This Present Darkness (8 page)

“Well,” he said before he considered, “pardon me, but I get the distinct impression you disowned me in there.”

Sandy tried to stand straight, to face him in her hurt and anger, but she still could not look him squarely in the eye.

“It was—it was just too painful.”

“What was?”

“You know … that whole thing in there.”

“Well, I like coming on with a real splash, you know. Something people will remember …”

“Daddy!”

“So who stole all the ‘No Parents Allowed’ signs? How was I to know she didn’t want me in there? And just what’s so all-fired precious and secret that she doesn’t want any outsiders to hear it?”

Now Sandy’s anger rose above her hurt, and she could look at him
squarely. “Nothing! Nothing at all. It was just a lecture.”

“So just what is her problem?”

Sandy groped for an explanation. “I don’t know. I guess she must know who you are.”

“No way. I’ve never even seen her before.” And then a question automatically popped into Marshall’s mind. “What do you mean, she must know who I am?”

Sandy looked cornered. “I mean … oh, c’mon. Maybe she knows you’re the editor of the paper. Maybe she doesn’t want reporters snooping around.”

“Well, I hope I can tell you I wasn’t snooping. I was just looking for you.”

Sandy wanted to end the discussion. “All right, Daddy, all right. She just read you wrong, okay? I don’t know what her problem was. She has the right to choose her audience, I suppose.”

“And I don’t have the right to know what my daughter is learning?”

Sandy stopped a word halfway up her throat and inferred a few things first. “You
were
snooping!”

Even as it happened, Marshall knew good and well that they were at it again, the old cats-and-dogs, fighting roosters routine. It was crazy. Part of him didn’t want it to happen, but the rest of him was too frustrated and angry to stop.

As for the demon, it only cowered nearby, shying from Marshall as if he were red hot. The demon watched, waited, fretted.

“In a pig’s eye I was snooping!” Marshall roared. “I’m here because I’m your loving father and I wanted to pick you up after classes. Stewart Hall, that’s all I knew. I just happened to find you, and …” He tried to brake himself. He deflated a little, covered his eyes with his hand, and sighed.

“And you thought you’d keep an eye on me!” Sandy suggested spitefully.

“Got some law against that?”

“Okay, I’ll lay it all out for you. I’m a human being, Daddy, and every human entity—I don’t care who he or she is—is ultimately subject to a universal scheme and not to the will of any specific individual. As for Professor Langstrat, if she doesn’t want you present at her lecture, it’s her prerogative to demand that you leave!”

“And just who’s paying her salary, anyway?”

She ignored the question. “And as for me, and what I am learning, and what I am becoming, and where I am going, and what I wish, I say you have no right to infringe on my universe unless I personally grant you that right!”

Marshall’s eyesight was getting blurred by visions of Sandy turned over his knee. Enraged, he had to lash out at somebody, but now he was trying to steer his attacks away from Sandy. He pointed back toward Stewart Hall and demanded, “Did—did
she
teach you that?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“I have a right to know!”

“You waived that right, Daddy, years ago.”

That punch sent him into the ropes, and he couldn’t fully recover before she took off down the street, escaping him, escaping their miserable, bullish battle. He hollered after her, some stupid-sounding question about how she’d get home, but she didn’t even slow down.

The demon grabbed its chance
and
Marshall, and he felt his anger and self-righteousness give way to sinking despair. He’d blown it. The very thing he never wanted to do again, he did. Why in the world was he wired up this way? Why couldn’t he just reach her, love her, win her back? She was disappearing from sight even now, becoming smaller and smaller as she hurried across the campus, and she seemed so very far away, farther than any loving arm could ever reach. He had always tried to be strong, to stand tough through life and through struggles, but right now the hurt was so bad he couldn’t keep that strength from crumbling away from him in pitiful pieces. As he watched, Sandy disappeared around a distant corner without looking back, and something broke inside him. His soul felt like it would melt, and at this moment there was no person on the face of the earth he hated more than himself.

The strength of his legs seemed to surrender under the load of his sorrow, and he sank to the steps in front of the old building, despondent.

The demon’s talons surrounded his heart and he muttered in a quivering voice, “What’s the use?”

“YAHAAAAA!” came a thundering cry from the nearby shrubs. A bluish-white light glimmered. The demon released its grip on Marshall
and bolted like a terrified fly, landing some distance away in a trembling, defensive stance, its huge yellow eyes nearly popping out of its head and a soot-black, barbed scimitar ready in its quivering hand. But then there came an unexplainable commotion behind those same bushes, some kind of struggle, and the source of the light disappeared around the corner of Stewart Hall.

The demon did not stir, but waited, listened, watched. No sound could be heard except the light breeze. The demon stalked ever so cautiously back to where Marshall still sat, went past him, and peered through the shrubbery and around the corner of the building.

Nothing.

As if held for this entire time, a long, slow breath of yellow vapor curled in lacy wisps from the demon’s nostrils. Yes, it knew what it had seen; there was no mistaking it. But why had they fled?

A SHORT DISTANCE
across the campus, but enough distance to be safe, two giant men descended to earth like glimmering, bluish-white comets, held aloft by rushing wings that swirled in a blur and burned like lightning. One of them, a huge, burly, black-bearded bull of a man, was quite angry and indignant, bellowing and making fierce gestures with a long, gleaming sword. The other was a little smaller and kept looking about with great caution, trying to get his associate to calm down.

