Mystics 3-Book Collection (2 page)

Zoey staggered towards the kitchen table,
pulled out a chair, and sat. She knew arguing was a losing battle,
so she looked around the table instead.

Thomas was an eleven-year-old boy with large
front teeth and a nervous laugh. His brown eyes widened, and he
gave her a quick smile before returning to his supper. Isabelle and
Andy sat across the table. Isabelle was a thirteen-year-old girl
with a sponge cake of curly brown hair and a fondness for makeup
and large costume jewels. Andy sat beside her. Although he hid his
face behind layers of black hair, Zoey could see red around his
eyes. She guessed he was about ten. He had only been with them for
a few days and hadn’t said a word yet.

“How you feeling today, Andy?” whispered
Zoey.

She edged closer trying to get a better look
at his face.

“You haven’t touched your supper. Aren’t you
hungry?”

But Andy didn’t answer. Instead he stared
gloomily into his bowl of stew, not really seeing it. His sad eyes
were somewhere far away.

Zoey knew that look. The foster system had
that effect on children. They were lonely and abandoned, never to
be found or loved again. It was a horrible prospect. They were
society’s rejects, throwaways—even their own families wouldn’t take
care of them. Every foster kid she had known had counted the days
until their eighteenth birthday—the day when they would be
considered adults, when they would be free.

Zoey had four more years to go.

“What were you doing in the library?”
whispered Thomas, careful not to attract foster mother number 28’s
attention. And when Zoey didn’t answer, he sighed heavily and went
back to his stew. He seemed to be the only one interested in eating
the gluey brown clumps.

It’s not that Zoey didn’t
want
to
tell Thomas what she’d been reading on the net; she just couldn’t
bring herself to tell him. Relentless research on the Internet
about demons and the occult wasn’t a normal thing for a
fourteen-year-old girl to do.

And Zoey was far from normal.

In fact, she was the complete
opposite
of normal. Instead of drooling over boy bands,
makeup, and clothes—like normal teen girls—she’d use every free
moment to investigate supernatural phenomena. She’d be all over
anything to do with monsters and the supernatural. It was like an
addiction. She was a walking supernatural Wikipedia.

Zoey was afraid of how people would react to
her if they knew that she could see monsters. She knew she wasn’t
normal. And she was desperate to find the truth about who she was.
She’d kept her abilities a secret and had done her best to blend in
with the normal kids. The problem was, trouble always seemed to
find Zoey.

She slouched in her chair and sighed. “Well,
I guess I’m not missing much. I’ve eaten so much beef stew in my
life, it’s a miracle I haven’t grown a pair of hooves.”

Isabelle looked over at Thomas, and both
were suddenly overcome by fits of giggles.

“BE QUIET!” Foster mother number 28 slammed
her fist on the table, sending cups, knives, plates, and spoons
spinning on to the floor.

“I’ve had just about enough of you, you
little delinquent. Think you’re above the rules, don’t ya? Well
you’re not! You ain’t nothin’ but trash, Zoey, miserable leftover
trash.”

She gripped the sides of the kitchen table,
and beads of sweat rolled down her fat face. “We should have left
you to rot in that orphanage,” she said with a nasty smile.

“Well, maybe you should have.”

Zoey glanced casually at her dirty
finger-nails. She picked at them and shrugged. “But I guess the
government’s checks helped you make that decision. I mean—let’s be
real here—it’s the only reason why we’re all here, isn’t it? All of
us cramped up in one room? I don’t know about the rest of you, but
I don’t feel any
love
.”

Her foster mother frowned sourly and
examined Zoey as if she were contagious, “With that cheeky
attitude, no one will ever want you. You’ll never belong anywhere.
You’ll never have a
real
family. You’ll be stuck in this
system forever.”

Although Zoey felt a pain in her chest, her
expression remained stone cold. “Not forever. I’ve got four more
years to go, then I’ll be kissing this system
goodbye
.”

“They told us you were
different
back
at the orphanage.” Her foster mother pointed her stew-coated spoon
at Zoey as though it were a sword. “But except for that awful red
hair of yours that looks like a forest fire and your disregard for
rules, I’ve never seen anything different or special about you.
You’re just like every other foster kid that comes through
here…nothin’ but garbage that won’t amount to nothin’.”

Zoey saw the pain flash on each of the other
children’s faces. She cracked her knuckles under the table and
wanted nothing more than to punch the smile off the woman’s
face.

“If you’d been pretty like Isabelle here,”
said foster mother number 28 as she licked the spoon, “then maybe
we’d have something to work with—”

“She can see
monsters
,” interrupted
Isabelle innocently.

She smiled at Zoey like she was doing her a
favor and twirled her large green necklace around her wrist. “She
said there was a monster in the backyard last night. I couldn’t see
anything, but she said she could. So I guess that makes her
special.”

