A Hideous Beauty (Kingdom Wars Series #1) - Softcover

Cavanaugh, Jack

3.84

192 ratings by Goodreads

9781416543404: A Hideous Beauty (Kingdom Wars Series #1)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416543406 ISBN 13: 9781416543404

Publisher: Howard Books, 2007

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This isn't the world you think it is...

Every day they slip across our borders to infiltrate our government, our schools, our neighborhoods.

Homeland security can't stop them.

The armed forces are no threat to them.

Powerful and unseen, they cannot be stopped.

They have been doing this for millennia.

On what should have been the best day of his life, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Grant Austin learns of a plan to assassinate the president of the United States. Every attempt to sound the alarm is thwarted, and Grant soon finds himself at the center of an even greater battle that predates time as he stands alone against ancient powers and unspeakable evil -- evil that can only be described as a hideous beauty.

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About the Author:

Jack Cavanaugh is a popular historical fiction author. He has fifteen published novels which have received numerous Christian and secular awards. His novels While Mortals Sleep and His Watchful Eye won Christy Awards for excellence in Christian Fiction. The Puritans, from the American Portrait series, won an ECPA Silver Medallion Award.

"Nifty little talk, Mr. Austin."

The kid's eyes mocked me from the recesses of a hooded gray sweatshirt.

"Speech. It was a speech," I corrected him. He was playing to his buddies a few feet away.

The kid smirked. "And that prize thing...like, wow!""It's the Pulitzer, son, not some whistle ring you pull out of a box of Cracker Jacks."

"Yeah...whatever..."

I walked the open hallway. Ten years separated me from my graduation. This wasn't my high school anymore. The buildings were the same but the occupants had changed. Everywhere I looked there were hooded sweatshirts. Since when had my alma mater become a school for Unabomber wannabes?

Swept along in a river of adolescent angst -- an endless stream of tattoos, piercings, colorful swatches of hair, studded leather chokers, and black lipstick -- I tracked the smart-mouthed kid as he passed. He joined a pod of his friends, casting himself as the hero who'd gotten under the skin of some old geezer. They looked my way and laughed.

What is it about high school that brings out the worst in the human species? All my teenage insecurities, like faithful old dogs, were waiting for me when I stepped on campus, and had been nipping at my heels all morning.

I had an overwhelming urge to grab the kid by the scruff of his neck and take him on, to teach him a thing or two about respect.

Instead, I told myself I wasn't going to sink to his level. What difference did it make if some identity-challenged adolescent didn't appreciate the magnitude of my literary achievement? I told myself to let it go. I was the mature one here.

Breaking eye contact with him, I turned forward and walked smack into a metal pole.

A pair of coeds, one plump and one rail thin, gasped. Their hands flew to their mouths, at first in shock, but then to hide their giggles.

A wiry-haired boy with serious acne problems laughed openly. "Ouch! That's gotta hurt!"

He was just glad it wasn't him. This time.

"Are you all right, sir?" the plump coed asked.

"Do you want us to help you to the nurse's station?"

I cringed as the image flashed in my mind. Me, with a coed under each arm, being helped out of the fast lane.

I assured the girls I was fine. I struck a fine pose -- more than fine, robust, virile -- and hurried on my way, eager to put them, the pole, and the incident behind me.

A buzzer sounded. The corridor rapidly cleared as students disappeared into every open doorway like water pouring down drains.

With the corridor to myself, I rubbed my forehead and wondered if the pole had left a mark. A familiar spring breeze swirled past me. My thoughts turned nostalgic.

The outdoor stucco walls were the same mud-brown color I remembered, the doors aqua-blue. The open central corridor still stretched the length of the campus, with alternating rows of classrooms and grassy areas on each side.

Approaching one of my former classrooms, I peered inside. A small, redheaded woman with a hairstyle that predated my lifetime stood in front of the classroom. She wielded a wooden pointer like it was a broadsword. Behind her was a map of Gettysburg with red and blue arrows indicating troop movements.

"Reminiscing?"

I turned toward the voice behind me to find a smiling, horseshoe-bald Hispanic man with a thick, black mustache. He held a sheaf of papers in one hand. Extending his other hand, he introduced himself. "Carlos Ruiz Mendoza." His smile widened, revealing a gold tooth.

"Grant -- "

"Austin. Yeah, I know. The assembly. Congratulations, by the way. The Pulitzer. Quite an achievement."

I shrugged modestly, but didn't disagree. "Are you a teacher?" I asked.

"Remedial reading." He said it like he was apologizing. "The way I see it, if I do my job, by the time my students complete the course they'll actually be able to read your book...They won't, of course."

We both laughed."It's not exactly Stephen King," I admitted.

Mendoza motioned toward the classroom. "Do you know Rose?"

Inside the classroom the teacher, Rose, had leveled her broadsword at a sandy-haired student who slumped in his chair and stared at her defiantly.

"I haven't had the pleasure," I said. "This was Coach Walker's room when I was here."

"Walker...quite a character from what I hear," Mendoza said. "He passed on two years before I arrived. Stories still circulate, though."

