“What are you thinking, Daniel?”
“That, for some reason I haven’t figured out yet, Abbadon is afraid of me.”
Agent Judge arched an eyebrow. “And what makes you say that?”
“In New York City, before he decked me with that sucker punch and sent me sailing into the future, he could’ve killed me. He could’ve come after me himself outside that coal mine in West Virginia, but he sent Attila. When he decimated D.C., he didn’t come to destroy us; he just put a price on my head. And tonight? If it was so easy for his troops to penetrate our defenses, why didn’t Number 2 come along for the ride? Why did he send this emissary?”
“You raise some very interesting questions, Daniel….”
“I don’t think Abbadon will harm Mel until he gets me exactly where he wants me—wherever that might be.”
“Go with your gut, son,” said Agent Judge. “I’ll back you up all the way.”
I nodded and we both turned around to face Gogg once again.
“Okay, Ambassador Gogg. Tell your boss he can have what he wants. He can have me.”
“Wonderful,” purred the giant idiot. “Abbadon will be most pleased. You will kindly enter my vessel and—”
“No. We do this thing right here, right now.”
“B-b-but—”
“This whole horse farm can be our arena. He sends away the helicopters, I tell my FBI guys to take a hike. It’s just him and me. One-on-one. Winner takes all. Including, of course, Miss Melody Judge.”
“I, uh…”
“What’s Abbadon afraid of?”
Gogg nervously wiggled his gangly fingers and thought long and hard about what he could say into that pinkie-ring communicator that wouldn’t incur Abbadon’s wrath.
I was right. Number 2 didn’t want to tangle with me in New York, Moscow, London, Beijing, or even Kentucky because he needed our battle to take place somewhere else, maybe even sometime else.
Why?
I had no earthly idea.
Chapter 52
WHILE GOGG FRETTED and wiggled his articulated digits, all the images of Mel instantly dissolved into an extreme (and extremely ugly) close-up of Number 2.
I was instantly overcome by a severe case of the heebie-jeebies. Number 2’s appearance in the projections was different from the other guises I had already seen him put on. Now he had his face slathered with brightly colored war paint, like William Wallace and his Highlanders in that movie Braveheart. Of course, I knew it was Number 2, no matter how much makeup he put on. His glowing-ember eyes totally gave him away.
“Hello again, Daniel.”
“Hello, Abbadon. Long time, no see.”
“Yes. What a shame you had to leave New York without seeing the Statue of Liberty—facedown and drowning in the harbor.”
“She won’t stay that way for long.”
“Is that a threat?”
I shrugged. “More like a promise.”
“You think you can undo what I have done?”
“Sure. And the humans who built the statue in the first place will help.”
“Oh, yes. Earthlings can be quite helpful when they support one’s cause. Oh, by the way, Daniel—did you enjoy your time in Tomorrowland?”
“It was fantastic. Mostly because you weren’t there.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. A guy named Bob told me you had scurried underground to hide in your rat hole.”
“True. Because you see, Daniel, by tomorrow, underground is where Mel will be. With me. In fact, while you were wasting time, stumbling about in the future, the love of your life had already spent a dozen hours as my prisoner in the underworld.”
I quickly glanced over at Dana.
She had her game face on; Number 2’s little dig about Mel being the “love of my life” hadn’t fazed her in the least.
“Tell me, Daniel,” Abbadon asked, his voice soft and provocative, “had you ever done that before? Had you ever flown forward through time?”
I gave him another shrug. “Never really wanted to. Because, unlike the past, the future is extremely changeable. You never really know what tomorrow may bring, even if you’ve already been there.”
“Bravo, Daniel,” he said with a smile. “Finally you prove yourself a nimble thinker and, perhaps, a worthy adversary. Soon all will be as it was always meant to be! To the victor shall go all the spoils, including your young lady friend.”
“You’re not just going to kill her while no one is watching?”
“Of course not. Where’s the sport in that? I want you to be here when she dies.”
