Tristan pulled out his slingshot and started down the hallway. “There are hostile mystics here—lots of them—I can feel it. Keep your eyes open and be ready for anything.”
“And the adventure never ends.” Simon wielded his slingshot. “We better get promoted after this. It wasn’t in the academy’s course outline. If we die, I better get an A for effort.”
“Nobody’s dying, but let’s hope we’re not too late.”
Zoey drew her boomerang and followed Tristan and Simon cautiously down the dark corridor. It was a dead end. They stopped in the darkness to consider what to do next. Zoey heard a swishing sound, and a giant battle-axe came crashing down towards them.
Chapter 20
The Alpha Nation
“MOVE!” cried Tristan as he pushed Zoey and Simon to the ground, just as a giant axe swung inches above their heads.
Zoey hit the ground, but something sharp cut her hands as she tried to break her fall. She felt the warm blood seep between her fingers. She rolled over carefully, but she could still feel something shattering and crunching under her. She got to her feet gingerly and looked around. The floor was littered with broken mirrors.
She pulled a large shard of glass from her left palm. The cut was deep and blood poured down her arm. The ground wavered as pain and nausea threatened to take her over, but she clamped her hand shut and ignored it. She looked up.
A ten-foot-tall, gray-skinned humanoid that looked like a cross between a dragon and a man stood in front of her. Its body rippled with muscles, and horns sprouted from the top of its flat head. It swished its thick tail behind it and watched her malevolently with beady black eyes.
“What is that?”
Tristan moved to her side. “A Daragon,” he whispered. “A dragon beast—it’ll kill anything that moves.”
The look of excitement that began to show in its eyes, and the blood on its axe and its body was clear evidence that it had murdered before and had enjoyed it.
“Okay, so let’s not move,” whispered Simon.
Through the smoldering fires and smoke, Zoey could see that they stood in a great cathedral of a hall. All the light fixtures had been smashed and hung uselessly from their broken brackets. Hundreds of mirrors had obviously lined the great hall once, but every single one was completely smashed, and the floor was carpeted with sharp and deadly glass shards.
Zoey started to gag on the smell of burnt meat. Feathers dotted the floor to her left, and a pile of scorched feathers and a body lay a few feet away from them in a pool of blood—the Sestram. And then she saw something that made her retch. The burnt remains of three people, their skin crisped and black like coal lay in a heap near the wall.
“By the looks of it, it’s been pretty busy,” said Simon. “And it’s destroyed all the mirror-ports, too.” He pointed to the hundreds of broken mirrors that outlined the great hall.
“That’s why we landed in the store,” he continued. “No one could mirror port into here.”
Zoey couldn’t tell how long ago the mirrors had been smashed, but she hoped it was after the agency had sent help.
“The creature knew what it was doing,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Someone told it to smash all the mirrors. Someone’s controlling it—”
“Watch out!” cried Tristan.
With a massive swing, the Daragon hurled its battle axe at them. It spun fast, like a giant, sharp boomerang.
Zoey leaped out of the way as the axe spun crashing into the wall behind her. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the other side of the room with Simon and Tristan.
With three giant leaps, the Daragon crossed the room and wrenched its axe from deep in the wall. It brushed off the chunks of plaster and dust that the axe had dislodged and turned to face them again.
“How long can we keep this up before we get killed?” said Simon, backing away slowly.
“I don’t know,” answered Zoey. Her hand was still bleeding profusely. “Let’s just try not to get killed.”
The mystic roared and came at them with a deathly swing of its battle-axe once again. They leaped out of the way as the great axe crashed into the ground in front of them and smashed the marble tiles into dust.
The Daragon snarled through its pointy black teeth, “Ich gruthic se matvis, homen.”
Its deep rasping voice sounded like the roar of a lion. It flexed its great chest muscles, and glared at them as though it was challenging them to a fight.
Zoey looked at Tristan. “You don’t speak mystic, do you?”
Tristan loaded his slingshot. “Nope.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Tristan scowled at the beast. “But I can tell you this—it means to kill us.”
“I figured that much.”
The mystic growled, swinging its battle-axe from side to side, taunting them. Its black eyes moved between them leisurely, as if it enjoyed deciding whom to kill first.
