Dangerous Days of Daniel X

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.