I didn’t answer him, because I didn’t want to say something stupid that might jeopardize Mel’s safety. As it stood, she’d stay alive until Abbadon and I finally did battle—wherever and whenever he needed that smackdown to take place.
“By the way,” Number 2 continued, “while you and Bob were wasting your tomorrow, I was busy amassing my troops to wipe out all those who dared resist my initial invitation to join me in the underworld.”
Now the multiple images of Abbadon were replaced by footage of massive armies on the march.
“Gaze upon another glimpse of the future, Daniel!”
The troops rolling forward under Abbadon’s black banner were a motley assortment of alien outlaws in full combat gear. They had battle drones, robo-tanks, and laser-guided missile launchers. They also had something that totally chilled me to the bone: human allies.
Number 2 smiled, a thin grin crackling across his painted lips. “As I said before, Daniel, these humans can be so very helpful when they find a cause they truly believe in!”
As I stared down in disbelief at the human mercenaries who had taken on Abbadon’s fight, I heard him hiss, “Come to me and save your lady fair!”
And then the two hundred projector beams went black.
The helicopters disappeared from the sky.
Even the mincing Ambassador Gogg was gone.
“How’d he do that?” said Joe, totally perplexed.
“Very well,” mumbled Emma, in a faint echo of what she usually said whenever I pulled off some impossibly spectacular transformation.
“We bought some time,” said Agent Judge. “Abbadon clearly wants the home-field advantage when you two go head-to-head. Any reason why?”
“No, sir. In fact, all I know for sure is that, right now, Mel is safe.”
And, for Agent Judge and me, that was really all that mattered.
Chapter 53
“THE HOUSE IS huge, ladies and gentlemen,” Agent Judge said to the five of us after a long postmortem on the night’s incredibly hair-raising events. “Pick a bedroom and hit the rack. All of you. Especially you, Daniel.” He had learned that my creative powers get totally zonked when I don’t get to recharge my battery.
I grabbed a bedroom on the second floor. The rest of the gang didn’t really need to find rooms or, for that matter, go to sleep. It was one of the bonus features of being a product of my imagination: when I powered down, they did, too.
I closed my eyes.
When I did, just for an instant, I saw Mel, tied up in that chair.
“Hold on,” I whispered. “I’m coming.”
Right before I drifted off to sleep, my dream girl smiled back and said, “Don’t worry, Daniel.” She playfully jostled her chains. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m sort of tied up at the moment.”
Believe it or not, after all that had happened, I actually fell asleep with a smile on my face.
A smile that disappeared maybe three hours later, when I woke with a start.
My super alien ears had heard a floorboard creak while I was asleep and sent a signal to my brain saying This is not good.
Someone was in the house.
Sneaking around. Trying to not make a sound.
Now the someone was in my bedroom.
Moving closer to the bed.
It had to be Number 2. All that talk about meeting him on his turf? Another trick from the great de
ceiver, an attempt to lull me into thinking I could lower my guard for an instant and catch some shut-eye.
Well, two could play that game.
I’d trick him into thinking I was still asleep.
I kept my eyes closed and summoned up every ounce of my level-three strength. I was ready to rumble.
I heard another board squeak and my brain did a quick sonar ping. The intruder was very close, almost on top of me.
Fine. This bedroom would be our final battlefield.
I would fight Number 2 to the death, right here, right now!
Chapter 54
A SPLIT SECOND before Number 2 leaped in for the kill, I sprang up out of bed and attacked him.
I went at him with a double haymaker. Both of my arms whipped sideways with the slightest bend at the elbows and met his head smack in the center. It was pitch dark in the room, so I couldn’t see the look of shock on Abbadon’s face when both my fists slammed into his temples. I imagined his blood-red eyeballs must’ve nearly popped out of their sockets.
I activated my night-vision ocular lenses (they’re just another handy feature of my Alpar Nokian anatomy) so I wouldn’t be fighting totally blind. At least I now had a greenish-gray blob to target.
