“Are you all right?” I whispered.

  “Still shaken, but I will be,” she said, her cheek pressed against my chest.

  I filled them in on the events that transpired after Sue left—Rogan’s fury, Nosroch’s appearance. As I was talking, Jana kept glancing at the door.

  “Go after him,” I told her. “Maybe you can convince him I’m not the spawn of evil.”

  She hesitated, not wanting to choose between us and Rogan. I assured her it was all right.

  “I want a full explanation when I get back,” she said, closing the door behind her.

  Sue and I migrated to the sofa. I took the books—the ones Stephen and Tib brought with them, the signed copies I’d gotten from the closet—and tossed them to the floor. We huddled together, me holding Sue in my arms.

  We didn’t speak. I just held her. She was shaking.

  Later that night we sat in Sue’s office at the college, concluding it was safer here than at my apartment. Sue sat behind her desk, Jana and I in the visitor’s chairs facing her. The neutral location gave me the opportunity to get them up to date and to answer their questions. No more secrets.

  Jana listened, legs crossed, one foot tapping the air. It was a mannerism with which I was all too familiar. She did it when she was angry. I couldn’t blame her. Ever since Rogan had arrived, she’d been the odd man out. It hurt her especially that Sue had kept things from her.

  “Grant, give us a moment,” Jana said.

  While Jana and Sue leaned over the desk talking in whispers, sorting things out between them, I stood and moved to a neutral corner, taking in Sue’s office. How different it looked from when it was the professor’s office. It was neat, orderly, everything in place, the desk clean. The professor had been a stacker. Books everywhere, wedged into shelves, in piles on the floor. I remembered the day Sue and I cleaned out the office after his death. It had been a bonding moment for us.

  Jana sat back, conversation over. While it appeared they’d reached some sort of resolution, there was still a chill in the room. Jana would get over it, but knowing her, it would take time.

  “How was Rogan when you left him?” I asked, taking my seat.

  “Angry. Determined. Furious with you for highjacking him to hell.”

  “Sheol,” I corrected her.

  “His words,” Jana said, not appreciating the correction. “He’s even more furious with you for allowing yourself to be in alliance with the son of Satan. Again, his words.”

  “Lucifer is Satan,” I said, “not Noz.”

  “Not helpful, Grant,” Sue said.

  “It’s an important distinction,” I insisted. “Now more than ever. And when you say he’s determined, am I safe in my apartment?”

  In my mind I could see Rogan hiding in walls, storming out when I least expected it.

  “You know him better than I do,” Jana snapped.

  “I would speak with you, Grant Austin,” Abdiel said.

  The suddenness of his appearance startled all of us. Trust me when I say it’s never something you get used to.

  Abdiel stood over us like an angry father.

  “The professor would be disappointed in all of you,” he said. “Grant, I thought you would have learned your lesson with Belial. Nosroch is not to be trusted.”

  “He’s changed,” Sue said.

  Her defense of Nosroch surprised me—whether from recent events or out of loyalty to me, I didn’t know.

  “Rebel angels don’t change!” Abdiel thundered, his voice shaking the walls.

  “How do you know?” I said, standing. “When was the last time you talked to him?”

  “Not since before the rebellion.”

  “Maybe it’s time you got reacquainted.”

  “I have nothing to say to him.”

  “Then just listen.”

  “He has nothing to say I want to hear. A master of deception, he speaks nothing but lies. Grant, I cannot urge you strongly enough: Whatever Nosroch is telling you is a lie; have nothing to do with him. If you should see him again, speak my name and I will bring a legion of angels.”

  “Abdiel, listen to me—”

  “NO, GRANT AUSTIN, YOU LISTEN TO ME!”

  The force of his words released a pulse of energy that knocked me back into my chair, toppling it over. I found myself on the ground staring up at a very indignant angel in full glory.

