"What brings you to California?"

"I'm a graduate of Singing Hills High School. I came back to speak at an a.s.sembly."

"That explains all the news trucks on Madison Avenue yesterday. It made me late for cla.s.s." He set my book in his lap and folded his hands on top of it. "So, Mr. Austin, describe this encounter you had. When did it happen?"

"You believe me?"

"Let's just say I'm being polite. I don't know what you're up to, but you don't strike me as a man of guile. And, quite frankly, Mr. Austin, you intrigue me. I've never seen people take such an instant dislike to anyone like they do you."

"Do you know of any good Dale Carnegie courses?" I deadpanned.

"The encounter. When did it take place?"

"Yesterday. Following the a.s.sembly."

"Where?"

"At the high school."

The professor's eyebrows arched.

"In a teacher's office."

He laughed. "That's where you heard the chorus of voices, in a high school teacher's office? Are you acquainted with the teacher?"

"We were high school rivals."

"And did he or she also hear the voice?"

I hesitated. "Not exactly."

How far was I willing to go with this? If word got out the president's biographer was hallucinating in California or consorting with gargoyle spirits, it was all over for me. The tabloids would eat it up.

To his credit, the professor respected my hesitation. He didn't press me.

"I went to his office to gloat," I said.

As concisely as possible I narrated my history with Myles Shepherd and described how he tried to claim credit for my book's success, which prompted the professor to examine it for a third time.

"Is that when he told you to tremble before him?" the professor asked.

He sensed there was more. I could see it in his eyes. Somehow knowing that made the telling easier.

I told him how the light from the cla.s.sroom stopped at the office threshold; how I was rendered immobile; about the gargoyle things in the corner; how the room trembled and Myles Shepherd changed into a being of incredible light, all at once wondrous, then painfully draining; how the gargoyle things plunged into me; and how it all climaxed with the thunderous command to tremble before Semyaza.

Throughout the narration, the professor remained solemn. Stoic.

I described what it was like sitting in the parking lot, the muddy colors and nauseating odors. It surprised me how easily it all came out once I started, and how relieved I was to be able to tell someone. I told him everything. Everything except the part about the plot to kill the president. I left that out. I'm not sure why, it just seemed the right thing to do.

With a toss of my hands I signaled the end of my tale. He said nothing at first, just stared thoughtfully out the window at the desert garden. When he spoke, it was as though he dredged up his voice from a deep pit.

"A hideous beauty," he said.

His response was so unexpected, I didn't catch it the first time. He repeated it for me.

"A hideous beauty. Wondrously alluring. Incredibly evil."

"That's it!" I cried. "That's it exactly!" A sense of relief washed over me. He not only believed me, he understood!

"Where is he now?" the professor asked.

"Myles? Well, actually . . . he's dead. Killed this morning in an accident on the freeway."

The professor's jaw clenched. His hands balled into fists. "No," he said. "He's not dead."

"I saw the car, Professor. The charred body. It was him. You have to know Myles, he's not the sort of guy who would loan his car to-"

"That wasn't him," the professor snapped. "Believe me, he was not killed in that car." Anger flashed in his eyes. So strong was his reaction, it took him a moment to fight it back.

My book hit the table with a thud.

"Why you?" he said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why you? What aren't you telling me?"

The question hit me hard. How did he know I was holding something back?

The book lay between us.

He was an intelligent man. He could see that this wasn't about a freelance writer. This was about the president. It was a logical conclusion.

But matters of national security were not something to be taken lightly. Telling a theology professor about an a.s.sa.s.sination plot against the president of the United States before warning the president himself didn't seem wise. Then again, I'd come this far. Maybe he could help me understand how Semyaza fit into the plot.

I decided to take a chance on him. "He told me my work wasn't finished. That I was to write one final chapter. A chapter that would record the president's a.s.sa.s.sination."

The professor nodded an emotionless nod. Did nothing alarm this man?

He released the brakes on his wheelchair. "Mr. Austin, I suggest you find yourself a very big hole and hide in it."

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 a.s.sume you've contacted them and warned them about the plot."

"I've made several calls."

"And I further a.s.sume 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. .h.i.t 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 cla.s.ses 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 gla.s.s doors that opened to a wing of cla.s.srooms. I knew once he got inside I'd lose him to his cla.s.s.

"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 cla.s.s 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 n.o.body'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 cla.s.srooms. 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 pa.s.sed 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.