Mystics 3-Book Collection (66 page)

Zoey lowered her voice. “Aren’t you supposed
to say,
you’re in violation of the Mystic Treaty
first? It
was the first thing Agent Vargas made us learn after we got our OSC
badges. Remember, Simon?”

Simon shrugged. “Right, I forgot that
part.”

He pointed to the giant, “Who cares, it’s
not like
he
knows the rules.”

The giant bared its teeth and started to
laugh a deep, guttural laugh.

“You funny. I eat you, too . . . after I eat
tomato.”

The tomato references were
really
starting to annoy Zoey, but she kept her agent cool.

“This is your
last
warning giant,”
she said confidently. “Come with us quietly, or we’ll have to use
force, and that means things are going to get messy.”

The giant grinned and watched them like they
were scrumptious cupcakes. A loud rumble came from his belly.

“I don’t think he intends to cooperate,”
said Zoey.

“Nope,” agreed Simon. “Which leaves us with
only one option.”

Zoey raised her boomerang again—

CRACK!

Wind buffeted Zoey’s back with a roar, like
a bomb had just exploded beside her. She turned around and held her
breath.

A twelve-foot blue hole had ripped through
the atmosphere. It shimmered and churned like a ring of rolling
water. Then a large green three-fingered hand decorated with rings
reached out from the surface. Another giant climbed out of the
portal.

“Great, now there are
two
of them,”
whined Simon.

The new giant stumbled out from the portal
stinking of rotten eggs. It seemed genuinely astonished to be here,
almost as though stepping through the portal had been
unintentional
. But how could that be?

It had the same wet pink eyes, small flat
head, and rough, forest-green skin as the first giant, but it was
shorter and nearly twice as thick. It looked like it had just
swallowed another giant. It wore a crown of human skulls on its
head and had the same tangle of jewel-encrusted straw-like hair. A
hand-stitched leather cape draped over its square shoulders, and a
sharp spear hung by its side.

Although Zoey had seen mystics cross over
into her world with the help of the interloper devices, she had
never seen a mystic step from this small of a portal before. It was
like it had just stepped out of a doorway. This portal was like the
mirrors they used at the agency.

While the portal was open, she could see the
world beyond the portal clearly. It was that same red world of
deserts, smoke, and ash that she had seen twice before. It was the
Nexus.

And then with another
crack
, the
portal vanished.

Zoey sensed that something was off. Why did
the giant look so surprised?

As the new giant looked around, it stared at
Simon and Zoey, and then it finally noticed the other giant. The
two mystics studied each other. The shorter, fat giant grabbed its
oversized belly and bounced it up and down like a basketball.

It looked at Zoey and rasped, “Agent tasty.
Me hungry
now
!”

It pointed its spear towards them.

One giant was a big enough challenge—two
giants was a
significant
problem.

And then, without warning, the fat giant
sprang towards Zoey and Simon like an angry rhinoceros, roaring and
snarling. Yellow spit flew from its mouth, and its pink eyes were
wild as it swung its spear like a sword.

But Zoey was ready.

She hurled her boomerang as hard as she
could. It sped in the air so fast it looked like gold pixie dust
and hit the giant on the side of the head with a powerful
thump
.

But the giant didn’t even flinch. It charged
at Zoey.

She hesitated for a moment, shocked that her
boomerang had
zero
effect on the giant. The spear’s tip came
towards her head—

“Zoey! Move!”

Simon pushed Zoey out of the way, and the
spear missed her scalp by an inch. They rolled on the ground and
came up facing both giants. Zoey spit the sand from her mouth and
reached up to grab her returning weapon.

Simon saw the shock on her face and said, “I
had a feeling this would happen.”

Zoey glared at the giants. It was clear by
their laughs that they did not consider Zoey and Simon to be a
serious threat. They were going to kill them easily and then
eat
them.

“What feeling?” she asked finally.

“. . . That your precious boomerang wouldn’t
work on them,” Simon answered. “Giants have skin as tough as steel,
and their heads are as thick as rocks. Your boomerang won’t even
get their attention.”

