me. The List can’t, but you can, can’t you? Who is Number 2?”
My father heaved the heaviest sigh I have ever heard in my life.
“Very well, Daniel. You leave me no choice.”
I couldn’t believe it: my father was finally ready to tell me everything!
Chapter 57
MY FATHER’S FINAL lesson for the day was a shocker.
“This was the battle I had been preparing for, Daniel. In Kansas.”
“When Number 1 came for you and Mom?”
My father nodded.
“But why were you training to fight Number 2? Why not Number 1? If you had concentrated on the top gun…”
“It was my mission, Daniel. It was why your mother and I came to this planet.”
“To fight Number 2? I don’t get it.”
“Daniel, Number 2 is the one humans call the Prince of Darkness. He is Satan.”
“The devil?”
Now the walls of the barn were filled with fiery images. Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgment from the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, showing Satan as the boatman Charon ferrying the evildoers down to hell. A snake hissing in the verdant undergrowth of a garden. The cloven-hoofed, twin-horned fiend of legend and horror films.
My father turned to gaze at the devilish imagery writhing across the walls.
“He is the great pretender,” my father said. “A fallen angel fighting for souls, hoping to lure them into the darkness. He is the one Muslims call Iblis, a demon created out of smokeless fire. He is Beelzebub, who can cast evil suggestions into the hearts of men and women. He is the one ancient Zoroastrians called Angra Mainyu, ‘the destructive spirit.’ And you, Daniel, must fight him.”
“Why?”
“Because this is the beginning of the Apocalypse. The final, cataclysmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil; the ultimate struggle between the creator and the destroyer; a clash that is written about in holy texts on every planet in this universe because the devil—the one who thrives on evil, hatred, and destruction—is everywhere.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “If Number 2 is the devil, who or what is Number 1?”
“Something much worse,” said my father. “He is a deity, Daniel. A god.”
PART THREE
WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE
Chapter 58
WHEN I WOKE up, I smelled pancakes. It was quite a contrast to the horrors I’d learned about the night before from Dad.
I rolled out of the bed in the Judges’ guest room and made my way downstairs to the kitchen.
I was relieved to see that the walls in Agent Judge’s house displayed the usual sort of framed pictures—not the horror show I had witnessed when my father turned the walls of the barn into the multiplex from hell. But seeing so many pictures of Mel—riding a pony in the paddock, winning her first horse-show ribbon, crossing our creek on horseback—bummed me out nearly as much.
Mel was still missing, of course.
And now I knew who had her: the devil himself. Going down the list of baddies you could be kidnapped by, it doesn’t get much worse than that.
I stepped into the kitchen.
“Good morning, Daniel.”
It was my mother, cooking up a storm. Like my dad, she is a total manifestation of my imagination and shares his uncanny ability to show up exactly when I need her most. And, like most moms, she also knows exactly what to make for breakfast when life gets tough. In addition to the pancakes I had already sniffed out, there were a dozen eggs sputtering in a skillet; bacon, sausage, and ham sizzling on the grill; cheese grits simmering in a pot; biscuits and cinnamon buns in the oven; pitchers of juice (orange, apple, grape, and grapefruit); and, of course, toast.
Hey, it’s just not breakfast without toast.
“Erm, are we expecting company?”
“No, dear. This is all for you. Your warrior’s breakfast.”
It’s a tradition in cultures everywhere: Before you go off to do battle, you pig out with one last feast. Either that or you fast in the desert to give yourself a lean, mean edge. Personally, I prefer the feast to the fast.
I settled in at the kitchen table and secured a checkered napkin in the collar of my T-shirt. Then I tucked into the mountain of food Mom had piled on my plate. When I was halfway through my second stack of pancakes, my mother sat down at the table with me.
“Daniel, do you know why your father never did battle with Number 2?”
“I guess because I was like three years old and he didn’t want to risk losing his death match with the devil, which would leave you a single parent and