Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II (26 page)

It was just Jana and me in the living room. She played the video on a monitor and for the first time I saw what she and Sue and the crew members had seen. It was quite unremarkable.

Abdiel and Neo Jesus squared off against each other in the center of my living room. They eyed each other. The recording showed me yelling at Jana to get back. She looked at me as if I were crazy. I lunged between the two angels, separating them.

That was it. No swords. No lightning. No thunder. No sparks. No heroics.

“I like my version better,” I said.

“What did your sword look like?”

I shrugged. “A guy doesn’t like to brag.”

“Yeah? Since when?”

She gathered up her things, throwing cords into her bag.

“Are you angry?” I asked.

Looping her bag over an arm, she hefted the monitor. “Why would I be angry? I get to go back to work and tell my producer I didn’t get the interview. And that now I’ll probably never get it.”

I felt bad. Shortly after my lunge, Belial departed suddenly. He didn’t act as if he would accept another invitation soon.

“Let me carry that for you,” I offered.

“Just get the door, Grant.”

As I held the door open for her, she paused long enough to say, “You really blew it with Sue Ling.”

“Yeah. I should have told her.”

“About what, Grant? The sessions with Abdiel? The interview? Or Belial’s offer?”

Following my not-so-courageous intervention, Sue and Abdiel stayed long enough for me to tell them about Belial’s offer. They both left in a huff.

“That’s three good women, Grant,” Jana said. “Me. Christina. And now Sue Ling. For being such a smart guy, you just don’t know a good thing when you see it, do you?”

She was wrong. I knew a good thing when I saw it. I just didn’t know what to do with it.

I leaned against the door in thought after closing it.

I could see swords.

T
he reaction to Belial’s plan was unanimous. Jana said even if she could, she wouldn’t cover it, and she was in the business of reporting disasters. Sue wept, kissed me on the cheek, and turned away as though I were dying. At times like this I missed the professor.

Abdiel was angrier than I’d ever seen him. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with! You don’t make deals with the devil.”

I laughed at the irony. “It’s not as though I can sell my soul to him. He already owns it.”

“All the same, this isn’t a Make-A-Wish program, Grant. Belial either wants something from you…or he’s using you.”

“Yes, he’s using me. He’s using me to free his sons from a thousand years of torment. You said it yourself. Some of the angels developed genuine feelings for the women they married. Is it so inconceivable to believe that Belial might have feelings for his offspring?”

“He is evil!”

“What if he’s acting on his own as he claims?” I countered. “What if he’s taking as much of a risk as I am?”

“You would be foolish to proceed.”

“All right, I won’t. I’ll turn Belial down, on one condition. That you agree to help me present my petition to the Father.”

“I can’t do that,” Abdiel said.

“Can’t, or won’t? I know you know about these things. Is it possible for me to enter Sheol? Are there membrane passages linking Sheol with heaven? What about the King’s Highway, is it still open? Will I be allowed access? And if I do get to heaven, will it be possible for me to stand on those fiery stones and present my petition to the Father? What day does the Father hold council, Abdiel? Thursdays? Do I need to make an appointment?”

He let me rant. When I was finished, he said, “I can’t answer your questions, Grant Austin.”

“Then I’ll just have to find the answers elsewhere.”

“I will take my leave of you.”

“Yeah. I think that’s a good idea.”

I was furious. They didn’t know. They weren’t Nephilim. Who were they to tell me not to risk my own life? They had the hope of salvation. None of them faced an eternity of suffering. Why couldn’t they understand that? If a man is given a chance to avoid eternal torment, he’d be a fool not to take it.

For a week I stewed over my choice. And since stewing is best done alone I didn’t talk to anyone.

Abdiel was a no-show for our next scheduled session. I’d been looking forward to the topic. He was going to narrate his recollections of the apostles.

Apparently Lucifer went crazy after the Resurrection. The Divine Warrior had taken the fear out of death and Lucifer was livid over the loss of one of his favorite weapons. He tried to recover it with a reign of terror on the early church, personally orchestrating the painful deaths of the leaders of the church. His strategy backfired. Word of the courageous deaths of the martyrs was carried on the four winds. Christian faith spread like a prairie fire.