But as I was lining up my next blow, the blob came down at me with a hammer fist to my head.
I tucked and rolled off the bed and immediately jumped up into a flying scissor kick. Locking my legs around my attacker’s torso, I twisted sideways in midair and took him down, hard.
When the intruder hit the deck, he wrapped his arms around my legs and yanked me down to the floor with him. Then, bouncing up to his feet, he grabbed me by my ankles so he could spin me around and around like I was his figure-skating partner and he was going to neatly dump me on the ice in an elegant death spiral.
Before he could let go and send me sailing, I fought against the centrifugal force as he swung me around in a dizzying circle and sat up in midair by executing the most amazing abdominal crunch I have ever grunted through. When I was in a locked and upright position, I gave him another double wallop to both sides of his skull.
“Blows to the head are illegal!” my attacker shouted through his pain.
I was too shocked to land another hit. I flopped out of the sit-up. My arms fell limply to my sides.
“Dad?”
“Never lower your guard, son!”
He let go of my ankles and sent me flying into the far wall. I slammed into it so hard I shattered a couple of picture frames, slid down fast, and crash-landed with a bang on my butt.
“Gravity,” said my attacker. “It’s always putting people down.”
Yep. It was definitely my father. I recognized his penchant for corny puns.
Just so we’re clear, as I’ve already told you, my real parents are dead thanks to The Prayer, the mantis-looking freak who still holds the number one spot on The List Of Alien Outlaws on Terra Firma, as well as on the unofficial Daniel X List of Creeps in Serious Need of Extermination. My imagined parents are probably just mental projections built on a neural framework of memories and sensory recall, but when I manifest my dad, he’s as real as you or me. His punches, kicks, and body blows are extremely real, too.
He always shows up exactly when I need him most.
See, I don’t need to summon my father. Some part of my brain (maybe way down deep in its fight-or-flight reptilian stem) knows when I need some serious parental guidance. Call it my survival instinct.
“So,” my father said, rubbing his temples, where I could see (now that he had removed whatever blackout blinds he’d materialized over the bedroom windows) two red welts rising where my knuckles had collided with his cranium. “You let me get the drop on you, but you think you’re ready to take on Number 2?”
“I have to, Dad. He’s destroying the entire planet. Plus, he nabbed Agent Judge’s daughter. You remember Agent Judge?”
“Yes, Daniel. Martin Judge was a good friend to your mother and me. And I know all about what Number 2 is up to, how he kidnapped Melody. Xanthos filled me in on everything.”
“What?”
“My former spiritual advisor and I were recently reunited. Right after his immortal soul slipped free of his lifeless body.”
“I’m so sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to get him killed.”
“You didn’t, son. It was his time. His destiny. Just like it was your destiny to finally meet up with my wise old friend. I hope you’re doing everything Xanthos advised you to do.”
I lowered my eyes. “I’m trying.”
“Good. Now it’s my turn. I’ll help you get ready to battle Number 2.”
I looked around the room. “Does Mom know you’re here?”
“Yes, Daniel. Reluctantly, she agrees: I must do everything I can to prepare you for what is guaranteed to be the fight of your life.”
“The two of us against all of them?”
“No, just you, Daniel.”
“Solo?” I asked my dad, even though I obviously knew the answer. He nodded. “But… his army is even bigger than I first feared when I tracked him to that cave in West Virginia,” I couldn’t help saying. “He has a legion of alien lackeys, plus thousands—maybe millions—of humans who have actually deserted their brothers and sisters to fight for him!”
“It’s your destiny,” he reminded me. “I’ll help you become a better, smarter, more imaginative warrior. I’ll teach you everything I can in the short time we have left.”
“How can Number 2 be the one who destroys this planet?” I asked. “How can this second-ranked alien hope to accomplish what the top dog, Number 1, never could?”
“Because he has their help.”
