Read The Dangerous Days of Daniel X for Free Online Page B

crooked, nicotine-stained teeth. Smiling was a good sign, I thought. Smiling meant he had already underestimated me.
    “I’m looking for Ergent Seth,” I told him. “You seen him around anywhere tonight?”
    “Sounds to me like you’re lookin’ for Urgent Death.” And that was when the disgusting Dealer Man made his move.
    I had to hand it to him. His dental hygiene left something to be desired, but he did have fast hands. The ice pick he stabbed at my throat traveled forward in a blur.
    Fortunately I react pretty well to blurs.
    I took a half step back, waited for him to overextend himself, then offered up a blur of my own—a roundhouse kick across the side of his head. The dealer flew back, his skinhead cracking into the van with a loud, dull
whump.
    He screeched and let go of the ice pick when I stepped down hard on the back of his hand. Then I kicked the weapon into the sewer.
    “You ever heard of child labor laws?” I said.
    He was going for a 9 millimeter automatic in his waistband when I had an inspiration.
    I reached out suddenly and laid my hands on the sides of his head.
    I stared into his eyes and unleashed a small fraction of my power of transformation.
    For a moment the drug dealer writhed like somebody with the world’s worst ice-cream headache. Then he tossed his gun into the sewer as if it burned his hand.
    Next the red-bearded wonder climbed to the top of the abandoned factory stairs and thrust his arms out.
    “I . . . HAVE
. . .
BEEN . . . SAVED!”
the dealer screamed for all to hear.
    The kids who worked for him stared with their mouths open wide.
    “I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!”
the dealer yelled even louder.
“AND I AM HERE IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR TO MAKE SURE THAT EACH AND EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU SEES THAT SAME LIGHT!”
    I chuckled. In a way, he was right. I had definitely saved him. If you consider erasing his memory and convincing him that he was a Pentecostal preacher being saved.
    The born-again dealer pointed at me as I backed away.
    “You there! Yes, you! Like the Angel in Joseph’s dream in the Holy Book, I say unto thee,
Do not be afraid!
Stay and hear the Good Word. For how else will you
save your soul from the clutches of the devil himself?
”
    “I must be off now.” I saluted him. “Maybe to do the Lord’s work myself.”
    Hopefully, like catching Ergent Seth and dispatching him to the everlasting fires.
    Chapter 25
    WELCOME TO ANOTHER of my creepy nightmares. I kind of wish this were a blank page and I had nothing to say. But it isn’t.
    No sooner had I drifted off to sleep that night than Number 6 was talking to me, Ergent Seth himself. Imagine a dead and diseased horse’s head on the body of a hairy, pasty white, six or seven-hundred-pound wrestler. Now make it twice as ugly and scary. Oh yeah, and with horrifyingly bad breath.
    “I have one word for you, Daniel—
run!
Because I have no plans of showing you the tender mercy The Prayer extended to your mama and papa.
    “I will torture you for a human eternity, during which time you will
beg
me for death by an Opus 24/24, or an ax, or a thousand snakebites. I can see the future, Daniel, and I am looking forward to it, every excruciating second of your murder and dismemberment. Isn’t that a wonderful English word,
dis-member-ment?
    “Now,
wake up, dear boy
—and enjoy another sleepless night, compliments of Ergent Seth.”
    Chapter 26
    SLEEP-DEPRIVED OR NOT, I forced myself to go to school the next day. Got to keep those priorities straight. It’s amazing how
not
having parents makes you be a parent to yourself. Most of the time, anyway.
    Two things happened when I was coming out of my last class. Two awesomely cool things, actually.
    “There you are,” Phoebe Cook said, smiling as she jogged over. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Daniel.”
    Then she actually hooked my arm with hers, and I could feel pins and needles on the inside of my elbow where our skin touched. If it was a question