A Hideous Beauty (10 page)

He wheeled himself toward the exit.

“Wait! That's it?” I ran after him. “Find a hole and hide in it? We're talking about the president of the United States!”

The professor wheeled around to face me. He was all business. “A man doesn't write an officially sanctioned biography of the president,” he said, “without having contacts in the White House. I assume you've contacted them and warned them about the plot.”

“I've made several calls.”

“And I further assume that they have alerted the president and the Secret Service?”

My face flushed. “No one will take my calls. It doesn't make sense. There must be some kind of . . .”

“Uh-huh.” Having made his point, the professor wheeled around and headed for the door. He called over his shoulder, “A big hole, Mr. Austin.”

“I can't do that!” I shouted, library or no library.

He wheeled out the door. I was right behind him.

“I've got to stop them . . . whoever they are.”

This time when the professor turned to face me he did it so suddenly I almost ended up in his lap. “There is nothing you can do,” he said. “You can't stop them. They've been doing this sort of thing for millennia.”

His words hit with paralyzing force. Those were the exact words Myles Shepherd used.

CHAPTER
7

I
stood in front of the library and watched Professor J. P. Forsythe coast expertly down the handicapped ramp. I'd come all this way for nothing. When a man doesn't want to talk to you, you can't make him, right?

Wrong. Something in my gut wouldn't let it end like this.

“What aren't you telling me?” I called after him.

He acted like he hadn't heard me.

I hurried after him. Didn't run. With classes in session the campus wasn't exactly busy, but there was something about chasing after a man in a wheelchair that didn't feel cool. I closed the distance between us.

“What aren't you telling me?” I said to the back of his head.

“You don't want to know,” he replied.

“At least tell me what you know about Semyaza. The basics. A thumbnail sketch. Is he bigger than a breadbox?”

“Use an encyclopedia,” he snapped. “If you look it up yourself, you'll remember it longer.”

He wheeled up a walkway toward double glass doors that
opened to a wing of classrooms. I knew once he got inside I'd lose him to his class.

“Professor . . .” I pleaded.

“A big hole, Mr. Austin. Find a big hole.”

He reached for the door.

I stepped past him and blocked the door from opening with the flat of my hand.

“That's it!” I cried.

“Step aside, Mr. Austin,” the professor said icily. “I have a class to teach.”

“I get it now—you're running, aren't you? You're scared and you're running. That's it, isn't it? All this talk about finding a big hole . . . you're advising me to follow your example, to hide under the covers and pray for morning. Heritage College is your hole, isn't it, Professor, your hideout from the scary things of the world.”

The professor yanked at the door. I held it closed. I was right. I knew I was right. “You're hiding in the footnotes, down at the bottom of the page in six-point type, wanting to be the authority, but not wanting to be the target. You hand other authors the ammunition, content to let them fight on the front lines while you dwell safely in the obscurity of a little college nobody's ever heard of.”

He yanked hard at the door with surprising strength.

“What is it you're afraid of, Professor? What is it that scares you so much? What aren't you telling me?”

He released the door, backed away, and took off, I presume toward another door into the classrooms. Maybe he was heading for the security office. At this point, I didn't care. I wasn't going to let him go. I grabbed the grips on the back of his chair. There must be at least a half-dozen laws both civil and moral about restraining a handicapped man against his will, but I held on. His forearms bulged as he strained to break
free. “Is it Semyaza? What is it about that name that frightens you?”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he said, his head down, straining like a dog on a leash. “Semyaza isn't someone you dismiss lightly.”

“Someone. You said, someone. So Semyaza is a person. You've had dealings with him?”

“Not directly.”

His arms went limp. The grips no longer fought me. I stepped around the chair and faced him.

“But you know of him, Semyaza,” I said. “He's not just a name or a legend. He exists. And he scares you.”

The professor's head snapped up suddenly, his eyes wide and glistening with tears. “OF COURSE HE SCARES ME!” he screamed.

The ferocity of his response startled me back a step.

“Tell me . . . tell me what you know.”

“You don't want to know what I know.”

A moment of silence passed between us.

“Is he an angel?”

The professor looked around. At first I thought he was going to make another run for it, but then he said, “Over there.”

His arms limp and defeated inside the chair, he made no effort to wheel himself, so I pushed him to a cozy circular landing that overlooked the parking lot. A round cement table was ringed by three matching benches. The view of the valley was a modest one. A familiar breeze, which reminded me of my tennis days on courts less than a mile from here, kept the porch comfortable.

“You don't know what you're getting into,” the professor said. His words were measured. He gazed absently at the hazy view, but it seemed to me he was seeing not the valley, but scenes from his past.

I chuckled. “That's obvious,” I said.

I do that. Laugh at inappropriate times. It's how I face fear.

I sat on one of the concrete benches. “But I don't see that I have a choice,” I added. “I didn't go looking for this. It came to me.”

“That's the puzzle, isn't it?” The professor's eyes squinted at me. “Why you?”

I avoided his gaze. “That's the second time you've asked that question. I'm trying not to take it personally.”

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“I want you to tell me everything.”

He laughed. “That would take months, if not years.”

“Then tell me about Semyaza.”

He took a sharp intake of breath. “I'll make you a deal,” he said. “Question for question. I answer one of yours. You answer one of mine.”

“Fair enough. Who's Semyaza?”

“He's an angel. My turn. When you said—”

“Wait, wait, wait . . .” I protested. “I want more than a three-word answer.”

“To what end? You've already demonstrated a familiarity with sources that identify Semyaza. Do you want me to repeat what you already know? All right, he's a Seraph angel who is in league with Lucifer in the war against God. He has two hundred angels under his command, divided into groups of ten.”

