I sat on one of the concrete benches. "But I don't see that I have a choice," I added. "I didn't go looking for this. It came to me."

"That's the puzzle, isn't it?" The professor's eyes squinted at me. "Why you?"

I avoided his gaze. "That's the second time you've asked that question. I'm trying not to take it personally."

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"I want you to tell me everything."

He laughed. "That would take months, if not years."

"Then tell me about Semyaza."

He took a sharp intake of breath. "I'll make you a deal," he said. "Question for question. I answer one of yours. You answer one of mine."

"Fair enough. Who's Semyaza?"

"He's an angel. My turn. When you said-"

"Wait, wait, wait . . ." I protested. "I want more than a three-word answer."

"To what end? You've already demonstrated a familiarity with sources that identify Semyaza. Do you want me to repeat what you already know? All right, he's a Seraph angel who is in league with Lucifer in the war against G.o.d. He has two hundred angels under his command, divided into groups of ten."

"But he's a myth, right? Like Zeus and Hermes, and all the other residents of Olympus. You speak of him as though he's real."

"Of course he's real. My turn."

"Why does he scare you?" I blurted.

The professor shook his head. "That's an entirely different question. You'll have to wait your turn. How long have you known this man Shepherd you were telling me about?"

"Myles Shepherd? Since we were freshmen in high school."

"He attended school with you, the entire four years? What about after that? Have you had regular contact with him since high school?"

I started to object. The professor antic.i.p.ated my objection.

"It's not a second question. I'm asking for a clarification. The original question remains, How long have you known him?"

"All right . . . Yes, he attended high school with me the entire four years. Until yesterday, I hadn't seen him since graduation, but I did follow his career. Newspaper articles, things like that. He was California Teacher of the Year."

"Amazing . . ." the professor mused. His brow furrowed. My answer apparently perplexed him.

"My turn," I said. "Why does Semyaza scare you?"

One of the professor's hands sought the other one out, as though to comfort it. "Among angels there is a hierarchy of power," he said. "Semyaza ranks near the top, though it's unclear how near, possibly second only to Lucifer. If indeed he is anywhere close to this region, it's not good . . . not good at all. It would mean that something truly horrific is about to happen."

A sense of foreboding came over me, an unsettled feeling that a dark cloud was parking over my life.

"My turn," the professor said. "Tell me about your parents. Do they still live in the area?"

I frowned, wishing I'd had the foresight to restrict the questions to nonpersonal subjects. I didn't want to tell him about my parents. But a deal was a deal. "My mother does. We're not close. My father died when I was three years old." I fell silent. I answered his question, or so I thought. He apparently didn't agree.

"And . . . ?" he prompted.

"Professor, what does this have to do with-"

"Answer the question. Tell me about your parents. How did your father die?"

"Suicide."

"Oh . . . I'm sorry."

His apology wasn't your standard gift-store variety apology, the kind you accept and discard. Heartfelt compa.s.sion filled his eyes. For some reason it surprised me. I didn't know exactly what to do with it.

"Um . . . thanks . . . yeah, well, my mother blamed me for his death. I don't know why. All I know is that she never forgave him and she took it out on me."

"What did your father do for a living?"

I shrugged. "Don't really know. I think he tried to produce some films. None of them ever made it to the screen. He inherited money. His mother, my grandmother, was Gigi Beaumont . . ."

Whenever I speak of my grandmother, I always pause at this point, to see if anyone recognizes her. She was big in her day, but now only old people remember her, and even then they need a little prompting.

The professor didn't appear to recognize her, so I told him about her. "She was an actress. She made several films in the late forties, early fifties, with Ricardo Montalban, Fernando Lamas, Cyd Charisse . . ."

Now the professor's eyes lit with recognition. He recognized those names. Everybody did.

"She started out as a swimmer. Swam with Esther Williams . . ." I named some of her better-known films. "On an Island with You . . . Neptune's Daughter . . . Dangerous When Wet."

The professor had not seen any of them. I should have known. When those films were made he probably had his nose buried in a systematic theology text.

