Zoey stepped to the side and slashed at its thigh with the end of her boomerang. The creature hissed in pain but swung its giant foot into her back. She hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She saw the mystic’s mouth open out of the corner of her eye. Its green tongue waved around like a mad python.
Zoey rolled and pushed herself up to her feet just in time to avoid the slimy tongue. She grabbed the boomerang like a sword and jabbed it into creatures tongue. The beast wailed and thrashed. Zoey went crashing into a nearby tree. She hit her head, but her vision cleared in time to see the Grohemoth dive straight at her again.
Just as the beast was about to crush her into Zoey-jam, Tristan reached out to her and pulled her to safety. She fell into his arms and stayed in them for longer than she should have done, enjoying the comfort. Their eyes met briefly, and he didn’t let go.
“Guys! Look!” Simon pointed to the waterway. It was bubbling like a giant cauldron. “Looks like the soup’s ready.”
Zoey slipped out of Tristan’s arms awkwardly—only to see about two-dozen more Grohemoths emerge from the murky waters. Zoey didn’t want to be bait any longer.
“Let’s get out of here!” yelled Tristan.
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day,” replied Simon, who was already running away.
With a herd of Grohemoths at their heels, they ran down the moss-covered path. Zoey’s heart thumped in her throat as she galloped through the wet jungle of trees and underbrush behind Tristan. Simon followed closely behind—and behind Simon the ground trembled and trees cracked like a thunderstorm. They weren’t going to make it.
Agent Vargas had warned her, and she’d disobeyed. If they didn’t die today, she would surely get kicked out of the program.
The thumping stopped.
“Guys,” yelled Simon from behind them. “Guys, look! The stinkers are gone.”
Zoey stopped running and turned. The path behind them was clear. It was as though they hadn’t even existed. The swamp was still. Birds chirped and flew from the trees happily.
“This doesn’t make sense,” said Zoey looking around. “Why would they just stop chasing us? They could have totally slaughtered us—why would they just stop?”
Once he stopped coughing Simon cradled the cramp in his side. “I don’t know—and I don’t care. I thought we were dead. I looked forward to graduating.”
“I know why they stopped coming after us.” Tristan ducked under a large tree root and came out on the other side. “Because there’s a wall here. We can’t get through. I think we may have to go back.”
Zoey slipped under the tree root and came over beside Tristan. A row of giant black leafless trees was an ominous mountain in front of them. Although their bark glistened in the sun like precious jewels, their trunks were twisted together in a giant mass that blocked the path for miles.
Zoey could glimpse a clearing through the small gaps between the stumps of the gleaming wall—Troll City—it had to be. A flutter of excitement passed through her. Her mother could be somewhere beyond those trees.
“We’re going to get through.”
Zoey fastened her boomerang onto her bracelet, and then sprinted towards the giant tree wall.
“Zoey! Wait!” yelled Tristan. “Zoey, stop!”
But Zoey ignored him and ran. She reached the edged of the trees and started to climb. But her fingers lost their grip, and she fell back down. The bark was as slippery and cold as ice. She yelled out in frustration and tried to pull herself up again. But she lost her footing and fell.
“It’s useless. We’ll never be able to climb those trees,” said Simon.
He rubbed the tree with his hand. “It’s almost like the top part of it is made of oil or something. It’s too bad I didn’t bring my axe. I could have cut it down.”
“You don’t own an axe,” muttered Tristan.
Zoey got up and kicked the tree. “Stupid tree!”
Tristan looked around. “We’ll have to go around it. We don’t have the tools to climb it.”
“And how long is that going to take? It goes on for miles,” said Zoey exasperated. “I bet the agency already suspects we’re gone—we left hours ago. They’ll figure out I’ve disobeyed them when we miss class.”
“We could go back?” suggested Simon. “If we sneak back now, they might not even notice that we were gone.”
“No,” said Zoey shortly. “I’ve come all this way. You guys can go back if you want.”
“We’re coming with you,” said Tristan. He turned to Simon who was strolling back down the path. “Right, Simon.”
