Armageddon - By James Patterson Page 0,34

screaming horses came stampeding toward us, all of them ridden by alien outlaw freaks who were spurring the stallions’ ribs, hard.

“Time to dismount!” I commanded, swinging out my leg to roundhouse kick the lead rider off his steed.

On my right, I could see Willy leaping up into a flying back kick. Dana was going with a scissor kick, attempting to take down two riders at once.

But an instant before any of our blows landed, the horses transformed into rocket bikes and zoomed away, torching our shins with their afterburners.

“Mel’s not with them!” I shouted as I tumbled to the ground.

“The first bunch must’ve taken her,” reported Willy. “I saw them morph into some kind of robots and shoot skyward. They were hauling a sealed capsule behind them.”

That capsule had to be Mel’s portable prison cell.

“Take these criminals down!” Agent Judge shouted to his team, and they immediately started firing. Hot tracers streaked through the sky. Warbling shock blasts rippled through the air. Unfortunately, when that last invader squeaked through the shrinking exit hole, the FBI weapon bursts ricocheted off the inner lining of my refurbished dome.

“Cease fire!” I shouted as boomeranging ammunition pummeled the ground around us. “Cease fire!”

Agent Judge took up the call. “Cease fire!”

We dodged the incoming blasts until the last of the deflected shots sprang back at us.

Then everything under the dome became incredibly, horribly quiet.

I looked over at Agent Judge. I’ve never seen a man look so shocked or grim.

“Don’t worry, sir,” I said. “I’m going after her.”

Not yet, I heard Xanthos’s voice say in my head. It was weak, barely audible. Not… yet…

He sounded like he was hurt.

No—it was worse.

It sounded like my spiritual advisor was dying.

Chapter 47

XANTHOS WAS LYING on his side in his stall. I could see that the straw scattered around his battered body had been scorched; his flowing white mane was singed and seared. I’m not certain what kind of flame-throwing weapons the thugs had used, but one thing was totally clear: they had come to these stables with orders to kill.

Xanthos was barely clinging to life. His blackened rib cage rose up and down very slowly, the movement accompanied by a wet death rattle creaking up from his lungs.

My brudda, I reached out mentally to my fallen friend.

Believe it or not, a slight grin twitched across his muzzle.

My brudda, he thought back.

What did those animals do to you?

The worst they could, Daniel. They live to hate. For this, we must pity them. For they will never know the one true love that unites us all.

Hang on. I can fix you.

No, Daniel. There are some things even you cannot repair.

I’m not going to let you die.

It is not your choice, brudda. We are all mortal. Otherwise, we would be gods, no? Fate has…

His voice grew fainter in my head.

Xanthos? I pleaded.

I could sense him mustering his final ounces of strength. It is written in the book….

What is written? I asked.

He took a wheezy breath. My destiny. Yours.

What is my destiny?

To be true…

He was slipping away. His wide nostrils were barely fluttering.

To be true to what? I leaned closer.

To… who… you… truly… are…

And with that, there was nothing in my mind but my own mournful thoughts.

My spiritual advisor was dead.

I cradled his majestic head in my lap and rocked it back and forth. Tears stung my eyes and streamed down my cheeks.

Xanthos, an extremely gentle creature who’d never uttered a harsh word—not even for those who came here to kill him—had, in just a few short days, really worked his way deep into my soul. Now his death was rocking my world.

I don’t think I’ve cried that hard in years.

And I didn’t want to do it again for a long, long time. I didn’t want Agent Judge doing it, either.

Another reason why I had to go rescue Mel—immediately!

Chapter 48

I GENTLY CLOSED Xanthos’s soulful brown eyes.

As I did, I realized something: I killed him.

I also got Mel kidnapped.

If I had never come to Kentucky, if I had never met my father’s spiritual advisor, if I hadn’t gone horseback riding, if Xanthos hadn’t bucked me off his back when we were crossing that creek, if…

“What’re you doing, Daniel?”

It was Dana.

I gently laid Xanthos’s head on a pillow of the cleanest straw I could scrape together in his stall. “He’s dead,” I said faintly. “I killed him.”

“No, you didn’t.” Dana knelt down beside me and wiped the last tear from my eye. “You feel terrible about what happened to your friends. Maybe you even feel