Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II (15 page)

“Grant, this is the professor’s lesson plan,” Sue said.

I had a pretty good idea what was coming next. I said it before she could. “I suppose the next thing you’re going to tell me is that the battle is spiritual.”

“It is,” Abdiel said.

“It is,” Sue said.

“Yeah? Then how come every time I engage in one of these spiritual battles it’s as though my body is a chew toy that’s been tossed into a kennel of pit bulls?”

Abdiel bristled. “Why do you say that as though it were something unusual? Do not your Scriptures teach that the Divine Warrior suffered while in the flesh, and that you should prepare yourself to suffer as He did by the arming of your mind?”

“Yes, that is scriptural,” Sue said.

“Then arm yourself with truth, Grant Austin. The best strategy is doomed if it is formulated on misinformation,” Abdiel said. “The greatest warrior is neutralized if he is deceived into attacking the wrong target.”

“And Satan is a master of deception,” Sue added. “The first step to defeating him is not the ability to ride on a beam of light, but the ability to see through his deceptive cloak. Grant, the word for truth in the New Testament means ‘not hidden.’ You need to develop the ability to see through the lies, to reality.”

“Reality,” I said. “What is reality?”

Abdiel raised his hands in victory. “Finally! A teachable question.”

Sue looked at me in earnest. “Reality is that we are living in occupied territory and Satan is in charge.”

All of a sudden the world just got a little darker.

“This is not the universe as God intended it,” Abdiel said. “I know because I have seen the original blueprints. This present world has been devastated by the rebellion.”

“The professor described it to me this way,” Sue said. “Think of Dresden, Germany, a gorgeous city known for its cultural and artistic splendor. Then it was fire-bombed, reduced to rubble. Afterward, it was still Dresden, and people walking through the charred streets could sometimes catch a glimpse of its original grandeur, but reality was that it was a gutted shell of what its designers had intended.”

Familiar words surfaced in my mind.
“For our struggle is against rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world,”
I said. “The professor used that to prepare me for my battle against Semyaza.”

“Very good,” Sue said. “The word for ruler is
cosmokrator,
ruler of the cosmos.”

“So we’re living behind enemy lines,” I said.

“The Divine Warrior called Lucifer its territorial ruler,” Abdiel said.

“That’s what he taught the apostles,” Sue added. “Paul called Satan the god of this world who blinds the minds of unbelievers, and the ruler of the air. And the Apostle John said,
‘And we know the whole world is under the control of the evil one.’”

“The offer,” Abdiel prompted. “Tell him about the offer.”

“What offer?” I asked.

“He’s referring to Christ’s temptation,” Sue said. “Satan offered the world and all of its kingdoms to Jesus if Jesus would bow down to him.”

“But the Divine Warrior could not be tempted,” Abdiel blurted with husky pride, “and the battle was on!”

“The point is,” Sue said, “it would have been a hollow temptation had the world and its kingdoms not been Satan’s to give. Take Hitler, for example. At one point in the war, had he wanted to, he could have offered Paris to the Allies in exchange for concessions. He could offer it because his troops occupied the city.”

“This is why we fight,” Abdiel said, “to take back what Lucifer has usurped. At the end of the battle, there will be a new heaven and a new earth according to the Father’s plan.”

The big angel trembled with emotion, eager for battle. Then he looked at me, his present assignment, and he deflated a little. “I will train you to handle your defensive weapons first.”

Weapons. That’s what I wanted to hear. Offensive, defensive, what did it matter? If defense meant protecting myself from pain, I was all for it.

A broadsword appeared in Abdiel’s hand. Its blade glistened, but not from reflected light. It was magnificent.

“What do you see?” he asked.

I glanced at Sue. A trick question? She, too, was waiting for my answer.

“A sword,” I said. Then, to Sue, “You see it, too, don’t you?”

She nodded that she did.

Abdiel said, “The size and type of sword indicates a warrior’s strength and intent. Lucifer’s sword is similar to mine, only the blade is black.”

It was clear now how Abdiel got his massive shoulders. I feared it would take everything I had just to lift such a sword.

When I glanced back, it was gone.

“What do you see now?” Abdiel asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Are you certain?”

“You were holding a sword and now it’s gone,” I said.

“The sword is not gone,” Abdiel said.

I turned to Sue. “Do you see it?”

“We think that the same ability that allows you to see concealed angels can be stretched, allowing you to see spiritual weapons,” Sue said.

“Spiritual
weapons? That sword was a spiritual weapon?”

“The sword is my spirit,” Abdiel said.

