Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II (25 page)

The doorbell rang. I stacked the pages hastily on top of the notepad. Where to put them? The bedroom? Even there I’d have to put them away, its being the passage to the bathroom. My dresser drawer.

The doorbell rang again.

“Grant?”

Sue’s muffled voice came through the door. She tried the door. It began to open. I’d forgotten I’d left it unlocked for her.

Getting up, I lifted the sofa cushion, threw the notes under it, and slammed the cushion back down, making a pretense of smoothing it as Sue walked in the door.

“Grant! You’re cleaning up for me? How sweet.”

She kissed me on the cheek and I caught a whiff of her perfume. I didn’t have a clue what it was called. I knew it as Sue Ling’s scent and it drove me to distraction.

She carried a black leather valise that I had seen at the college. How many times had she pulled papers from it to hand to the professor? She was reaching into it as she crossed the room. She sat on the sofa, on the cushion that hid my angel narrative notes.

“We need to make a decision about Chapel Hill sooner than we thought,” she said.

“Um—”

Alarms were going off in my head. It was probably nothing. It was not as though she were a princess and I was hiding a pea. Still, I’d feel a lot safer if she were sitting somewhere else. Anywhere else.

“I have an idea. How about if we discuss this at Howard’s over tea and pastry?”

I opened the door, inviting her to accompany me.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer staying here,” Sue said. She settled back against the sofa and, with a slight frown, repositioned herself to get comfortable. “However, tea sounds good.”

“Tea,” I said, closing the door. “Great idea. How about if you fix us both a cup?”

She cocked her head. “Grant! Is something wrong?”

“What? No. I was just kidding. I’ll fix us the tea.”

Sue turned her attention to the papers she’d pulled from the valise.

I raced into the kitchen, filled the kettle with water, and threw it on the stove, turning the burner on high, then raced back to the doorway that connected the two rooms.

Without looking up, Sue said, “The enrollment deadline at the University of North Carolina is earlier than I thought. I called the professor of the department of theoretical physics and he’s willing to review my coursework and thesis. Of course, he can’t guarantee I can keep my thesis subject—professors are funny that way—but he seemed to like it and said he’d present it to the advisory board.”

As she told me her impressions of the theoretical physics department, she spoke positively and with animation for the first time since the professor’s death. She was getting on with her life.

The teapot began to whistle. As I turned back into the kitchen, she raised her voice so I could still hear her.

“I went to UCSD and talked to a couple of my professors. They’re impressed with the program at UNC. Professor Ledbetter put me in contact with a student who just transferred from there.”

Throwing open cabinet doors and drawers, I grabbed two cups, two spoons, a box of teabags, and a handful of sugar packets and threw them onto a serving tray. Lunging for the kettle, I poured hot water into the cups a little too fast. Scalding water leaped out of one cup and onto my hand.

Replacing the kettle on the stove, I did a silent dance of pain. After a second or two I realized Sue was no longer talking. Forcing my voice into a normal tone, I said, “Have you talked with her? Or was it a him?”

Sue didn’t answer me. When I carried the tray into the living room I discovered why. Sue was standing beside the sofa. The cushion was raised. She was reading my notes.

“What’s this?” She held the papers between us.

“I thought it best you didn’t know.”

“In spite of last night, you did this behind my back.” Tears and pain filled her eyes.

There was no use lying to her. I’d dated the pages.

I’d hoped I’d have more time to come to a decision. But I really didn’t need more time. It would only delay the inevitable. Word of my petition would get out. If the Father granted it, Lucifer would retaliate. He’d go after those who were closest to me.

“Sue—”

Setting the tray down, I took the notes from her and set them aside as well. I reached for her. She backed away.

“As much as I want to,” I said, “I can’t walk away from this. I’m sorry. There’s too much at stake.”

She folded her arms, raising one hand to her mouth to hold in the sobs.

I touched her shoulder. She shrugged it off.

“You should go to Chapel Hill,” I said. “It sounds like the right place for you to finish your work. I wish I could go with you, but I can’t. It’s because I care for you too much to put you in danger. Once they see we’ve split up, they’ll leave you alone.”

“Split up?” Sue spat. “The only time we were together was in your dreams.”

It was her pain talking, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. I turned aside, fighting my own emotions. I’d adored Sue Ling from a distance too long to give her up now. Sending her away was the right thing to do, but I didn’t want to do it.

I felt her hand touch my cheek.

“Grant, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean that.”

She turned my head. Her face was close to mine. Her eyes were brimming with emotion. She took me by the hand and pulled me onto the sofa. She cuddled up next to me, her arms around me, her head on my chest.

“You’re a good man, Grant. I know this is hard for you. You want to be Superman and save the world, and I adore you for it. So few men are noble anymore. But Grant, can’t you see? You’ve been dealt a losing hand from the beginning. I love that you’re noble, but right now you have to be realistic. God has given you a chance for happiness in this life. Don’t throw it away.”

She looked up at me invitingly, just as she did in my fantasies. Our lips brushed. I held her gaze. It drew me in. I pulled her to me, our lips pressed together in a long-awaited kiss. Her eyes closed. I kept mine open. I’d spent too much time with my eyes closed imagining Sue Ling; now that I had her in my arms I didn’t want to squander a moment of it.

The kiss on the sofa wasn’t our first kiss, but it was the first passionate embrace. If I could have stretched that moment into forever, it would have been heaven.

“What did you do to Sue Ling?” Jana said, pulling me aside by the arm.