Zoey clipped her weapon back onto her golden
bracelet.

“Okay, so how do you plan on neutralizing
them if our weapons don’t work? With your charming good looks?”

Simon smiled sheepishly. “I knew you’d come
around one day.”

Another rumbling sound came from the bigger
giant’s belly. “Hungry,” it said and pulled a curved blade smeared
with maroon stains from its belt. It brought the knife to its face,
licked the blade, and grinned at them like a mad butcher.

The other giant gave Zoey and Simon a toothy
grin and raised its spear. It snarled and spat like a wild boar
ready to charge.

Zoey shifted uneasily. The giants were
ripped with muscles. She was sure they could crush their bones like
eggshells. But then she remembered something.

“Didn’t the mystic manual say that giants
could be neutralized if we knocked them out?” she said. “I think I
remember reading something like that.”

“It did,” answered Simon, “But it would take
all day for us to do it. I thought we’d try something new—”

The giants circled around them and started
to jab at them with their weapons.

Quickly, Simon reached inside his jacket and
pulled out two metal batons.

“Maybe we can get their attention with these
babies.” He pressed on a knob, and the small baton extended to the
size of a baseball bat.

He grinned when he saw Zoey’s
expression.

“Here’s yours.”

He tossed a baton to Zoey. It was cool and
surprisingly light. Following Simon’s lead, she found the button
and pressed it. Immediately her baton extended. On the sides,
written in bold red letters were the words:

Giant Pro Beater

Your One Hit Wonder!

(Batteries sold separately)

Zoey stifled a laugh. “Is this for real?
Who’s in charge of naming our weapons?”

“Who do you think?” said Simon. “Agent
Franken, who else?”

“Of course,” said Zoey smiling. “It all
makes sense in some really
strange
way.”

She took a few swings with her right hand,
getting a feel for its weight.

“I’ve already added the batteries, so we’re
good to go,” said Simon happily. He gave a test swing of his bat
like he was about to hit a homerun.

“So we just hit them with these, and it
should knock them out—?”

Movement appeared in the corner of Zoey’s
eye. She had been so preoccupied with her new giant beater that she
had temporarily forgotten all about the giants. Big mistake.

The mystics launched their attack. With
horrible rasping battle cries, they sprung at the young operatives
and slashed their weapons like huntsmen about to butcher two small
wild rabbits.

The giant with the spear came for Zoey. As
it neared, she could distinctly see black and brown stains on its
tip. Her instincts kicked in, and she ducked and spun just as the
tip of the spear crashed into the ground where she had stood a
second ago. The giant growled in displeasure and yanked its spear
free. When it turned to face Zoey, she could see that its pink eyes
had darkened and were almost red. It looked angrier than ever.

“You’ve got to hit it with the bat!”
bellowed Simon as he dodged a massive fist from the other
giant.

“Yeah, thanks for the tip,” said Zoey
angrily.

Simon cursed as he whacked his
Giant Pro
Beater
at the mystic’s legs, torso, and neck—but he missed with
every strike, like an uncoordinated kid who could never quite hit
the baseball. For creatures so thick and big, they moved with the
suppleness of cats. It was almost as though the giants could
anticipate their moves. Were these creatures mind readers as
well?

“
Where
do we have to hit them? On
their heads?” cried Zoey, but Simon was too busy trying to save his
own skin to answer. She would just have to figure this one out
fast, before she ended up as a splat of tomato juice.

The giant with the spear snarled furiously
at Zoey. It leaned forward, brought its spear in front of its chest
like a knight with a lance in a jousting tournament, and then
charged at her. When the tip of the spear came close to her chest,
she blocked it with a hit of her bat. But the force she needed to
deflect the giants charge sent her to her knees. Her teeth
clattered, and she was surprised to see she hadn’t broken any bones
in her hand or arm. The giant’s strength was extraordinary. It was
like hitting a mountain of rock. How would she ever get a clear
shot? And
where
was she supposed to hit it?

