So why did the bats storm into Agent Judge’s house?
Unfortunately, Agent Judge soon gave me the answer.
I burst in through the front door and saw him in the parlor, swinging a laser-sighted blaster right, left, up, down—searching for a target.
“They grabbed her!”
“What?”
“The aliens took Mel!”
Chapter 46
“THEY’RE IN THE barn!” Willy shouted as soon as we’d bolted outside. Someone had pushed the doors wide open.
“I heard whinnies and screams,” reported Emma. “I think they’re torturing the horses!”
“Cover us!” I called to Agent Judge, who was joined by maybe a dozen other FBI agents, all of them hauling heavy E.T. hardware. They took up firing positions behind fences, horse troughs, rain barrels, and that antique pickup truck.
I led the gang toward the barn.
Suddenly, six screaming horses came stampeding toward us, all of them ridden by alien outlaw freaks who were spurring the stallions’ ribs, hard.
“Time to dismount!” I commanded, swinging out my leg to roundhouse kick the lead rider off his steed.
On my right, I could see Willy leaping up into a flying back kick. Dana was going with a scissor kick, attempting to take down two riders at once.
But an instant before any of our blows landed, the horses transformed into rocket bikes and zoomed away, torching our shins with their afterburners.
“Mel’s not with them!” I shouted as I tumbled to the ground.
“The first bunch must’ve taken her,” reported Willy. “I saw them morph into some kind of robots and shoot skyward. They were hauling a sealed capsule behind them.”
That capsule had to be Mel’s portable prison cell.
“Take these criminals down!” Agent Judge shouted to his team, and they immediately started firing. Hot tracers streaked through the sky. Warbling shock blasts rippled through the air. Unfortunately, when that last invader squeaked through the shrinking exit hole, the FBI weapon bursts ricocheted off the inner lining of my refurbished dome.
“Cease fire!” I shouted as boomeranging ammunition pummeled the ground around us. “Cease fire!”
Agent Judge took up the call. “Cease fire!”
We dodged the incoming blasts until the last of the deflected shots sprang back at us.
Then everything under the dome became incredibly, horribly quiet.
I looked over at Agent Judge. I’ve never seen a man look so shocked or grim.
“Don’t worry, sir,” I said. “I’m going after her.”
Not yet, I heard Xanthos’s voice say in my head. It was weak, barely audible. Not… yet…
He sounded like he was hurt.
No—it was worse.
It sounded like my spiritual advisor was dying.
Chapter 47
XANTHOS WAS LYING on his side in his stall. I could see that the straw scattered around his battered body had been scorched; his flowing white mane was singed and seared. I’m not certain what kind of flame-throwing weapons the thugs had used, but one thing was totally clear: they had come to these stables with orders to kill.
Xanthos was barely clinging to life. His blackened rib cage rose up and down very slowly, the movement accompanied by a wet death rattle creaking up from his lungs.
My brudda, I reached out mentally to my fallen friend.
Believe it or not, a slight grin twitched across his muzzle.
My brudda, he thought back.
What did those animals do to you?
The worst they could, Daniel. They live to hate. For this, we must pity them. For they will never know the one true love that unites us all.
Hang on. I can fix you.
No, Daniel. There are some things even you cannot repair.
I’m not going to let you die.
It is not your choice, brudda. We are all mortal. Otherwise, we would be gods, no? Fate has…
His voice grew fainter in my head.
Xanthos? I pleaded.
I could sense him mustering his final ounces of strength. It is written in the book….
What is written? I asked.
He took a wheezy breath. My destiny. Yours.
What is my destiny?
To be true…
He was slipping away. His wide nostrils were barely fluttering.
To be true to what? I leaned closer.
To… who… you… truly… are…
And with that, there was nothing in my mind but my own mournful thoughts.
My spiritual advisor was dead.
I cradled his majestic head in my lap and rocked it back and forth. Tears stung my eyes and streamed down my cheeks.
Xanthos, an extremely gentle creature who’d never uttered a harsh word—not even for those who came here to kill him—had, in just a few short days, really worked his way deep into my soul. Now his death was rocking my world.
I don’t think I’ve cried that hard in years.
And I didn’t want to do it again for a long, long time. I didn’t want Agent Judge doing it, either.
Another reason why I had to go rescue Mel—immediately!
Chapter 48
I GENTLY CLOSED Xanthos’s soulful brown eyes.
As I did, I realized something: I killed him.
I also got Mel kidnapped.
If I had never come to Kentucky, if I had never met my father’s spiritual advisor, if I hadn’t gone horseback riding, if Xanthos hadn’t bucked me off his back when we were crossing that creek, if…
“What’re you doing, Daniel?”
It was Dana.
I gently laid Xanthos’s head on a pillow of the cleanest straw I could scrape together in his stall. “He’s dead,” I said faintly. “I killed him.”