I laughed. "Believe them. Walker knew only one way of doing things -- as a football lineman coach. History, football, it was all the same to him."

"Were you on the team?"

"Football? No. Tennis was my sport. But Walker coached it too. The man didn't know a foot fault from a double fault, but he had us in great shape. We were the only team in the district doing bear crawls on the courts."

Mendoza laughed.

"But I learned some valuable life lessons from him," I added. "If nothing else, Coach taught us to hustle. I learned that hustle can beat superior talent; not always, but often enough."

"Good lesson."

"Got me where I am today."

By silent agreement, we continued down the corridor.

"I didn't have the smarts for scholarships," I explained. "Worked my way through college throwing baggage around at the local airport and pinching pennies."

"Ah, the Cup o' Noodles degree," Mendoza said.

I grinned. "You too?"

"Midnight shift at a twenty-four-hour convenience store."

I liked this man.

With matching strides we walked in silence for a moment, then he said, " You've come a long way since your microwave-soup days, Austin. The Oval Office. Air Force One. The G-8 Summit in Paris. Few men get to see the things you've seen."

"I'm glad someone was listening to my speech."

Mendoza gave me a sideways glance. "Was school assembly behavior all that different when you attended?"

"I guess not," I admitted. "We once had a conductor stop his orchestra mid-symphony because we started batting a beach ball in the stands."

Mendoza nodded. "Some are better than others. Last month we had a band...a rhythm group, actually. They beat on trash cans, banged lids, swished brooms, that sort of thing. They were good. The students loved them."

"So you're saying if I want to make a hit with teenagers, I need to bang trash can lids together."

"Of course not," Mendoza scoffed. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added, "But it wouldn't hurt."

"I'll take that under advisement."

"Seriously, Grant -- long after the din of trash can lids fades away, what you have done will be remembered and revered. The Pulitzer Prize, son! They don't hand those out in Cracker Jack boxes!"

"Seems I've heard that somewhere before."

"You are, without a doubt, the most famous alumnus this school has produced."

I thanked him as humbly as I could. But, truth was, I'd traveled the width of the country to hear those words. If only Myles Shepherd had heard them, my day would have been complete.

"Coming back here," Mendoza continued, "after all the exotic places you've been, all the famous people you've met, this must seem rather mundane to you."

"I don't know," I replied. "Singing Hills High will always be a part of who I am."

Mendoza pulled up in front of a door labeled faculty. He offered his hand again. "I'm glad I had this chance to chat with you, Mr. Austin. Something to tell my grandchildren someday."

Before letting go, I said, "Tell me, Mr. Mendoza, is Myles Shepherd still in the same classroom?"

"Shepherd? Sure. First room on the last wing."

I thanked him and continued down the corridor, my spirits much improved. There's something satisfying about hearing a teacher respectfully calling you "Mister." I made a mental note to send Mendoza a copy of my book.

Upon reaching the last wing, I peered through the louvered windows and caught my own reflection. I was grinning like a man about to burst at the seams. And why not? I'd waited a decade for this day to arrive and I wanted to savor every second of it.

This morning, as I dressed for the assembly, I told myself I wasn't going to gloat, that I was going to take the high road. But now that I was here, all I had in my head were low-road thoughts.

I peered into the room. It was empty. In the front right a door stood open. The teacher's office. A light spilled out from inside.

Shepherd was in there.

I was almost surprised. It would have been just like him to deprive me of my moment of triumph.

The door was unlocked. I let myself in.

The threshold proved to be a time portal. As I walked between the rows of desks I was seventeen again with books under my arm and worries swirling in my head that I'd forgotten to do my homework.I trod the same scuffed, green-tile floor that I'd stared at while straining to remember answers to test questions. Even the assignment on the chalkboard could have been one I'd copied down years ago --

Chapters 45-47 for Thursday

TERM PAPERS DUE IN TWO WEEKS!!!

I ran my fingertips across the top of a desk. Suddenly, the past gave way to a single thought.

Mundane.

Mendoza had pegged it, hadn't he? The room. The studies. The students. The repetitious routine. All of it was ordinary. Commonplace. Mundane.

I couldn't believe that for years I had allowed myself to be haunted by Myles Shepherd's teaching success. For what? For this? Look at it! Shepherd's grand kingdom consisted of nothing more than row after row of graffiti-marred desks with chewing gum stuck to the undersides.

"Grant? Is that you?"

I approached the office door of my old nemesis and poked my head inside. My first impression? Cramped. Books defined the decor. Books squeezed vertically and horizontally into every inch of shelf space. Books stacked on top of shelves, on chairs, on the floor, on other books. In the center of the room a gray metal desk dominated the floor space. Binders and folders of every color formed what looked like a New York city block of towers. On the working part of the desk was a small stack of papers that were being graded. The top sheet was heavily slashed with red marks.

"Grant! Welcome to my snuggery!" Myles Shepherd half rose from his chair. He extended his hand across the desk. His grip had no more warmth than that of a car salesman.

"Sit! Sit!" he...

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