"My turn to ask a question," I said. "You're obviously an intelligent man, well schooled, articulate, respected . . ."

The professor laughed. "With a lead-up like this, you must have one doozy of a question."

". . . do you believe in angels?"

"You obviously don't," he replied.

"I'm willing to admit that there's a lot we don't know about this universe, that there might be life on other planets, and that they may have at some time in the past visited earth, giving rise to stories of supernatural visitations from heaven, but really, Professor-angels?"

"They obviously believe in you," he replied.

I must have rolled my eyes or given some other sign of exasperation because the professor's teaching finger appeared. "Hear me out," he said. "I have a point to make. Do you believe in the terrorist threat al Qaeda presents?"

"It's not your turn to ask-"

"Just answer my question. Do you believe that al Qaeda presents a credible threat to you as a United States citizen?"

"I'd be a fool not to."

"Have you ever met a member of al Qaeda?"

"Personally? No."

"Neither have I. What if I were to tell you that I don't believe al Qaeda exists . . . that I'm convinced al Qaeda is a myth, fabricated by our current administration to distract us from problem issues at home."

"All right . . . I'll play," I said. After a moment or two of thought, I answered. "I'd say that's exactly what al Qaeda would want you to believe. If they can get enough people to believe they are not a credible threat, better yet, that they don't even exist, it gives them greater freedom to carry out their attacks. But Professor, surely you're not saying that angels are-"

The professor leaned forward and spoke in earnest. "The real battle is spiritual, Mr. Austin. Everyday forces we cannot see influence our thoughts, our lives, our world." He paused to judge my reaction before continuing. "This isn't the world you think it is, Mr. Austin. Our borders are being breached by a hostile unseen force. There are no government funds to stop them. Homeland Security doesn't acknowledge they exist. Metal detectors are useless against them. Yet hundreds, possibly thousands, of enemy agents cross our borders every day.

"They're dedicated, insidious soldiers of destruction from a supernatural realm. They move among us virtually undetected. For millennia they have acted as sleeper agents, living among us, influencing human history."

You can't stop us. We've been doing this for millennia.

"The original war between good and evil never ended, Mr. Austin, and in these last days the battle is gaining momentum, and you can believe that our friend Semyaza will play a key role. We can expect fresh a.s.saults. Whether you choose to recognize the threat is irrelevant. Believing they don't exist doesn't make the threat any less real."

I had to give him this: He believed what he was saying. But I wasn't buying it. "Professor, I attended Sunday school. I've seen the pictures of angels and Joseph and Mary-"

He cut me off. "You asked me if I believe in angels, Mr. Austin. I do. I've seen them. Conversed with them."

I scoffed. "You've talked to angels?"

"Do you want to know what I believe, Mr. Austin? I believe that something big is about to go down, and that for some reason you have been selected to play a crucial part in it."

CHAPTER 8.

Angels. I don't think I've met a grown person who believes in angels since the fourth grade, when I played Joseph in a Christmas pageant.

Cla.s.ses had let out at Heritage College. The professor and I sat in silence on the porch overlooking the parking lot. Cl.u.s.ters of students pa.s.sed by, blowing off pent-up energy. Below us, for every car that vacated a parking s.p.a.ce, there were two cars vying to replace it.

The professor and I retreated to our thoughts. He was probably hoping I was pondering what he'd just told me. I wasn't. My mind had wandered back to Sunday school and the fourth grade.

My mother never took me to church. When I learned that other children went to church on Sundays I asked her why we didn't attend. She said she didn't believe in church, then laughed. She thought that was funny.

Mother had her own ideas of worship. First, it was never done before noon because she never got up before then. Second, when she did worship, she worshipped at the cathode-ray cathedral of television, mostly old black-and-white movies. Her version of responsive reading was saying lines in unison with the actors. Communion was taken with wine, usually two gla.s.ses per show.

