Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Daniel. This isn’t like you.

I picked up my pace when I saw that one of the girls near the far goal had long black hair. Phoebe? The soccer coach blew her whistle as I ran past.

I was about midfield when the dark-haired girl finally turned around. My heart sank. Unless Phoebe had suddenly turned Asian American, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the coach yelled, charging toward me.

I wish I knew.

Then I heard a girl scream, and I recognized the voice immediately.

“Phoebe!” I yelled, my eyes burning as I half-ran, half-clawed my way up a steep slope beyond the athletic fields. “I’m coming… Hold on!”

I finally broke the top of the rise a second later. Thank the heavens, Phoebe was there. She was in a clearing, down on her knees, crying. I wasn’t too late! I’d found her. I ran up and wrapped her in my arms, feeling the familiar warmth of her body.

“Oh Daniel, something really horrible,” she whispered, trembling, “something unspeakable, is about to happen. I just know it. I’m sure of it.”

Chapter 46

“IT’S OKAY, PHOEBE,” I said as I rocked her gently back and forth. “I’m here now. Everything is okay. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You can say that again,” Phoebe said, suddenly stiffening in my arms.

What the -?

She squirmed away. Then Phoebe gave me a funny smile. Not funny ha-ha. Funny weird. Funny contemptuous. Funny sickening.

“What?” I said. “Phoebe? Are you okay? What’s going on here?”

“You are so dumb, it’s amazing,” she said, shaking her head. “You still haven’t figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” I said warily.

Suddenly I fell back, blinded, as a silver-tinged explosion flashed before my eyes. Where Phoebe’s sneakers had been, there was now a huge pair of men’s black shoes. I slowly panned up-long 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, 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.