Mystics 3-Book Collection (56 page)

“You’re sick,” said Zoey. She tried hard not
to imagine it.

Mrs. Dupont swished the contents of her
drink in her glass. “I’m practical.”

“So where’s my mother? Is she here, in this
house?”

Mrs. Dupont looked directly at Zoey for a
moment. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

Mrs. Dupont giggled again. “Yes, I
am
lying.”

She threw her head back and swallowed the
rest of her drink in one gulp.

“I sold her.”

Zoey’s voice faltered. The way Mrs. Dupont’s
face distorted into a triumphant smile so genuinely convinced Zoey
that she was telling the truth.

“What? No, that’s not… that’s not right. You
can’t sell human beings.”

“Sure you can. I sell people and mystics
every day. It’s business, nothing more. We found Elizabeth a few
months ago and, well, since I don’t have any more
use
for
her, I had no reason to keep her—”

“So you sold her!” said Zoey, half in a
trance.

“You’re one twisted lady,” said Simon. Mrs.
Dupont beamed at him like he had paid her a great compliment.

“Don’t listen to her, Zoey,” said Tristan as
he leaned in beside her. “She’s trying to trick you. She’s a liar.
Don’t believe what she says. She only wants to hurt you. She takes
pleasure in it.”

“But I do believe her.” Zoey turned her
attention back to the cat-faced woman. Her lips trembled when she
spoke next.

“Whom did you sell her to? Where can I find
her?”

“You can’t,” said Mrs. Dupont in a
matter-of-fact way.

“She’s probably dead by now. Trust me when I
tell you, you’ll never find her! So you might as well give up and
stop thinking about a woman you’ve never even met. You should be
thinking about what great things we’re going to achieve
together—”

“I’ll never do it!” Zoey trembled in rage.
“Whatever it is that you want me to do, I’ll never
ever
do
it. I’d rather die than help you.”

In that moment, Zoey saw a twitch in Mrs.
Dupont’s face. She glanced over to her friends, and a silent
understanding passed between them. Zoey felt the blood drain from
her face.

“I take it from your expression that you
know what will happen to you if you resist.” Mrs. Dupont smacked
her bulbous lips together. “Are you prepared to live with
that?”

“Zoey, what is the beast talking about?”
Simon looked at Zoey.

Zoey hesitated then said, “She’s going to
hurt you, if I don’t cooperate.”

“Correction,” said Mrs. Dupont. She raised
her voice slightly, “I’m going to torture them and
then
kill
them if you don’t cooperate. But for now, I have other plans for
them.”

“What other plans?” said Zoey, trying to
read the expression on Mrs. Dupont’s face.

The door opened suddenly, and four Alphas
came in, three men and one woman. The woman had dark hair and milky
white skin. She carried a glowing red sphere that hovered just
above her right hand.

The woman smiled coldly at Zoey. She was the
same woman who had used the globe to kill the man outside, when
they had first arrived. Zoey remembered the petrified look on that
man’s face, and the triumphant smile from the icy woman.

Zoey looked at the men. The man standing in
front had on the red-blood uniform, as did the other two. His blond
hair was cut so short it looked almost bald. He had a thick neck, a
square jaw, and the pink eyes of an albino. A whip hung on a clasp
by his belt. It was thin and made of a glowing green material,
almost like a fluorescent light. Zoey could make out small electric
charges running along it.

The second man was as big as Agent Vargas,
but looked nothing like him. His muscles bulged through a uniform
that was clearly too small. His face, neck, chest, and forearms
were covered with thick brown hair, and his hands were the size of
car rims. He looked like a cross between a man and a bear. He had
no weapons on him.

But the strangest one of all was the third
man.

His head was abnormally large for his body,
and his face was warped. His eyes were glazed over and bulged out
of their sockets, and his mouth stretched all the way back to his
ears. He looked like an insect. He was bald except for a few black
strands of hair that went around his head like a crown. And when he
opened his mouth, Zoey gagged.

As his lips parted, two black spindly legs
wiggled out, and then a black spider the size of a hamster crawled
out of his mouth. It wriggled down his chest and sprang to the
ground.