“The humans? The ones taking his side in this war?”
My father nodded knowingly, and I flashed back to my first encounter with Number 2, down in that West Virginia cavern. This planet is ripe for the taking, the demon had boasted to his loyal followers. The human race has never been more divided, more shortsighted, more consumed with greed, or more inflamed by religious differences.
Talk about a weird twist.
The humans that my father, my mother, and I had come to this planet to protect might just be the ones who ended up handing it over to the evil aliens!
Chapter 55
MY FATHER AND I left the house and headed into the barn. Somehow, even though Xanthos was dead, his calming spirit seemed to linger in the air, making his horse crib an ideal place to concentrate.
Dad was in total sensei mode. “You must master the mixed forms of martial arts, Daniel.”
“I already have. Karate, tae kwon do, jeet kune, Brazilian jujitsu.”
“Really?” said my father, circling me. “You know all the moves? All the rules?”
“Yes,” I said, following him with a wary eye. “After all, you’re the one who—”
My father leaped into the most vicious kick he’s ever aimed at me. When his foot hit my groin, I doubled over in pain, which meant I gave him a great target for a fists-locked double uppercut to my chin.
I could taste blood; I’d bitten my tongue.
“There is only one rule when fighting Number 2, Daniel.”
“What is it?”
“There are no rules!”
He pounced on me again.
I slammed up both my arms to block his blows.
“Good, Daniel,” my father said as he used the momentum from my counterstrike to roll into a backward somersault and land in a crouching-tiger position. “But not good enough!”
This time his foot flew in a whirling windmill kick to my face.
This was cage fighting without the cage. And I would need every kick, punch, and combination I could come up with.
Because my father was trying to kill me.
Literally.
He leaped into the air, scissor-wrapped his legs around my neck, and slammed me down to the ground. One second before my skull hit a rock, I countered with a grunting head roll that brought his ankle down on the boulder inst
ead.
Dad screamed in agony when his bone snapped.
Free from his leg hold, I sprang up into a star jump just as he spiraled into a flying twin-knuckle tsuki that socked me in the stomach so hard I thought my lungs would never hold air again.
Clearly, he had completely recovered from his ankle fracture.
“Overconfidence will kill you, son.”
No. My father was going to kill me!
Revved up on adrenaline, I flew into a fight frenzy.
My father and I exchanged a wicked series of blows and counter blows, kicks and counter kicks.
And then we tried to strangle each other.
This went on for at least an hour. A couple of my ribs felt as if they’d splintered like chicken bones. My legs were turning to rubber from sheer exhaustion and the drain of all that adrenaline. And my father wasn’t letting up.
Now that I knew he was definitely trying to kill me, I decided it was time to return the favor.
“Be careful, son,” he taunted as he swaggered around me. “Focus. Fight with your head.”
“Thanks for the suggestion!” I said, hurtling at his gut headfirst, like a battering ram.
But my father became a matador outwitting a charging bull and sidestepped me before I made impact. For good measure, he fist-jabbed me hard in both kidneys as I breezed past his hip.
Dazed and totally embarrassed, I could feel the rage rising up through my neck to scorch the tips of my ears.
“Do not give sway to the negative way,” said my father.
I guess he learned that little ditty from Xanthos, back in the day.
I couldn’t care less. My father was the one who had dragged me into this mess in the first place. He was the one dumb enough to let Number 1 get the drop on him, and then he did absolutely nothing to save my mom. It was my father’s fault that I ended up an orphan, and then what did he do? He left me my inheritance—the stupid List, plus the ridiculous mission to protect an entire planet from all sorts of creeped-out alien invaders, even though I was only a kid. Which, I have to say, seriously screwed me up. Wouldn’t it screw you up? Heck, I couldn’t even have a girlfriend without her getting kidnapped by drooling interplanetary delinquents. And to add insult to injury, every now and then, just for chuckles, my father seemed to pop back into my world so he could boss me around and kick the crap out of me.
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