I stuck the notes from our previous sessions in a box and shelved them. Maybe I’d find a use for them someday. Or maybe someday I’d come home and find my apartment had been plucked off the face of the earth by Semyaza. You’d think after all these millennia the guy would learn how to use a paper shredder.

Seven days of mourning Sue Ling’s absence was an unspeakable torture. She was in my thoughts when I woke; she was in my thoughts every moment I was awake; and she was in my thoughts when I went to bed. Then I dreamed about her.

Even though I knew it would be painful for both of us, I had to see her again. I told myself we needed a proper good-bye, but the truth was, I just had to see her again. I bought some pastries and went to her apartment. A man wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt opened the door.

“Who are you?” I blurted.

“I don’t know what you’re selling, fella, but your sales pitch needs some work,” he said with a rakish grin. “Come back when you’ve come up with a better opening line.”

He started to close the door. I stopped him, my hand hitting the door just below the number. Sue Ling’s apartment number.

“Hey, buddy. What’s your damage?” the guy yelled.

Behind him the bedroom door slammed shut, but not before I caught a glimpse of jet-black hair.

At times like this the brain of the human male short-circuits. I shoved the bag of pastries in the guy’s face and pushed my way past him. He stumbled backward, fell against the wall, and slid to the floor.

“Sue Ling!” I said, storming the door. “I’m coming in!”

I was bursting through the bedroom door before the guy in the boxer shorts could recover. A frightened Asian woman was hurriedly pulling on a bathrobe.

Not Sue Ling, but this was still her apartment. Her bed. Her dresser. All the furniture in the living room.

“What are you doing in this apartment?” I demanded. “Where’s Sue Ling?”

The guy in the boxer shorts grabbed me, swung me around, and was just about to flatten me when something sparked behind his angry eyes. He broke into a grin. “You’re Grant Austin! I got your book!”

The woman in the robe said a few things in a language I didn’t understand. She communicated well enough, though, punctuating her remarks with a couple of pitched shoes.

The guy in the boxer shorts pulled the door shut just in time to save us from injury. “I have a letter for you from Sue Ling. She told me you’d probably come around someday.”

He eagerly unburied an envelope from a pile of letters and receipts and telephone books and socks still in their packaging and car keys and handed it to me. My name was written on it in Sue Ling’s handwriting.

“We swapped apartments,” the guy said happily. “I just transferred out here from UNC.”

“Professor Ledbetter introduced you,” I said, recalling the comment Sue made about a student from Chapel Hill.

“That’s right. He linked us up. Anyway, we got to talking and figured, why spend all that money shipping furniture and looking for new apartments? Why not just swap?”

From the looks of Sue Ling’s apartment after only a few days of residency, the guy in the boxer shorts came out ahead on this deal.

Rummaging in stacks of boxes in the living room he found a copy of my book. It was the first time I’d ever autographed a book for a guy in boxer shorts.

“Oh…your bag,” he said, as I was leaving.

“You can have it.”

He looked inside. “Cool! Pastries! Thanks. What a pal!”

I turned to leave.

“Um…Grant? Would you mind autographing the bag?”

For ten minutes I sat in the apartment parking lot staring at the unopened envelope. I didn’t have to open it to know what it said. I might as well be holding a dagger, deciding whether I wanted to stick it in my heart.

I opened the envelope.

I dialed her cell phone number and got a recording. Her phone was no longer in service.

I called Jana.

“Seven days, Grant?” she said. “It took you seven days before going over there to see her?”

“Not now, Jana. You can yell at me some other time.”

The life had gone out of me.

Jana apologized. “She doesn’t want you following her, Grant.”

“I know. Did your producer give you a lot of grief over the interview?”

“No more than usual, though he brings it up every time we run a story on the Geneva conference. ‘Wish we had that interview. Timing couldn’t be better.’ That sort of thing.”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t seen him again, have you? Belial?”

“No.”

“You’d tell me if you had, wouldn’t you, Grant? And if you do see him again, could you at least ask him if he’d be willing to…” Her voice trailed off.

“Yeah. I’ll ask him.”

We said good-bye and I sat in the car with no place to go. Christina came to mind. I’d just stormed into one girlfriend’s apartment and talked with another old girlfriend. It seemed only natural to call a third old girlfriend.

“Grant!” Christina called cheerfully. “Long time!”

“How are things in D.C.?”