“AH!” Simon jumped as the spider scurried
near his feet. He stepped on it. And when he removed his boot, only
a pile of green guts and a flattened body remained of the
spider.

The man smiled, and five more spiders
scrawled out of his mouth.

“That’s enough, Araneae. You’ve had your
fun.”

Mrs. Dupont strolled across the room. The
man called Araneae opened his mouth and the spiders crawled back
in. It was the sickest thing Zoey had ever seen. She wasn’t sure
whether she should throw up or be amazed.

Nazar glared at the four Alphas, almost as
if he disapproved of them. He turned and made his way back to his
chair near the fireplace. He sat down, and the flames reflected in
his glass eye.

Mrs. Dupont stepped over Xenor’s body. “I
want you to escort our young agents here to the Transfiguration
chamber.”

“What’s the Transfiguration chamber?” asked
Simon as he shared a troubled look with Tristan and Zoey.

The woman with the globe kept watching Zoey
with an icy stare.

“It’s a surprise,” said Mrs. Dupont, as she
made her way towards the door. “Bring them,” she called back and
disappeared through the door.

Zoey pulled at her bonds, but it was
useless. She glanced over to the mirror on the side table. If only
she could free her hands!

Something hard pushed her in the back.

“You heard the woman,” said the woman with
the globe, and she held it close to Zoey’s face. “Move it.”

Zoey could see that Nazar continued to sit
in his chair and stare at the fire.

Reluctantly, Zoey followed the others out of
the room and down through the great hallway again. Mrs. Dupont led
the way, her black silk robes billowing behind her. She headed
towards the southeast part of her manor. More portraits of Mrs.
Dupont hung on the walls. They stared down at Zoey with superior
expressions, as if they knew she was walking to her doom.

They came to a set of large metal double
doors at the other end of the hall. The doors screeched and wailed
as the bear-man pulled them open. He stood back and Zoey could see
a stone staircase that spiraled down into darkness beyond the
doors. The only light came from single light bulbs that hung from
the walls at intervals. The ground rumbled under Zoey’s feet, and
she could hear machines somewhere down below.

Mrs. Dupont turned and did her best to smile
before descending the staircase. Tristan froze at the top of the
staircase and stared down into the depths. He looked alarmed.

“Tristan?” Zoey leaned closer. “What is it?
What’s down there?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, “but it’s bad. I
can feel it.”

“I have a nasty feeling about this,” said
Simon. He screwed up his face. “What’s that smell? It smells like a
barn.”

“Stop your yapping and move,” said the man
with the whip.

But Zoey and the others didn’t move. They
stayed at the top of the stairs.

In one fast and fluid movement, the man
grabbed his whip and lashed it across their backs.

Zoey yelled out as searing pain tore at her
skin like she’d just been burned, but she and the others stood
defiantly.

“I’ll slice your heads right off if you
don’t move,” growled the man. His whip glowed with green
current.

Still, the young operatives didn’t move.

Araneae stepped forward and opened his
mouth. A mass of black spiders crawled out, scurried down his body,
and headed towards them. The bear-man roared and flexed his
muscles. The buttons on his shirt popped open and revealed a mass
of thick hair over his bulging pecs.

“Okay, we get it,” said Simon. He hurried
down the staircase, slipped, and then steadied himself as best he
could with his hands tied behind his back.

The woman raised her red glowing sphere and
smiled at Zoey and Tristan. Zoey nudged Tristan with her shoulder
and both began their descent.

It was like stepping into the dungeon of a
medieval castle. The walls were made of timeworn stone, water
trickled from many crevices, and the air smelled of mildew and wet
earth. As they climbed down the spiraled staircase, the noise of
the machines intensified. They sounded like auto-repair shops.

Finally, they arrived at the bottom and
stepped into a giant basement chamber.

Zoey held her breath.

It was like stepping into a horrible science
fiction movie. Giant water tanks the size of garages stood in each
corner of the chamber. Dozens of beings floated in them—human and
mystic. Tubes and wires attached them together so that their fluids
traveled between them.