“But he's a myth, right? Like Zeus and Hermes, and all the other residents of Olympus. You speak of him as though he's real.”

“Of course he's real. My turn.”

“Why does he scare you?” I blurted.

The professor shook his head. “That's an entirely different question. You'll have to wait your turn. How long have you known this man Shepherd you were telling me about?”

“Myles Shepherd? Since we were freshmen in high school.”

“He attended school with you, the entire four years? What about after that? Have you had regular contact with him since high school?”

I started to object. The professor anticipated my objection.

“It's not a second question. I'm asking for a clarification. The original question remains, How long have you known him?”

“All right . . . Yes, he attended high school with me the entire four years. Until yesterday, I hadn't seen him since graduation, but I did follow his career. Newspaper articles, things like that. He was California Teacher of the Year.”

“Amazing . . .” the professor mused. His brow furrowed. My answer apparently perplexed him.

“My turn,” I said. “Why does Semyaza scare you?”

One of the professor's hands sought the other one out, as though to comfort it. “Among angels there is a hierarchy of power,” he said. “Semyaza ranks near the top, though it's unclear how near, possibly second only to Lucifer. If indeed he is anywhere close to this region, it's not good . . . not good at all. It would mean that something truly horrific is about to happen.”

A sense of foreboding came over me, an unsettled feeling that a dark cloud was parking over my life.

“My turn,” the professor said. “Tell me about your parents. Do they still live in the area?”

I frowned, wishing I'd had the foresight to restrict the questions to nonpersonal subjects. I didn't want to tell him about my parents. But a deal was a deal. “My mother does. We're not close. My father died when I was three years old.” I fell silent. I answered his question, or so I thought. He apparently didn't agree.

“And . . . ?” he prompted.

“Professor, what does this have to do with—”

“Answer the question. Tell me about your parents. How did your father die?”

“Suicide.”

“Oh . . . I'm sorry.”

His apology wasn't your standard gift-store variety apology, the kind you accept and discard. Heartfelt compassion filled his eyes. For some reason it surprised me. I didn't know exactly what to do with it.

“Um . . . thanks . . . yeah, well, my mother blamed me for his death. I don't know why. All I know is that she never forgave him and she took it out on me.”

“What did your father do for a living?”

I shrugged. “Don't really know. I think he tried to produce some films. None of them ever made it to the screen. He inherited money. His mother, my grandmother, was Gigi Beaumont . . .”

Whenever I speak of my grandmother, I always pause at this point, to see if anyone recognizes her. She was big in her day, but now only old people remember her, and even then they need a little prompting.

The professor didn't appear to recognize her, so I told him about her. “She was an actress. She made several films in the late forties, early fifties, with Ricardo Montalban, Fernando Lamas, Cyd Charisse . . .”

Now the professor's eyes lit with recognition. He recognized those names. Everybody did.

“She started out as a swimmer. Swam with Esther Williams . . .” I named some of her better-known films.
“On an Island with You
 . . .
Neptune's Daughter
 . . .
Dangerous When Wet.”

The professor had not seen any of them. I should have known. When those films were made he probably had his nose buried in a systematic theology text.

“My turn to ask a question,” I said. “You're obviously an intelligent man, well schooled, articulate, respected . . .”

The professor laughed. “With a lead-up like this, you must have one doozy of a question.”

“. . . do you believe in angels?”

“You obviously don't,” he replied.

“I'm willing to admit that there's a lot we don't know about this universe, that there might be life on other planets, and that they may have at some time in the past visited earth, giving rise to stories of supernatural visitations from heaven, but really, Professor—angels?”

“They obviously believe in you,” he replied.

I must have rolled my eyes or given some other sign of exasperation because the professor's teaching finger appeared. “Hear me out,” he said. “I have a point to make. Do you believe in the terrorist threat al Qaeda presents?”

“It's not your turn to ask—”

“Just answer my question. Do you believe that al Qaeda presents a credible threat to you as a United States citizen?”

“I'd be a fool not to.”

“Have you ever met a member of al Qaeda?”

“Personally? No.”

“Neither have I. What if I were to tell you that I don't believe al Qaeda exists . . . that I'm convinced al Qaeda is a myth, fabricated by our current administration to distract us from problem issues at home.”

“All right . . . I'll play,” I said. After a moment or two of thought, I answered. “I'd say that's exactly what al Qaeda would want you to believe. If they can get enough people to believe they are not a credible threat, better yet, that they don't even exist, it gives them greater freedom to carry out their attacks. But Professor, surely you're not saying that angels are—”

The professor leaned forward and spoke in earnest. “The real battle is spiritual, Mr. Austin. Everyday forces we cannot see influence our thoughts, our lives, our world.” He paused to judge my reaction before continuing. “This isn't the world you think it is, Mr. Austin. Our borders are being breached by a hostile unseen force. There are no government funds to stop them. Homeland Security doesn't acknowledge they exist. Metal detectors are useless against them. Yet hundreds, possibly thousands, of enemy agents cross our borders every day.

“They're dedicated, insidious soldiers of destruction from a supernatural realm. They move among us virtually undetected. For millennia they have acted as sleeper agents, living among us, influencing human history.”

You can't stop us. We've been doing this for millennia.

“The original war between good and evil never ended, Mr. Austin, and in these last days the battle is gaining momentum, and you can believe that our friend Semyaza will play a key role. We can expect fresh assaults. Whether you choose to recognize the threat is irrelevant. Believing they don't exist doesn't make the threat any less real.”

I had to give him this: He believed what he was saying. But I wasn't buying it. “Professor, I attended Sunday school. I've seen the pictures of angels and Joseph and Mary—”