James Patterson - Dangerous Days of Daniel X

“My powers,” I whimpered. “They’re…”

“Being disconnected? Indeed,” Seth said. “Good thing too. Your misguided thoughts matched with your kind of powers are a combination that is much too potentially dangerous to allow. Not to mention that you ruined my magnificent graveyard creation. That clinched it, I’m afraid. It was a masterwork, don’t you agree? I was particularly fond of the odor of rotting flesh I was able to achieve. That’s why I’m logging you off, son. Good-bye.”

After another minute, the seashell claw withdrew. I lay motionless, hollowed out. I was surprised I could still breathe. I felt feverish, drugged, as Seth lifted me effortlessly in his arms.

“Night, Daniel,” he said.

In Phoebe’s voice, of course.

AS IF FROM FAR AWAY, I heard the sound of traffic. Traffic?

As my head lolled back, I made out an upside-down Honda Odyssey with tinted black windows. It was the same minivan that I’d spotted in downtown LA, carting around the drug-dealing children.

It’s all coming together horribly, I thought as the van’s door slid open. Then I was flying through the air before slamming painfully into the far wall.

Bang-up job, Dannyboy, I thought as my wrists and ankles were duct-taped. Way to go get ’em. You are your father’s son! You’re definitely ready to battle Number 6 to the death. Yours!

More ugly horse-heads-half a dozen-wearing muscle shirts and tracksuits and gold chains stared down at me with yellowish, cue-ball eyes.

“Meow,” one of them said.

The rest burst into howling laughter. Hey, these were the same losers who’d trashed my house, the ones who’d done the cat attack.

“That’s incredibly funny,” I said as the van’s tires squealed. “I know a good one too. This horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, ‘Hey, buddy. Why the long face?’ ”

I was barely able to cover my head as a dozen shell talons clawed at my eyes.

“Slime ’im! Slime ’im! Slime ’im!” came an eerie chant. Whatever it meant, I didn’t want it.

A particularly ugly, freak-show horse-face appeared a foot above mine. Something was oozing from the inside corners of its mouth hole.

I slammed my eyes shut as something warm and thick dripped onto my forehead and began to pool. The contents of my stomach rioted as I caught the spoiled clam-chowderish whiff of it.

I almost managed to close my mouth before the rancid, vomitizing ooze dripped off my nose, and onto my lips, and right down my throat.

By the way, don’t say I didn’t warn you back around page four that the story might get a little rough at times.

I DON’T KNOW about you, but whenever I’m slimed and hog-tied in the stow-and-go seat well of a minivan, I tend to do a little soul-searching.

First of all, I was pretty angry with myself. I’d let Seth play me like an iPod Shuffle. I’d been sooo sure about how ninjalike and under the radar I was being, but now I realized Seth must have felt me the moment I set foot in LA. He was Number 6, after all!

What else? Oh, yeah. I was in paralyzing fear of losing my life. Lots of kidnap victims can say they don’t know what their captors will do to them, but I really, really didn’t know. I mean, were these pus-headed aliens going to slime me again, or was it something worse? I figured… worse.

Then they started playing their music, which was a sophisticated form of torture in itself. The List of Alien Outlaws never said these freaks were fanatics of early eighties bands. We’re talking Journey, Air Supply, Styx. And some group I’d never heard before called Yes that should have been called No. In my humble opinion, anyway.

The eardrum-walloping volume wouldn’t have been so bad if these intergalactic thugs didn’t have to sing along, like this was a karaoke van, banging their mallet-shaped heads back and forth and playing air guitar, air drums, air cymbals.

I just lay there in shock, gazing out the back window at the tops of telephone poles zipping by on our road trip to who-knew-where and who-knew-what.

I should have listened to my mother and father.

I should have listened to Dana.

I should have listened to Ergent Seth.

I’d been warned, hadn’t I?

IT WAS PITCH-BLACK when the silver van pulled off the highway to hell. I was barely able to catch the top of a DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK sign that flashed in the brake lights out the back window.

I was yanked up roughly as we came to a stop about a half hour later. Outside in the headlights stood half a dozen weathered wood factory buildings.

Welcome to the middle of the middle of nowhere, I thought. So why did this scene seem extremely familiar to me?

“Hey, isn’t this where they shot Texas Chainsaw Massacre ? The remake of the remake?” I said, thinking out loud.

“Very observant, Daniel,” Seth said proudly. “A true masterpiece of the chain saw-wielding cannibal genre. At least you have good taste in bad movies. I told you, I was in the industry, didn’t I? That remake was one of my finest awful films. Here, let me give you a tour of the shoot,” he said. “No cameras, please!”

He ripped the duct tape off my feet, then dragged me out of the van by my hair. A very painful way to go.

I was pulled past a huge, rust-pocked metal tank into one of the buildings. Dozens of kids were inside, some of them in large cells and some chained to the walls.

I winced as I took in the faces. These were the same missing kids I’d seen from the file “Phoebe” had shown me in LA.

“So that part of the story was true,” I said. “You really are off-loading kids from the earth. You’re nothing but a slave trader.”

“C’mon, that’s not all I am,” Seth said as he opened a cell door and kicked me inside. “Don’t forget all the stealing, murdering, and drug dealing I do. Not to mention the hit movies I’ve made about zombies, cannibals, vampires, and cutting instruments.”

I watched as Seth transformed himself into Phoebe Cook.

“Oh Danny. I need your help soooo much,” he/she taunted. The rest of Seth’s horse-head buddies slapped their thighs and broke up laughing.

Seth turned back into his vile and demonic self.

“Absurd logic on your part. Why would a girl as hot as Phoebe Cook need the help of a weak, stupid, substandard, inferior, about-to-be-extinct failure like you? Phoebe was a test, Daniel. You failed. Miserably. Look at you.”

Whatever Seth had done to sap my power, it had worked. I was having trouble staying on my feet, or even focusing on his hideous horse’s head.

“Now that we’ve come face-to-face, Seth,” I said, staring steadily into his reddish-brown eyes, “my only regret is that you’re not the insectlike lowlife who actually killed my folks.”

“Oh, I just might be their killer after all,” he roared.

“No, you’re not,” I said with a shake of my head. “I marked that miscreant on his skull after he murdered my mom and dad. The creature who took out my parents, the one who is going to pay with his life, is The Prayer. You’re only sixth on my List, Seth. Dream on!”

“Isn’t that interesting?” Seth said. “You learn something new and useful every day. Speaking of which, maybe I can tell you something that you didn’t know, Mr. Smart-ass. You’re Number 1 on the Hit Parade of every alien currently residing on this backworld of a planet. We were hunting for you, young Daniel X. And I just won the jackpot. That’s why you’re still alive. I want to show off my prize. I won, you lost. Maybe I’ll drag you from galaxy to galaxy- in captivity. ”