“I really love this word the author made up,” said Mikaela. “ ‘To grok.’ Do you know what ‘grok’ means, Daniel?”
“Sure. ‘To understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed,’ ” I said, quoting Heinlein’s novel from memory. “ ‘Grok’ is a Martian word that can’t really be fully translated into any language on Earth.”
“That’s right,” said Mikaela. “The closest we can come is ‘to drink in.’ Or maybe ‘merge’ or ‘blend.’ ”
The train pulled out of the station, but I barely noticed the passing scenery. I was too busy “drinking in” Mikaela.
Like I said, there was just something about her. An otherworldly tranquility.
She flipped through the musty pages of her paperback.
“On Mars,” she said, “water is scarce. When Martians drink, their bodies merge with the water, combining to make a new reality greater than the sum of its parts.”
“Right,” I said. “The water becomes part of the drinker, and the drinker part of the water. Both grok each other. There’s a duality.”
“Yes,” said Mikaela. “Dualism is a fascinating concept. One that might be good for you to remember.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Dualism. A state in which something has two distinct parts that are often opposites. For instance, the battle between good and evil.”
“Right. But, why did you say it might be good for me to remember?”
Mikaela smiled warmly. “Because it might be. Would you like a Sprite, Daniel?”
“Um, no.”
“I would. Excuse me. I’m going to the café car.” She stuffed her book back into her knapsack. “You’re sure I can’t get you anything?”
“Positive. Thanks.”
And then she headed up the aisle toward the rear of the train.
Mikaela never came back.
I didn’t see her again—not even when we arrived at Union Station and I scanned the crowd on the platform with my built-in face-recognition software.
Maybe she got off in Baltimore or Delaware.
Unfortunately, even though I had liked her instantly, I didn’t have time to worry about Mikaela, my stranger on a strange train.
I had places to be. Things to do. An evil alien to eliminate.
I also had two other girls to think about: Mel and Dana, who, I had recently learned, were one and the same.
Maybe that’s why Mikaela and her paperback had been sent into my life for fifteen minutes. To help me grok the “duality” of that.
Chapter 24
AFTER BEING CLEARED through security at the FBI’s Hoover Building, I was escorted down to Agent Judge’s extremely secret office by two of his men.
“Good to see you again, Daniel,” said one, a former Navy SEAL who had been with me on my mission to deal with Abbadon, the demon who’d been Number 2 on the list of Alien Outlaws operating on Terra Firma until we scratched him off.
In fact, this particular Navy SEAL had marched with me to the gates of Hell. Literally.
“Heard you had a situation in Kentucky,” he said.
I arched a quizzical eyebrow.
“From what I hear,” the SEAL continued, “you ended up looking like I did that time we went one-on-one in the ring: like you’d just been run over by a truck.”
That made me smile.
The SEAL led me through a labyrinth of winding corridors and sliding doors made out of bulletproof glass. Special Agent Judge’s highly classified ask-and-we’ll-deny-its-existence Interplanetary Outlaw Unit had its base of operations in the bowels of the Hoover building: down in the basement’s basement.
Needless to say, the views out Special Agent Judge’s corner office windows were lousy, unless you enjoy looking at slabs of gray cement.
“Mel is safe,” he assured me when we were alone. “She’s at the horse farm with Xanthos and a heavily armed security detail.”
Xanthos had been my father’s spiritual advisor and had recently served me in that same capacity. Xanthos was a horse, the most magnificent white stallion I have ever seen. That is, he looked like a horse. He was actually a friendly alien creature with the extraordinary ability to communicate telepathically. He hailed from the planet Pfeerdia where all the superintelligent creatures look like what we call horses and sound like what we call reggae singers.
In a weird way, Xanthos reminded me of Mikaela. He had the same sort of centered calm that I had picked up during our brief train ride together. Maybe they took yoga classes together.
“Daniel?” said Agent Judge. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry, sir. Guess I zoned out a little. I was just thinking. About stuff.”
“Well, son, you have a lot of ‘stuff’ to think about, that’s for sure. It’s not every day that someone becomes the number one target on the number one alien outlaw’s hit list.”
“I can deal with it. In fact, having The Prayer hunting me might work out to our advantage.”
Agent Judge nodded. “A lot less legwork on your part. You won’t have to track him down if he comes looking for you.”
“Exactly. I just want to make one hundred percent certain that nobody else gets caught in the crossfire.”
“Maybe you should head back to the farm, Daniel. Check out the security precautions we put in place. Look for any weaknesses. I’m sure you’ll see something we missed.”
“Thank you, sir. I think I’ll do that.”
“Good.” He clacked a few keys on his keyboard. “And while you’re traveling to Kentucky, here’s something else for you to kick around in that big alien brain of yours.”
His computer screen filled with a Hubble Space Telescope image of a sea of stars, their flickering light distorted into double arcs swirling above and below a large magnetic cloud. At the center of the circular cloud—which had a faint, violet tinge to it—was a gaping black hole.
“Where was that image recorded?” I asked.
“Pretty close to home, as things go in this galaxy. It’s only a couple of thousand lights years away.”
“Could this anomaly affect Earth?”