Her news crew paid no attention to us as they carried cameras and sound equipment into my apartment. This was Belial’s choice of location for the interview. My guess was that he chose this location over the studio so that he could talk to me afterward.

“What? I didn’t do anything to Sue,” I protested. “What makes you think I did?”

“We talked until two last night at a coffee shop,” Jana said. “She wouldn’t tell me what happened, but she was clearly upset. I’ve never seen her like that before.”

“Like what?”

“Like some lovesick teenager. ‘I think he loves me…he doesn’t love me…do you think he loves me?’ That sort of thing.”

I tried not to smile. The thought of Sue Ling as a lovesick teenager was the best news Jana could have reported. Sue Ling loved me. My head swam with the thought.

When we’d parted yesterday she’d begged me to reconsider my decision and move with her to Chapel Hill. I made no promises. We agreed to talk about it again later.

“Miss Torres,” one of her crew interrupted. “The sofa OK?”

“No,” Jana said. She began pointing and directing. “Pull those two chairs together against that wall. Put that end table between them. Grant, do you have something tasteful that we can put on the table?”

“How about my book?” I quipped.

She gave me the grimace I’d played for.

We settled on an ornate desktop clock President Douglas gave me one Christmas. It came with papers and a photograph documenting that the clock had sat on the desk in the office of former secretary of state William Jennings Bryan.

Belial chose that moment to arrive with his usual suddenness, startling a member of the crew, who knocked over a studio light. He ran to the truck to get a replacement bulb.

The room that had bustled with the noise and voices of pre-taping preparations became hushed. Whenever Jesus enters a room he commands attention, even if he is an impostor. After hearing the stories of the Divine Warrior, seeing Belial dressed as the Joker Jesus grated on my nerves. But then, they were calling him Neo Jesus now, weren’t they?

“Grant!” Belial said, all smiles. “And who is this lovely daughter of Eve standing beside you?”

I introduced him to Jana though he’d met her before. Belial was all charm. Jana wasn’t impressed. She returned his fawning approach with courteous professionalism. But I knew, given the chance, she’d kick him where it hurt.

That thought led to another. An alarming one.

“Can you excuse us a moment?” I said to Belial, pulling Jana aside. I whispered, “You’re not going to make him angry, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not going to try to expose him.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

Before I could answer Belial interrupted us. “Grant, have you come to a decision about my offer?”

Jana glared at me. “What offer?”

“WHAT’S HE DOING HERE?”

Abdiel’s voice reverberated off the walls. He appeared just as the crew member, carrying two replacement bulbs, returned from the truck. He dropped them both.

“WHAT’S HE DOING HERE?” Abdiel repeated. “AND WHAT OFFER?”

“What offer?” Jana echoed, equally furious.

Sue Ling appeared at the front door. “Grant, I was driving by and saw the news trucks…Oh!”

“What is this?” Belial bellowed. “Some sort of trap?”

“Grant Austin,” Abdiel yelled, “answer my question. What is he doing here?”

“What offer?” Jana asked.

“Grant? What’s going on here?” Sue said.

Those members of the news crew who hadn’t already run out the front door stood with their backs pressed against the wall.

Sue was giving hurt looks to Jana and me.

Jana, ever the professional, saw a newsworthy event in the making. She was motioning to her cameraman to start shooting. But it wasn’t her regular guy, and the cameraman fumbled with the equipment as the two angels squared off against each other in the center of the room.

I moved in front of Sue, protecting her. She grabbed my arm from behind and clung to it. “What are they doing here, Grant? And what offer?”

The two angels circled each other, their jaws set, their fists clenched. Belial’s sandals had come off. Neither of the angels was touching the floor.

“Sue, stay back,” I said.

“What offer?” she repeated.

The next instant swords flashed. Abdiel’s silver broadsword. Belial’s intimidating black-bladed broadsword. As the two combatants circled, they gripped and regripped their swords.

The first blow struck like lightning and cracked like thunder. Twin arcs, sweeping upward, clashing overhead. The gleam of the swords burst into sparks at impact. I not only saw it and heard it…I felt it. The blow knocked me back a step.

Sue whimpered. “Grant? Are you all right?”

Twin arcs appeared again, clashing over the warrior angels’ heads with force, showering the room with sparks that painted everything with a harsh white light and cast frightening black shadows. This time I anticipated the force from the blow and held my ground.

A short distance to my right Jana was standing perilously close. She seemed mesmerized by the blows. Oblivious to the danger.

Abdiel and Belial drew their swords back for another blow. I didn’t want to leave Sue unprotected, but Jana was within striking range of the swords.

“Jana, back away!” I warned.

She glanced at me, perplexed. Could she not hear me?

The angels swung their swords.

I moved instinctively. “No!” I stepped between the combatants.

Looking back on it, what I did was stupid. For some reason I thought maybe I could grab their weapon arms and force them to lower their weapons.

Instead, a third broadsword appeared.

Mine.

It was gleaming silver, and it flashed with a righteous radiance.

Overhead the swords of Abdiel and Belial clashed. Standing in a shower of sparks I swung with all my might in an upward arc. My blade hit theirs at the point of impact, separating them.

The convergence of three swords produced a shower of sparks that fell so heavily I ducked my head and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, everyone was staring at me.

The room appeared as it did on any ordinary day, except for the cables and lights and soundboard and general clutter of the news crew.

Abdiel looked down at me with controlled amusement. Belial appeared troubled.

“Grant, are you all right?” Sue said.

Jana’s eyes asked the same question.

I looked at them. “I see swords.”