  “I know Nosroch. I have witnessed his Spectacles throughout the millennia. It was Nosroch who led the Israelites to worship a golden calf while the great lawgiver Moses was receiving the commandments atop the mountain. It was Nosroch who seduced Jezebel into persecuting the prophets and establishing guilds to support the worship of Baal and Asherah in the land of Israel. It was Nosroch who loosed a legion of paranoia demons on Herod and his household that led to the murder of his wife and three sons and the slaughter of innocents. It was Nosroch who orchestrated the Sanhedrin to bring the Father’s son before Pilate and throw James from the pinnacle of the temple and club him to death. It was Nosroch who provoked the Romans to martyr Polycarp, a godly eighty-six-year-old Bishop of Smyrna and disciple of the Apostle John.

  “There is not enough time to tell you of the fear and superstition he has sowed among the peasants during the Middle Ages, or of the murderous rage he implanted in Catholic kings to slaughter Protestants, and Protestant kings to slaughter Catholics, or of the numerous incidents when he seduced individuals to commit suicide, be unfaithful to their spouses, abuse their children, commit acts of terrorism, rampage the countryside and towns in killing sprees. This is the Nosroch of whom you speak so fondly.”

  The big guy knew how to make a point, you had to give him that.

  Getting up from the floor, I stood before him on shaky legs. Sue and Jana were shaken too; I could see it in their faces.

  “Grant Austin,” Abdiel said in a more subdued tone, “in the past you have made decisions I deemed unwise, decisions that put your life in danger. Each time you managed to survive. But this time, you have gone too far. You have invited the devil into your house and are endangering not only yourself, but everyone you love.”

  His scolding subdued all of us.

  “I will take my leave,” Abdiel said. Before he did, he gave one final warning. “Grant, you once took a noble stand against Lucifer. Don’t join forces with him now.”

  Then he was gone.

  None of us spoke. Words weren’t necessary to know that each of us was questioning the wisdom of our actions, especially Sue and me.

  CHAPTER

  34

  The days following Abdiel’s tirade were dark and gloomy. That’s not a weather report, rather a description of the state of my soul on the eve of an impending Spectacle showdown.

  When we left Sue’s office, we did so with the understanding that Sue and Jana would keep their distance from me. Veterans of supernatural conflict, like all true warriors, their instincts were to engage in the fight. Jana had performed heroically on the Coronado bridge, and then again during the Laughing Jesus Spectacle. Sue had something to prove. Having bailed on me following the professor’s death, she wanted to demonstrate the same loyalty to me she had shown to him.

  While I appreciated their support, I argued that until we had a better grasp on what we were facing, it would be best for them to remain out of the line of fire.

  That didn’t mean there was nothing for them to do. With Jana taking the lead, they would go after Rogan and try to convince him that I was not a threat to him. It was a long shot, but worth a try. I know what I’m talking about when I say I’ve been on the opposing side of a determined Jana and Sue tag team.

  My goal was to avoid an Israeli Defense Forces assault long enough to ferret out Nosroch’s true intentions—Abdiel having placed serious doubts in my mind—and pray I could do both before Semyaza came knocking at my door. Proceed with caution was the order of the day.

  It would be foolish to think that Rogan would back off now. Since our trip to Sheol, he began stalking me again, surveilling my apartment, hoping I’d lead him to Nosroch.

  It didn’t help that I’d been watching videos of the Sayeret Matkal on YouTube. The researcher in me thought it would be a good idea. Know your enemy. What I learned scared me even more. Their method of operation was to strike first, strike hard, create chaos, take out the enemy. I was the enemy. I began walking randomly through the walls of my apartment, checking to see if he was there.

  In the days that followed Sue kept me up to date on Jana’s progress with Rogan. More accurately, the lack of it. He refused to see her. Diplomacy had failed.

  My life balanced precariously on a knife’s edge, looking over my shoulder, never knowing what awaited me around the next corner. Every minute I wondered who would show up first. Rogan? Semyaza? As it turned out, it was Nosroch.