Not long after I started the fourth grade, Mrs. Lipton, our next-door neighbor, invited me to her church, which was having some kind of high-attendance contest, and she happened to be the fourth-grade teacher. As it turned out, her cla.s.s won and we were treated to a pizza party at ten o'clock one Sunday morning. The pizza tasted like pepperoni-flavored cardboard, but eating cardboard pizza was better than having Mrs. Lipton have us take turns reciting the names of the apostles.

I've always wondered if Mrs. Lipton would have invited me to Sunday school that year had she been the teacher of the fifth grade.

The highlight of my Sunday school stint was the Christmas pageant. A stage production, I saw it as the possible debut of an acting career. After all, I came from good Hollywood stock. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the thought of my mother attending the performance and being proud of her actor son hadn't crossed my mind.

When I informed Mrs. Lipton I wanted to audition for the lead role, she laughed. She said I was too big for the manger, which I learned was nothing more than a barnyard baby crib.

I asked her what the second-best role was. She laughed again and told me if I wanted that role I'd have to wear a wig and hold a doll in my arms. Even then the part had already been promised to Louise Stouffer, the daughter of one of the church's elders. I knew Louise from school. She was a pretty blond sixth-grader, meaner than a snake, with a poisonous tongue to match. Rumor had it that she once outcussed a high school football player.

Mrs. Lipton cast me as Joseph because I was the tallest boy in the cla.s.s. At first, I thought it was a choice role until I learned that Joseph had no lines. All he did was stand next to Mary. The manger had a bigger part than Joseph.

When we started rehearsals I requested a new a.s.signment. I wanted to be an angel. At least they sang. But you had to be a fifth- or sixth-grader to be an angel. Mrs. Lipton misinterpreted my request for a different role as stage fright.

"There's no reason to be nervous," she counseled me. "n.o.body will be looking at you. They'll all be looking at Mary and baby Jesus."

As a prophet, Mrs. Lipton was uncannily accurate. On the night of the performance, I commanded as much attention as the cardboard scenery. During the manger scene, even though I was standing right next to her, when the spotlight focused on Mary, it missed me entirely.

Louise Stouffer sat there looking beatific, cradling a plastic doll in her arms. She was the only person with a solo. To a lullaby tune the mouth that spewed curses at school sang with rapture about being the handmaiden of the Lord.

The doll that was used that year for baby Jesus was one of those dolls that closed its eyes when it was reclined. However, its left eye was broken, and the entire time Louise Stouffer sang her song, the thing stared up at me with one eye.

When the shepherds and wise men did their bit, my crepe beard started to itch something horrible. At first I resisted scratching it. But why? n.o.body looked at Joseph.

No sooner had I lifted my hand than I heard a hissing sound coming from Louise Stouffer. Murderous eyes glared up at me.

"Your hand!" she hissed.

I looked at it, wondering what was wrong with it. Nothing that I could see.

"It's in the light!" she hissed. "You're casting shadows on baby Jesus, you moron!"

The shepherds, who were third-graders, t.i.ttered.

She was right, of course. My hand was casting shadows on the baby Jesus and everyone in the auditorium seemed to notice, aided no doubt by the consternation of the production's leading lady.

I could have turned crimson with embarra.s.sment and pulled my hand out of the spotlight, but for some reason I saw it as an opportunity for a little theatrical improvisation.

Directing the shadow of my finger to the tip of the baby Jesus's nose, I did what any father would do-"Gootchie, gootchie, gooo!"

That was my last Sunday at church. Mrs. Lipton came down sick and missed a couple of Sundays in a row. Soon after she quit teaching the fourth-grade cla.s.s.

My mother didn't come to see me in the Christmas production, which was just as well considering how it turned out.

All this talk of angels reminded me of the fourth grade and the Christmas production and not being old enough to be an angel, and I wondered if the professor believed in the Christmas angels too. A couple of times I almost asked, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. Sitting around talking about angels. It's just not something grown men do.

"You've seen one," the professor said, breaking the reverie.

"You're still talking about angels, right?"

"In the library, a short time ago," he replied.

I grinned. He was pulling my leg. Big joke. I take him seriously and he retorts with, "I thought you didn't believe in angels?"