Armageddon - By James Patterson Page 0,33

left foot. “Maybe like this?”

I flicked my horseshoe backward, right over the top of my head.

Then I spun around to watch it spiral and soar across the sky until it wrapped itself around the torso of the flying-horse ornament poised on top of the weather vane. The arch of metal hit the horse at extremely high velocity, and it ripped the whole weather vane rig right off the roof, tearing out its anchor bolts and sending it flying. Naturally, this caused all four of my friends’ horseshoes to slide off the support post and clink, one by one, down to the ground below.

“Yes!” I cheered, triumphantly raising my arms to celebrate my spectacular victory.

I was staring straight up at the top of the dome.

Surprisingly, the Milky Way didn’t look smudged or milky.

In fact, all the stars were once again crisp, clear, and sparkling.

It was almost as if, while I was busy ripping the weather vane off the barn, someone had ripped a hole in my impenetrable security shield!

Chapter 44

ABBADON STOOD, SURROUNDED by his minions, in a charred meadow a hundred yards east of the white stockade fence surrounding the FBI agent’s horse farm.

“Foolish boy,” he whispered to the wind. “Did you not see what I did to New York, London, Beijing, Moscow, and the rest? Did you really think your idiotic dome would remain impenetrable? To me?”

He shook his head.

He wondered if this Daniel would ever prove himself the worthy adversary he had been promised.

“Whatever you create, child, I can just as easily destroy!”

He fluttered open his massive set of wings.

“Fly!” he shouted to the pack of warriors he had brought with him to Kentucky. On his command, the aliens clustered in the flattened field once again morphed into inky black bats. Squealing, the swarm took flight and blotted out the starlit sky. They zoomed to the west and shot through the gaping hole Abbadon had so easily punched in Daniel’s protective shield.

Abbadon watched as his minions, using their innate radar systems, swooped under and around the latticework of unseen laser-beam triggers crisscrossing the airspace around the Judges’ farm. Once clear of the alarm grid, the bats skimmed across the open fields, flying inches above the ground, remaining undetected by the humans’ mechanical and, therefore, less-effective radar systems. The flock split in two. One squad rocketed toward the main house while the other zoomed off to the barn.

To deal with that one, thought Abbadon. The interloper.

When the twin sorties reached their targets, the bats zoomed straight up the sides of the buildings. The house squad dive-bombed down the chimneys. The barn squadron simply slipped through the crack between the sliding front doors.

“We’re in,” both leaders reported back.

“Excellent,” said Abbadon. “Complete your missions.”

“Yes, Master,” the leaders grunted.

“And remember, do not hurt the girl. Ferry her down below.”

“What about Xanthos?” asked the leader in the barn.

“Eliminate him,” Abbadon replied easily. “He has been giving Daniel an unfair advantage.”

Chapter 45

I CAN OUTRUN hummingbirds and Japanese bullet trains. My personal best speed used to be 438 mph. Nobody was clocking me on this particular night, but I think I topped that as I shot across the half mile of open field to the farmhouse. My sonic boom shattered a couple of windows in Agent Judge’s antique pickup truck.

I had seen a swarm of scuzzy bats plunge down the chimney pipes and knew, instantly, what was going on: Number 2 was sending in his creeps from the cave. They’d morph out of their flying mammal mode and switch back into their hideous alien selves the instant they were inside.

But why? What did they want in the house?

I was out in the yard. My face was the one on the WANTED poster. I was the Alien Hunter with an unbelievably hefty bounty on his head.

So why did the bats storm into Agent Judge’s house?

Unfortunately, Agent Judge soon gave me the answer.

I burst in through the front door and saw him in the parlor, swinging a laser-sighted blaster right, left, up, down—searching for a target.

“They grabbed her!”

“What?”

“The aliens took Mel!”

Chapter 46

“THEY’RE IN THE barn!” Willy shouted as soon as we’d bolted outside. Someone had pushed the doors wide open.

“I heard whinnies and screams,” reported Emma. “I think they’re torturing the horses!”

“Cover us!” I called to Agent Judge, who was joined by maybe a dozen other FBI agents, all of them hauling heavy E.T. hardware. They took up firing positions behind fences, horse troughs, rain barrels, and that antique pickup truck.

I led the gang toward the barn.

Suddenly, six