“I’m going to rip your heart out and eat it!”
The creature soared through the air directly at Zoey.
But Zoey ripped open the bag and showered the demon with salt.
The salt hit the creature in an explosion of white dust. It wailed and thrashed around the kitchen, crashing into the cabinets and appliances. Steam rose off the monster’s body, and the air smelled of putrid burned flesh.
Zoey gagged as the vapors burned her eyes.
The creature stopped thrashing and turned its red, accusing eyes back on her. It came at her again.
But Zoey was ready. She threw another volley of salt at the demon’s head.
It stopped in midair and crashed onto the floor in convulsions. Black boils burst on its body, and a nasty secretion oozed onto the floor. Finally the demon exploded into black ash, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech that rang in Zoey’s ears.
She wiped the last of the vapors from her eyes and brushed her shoe against the black ashes to make sure the creature had been utterly destroyed. Her foster mother’s skin had dissolved into nothing more than a puddle of water.
Why had the creature called her an agent? And what the heck was the Nexus? She didn’t have any answers.
“Zoey?” Thomas poked his head down from up the staircase, and his mouth fell open at the scene below.
“What happened to the kitchen? Where’s the foster mother? Who’s going to make us supper now?” Isabelle and Andy peered out behind him, using him as a human shield.
Zoey wiped the salt from her hands on her jeans.
“She…she wasn’t herself. And now she’s gone, and she won’t be back. You need to pack your things and call the emergency foster number on the fridge. They’ll send someone to pick you up. Isabelle, you’re the oldest, so you should do it.”
Isabelle stood up behind Thomas. “But why did she attack you? Why would she do that? It’s like she wanted to kill you or something?”
Isabelle wiped her runny nose on her sleeve. Her eyes were red.
Zoey shrugged. They would think she was mad if she told them the truth. “Sometimes grownups go crazy. I don’t know. Listen, I need to go and figure out some stuff. Just call the number and sit tight, they’ll send someone; I promise.”
She packed the rest of the salt into her backpack, swung it over her shoulders and started for the front door.
“Wait!” screamed Isabelle. “Don’t leave us, please! What if she comes back?”
Zoey stopped in front of the door, but she didn’t turn around. She stood there for a moment before answering. “She’ll never come back. Everything is fine now—don’t worry. Just call the number and don’t try to follow me.”
And she added in a low voice. “Death and monsters follow me.”
Zoey didn’t wait to hear Isabelle’s answer. She pulled open the front door and raced out into the street.
There must be a reason she could see monsters when the rest of the world was blind to them. And she was determined to find out why. She needed to go back to the library and use the Internet. There must be something about the Nexus online—there had to be.
The local library loomed over the other buildings like a concrete mountain. A large sign carved into the stone read “Toronto Public Library, Gladstone/Bloor Branch.” Soft, yellow light poured out from the rows of windows, and Zoey could see shadows of people moving inside.
Doing her best to avoid landing in puddles, she crossed the street in a dash. It was deserted except for an elderly woman with a yellow umbrella. A taxi rushed past her and soaked her with water.
“Hey!” Zoey screamed, outraged. It would take forever to get dry now. Water seeped into her shoes as she rushed by the old lady.
She heard a grunt, and it didn’t sound human.
Zoey skidded to a stop and whirled around. The old woman shuffled forward in the rain. Where had the noise come from? Thinking it was probably the old woman clearing her throat, she turned and started again towards the library. As she quickened her pace, she felt goose bumps again—her creeps.
A screech echoed behind her. Then she heard a flap of wings, and a spine-chilling moan.
With her heart in her throat, she stopped and turned.
Something landed behind the elderly woman. It was the size of a horse and looked like a gargoyle from a medieval castle. It had a human shape with scaly, black, oily skin and long, clawed fingers and toes. Large membranous wings stretched out behind it and cast a dark shadow over the woman. Spikes protruded from its back, and a long, barbed tail lashed threateningly. It had horns like a bull’s, and a large mouth full of needlelike teeth. But it was the face that was most unsettling—the creature had no eyes.