Zoey’s secret was out.

All eyes rested on her. She could already
see them making up scenarios in their heads. She’d seen that
nervous look before.

Isabelle met Zoey’s angry stare and lost her
smile. As her face paled, tears brimmed in her eyes, and Zoey
immediately felt ashamed. It wasn’t Isabelle’s fault. She was just
trying to help.

Foster mother number 28 stepped forward
triumphantly, as though she’d been waiting to hear this all her
life. A weird noise escaped her throat, like the growling of a wild
animal. Sweat dripped from her nose and onto the table.

Zoey looked away and shifted uncomfortably
in her seat. Why was her foster mother staring at her like that?
Usually when people learned of her ability, they
avoided
her.

And then she felt the goose bumps again.

An uncontrollable shudder rippled through
her, as though thousands of ants were crawling all over her skin.
She always reacted like this around demons and monsters. She had
felt it when she had first stepped into the kitchen. She called it
her
creeps
. It was like a warning, and she had no idea where
it came from, but it had kept her alive.

But why was she feeling it now?

When she looked up, foster mother number
28’s eyes had gone completely black, like the eyes of a shark. Her
clothes had become soaked in sweat, and the smell of body odor
intensified. The woman started to tremble and scratched at her arms
feverishly until blood oozed from the deep gashes she had made in
her flesh.

“Uh…maybe you should stop doing that,” said
Zoey.

She watched her foster mother without
blinking, preparing herself for any sudden moment. A strange smell
came off the woman, like rotten eggs mixed with wet earth. Then she
grunted hungrily, as though something inhumane lived in her
throat.

Zoey felt a chill roll down her back.

Great, here we go again,
she said to
herself.
And I didn’t even get to eat anything.

The woman leaned forward on the table, her
black eyes gleaming with spite and hatred. “You thought you could
hide in this place, away from the others, so we wouldn’t know who
you were.”

Her hoarse voice sounded like a different
person.

“Clever—but not clever enough. You
agents
are all the same—meddlers—control freaks.”

Zoey straightened in her seat and readied
herself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m
not hiding from anyone—and I’m too young to be an FBI agent. I just
turned fourteen last week.”

An evil smile materialized on the woman’s
face.

“Do you imagine that we mystics would ever
obey your rules! Ha! You creatures are made of soft flesh and
blood—you are not
our
leaders. You are too weak. We will
never
go back to the Nexus. We enjoy living here amongst you
humans,” she hissed.

White foam formed at the corners of her
mouth like a rabid dog.

“I will kill every last agent that tries to
send me back!”

A string of spit flew out of her mouth,
landed on the table and immediately burned holes into the wood.

Zoey jumped to her feet and turned to the
others. “Get out of here! Now! Quickly!”

The children scrambled to their feet
terrified and started to move away from the woman. But they froze
at what they saw next.

Foster mother number 28 howled like an
animal. Her fingers and toes began to transform into gleaming black
talons. Her skin cracked and broke apart like shattered eggshells.
As her body shook, her skin peeled away and fell in clumps to the
floor in a pool of black liquid.

Before they had a chance to move, a
seven-foot creature with dripping black sores and raw bubbling skin
stood in the kitchen in front of them. Six blunt spikes protruded
from its back, and long, slender arms and legs protruded from its
rounded fleshy body. It glowered at Zoey with four large red eyes.
It opened its maw as it wailed and revealed rows of jagged
glass-sharp teeth. It was about to slice her to pieces.

Zoey recognized the creature as the one she
had seen the night before. Somehow it had used foster mother number
28’s body as a host, like a giant parasite.

“What’s happening to her?” whimpered Thomas,
his blue eyes wide with fear. “She’s acting crazy, should we call
911? Maybe she needs a doctor?”

Zoey knew that
normal
children
couldn’t see the horrors that she saw. They didn’t see or smell the
repugnant creature that stood in the kitchen—they only saw their
foster mother, mad with hatred, like a deranged serial killer.

Zoey grabbed the edges of the table.

“Guys, you need to get out of here right
now! Do as I say! Go back upstairs and lock your doors. Do it
now!”

The monster cackled in laughter and lunged
at her.

“RUN!”

In a flash, Zoey threw the kitchen table
onto the creature, pinning it against the counter for a few
seconds. She leaped sideways and ran to her backpack. Isabelle,
Thomas and Andy disappeared up the stairs in a mad panic.

With a crack like thunder, the monster
lashed out and split the table into an explosion of splintered
wood.

Zoey turned with a salt bag in her hand and
gripped it tightly.

“I’m going to kill you,
Agent
,” the
demon snarled.

Drools of acid-spit burned the floor beneath
her.

“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.