“I’m in Geneva, Switzerland, for the conference. Senator Vogler is the head of the U.S. delegation. Don’t you read the newspapers, Grant?”

“I thought it was just a bunch of scientists.”

“That’s how it started, but with everything happening—you did hear that President Rossi is being impeached, didn’t you?”

“I heard something about it.”

“Grant, you really need to get back to D.C. Anyway, with the impeachment and the stock market the way it is and the ongoing Middle East crisis, everyone’s open to new directions. All the major powers have sent delegations. It’s so exciting! The timing couldn’t be better! Grant, everyone is talking about a new world order. You should be here. History is being made.”

“Christina, you know that Neo Jesus is—”

“Grant? Sorry, but I have to go. Word of advice? Get on a plane and get over here. The whole world is watching.”

The connection lost, I closed my phone and tossed it on the passenger’s seat. It was hard to fault Christina. I remembered what it was like living and working in D.C. Everything happened in great surges that had little to do with truth or reality. It was easy to get swept up in the tide.

Driving home I stopped at Starbucks on a whim. Their café mocha was calling to me. Comfort coffee.

As I walked in the door I saw five men wearing three-piece business suits sitting at a table in the back of the shop. All five of them had gleaming silver swords.

Angels drink Starbucks. Who knew?

Their conversation ceased when they saw me. Five pair of angel eyes followed me as I walked to the counter and placed my drink order. They watched me as I drummed my fingers on the counter, waiting for the order to be filled.

“Join us?” one of them said.

“Thanks, guys,” I said, “but I need to be—”

I was thankful they didn’t insist. Paying for my drink, I turned to leave just as another business suit walked into the shop. He had a black sword.

He looked at me. His eyes flashed recognition. I’d never seen him before. Then he looked past me and saw the five angels in the back. They glared at him.

Getting caught in a crossfire came to mind. Should I hit the floor? Seemed like a waste of a perfectly good café mocha.

The suit with the black sword backed out of the shop. Conversation at the table resumed.

As I walked out the door, one of the angels called after me. “Take it easy, Grant.”

Now that I could see swords, I was seeing them everywhere. And not just angels. On my way to the car I saw two men across the street walking on the sidewalk. The taller man was smiling and doing most of the talking while patting the other man on the back. They looked like friends. However, I saw that the pats were stabs in the back.

On the street corner a woman had her arm around her schoolboy son. She was pointing at a couple of toughs crossing the street. They didn’t want to mess with this woman. She leveled a silver sword at them as she warned them to stay away from her boy.

On my way home I stopped by the professor’s house. I parked across the street. I didn’t get out. The lot had been cleaned and leveled. Builders were erecting a new frame structure. There was nothing left on the property to remind people that a godly man had once lived there.

I had walked through a wall in the house that had once been on that lot. And I had seen swords for the first time in that house, though briefly.

Abdiel had been right about Sue’s sword. I saw elegance. He saw frailty. Her spirit just wasn’t strong enough for the battle. Had she depended all these years on the professor’s strength?

After a week of worry and a day of anguish my own sword wasn’t looking nearly as impressive as it had when it flashed between Abdiel and Belial. I noticed a continuous deterioration as the day went on and began to check it regularly. Each time I looked—I was wrong to think a person’s sword could be seen in a mirror; it couldn’t—it became a little duller.

I went to bed that night determined to get on with my life. Until I learned otherwise, I was going to assume Belial had withdrawn his offer.

There were a couple of book ideas I’d mulled over in the past. Tomorrow morning I’d go to San Diego State University and do some initial research. Maybe if I lost myself in work the pain of losing the professor and Sue Ling would ease up a bit.

With the dawn of a new day I was up, showered, and shaved. Fueled by a bagel and orange juice, I’d dressed in a casual suit and had my briefcase equipped with pens and legal pads. This morning I’d reacquaint myself with the unconventional research librarian at SDSU, and this afternoon I’d go shopping for a new laptop.

It felt good to be Grant Austin, writer, again. With briefcase in hand I headed toward the front door wondering, now that I could see swords, if it was possible to stop seeing them. Maybe if I put everything of a spiritual nature out of my mind, I’d eventually lose the knack. It was worth a try. Today I would make a conscious effort not to be spiritual. It would be carnal Thursday, the first day of the rest of my—