“Yes, of course.”
“Mrs. Dupont trusts you,” continued the man, “and I’m not sure why that is. I’m not entirely sure what she sees in you—your loyalty to the Alphas is questionable.”
“Mrs. Dupont knows where my loyalties lie,” said the man. His voice was edged with a bit of fear. “I don’t have to prove anything to you. Her word should be enough. She trusts me, so should you.”
And at that moment, Zoey recognized the voice. It was the same squeaky mouse voice she had heard from the man who spoke with the cat-lady. She was positive. It was him—and he was here at their hive. She was pleasantly excited and scared at the same time.
The other man laughed. “Yes, well, we shall see shan’t we? When the time comes, your true allegiance will surface, and we will see whose side you’re really on, friend. Do you have the codes yet? It’s taking longer than I expected. Hurry up before someone from your agency finds us in here.”
There was a silence, then the other man answered, “Yes, I’ve got them. It’s all here.”
Zoey heard a soft clip.
“Good, now give me the flash drive.”
There was a pause, and the man spoke again with a hint of irritation in his tone. “Give me the flash drive,” he repeated, his voice rising.
“It’s all yours,” the other man replied curtly.
Zoey listened closely. And what she heard next changed things completely.
“Tomorrow is the brink of a new area. Together we will witness the downfall of the agency’s headquarters, and once it is gone, every other wretched agency around the world will be destroyed. One by one they will crumble and fall. We will leave no survivors. The true nation will rise.”
Zoey tried to control her nerves. If she hadn’t been hiding so close to them, she might have risked a glimpse. Without names, she would not be able to convince anyone to believe her. She still felt a sense of responsibility towards the agency. She knew she needed at least a description or a clue as to the identity of these men. Zoey hesitated—should she risk showing herself or not?
Just as she started to expose her head to take a look, they left the room and closed the door. She raised her head from behind the chair, the room was deserted. She crawled out of her hiding place, the file still clutched in her right hand, and made for the door. With a soft click it popped open about an inch, and she peered out into Room 4A. It was just as dark as it had been when she had stepped inside twenty minutes ago. There were no traces of the traitorous men.
So much for that, she told herself.
She closed the office door behind her, crossed the larger room, and slipped through the main door. She closed it and listened carefully—nothing.
With the file clutched against her chest, her adrenalin fluttered through her like butterflies—no one was going to stop her from discovering the truth—rules or no rules.
Grinning from ear to ear, Zoey hurried across the marble floors in her socks. How many traitors were there in the hive? Why did they need codes? And what were they planning on doing to the agency’s headquarters tomorrow?
One thing was for sure, she knew that the cat-face woman’s name was Mrs. Dupont—and that somehow she was connected to the Alpha Nation and to her mother’s imprisonment and disappearance.
But first, she needed to warn the agency about what she had heard. It was far too important.
She dashed down the corridor, thinking how she could break the news gently. The gleaming marble floor was like an indoor skating rink, and she skated in her socks, turned left, and crashed into a hard body.
Chapter 16
Attack of the Fat Vampires
Zoey slipped and fell onto the hard marble floors. And when she looked up her smile faded, and she felt the blood drain from her face.
“What part of you’re not allowed anywhere near the hive didn’t you understand, Zoey?” growled Agent Barnes.
Even in the dimly lit corridor, Zoey could see the flush on his face.
“The fourth floor is off limits, especially to you. What are you doing snooping around in the middle of the night, Zoey? This doesn’t look good. This doesn’t look good at all.”
She swallowed hard. “I—I—” she hesitated, her cheeks burning. How was she going to explain this? She knew she had broken like a million rules. Her mouth fell open but no words came out.
“What do you have there?”
He grabbed the file from Zoey before she had the chance to hide it. He flipped it open and stepped beneath one of the wall scones for more light. After a moment, he looked up at Zoey.
“Where did you get this?”
