Armageddon - By James Patterson Page 0,47

became so thick there was barely room to breathe. We were more than surrounded. We were engulfed.

And then things got even nastier.

The thousands upon thousands of bats transformed into Abbadon’s full-bodied alien henchbeasts.

And, believe it or not, they looked (and smelled) even nastier than they had as buck-toothed vampire bats.

Chapter 64

WE WERE OUTNUMBERED a thousand to one—no, more like five thousand to one.

“Hold your fire!” I shouted again.

Our targets were still too close. Yes, Agent Judge’s handpicked team was full of brave warriors and skilled marksmen. However, very few of them had ever actually dealt with the kind of alien firepower they were currently carrying. A blaster gut-shot to the alien creep standing directly in front of you would bore straight through the creature’s cockroach-crusty shell, shoot out his backside, and take out one of the mine’s support beams, bringing down an avalanche that would bury us alive.

This is why blasters, when sold by legitimate dealers, come with warning labels: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR INDOOR USE.

All we could do was wait for Abbadon’s slobbering lackeys to make the first move. And when they did, it wasn’t the move I had been expecting.

They lined up in rows like a high school marching band, did an about-face, and started tromping down the subterranean passageway—away from us.

Were they retreating without firing a single shot? Then I noticed that none of the freakazoids were even carrying weapons. It was like they were a drill team without the toy wooden rifles.

And the weirdness kept getting weirder.

The massed legion of alien thugs, who moved like the synchronized marching machines North Korea likes to put on parade, pivoted their heads in unison and began chanting over their shoulders at us.

“Follow us. He waits below. Follow us. He waits below.”

My new friend, Lieutenant Russell the SEAL, pushed his way to the front of our jumbled pack.

“It’s a trap, Daniel,” he said. “They want to lure you down there so they can ambush you.”

“Maybe. But it’s not an ambush if we’re not surprised. I’m going down after them. The rest of you can stay here if you want, but I need to push on.”

I started marching down the mineshaft, following Abbadon’s followers.

Agent Judge, my friends, and the strike force?

They were maybe one or two steps behind me.

Chapter 65

WHEN WE REACHED the cavernous room where (ages ago, it now seemed) I had witnessed Abbadon’s pep rally, I realized that this sweltering underground cathedral with its stalactite-studded ceiling was only the entryway into a vast and hidden labyrinth of passages.

My father, unseen by the other members of our force, including my four best friends, walked at my side as I followed the dark legions and descended farther and farther into the lower depths. Our conversation was telepathic. Nobody heard our thoughts except us.

Lots of legends about this place, he said. Dante wrote of being lost in a dark wood, assailed by beasts he could not evade, unable to find the straight path out, falling into a deep place.

I swiped away the sweat dribbling down my forehead. The deeper we journeyed toward the center of the Earth, the hotter it got.

You’re feeling the effects of the “furnace of fire” the Bible speaks of, my father continued. There is a reason hell is described as a burning wind, a fiery oven, and a lake of fire. The underworld is closer to Earth’s mantle, a dense, hot layer of semisolid rock. It’ll keep getting hotter the deeper we burrow.

I had a feeling a lot of our strike force would be peeling off their tactical armor before we reached our final destination, wherever that might be.

Ancient civilizations knew of Abbadon’s kingdom. For the Greeks, his home was known as Hades, an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering.

When my father said that, I thought again of Mel.

Being held prisoner.

In Abbadon’s dungeon.

And when I thought about her, I knew I had to keep pressing on, no matter how high the devil jacked up his thermostat.

When you encounter Abbadon—and you will, Daniel—trust none of what you hear, and less of what you see. Satan knows how to manipulate and deceive. There is only one way to defeat an adversary this cunning and shrewd….

Don’t let him tempt me away from who I truly am, I mentally muttered.

Exactly.

Hours passed. We slogged on through the pressure cooker of heat and humidity, winding through a maze of narrow tunnels.

Our strike force was slowing down. The horde of aliens up ahead was not. According to Joe’s radar sweeps, the distance between