Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II (17 page)

I really wanted to do this. Maybe the incentive would be the edge I needed. I stared and focused and gazed until Jana became uncomfortable with my looking at her. I had to admit I couldn’t do it.

“Teleportation,” Sue said, pulling attention away from my failure. “This is going to be a two-step lesson. First, we want to see if you can move through the usual four dimensions—forward, back; side to side; up, down; and time.”

“Easy,” I said. “I’ve been doing that all my life.”

“Keep it up, chuckles,” Sue replied. “We’ll see if you’re still laughing when Abdiel shoves you through that wall.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Then, if you can move through matter, we’ll see if you can take it one step further by moving through the membranes that separate dimensions. It’s called degrees of freedom.”

“How many dimensions are there?” Jana asked.

“Eleven. Maybe more,” Sue said, looking to Abdiel. The question presented a unique opportunity. She had a chance to go where no physicist had gone before. Standing in front of her was a being who had assisted in the construction of the universe.

“You have sufficient information to proceed,” he told her.

“Is this going to hurt?” I asked.

Sue shrugged. “We’re going to find out.”

“Great.”

“What do you hope to achieve by moving Grant through other dimensions?” Jana asked. She was furiously taking notes.

“Theoretically, it will allow him to move in and out of our space and time. He’ll be able to travel anywhere in the world instantaneously.” To me, “That’s faster than riding on a light beam.”

“Theoretically?” Jana said. “Certainly Abdiel knows whether or not it’s possible.”

Abdiel offered no reply.

“Of course he does,” the professor said. “But the Father has established guidelines to his participation. We must proceed according to our own knowledge and faith like everyone else.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I want to get one thing clear. If Sue—and I mean no offense, I think you’re brilliant—leads me to the edge of some cosmic cliff and tells me to step off, Abdiel will stop me. Right?”

“I will not,” Abdiel said.

“Oh…well…as long as we’re clear about that,” I said.

“I trust Abdiel,” the professor said.

Of course you trust him,
I thought.
He wouldn’t let you go over a cliff. Me, he’d push.

“Maybe it will help if you understand a little more about what you’re going to do,” Sue said. “Question. In space, what is there more of than anything else?”

An oral science quiz. I hated oral quizzes.

“More than anything else—” I said, buying time. “Um—emptiness.”

Sue smiled. “Correct. There is more space in space than anything else. That is true among the stars
and
on the particle level. For example, if we were to construct a model of an atom on a football field, the nucleus would be the size of an orange. If we set the nucleus on the fifty-yard line, the electrons would be peas circling in the end zones. Everything in between is empty space.”

“—peas in end zones,” Jana said, writing it down.

Sue stood and moved to the wall that separated the living room from the hall. “And of course you know that everything is made of atoms, so things appear solid”—she rapped the wall with her knuckles—“but they aren’t really solid at all.”

It sounded solid to me.

“Now, theoretically,” she said, “if a person were to bump into this wall often enough, there would come a time when everything would line up and he’d pass right through it.”

“Is that true?” Jana looked up from her notes. “How many times would he have to bump into it for that to happen?”

“A million. Maybe a billion,” Sue replied.

“You want me to bump into the wall a billion times?”

“I’ll be there to help you,” Abdiel said.

“I bet you will!” I replied.

“Grant, don’t forget, you’re different,” Sue said. “It’s nothing for an angel to pass through a wall.”

Abdiel demonstrated. He stepped through the wall as if it were smoke. A moment later, he stepped back into the living room.

It looked easy. That’s what scared me.

“How do I do it?” I asked.

Sue shrugged. “That, I can’t tell you.”

Trial and error. And his errors will kill him.
Wasn’t that what Abdiel had said?

“Why don’t we start with the assumption that it’s a process similar to seeing angels,” Sue suggested. “Try tapping into your angel side.”

“It’s as easy as seeing swords,” Abdiel said.

Sue pulled me to the wall and had me face it, with my toes touching the floorboard. An inch of space separated my nose from the wall. The last time I had stood this close to a wall I was in time-out for writing on the carpet with an ink pen.

“Think expansively, Grant,” Sue said. “The air separating you from the wall is no different from the wall itself. As easily as you pass through the air, you can pass through the wall.”

I felt someone behind me.

“Abdiel is going to help you,” Sue said.

Massive hands fell on my shoulders.

I tried to relax as I had in the Jerusalem hotel, let my eyes go unfocused, look past the—

“Ow!”

Abdiel banged my forehead against the wall.

“Don’t push!” I said.

My forehead hit the wall again. And again.

“He can’t do it,” Abdiel said.

“Maybe you should wait until he’s ready,” Sue said.

Thunk.

“Ow!”

“If he could do it, he’d do it,” Abdiel said.

Thunk.

I jerked out of his grip.

