Mystics 3-Book Collection (4 page)

“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.

The three strangers watched Zoey intensely
without speaking for a moment. A cold sweat dripped down her back.
It was the first time in her life she had met other people who
shared her ability. They could see monsters, too, just like her.
She had waited and prayed for this moment all her life, but it
wasn’t happening quite as she had imagined. They didn’t seem very
happy
about it. In fact, they seemed a little unnerved that
she could see monsters, too. Was this a mistake? What were they
going to do with her? Should she run?

Finally, Barnes moved towards her until he
was looming over her like a teacher about to reprimand her. “You
there, kid, what was it that you saw? Did you
see
anything
unusual?”

Zoey fidgeted on the spot. “Apart from
seeing you people burn a giant bat to smithereens—I guess nothing
that unusual. Of course I could
see
it. It was standing
right in front of me. It was about to kill me, and then you three
showed up.”

The boy gave the other two a
told-you-so
look. But their shared expressions were grim,
not at all the joyous reception she had imaged. Zoey had been
waiting all her life to meet people like her. She wasn’t alone. But
their third-degree was making her nervous. Maybe they were going to
vaporize her like they did the demon.

“Well, slap me silly and call me Susan!
We’ve got ourselves a
Drifter
. I’m Agent Barnes,” he said
and then pointed to the others, “this is Agent Lee, and our young
fellow here is Tristan. We’ve been tracking your so-called giant
bat for two days. It killed three people.”

Agent Barnes hazel eyes measured her, and
close up Zoey could see a scar on his chin that was surrounded by
days old stubble.

“So, what’s your name, kid?”

“Zoey St. John.”

“Well, Zoey St. John, do you think we could
speak to your parents?” asked Agent Barnes.

Zoey swallowed hard. “My parents are dead. I
live…
lived
with a foster mother.”

“What do you mean by
lived
?” asked
Agent Lee, and he slid his hand inside his jacket. “Did you do
something to her?”

Since it looked like they were about to
shoot her, Zoey decided to tell them the truth. “She turned into a
monster. I think it used her body as a host—I killed her with a bag
of salt.”

Tristan snorted but was immediately silenced
by a dangerous look from Agent Lee.

Agent Barnes measured her. “Must have been a
Skin demon, they’re really hard to detect—and when you do, it’s
usually too late. Tell me, how did you know to use salt on it?”

Zoey took a moment then spoke. “I’d read
that the occult use salt to kill demons. I’ve been using salt for
years, and so far it’s worked for me, except for tonight.”

“Not all demons are the same, you need
fire
to kill a Duyen demon,” said Agent Barnes as he sized
her up.

“Well, you’re a very strange girl, Zoey. How
is it that you’ve managed to avoid being put into an asylum or
killed by illegal mystics?”

“I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut,” she
answered shortly, confused by his last words. “I did what I had to,
to survive.”

“Hmmm.” Agent Barnes shared a sidelong
glance with Agent Lee, and then he lowered his eyes. He was eyeing
Zoey as if she were some criminal.

“Well, we can’t leave you here now, can we?
It’s not safe for you. You’ll have to come with us back to the
hive. Management will need to do some digging, but ultimately
they’ll decide what’s to be done with you.”

He reached out and steered Zoey towards the
edge of the platform.

Zoey wiggled out of his grip. “Just a
second! What’s
management
? What do you mean by
what’s to
be done with me
? I’m not some dog to be put in a cage. It
sounds a lot like the foster system to me. Why should I come with
you anyway? I don’t even know you—you could be serial killers for
all I know. I don’t need anyone. I’ve been alone all my life, and I
can take care of myself.”

She folded her arms against her chest with a
defiant look on her face. It was too late to tell them that she had
nowhere else to go—she didn’t want them to think she needed them.
“I’m not going anywhere.”

Agent Lee grabbed her from behind. “You have
no choice. You’re going to get killed unless you come with us.”

“Let me go!” Zoey kicked his kneecap with a
satisfying crunch. He howled and let her go, staggering
backward.

“Wait!” Tristan came in between Agent Lee,
who had a murderous look in his eye, and Zoey. He turned towards
her with his hands up in surrender.

“Listen, I know this must sound crazy to
you, but you have to trust us. We’re the only ones that can help
you.”

“I don’t need any help,” grumbled Zoey.

“Really? That’s not what it looked like ten
minutes ago.”

Tristan gave her a cheeky grin. “You’d be
dead if it weren’t for us. Truth is, there are a lot more and
deadlier illegal mystics out there. They’ll do anything to stay
here in this world, and I mean
anything
. They don’t want to
be caught and sent back. Once they recognize that you can see
them—adios—you’re dead.”

“I’m not an
agent
.”

“To them you are.” Zoey looked confused.

“—because you’re one of us,” answered
Tristan. “You’re one of the Sevenths.”

Zoey’s mouth felt like it was full of cotton
balls. “I’m a what?”

“A Seventh, a human born with the
seventh
sense.”

“There’s a seventh sense? Seriously?”

“Yes,” answered Tristan. “Sight, hearing,
taste, touch, smell—are the five. The sixth sense is your gut
feeling, your intuition. But the
seventh
sense is the
ability to
see
and
feel
the supernatural.”

