Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II (23 page)

“So then,” I said, “after the rebellion was put down, and Lucifer and his leaders were confined to the created order of space and time—”

“Tartarus,” Abdiel reminded me.

“—Lucifer set about sabotaging creation. What exactly did he do?”

Abdiel thought a moment. “Your limited knowledge of the cosmos makes it difficult to describe to you his actions. There is a parable the Divine Warrior told that might be useful. Think of the cosmos as a large field of grain. After the grain was planted Lucifer scattered tares among the wheat. As the wheat grows, so do the weeds. Your scientists have registered the destructive effect on the cosmos with their observation that matter tends toward disorder and decay.”

“That was not part of the Father’s original creation?” I asked.

“Why would the Father create disorder and decay?”

“So you’re saying that had not Lucifer sown tares among the cosmos, the universe would be—”

“Ever-changing, from glory to glory.”

I felt the seconds ticking as I wrote as fast as I could, hoping that I’d be able to read my own writing later. I needed to get another laptop. I could type a lot faster than I could write.

“All right,” I said, catching up. “What next?”

“You are familiar with Lucifer’s deception of the first man and woman.”

“The Book of Genesis.”

“I have nothing to add to that account,” he said. “You are also familiar with the passage regarding the Watchers and their cohabitation with women, also in Genesis. I have nothing to add to that account.”

“Wait,” I said. “I have some questions here.”

“I will not answer them.”

“What? Why not?”

“You are hoping that through my narration you will learn of the abilities of the ancient Nephilim. I told you previously I will not reveal that information to you.”

I’d hoped he’d forgotten about that.

“Fair enough, but there are still some questions I’d like to ask. For example, why were the angels called Watchers?”

“From the beginning it was the Father’s intention that angels and mankind interact freely. Watchers were appointed to guide humans in their understanding of the spiritual realm. Among those appointed were Semyaza and Azazel, with whom you are acquainted. This was their chance to return to the Father by exercising their role as good shepherds.”

“The cohabitation with human women. Was it simply uncontrolled desire, or was it a strategy of Lucifer’s rebellion?”

Abdiel appeared impressed with the question. “Very good, Grant Austin. While your birth was the result of unbridled lust—”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“—the action of the Watchers was a strategy that backfired. That said, it would be wrong to characterize what happened purely as a military act. Some of the Watchers genuinely loved their wives and children. But that did not make their actions any less of a violation of duty.”

“What did Lucifer hope to gain by the strategy?”

“By combining the angelic and human races through inter-marriage, he hoped to combine their destinies. Lucifer was convinced the Father would not condemn His pet creation (Lucifer’s term for humans). By producing mixed families he thought the Father would have no other choice but to relent. And, if He didn’t issue an outright pardon to the rebels, at least He’d ease the burden of their sentence.”

“Cleansing the earth never occurred to Lucifer?”

“The Flood was a devastating blow to him. Not only did it thwart his plan, but it created dissension in his ranks that exists to this day.”

I’d sensed the anger Belial felt over the failed strategy when he brought his Nephilim sons, now demons, with him on his first visit.

“After the Flood, the Father began revealing His plan to redeem the world, beginning with a prophecy that the enmity between a serpent and a woman was a foreshadowing of a day when the son of a woman would crush the head of the serpent.”

I jotted a side note to myself. I knew the reference was in Genesis. I’d check it later.

“The Father then chose a race of humans from which this deliverer would come, the race of Abraham. From the race of Abraham He chose a tribe, Judah. And from among the tribe of Judah, he chose a family. The deliverer would be born of the family of David. Once a family was chosen, Lucifer launched a full-scale assault.”

Abraham…Judah…David…
I wrote furiously while Sue Ling’s voice played in my head.
Grant Austin! Didn’t you learn this in Sunday school?

“Lucifer knew that if he could find a way to cut off this bloodline, he would thwart the Father’s redemptive plan. The history of the kingly line of David, along with their temptations, is well documented, culminating in Lucifer’s ultimate success—Jehoiachim and his son, Johoiachin, though I would add Nehushta, wife and mother, for she was an evil-hearted woman. These kings were oppressive, cowardly, selfish, and thoroughly godless.

“The prophet described the family as a despised and broken pot, an object no one wants, to be cast aside. The Father agreed. He pronounced the end of the David line. As for Jehoiachim, the record was to show him childless. None of his offspring would prosper. No offspring from this man would sit on the throne of David or rule in the house of Judah. The family line was cut off. Lucifer had won.”

