Mystics 3-Book Collection (58 page)

“What…what are you doing?” breathed Mrs.
Dupont. She was still sprawled on the floor and trying to
focus.

“Getting me and my friends out of here.”

Without another moment to waste, Zoey bolted
for the elevator and pulled the metal gate across. She pressed on
the brass button with the letter
B,
and with a slight jerk
the elevator descended. Zoey breathed heavily. She unclipped her
boomerang and stood with her legs apart, ready to fight and
run.

The elevator stopped with a slight judder.
She saw no one through the gate, so she pulled it open and started
running.

Please be okay, please be okay
, she
told herself, as the first throng of Alphas came into view. She ran
madly into the crowd, searching desperately for Tristan and
Simon.

A woman with a scar on her face stepped
forward to intercept Zoey. She heard the sound of a blade being
unsheathed, and she spun to dodge the first swipe of the Alpha
woman’s sharp sword. The woman smiled maniacally. Her blade flashed
out again, but Zoey ducked, whirled, and kicked the woman hard in
the chest. The woman doubled over, and Zoey backhanded her across
the face with her boomerang. The blade fell from the woman’s hand
as she crumbled to the ground.

A crowd of onlookers had formed around Zoey.
She slashed her boomerang like a sword, and the crowd parted in
front of her.

She sprinted across the chamber, searching
for her friends. Her eyes burned as her stubbornness to find them
fueled her with energy. More and more Alphas were staring at her.
She didn’t have much time.

“TRISTAN? SIMON?” she bellowed at the top of
her lungs.

“ZOEY! OVER HERE!”

Zoey choked back a sob and turned towards
the voice. With her heart hammering in her ears she charged into
the crowd, hitting anything that came in her way.

Suddenly, her stolen pants loosened and she
tripped over the bottom. Zoey went sprawling on the floor and hit
her chin on the hard ground. She tasted blood in her mouth. She
didn’t have time to think about the pain. Struggling to her feet,
she felt a sharp pain in her ankle but she staggered on, the pain
lessening as she kept going.

She was nearly there…

Finally, she saw them about thirty feet
away.

They were standing next to a large cage
where a lizard-like mystic and another that looked like a cross
between an octopus and a man were already hooked up with tubes and
wires. The bear-man and the man with the whip stood next to them,
talking to another Alpha in a white lab coat. The only things
missing from the cage were Tristan and Simon.

Zoey’s rage escaped in a roar, and she
sprang into action. The Alphas in the crowd were in such shock at
seeing a crazed girl roar like an animal that they actually stepped
out of her way. All except the bear-man and the man with the whip;
they turned to meet her.

Faster than she would have thought a man as
large as a bear could move, the bear-man hurled himself at Zoey.
She dodged and spun around, missing his giant fist by a centimeter.
But she was not quick enough. He kicked her in the stomach, winding
her, and she went down. From the corner of her eye she saw him
spring into the air as though he had springs attached to his feet.
She felt the air move above her, and just as the bear-man was about
to crush her, she darted out of the way, rolled on the ground and
came up behind him, driving the sharp end of her boomerang into the
back of his head.

The bear-man hissed in pain and stumbled
back. “I’m going to kill you for that, agent.”

Zoey waved her boomerang. “I’d like to see
you try.”

He growled and black gleaming claws emerged
from the tips of his fingers. He snarled like a wild animal, and
she could see fangs like large daggers growing in his jaws. He
launched himself at her again.

She dodged to the side—but he slammed into
her shoulder, and she went sprawling. It was like being hit by a
train. Pain exploded in her back as he picked her up with claws
that cut through her flesh like knives. He tossed her to the
ground.

Zoey rolled. Ignoring the pain in her back,
she staggered up. The bear-man sneered and came at her once more.
But this time Zoey was ready. With lightning speed she hurled her
boomerang straight at the man’s temple. He never saw it coming. It
hit him with a crack like the splintering of wood and ricocheted
back to her.

The bear-man staggered, his eyes rolled back
into his head, and he crashed to the ground.

“Zoey, watch out!” she heard Tristan cry,
but too late.

