Mystics 3-Book Collection (12 page)

“This is our third time,” answered Simon. “I
bagged three, but Tristan’s the real champ—holds the academy’s
record for
Most Bagged Fairies
ever on one assignment.
Stuart wasn’t happy at all. You should have seen how his ugly face
went all twisted. I thought he was going to cry. I bet he cries
like a girl.”

“Hey!” said Zoey, with mock anger.

“Sorry,” laughed Simon. “But I bet he does.
Today it’s going to be me, you’ll see. I’ll get them all!
Whoa!”

He waved his spray can like a weapon. He
used awkward martial arts moves, like someone with no real
experience who’d watched too many Kung Foo movies.

Zoey caught Tristan staring at her. She
smiled at him, but he looked away. Perhaps he was still embarrassed
because she had asked if he had a girlfriend. He didn’t look
offended or put off. In fact, he had a tiny grin on his face that
hadn’t been there before, like he was
pleased
about
something. And she thought she knew what that was…

Zoey focused on the task before her. Tristan
was obviously very good at spraying and bagging fairies—whatever
that was—and she wanted to be just as good as him. So, even though
she was a little self-conscious, she tried to stay close so she
could learn from him. She’d always been very good at standing back
and observing.

They reached the base of power lines and the
operatives spread out. Blue electricity winked at Zoey from one of
the power lines. She looked up. Even in the night’s black sky she
could see fairies. There were hundreds of them. At first they
looked like birds sitting on the power lines, but the closer she
got and inspected them, it was clear that these were not birds.

They were the ugliest creatures she’d ever
seen. These were not the beautiful fairies she’d imagined. They
were size of house sparrows and were covered in filthy brown fur.
They had veiny bat-like wings, pointy ears, and large, wet yellow
eyes. They glared at her from above with hairless gray-colored
faces that were twisted and wrinkled like dried up raisins. Some
had tails, while others did not. Some clung upside down like bats
with sharp talons, while others sat cross-legged. They were all
biting and tearing apart the electric wires. They ripped at the
lines with sharp pointy teeth, and chewed and swallowed the
electricity like it was a spaghetti feast.

Transfixed, she watched as a little fairy
the size of a humming bird ate away at a large wire. It swallowed
the wire like slurping a noodle, burped loudly, and then it grew,
doubling in size. It was now as big as a crow.

“Hey, did you see that?” said Zoey as she
pointed to the fat fairy. “That one just grew! I saw it, it like
got twice as big!”

Tristan stood at her side. “Quick, use the
spray before they get too big for us to manage them.”

“Huh?”

Tristan covered the fairy that had just
grown with a blast of semitransparent mist. It froze instantly, as
though it had been squirted with liquid nitrogen. It fell to the
ground like a rock. Immediately, Tristan picked it up and was about
to put it in the bag when Zoey grabbed his hand.

“Is it dead? Are we killing them?”

Zoey felt sorry for the little furry
creature, even if it was unbelievably ugly. “It feels wrong to kill
them. I mean—they are just eating.”

Tristan held up the frozen fairy for Zoey to
see. “We’re not killing them—just temporarily immobilizing them.
They don’t feel any pain. Trust me. It’s the only way to remove
them without hurting them.”

The fairy’s horrid little face was frozen in
a grimace, but its eyes moved from Tristan to Zoey. If it
could
move, she was certain it would spit in their
faces.

“Wait till they bite you—you won’t be
feeling any
love
for them after that.”

Simon sprayed an unsuspecting fairy and
threw it in his bag happily. “Fairy that, you sucker.”

“They’re really stupid, too. So they’re
fairly easy to catch.
Usually
. But there’s always one with a
bit more fairy brain cells than the rest of them, and those ones
can be a real pain to catch.”

The night air was filled with sounds of
sprays, like a large sprinkler system had been turned on. The
operatives held their cans high above their heads and sprayed the
fairies like they were giant mosquitoes. Some were smarter and flew
off just before a shot of spray would get them. But then they
stupidly fluttered back to the same exact spot. The fairies fell
off the wires in a shower of brown clumps.

A girl screamed.