Zoey wasn’t sure how to react to this new
piece of information. But somehow she knew it was the truth. She
had the seventh sense. She’d always had it.

“Did you get cold goose bumps right before
you saw the Duyen demon?” asked Tristan.

“Yes.”

“That’s part of your Seventh sense,” said
Tristan, and she noticed that he was doing his best not to meet her
eyes. “It’ll all become clearer, but first you have to come with
us. Trust me, you’ll be a lot safer with us—I promise we won’t hurt
you.”

Zoey studied Tristan’s face, she could
always tell when someone was lying, and he wasn’t. She let out a
long sigh and said, “Okay, I believe you. All I own is in my
backpack, so you could say that I’m already packed for the trip.
Where are you taking me?”

It was Agent Barnes who answered. “To the
hive.”

After a brief conversation on his cell
phone, Agent Barnes ordered everyone out of the theatre. He told
Zoey to sit tight while they waited for their ride. The rain had
stopped, and bright stars winked from a dark blue sky. Agent Lee
leaned on the theatre’s front wall, eyeing her suspiciously from a
distance. He stood with his right hand on his hip like a cowboy
ready to draw. He hadn’t forgiven her for the blow to his kneecap.
Since she had made up her mind to join them to go to whatever this
hive was, she sat on the edge of the sidewalk and tied her wild red
mane into a ponytail and waited.

Tristan came and sat next to her. “So, how
long have you been a foster kid?”

At first she was taken aback by the
question. Her skin tingled at his nearness almost as though there
were another monster nearby. But the sensation soon vanished, as
though it had never happened.

After a moment, she answered. “Since I was
four, so about ten years.”

“Do you remember your real parents?”

Zoey stared at her shoes, a heavy weight on
her heart. “Not really. I get images sometimes. I know my mother
had red hair like mine, but that’s it, I don’t remember my father
at all.”

“Do you know what happened to them?” asked
Tristan, his voice soft and full of compassion.

Zoey shook her head. “No. All they could
tell me back at the orphanage was that I was dropped off without a
name at one of the facilities. I don’t know who they were, or if
they’re alive or dead. Without a real name, it’s not like I can
look for them either.”

Tristan threw a pebble into the street. “So
who gave you the name Zoey St. John?”

“The orphanage did.”

She felt a sting in her chest as she always
did when she spoke of the orphanage—it always made her
uncomfortable, like she was a second-class citizen. Seeing her name
written down had made it seem more real to her, even though she
knew it wasn’t her
given
name. One day she would discover
her real name, she promised herself.

“I was named after the St. John’s orphanage
in Toronto,” she continued, “that’s how they name the nameless
kids. They chose names for kids alphabetically, and when I was
dropped off they were up to the letter Z. They gave us easy names
to remember I guess. I’m just glad they didn’t call me
Jane
Doe
.”

“I think Zoey St. John is a cool name.”

Zoey felt the heat rise on her face.

She thought it was best to change the
subject before she began to sweat and before her face turned the
same color as her hair. “So, how long have you been an agent?”

Tristan scratched the back of his neck, his
face reddening as well. “I’m not an agent. I’m just an
operative.”

Zoey noticed the dimples on his cheeks when
he smiled. It was a very handsome face, and she felt herself drawn
to it. “What’s an operative?” she asked, still staring.

“Well I guess you could say it’s what we
call
agents in training
,” he answered.

He avoided Zoey’s stare. “You need to be
accepted in the operative program first—it’s a very selective
program amongst our people. Not everyone has what it takes to
become an agent.”

He was very interested in his sneakers.

Somehow, Zoey felt more at ease seeing his
own discomfort, and she took comfort it in. “So how long until you
become an agent, then?”

“Three to four years,” he told her brightly.
“You have to be at least fourteen years old to be considered for
the program. I started six months ago with a few others. It’s
always been a dream of mine, to become an agent.”

Something was nagging her. “Why did Agent
Barnes call me a
Drifter
? What is that exactly?” She had a
feeling it wasn’t a good thing.

“A Drifter is a Seventh who’s been on their
own for a very long time and lost to the agency,” answered Tristan.
“Like you, they have no idea that there are others like them in the
world. Usually, if the agency hasn’t found them when they’re really
young, they start to believe they’re crazy. They eventually go
insane.”

Zoey looked away. “Sounds great.” A shiver
rolled down her back. She couldn’t help but wonder if that might
have happened to her.

“So…how many more operatives are there? Are
there some at this hive place where we’re going? Is that where you
train, at the hive place?”

“Yes, there are a few of us.”

Zoey couldn’t help but be fascinated.

“So if you don’t become an agent, what else
is there?” She imaged herself as an agent battling monsters like a
ninja.

Tristan laughed softly. “You ask a lot of
questions.”

Zoey did her best to hide her excitement in
her voice.

“I’ve been waiting all my life to ask them.
I feel like my head’s going to explode if I don’t ask them—you have
no idea.”

Tristan watched a car roll by and disappear
around the corner. “Well, it depends on the Seventh. Some try to
live
normal
lives, away from the agency, but even they get
basic combat training to protect themselves from dangerous
illegals. It’s really up to each Seventh to decide what he or she
wants to do. There’re loads of opportunities for them. They could
teach, own a business, do research, or even work in
management.”