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 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.