Simon turned around and came walking back with a look of guilt on his face. “Uh—yeah. Sure—right.”
Zoey turned around and peered through a break between the trees. “I’m not giving up, not now. My mother may be here somewhere—I have to find her. She’s there—somewhere down there in Troll City.”
A loud screeching noise came from the wall of trees. Zoey and the others jumped back. The massive tree wall moved. Its trunks drew apart slowly, like tall drapes, until a section began to open up. It stopped moving with a final crack, and Zoey could see that a refrigerator-sized gap had formed in the colossal tree barrier.
“I guess that was the magic word,” said Simon looking amazed.
Zoey marveled at the beauty and magic of the trees, she had never seen anything so marvelous and eerie at the same. She wished she could stay a while and examine it, but she pulled herself away and said, “Come on, before it decides to close us off again.”
Zoey stepped through the gap between the trunks and popped out to the other side.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
“Guys, where’s the town?”
Simon and Tristan came up behind her. They looked out over a vast landscape of swampland, hills, and meadows that stretched out to the horizon—but no town.
“There has to be some mistake. It has to be here somewhere.”
Zoey circled around, looking for a clue of some kind. Finally something caught her eye. An old wooden sign was nailed crookedly onto the back of one of the trees. The sign read, Troll City, with a badly painted black arrow pointing down.
Zoey sighed deeply. “Now what’s that supposed to mean? We don’t have time for games!” She was starting to think that this trip might have been a grave mistake, and that there really was no Troll City. The sign was someone’s idea of a joke.
Simon tried to twist the sign. “Trolls aren’t known for their large brains, you know. I bet they wrote it wrong. Maybe we should keep going straight?”
Zoey yelled out in frustration. She paced around and kicked the ground. Her foot hit something hard. She parted the overgrown bush with her shoe and revealed a piece of flat metal. She fell to her knees and pulled at the weeds that covered it. When she was done, she stood up and stepped back—it was a door.
It was made of brass and looked as though it belonged at the front of some medieval castle—except that it lay flat on the ground in the middle of the swamp. Symbols and runes were etched around the door in a language Zoey didn’t recognize. Spikes and evil looking knobs and hooks decorated most of the front. The most disturbing part of all was the handle—it was a brass hand.
“Guess the sign was right after all,” said Simon as he stood next to Zoey. “Maybe trolls are not as stupid as we think they are.”
Zoey eyed the hand suspiciously.
“It’s a door—a door in the ground in the middle of nowhere with a really creepy handle. Do you think it actually leads to somewhere? Have you guys ever heard of something like this? A door in the ground—can this be real?”
Tristan shook his head and frowned. “I never did. It’s by far the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Same here,” answered Simon. “I feel like I’m in an old black-and-white version of The Twilight Zone. But they did a good job at hiding it, in case some Mutes came along.”
“Or agents,” said Zoey. “Well, we almost m
issed it, didn’t we? I guess they didn’t want anyone finding it. So if that’s true, then this door probably does lead to Troll City. This must be it—I’m sure of it.”
Zoey figured she should be the one to pull open the creepy door. That way, if something bad were to happen, then it would happen to her and not her friends.
“I’m going first,” said Zoey. She lifted her hand at Tristan who was about to protest. “This is my plan—my problem—and if something goes wrong, it’ll be on me.”
Tristan looked alarmed but didn’t say anything.
Zoey turned her attention back to the handle. “Okay, creepy mannequin’s hand—here goes nothing.”
She wrapped her hand around the brass-hand handle. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up—the hand was warm. Faster than a blink of an eye, the brass fingers grasped her hand tightly.
“Ahh!” screamed Zoey. “Get it off me! Get it off!”
She pulled and pulled, trying to yank her hand free of the metal hand, but it wouldn’t move. Panic gripped at her throat like giant hands squeezing the breath out of her. She was in shock.
Tristan and Simon jumped to her aid and tried to pry the fingers from her hand.