“Definitely. Especially if it keeps growing at the pace it has been. It could destroy our entire solar system, not to mention a few billion other stars and planets clustered in the Milky Way. The guys at NASA tell us it’s something they’ve never seen before. A new kind of massive, fast-growing, and highly dangerous black hole.”
A black hole, of course, is a region of space-time with such intense gravitational pull that nothing, not even light, can escape. Black holes form when massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycles and grow by absorbing mass from their surroundings. By sucking in other stars and gobbling down planets.
“Earth could hit this black hole’s event horizon in a matter of months. If it keeps expanding unchecked,” said Agent Judge, “maybe weeks.”
“Event horizon” meant the point of no return. The line where the gravitational pull from the core of the black hole would become so great that Earth couldn’t possibly escape. The entire planet would be pulled into oblivion. Earth would be like a grape swirling down a drain into a gurgling garbage disposal.
“When did your scientists first observe this phenomenon?”
“It popped up about a month ago. On the same day you took down Number 2.”
One thing you learn pretty quickly when dealing with the most deadly and dangerous outlaws in the universe: there are no coincidences.
The superbad black hole the NASA scientists recently discovered had to be connected to Number 1. Don’t forget, the giant bug-faced goon has, according to my dad, “godlike” powers. That means he can mess around with the space-time continuum and the vast cosmos of space itself.
I needed something I still didn’t have in order to go up against an omnipotent enemy like that: a solid plan of attack. All I had was my anger and rage. That’s never enough, especially if your opponent can punch black holes through the fabric of the universe.
/> Fortunately, when I tried (once again) to teleport, I actually pulled it off. I zipped instantaneously from Agent Judge’s underground bunker office to his horse farm outside Louisville, Kentucky. One second, I was envisioning the lush green Kentucky bluegrass, the white corral fences; the next instant I was there.
Only, the grass wasn’t green. And the corral fences weren’t white.
Both were charred black and smoldering.
Firebombs with searing blue cores were exploding all around me, spraying up clouds of dirt and debris.
The Prayer was still one giant mantis step ahead of me. He’d arrived in Kentucky first.
Chapter 25
I SAW ONE of Agent Judge’s FBI security detail troops leaning up against a burned fence post. All the IOU guys on Judge’s team carried alien weapons that their unit had confiscated in previous firefights with outlaw offlanders. This agent had an RJ-57 tritium-charged bazooka slung over the bloody nub of what used to be his shoulder.
I dashed over to administer first aid.
“Don’t worry about me.” He grit his teeth against the staggering pain. “Agent Judge’s daughter—Mel—she’s in the house. Go.”
In a blinding flash, I used my matter manipulation skills to cauterize the agent’s wounds and build him a new, stronger arm. Willy had been right. In the thick of battle, pumped up by adrenaline, my powers seldom let me down.
Fire kept raining down from the sky, as if someone was laying siege to the Judge’s horse ranch by launching catapults loaded with barrels of flaming oil.
I didn’t care. I was stoked and primed for action.
I grabbed the wounded man’s RJ-57 and raced through chokingly thick clouds of smoke toward the farmhouse, topping my personal best running speed of 438 mph. The rubber soles of my sneakers smelled like tire-burning day at the town dump. Too bad. I could materialize myself a new pair—after I saved Mel!
While running at hypersonic speed, I fought against inertia to raise the RJ-57 to my shoulder. The bazooka was powerful enough to punch a peephole through the Hoover Dam. It might be strong enough to knock Number 1 out of Kentucky and up into Indiana.
Because I saw the long, grossly bloated body of the most dangerous alien outlaw on the front porch of the Judges’ farmhouse.
He’d come crashing out of the door, his head swiveling from side to side, his liquid-black eyes bulging out of his small, almost shrunken head.
The freakazoid had Mel trapped between his spiked, raptor forelegs, holding her kicking feet up off the ground. He fanned out his wings and sent his tangle of slimy red dreadlocks whipping around.
“Let go of me, you overgrown insect!” shouted Mel, squirming in the horrid creature’s grip.
“SILENCE!” screeched The Prayer. “You are MINE!”
From my vantage point behind some trees, I lowered my weapon. I couldn’t take the shot. Not without blasting Mel into oblivion, too.
Just then, a white horse came galloping across the pasture, his snowy mane and flanks shimmering in a shaft of warm golden light that seemed to follow him across the open field. It was Xanthos! Racing toward the porch, he let loose a powerful snort, pushing himself to his limits.
“NO!” shrieked The Prayer. “Keep away! I have claimed this one for the darkness!”
Number 1 spewed a jet of gelatinous blue flame out of his mouth. It erupted in a fireball inches in front of Xanthos’s thundering hooves.
Still, Xanthos didn’t stop. He leaped over the flames and galloped straight for The Prayer.
But half a second before impact, Mel and the spindly predator disappeared.
Xanthos reared up on his hind legs and pawed his hooves at the empty air where they’d just been standing.
Mel was gone. Number 1 had taken her.
Apparently, his powers of teleportation were fully functional, too.
Chapter 26
DO NOT DESPAIR, Daniel, Xanthos said in my mind. The beast will not harm Melody Judge. He will use her as bait. It is you he truly desires.