“In a file cabinet—in the Supernatural Affairs room—”
“What? How dare you go in there!”
Agent Barnes leaned over her angrily. “You can’t just go wherever you please! We have rules here. Room 4A is strictly prohibited to anyone without proper authorization—little girls are not allowed in there.”
He scowled and waved the file in her face.
“Tell me something? Are you doing this on purpose? Do you want to get kicked out of the program for good and go live in some sad little neighborhood? You want to throw away a chance of a lifetime? Well—do you?”
“No.”
“So why are you busting my chops? Why are you making it so darn difficult for you to stay? You know how many kids would kill to take your place?”
Zoey stared at her socks. “I just—I just needed to find some answers about my mom. I can’t help it. I needed to know who she was.”
Agent Barnes flipped the file open again. “So, you think this is her?”
His voice softened when he saw the picture in the file.
“Elizabeth Steele. Man, she really does look like you. I have to admit. Maybe it is her, and maybe it’s not. But it says here she was never married and had no children.”
“I thought about that,” said Zoey, “maybe she kept me a secret.”
Agent Barnes raised his eyebrows. “Why would she do that?”
Zoey pondered for a moment. “Because maybe she knew I would be in danger.”
“In danger from what?”
“From the same people who imprisoned her in Troll City—the Alpha Nation.”
Agent Barnes shut the file with a slap.
“The Alpha Nation doesn’t do dealings with mystics. It’s just not possible. If you knew more about their history, and our history, you would know that it’s inconceivable. There’s just no way.”
He looked at Zoey with concern.
“I understand your need to know more about your past, Zoey. I get it—really I do. And if this is truly your mother, then I’ll help you find her. I promise. But you have to promise to stop fabricating stories. It’s not exactly helping your case. I’m on your side you know—you’ve got to give me something real to work with.”
“They’re not stories, I’m telling you the truth,” said Zoey. “Why would I make this up? Did you ask yourself that? You can ask Tristan or Simon. They’ll tell you the exact same thing. They were there. We went through it together. In a court of law, they would be considered valuable witnesses.”
“Yes, well, I already had lots of conversations with the both of them.” Agent Barnes shook his head. “I don’t know what it is with the three of you, but you have to stop—”
“But—” protested Zoey, but she was silenced with one stern look from Agent Barnes.
“—at least until management’s come up with a decision,” he continued. “You don’t want to make it worse. Your future here is hanging on a thread.”
“You don’t believe me either?” said Zoey, her voice wavering.
Agent Barnes pressed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that what you’re telling us doesn’t make any sense, and it’s making it really, really hard for us to believe you.”
Zoey struggled for a moment. Should she tell him what she heard? Would he believe her? She decided it was too important not to tell hi
m.
“There’s something I have to tell you—”
“Oh good, you found her.” Agent Ward came marching down the corridor wearing pink and white pajamas and pink kitty slippers. She adjusted her glasses and swung a flashlight in Zoey’s face.
“What are you doing here on the fourth floor in the middle of the night! Operatives are prohibited from the fourth floor, didn’t anyone tell you that?”
She pointed a long skinny finger at Zoey. “Aria heard you, you know. She heard the front door close. And she found your empty bed. Well, she woke us up in a panic. You don’t deserve her affection.”
“It’s fine, Sarah,” said Agent Barnes as he lowered her flashlight from Zoey’s eyes. “Zoey was sleepwalking.”
“Sleepwalking?” said Agent Ward skeptically.
Agent Barnes nodded. “Yes, I’ve just woken her up. I used to sleepwalk, too, when I was younger. They said I had an over active mind. Guess Zoey suffers from that too,”
“Yes, we all know she suffers from that,” said Agent Ward.
“Well, we can’t punish her for sleepwalking,” said Agent Barnes. “It’s not like she knew what she was doing.”
Zoey put on a sleepy face as best she could and prayed the darkness would help her convince Agent Ward that she had indeed been sleepwalking. It seemed to do the trick.