“Grant, were you trying?” the professor asked, doing his best not to laugh.

“I don’t know if I was ready.”

“There’s nothing to get ready,” Abdiel said.

“Why don’t you try again?” Sue urged. “This time, we could count. Three, two, one.”

“Counting won’t help,” Abdiel said. “Either he can do it, or he can’t.”

“Grant, give it another go,” the professor said.

“Maybe this will work,” Abdiel said.

He stepped through the wall. A moment later a huge angel fist came out of the wall, grabbed the front of my shirt, and yanked. The next thing I knew I was standing in the hallway with an angel.

Incredulous cheers came from the living room.

I looked back at the wall in disbelief. I did it! I actually passed through the wall! And I didn’t feel a thing. Abdiel turned me around for the return journey.

Thunk.
My forehead hit the wall.

“Hey!”

“It doesn’t seem to work this way, does it?” Abdiel said.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

“Ow! Stop it! That hurts!”

Abdiel stepped through the wall, pulling me with him. We emerged on the living-room side as easily as if we’d walked through the doorway.

Jana and Sue were on their feet clapping. The professor was beaming. I rubbed my forehead and felt a headache coming on.

“Grant, that was amazing!” Jana said. “What was it like?”

“Like Sue said. It was like stepping through air.”

I glanced back at the wall, still not believing that I’d walked through it.

“Stepping from one degree of freedom to another will be more difficult,” Sue said. “The membranes between dimensions are tricky things.”

“Maybe I should try the wall a few more times,” I said.

Abdiel had stepped across the room just inside the front door. “The membrane is thinnest here,” he said, looking at something none of the rest of us could see.

He took a step and vanished.

I had to admit he had my attention. Was it really possible that I could cross dimensions? Why not? A moment ago I didn’t think I could step through a wall, but I did.

Standing where Abdiel had stood just before he vanished, I tried to see what he had seen. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. A portal? A transparent skinlike substance? Was it flat, or did it undulate?

I tested the air with the flat of my hand.

“Do you see something, Grant?” Sue said.

I said, “Maybe it’s my imagination, but—”

An angel hand thrust out of thin air, grabbed my shirt, and pulled me in. The last thing I remember before blacking out was hearing my own screams.

“Grant? Grant?”

My eyes fluttered open. When they focused, I was looking up at a huddle of faces.

“What happened?” I asked, as the faces blurred.

“Stay with us, Grant,” the professor said.

“You blinked out,” Jana said.

“Blinked out?”

“Disappeared, but only for a moment,” Sue said. “Abdiel brought you right back.”

“It’s his physical self that resists the crossing,” Abdiel said.

Resists
was an understatement. It felt as though someone had tried to shove me through a sieve. Every inch of me felt burned and violated.

“That’s enough for one day,” the professor said.

He heard no objections from me. I didn’t think I’d survive a second attempt.

“Wait…wait…” I cried.

“What is it, Grant?” Sue asked.

I laughed in triumph. “I see swords!”

It was true. Abdiel’s sword shimmered gold. Jana’s sword was similar to Sue’s, only lavender. A formidable silver broadsword lay across the professor’s lap.

My sword. What did my sword look like?

I raised my head. Blinked. The swords vanished before I had a chance to see mine.

T
he professor hunched over his home office computer, sliding the mouse, clicking and dragging files. The room was larger than his office at the college but no less cluttered. Bulging bookshelves and floor-space filing was an occupational hazard.

He heard tapping on his door and looked up. Sue Ling poked her head in. Seeing he was alone, she entered the room, her purse slung over her arm.

“You’re finished?” she asked.

“Abdiel left rather abruptly. You know how he can be at times, like a caged bird.” The professor sat back and raised his arms over his head and stretched. “But he stayed long enough to finish.”

“I’m going to the market. Do you need anything?”

“We’re low on breakfast cereal.”

“I have it on the list.”

The professor’s mind wandered back to the computer screen.

“I shouldn’t be long,” Sue said.

A moment later he heard the front door closing.

Inserting a memory stick labeled Grant Austin into a port, the professor transferred a large file. He then opened his email program and set the mouse to work again, clicking and dragging.

He heard the front door open.

“Sue!” he said. “I’m glad you came back. Get me some jelly beans, will you?”

“Aren’t you a little old to be eating jelly beans? Do you know what they do to your teeth?”

The voice beside him startled him.

As accustomed as the professor was to having Abdiel pop in and out at all hours of the day and night, the sudden appearance of an angel never grew ordinary, especially if he was a stranger.

The angel looked over the professor’s shoulder at the screen. “You’ve finished, I see. Abdiel was foolish to narrate our history to you. Had the Father wanted you to know it, he would have whispered it in some lonely apostle’s ear.”

