Mystics #1: The Seventh Sense

by Kim Richardson

  As they neared Zoey, she could hear what they were saying.

  “…we still stick with the plan,” said the man in the wool coat. They didn’t notice the three kids sitting in the den, watching them.

  “But they know,” said the other man, as he made his way towards the front door. His fingers twitched at his sides. “It’ll never work. It’s over. It’s all over. They’re going to send me to the Nexus—I’m as good as dead.”

  Zoey’s breath caught in her throat—she recognized that whiney high-pitched voice.

  “Zoey? What’s wrong?” said Tristan. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

  The two men turned around. The sickly, sweaty man glowered at Zoey. He looked crazy and violent. He hesitated, fidgeting like he was about to pounce, but at the same time he looked as if he was restraining himself with great effort. And then the man in the coat pushed him out the door, and they disappeared.

  Zoey jumped out of the chair. “That’s him! I recognize his voice. That’s the guy who stole the codes—the same guy that attacked me when I was eavesdropping on him and Mrs. Dupont. He’s working with the Alphas. He’s one of the traitors!”

  Simon dropped his cup. “Oh man—and he’s been sitting here all this time. What do we do now?”

  Tristan got to his feet. “If the traitors are still here, then maybe we still have time to stop them before they attack headquarters. We have to tell someone.”

  “Most of the agents have gone to London,” said Simon, looking pale. “The retired agents have probably gone home already. There’s no one left but us. Oh, this is really bad, isn’t it?”

  Zoey looked at them both. She was excited—and frightened. “Then it’s our job to stop them.”

  Without waiting another second, Zoey ran towards the door.

  “Zoey, wait!” Tristan called out to her as she disappeared through the front door and sprinted across the grounds.

  Icy rain slapped her face as she tore through the grounds. She could just make out the nervous man’s shape hurrying through the rain and gray mist toward the hive. She thought about shooting her boomerang at him, but her visibility was too poor. There was no sign of the man in the black coat.

  The man vanished into the hive. She would be there in just a few more yards. For a whiney type of man, he was surprisingly fast—he was running like his life depended on it.

  She was soaking wet when she pulled open the front doors and ran after him down the main hall. She stopped in front of a large silver oval mirror with the inscription United Kingdom at the top. A silver mist lingered inside it for a second and then shifted and vanished—the mirror had just been used. The man was gone. She was too late.

  Simon and Tristan came up beside her.

  “He just mirror-ported,” she said, breathlessly. “If we go now, we might still catch him in time to stop him.”

  “He? So where’s the other guy in the long coat?” asked Simon looking around. “We didn’t see anyone outside.”

  Zoey shrugged. “I don’t know. I lost him. He didn’t use the mirror-port, though.”

  “So where is he then?” Tristan clenched his jaw. “He’s still here somewhere—”

  “OUT!” bellowed a voice.

  The three of them turned to see a very angry Mrs. Andrews. She marched up to them, pointing her long finger. Her face was twisted in fury.

  “Look at the state of you. You’re soaking wet! Dripping dirt all over my clean floors! Out! All of you! Get out!”

  Zoey was not intimidated, “Mrs. Andrews, did you see a man here, moments ago? He just used the mirror-ports.”

  Mrs. Andrews pursed her lips, her anger diminishing slightly. “Of course I did. I work the main desk, don’t I? I see everything. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you know who he was?” asked Zoey.

  “Agent Sylvester Stokes, a mighty good agent. He’s always so polite to me. He said he was off to lend Agent Barnes a hand on something very important. He also dirtied my floors. What business is it of yours, anyway? Shouldn’t you kids be at home?”

  Zoey looked at Tristan and Simon and said in a low voice. “He’s going after the interloper. We have to warn Agent Barnes.”

  Mrs. Andrews crossed her arms. “What are you three conspiring about? You have the look of mischief—don’t think I haven’t seen that look before. You kids—always getting yourselves into trouble!”