“They’re not coming off!” said Tristan, his face red. “Can’t. Lift. Them,” he said breathlessly.
“Oh, this is really bad,” said Simon wiping the sweat from his brow. “She’s stuck! The stupid handle’s locked! It won’t move!”
“I know she’s stuck,” yelled Tristan. “Maybe we can put some mud around her hand, and it’ll help to slip it out.”
“Yeah, good idea,” agreed Simon. “Mud is good.”
But Zoey wasn’t listening. She just wanted the creepy hand off of her. In her panic she started to hyperventilate. She yanked and pulled, kicked, and finally slipped and fell to the side.
The door swung open, and the hand released its grip. Zoey watched the heavy door crash open beside her, lifted herself up on her elbows, and stole a peek inside.
A stone staircase disappeared into the shadows below.
But then a series of lights flicked on, and soon the staircase was illuminated in the gold flames of wall torches.
Zoey started to breathe normally again. She swung her legs down into the doorway.
“Zoey, be careful.” Tristan leaned over her. “We don’t know what’s down there.”
“I will.” Carefully, Zoey climbed down to the first step.
The stairs were carved from rock and were steady enough to climb down. She could see the staircase winding down into shadow below her.
Tristan and Simon climbed down after her.
After a ten-minute walk, they came to a platform and another set of stairs going up. They climbed the long winding staircase for more than half an hour. Zoey’s thighs burned from the uphill climb. And just when she thought she couldn’t lift another leg, they finally arrived at the end of the staircase. Another door with another eerie hand handle stood before them, except this time the door was black and twice as large.
“These doors are disturbing on purpose,” said Zoey, eyeing the thick fingers from the handle. “I don’t think anyone in their right mind would try to open another one.”
“Yes, but we’re all crazy,” said Simon. “Crazy to have come here in the first place.”
Zoey paused for a second, catching her breath.
“Troll City, here we come.” She wrapped her fingers around the hand —trying not to wince), turned the handle, and pushed through. The door fell back at once. As she climbed through the door, she was half blinded by the sudden bright light.
As her vision adjusted, her senses were on overdrive. Her skin tingled, and she shivered with the presence of mystics. It was like when she’d first come to the hive and sensed the mystics who were stepping in and out of the mirror-ports in the main hall. Only this time, there were a lot more. She could feel them.
Simon stumbled out after her. “Oh my God, I’m blind! I can’t see! Zoey? Tristan? My friends? Is this heaven?”
“Oh shut up—it’ll go away in a minute.” Tristan stepped out, rubbing his eyes.
Once the black spots had disappeared from her eyes, Zoey looked around, and her heart stopped. They stood in the middle of the most extraordinary town she had ever seen. Rows of wooden tree houses lined the streets. Other homes and shops were carved into the side of a great hill, like a giant wall of Swiss cheese. The city looked as though a madman had designed it.
A series of doors like the ones they had just climbed through wrapped the edges of the town like a sidewalk. With a bang, one of the doors swung open, and a long-haired mystic with striped white and black skin like a zebra climbed out of the door.
Mystics were everywhere. There were tall mystics with red scaly skin and necks like giraffes. Others were short and round with brilliant orange fur and long bushy tails.
Zoey heard the beat of a wing and turned to see a creature with the head and wings of an eagle, but with the body of a lion. It landed in a small courtyard behind them. It took a sudden leap, and there was a flash or orange fur. Zoey was horrified as she watched one of the small orange mystics disappear down the griffin’s throat. Around the corner a stout mystic in a light blue suit carried a briefcase and conversed loudly with a young mystic who scribbled furiously in a notepad.
And then, as if they were in a movie in slow motion, all the mystics in the town stopped what they were doing and stared at them. Zoey looked to Tristan and Simon, and waited for an attack. But instead, the mystics screamed, flailed their arms in the air, and dashed for cover. It was as though the three of them were a savage army or a nuclear bomb that was about to fall. With ear piercing screams the mystics rushed into their homes and shops, slammed their doors behind them and pulled the curtains shut.
