I was just about to climb into the car when her front door flew open. In her pink slippers, her housecoat flying open to reveal a white silk nightgown, she came running out the door with an armload of liquor bottles which she proceeded to heave at me as though they were Molotov c.o.c.ktails.

The first bottle hit the top of the car, flew inches from my head, and shattered in the street. The second bottle came straight at my head. I ducked and heard it shatter as it hit the pavement.

"Demon blood!" she shouted. "Demon blood!"

I slipped into the car for my own protection. A bottle hit the pa.s.senger side window with more force than I thought she was capable of in her condition. The window spidered.

My mother's yelling brought several neighbors out of their houses. She threw the last bottle. It skipped across the hood of the car.

The woman directly across the street, seeing my mother standing in her front yard screaming at me, shouted for someone inside to call the police, then ran to my mother and took her by the shoulders. But it was clear my mother wouldn't be consoled until she could no longer see me.

With the words demon blood ringing in my ears, I drove away.

CHAPTER 20.

Memo to self: Don't ask questions if you don't want to know the answers.

My mother's voice shouting two words-demon blood-echoed in my head.

Navigating the late morning, downtown traffic, I returned to the hotel thinking I'd wallow in self-pity until lunch, then call Jana and hold her to her end of the agreement. I had read the professor's ma.n.u.script and had kept the meeting. Now I had a president to save.

With the professor's ma.n.u.script tucked under my arm, I slipped the key card into my hotel door and stepped into my room to find it occupied.

"What are you doing here?" I said. "I guess I don't have to ask how you got in."

Seated comfortably at the table in the corner was the professor's friend Abdiel.

"I thought you didn't want to talk to me."

"I don't." He didn't get up.

"Then why are you here?"

"Orders."

"Orders? Someone ordered you to talk to me?"

"My superiors."

For some reason that struck me as funny. I laughed.

I laughed alone. Whoever or whatever he was, Abdiel sat on the room side of the round table within arm's reach of my unmade bed. He'd turned the chair toward the door waiting for me. How long was anyone's guess. If he really was a member of some sort of supernatural extradimensional alien race, he'd probably appeared the moment I slipped the key card into the slot.

"Is Abdiel your last name?" I said. "What's your first? Ed? Ed Abdiel. Has a ring to it, don't you think?"

My sarcasm generator had switched into overdrive, which meant I was afraid.

He sat there straight-backed, in tan pants with the sharpest crease I'd ever seen, and a pale yellow, short-sleeved dress shirt. A ma.s.sive neck bulged from the collar and muscular arms stretched down to the largest hands I'd ever seen which rested on the tops of his legs. His eyes were pale blue and his complexion nicely tanned.

Apparently he was waiting for me to run out of sarcastic comments. He'd have to wait a long time. I was blessed with a lifetime supply.

I tossed the professor's ma.n.u.script at his feet. "Is that your handiwork? Did you dictate that to the professor?"

He bent down and picked it up. He examined it, then placed it on the table behind him. "Yes," he said.

"And you expect me to believe that the events you described actually happened? That you are a veteran of a war in heaven?"

"I don't expect you to believe anything, nor am I here to convince you."

Folding my arms, I remained standing. I felt looking down on him gave me an advantage. To put it in Washington terms, I was in the power position. "Then why are you here?" I asked. "Exactly what are your orders?"

"You have questions."

"The understatement of the century. How long do you have?"

"An eternity."

I laughed. He had a sense of humor after all, you had to give him that.

"All right," I said. "Let's start with a simple one. Is the professor correct? Am I part angel?"

"Yes."

The bluntness of his answer hit me harder than I wanted to admit, hard enough to knock me out of the power position. I sat on the bed.

They were all in agreement. The professor. My mother. Now Mr. Eternity here. The whole universe seemed to know that I was part angel. But I knew that wasn't true; some of the backwater planets hadn't gotten the news yet.

"All right . . ." I said. I nodded. Then nodded again. I was sucking air. "All right . . . all right . . ."

This was going to take a while to sink in.

"All right . . . um, next question . . ."

The door latch rattled. The door opened. "Housekeeping . . ." A maid entered, her arms full of bedding. She was barely five feet tall, with a face that had seen a hard life.

She hadn't expected anyone to be in the room because when she looked up and saw us . . .

Saw me.

Abdiel had disappeared.