Zoey turned to see a dozen fairies
retaliating against one of the operatives. They attacked the girl
savagely, biting and tearing at her face and neck. Her anti-fairy
spray can lay uselessly at her feet. Blood spattered her face as
they scratched and pulled her hair out in tufts. She flailed her
arms in a panic, trying desperately to get them off her. But they
clung to her like Velcro, piercing their teeth and talons deeper
into her skin and making her cry out in more excruciating pain.

Without thinking, Zoey ran to the girl. She
sprayed a cloud of anti-fairy in front of her as she ran. She held
her breath and circled the girl, spraying furiously in a zigzag
motion. The fairies’ faces froze in stunned expressions, and they
dropped like flies around the crying girl. Blood oozed from the
many deep cuts around the girl’s face, and her bottom lip quivered
as she tried to smile at Zoey.

“Are you okay?” Zoey coughed the spray from
her lungs. She had a horrible taste in her mouth like she had just
chewed on some soap.

“You’re bleeding. You should put something
on those scratches before they get infected.”

The horrified girl stared at Zoey then
covered her face with her hands and ran to Agent Vargas. He
attended to her wounds with a first aid kit.

The ground in front of Zoey was littered
with frozen fairies. Technically, these were hers—
she
had
sprayed them off the girl—but before she had picked any up,
something hit her in the small of her back. She went sprawling to
the ground. She felt a searing ache in her ribs. Slowly, she turned
and looked up.

With a grin on his face, Stuart was happily
bagging all the fairies. He gave her a wide self-satisfied
smile.

As much as she hurt, she felt a tide of
anger welling up from deep inside. She wanted to hurt him.

“Hey!” said Zoey angrily. “Those were mine!
I sprayed them off the girl! You can’t do this! That’s
stealing!”

Stuart looked down at Zoey and sneered.
“Really? I didn’t see your name on them,
Drifter
. Finders
keepers, isn’t it what they say? Besides, you’re not even a
real
operative—you shouldn’t even be here. Nothing you do
makes a real difference. You’ll never be one of us.”

Blood gushed to Zoey’s face. She pushed
herself up and raised her fists at him. “You’re going to get what’s
coming to you,
King
. I don’t mind hitting girls like you,
either
.
”

Stuart’s face darkened. “Why you
little—”

“Is there a problem? What’s going on here?”
Agent Vargas stormed up to them looking livid.

“Stop this at once! We’re here on a very
serious
assignment. We don’t have time for your foolish
adolescent scuffles. The fairies are getting stronger, and if they
do our cans won’t be of use anymore. We
don’t
want that to
happen! Am I understood? Do you understand?”

“But Agent Vargas, he bagged the fairies I
sprayed—”

Agent Vargas raised his hand to silence her.
“It doesn’t matter who sprayed them, what matters is that we get
them
all
before they feed too much. I don’t want any
unfortunate incidents.”

He lowered his eyes. “This is not a rivalry,
you’re supposed to work as a team.”

He turned to Zoey. “Remember—you’re being
evaluated. This isn’t the time to pick a fight.”

Zoey opened her mouth to protest, but she
closed it when she saw the look on the agent’s face.

“If I have to separate you again, there’s
going to be trouble. Everyone, back to work!” Agent Vargas walked
away, but Zoey felt worse—now he thought that
she
had
started it.

“Later,
Drifter
.” With a smile,
Stuart swung his bag of fairies over his shoulder and sauntered
towards his gang at the next power pole. Zoey stared angrily after
him.

Tristan glared at Stuart as he and Simon
passed him on their way towards Zoey. With his jaw clenched
tightly, Tristan looked like he was about to give Stuart a beating.
He kept walking instead, his hands curled into fists.

“Hey, King!” yelled Simon suddenly, “you
dropped your
crown
.” Simon threw the spray can at the back
of Stuart’s head. It hit with a satisfying
smack
. Simon
smiled at Zoey, clearly impressed by his own aim.

Stuart turned with a murderous look. Simon
stared up at the sky, whistling innocently with his hands in his
pockets and looking a little too smug.

“You’re dead!” hissed Stuart as he stormed
towards Simon, but one of his minions grabbed him and pointed to
Agent Vargas who was eyeing them carefully.

Stuart glowered at Simon. “You’re dead,
Brown. I’ll get you for this. You’re dead!” He turned and walked
away.