  “We could try to get a message to him somehow,” said Tristan, ignoring Mrs. Andrews who was leaning closer to hear what they were saying. “Maybe we could try to contact London from here first?”

  Zoey shook her head. “No, it’ll take too long to explain, and we’re wasting precious time. We’ll have to stop him ourselves,” she said with a flutter of excitement.

  “What?” Simon nearly spit out his tongue. “Are you serious? You mean—the three of us—going after the double agent on our own? Of course we are, how stupid of me. Hang on while I go fetch my spy gear from my secret spy car.”

  Zoey turned to Mrs. Andrews, who was still eyeballing as if she was one of their supervisors.

  “Agent Stokes is the traitor, and he’s going after Agent Barnes. He’ll probably try to kill him to get the interloper.”

  Zoey waited for Mrs. Andrews to close her mouth and then continued.

  “You have to get a message to management and to the other agencies right away, Mrs. Andrews. Tell them what I’ve just told you. And please hurry up before it’s too late.”

  Mrs. Andrews frowned. “These are very serious accusations, Zoey St. John. You can destroy a man’s career by saying things like that. Are you sure he’s the one?”

  “We are,” said Zoey, Tristan, and Simon together.

  “There has to be some mistake,” started Mrs. Andrews, “it can’t be Agent Stokes—he was always so well mannered—so nice to me. He even brought me flowers once.”

  “It is him. Do you want Agent Barnes’ blood on your hands?” said Zoey dryly. Her voice rose as she started to lose her patience. “Well, do you?”

  “No.”

  “—because that’s what he’s planning on doing if we don’t warn them in time. Please, get the message to management. Tell them that I recognized the traitor. If you don’t believe us, then do it for Agent Barnes.”

  Mrs. Andrews nodded. The color had drained from her face.

  “All right then. It doesn’t hurt to transmit a message, even if you might be mistaken.” She hurried off towards the front desk.

  Zoey exhaled and turned to her friends. “You guys ready?”

  “Yes,” answered Tristan.

  “No,” said Simon.

  There was a moment of silence. “Okay, but let’s hurry. Do you have weapons on you?”

  Tristan smiled and pulled his S9 slingshot from his back jean’s pocket.

  “Never leave home without it,” he said and then shoved it back.

  Simon searched his pockets like someone who was fighting against their own clothes. He pulled out his slingshot triumphantly. “Got it! Thought I’d lost it. Whew.”

  Zoey stepped towards the control panel, lifted her fingers, and paused.

  “Uh, guys—where’s headquarters anyway? Am I supposed to type just Headquarters?”

  “I don’t know,” said Tristan.

  Simon shrugged. “I know it’s in Knightsbridge, London—but I’m not sure if you’re supposed to type—”

  BANG!

  Someone screamed.

  Zoey turned to see Mrs. Andrews collapse. Her head hit the floor with an echoing thud, and then she was motionless.

  The man in the black wool coat stepped over her casually, and pointed a very large gun at them.

  “I hate kids,” he said in a deep voice. “—and I hate the ones that don’t mind their business even more! I didn’t want to have to do that to poor Mrs. Andrews, but you made me do it. I couldn’t let her blab all of our plans now, could I?”

  Zoey stared at Mrs. Andrews’s body. The gun’s blast still rang in her ears,
and she felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. She never really liked the woman, but she didn’t deserve to die. “You—you killed her,” her voice wavered. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  “No, you killed her,” he said, aiming the gun at Zoey.

  “You should have kept your big mouth shut, Drifter. Now, look what you made me do. Her death’s on you.”

  Tristan stood protectively in front of Zoey. “What do you want?”

  As the man got closer, Zoey saw that he had one milky white eye and that the other was blue. He was over six feet tall, broad shouldered, and under his coat he wore an expensive black, tailored suit. He looked like a villain from a James Bond movie.

  “I don’t want to have to add child murderer to my list,” continued the man. “But I will if you make me. I can’t let you ruin our plans, you miserable little brats. Not when we’re so close.”