My cell phone rang. It continued to ring as I raced to write down the last of Abdiel’s words. For a moment I considered asking Abdiel to answer it for me, but didn’t like any of the resulting scenarios that flashed through my mind.

Punching the final period I lunged for the phone. It was Sue Ling.

“Do you mind?” I said to Abdiel.

He didn’t object, so I flipped open the phone.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the library,” she whispered from her end. “What do you think about Chapel Hill, North Carolina?”

I glanced at Abdiel. I didn’t want Sue Ling to know he was here.

“This isn’t a good time for me,” I told her. “Can we meet later? How about lunch?”

“Grant? Are you having second thoughts? You sound funny.”

“No. Not at all,” I said, keeping my comments general. I didn’t want Abdiel to know what Sue Ling and I were discussing. “I just…this isn’t a good time.”

We arranged a lunch date and I closed the phone.

“When you saw Sue Ling’s sword,” Abdiel said, “the image of her spirit, you described it as elegant and blue.”

“That’s what I saw,” I said, unsure where this was going. “Did you see something different?”

“We saw the same thing,” he replied. “Only what you described as elegant, I would describe as frail.”

“What are you saying? That Sue Ling is weak?”

“She has taken the professor’s death hard,” Abdiel said.

“We all have.”

“It has caused her to doubt.”

“Your point?”

“Have you considered that Sue Ling might be part of Semyaza’s plan to eliminate you as a threat to Lucifer?”

My anger flashed. I was on my feet. “Sue Ling would never side with Semyaza.”

“She would never knowingly conspire with Semyaza, that is true. However, this wouldn’t be the first time Semyaza has used a beloved person as a vessel of doubt and fear.”

I hated that what he was saying made deceptive sense. Semyaza knew that the professor’s death would enrage me…that I’d want revenge.

“If you had the ability,” Abdiel said, “I would instruct you to keep an eye on her sword. It will reveal her intent. But since you cannot do that, test her spirit. When you are with her, does your spirit thrive—or does it diminish? Test her spirit, Grant.”

S
ue Ling chose an upscale Italian restaurant on Main Street, which turned out to be a great place for good food at luncheon prices. We shared a plate of angel-hair pasta and shrimp and a piece of tiramisu and drank espresso while we discussed moving to Chapel Hill, which had quickly become our favorite choice for its university atmosphere. We looked at downloaded pictures of Chapel Hill on her laptop while we ate.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder in the booth with her, eating, talking, laughing, planning, was better than my best Sue Ling fantasy, which had always been tempered by reality. She still intimidated me with her intellect at times and by her ability to marshal facts and figures. At other times she sent me soaring with an affectionate glance or playful touch.

After lunch we went to the mall. Sue had seen a shoe sale advertisement in the morning paper. Since I was without a book contract and basically unemployed, I tagged along. While she shopped for shoes I browsed the mall bookstore. A mistake. My anxiety level rose significantly when I learned they no longer carried my book. While I’d made good money from the biography, it wasn’t enough to make me comfortable, especially when I figured in the cost of an upcoming relocation.

Everywhere we walked in the mall we saw posters and T-shirts of Neo Jesus. One T-shirt had a picture of him laughing on the back, with a quotation on the front: “It was a joke, people!” A poster in a window featured two stone tablets resembling the Ten Commandments, only these were the Top Ten Reasons Not to Take Christianity Seriously. The number one reason was, “It was a joke, people!”

Leaving the mall we spent the afternoon strolling hand in hand through Balboa Park, shared an artichoke salad and French roll for dinner, and attended a free outdoor performance of
Much Ado About Nothing.

Sue kissed me on the cheek when we said good night.

As I fell onto the sofa in my living room and reached for the remote, I reflected on this most incredible day. I remembered what Abdiel had told me.

Test her spirit, Grant.

Well, I’d done that, too. At the restaurant and again at the mall I had tried to see Sue Ling’s sword with no success. The rest of the day I didn’t even think about it. I was preoccupied watching the way her hair tossed when she turned her head; letting my eyes, which until now, had had to steal glances, linger on her; drinking in her affection like an expensive wine I never thought I’d taste.