Zoey’s pulsed raced.
The old woman couldn’t see it. She stopped walking and stood staring ahead with a confused expression on her face. Her umbrella fell from her hand. The demon spread its wings and opened its mouth. A brilliant white mist flowed out from the woman like a transparent veil and was sucked directly into the creature’s maw. The woman’s skin turned gray, and she started to tremble uncontrollably. The creature was sucking the life force out of her.
A mixture of fear and hatred surged through Zoey as she stared at the eight-foot-tall monster. The old lady’s eyes rolled back into her head. She was going to die.
“Stop!” Zoey’s voice reverberated in the street louder than she had expected and sounded more confident than she felt. Her mouth was dry with fear.
“Let go of her! You’re killing her!”
It worked. The demon let the old woman go.
She slumped to the ground on her knees, her life holding on by a thread.
The creature turned its lifeless face towards Zoey.
Its tail lashed out behind it, and Zoey felt its hunger, like a dog drooling over a treat. It lifted its head in the air as though it was searching for a scent. It glanced down at the old woman one more time, and then crept towards Zoey, as though it were choosing the better prey.
Zoey gagged on its pungent stench. The air had turned foul, like sewer gas.
Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She planted her feet firmly, reached inside her backpack, and threw a handful of salt at the advancing creature.
The white crystals showered the beast like a heavy fall of snow. It stopped, surprised, shook itself, and then kept coming.
A little cry escaped Zoey’s lips. The salt had no effect.
With a beat of its wings, the demon soared through the air and came directly at her.
Chapter 2
The Sevenths
Zoey grabbed her backpack and ran. The drumming of her heart in her ears drowned any other sounds. It felt almost like a dream; it had to be a dream. The winged demon was going to tear her to shreds.
She could hear the flap of the demon’s great wings like the wind in the sails of a great ship. She could feel its warm breath on the back of her neck. Why hadn’t the salt worked? It had always worked before! Any second now the demon would rip off her head with a swing of its massive talons, and she would be a headless running chicken.
But she wasn’t ready to die. Not today.
Running full speed, fueled by desperation and fear, she tore down the street, pushing her legs with every ounce of adrenaline she could muster. The library building disappeared behind her. She ran until every step made her wince, and her legs screamed at her to stop. She became a running machine.
An ear-splitting shriek cracked the air—it was laughing at her. The air from its wing beats pushed aside the rain, and its rasping breath grew louder. She felt a tug on her backpack and pulled a sharp turn to the right. The creature’s hold on her released.
She bolted a few paces straight, and then she took a sharp left. Blinking to see through the rain, she sprinted down the street eluding the demon’s grasp with each zig and zag. Although the demon had no eyes, it was still on her like a giant angry wasp—Dracula’s dino-bat was using echolocation to detect her!
Her legs burned as she ran. Every breath was like swallowing buckets of acid into her lungs. Her throat was raw. She couldn’t keep on like this. She would have to face the demon and fight eventually, but with what? Not knowing how clever the demon was, she couldn’t risk thinking it was stupid. She needed to figure out a plan to stay alive.
Another piercing screech echoed in the street behind her. Cars raced passed her, honking angrily, missing her by a millimeter. She turned right onto a narrow lane to get out of the traffic and sprinted down the next block.
She could see a large gray stone building up ahead. Its boarded up windows were decorated with primitive graffiti. The words Cinema Déjà View were etched in black above the double red doors. A crooked We’re Closed sign was nailed to them. She made a beeline for the front doors.
She felt a gust of wind on the back of her head and heard the giant flap of wings very close behind her. And at the last minute, she faked to the left and tore towards the right side of the building. A crash thundered behind her, then an angry wail.