  He held out his free hand. “Your DSM’s. Now.”

  “Oh no, not again,” whined Simon. He pulled out his metal compact and held it out reluctantly. “Are you going to give it back?”

  “You won’t need it back,” said the man.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Simon tried to pull his DSM back, but the man scooped it up swiftly. He then grabbed Zoey’s and Tristan’s DSM’s and pocketed them in the folds on his long coat. When he was done, he pointed the gun towards the stairway.

  “Move. Down to the basement level.”

  The three of them obeyed and walked over to the staircase.

  Poor Mrs. Andrews was dead. Zoey couldn’t get that awful scream out of her head. The image of her body sprawled on ground, twisted and bent unnaturally haunted her. If she hadn’t told her about the traitor, she’d still be alive. The man in the suit was going to pay for what he had done, that was a promise.

  Every minute that passed endangered not just Agent Barnes’ life, but the fate of the entire agency. They had to get past the man with the gun—but how? She was positive he would shoot them in a heartbeat if he had too. They were all armed, but their weapons weren’t faster than an automatic handgun.

  They slowed when they reached the bottom of the stairs and arrived at a set of large metal double doors. The sign over the doors read:

  WARNING!

  Hostiles inside, proceed with extreme caution

  “Inside,” ordered the man.

  She had always wanted to visit the basement area, but she hadn’t imagined it with a gun in her back.

  Tristan gave Zoey a worried look, opened the doors, and stepped inside. The others followed.

  Zoey wasn’t sure what she had expected to see, but this was not what she had anticipated.

  The room was enormous, the size of an entire floor at the hive. In the middle of the room was a series of desks and tables with chairs. Glass compartments that looked like individual prisons lined both sides of the chamber. And inside each compartment was a mystic.

  Over a hundred mystics of every race and size stared at them with loathing through the glass. Zoey saw a winged, human woman with snakes for her hair; a small, single black cat with red eyes; and a hairy, ghoulish creature the size of a grizzly bear with a human face that looked neither female nor male. There was a moving rock with human legs, a twelve-inch girl with purple pigtails in a pink ball gown, a pile of steaming green blobs with hundreds of staring yellow eyes, and many other mystics she had never seen before.

  The cells on the left side had metal doors. The small square openings in the doors were large enough to get a glimpse of the dangerous looking mystics lurking within. The words “Maximum-Security Holding Cell” were written in black above each compartment.

  Zoey could almost feel the evil seeping out through the glass cells like a cold sweat, chilling her as she passed.

  The cells on the right side were mostly made of Plexiglas, and the mystics that occupied them seemed a little more docile. But she was sure that if they escaped, they wouldn’t be so friendly—especially not to the people who had put them there.

  What she saw next made her heart ache—that beautiful fire stallion she had seen on her very first day at the hive was locked away in one of the compartments. Its sad eyes met Zoey’s, and she felt tears sting her eyes. Disturbing the Peace was written on the small screen next to its cage. Horses didn’t belong in cages.

  As they walked further inside, Zoey noticed that a flashing sign on the side of their jails identified the crimes that had been committed by each mystic. Illegal Border Crossing was written beside an enormous spider with the head of a snake. It startled Zoey when it suddenly threw itself against the glass with a loud boom

  “Keep walking.” The man pressed the gun against her back.

  Zoey released her breath and kept moving. She spotted a large Krakenite and felt her heart race. Caution – High intensity Voltage was written on its compartment. It would get zapped if it tried anything.

  They were all locked up in these compartments. The mystics couldn’t touch them. They were safe.

  Their immediate danger was the man with the gun.

  To her surprise, three booths were crammed with fairies. Their ugly faces were wrinkled in hatred. They flew into the glass of their cages like a giant swarm of angry bees. They hit the glass with their fists. Some stood back and spit at the glass, while others made obscene gestures with their hands. Zoey suspected that these were the same fairies that they had caught. She was relieved that they were all trapped behind the glass.