Now that we were apart and I wasn’t distracted by her physical presence, as much as I hated to admit it, my spirit was troubled. I had an underlying feeling that her attraction to me wasn’t what it appeared to be on the surface, or what I wanted it to be. Not that she was attempting to deceive me, at least not intentionally. But I feared she was acting out of need, not love.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was diverting me from something important.

I clicked on the television to distract myself from this unwelcome thought by watching the news. Jana greeted me, along with all the other viewers. She was filling in for the anchor again.

Local news led with a report of another burst underground water pipe, this one flooding several downtown blocks. The San Diego infrastructure was aging, and pipes were bursting at the rate of two or three a week.

The third story was an interview of a sociologist at the University of California, San Diego. He’d written a book,
The Post-Christian World,
in which he identified two emerging philosophies that were developing as a result of the discovery of the Alexandrian manuscript and the appearance of Neo Jesus. One philosophy was rejecting all authority and structure. A video clip featured a barefoot Berkeley street preacher who wore a T-shirt with the message,
Whoever said life was to be taken seriously?
He preached a free and open society without marriage, laws, or government.

The second emerging philosophy was being taught by academics who were furious that there were civilizations in the universe that were laughing at us. They advocated the scrapping of NASA and all outer space activities in order to redirect our energies to the exploration of inner space. A critic of their philosophy characterized their efforts as, “One eentsy-teensy step for man, one giant blunder for mankind.”

Related news stories included support groups of former evangelicals who were “mad as hell for being terrorized by hell” all these years; of missionaries stranded in foreign countries for lack of funds; and of charitable giving at an all-time low.

Meanwhile, scientists from all over the world were gathering in Geneva in anticipation of the conference with Neo Jesus.

After listening to the sports scores, I turned off the television and prepared for bed. Teeth brushed and standing in my pajama bottoms, for some reason I had a sudden urge to walk through a wall. I hadn’t done it since my last training session with Abdiel present.

Having never soloed, I was hesitant. What if I got halfway through the wall and got stuck? I picked up my cell phone. I could call maintenance if I got stuck, couldn’t I? But, how would I dial? I put the cell phone down.

When I was deciding which wall to walk through, my gaze fell on the front door. It was thinner than a wall. A training wall.

I walked over to it. I liked my chances.

Before stepping through the door I looked out the peephole door viewer. I didn’t want to scare anyone. The hallway was clear. I readied myself.

Laughing, I stepped back. I’d forgotten to unlock the door. My luck, I’d pass through to the other side and not be able to get back, and I certainly didn’t want to get caught in the hallway in my pajama bottoms. I unlocked the door.

Now I was ready. I took a deep breath. Relaxed. I reminded myself that matter was more space than anything else. That all I had to do was align my elements with the door elements and slide through with room to spare.

“All right,” I told myself, my nose less than an inch from the door.

I stood there.

“You can do it,” I assured myself.

I stood there.

“You did it before.”

After a couple of minutes of smelling the paint on my door, I backed away. Why was I afraid to do this?

“OK,” I said, not ready to give up. For some reason a children’s riddle came to mind:
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

So why are you trying to push the entire elephant through the door all at once?
I asked myself.
Why not a piece at a time? That makes sense, doesn’t it?

I was talking gibberish. A good indication I was scared and about to chicken out.

“No! I’m going to do this!”

I placed my hand on the door.

“All right. A hand, then an arm, and the rest of me follows. That’s the plan. Smooth as silk.”

Again, I prepared myself. I relaxed. I envisioned myself doing it. Closed my eyes. I felt my hand slide through the door to the other side. Then my wrist. My arm. My elbow.

“Ha! I’m doing it!”

My face hit the door hard and I lost momentum. When I tried continuing forward, my toes and knees and nose hit the inside of the front door with a
thunk!

As I blinked back the pain, my predicament became chillingly clear. My arm was sticking through the front door up to the shoulder.

“All right,” I told myself, trying to sound positive. “It was a good first try. Let’s just back away and try again.”

I pulled back. The door clenched tight. It wouldn’t give me back my arm.

“Don’t panic,” I said, knowing full well that when people say, “Don’t panic,” it’s already too late.

Nothing I did could free my arm. I tried relaxing. I tried a sudden jerk, but only once because it hurt something fierce. I tried opening the door and reaching around to the other side. All I managed to do was play with my own fingers.