  He appeared in my apartment to brief me on his upcoming Spectacle, the goal of which was to make a plea to the Father on behalf of all the repentant rebel angels. As he spoke I couldn’t help but think that the real Spectacle had already begun, back at the restaurant at 4th and Broadway, downtown San Diego, that the woman and her baby had been but a ruse to lure me out. I remembered Nosroch standing across the street. He’d paid no attention to the unfolding events, watching me the whole time. Had all of this been a plan to get me to lower my defenses, to earn my trust? To what end, I didn’t know. But I felt I was going to find out soon.

  Semyaza had played me in similar fashion twice: once by taking the form of Myles Shepherd, the other time using Belial and the Laughing Jesus Spectacle to get me to relinquish the Father’s mark of favor.

  “Grant, something’s troubling you,” Nosroch said. “You’re not paying attention. Are you having doubts about the Spectacle?”

  Actually the elements of the Spectacle, at least the parts I knew, were brilliant. More than once Semyaza had reminded me that they’ve been doing Spectacles for millennia. Nosroch’s plan indicated as much. He was a master.

  “Abdiel came to see me,” I said.

  “I see.” Nosroch folded his arms and looked at me.

  “That’s quite a resume you have.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “How could you do those things? The plotting, the intrigue, the deception, the pain and suffering, the destruction of lives, the deaths?”

  “I have always been honest with you about my past, Grant.”

  “Have you? You failed to mention one little thing. The mind-numbing, horrific details.”

  “What do you want from me, Grant? I cannot change the past.”

  “I don’t know . . . some sort of plausible explanation for why you did all those things.”

  Nosroch lowered his head in thought.

  “I was fighting for a cause,” he said. “At the time, I believed that cause was right. The actions I took were for that cause. We were at war. And as in any war, human or angel, there are terrible, unspeakable atrocities. Destruction. Misery. Death. It was the cause that drove me. But then, one day, the day you spoke in Sheol, I stopped believing. Oh, how I long for the time before the rebellion, but that can never be. But you, Grant Austin, helped me realize that while I cannot change the past, I don’t want it to be my final legacy. I choose to believe that our fate is not determined by our past. We can change it. All I have is now. And now, I choose to be the angel I once was. No longer a rebel, but faithful to the Father. What that means for the future, I do not know. What I know is this: Here I stand. I can do no other.”

  It was a moving speech. I particularly liked the ending quote from the great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther. I wanted to believe him, and probably would have, if not for one thing. As he spoke, his sword remained as black as the ace of spades.

  CHAPTER

  35

  It was S-day. The day of the Spectacle. The stakes were high, especially for Nosroch. If it worked, he and his splinter group of repentant angels would once for all make their intentions known to the Father. If it didn’t work, they would be at the mercy of Lucifer.

  That is, if what I knew of the Spectacle was his real plan.

  Nosroch’s plan was bold, risky, and downright frightening. I was having flashbacks of the heavenly battle over the Coronado bridge. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  My consolation was that this time I wasn’t the lowly Spectacle pawn; this time I was one of the architects. The initial salvo in the Spectacle was mine. For it I’d drawn my inspiration from Semyaza.

  Semyaza’s luring me to Sheol proved to be an addendum to a greater worldwide Spectacle that featured the Laughing Jesus. In this Spectacle, my part was more of a prelude to Nosroch’s plan. It targeted Rogan. By getting him a front row seat to a mass confession of faith by a splinter group of rebel angels, I thought that maybe then he would be convinced he was wrong about me and Nosroch.

  “It’s time,” Nosroch said.

  The first domino to fall would be a phone call, initiating a sequence of events that could not be stopped.

  “Here we go,” I said.

  It took four attempts, but finally Rogan answered.

  “Rogan? Grant. Don’t talk, just listen. This has to end. Meet me atop the Emerald Towers at noon. Nosroch will be there. For whatever it’s worth, you have my word that we will not leave the towers until this is resolved between us . . . all of us.”

  I ended the call and turned off the phone. I turned off my personal cell, too. I wanted no distractions.

  “Now we wait,” I said.