In a graceful, fiery spiral they drifted down behind one of the college dormitories and came to rest in the cover of some overhanging willows. The moment their feet touched down, the light from their clothes and bodies began to fade and the shimmering wings gently subsided. Save for their towering stature they appeared as two ordinary men, one trim and blond, the other built like a tank, both dressed in what looked like matching tan fatigues. Golden belts had become like dark leather, their scabbards were dull copper, and the glowing, bronze bindings on their feet had become simple leather sandals.

The big fellow was ready for a discussion.

“Triskal!” he growled, but at his friend’s desperate gestures he spoke just a little softer. “What are you doing here?”

Triskal kept his hands up to keep his friend quiet.

“Shh, Guilo! The Spirit brought me here, the same as you. I arrived
yesterday.”

“You know what that was? A demon of complacency and despair if ever I saw one! If your arm hadn’t held me I could have struck him, and only once!”

“Oh, yes, Guilo, only once,” his friend agreed, “but it’s a good thing I saw you and stopped you in time. You’ve just arrived and you don’t understand—”

“What don’t I understand?”

Triskal tried to say it in a convincing manner. “We … must not fight, Guilo. Not yet. We must not resist.”

Guilo was sure his friend was mistaken. He took firm hold of Triskal’s shoulder and looked him right in the eye.

“Why should I go anywhere but to fight?” he stated. “Here I was called. Here I will fight.”

“Yes,” said Triskal, nodding furiously. “Just not yet, that’s all.”

“Then you must have orders! You
do
have orders?”

Triskal paused for effect, then said, “
Tal’s
orders.”

Guilo’s angry expression at once melted into a mixture of shock and perplexity.

DUSK WAS SETTLING
over Ashton, and the little white church on Morgan Hill was washed with the warm, rusty glow of the evening sun. Outside in the small churchyard, the church’s young pastor hurriedly mowed the lawn, hoping to be finished before mealtime. Dogs were barking in the neighborhood, people were arriving back home from work, kids were being called in for supper.

Unseen by these mortals, Guilo and Triskal came hurriedly up the hill on foot, secretive and unglorified but moving like the wind nevertheless. As they arrived in front of the church, Hank Busche came around the corner behind the roaring lawn mower, and Guilo had to pause to look him over.

“Is he the one?” he asked Triskal. “Did the call begin with him?”

“Yes,” Triskal answered, “months ago. He’s praying even now, and often walks the streets of Ashton interceding for it.”

“But … this place is so small. Why was I called? No, no, why was
Tal
called?”

Triskal only pulled at his arm. “Hurry inside.”

They passed quickly through the walls of the church and into the humble little sanctuary. Inside they found a contingent of warriors already gathered, some sitting in the pews, others standing around the platform, still others acting as sentries, looking cautiously out the stained glass windows. They were all dressed much as Triskal and Guilo, in the same tan tunics and breeches, but Guilo was immediately impressed by the imposing stature of them all; these were the mighty warriors, the powerful warriors, and more than he had ever seen gathered in one place.

He was also struck by the mood of the gathering. This moment could have been a joyful reunion of old friends except that everyone was strangely somber. As he looked around the room he recognized many whom he had fought alongside in times far past:

Nathan, the towering Arabian who fought fiercely and spoke little. It was he who had taken demons by their ankles and used them as warclubs against their fellows.

Armoth, the big African whose war cry and fierce countenance had often been enough to send the enemy fleeing before he even assailed them. Guilo and Armoth had once battled the demon lords of villages in Brazil and personally guarded a family of missionaries on their many long treks through the jungles.

Chimon, the meek European with the golden hair, who bore on his forearms the marks of a fading demon’s last blows before Chimon banished him forever into the abyss. Guilo had never met this one, but had heard of his exploits and his ability to take blows simply as a shield for others and then to rally himself to defeat untold numbers alone.

Then came the greeting of the oldest and most cherished friend. “Welcome, Guilo, the Strength of Many!”

Yes, it was indeed Tal, the Captain of the Host. It was so strange to see this mighty warrior standing in this humble little place. Guilo had seen him near the throne room of Heaven itself, in conference with none other than Michael. But here stood the same impressive figure with golden hair and ruddy complexion, intense golden eyes like fire and an unchallengeable air of authority.

Guilo approached his captain and the two of them clasped hands.

“And we are together again,” said Guilo as a thousand memories
flooded his mind. No warrior Guilo had ever seen could fight as Tal could; no demon could outmaneuver or outspeed him, no sword could parry a blow from the sword of Tal. Side by side, Guilo and his captain had vanquished demonic powers for as long as those rebels had existed, and had been companions in the Lord’s service before there had been any rebellion at all. “Greetings, my dear captain!”

Tal said by way of explanation, “It’s a serious business that brings us together again.”

Guilo searched Tal’s face. Yes, there was plenty of confidence there, and no timidity. But there was definitely a strange grimness in the eyes and mouth, and Guilo looked around the room once again. Now he could feel it, that typically silent and ominous prelude to the breaking of grim news. Yes, they all knew something he didn’t but were waiting for the appointed person, most likely Tal, to speak it.

Guilo couldn’t stand the silence, much less the suspense. “Twenty-three,” he counted, “of the very best, the most gallant, the most undefeatable … gathered now as though under siege, cowering in a flimsy fortress from a dreaded enemy?” With a dramatic flair, he drew his huge sword and cradled the blade in his free hand. “Captain Tal, who is this enemy?”

Tal answered slowly and clearly, “Rafar, the Prince of Babylon.”

All eyes were now on Guilo’s face, and his reaction was much like that of every other warrior upon hearing the news: shock, disbelief, an awkward pause to see if anyone would laugh and verify that it was only a mistake. There was no such reprieve from the truth. Everyone in the room continued to look at Guilo with the same deadly serious expression, driving the gravity of the situation home mercilessly.