“If that’s true, then you have some serious spirit,” I said.

“It’s true. Now you understand why Lucifer’s blade is black, and why a warrior’s sword varies depending on the strength of his spirit and the intent of his heart.”

“Look again, Grant. Concentrate like you did in Jerusalem. Try to see Abdiel’s sword.”

I turned toward the big angel and took a breath to relax myself. I had seen the angels in the Jerusalem clouds through a lack of concentration. I didn’t try to see the sword. I simply looked past the point where it had appeared before.

Nothing.

I set myself again. Relaxed again. Stared my unfocused stare…and still got nothing.

“Maybe you just need some practice,” Sue suggested.

“How long is Abdiel willing to stand there while I practice?”

“He doesn’t understand.” Abdiel sighed.

Exhibiting more patience than the angel, Sue said, “Grant, we all have a spiritual side. If you develop the ability to see a person’s spiritual strength, it will appear as a sword.”

“Everyone has a sword,” I repeated. “Do you have one? And the professor?”

“Yes,” Sue said.

Abdiel said, “It is by their swords we can identify who belongs to the Father and who does not. A believer’s sword bears the seal of the Father.”

“So you’re not going to give me a sword?” I said.

“You already have one,” Abdiel answered.

I cringed. “What does it look like?”

“See for yourself.”

I stared at empty hands.

“It does not have the seal of God,” he said.

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“But it bears the mark of the Father, the mark that protects you from evil.”

So that’s where the mark was! I stared at my hands again, wishing I could see it.

“Try seeing Abdiel’s sword again,” Sue said. “His spirit is the strongest.”

I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and stared, and stared, and stared.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Don’t give up, Grant.”

Recognizing the professor’s voice, I turned, expecting to see him. He wasn’t there.

“Did you feel something?” Abdiel asked me.

“I thought—”

I looked again. I was positive I’d heard the professor’s voice.

“I thought I heard the professor.”

Abdiel nodded. He’d heard it, too. “You heard the professor’s prayers.”

“Really?” I chuckled self-consciously.

“What did you hear?” Sue asked.

“Seek the truth, find reality.”

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Abdiel’s sword. But when I looked at it directly, it was gone. Out of the corner of my other eye I saw Sue Ling sitting on the sofa with an elegant sword draped across her legs. Near the hilt blazed a seal of three intertwining circles.

“You see them, don’t you?” Sue asked excitedly.

I looked at my hands. They were empty.

M
y laptop lay open on the desk, its screen a blank white, the cursor tapping impatiently. After leaving the professor’s house I grabbed a bag of dinner at a drive-thru and came home to write. I needed to crank out at least a thousand words before bedtime, but that wasn’t going to happen. I was wired, and a couple of greasy tacos were sitting heavy on my stomach.

After catching a glimpse of Abdiel’s sword, I stayed thirty minutes longer, hoping to duplicate my success. That didn’t happen. Neither did I hear the professor’s voice again. I was beginning to fear it had all been a fluke, that I’d had some kind of spiritual hot flash.

I’d invited Sue out to eat in hopes that a casual dinner would help me unwind. She said she couldn’t leave until the professor came out of his room. If it hadn’t been that excuse it would have been another. So I called Jana, but she was filling in for the six-o’clock anchor. That left me and Mr. Taco.

Sitting in front of the blank computer screen, the desk still littered with fast-food wrappers and flattened hot-sauce packets, I forced myself to think about the next chapter in the book.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember my impressions and feelings during my initial visit to the Oval Office. I’d met the president earlier at a fund-raiser, but this was different. The Oval Office is the closest thing America has to a throne room. The strange part about it was that I was the center of attention. The entire staff had been assembled to meet me. The president himself introduced me, informing his staff that they were to provide me carte-blanche access to records and documents.

Of course now I know it was all a setup. The staff wasn’t there to assist me. They were there to bury me with preselected information. They’d removed any need for me to research on my own. All I had to do was ask. They’d blinded me with promises and flattery.

Having assembled the memories, my hands moved to the keyboard. Fingertips poised but didn’t touch down. I needed a date.

Beside me lay a stack of spiral notebooks. I shuffled through them until I found the one I needed.

Was it before or after the Massachusetts gubernatorial primary?

Glancing up in thought, I caught my reflection in a mirror. My attention leaped backward in time to swords. Was it possible to see a spiritual sword in a mirror? Not knowing didn’t stop me from trying.

I relaxed the focus of my eyes and tried to see my reflected spirit.