It was cold outside so I closed the door while I considered my options. My cell phone was out of reach. I could holler until help came, but what would I say to explain how my arm got through the door in the first place? I could shout for Abdiel, but I really didn’t want to do that. He was already unimpressed with my abilities. This would only make it worse.

I was beginning to lose sensation in my arm and fingers. From the cold? Or was the door cutting off my circulation? Either way, my fingers were getting stiff.

I looked for something to wrap around my hand and arm. There was absolutely nothing within reach. The only material within reach was my pajama bottoms.

My hand and fingers were so cold now I was beginning to shiver. The tips were numb. I looked at my hand through the peephole. No amount of flexing could restore the circulation. I’d run out of choices.

Slipping my pajama bottoms off, I checked the hallway, then opened the front door and managed to wrap them around my hand and arm. Already my arm was feeling better from the warmth when I heard a front door close.

Stepping back inside, I closed my door.

I could hear someone humming. A woman’s voice.

Peering through the peephole at my pajama-covered arm I prayed that she wouldn’t come this direction. The humming turned to singing. It was getting louder. Now I prayed she would mistake my arm for some sort of flagpole and just walk past it without a second thought.

The singing stopped just as she came into peeping view. I kept my hand as rigid as possible.

It’s a flagpole. A flagpole. A flagpole,
I told her with my mind.

But Jedi mind tricks work only in the movies. She examined the pajamas with curiosity. She looked at the front door and I ducked out of the way. Why, I don’t know.

When I looked through the peephole again, she was reaching toward the pajamas.

No…no…no…

She began unwrapping my arm.

…no…no…

Getting down to the last layer, she pulled the pajama bottoms off my arm and gasped. I couldn’t keep my hand still any longer. I flexed my fingers. She screamed. She couldn’t take her eyes off my hand. She screamed and screamed, then began hitting it, first with my pajama bottoms, then with her hand.

I opened the door. “Stop it! That hurts!”

For a moment she froze, staring at me, pajama-bottomless, in horror. She looked at my arm through the door, then back at me, and began to scream again, this time putting legs to her screams. She ran down the hallway.

I knew it was just a matter of time before people started coming. I retrieved my pajama bottoms with my toes, passed them to my free hand, and shut the door.

Wouldn’t you know it? Just when I was standing there with one hand stuck through a door and another hand holding my pajama bottoms, an angel appears.

“If Semyaza could only see you now,” Belial said with a smirk. At least he had the decency to appear as himself and not Jesus.

One-handed, I pulled on my pajama bottoms, hopping on one foot, then the other. I was beyond embarrassment or pride. All I wanted was to get my arm out of the door.

“Can you—” I said. “I was trying something, and—”

Belial walked up to me and looked at my arm in the door. “Have you done this before?”

“Once by myself. The other times I had help.”

He nodded. He didn’t ask who had helped me. He didn’t need to.

Belial placed his hand on my shoulder, and my arm slid out of the door as smoothly and easily as if it was moving through a wall of mist.

“Thanks.” I flexed my hand. Already the circulation was returning.

Within a few minutes I had company. Police. Firemen. Paramedics. The landlord. The association handyman. The woman and her boyfriend. A dozen of my neighbors.

I felt sorry for the lady. She came across as a lunatic, telling everyone how she came across my pajama-draped arm sticking out of the door. The police were suspicious, believing me to be some sort of prankster. But the evidence showed no hole in my door, both of my arms attached, and me wearing my pajama bottoms.

“Is this what you do for fun?” Belial asked when we were alone. He’d kept himself from view while the authorities were questioning me. He was here, though. I could see him.

I’d put on a robe and was tying it. “This little amusement? Amateur stuff compared to the fun you’re having with your Neo Jesus scam.”

Belial waved my comment aside. “I don’t want talk about that now.”

He did appear preoccupied.

“Grant Austin, I’m not sure you appreciate your unique position.”

“I’m one of a kind,” I quipped. “Who else can get their arm stuck in a door like that?”

Despite his genial appearance, Belial made me nervous. I hadn’t forgotten he was the enemy. And the fact that he was nervous made me even more nervous. His eyes kept darting this way and that, as though he expected someone to appear at any moment.

“I’m not referring only to your being Nephilim,” he said. “But to your favor with God.”

My hand rose to my forehead. How long was I going to do that? I knew the mark wasn’t there.