Without stopping, Zoey ran down the side of the theatre, through a small courtyard, and slipped inside a side emergency door. In complete darkness she ran blindly down a hallway that branched out into more corridors. Her foot caught on something, and she tumbled down a flight of steps. She pushed herself up, but excruciating pain like liquid fire burned on the inside of her right ankle bone. She cursed her own stupidity.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that she stood in the main seating area of the theatre. The only source of light came from the antique fixtures that lined the walls and cast an eerie gloom around the rows of seats. Her skin tingled—the demon was near. She resisted the urge to cry out because of the pain in her ankle, clenched her jaw, and bounded down the remaining steps. She grabbed at the seats to keep the weight off her ankle and moved towards the stage—
The theatre shook as though a bomb had detonated at the front entrance. Glass shattered and fragments of the front doors exploded through the main lobby and landed in the aisles. Debris rained down from the ceiling. Zoey coughed blindly in the dust and mold, but she finally reached the bottom of the stairs and hauled herself up the platform. Bent double from the cramp in her side and the pain of her ankle, she took a moment to catch her breath.
The demon soared from the lobby with another terrible screech. Its bat-like wings flapped in cadence, sending dust all around as it landed gracefully on the opposite side of the stage. It bared its gnarled teeth in an ugly smile
Zoey watched transfixed. The creature was more hideous up close, although it looked almost human when it folded its wings. It smelled of decay.
It cocked its head to the side and spoke in a rasping voice, “You cannot hide from me, Agent. Your stink is the smell of arrogance and deception. It follows you wherever you go. You reek of it.”
“Here we go again with the agent thing,” said Zoey, her throat was raw and dry, but she was glad her voice was even. “And by the way, I’m not the one who smells.”
The creature watched her with its eyeless face.
“This world does not belong to you. You are fools in feeble bodies. You are easily killed. My mission is to kill as many agents as I can, and I am going to continue with you.”
“Well, I’m not so easily killed,” said Zoey. “I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
The demon shook its sightless head.
“Your lot always makes it so difficult for the rest of us. This world will be better without you agents—you pollute it.”
Zoey adjusted her weight on her left leg and felt the pain lessen on her right ankle. She might be able to make a run for it after all—but she needed a diversion for a head start—otherwise she was demon-kibble.
The demon’s tail slashed eagerly behind it.
“I will enjoy killing you. I will drink your blood simply for pleasure. I enjoy a hot drink. But we demons do not simply feast on the mere blood of humans—your essence is what we crave. Your life force empowers us and perpetuates our stay in this world. The more we feed—the more powerful we become—and we will soon kill every last agent and make this world our own.”
“I doubt it.” Zoey frowned.
“I’ve never seen a monster like you before. What are you anyway? Some sort of dragon experiment gone wrong?”
She needed to keep the creature talking to give her time to plan her escape. She couldn’t fight it—the only thing she could do was limp really fast. But where? Light seeped in from behind the lobby. It was one way out. Could she make it that far before the demon tore her to shreds like grated cheese?
“I am a Duyen demon,” answered the creature. “I have existed long before the time of men, when your world was merely wasteland.”
The demon moved its head from side to side like a snake. “You are different from the other agents, you seem…unprepared.”
Zoey faked a laugh. “Well, it’s been a crazy day you know—papers to file—bad guys to catch.” She stole a look behind the creature, searching for a weapon or anything she could use to fight with, but she couldn’t see anything useful.
“Has your team abandoned you?” asked the demon. “Where are the rest of your despicable agent friends?”
A wicked smile spread across the blind creature’s face. “Unless you are here all on your own. I can smell your fear. I can almost taste it—you are on your own, aren’t you?”
Zoey pressed her mouth shut. The situation was getting worse by the second.
“Now why would they leave such an innocent little girl on her own?” said the demon leaning forward. “How very curious…”
“Maybe I’m suicidal,” said Zoey. She took a step back.