Abdiel’s sword had been so glorious, powerful, and intimidating. What I remembered about Sue Ling’s sword was that it had a blue hue to it—that it was elegant.

My curiosity was getting the better of me. I had to know what my sword looked like.

Leaning close to the mirror, I backed away slowly without blinking. When that didn’t work, I squinted my eyes. Then I tried opening them wide. Then I turned my head and looked out of the corner of my eye. Then I tried a series of quick glances.

Nothing.

Failure only made me more determined. I positioned my chair directly in front of the mirror and took several deep, relaxing breaths and let my eyelids fall shut. I opened them quickly.

Something moved behind me. I caught the reflection.

“You might as well materialize,” I said, swiveling around. “I can see you.”

There are no words to describe what it feels like to have Jesus appear suddenly in your living room, even when you know it isn’t really him. However, I can describe what it feels like to see accompanying demons materialize on your ceiling.

Two words. Mind-numbing alarm.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

Joker Jesus spread his arms in a gesture of goodwill. Above him three transparent demons, green, slimy, bug-eyed, ridge-backed, grinning, and slobbering, became agitated when they saw me. Flashes of what it had felt like to have hundreds of them clamoring inside burned me.

“You could see me before I materialized,” Joker Jesus said genially. “Impressive.”

“Don’t you have a show to perform somewhere?” I replied.

My afternoon training kicked in. I reached for a sword that wasn’t there to protect myself. I tried the other side and grabbed air. It was infuriating. Abdiel had made it appear effortless.

“Tell me,” Joker Jesus said. “Did you discover you could see the spiritual realm on your own, or did Abdiel teach you?”

“Abdiel? Who’s Abdiel?” I said.

I stared at his hips, hoping to catch a glimpse of his sword. I wanted to know what I was up against.

“Is that really how you want to have this conversation? Each of us pretending we don’t know about the other?”

Panic was setting in. Why couldn’t I see his sword?

“Fine.” I tried to sound calm. “What do you want, Belial?”

He smiled. “You know who I am.”

My gaze alternated between his eyes and his hips. For a moment I thought I caught a flash of steel.

“I came because I was curious. You are the only living Nephilim. And though we met briefly in Cana, I wanted to see for—what are you looking at?”

Caught staring at his hips, I mumbled something incoherent.

“You’re trying to see my sword, aren’t you?” he said, figuring it out. “Interesting. You can see angels but not their weapons.”

“I can see swords,” I said, quick to defend myself.

“Can you? Describe mine.”

“All right. I will.”

I’d done it once before, hadn’t I? Now would be a good time for a breakthrough. I set myself and stared at his hips.

His laughter was booming, but surprisingly inoffensive. “Would you like to see it?”

Before I could answer, his sword materialized in his hand. It was nearly as large as Abdiel’s sword and, just as intimidating, black as ebony. It hummed with confidence.

“All of Lucifer’s men have black blades,” he said. “I prefer silver. Lucifer believes a unified appearance makes for a formidable presence on the battlefield. I can’t dispute that.”

The longer I stared at the sword, the blacker and more menacing it became.

“Of course, your sword bears the Father’s protective mark,” Belial said. “That’s how I recognized you in Cana.”

He hefted his sword proudly, slashing the air with it. It was an image most odd to see Jesus wielding a large black sword.

“Since we both know who you really are,” I said, “how about removing the disguise?”

“Very well.”

The next instant Belial, the rebel angel, stood before me in all his glory, sword in hand, levitating a foot above the floor. “Better?”

Better didn’t begin to describe him. He was gorgeous, and I don’t use that word to describe males. His presence was so striking, it was a greater distraction than when he appeared as Jesus.

The room grew dark, as though all the light and colors bowed before the greater glory.

Only once before had I encountered a being so beautiful I had to resist dropping to my knees in awe before him. I had fought the urge then, and I fought it now.

The sword vanished.

“You never have told me why you’re here,” I said.

“It’s not enough that I wanted to meet you? I don’t know if you realize how impressive you are.”

His charm was disarming. I’d only had extended conversation with two angels in my life, Semyaza and Abdiel. The one badgered me, and the other looked down on me.

“You bested Semyaza,” Belial said, amazed. “I wish I could have been there to see that. His arrogance is insufferable. I would have loved seeing his face when you turned him down, and in the presence of Lucifer!”

His laughter bounced off the walls.

“Did you really sing a nursery rhyme while standing in the center of the council?” he asked. “What did you call it: the place in the center?”

“The mush-pot,” I said.