I know, I thought back. The Prayer recently proclaimed that I was his number one target.
The horse rumbled up a laugh. “Ah, ha-ha-ha. Perhaps I should be congratulating you, yah mon? You have become Number 1’s number one. Ah, ha-ha-ha.”
Quick sidebar: if you ever hear a horse start talking to you with a reggae accent inside your head, please—as they say in TV commercials about prescription drugs with side effects that might include nausea, dry mouth, or sudden death—consult your doctor. I, on the other hand, have telepathic conversations with other life forms all the time. Elephants. Whales. Baby seals.
And like I said earlier, Xanthos is actually an alien, not an Arabian stallion. He came to Earth from the far reaches of what astronomers call The Dark Horse Nebula.
Boy, did those guys get it wrong.
Xanthos was white on white on white. Sort of like a rice sandwich on Wonder Bread with extra mayo and the crusts cut off.
Tell me something, I thought to Xanthos.
Certainly, little brudda. I will tell you anything… if it is permitted.
Number 1, The Prayer—he seemed to be afraid of you.
Perhaps he fears I would squish him under my hooves. Ah, ha-ha-ha.
Come on. I’m being serious. Why would an omnipotent creature like Number 1 run away when you came charging at him?
Who says he is all-powerful?
My dad. He told me that The Prayer was worse than the devil himself. He told me that the Prayer was a god.
Xanthos shook his head. Ah, that Graff, he thought. Your poppa was never my best pupil, mon. I told Graff that The Prayer was a highly refined manifestation of eternal, omnipresent, and omnipotent evil. But there is good in this world, too, little brudda. Good equally as strong.
Well, whatever he is, he’s certainly more powerful than me. Or at least, he has been up to now. He seems to know what I’m thinking before I’ve even thought it; where I’m going before I’ve even decided to go there.
As if to prove my point, my cell phone started shrieking that eardrum-piercing ringtone I had first heard in Times Square.
There was no need to check the caller ID. I knew it was The Prayer.
I punched the speakerphone button so Xanthos could hear what the overgrown vermin had to say.
“Where’s Mel?” I demanded before the creep could screech out a single syllable.
“With me,” he bellowed. “WITH ME!”
Now I heard the slobbery slither of a long, wet tongue.
“If you hurt her, I’ll…”
“SILENCE! I grow weary of this world. I grow weary of this game. You no longer amuse me, Danny Boy. I will make a trade. We will end this once and for all.”
What is it you would propose, evil one? thought Xanthos.
“YOU AGAIN!” squealed The Prayer like a lobster someone just plopped in a pot of boiling water.
Apparently, Number 1 could hear Xanthos’s thoughts, just like I could.
Of course he could. He had every one of my other powers, so why not interspecies telepathy, too?
“LEAVE US. This is not your affair!”
Xanthos didn’t back down. What is it you would propose?
“That we END this. NOW!”
“How?” I shot back at the phone. I was gripping the thing so tightly my knuckles had gone white.
“We trade your EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL death for this worthless little girl’s life. It is up to you, DANNY BOY. Follow your conscience. I would—if I had one.”
Chapter 27
DO NOT FALL for this, Daniel.
My spiritual advisor’s thoughts on the matter were crystal clear.
I had just terminated the call with The Prayer. Told him I’d consider his offer; that he’d have his answer soon.
“Do NOT make me wait!” he had shrieked in reply. “I HATE waiting! I want what I want, when I want it.”
“Just give me a little time,” I said, making it sound more like a command than a request. “Hey, i
f it makes you feel better, freeze time where you are. Pull out that tired old time-stopping trick you used back in Times Square.”
“YOU HAVE UNTIL NIGHTFALL!” he bellowed.
That’s when I hit the END button and cut off the call.
I warn you, Daniel, thought Xanthos. It is a trick. Your death for her life? Hah! Once you are dead and gone, what is to stop him from killing all the humans, as well as your soul mate, eh? And, he will crush her soul, Daniel. This I know. The thing you call Number 1 can make certain the soul you knew on Alpar Nok as Dana is lost forever, never to return.
You knew Mel was—is—my childhood friend, Dana?
The noble creature sighed. There are many things we know which we cannot tell, my brudda. We are advisors, not spies.
Well, what if I tell Number 1 that I’ll make the exchange. Then, when I get to whatever location he selects for my execution, I turn the tables. I summon up my four friends and we lay down the hurt on him. We squash him like a bug on a windshield.
And this is your plan?
Do you have a better one?
Yes. Take care, my yute. Beware of darkness. For in the darkness, it is sometimes difficult to see where the good ends and the evil begins. Do not give sway to the negative way.
It was my turn to sigh. You always say that!
Because it is always true, my friend. You cannot fight hate with hate, or darkness with something darker still.
Please. Now I was practically begging. Tell me something I can use.
Fine. I will tell you who used to be The Prayer’s primary target. Who has been number one on its list since that list was first created.
Who?
The earth and all its inhabitants. You, my brave little brudda, were but an irritant to it. A trifle for it to sport with. But when you would not ‘behave’ in its hospital…