“No, you didn’t.” Dana knelt down beside me and wiped the last tear from my eye. “You feel terrible about what happened to your friends. Maybe you even feel guilty, because if you weren’t here, things wouldn’t have gone down the way they did.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re right, Daniel. If you weren’t here, things would be different. In fact, they’d be a whole lot worse.”
“No.”
“Daniel, if you hadn’t put that dome over our heads…”
“It didn’t stop them.”
“No. But it sure slowed them down. If you weren’t here, chances are Number 2 would’ve wiped this horse farm off the map the same way he took down New York, Beijing, London, and Moscow. You saved Agent Judge’s life, not to mention all those other FBI agents out there.”
“But what about Mel?”
“She’s a tough girl. She’ll be fine.”
“Wait a second. Are you actually saying something nice about Melody Judge?”
“Whoa. Don’t get carried away….”
“But I think I just heard you actually compliment Mel.”
Dana shrugged. “She’s okay. I mean, for an earthling.”
I actually brightened to hear her say it. “You like her, don’t you?”
“Um, let’s leave ‘like’ out of this, okay? Mel saved my bacon on the bridge. I figure I owe her one. So come on; let’s go rescue her already. I don’t like being in debt.”
I reached out and held Dana’s cheek in my hand so I could gaze into her brilliant blue eyes. “You’re really something, Dana—you know that, right?”
“What?” she said with a laugh. “Are you admiring your own handiwork again?”
“Man, sometimes I so wish you were real.”
“Yeah,” she said sweetly. “Me, too.”
As I cupped her cheek in my hand, I let my thumb trace the white line that was still marring her otherwise perfect skin.
“You like my souvenir?” Dana joked. “I picked it up in Moscow.”
“I’m going to fix that, you know.”
“I know. But first we need to fix the rest of this mess.”
I was holding Dana’s cheek, gazing into her eyes, which wer
e steadily gazing back into mine. We were definitely having a moment.
A moment that was suddenly shattered by the roar of a thousand gunning helicopter engines hovering overhead.
Chapter 49
DANA AND I raced out of the barn.
“What’s going on?” I called to Willy.
“Choppers. Hundreds of them.”
“What about the dome?”
Joe shook his head. “They overrode whatever you cooked up.” He was shouting to be heard over the din of the thumping rotors. “I can’t explain it, but the dome has disappeared. Completely.”
I shielded my eyes and glanced up at the sky. The stars were all gone, blotted out by the horde of hovering helicopters. The aircraft looked more like heavily armored dragonflies than conventional whirlybirds.
One helicopter drifted down from the pack and, swaying slightly, landed right in front of us, kicking up a funnel cloud of dust and straw.
A clamshell-style door opened on the side of the craft to reveal a set of stairs. A giant—maybe fifteen feet tall—descended the steps. He was dressed in princely robes, and his curly hair and beard writhed around his grotesque face as if they were twin nests of coiled snakes. When his leaden, size thirty-six boots touched the ground, the whole Earth shook.
The emissary beat his chest with his fist, then held up an open palm as if he were a Roman tribune.
“Grakkings, oodoo pooflee,” he proclaimed. “Utoo a reschendedante Gogg. Ja reschendente atta ulti magno chimando e devoosheekmo gensei Abbadon.”
The FBI agents and my gang had giant “Huh?” expressions etched on their faces.
Fortunately, my alien brain contains the equivalent of a universal translator. I can understand any creature speaking any language—including the languages they don’t teach in any high school in the known universe.
“He says, ‘Greetings, weak ones,’ ” I translated. “ ‘I am Ambassador Gogg. I represent the almighty, ever-powerful, and all-destroying Lord Abbadon.” Even though he looks like he’s on his way to a supersized toga party, I thought.
While Gogg preened and waited for us to cower in fear before his towering magnificence, I stepped forward.
“Itchay umknock gensei Abbadon solto fracking ‘ulti magno e chimando’ que sempro no reschendente wimmish?”
“Huh?” muttered Joe.
“I said, ‘If your so-called Lord Abbadon is so freaking ‘almighty and powerful,’ why is he afraid to represent himself?’ ”
“Nice, Daniel,” said Dana. “Very diplomatic.”
The giant plodded forward. “Vu diche nomin Daniel?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out. And, by the way, you’re on Earth now. So speak English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Lithuanian—anything but that dreck that’s dribbling out of your face-hole now.”
“As you wish, weakling,” Gogg said, haughtily raising his long, anteater-esque snout. “Tell me, Daniel: Do you miss your little pony?”
“Xanthos isn’t gone.” I tapped a hand to my heart. “He’s still here.”
Gogg raised a dainty paw to his nose nozzle. “Oh, my. Such sentimental claptrap. Tell me, do you miss your little friend Melody? Or is she still here, too?” He drummed his triple-jointed fingers in a paradiddle over his chest to mock me.
“If you harm one hair on Mel’s head, I will personally destroy you ten seconds after I destroy Abbadon!”
He stopped his girlish giggles and got all huffy. “My, my, my. Such big, bold words.”
“He can back those words up,” shouted Dana. “Just ask anybody on The List of Alien Outlaws on Terra Firma.”
