes on!” she snapped.

I sat on the edge of the bed mechanically pulling on my socks. Twin thoughts occupied my mind. The first thought was to climb back under the bedclothes, pull them over my head, and never answer the door again. Its twin suggested I get dressed and sneak down the back stairway, fly to Morocco, change my name, and become a used-camel salesman.

As I pulled on pants and shirt and shoes all I could think of was how Christina and Jana and Sue were sitting together downstairs with one common denominator among them—me.

I dragged a razor across my chin, brushed my hair and teeth, and stepped into the hallway. Decision time. Turn right to the elevator, which led to two former girlfriends and a woman who mystified me, or left to Morocco and the camels.

I found the three of them in a restaurant off the lobby. They hadn't spotted me yet. All three of them were laughing like they'd been best friends all their lives.

Taking a deep breath, I entered the lion's cage.

When they saw me coming, boiling laughter simmered down to grins and snickering.

“Good morning, Grant.”

“Good morning, Grant.”

“Good morning, Grant.”

Was it too late for Morocco?

They were seated in a booth, the half-circle kind set against a wall, with Christina sandwiched in the middle. I started to squeeze next to Jana.

“No, no, no, no, no . . . ,” she cried. “You sit there.”

She pointed to the front of the table, where the waiter usually stands to take orders.

The two others nodded their agreement. Apparently they'd discussed the seating before I'd arrived. On cue, a waiter arrived with a chair. I sat in front of the three women feeling very much like a convict at a parole hearing.

Each woman had a silver teapot with a wedge of lemon perched on the saucer. The table was littered with empty packets of sugar and sugar substitute.

It quickly became evident that the challenge before me was to look at them without looking at them. It had been my experience that women don't appreciate a man who looks at another woman when he's out with her. And while you might think this law would be null and void given the fact that I wasn't technically out with any of them, when it comes to former girlfriends, there are no rules. Whatever you do is wrong. And I knew that if I looked at any one of them for any length of time, the two others would take offense.