"Sorry, senor," she said. "I will . . ." She motioned to the hallway.

"Give us . . . um, me . . ." I glanced at the empty table. ". . . about an hour."

Looking at the floor and backing out, she said, "I come back in hour."

The door closed.

Abdiel was back in his chair as though he'd been there the entire time. His little disappearing trick was unnerving.

"Isn't that always the way?" I said. "Every time you're interviewing an angel, the maid interrupts."

"Calynda is a good woman," Abdiel said. "She works two jobs. Here and at a diner on Fifth Avenue. Did you notice her eyes? She's worried about her two-year-old daughter, Nuria, who woke up last night with a fever. Calynda didn't want to leave her, but she needs the money."

I cut him off with an upraised hand. "I get it," I said. "No need to flash your credentials."

Abdiel looked at me with the expression of a disapproving schoolmaster. "Believe me, if I flashed anything, you'd know it."

A dozen quips like puppies in a box wanted to escape past my lips. I regret it now, but I swallowed them and returned to the subject at hand. "Question," I said. "My grandfather, Grandpa Tall. Was he an angel?"

"Yes and no."

"That's it? Yes and no? Would you care to elaborate?"

"I don't care to do any of this. As I informed you, I am here only because-"

"I know . . . I know . . . you were ordered to talk to me. So talk. Tell me about my grandfather."

"Yes, your grandfather is an angel. No, Ulysses William Austin was not an angel, nor was he your paternal grandfather. Reality is not what you think it is."

"That's what everyone keeps telling me. So what is the reality of my birthright?"

"It was born of scandal."

"Makes sense. Hollywood is the scandal capital of the world."

"Not even close," Abdiel said. He didn't elaborate. "You know about the fame of your grandmother."

I nodded. "Gigi Beaumont. Real name, Denise Garrett. Movie star. Gorgeous, if her publicity photos are to be believed. Witty. Talented. Would have eclipsed Esther Williams had she not died tragically soon after giving birth to my father."

"Do you know the details of her death?"

"She died in an . . ." The next words caught in my throat. ". . . in an automobile accident."

"They like the convenience of car accidents to cover their tracks."

I narrated the incident by rote just as it had been handed down to me. "She attended a Hollywood party. Got tipsy. On her way home, she lost control of the car and drove over a cliff into a Hollywood ravine."

"That part is correct."

Abdiel sounded like a schoolmaster evaluating an a.s.signed lesson. Didn't he realize this was my life we were talking about?

I continued. "The way I heard it, Grandpa Tall took her death hard. He isolated himself in a cabin, got drunk, and blew his head off with a shotgun."

"That part is only partially correct."

"Enlighten me," I snapped, irritated by his att.i.tude.

"Ulysses Austin did indeed take his own life, but only after learning he was not the father of his wife's child. The father was Azazel."

"Azazel. Sounds like an angel name."

"It is. However, the world knew him as Jerry Thoms."

"Never heard of him."

"He was the insurance commissioner for the state of California."

"Insurance commissioner? You're kidding, right? An angel was the state's insurance commissioner."

"Powerful position, low profile. Perfect for their purposes."

"OK. So how did he and my grandmother . . . you know, hook up?"

Was I mistaken, or did Abdiel pause and take a deep breath? "During the rebellion, Azazel sided with Lucifer and was driven from his place in the heavenlies. On earth, he became a Watcher and, like many of them did, developed a l.u.s.t for human women. His l.u.s.t, dormant for centuries, was rekindled when Lucifer's forces infiltrated California. Azazel rose to the position of insurance commissioner and, as such, mingled with California's elite. At a Hollywood party he seduced a rising young starlet named Gigi Beaumont. When that seduction produced a male child, the news was kept secret from all but a select few. For decades, not even Lucifer knew."

"Lucifer's minions keep secrets from him? I didn't know that was possible."

"You have much to learn of the angelic order."

"I understand this much: You're saying that my father was the love child of an insurance commissioner and a starlet?"

"That is correct."

"Did he know?"

"Yes. Azazel revealed himself to your father."

"He didn't take it well, did he?"

"No. Your mother took the news even worse. She did not know she had married a Nephilim, nor did she know-"

"Nephilim?"

"The offspring of a son of G.o.d and a daughter of man."

"So I'm a Nephilim?"

"You're unique. The first of your kind. You are only one-quarter angel. There has never been a being like you."