Chapter 82
SHE WAS IMPRISONED inside a tiger cage of translucent force-field bars.
“Are you okay?” I shouted.
“I’m fine!” It was amazing to hear her voice. It had felt like centuries, somehow, since we’d talked for real.
I rushed toward the cage—
And was immediately blown back by a jolt of a couple thousand gigawatts.
It knocked me down, but I bounced right back up. Inching forward, I heard the surging throb of the high-voltage electrical charge. Mel was only ten feet away, but with the impenetrable force field between us, it might as well have been ten miles.
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” said Abbadon. “Until you fall to your knees and worship me, I can’t allow you to come any closer.”
“Don’t you dare do as he says,” Mel said, feisty as ever. “Don’t even listen to him!”
I gazed into her sky-blue eyes. For that instant, Abbadon wasn’t even in the room. It was just me and Mel.
“Has he hurt you?” I asked.
“No. But he lies like the devil.”
That made me grin. “Yeah. There’s a reason for that….”
“You know, Daniel,” snapped Abbadon, “you and Melody could be quite happy together.”
“We know that,” I said. “But having you around kind of ruins all the fun.”
“Not necessarily. If both of you swear your allegiance to me, then I give you my word: the two of you can go back to Kentucky and live like normal, ordinary teenagers. No more of this ‘protector of the planet’ nonsense. Why, you could prance about on ponies all day, every day. And then, when evening falls, you could hold hands and take long, moonlit strolls down to the malt shop.”
I arched both eyebrows.
So did Mel.
The malt shop? Abbadon was showing his age. I don’t think anybody’s gone on a date to a malt shop since Archie and Jughead were chasing Betty and Veronica.
But Abbadon was playing this temptation through.
As Mel and I stood frozen in disbelief, we saw duplicates of ourselves riding white horses across a creek. The other Daniel and Mel were laughing, having a grand time.
I even fell out of my saddle, right on cue, and went splashing into the creek.
“Ride much?” said the duplicate Mel with a gentle laugh.
“Um, not really,” said alternate me.
“You know, Daniel, you’re even cuter when you’re soaking wet,” said duplicate Mel, giggling, as I started peeling off my T-shirt and flexing my chest muscles like a junior Schwarzenegger. Abbadon definitely needed to hire some new scriptwriters for his alternate-reality soap opera.
I’d seen enough. “You mean we could become puppets for your amusement. Strike two, Abbadon. No sale.”
“Fine,” said Number 2. “Have it your way!”
And then he attacked me with everything in his arsenal.