Armageddon - By James Patterson Page 0,61

the first two rounds.

Well, at least I survived. Abbadon couldn’t break me, mentally or emotionally.

So, for round three, he was just trying to break me.

As in, every bone in my body.

He hurled me off a cliff and down the jagged side of a mountain. My body was racked with pain as my limbs shattered, my spine crunched, my joints popped, and my head throbbed. All I could hear were my own groans and my internal organs smashing into one another.

Abbadon had transformed me into a rolling boulder.

“Surrender to me, Daniel!”

“Never,” I grunted, as best I could.

When my body—now made of rock, but somehow filled with all the sensation of a fragile human body—hit the boulder-strewn ravine five hundred feet beneath the jutting cliff, I bounced once, then burst into flames and became a rolling fireball. The pain was indescribable as every bit of my body burned, an inescapable inferno. The punishment went beyond gruesome. This was sheer torture.

“And it will go on for all eternity, Daniel,” gloated Number 2. “After all, this is hell! And you haven’t even begun to know pain yet.”

When my rocky meteorite of a body finally came to a stop, Abbadon snapped his fingers and turned me back into myself. But the flaming boulder didn’t disappear. I lurched forward, no longer in control of my body, and started to push the boulder back up the mountain.

I almost preferred plummeting down the cliff to this unparalleled agony. Abbadon may have been forcing me to push, but he wasn’t helping me with the massive weight at all. My broken bones intensified the horror, the impossibility of it all.

Somehow—stumbling, falling, almost crushed by my task—I reached the top of the cliff, after a stretch of time that could’ve been minutes, hours, or years.

And then it got even worse.

Abbadon turned me back into the boulder and hurled me off the other side of the mountain, my punishment becoming a never-ending cycle of pain.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Why hadn’t Dante written about this circle of hell in his Inferno?

On my third crash down the cliff, I saw that Abbadon had found yet another way to blast pain through my whole being.

It was Mel.

Like me, she was being forced to roll a boulder of jet-black onyx up the mountain. When she got to the top, her body transformed into rock, like mine had, and started rolling down the other side of the cliff.

I was so messed up at that point I thought I even saw her flattened face pressing against the glassy-smooth surface of the stone as she flew by me in a lightning flash.

One thing I know I didn’t imagine, though: I could clearly hear her anguished cries for help!

Chapter 84

HEARING MEL’S WOEFUL cries ripped me up. Badly.

My spirit was nearly shattered, my will almost broken.

But, somehow, hearing Mel also reminded me of who I truly am.

The creator. The Protector.

The Alien Hunter who can do whatever I can imagine.

Mel had given me the strength to become myself again.

So when I rolled my boulder to the summit for the umpteenth time, I caught a glimpse of Abbadon, standing on a precipice with his arms akimbo, laughing triumphantly.

Hey, whatever he could do, I could do. Right?

So I imagined him becoming a boulder and cascading down the cliff right behind me.

But it didn’t happen.

On my return trip up to the summit, I imagined Number 2 blown to smithereens.

I mentally depicted every detail of his bodily explosion.

Still, it didn’t happen.

“Give it up, you weakling!” Number 2 shouted as I plummeted off the cliff again. “I can sense your feeble creations the instant you attempt to generate them. You are a disgrace to those of us who truly know how to use the gifts we have been given.”

I bounded back up.

Abbadon kept smirking at me.

“You know, Daniel, it’s a good thing your mother and father have already departed this realm. They would be absolutely appalled to see how unimaginative you actually are.”

I tumbled down the mountainside as Mel groaned and gasped on her way up.

I could hear what was left of our unbroken bones crunching. I could hear her whimpers as the boulder’s flames licked her skin.

Abbadon kept mocking me: “This is why your mommy and daddy left you all on your own, Daniel.”

I hit rock bottom and immediately started my return up the harsh slope.

“They could no longer endure the prolonged embarrassment of having you as their only son. Ha! They’re better off dead!”

I neared the top of the cliff.

Number 2’s taunts should’ve stung worse than bashing my bones