The professor made one last mouse click, then wheeled himself back from the desk. He took a good look at the angel standing before him. “I suppose there’s something poetic about Lucifer sending you to kill me.”

“Irony adds a touch of beauty to death, don’t you think?” Semyaza said. “Where’s that muscle-brained bodyguard of yours? It’s not like him to leave you unguarded.”

“Abdiel still loves you, you know,” the professor said.

Semyaza grinned slyly. “Is that the best you’ve got? Your sentimental darts have no effect on me. I know of Abdiel’s feelings. I use them to my advantage.” The rebel angel ambled through the room. “Lovely décor. Twenty-first-century packrat, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You know that by killing me you’ll only make me stronger,” the professor said. “I couldn’t begin to count the nights I’ve prayed for liberation from this blasted wheelchair.” He chuckled. “That makes you an answer to my prayers, doesn’t it?”

Semyaza turned on his heel. “Your insults will only make it harder for you.”

The professor tossed his head back and laughed. He laughed until tears ran. “O blessed angel, O blessed day! Today I will see my Nora and Jenny and Terri again!”

“A lot of suffering still separates you from them!” Semyaza shouted in anger.

“With every passing second I am closer to see them again!”

“It is I who killed them,” Semyaza said. “Theirs were sudden, but painful deaths.”

“I know. When I saw a picture of you as Myles Shepherd, I recognized you from the scene of the accident. And oh, praise God, it is you who will reunite us!”

“Do not underestimate the pain you are about to suffer,” Semyaza seethed.

“It will seem but a moment,” the professor replied. He became serious. “And know this. Once I am free from this straitjacket of a body, once I have been liberated from the chains of this chair, I will fight you and I will not rest until the day of judgment when you and all the other apostles of hate are punished for the pain and suffering you have inflicted upon the world.”

“You would challenge me?” Semyaza laughed.

The professor reflected a moment. “But why release me now, when it is you who imprisoned me in this chair in the first place? Unless—”

The professor’s eyes widened in realization. “Grant! You’re killing me to hurt him. He’s stronger than you give him credit for. But then you know that, don’t you? Grant Austin scares you.”

Semyaza walked to the door. He motioned to someone in the other room. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of Job’s children.”

Two men walked in. Biker types. Shirts with no sleeves. Tattoos. Looping chains. One had a nose that zigzagged down his face, a testimony to his fighting nature. His buddy pushed on a pair of brass knuckles.

“These must be the Sabeans and Chaldeans,” the professor said.

“On occasion we have found it beneficial to employ local talent,” Semyaza said with a grin.

The thugs wasted no time, nor did they show any conscience about beating a man in a wheelchair. They pummeled the professor’s face until it was swollen and unrecognizable. Then they lifted him out of the chair and took turns holding him up while the other punched him like he would a workout bag in a gym.

“Where is your loving God now?” Semyaza taunted. “Cry out to him to save you. He won’t, of course.”

Through swollen lips and broken teeth, Professor J. P. Forsythe said, “Blessed Father, Almighty God, You alone are worthy of praise.”

This infuriated Semyaza. “Your praise falls on deaf ears, old man! Could you stand by and watch someone you love being beaten to death and do nothing? Is your love greater than God’s? Or could it be he doesn’t love you as you suppose?” Semyaza yelled heavenward. “If you love him, stay the hands of the men who strike him! That is, if you can.”

The thugs grunted with each blow.

Semyaza leaned close to the professor. He sneered, “You would put your faith in a God who refuses to save you?”

Through swollen eyes the professor met Semyaza’s gaze. “Though He slay me Himself, yet will I trust Him.”

Semyaza stepped back and levitated into the air. He grew to twice his normal size. The room grew dark as he sucked the light out of it. Colors peeled off books and walls and pictures and were absorbed by him. A wind blasted from his chest and circled the room, knocking frames from the walls and books from shelves and tossing papers into the air like frightened pigeons.

The two toughs stopped their assault and stared at him in horror. They dropped the professor into a heap and fled the house.

Semyaza continued to drain the room of light and color until he pulsed with radiance. Looking down at the professor, he taunted, “I am Semyaza. Tremble before me!”

The walls trembled at his voice. The circling wind began to howl a deafening banshee howl.

Crumpled on the floor like a pile of laundry, Professor Forsythe looked upon the counterfeit radiance. Then he looked past it, and genuine glory illuminated his face.

With whispered words so soft that not even he could hear them, he said, “Nora, darling, tell the girls Daddy’s coming home.”

I was at my keyboard and I was in the zone. My fingers were on fire. The screen was scrolling. The pages were flying out of me.

I’d reached the point in the story where I went to Montana to track down Doc Palmer. They’d told me he was dead, but I’d found him very much alive and none too eager to entertain visitors from D.C. I’d gotten to the part where he had me jump into a garbage pit to retrieve a copy of my book when my cell phone rang.