It wasn’t much of a victory, but seeing the
red mark on the back of Stuart’s neck made Zoey smile.

“You’re crazy, you know that,” said Zoey to
Simon as he strode towards her with an equally large smile.

“Crazy’s my middle name,” said Simon
proudly. “And it’s
not
Esther, no matter what anyone
says.”

Zoey watched as Stuart opened his bag and
showed his friends his stolen fairies. They all laughed
overdramatically, and then turned and looked at Zoey with
triumphant expressions.

Her eyes stung, and she felt a pain in her
chest. This wasn’t fair.

“Forget him, he’s not worth it.” Tristan
took Zoey’s hand, and for a second she forgot all about Stuart and
his minions.

“Come on. I bet we can still bag more
fairies than Stuart and his gang.”

Tristan’s hand was warm and comforting, and
she let herself be dragged away to a neighboring power line.

Simon followed behind them.

“Hey, look over there,” he pointed to a
large gathering of fairies munching on a low power pole a few yards
away. “We can easily break the record with these. Hurry, before his
highness and his court inflict their plague of stupid upon us!”

The three of them ran together.

Tristan held two cans in his hands like
guns.

“Get ready—a group this size can do some
serious damage. The trick is, when they come at you, you want to
spray in an arc like this.” He waved his arms around in a
semicircle. “Protect yourself and especially your eyes, they always
go for your eyes first. You saw what happened to Anne. If you get
hit in the eyes, panic sets in, and you forget all about your
training. Then it’s all over.”

Zoey held her can in front of her.

“I’m ready. Let’s do this.” She felt
surprisingly strong and capable, having forgotten her sore back in
the rush of excitement.

With a grin, Tristan kicked the pole. The
fairies stopped eating and bared their pointy teeth. They were not
happy about having their lunch interrupted.

“Get ready!” Tristan jumped back.

The fairies soared in the air with a loud
screeching noise like a high pitched siren and came at them like a
bomb raid. At least fifty angry fairies shot towards them like a
swarm of angry wasps. The fairies split into three groups and
launched their attack.

The closest and largest group of fairies hit
Tristan first. He spun around in a circle, spraying as he went. He
spun himself into a protective layer of mist like in a cocoon. The
fairies charged the walls of mist but were immobilized immediately
and fell to the ground. Piles of immobilized fairies lay at
Tristan’s feet.

In the corner of her eye Zoey saw Simon dive
under a fallen tree trunk. He screamed like a girl, but in between
screams she heard him shout, “Take that! And that! And then some!
And then some more! You nasty little critters—ouch!”

The third swarm came at Zoey.

She planted herself firmly, with her feet
apart. They came at her in a straight line. Just as Tristan had
showed her, she threw her arm out and sprayed in an arc. The first
ten fairies dropped like rocks.

But then they split apart. Before she knew
what was happening, they had attacked her back. She screamed as
their sharp claws ripped into her skin. She reached back with her
left arm and tried to pull them off. But it was no use. They were
glued to her. Pain and then panic started to overwhelm her. She
felt their teeth puncture the back of her neck, and then warm
liquid ran down her back. They bit into her arms and her legs,
until she was completely covered. They weighed her down until she
couldn’t move. They were going to tear her apart.

And then something clicked inside her. As
the adrenaline raced through her body, her instincts kicked in. She
closed her eyes and began to spin around and around like a top.
Slowly at first, and then faster, she sprayed all around herself.
She didn’t stop spraying for at least twenty seconds. Immobilized
fairies started to fall to the ground at her feet and her pain
stopped.

When she stopped spinning and opened her
eyes, fairies littered the ground at her feet like a furry
carpet.

“That was awesome!” said Tristan as he came
up beside her. “I thought you were in trouble for a second, but you
totally nailed them. You’re a real natural. I knew it.”

Zoey reached to the back of her neck. Her
fingers were stained with red. “Not that much of a natural—they got
me pretty good.”

“No pain, no gain,” Tristan smiled.

“That was
so
cool.” Simon dragged his
bag behind him. He looked around at Zoey’s feet. “Holy guacamole!
How many do you think you got there? Looks like twenty. Man, I only
got six! I totally suck at this, don’t I? Thank God I’m heavenly
handsome.”