  They came to a cubical where an elderly man was writing in a large ledger. With his pinstriped shirt and navy-blue tie, he looked like a two hundred year old accountant. Above his cubical was another large flashing screen, which read:

  FREEDOM BAIL BONDS, call now: Fre-e-dom —1Z1)373-3366

  MYSTIC LAWYERS AVAILABLE - HELP US HELP YOU!

  Stacks of cards were littered across his desk. Zoey leaned over and read:

  Get out of jail free—This card may be kept until needed or sold

  “I feel like I’m in a game of Monopoly,” said Simon with a weird smile on his face. “Love that game.”

  The old man jumped when he saw them. “Leaping lizards! What’s going on? Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  He adjusted his glasses. “You’re not allowed in here! Get out! Get out!”

  He wiggled out of his chair and came shuffling up to them, pointing a long, crooked finger. “I will report you! This is a direct violation of agency rules—”

  The man in the coat backhanded him with the handle of the gun. With a frightening crunch, the elderly man crumbled to the floor. Blood seeped through a large wound on the back of his head. Zoey stared in shock—it had happened so fast—she didn’t even have time to react.

  She turned around and faced their captor. “How could you kill him? He was an old man just doing his job. You’ll pay for this! I swear you will.”

  The suited man was unimpressed.

  “He saw me. I can’t have anyone identifying me.”

  “But what about us? We see you?” said Simon. When he realized he had stuck his own foot in his mouth, he paled.

  “You know, I only have 20/200 eyesight.” He continued. “Technically I’m legally blind. I couldn’t recognize you in a lineup if my life depended on it—honest.”

  Their captor gave Simon a small smile, a smile that killers give their victims before they die.

  “Stay,” ordered the man, as though they were little puppies.

  He stepped over the body and then leaned over the computer. When he had finished typing, he took a step back.

  And an alarm blasted throughout the chamber.

  Zoey and the others winced and pressed their hands on their ears. She was certain the entire north continent could hear it.

  But the suited man didn’t cover his ears—he just looked at them unsympathetically.

  “Since you love mystics so much,” he shouted over the alarm. “Why not make it a permanent thing? I thought you’d enjoy a little get-together with your best friends.
”

  He moved away from the desk, but kept his gun pointed at them.

  “If you move from that spot, I’ll shoot you. And don’t think I won’t, because I will. Your lives mean nothing to me, but I’d rather not kill children, if I don’t have to.”

  He crossed the room swiftly, smiled at them one last time, and closed the doors behind him.

  Zoey ran after him. But when she reached the doors, they wouldn’t budge.

  “He’s locked us in!” she yelled over the alarm, her words thick in her mouth.

  An automatic message suddenly sounded in the chamber.

  Systems shutdown…commencing in ten seconds…nine…eight…”

  Simon ran over to the computer. “It’s locked with a password!” he yelled as he typed on the keyboard.

  “I can’t do a system’s reboot without the password. I can’t stop it!” He hit the keyboard with his fist.

  Tristan ran over to the desk, reached under it, and pulled out the power cable. He tossed it to the ground and then stood still, waiting.

  “…seven…six…” said the voice. The alarm still thundered across the chamber.

  “It didn’t work,” said Simon. He covered his head with his hands. “What happens after ten seconds?”

  Tristan looked around frantically. “I don’t know—I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “…five…four…” continued the voice.

  “But I don’t want to find out!” squealed Simon. “I want to live!”

  Zoey ran back to the others. “I don’t like this! What’s going to happen?”

  “…three…two…”

  The three of them stared at each other, petrified.

  “…one.”

  Zoey stopped breathing.

  “System shutdown.” The alarm stopped.

  And then the worst thing that could happen, happened.

  A series of clicks sounded, and then one by one the doors to all the cells opened.

  Chapter 18

  A Mystic Brawl

  Simon pinched his own arm. “Wake up, Simon. Wake up! Ouch!”