  Nosroch nodded, then vanished.

  Waiting is excruciating; tedious clock-watching compounded by the uncertainty of what would happen once the waiting ends. I’d considered driving to the Emerald Towers for no other reason than it would give me something to do. But there were too many potentially problematic variables. Traffic. Finding a parking space downtown. Car troubles, a very real possibility given the fact I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had an oil change. In the end I opted for the supernatural expressway, a membrane portal.

  Twice I started to go and stopped myself.

  Give him time to get there.

  By the time I left, my legs were weary from pacing.

  Pulling the membrane around me, I stepped onto the roof of the Emerald Towers. A stiff ocean breeze greeted me. Gravel crunched beneath my feet. I was the first to arrive, but I didn’t have to wait long. Nosroch joined me.

  “You look stressed, Grant,” he said.

  “Good. I’d hate to have all this anxiety with nothing to show for it.”

  Nosroch stood infuriatingly serene. He took in the view and I could only imagine what was going through his mind. It occurred to me that while he’d orchestrated countless Spectacles, this one was different. This time there was more at stake than pride over a well-crafted scheme. His destiny hung in the balance.

  The selection of the Emerald Towers was a mutual decision. The site of my stand against Lucifer, Nosroch thought it a symbolic location upon which to take his stand. Angels are big on symbolism. For me, it was a familiar battleground.

  I glanced in the direction of the bridge and Coronado, letting my gaze wander to the naval base and the angel encampment overhead. In the city below it was a normal business day—drivers waiting impatiently at traffic lights, employees, shoppers, pedestrians, tourists, all of them oblivious to the supernatural world around them. I longed to be one of them. I couldn’t remember what a normal business day felt like.

  “He should be here by now,” I said.

  “Patience, Grant,” Nosroch said. “He’ll—”

  A hand thrust out of the gravel and seized my ankle, followed by a leg sweep that knocked my feet from under me and sent me crashing onto my back, knocking the breath from me.

  “Stay down!” Rogan ordered.

  His sword appeared. He leveled it at Nosroch who levitated out of reach.

  “Not this time,” Rogan said to the angel.

  “Rogan, don’t do this,” I wheezed.

  “Grant!”

  The sound of Sue’s voice sent a chill down my spine.

  She came running from the direction of the stairway. Jana was right behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” I cried.

  Sue and Jana slowed to a stop a safe distance away, trying to make sense of what they were seeing. They both carried a clay jar.

  “Rogan said you were in danger, that you needed us,” Sue said.

  “I tried calling you, Grant,” Jana added, “but your phone’s off.”

  Strike fast. Strike hard. Surprise is everything. Controlled chaos. Rogan had acted in true Sayeret Matkal fashion. What I hadn’t foreseen was Jana and Sue. I felt like a chump.

  Rogan began making his way toward them without lowering his guard. I had no idea of their role in this. I feared more chaos.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go, Nosroch,” Rogan said. “These ladies are going to take your demons to Grant’s apartment.”

  “We will not,” Jana said with fire in her eyes. She didn’t take kindly to being deceived and she certainly didn’t take orders from former boyfriends.

  Sue looked to me.

  “Do as he says,” I told her. Anything to get them off the roof.

  Rogan’s eyes were fixed on Nosroch. “You and I are going to fight. To the victor—the one who survives—go the spoils.”

  “Your strategy is flawed,” Nosroch said. He looked at the jars. “Ashmedai, Ornasis, and Lilith, I presume. I am not their prince.”

  Prince or not, my blood pressure was pounding in my ears. The last thing this Spectacle needed was for those three demons to escape, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It made me nervous just seeing Jana and Sue so close to them.

  “If it is as you believe,” Nosroch said, “what’s to keep me from releasing them now and ordering them to attack you?”

  “It’s an option,” Rogan said. “But I’m counting on the fact that you’re a warrior and your angel pride won’t let you be bullied by a human. You’ll fight me.”

  “It appears you have it all figured out,” Nosroch said.

 

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