Chapter 19
WHILE MEL AND Emma fed apples to the horses and Joe and Willy brushed them down, Dana and I slipped away to have A Conversation.
I hate Conversations.
“Come on, Dana. Go easy on Mel. She’s nice.”
“Oh, yes. She’s swell.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “Are you jealous?”
“Of course. NOT!”
Fortunately, Joe came to my rescue.
“I’m starving,” he said. “Where’s the nearest Kentucky Fried Chicken?”
Mel heard that and laughed.
“What?” said Joe. “This is Kentucky, is it not?”
“We don’t eat fried chicken every day,” said Mel.
“No chicken for me,” said Emma. “I don’t eat anything with a face.”
The six of us swept into the kitchen through the back door and I was all set to materialize our finger-lickin’ good feast when Agent Judge stormed into the room.
“You need to see this, Daniel. Now.”
He snapped on an under-the-counter TV set. A horrific news report from Washington, D.C., filled the screen.
The time for R and R was officially over.
As I watched I was sickened by the image of the gleaming marble sides of the Washington Monument appearing to crackle with spidery fissure lines, like a shattering sheet of ice.
Giant marble slabs slid down the sides of the obelisk, like the walls of a crumbling glacier. The deafening roar of the thunderous rockslide rumbled across Washington, D.C., as Number 2 brought down the world’s tallest stone structure. Five hundred and fifty-five feet of marble, granite, and sandstone crumbled before his glowering red eyes, sending up a billowing cloud of dust and destruction that blotted out the sun and darkened the sky.
As if this weren’t sickening enough, I heard a voice from the newscast that was all too familiar. And it was talking to me.
“See this and know who I am, Daniel X!” Number 2 whispered, unfurling his enormous black wings. “This is all for you!”