“Yeah,” said Joe. “Ask Attila. Or Number 3, that flaming burnout we extinguished in London.”
“Ask numbers 6, 43, 40, or 19!” shouted Willy.
“Oh, wait,” said Dana. “You can’t ask any of them. Because Daniel’s already done to them what he’s going to do to you and your ‘Lord’ if you idiots don’t do as you’re told and bring back Mel!”
“Oh, Lord Abbadon is quite willing to set her free,” said Ambassador Gogg with a grin that sent his slippery snake beard squirming again. “In fact, I am here to parlay over the terms of her release.”
Agent Judge had heard enough. He strode forward and stood by my side. “And what, exactly, does Abbadon want in exchange for my daughter?”
“Nothing much,” said Gogg. “Just him.”
And he flapped out a limb to point at me.
Chapter 50
AMBASSADOR GOGG FLICKED his wrist and a glowing holographic scroll appeared in the misty air beside him. As the diplomatic cable unfurled, two words in neon green jumped out of the illuminated legal mumbo jumbo: DANIEL X.
“As I stated,” said Gogg, “the terms of the agreement are quite simple. Her life for yours. The party of the first part, in exchange for certain…”
My universal translator decoded his next several chunks of legalese as “Blah, blah, blah. Yadda, yadda, yadda.” But while the giant babbled, I had time to consider how to take down the whole armada. But the “blah, blah, blahs” in my head became real words again soon because my brain knew I needed to hear this:
“And, to prevent the party of the second part, Daniel X, from initiating any of his customary parlor tricks against my duly appointed diplomatic representative and said diplomat’s military escort, be advised that the captive, one Melody Judge, will be dealt with most harshly should any treachery befall my messenger and/or airships.”
Gogg looked up and, in a blinding flash, every one of the two hundred helicopters flipped on high-intensity spotlights mounted to their undercarriages. The lights were actually incredibly bright LCD projectors, which blasted the ground around us with hi-def video images of Mel, sitting in a straight-back chair, her wrists and ankles bound with heavy chains. A dozen weapon-toting aliens surrounded her.
In other words, if I cooked up a counterstrike, Mel would be struck dead.
At my side, Agent Judge was about to drop to his knees to be closer to the images shimmering on the ground all around us.
I braced him by the elbow. “Don’t let them see how much it hurts, sir. They’ll just use it against you. Against her.”
Agent Judge nodded and stiffened his spine.
“At least we know she’s okay,” I whispered.
“But how long will she stay that way?”
“Until Number 2 gets what he really wants: me.”
“Well, Daniel?” boomed Gogg. “Do you agree to my Lord’s extremely generous terms?”
I looked at Agent Judge. He was shaking his head. “No. I can’t let you do this. You’re too valuable. You’re this planet’s last and best hope.”
Gogg heaved an aggravated sigh, like we were boring him, and said, “Might I remind you, Daniel, that if we don’t hear what we’re dying to hear, someone else will be dying, very soon?”
He gestured grandly toward the ground and the two hundred projections of Mel surrounded by Abbadon’s heavily armed henchbeasts. The aliens raised their weapons. Took aim. It was a circular firing squad, with Mel in the middle.
I had to give Number 2’s ambassador an answer. Now.
And it had to be the right answer!
There would be absolutely no makeups on this exam.
Chapter 51
“FINE,” I ANNOUNCED. “Tell your Lord and Master that he can have me.”
“No, Daniel,” said Agent Judge. “I will not let you trade your life for Mel’s!”
“I’m playing a hunch, sir,” I whispered tersely.
“No,” he said again, ignoring me and shouting directly up to the giant Gogg. “You cannot have Daniel. Do I make myself clear, sir?”
“Extremely.” Gogg flicked open a large ring on the third knuckle of his pinkie finger and brought the thing up toward the fluttering tip of his snout.
“Wait!” I cried out.
Clearly the pinkie ring was some kind of communicator, and he was about to call in the order for Mel’s execution.
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“Hang on another second,” I said. “Let Agent Judge and me hash this out.”
“No, Daniel,” said Agent Judge, even though I could tell that saying no to me and yes to his daughter’s execution was tearing him apart. “I will not permit you to lose your life! Too many other lives hang in the balance.”
I circled my finger near my temple to let Gogg know I thought Agent Judge was acting crazy. “Um, he and I need to chat,” I said as pleasantly as I could, so that Gogg would think I was on his side.
“Fine,” said Gogg. “You have one Earth minute.”
I grabbed Agent Judge and spun him around so Gogg couldn’t hear what we were saying—or read our lips.
“Don’t worry,” I said as quickly as I could. “I’m calling his bluff.”
“Daniel, as much as I admire your courage, as much as I want you to save Mel’s life, the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one.”
“But if my hunch is correct, we won’t lose the many, the few, or, most important, the one.” I motioned toward the images of Mel fearlessly facing her firing squad. Never flinching. Never letting her enemy see how terrified she must truly be.
“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.