He bellowed. “I don’t know what I enjoyed more—the censure Semyaza received for failing, or the humiliation he suffers for being defeated by a half-breed, no offense intended.”

None was taken. I was drinking in every word. In the form of Myles Shepherd, Semyaza had tormented me through four years of high school. I watched helplessly and in horror as he coordinated the assassination of President Douglas. More than once I felt my insides ripped to pieces when he set a horde of demons on me. To hear that I’d succeeded in humiliating him was elixir to my soul.

And I loved that Belial appreciated my humor. Semyaza and Abdiel didn’t. I guess when you think about it, there had to be at least one angel among millions who did.

He turned serious. “Don’t let them drag you into this again,” he said, sounding like a concerned father. “You’ve been given a chance to live a normal life, sheltered from the horrors of this eternal war. Make the most of it. Terrors await you. Believe me. I know firsthand.”

He motioned to the demons above him. “These are my boys.”

The bulging eyes of the demons gazed down on him fondly, their agitation somewhat soothed.

“Their mother was a brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty with a toothy smile that could charm Lucifer. Before I laid eyes on her, I used to scoff at the thought of angels being attracted to human females. One look at Kezia and all that changed. She was a cloudless spring day, a field of floral fragrance, a clear summer’s night when the stars are so bright you ache with awe. Ours was a blessed union.”

Belial’s tone turned hard. “My boys are paying the price for our love. Would I have loved a human woman if I knew that the Father would flood the earth and condemn our Nephilim sons to eternal torment as demons?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. A part of me wonders if it would have been possible for me to know Kezia and not love her.”

It was difficult to imagine that the hideous creatures on my ceiling were the product of anyone’s love. But Belial’s anguish was real.

He looked at me with steadfast determination. “I have made my choices. I make no apologies for siding with Lucifer. I fight against injustice. My boys don’t deserve this. Neither do you, Grant Austin.”

I never thought I’d find myself agreeing with a soldier of Satan. But if he was looking for an argument, he would not get one from me.

“This is your destiny, Grant. You will end up like my boys, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Find your Kezia. Lose yourself in her arms, the smoothness of her skin, the curve of her neck, the fragrance of her hair. Don’t let Semyaza or Abdiel drag you into a war for which you are not equipped. You can’t win. We’ve been doing this for millennia.”

I mouthed the last word with him. The last time a rebel angel had told me that, I stood on the deck of the
Midway,
impotent to make the slightest change in the course of events.

“Heed my advice, son,” Belial said. “I’m a warrior. And if I face you on the field of battle, I’ll have no choice but to kill you.”

“You can’t. I have—”

“The mark of the Father? If Abdiel has told you the mark makes you immortal, he’s lying. That mark protects you from evil. But if you enter into battle of your own volition, you’re just another soldier.”

The demons above him disappeared.

“By the way,” Belial said. “Nice sword.”

I looked down, then stood in front of the mirror. I wished I could see it.

After Belial vanished, I slumped into my desk chair and tried to make sense of what had just happened. Instead I wrote two chapters of my book, as crazy as that sounds. Who would have thought I could concentrate on writing after that?

It’s the first time I’ve ever been distracted by writing. My thoughts crystallized beautifully. The images were razor-sharp. The words flowed like sweet honey. And in no time I’d written four thousand words.

I’ve had spurts of inspiration before. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s a writer’s dream. Most often, though, the next day, after the fever has passed and the text has cooled, the writing is seen for what it really is: a first draft that needs polishing. Not so this time. I didn’t change a word, not even a comma. These weren’t sentences on the page; they were lyrics. The narrative didn’t flow; it sang.

So eager was I for someone to read it, I immediately emailed the pages to my publisher before taking a shower. When I stepped out of the shower stall my phone was ringing. It was Higgins. For twenty minutes I sat on the edge of my bed with a towel wrapped around my waist and listened to my publisher sing my praises.

I was pumped. And I couldn’t wait to get back to work on the book. But I’d agreed to a morning training session at the professor’s house. Twice I picked up the phone to cancel.

“This is a waste of time,” Abdiel complained. “He’s not concentrating. He’s not even making a pretense of concentrating.”

“You do seem distracted, Grant,” Sue said. “Is something bothering you?”

Other than wanting to get on with my life?
I thought.

I’d decided not to tell them about Belial’s visit. What was there to tell? He’d stopped by, that’s all. He hadn’t threatened me. And I knew if I said anything Abdiel would come unglued. Even now he was staring at me suspiciously.

“I made good progress on the book last night,” I said truthfully. “I was in the zone, you know? And I guess my mind’s still there.”