into the several sub-rings of the seventh circle, where all sorts of violent souls were spending eternity splashing around in a river of boiling blood. In every circle, consequences were paid in death for choices made in life.
“Um, Daniel,” whispered Dana, “can we pick up the pace?”
“Please,” Emma agreed. “This is like a freaky seven-ring circus.”
“It’s amazing,” I remarked as we entered a vast, open space I knew had to be Dante’s Abyss. “He got it all right.”
“Who?” asked Joe.
“Dante.”
“Why are you so amazed, Daniel?” purred a smooth voice from the darkness. It wasn’t any of my friends. Unfortunately, I recognized it all too well.
Abbadon!
“Of course he got it right. Signor Dante came to visit, and he took excellent notes.”
Finally, Abbadon (or Number 2, Satan, Lucifer, or Beelzebub—the guy had more names than a champion show dog) stepped into the dim light of the cavernous room. All I could see of his face were two red eyes glowing in the black circle beneath the hood of his robe. Apparently, Abbadon was going with his grim reaper look again.
“And now, finally,” he said with a sigh, “you are here. Welcome, Daniel. Welcome!”
I could hear his raspy, rumbling breath quicken in anticipation.
“By the way, I heard about your mommy and daddy. What a pity they both had to die—again. On the same day. Again.”
In the blackness beneath his hood, I could now see his slick teeth glisten as his lizard lips slid up into a smile.
And then he laughed.
It was the most hideous laughter I have ever heard.
Chapter 74
WE WERE ONCE again engulfed by a swarm of Abbadon’s loyal followers.
My friend Lieutenant Russell pulled out his wicked-looking survival knife. One edge of the blade was razor sharp; the other was serrated for sawing into meat. He meant to take down as many henchbeasts as he could before they opened fire and splattered his guts against the cave walls.
“Stand down,” I ordered.
“We can take these guys, Daniel,” Willy encouraged me. “There’s only, what? A couple thousand of ’em?”
Okay, you have to admire Willy’s fighting spirit, if not his odds-making abilities. But we were totally outnumbered, and I couldn’t bear to see any more brave souls die on this journey.
We had found Abbadon. As far as I was concerned, the quest was over. It was time for Number 2 and me to give Number 1 the fight he had been craving for centuries: Daniel vs. Abbadon. Two evenly matched Alpar Nokians in a one-on-one, no-holds-barred, knock-down-drag-out fight.
“This is between him and me,” I said.
“I agree,” Abbadon declared, raising his cloaked arm and flicking his wrist.
My four friends and the remnants of Agent Judge’s strike force vanished.
“Where are they?” I demanded.
“Let’s see… the four imaginary figments of your childhood friends have once again drifted off to their own special limbo. The others? Well, Daniel, I sent them back to the surface of this dying planet so they can experience, firsthand, the final moments of its miserable existence.”
Chapter 75
I WAS SURROUNDED by Abbadon’s drooling thugs, but with another flick of his wrist, all of his minions disappeared, too.
It was just him and me, staring at each other across the cavernous void.
I had no friends, no family, no strike force. I had never been so completely, utterly alone.
Number 2’s red-hot eyeballs throbbed with excitement. I heard a wet smack as his tongue slid across his lips.
The devil was so ready to give me my due.
To make matters even worse, I couldn’t imagine any possible escape. I had no idea how to defeat this beast who could match me move for move, weapon for weapon, transformation for transformation, while seeming to have absolutely no weaknesses of his own.
Suddenly, a last-ditch idea came to me.
Like all those about to enter the arena to face their fiercest rivals, I needed to study my opponent’s game films. I flashed back to what my father had said when he’d filled the walls of the barn with flickering images of Number 2’s evil exploits:
Study him, Daniel. Study everything he does—and I mean everything. Every movement, every gesture, every telling smile. Look for his weaknesses.
It was time, once again, to follow my father’s advice.
So, first I said a quick prayer that Number 1 hadn’t (as he had in the past) put up a disruption field around the planet to prevent time travel.
And then I dove under the rippling surface of the temporal plane and zoomed back to 1942, when Abbadon rode with the Nazis in Amsterdam.
Chapter 76
I WAS HOPING to meet Miep Gies.
Hey, I