The creature laughed. “No matter, I’m going to kill you now, little girl. Agent or not, it’s your time to die!” The demon spread its wings and leaped forward—
A blinding blast of orange light shot through the air like a firework and hit the creature in the chest. The demon shot backwards as if it had been hit by cannon fire. It wailed as it fell to the ground in a ball of fire, flailing its limbs in a desperate attempt to extinguish the flames.
A teenage boy and two men raced towards the flaming creature. They hauled themselves easily up onto the platform. The teen had a V-shaped weapon in his hand that looked like a modernized slingshot. The two men held red weapons that looked like jumbo-sized water cannons with glass barrels on the top. Orange liquid fire glowed from inside the glass. They ignored her completely and trained their weapons on the demon as they approached it carefully.
“You’re in violation of the Mystic Treaty,” said one of the men, with a business-like expression on his face. He looked like a young bank manager on casual Friday, not overly handsome, with trimmed brown hair, polished black boots, jeans, and a smart-looking black leather jacket.
“Article number 6-A,” he continued, “trespassing through another dimension without authorization from the agency and the killing of humans is punishable by death. You are well aware of the laws, Duyen.”
Black steam rose from the demon’s scorched body, smothering the theatre with a rotten flesh stench.
“Your laws, not mine!” it growled. “I care nothing for your treaty, Agent. Contracts conceived by humans mean nothing to us. I will rip the flesh off your bones!”
With a flap of its singed wings the demon shot up in the air and came down at the man with destructive force.
“Now why did it have to say that?” said the same man with a smug expression. “Agent Lee, some assistance.”
Just as the creature was about to rip out the man’s throat with its talons, both men raised their weapons and fired at the same time. Two balls of liquid fire engulfed the winged demon. It hit the wall and slumped to the ground, howling in pain and anger. Within seconds the fire consumed it like a piece of paper. The demon disappeared and ashes fell to the ground like blackened snow. The Duyen demon was no more.
Zoey was mesmerized. The man called Agent Lee slipped his gun bac
k into a fold in his long black trench coat. With his shades, he looked ready to walk the runway for the new clothing line of FBI outfits. He was younger than the other man and appeared to be Asian. Although he was a few inches shorter than the other man, Zoey saw that he compensated with an over-the-top spiked black hairdo.
“You know, Barnes, we should put a tighter leash on the Duyens,” said Agent Lee. “That’s three this week. You’d think they’d get the idea and stay in the Nexus. Oh great, now my coat’s all dirty. I just had it dry cleaned!” He started to pat down the dust on his trench coat and looked utterly appalled at his appearance.
Zoey wasn’t sure whether to laugh or stay quiet. Who were these people? But she was glad about one thing—they had given her answers to one of her questions—the Nexus was a place where the monsters came from.
“I’m just glad we fried it before it killed anyone else,” said the man called Barnes. “Hey, anyone in the mood for fried chicken…?”
“What about her?” said the teenage boy.
Zoey began to blush.
He was tall for his age and athletic, like a hockey player. He wore a plain white T-shirt under a khaki jacket and jeans. His thick, brown hair framed his perfectly chiseled face. His olive complexion and high cheekbones implied that his ancestors could have been native Indian. His dark, almond-shaped eyes bore into hers, and she quickly looked away. There was something unsettling about his eyes.
“I’m on it.” Barnes pulled out a cell phone from his jacket. “I’m calling in the Erasers—”
“No, wait!” urged the teen. He stood facing Zoey with a puzzled expression on his face. “She was talking to it just before we got here. I’m positive that she could see it.”
Zoey’s heart was in her throat. The rotten smell still lingered, and every breath was like sucking in toxic waste. The room began to spin, and she strained to keep still. She couldn’t faint now, in front of these people, and worse—she didn’t want anything called Erasers near her either.
“She did, did she? Well, that’s gotta be a first,” said Barnes as he dropped his phone in his jacket pocket.
Mystics #1: The Seventh Sense Page 2