Zoey saw the dead dissected bodies of
mystics lying on metal beds. Their insides had been torn apart in
operations that looked like they had gone wrong. There were cells
and compartments across from the chambers that looked like the ones
at the Hive. They were occupied by sad-looking mystics who appeared
to be waiting to die.

A large sign hand-painted on the wall read,
Oubliette
.

Zoey heard a scream. She followed the
sound.

A medium-sized creature with bat-like wings
and a long bushy purple tail was bound on a metal bed. A girl about
Zoey’s age sat on the bed beside it. She had a strange smile on her
face. Both the girl and the mystic had tubes protruding from their
skin. A metal contraption stood between them like a defibrillator
machine used in hospitals. A red light flicked on the machine. The
creature screeched as its blood was pumped out and transferred into
the girl.

Zoey watched as the mystic’s skin became
paper thin and withered until there was nothing left of it but a
dried up carcass.

When it was over, the girl doubled over and
fell to her knees. At first Zoey thought she was going to die, too.
But then her uniform stretched and ripped, and two large bat wings
sprouted from her back. A dark smiled appeared on her lips.

“I’m definitely going to puke now,” said
Simon, looking green.

The entire chamber was like a horrible scene
from an old black and white horror film in which Mrs. Dupont was
Dr. Frankenstein’s mad cousin. But what made Zoey sick to her
stomach was the long line of Alphas waiting for their turn.
Hundreds of men and women, young and old, stood anxiously, waiting
to be part of the transfiguration process—to become part mystic.
Instead of looking scared, they twitched and paced with excitement.
They couldn’t wait to be fused with the mystic beasts. It was
appalling.

And then Zoey realized what this was—Mrs.
Dupont was creating an army of Alpha-mystic hybrids.

It was no wonder the Alphas that had
attacked London Headquarters had nearly finished all the Agents;
they were super beings - crossbreed creatures with mystic strength.
But why? Why would anyone want to be subjected to such extremes?
What was in it for them? And for Mrs. Dupont? Zoey was sure she was
going to find out soon enough, and that somehow she would play a
part in the madwoman’s plans.

Mrs. Dupont looked delighted that her
captives should be so horrified. She turned to Tristan.

“You, of all people, should appreciate what
we’ve done, since you yourself are part monster.”

“I was born. I wasn’t made,” He glared at
her. “And by the looks of things, you’re the monster here,” he
pointed to the mystics in the cages, “not them.”

“I’m not a monster,” said Mrs. Dupont, “I’m
a creature of science and power—”

“More like a freak of nature,” laughed
Simon, “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

He lost his smile when he realized he’d
overstepped his bounds.

Mrs. Dupont’s eyes darkened like a great
storm, but when she spoke her voice was steady.

“I want these two transfigured. The redhead
comes with me.”

“NO!” Zoey moved protectively between Simon
and Tristan. “Don’t you dare touch them! I’ll kill you, I
swear—”

Something hard hit her in the back of the
head, and she fell to her knees. She blinked the white spots from
her eyes only to see Tristan and Simon being dragged away kicking
and screaming by the bear-man and the man with the green whip.

She could see the fear in their eyes. Their
hands were tied, and they couldn’t fight back. She had done this to
them, and somehow she had to fix it.

“Get her up.”

Zoey was pulled to her feet. Her head still
spun, and she focused on Tristan and Simon, not wanting to lose
sight of them. Tristan kept turning back and looking at her, his
face twisted in anguish.

“Let’s go, Zoey. It’s time to show you your
big surprise.”

Mrs. Dupont made no attempt to look at Zoey.
She turned and walked along the south wall of the great
chamber.

“Go on, you heard the woman,” said the woman
with the red globe. “Unless you want me to hit you over the head
again—I’m afraid I might kill you the next time.”

With her heart in her throat, Zoey followed
Mrs. Dupont. How long did she have until her friends were merged
forever with mystics? Would they even survive such a thing?

She searched around frantically for a knife,
a piece of glass, anything she could use to cut her bonds. But she
saw nothing that could help.

They arrived at an elevator, and she
followed Mrs. Dupont into it unwillingly. Every step away from her
friends was like a stab in her heart.

“Where are we going?” she managed to
ask.