Soon the town was deserted except for a few evil-looking mystics who hung back in the shadows.
“So much for the warm welcome I was hoping for,” said Simon sarcastically.
Zoey looked around. “I thought you said this place was supposed to be dangerous? By the looks of things, I’d say that the mystics are more afraid of us than we are of them. What gives?”
“I don’t know—but not all of them are afraid.”
Tristan gestured towards the five, giant humanoids with thick gray, leathery skin and bulging muscles who had stood their ground. Their metal armor gleamed in the sun, and they brandished axes, clubs, and sharp swords. Although they looked ready to do battle, they simply stood still and watched.
“Trolls,” said Tristan. “The trolls of Troll City. Man, they’re really big. I never thought they’d be this big.”
“I don’t like the way they’re looking at us,” said Simon in a small voice. “They look hungry. Don’t you think they look hungry?”
“But why are they just standing there and staring?” asked Zoey. “It’s like they’re waiting for something.”
As if on cue, the ground trembled, and twenty low-riding motorcycles came roaring into the town with a thunderous rumble. They were green and glistened in the sun like emeralds. Astride the motorcycles were small tattooed men dressed in leather. They circled, and the gasoline fumes and heat made Zoey cough. The motorcycles circled them one last time and then stopped. They were surrounded.
“What is this? A munchkin invasion?” laughed Simon. Zoey elbowed him in the ribs.
The bikers were small, but heavily muscled. Their stone cold expressions meant business. Unlike Simon, Zoey didn’t underestimate their size.
A man in a green top hat got off his motorcycle. He was about four feet tall, and his orange hair stuck out at odd angles from under his hat. He looked like the largest of his crew. His long green leather coat billowed around him as he stepped forward, and his black motorcycle boots made puffs of dust as he walked. He looked to be about forty, but Zoey couldn’t really tell how old he was because of all the tattoos of black runes on his skin. He had ten skull-like earrings dangling from his large ears, and a single ring, like a bull’s, in t
he middle of his nose. He smiled with the stained yellow teeth of someone who had never brushed his teeth.
“Well, well, well,” he said. His voice was hoarse, and he sounded Irish. “What do we have here? Three little sheep who have lost their way.”
His gang erupted in mad laughter, like wild hyenas.
His smiled widened, but his golden brown eyes were ice cold. “And what brings you here to our humble town, little sheep.”
Cold sweat trickled down Zoey’s back. The sound of the motorcycles and the smell of the gas had made her dizzy. “We’re looking for someone. My—” she faltered, “—my mother.”
“Your mother?” laughed the man. He turned to his troops, and they all fell into laughter again.
Zoey didn’t like the way he had said mother, and she started to wish she hadn’t come.
“What’s his problem,” whispered Tristan, looking at Zoey.
“Mommy issues,” suggested Simon in a low voice so that only Zoey and Tristan could hear. “I’ve seen it on TV—all the bad guys have mommy issues. Trust me.”
The man danced on the spot and clapped his hands. “Your mother? You think your mother is here? In Troll City? A female agent?”
“Well, I’m not sure if she’s an agent—”
“She’s not sure!” cried the man hysterically. He took off his hat, raised it in the air, and then bowed theatrically to his comrades. They applauded.
Zoey started to get angry. It was like being in a bad sitcom with a laugh now sign.
“It’s not funny,” she said loudly, and then, “Who are you, anyway? I’d like to speak to the person in charge.”
She swallowed hard.
The man lowered his eyes. “We, my little sheeplings, are leprechauns.”
There was a nasty edge to his voice, “We’re the law around these parts—and you are trespassin’.”
He snapped his fingers. “Frisk them for their DSM’s.”
Before they could react, ten evil-looking leprechauns surrounded them and held large daggers to their throats.
With a cold blade pressed against Zoey’s skin, she stood still while a leprechaun with a black pirate-patch over his eye searched her pockets and took her DSM. She winced at his sour breath. How were they going to get back to the hive now?
Mystics 3-Book Collection Page 15