Chapter 86
I SUDDENLY REALIZED where we were: Kentucky. At the Judges’ horse farm.
“So, Daniel, has anyone ever told you that you’re amazing?” said Mel. Then she rocked up on her toes and kissed me on the cheek. “A very impressive first date.”
“Um, this was a date?”
“Well, we got to see that cheesy movie about our happy future. So, is your chest really that buff, or were those special effects?”
I was about to answer when I heard a voice in my head.
Welcome back, brudda.
“Xanthos!” I cried out loud.
“What?” Mel said as we both started running toward the barn. “He’s back from the dead?”
“I don’t think he ever died.”
“Yes, he did. They made me watch them kill him when they kidnapped me.”
“I don’t think that ever happened, either.”
“Uh, yes it did. I was there.”
“I know, but, well… I think Abbadon put all this in our heads, the way I do sometimes.”
We tore into the barn, and there he was—shaking out his snowy mane, pawing at the hay, giving us a happy whinny.
So, Daniel, you did not give sway to the negative way. Yah, mon?
I laughed and said, “Yah, mon,” right back at him.
I noticed a paint-spackled portable radio perched on a shelf outside Xanthos’s stall and switched it on, hoping to get confirmation that my theory was correct.
A newsreader came on: “And down in Washington they’re getting set for a spectacular fireworks extravaganza. With all of D.C.’s monuments and the U.S. Capitol in the background…”
I turned the radio off.
“Washington wasn’t destroyed?” Mel said, sounding confused.
“Well, it was—as long as Number 2 imagined it was.”
“And now that he’s gone…”
“Washington isn’t.”
“So you just basically saved Washington, New York, London, Beijing, Moscow… okay, the whole planet?”
“Yeah.”
“Incredible!” And she hopped up to give me another kiss.
Now Agent Judge strode into the barn, followed by Lieutenant Russell. They cleared their throats to announce their arrival.
“Um, hi, Daddy,” Mel said, blushing a little.
“You’re both safe?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “And as far as I can tell, everything on Earth has gone back to normal.”
“I’ll say,” said Lieutenant Russell, shooting me a wink.
“Daniel?” said Agent Judge.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m mighty impressed, son. Your parents would be proud.”
“Thank you, sir.”
When he said that, I remembered that my father and mother were gone. Forever.
Abbadon didn’t imagine them away. They had left on their own.
Life was really going to be different from here on out.