Zoey heard a grunt and turned around—

She howled in pain as white exploded behind
her eyes. For a second she felt her feet leave the ground, and then
she crashed to the earth hard and her bat slipped from her grip. It
was like she was pinned under a truck. She heard something crack
inside her chest. She raised her head off the ground.

The giant sat on her, so close that she
could smell the rancid vinegar and rotten meat on its breath. The
last of her air escaped under the pressure of the creature’s weight
on her chest. Then it leaned forward, wrapped its hands around her
throat, and squeezed.

She blinked at the snarling mouth and the
yellow spittle that flew into her face. The giant’s eyes burned red
with hunger.

She couldn’t breathe. She was going to
die.

Chapter 2

A
s the giant tried
to squeeze the life out of her, Zoey could only think about what
Tristan would say when he found out that a giant had killed her on
her very first OSC job.

And then something inside her stirred.

She grabbed handfuls of sand and threw them
in the giant’s face. The effect was instantaneous.

The mystic let go of her neck, and Zoey
coughed and gagged for free air. She crawled away from the howling
creature and began to search for the bat. She saw it in a soft
clump of wispy grass ten feet away. Although every breath was like
a thousand knives carving the inside of her chest and sweat
trickled down her face, she struggled towards the bat.

Heavy footsteps shook the ground behind
her.

She grabbed the bat and crept up onto a
three-foot boulder.

She could almost feel the giant’s breathing
on the back of her neck.

She waited until the very last moment,
crouched, and spun. She leaped into the air and swung her bat as
hard as she could.

CRUNCH!

The bat smashed into the giant’s head, but
the mystic hardly even moved.

A series of strange silver bubbles circled
the giant’s head for a moment, and then they popped and disappeared
so fast that Zoey thought she must have imagined them.

She came back to her senses quickly and
leaped off the boulder. It exploded in gray dust as the giant
skewered it with its spear.

Zoey landed softly in the sand and watched
the giant.

She began to panic. She had only made the
creature angrier when she had hit it across the head.

“Die!” It snarled. Thick droplets of
yellow-green spit flew out of its mouth.

But then as the giant whirled towards her,
it stopped. It looked confused, as though it had forgotten
something important. It staggered forward and dropped its spear.
Then the mystic’s eyes rolled into the back of its head, and it
fell face first onto the ground like a dead tree.

Zoey couldn’t believe her luck. She walked
over to the giant and kicked it. Nothing happened. She kicked it
again, just to be safe. The giant didn’t respond.

She raised her bat and examined it more
closely. “Not bad for just a
bat
. And all these years I
sucked at softball . . . if they could see me now. Remind me to
have a chat with Agent Franken later—”

“Zoey! A little help here!”

Zoey turned around. Simon dangled from the
other giant’s grip like a child’s toy.

“Help me!” he screeched. His face was beet
red, and his bat lay near the giant’s feet like a twig.

“It’s going to eat me! Help!” He punched at
the giant’s hands with his fists.

Taking a deep breath, Zoey gripped her bat
firmly and sprinted towards Simon.

“Hey ugly!” she bellowed between breaths.
“Put my friend down, or you’ll end up like your friend over there.
I said let him
go!
”

The giant ignored her and squeezed Simon’s
throat.

“—ELP!” was all Simon could manage. Sweat
covered his red face and his eyes watered. The mystic was crushing
his throat.

With an angry swing, Zoey whacked her bat
against the beast’s back so hard that the force sent a ripple
through her fingers that went all the way up her arm.

But it was like hitting a brick wall. The
giant took no notice of her or her bat.

Again, small silver bubbles emanated from
the bat and then popped and disappeared.

In a rage, she rained blows on the mystic’s
back, legs, and arms. But the giant only seemed vaguely aware of
her.

She thought that the bat must be
defective.

“
One
hit wonder
, eh? Yeah
right. I want a refund!”

Thinking that she wasn’t hitting it hard
enough for the bat to work, she gave the giant another volley of
whacks.