Free The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge Page A

black trousers, a black silk shirt, kinky chin whiskers.
    “Wh-wh-wh-what?” I said. Something very articulate and meaningful like that.
    Above the collar of the black shirt was an impossibly narrow, horselike head, a
dead
horse’s head, covered in slack, bone-white, bloodless skin. The skin was decorated with pea-sized, pus-oozing bumps, like a diseased chicken’s.
    I stared into the monster’s eyes. Shiny, bulging, blood-red orbs embedded in the loose skin like larvae.
    “Ironic, isn’t it? Here you were, knocking yourself out to find me.” A voice came from a rattling flap and a hole below the demonic eyes. A British voice.
Seth’s
voice.
    He switched back into Phoebe—and batted those startling blue eyes at me.
    “And here I was the whole time,” came Seth’s voice—
out of Phoebe’s mouth.
    Chapter 47
    “WAIT A SECOND,” I said, trying to stop the sudden, awful spinning in my head. “That means . . . all along you were . . . Right from the start you were . . .”
    Seth changed himself from Phoebe back into the horse-headed monster—that is,
himself.
    “Phoebe? Oh yes,” he said, winking an orb as the corners of his mouth pulled up in a horsey smile. “You’re quite a snuggler, Danny. I’ll always cherish the time we had.”
    I closed my eyes and slowly shook my head. Talk about something sucking big-time. I’d been getting all googly-eyed and fog-brained over an alien slime pustule. Wow. I’d wanted to die before, but never so badly. I probably would in a second anyway. Cardiac arrest by embarrassment.
    “Quite a convincing performance, wasn’t it?” Seth said, taking a little bow. “And I just loved playing Phoebe.”
    “Wait a second. Aren’t you supposed to be a
gas
or something?” I asked.
    “PR story,” he said. “This is Tinseltown, dear boy. Image is everything. Don’t believe anything you read or hear in LA. Wasn’t I fabulous as Phoebe, though?
I
think I was. I needed to get close to you, Daniel. To see if you posed any danger. You don’t, by the way.
    “Now, where were we? Oh yes. Your imminent death.
Imminent
means you’re going to die
soon.
”
    He slid his hand—which was more of a seashell-like talon—along my temple. All of a sudden, I felt seasick. Then came a black, despairing nausea. A centrifugal sucking sensation started deep at my core, as if a plug had been pulled at the bottom of my soul.
    “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.
    Chapter 48
    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,