She saw a flash of green, then the whip
wrapped itself around her upper body and pinned her arms to her
sides. It squeezed her harder and harder as it burned through her
skin. She screamed in agony.

The man with the whip sneered, pleased at
the pain on Zoey’s face. His eyes widened, and he pulled on the
whip again. She could feel her lungs crushing under the pressure.
Her face turned red, and she felt her boomerang slip from her
fingers. She was suffocating.

“Zoey!”

With his hands bound, Tristan slammed into
the man with the whip, and they both crashed to the ground. The
whip rolled from the man’s hands. The coils of the whip loosened
immediately, and it fell to her feet.

She grabbed her boomerang and jumped over
the scorching whip just as the man got to his feet. He threw back
the whip in an arc above him and slashed it violently towards Zoey.
She dove out of its path, and the tip of the whip sent chunks of
marble and dust into the air beside her. She dived and rolled as
she threw her boomerang again, but the man intercepted it easily
with his whip.

The boomerang fell to the ground, and the
man laughed wickedly at the fear on Zoey’s face.

She leaped towards her boomerang, but the
whip wrapped around her throat and tightened before she could get
to it. She choked and began to stagger forward.

Together, Tristan and Simon slammed into the
man’s back, kicking him in the knees. The man cried out, and for a
second his focus turned to Tristan and Simon. It was enough for
Zoey.

She yanked the scorching hot whip from
around her throat, leaped towards her boomerang, grabbed it, and
hurtled it straight for the man’s head. It hit him right between
the eyes, and she could almost feel his brain move inside his
skull. He crashed to the ground with unblinking eyes.

For a second Zoey just stood there,
impressed at her own luck. Then she pulled out the crystal shard
and cut away Tristan and Simon’s bonds.

Tristan and Simon beamed at her.

“You were awesome,” said Simon. “You fought
like a real agent.”

Zoey hadn’t expected to blush at the
compliment.

The room was unnaturally quiet. The other
Alphas were staring at them. But they were transfixed by what had
happened and weren’t sure how to proceed.

“What happened to you? How did you escape?”
asked Tristan, looking over his shoulder at the crowd of angry
Alphas.

Zoey told them what had happened as fast as
she could in one breath. “And I got the sample,” she said
finally.

“
Who
are you?” said Simon,
impressed.

Zoey lowered her voice. “We need to get out
of here. There’s a mirror in that room where Mrs. Dupont killed
Xenor. We need to get to that mirror, and then we can go home—”

“GET THEM!”

Mrs. Dupont commanded from the crowd across
from them. Zoey could see the spit spurting from her angry mouth.
Her hair stuck up on one side and her face was twisted in fury. She
looked like a panther ready to kill.

“TAKE THEM DOWN! NOW! DON’T LET THEM
ESCAPE!”

“Uh…guys,” said Simon. “I think it’s time
for us to make a run for it. What do you say?”

The Alphas turned on them like a giant angry
red wave.

“RUN!”

Tristan led the way, and they crossed the
chamber into a throng of blood-red uniforms.

Tristan’s skin shone blue. Using only his
fists and his legs, he ploughed through the first wave of attackers
like a human tornado. Zoey forgot where she was for a second as she
watched him take down two men that were built like professional
wrestlers. He was
that
awesome.

“Hurry. We need to get to the staircase.”
Simon ducked as a woman hurled a metal baton towards his head. He
pulled out his slingshot and shot her directly up her nostril. She
screamed like a banshee, dropped her baton, and ran off in the
opposite direction.

They bolted towards the large staircase, but
a crowd of burly Alpha men blocked their path.

“Great, here comes the testosterone
fraternity.” Simon armed his slingshot.

“Take one more step, and you’re all dead,”
the first one said, with an ugly sneer.

Tristan stepped forward, smiled, raised his
hands in a challenge, and waited.

The seven Alpha men closed in around them,
their uniforms stained with dirt as though they had just come from
a mud fight. Zoey caught a glimpse of Mrs. Dupont storming her way
through the crowd. She would reach them in seconds. Zoey didn’t
want to think about what she would do to her friends if she caught
them again.