“Well,” she inspected Zoey. Her eyes stopped at her socks. “Hmm, your socks are filthy girl. Next time you sleepwalk try to remember to put on some shoes. Well, I suppose that’s what happened. All right then, I’ll take her back.”
“Of course,” agreed Agent Barnes, and then he added, “Hang on just a second, Sarah. Zoey, what was it you wanted to tell me?”
Zoey froze for a second. Agent Ward was eyeballing her through her glasses as though she was inspecting her through a microscope. They would never believe her, especially Agent Ward—not now.
“Ah, nothing,” she lied. “I don’t remember. I guess I was dreaming.”
“Sleepwalking. My word. Off to bed, come on.” Agent Ward steered Zoey by the elbow and then stopped when she saw the file in Agent Barnes’ hands. “What’s that?”
“That? Nothing—just some paperwork I need to catch up on.”
Agent Ward pressed her lips together in a thin line. “Good night, Samuel.”
“Night, Sarah. Night, Zoey.”
As Zoey was led away, she turned one last time to look at Agent Barnes who gave her a wink and then smiled.
The next evening Zoey sat alone at table in the Wander Inn staring at her dinner plate, her food untouched. Through the window, the October sun was setting over a blood-red sky.
Moving her food around in her plate with her fork, she just couldn’t eat. She felt sick. The fall colors were rich and striking, like a landscape painting, but even that didn’t lift her spirits. Every passing hour made it worse. Earlier in the day she had tried to leave the inn to look for Agent Barnes herself, but each time Aria had stopped her. She had then asked Aria to give him a message instead. But when Aria asked her what this message was, Zoey couldn’t bring herself to say. Finally she had scribbled the conversation she had overheard on a piece of paper. She had folded the paper, written his name on the front, and given it to Aria to deliver.
But that was this morning, hours ago, and Agent Barnes still hadn’t come.
Aria walked over to Zoey’s table. “You didn’t eat anything at all this morning either. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, because I have. You need to eat something, Zoey. You need your strength. It won’t do anyone any good if you starve yourself.”
Zoey kept her eyes on the plate. “Did you give Agent Barnes the note I wrote?”
Aria smiled. “Actually, I gave it to Agent Ward. She was passing through, and she said that she would—”
“What!” Zoey dropped her fork, her heart thumping hard in her chest.
“Oh, no, no, no. She won’t give it to him. She thinks I’m a liar—she thinks I made everything up.”
“Zoey, what’s going on? What’s gotten you so panicked? I’m sure Agent Ward will give him the note—why wouldn’t she?”
Zoey felt the walls on the inn closing in on her. “Because she probably read it.”
“What—”
Aria was interrupted when a strange man stepped in. He wore a white polo shirt that looked like it was two sizes too small and stretched tightly over his large gut. He pulled out a chair and sat at a table facing Zoey. Even though it was a cool evening, beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. With dark gray circles under his eyes, he looked like someone who hadn’t slept in months. He combed the top of his receding, straw-like hair to the side with his fingers in an attempt to hide the bald patches on the top of his head. He got up and then sat back down again, eying the room nervously.
Zoey lowered her eyes. There was something very odd about his behavior. Why was he so nervous?
Aria looked at Zoey, “This conversation isn’t over. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
She strolled off towards the man, sat down with her back to Zoey, and began to chat,
Zoey got up slowly, without making a sound, slipped away from the table and headed towards the door. She reached out and wrapped her hand on the handle.
“Zoey! You’re not allowed to leave!” Aria got up from the table.
“I need to speak to Agent Barnes, it’s an emergency,” said Zoey hurriedly, and added with a smile. “Back in ten minutes, promise.”
And with that she closed the door behind her and galloped into the darkness of the grounds.
Suddenly, her skin prickled like a million mosquitoes were biting her.