The ring tone indicated it was Jana.

I let it ring. I didn’t want anything breaking the spell. After five cycles the phone stopped ringing. It was the right choice. She would leave a message, and I’d get back to her in a while.

I turned my attention back to Montana.
I’m standing in a garbage pit. I have eggshells and coffee grounds on my bare feet.

The cell phone rang again. Jana again. This time I answered it.

“Grant, what’s the professor’s address?” she blurted.

“You’re a little young for Alzheimer’s, aren’t you?” I joked. “You know where his house is. You’ve been there a hundred times.”

“I know it’s on Landis. What’s the address?”

The urgency in her voice was a splash of cold water.

“Um—I don’t know,” I said, struggling to remember it. “Who pays attention after—”

“Three-one-nine-eight. Is that it?”

I could hear a police scanner crackling in the background. “I…I…don’t know for sure. I know it’s near—”

“Do you know where Sue is? I can’t reach her.”

“You’ve tried her cell? Of course you’ve tried her cell.”

“It’s turned off. Grant, you’d better get over there.”

The panic in Jana’s voice was alarm enough to get me moving. I had seen this woman stand on a bridge that was being strafed by FA-18 Hornets and remain calm.

I ran into my bedroom to get my keys. They weren’t on the dresser. I always put them on the dresser. I checked my pockets. Not there. Not on the desk either. I found them on the kitchen counter but still couldn’t remember putting them there.

Bounding out the door, I wished I knew how to find a dimensional membrane. Pain or no pain, I’d have used it to teleport to the professor’s house.

Police. Fire. Ambulance. Jana and the news crew. All were there when I arrived. The only thing that wasn’t there was the professor’s house.

It was leveled. Had it not been for the rubble of what had once been a family dwelling, it would have looked like a vacant lot.

Jumping out of my car, I sprinted toward the scene. Police warned me off.

“Was anybody in the house?” I called to anybody who would listen.

Nobody knew. Or if they knew, they weren’t saying.

I found Jana standing in front of the news van with a group of onlookers. They were showing her something. When she saw me coming, she broke away to intercept me.

“Oh, Grant, I’m so sorry.” She flung her arms around me.

“The professor? Sue Ling? Tell me they weren’t—”

“They found one body,” she said, weeping.

I followed her glance to an ambulance. Emergency personnel were loading a black body bag strapped to a stretcher into the back of the ambulance.

“The professor,” Jana said.

“Sue Ling? Have you found her yet?”

Jana’s tears told me she hadn’t.

We held each other for a long time. Neither of us wanted to let go because we knew that when we did we would have to face the awful truth. As long as we held each other, there was at least hope that Sue Ling was still alive.

“Ms. Torres, do you want my video or not? If you don’t want it, Channel Six has offered to buy it.”

It was one of the men she’d been standing with when I arrived.

“Of course we want it,” Jana said, shrugging off her personal feelings. “Grant, take a look at this. You’re going to see it eventually anyway. Brace yourself.”

She instructed the man to show the clip to me. He held up a camcorder with a viewing screen and pressed the
PLAY
button.

The video began with a three-year-old boy swatting at a ball with one of those Flintstone-sized plastic baseball bats. An off-camera female voice went from yelling encouragements to the batter to—

“Jeff! Jeff! Look at that!”

The picture on the screen dipped to show grass, then raised to an overcast sky that was beginning to swirl.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” the female voice said.

A pause, then, “Sybil, get Mikey into the house.”

“What? You don’t think it’s a—”

“Get Mikey into the house!” the cameraman screamed, shaking the camera. “Into the bathtub. Pull a mattress over you.”

A blurred head passed in front of the camera, coaxing Mikey to put down the bat. “I’m taking him to Mother’s,” the female voice said.

“There’s no time.”

“You’re crazy if you think—”

“Don’t argue with me, Sybil! Get into the tub! Now!”

Off camera, Mikey was crying. His mother consoled him, her voice fading until the slam of a screen door cut it off altogether.

Standing next to Jana, Jeff the cameraman said, “I almost ran at this point.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jana asked.

“The video. Crazy, isn’t it? All I could think was that if I stayed and got the shot, maybe I could win one of those family video show awards, you know? Here’s where it gets hairy—”

A funnel formed in the clouds and slithered earthward, as though someone had summoned it. The instant it touched the roof of his neighbor’s house, the structure exploded. The view on the video screen went wild as the cameraman ducked, cursed, ran, then framed the scene again. Debris filled the air hundreds of feet high.

“Would you look at that?” Jeff’s camera voice said. “I don’t believe it.”

The video recorded the funnel retracting into the clouds. The screen went blank.

Jeff lowered the camera. “Is that prime-time news video, or what? How much do you think I’ll get for it?”

“The producer makes those decisions,” Jana said.