The rest of the Alphas in the dungeon
chamber stood back, like boxing fans waiting for the battle that
was to begin, thrilled at the prospect of Zoey and the others being
ripped to shreds. “Don’t let them escape!” shouted Mrs. Dupont over
the thumping and grinding of the machinery.

Zoey had a closer look at their uniforms.
What she had first thought was dirt was unmistakably blood. Their
uniforms were splattered in mystic blood.

Zoey narrowed her eyes and gripped her
boomerang.

The Alpha men grinned. Their sharp knives
glinted in the soft light.

Tristan raised his voice, making sure the
Alphas heard him. “On three…”

Simon and Zoey readied themselves.

“THREE!”

Before the Alphas could react, Tristan
slammed into the first three, creating a path for Zoey and Simon.
Two Alpha men came straight for Zoey. But before they could get
close, her boomerang ricocheted off their foreheads, and they fell
into the crowd.

“Nice!” said Simon, running alongside
her.

Zoey winked at him, caught her boomerang,
and followed the fallen bodies that Tristan had left behind as he
cleared a path to the stairs.

They bounded up the stairs three at a time.
Zoey winced as the wounds in her back stretched as she climbed.
When they reached the top, she looked back. The staircase trembled
under the weight of the hundreds of Alphas dashing up the steps
behind them.

“Quick, help me with the door.”

Tristan shoved with all his might on the
heavy iron doors. Zoey and Simon joined him, and together they
pushed them closed with an echoing boom.

“They don’t lock!” Simon ran from one side
of the doors to the other. “They’ll be up here any second now.”

Tristan put his back against the doors,
pinning them shut. “I’ll keep them shut for as long as I can.”

“Which won’t be long…” Simon turned in
terror from the door to Tristan.

“I know you’ve got super strength my friend,
and I don’t want to sound patronizing or anything like that - but
there are like
hundreds,
maybe
thousands
of those
sick red suits out there. You won’t keep them out for long.”

Tristan’s blue skin intensified. “So why
don’t you shut up then and
help
me then.”

“Right.” Simon pressed his body against the
door. “But, don’t expect miracles from these biceps—”

BOOM!

The iron doors rattled as though a giant had
smashed them with its fist. The hinges shifted slightly, and the
doors parted enough for Zoey to see a flash of red cloth. Tristan
pushed all his weight against the doors, and Simon did his best.
She could hear the screams and shouts of the mad mob outside. The
doors shook under more pounding, but miraculously they stayed in
place.

Simon’s feet slipped on the marble floor as
he pushed and his face turned red. “It’s not as easy as it looks,”
he said through his teeth.

“Whatever you need to do, Zoey, do it fast!”
said Tristan, the strain of the doors’ weight showed on his
face.

“Yeah,” agreed Simon, breathing heavily. “I
don’t want to go back in there.”

He pointed his head towards the
transfiguration chamber. “They were going to make me have
tentacles. Can you imagine that? Me - with tentacles?”

Zoey turned from the doors. “Okay. I’m going
to get the mirror I saw on that desk — and I’m coming right back.
Don’t go anywhere.”

Zoey sprinted down the main hall. She
ignored the hundreds of Mrs. Dupont’s portraits that stared down on
her and arrived at the front doors before she slowed to check the
main corridor, but it was completely deserted. The constant booms
as the mob rammed the transfiguration chamber doors reverberated
like the beating of a heart behind her. Could Tristan hold the
doors long enough for her? She turned her head for a second.

Tristan and Simon stared back at her. The
doors were still in place.

Zoey recognized the door to the room where
Xenor had been killed. The door was still open, and yellow light
spilled from the opening. She raced in, searched for the desk, and
found it.

Xenor’s body still lay on the same spot
where she had last seen him alive, and for a split second she felt
sorry for him.

She dashed past the stone fireplace and made
for the desk. At first glanced she panicked — she couldn’t find the
mirror. But then a flicker of light caught her attention.

Behind a tray of decanters filled with red
and golden liquid, she could see the silver hand mirror.

Zoey reached over and grabbed it. She held
the mirror out in front of her for half a second and saw that her
hair was disheveled and her face smeared with dirt and blood. She
turned and started for the door.