“This was the battle I had been preparing for, Daniel. In Kansas.” “When Number 1 came for you and Mom?” My father nodded. “But why were you training to fight Number 2? Why not Number 1? If you had concentrated on the top gun…” “It was my mission, Daniel. It was why your mother and I came to this planet.” “To fight Number 2? I don’t get it.” “Daniel, Number 2 is the one humans call the Prince of Darkness. He is Satan.” “The devil?” Now the walls of the barn were filled with fiery images. Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgment from the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, showing Satan as the boatman Charon ferrying the evildoers down to hell. A snake hissing in the verdant undergrowth of a garden. The cloven-hoofed, twin-horned fiend of legend and horror films. My father turned to gaze at the devilish imagery writhing across the walls. “He is the great pretender,” my father said. “A fallen angel fighting for souls, hoping to lure them into the darkness.