She stopped running and turned around, her breath escaping her in coils of white mist. Trees swayed in the cold winds, as their last leaves drifted to the ground. The forest was dark and eerie this time of night. Even though she couldn’t see it, she knew there was a mystic hiding in the dark. And from the intensity of the reaction on her skin, she could tell that there were more than one—and they were evil, very evil. Mrs. Dupont had sent her dogs to finish her off.
She was at least two hundred yards from the hive. She had no weapons, and she knew that someone wanted to kill her. Should she turn around now? Could she make it if she ran? She heard a twig snap and bolted.
Her adrenaline was like gasoline on a fire, and Zoey ran fast. The orange light of the hive’s main entrance shone more brightly as she got closer. Her thighs burned, but she pushed on. She had run half way. She was going to make it.
SMACK!
A great white ball crashed into her, and pain exploded on her side as she hit the ground. She managed to roll over and get back on her feet.
She didn’t have to turn to see what had hit her. Three humanoid creatures with sickly gray-white skin and small red eyes had already surrounded her. They were fat and round with no necks, like giant eggs with gangly limbs. They looked like zombie versions of Humpty Dumpty.
“What do you want?” stammered Zoey. She tried to look more confident than she felt. Her ribs throbbed with pain, and she wasn’t sure she could make a run for it.
One of the mystics smiled, revealing two extra-large and pointy fangs.
“Want?” it said in a high-pitched voice that sounded like a violin. “What a funny question—don’t you know what vampires want?”
Zoey screwed up her face. “You’re vampires? But I thought vampires were supposed to be hot and built like supermodels or something?”
“So what are you saying?” said the mystic, looking slighted.
“Umm—you’re like—you’re like fat.”
The three vampires inhaled loudly and stood still with stunned looks on their chalky faces. They looked like three hard-boiled eggs about to crack. And then the shorter one spoke.
“Vlad, the girl just called us fat,” he said, his red eyes glaring.
“Are you going to let her talk to us like that? Nobody talks to us like that. We’re vampires. We kill people. She’s soooo dead.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, Vlad,” said the tallest of the three. Zoey noticed it had drawn a pencil mustache under its flat stretched nose.
“Let’s crush her. I want to feel her skull explode under me. Then we can sip her blood like a milkshake on a hot day.”
“We don’t like hot days, remember?” whispered the short vampire, looking embarrassed.
“Oh, yeah right.” The tall vampire scratched his round head. “Why is it again—why we don’t like hot days?”
“Cause the sun burns our skin, stupid.”
“Oh, right—because the sun burns us. Touché, I forgot.”
The small vampire shook his head, disbelief spread across his face. “How can you forget something as important as that?”
“I just did. What’s your problem?”
“My problem? My problem is you—”
“Shut up, you two,” said the vampire Vlad.
He waddled closer to Zoey. It was obvious they didn’t use their legs very often. They looked like just bones with no muscles.
He pointed a skinny finger to himself. “We’re not fat, we’re round; there’s a significant difference. We are engineered that way for a purpose, Agent. You see, contrary to popular belief, vampires don’t fly around with bat wings—we roll.”
Zoey muffled a laugh. “Roll? Seriously? Is this a joke?”
“She’s mocking us, Vlad,” said the short vampire, his face twisting in rage. “She’s not taking us seriously. I hate it when they don’t take us seriously! Why do they always do this to us! It’s not fair!”
He kicked the ground in a tantrum.
“I’m with Victor,” said the taller one. “Let’s kill her now—her voice is annoying. And she’s small. I hate the small ones. They smell funny.”
He flashed his long, gleaming teeth at Zoey.
“But I’m sure her blood tastes good. Girls’ blood always tastes sweeter, especially when they’re young.”
“Patience, Virgil, patience,” said Vlad. He smiled a toothy grin at Zoey.
“We will savor her blood and then take it like a shot. They promised it would taste like nothing we’ve ever had before. The blood of the innocent is always so delightfully sweeter.”
Mystics #1: The Seventh Sense Page 18
