Chapter 83

IT PROBABLY WASN’T my brightest move ever, but what choice did I have?

“Let them go, Number 5,” I said, aiming my hand like a gun at Number 5’s flabby, slime-covered belly, just as I had with Number 21. “And I mean right now, or my friends and I will spend the next ten minutes wiping you and your minions off the face of the Earth.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, snorting even harder. “Are you guys getting all this?” he asked the circling film crews, rhetorically. “I just knew you were going to rise to the occasion, Alien Hunter. You’ve got a lot of substandard qualities I’m not going to miss, but nobody can fault your comic timing. I mean, here I am completely in control of the situation and you-what, are you going to shoot your fingernail at me?”

“Drop your cell phones, go home, and wait for us,” I said to the McGillicutties.

“Ah-ah-ah,” snickered Number 5, so amused that he didn’t even try to stop Judy and her parents as they nervously threaded their way through the alien hordes toward town. He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief and turned to regard me, my friends, and my family.

“Right,” he said. “So shall we do the climactic battle scene now, or do you want to go see Hair and Makeup first?”

“Very funny,” I said, signaling to my friends to attack-and simultaneously unleashing a thunderous blast from my hand of the exact sort that killed Number 21.

Number 5 deflected the blast with a lightning bolt of his own, but at least I’d temporarily wiped the smile off his face. He even looked a little apprehensive as he glanced at my friends, who were now charging into his alien hordes like a bunch of berserk ninjas. Everybody but Emma, that is, who still hadn’t returned.

But I couldn’t worry about her now.

The battle was on.