“I’ve love to stay here and flex my nonexistent muscles at the dragon-man,” said Simon, his eyes wide, “but does anyone have a plan?”
“Aim for its head,” said Tristan.
He moved away and circled the creature. “If we all hit it at the same time, we might at least knock it out—I think that’s our best shot.”
With trembling fingers, Simon loaded his weapon with a metal ball. “Guys—you know my aim sucks. I don’t work well under pressure. And this is way too much pressure for me.”
“Just try to relax, Simon,” said Zoey. She shifted her weight nervously, trying to calm herself as well.
“I’m ADD—I don’t know the meaning of relax!” cried Simon.
Tristan steadied himself. “Okay, you guys—on three…”
Zoey aimed her boomerang at the beast’s head.
The Daragon cocked its head to the side, watching them, and she wondered if it knew what they were planning. It bared its teeth and looked almost as though it were smiling. It was enjoying itself.
“One” counted Tristan, sweat dripped down his face.
“Thank God it doesn’t breathe fire,” said Simon hopefully. “I mean, that’s lucky, right, a dragon-man that it doesn’t breathe fire.”
“Two…”
Zoey held her breath.
“Three!”
Two metal balls and a boomerang shot through the air and struck the beast’s head. The creature staggered for a second, and Zoey felt the thrill of hope as she caught her boomerang back. But then the Daragon steadied itself and lowered its eyes. Its top lip quivered into an evil snarl, and with a deafening roar it tossed its weapon onto the floor and flailed its arms around in a violent tantrum.
“I think we only made it really mad,” said Simon.
He took a step back. “That’s bad isn’t it? What do you think it’s going to do now?”
“I don’t know, Simon,” snapped Tristan.
As if in answer to his question, the Daragon stretched out its arms, flicked its wrists, and two fireballs the size of watermelons formed in its palms.
Zoey felt the blood drain from her face. “That’s just great,” she said and looked at Simon.
“I thought you said it didn’t breathe fire!”
Simon shrugged. “I didn’t breathe it—it conjured it.”
“What’s the difference?” cried Zoey angrily. “It’s still fire!”
The Daragon sneered wickedly and hurled the two fireballs.
“MOVE!”
Zoey leaped out of the way, and the fireballs whizzed past and exploded on the wall behind her. The entire wall went up in flames, as though it had been sprayed with gasoline beforehand.
Her eyes watered from the heat of the flames. She knew she would have burst into flames like the wall if one of the fireballs had hit her.
“This way!” yelled Tristan.
He jumped over a body and bolted down a corridor away from the Daragon. Simon and Zoey followed behind him.
The ground shook beneath their feet as more fire balls exploded like grenades
around them. Chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling and showered them as they ran. Coughing through the rubble Zoey stole a look behind her. The Daragon had stopped hurling fireballs and was charging after them at full speed, swinging its battle-axe like a madman. They had a few seconds head start, but the mystic was catching up to them fast.
They bounded down the corridor, passed some elevators, and arrived at a T-junction at the end of the hallway.
“Left or right?” asked Zoey as she tried to catch her breath.
Suddenly, screams echoed from somewhere down the left corridor. Then a series of ear-splitting cracks, bangs, and rattles, like a fireworks display. A woman cried out, then nothing—silence.
Without another word, the three of them turned left and charged towards the scream.
They burst into a large oval shaped auditorium. Heavy red drapes kept the edges of the room in darkness, and rows of seats in a semi-circle faced down towards a stage.
“We’re too late,” said Simon as he stared at a body lying on the ground in a pool of blood. “It’s already started.”
Zoey could see that the auditorium was littered with bodies that had been shot in the head, execution style. Blood splattered the walls, and the marble floors were sullied in red. There were no moans, no cries for help, just silence. It was a massacre, a merciless bloodbath. She couldn’t see anyone alive.
A wave of nausea came over her, and she forced it down. She had never seen so many dead people before. She had to be brave.
She found two more bodies sitting in the chairs at the back row. They didn’t have any blood or visible injuries on them. They sat with their heads bent slightly backwards, looking up to the ceiling. Their faces were twisted in terror, as though they had been frightened to death.
These people hadn’t died at the hands of the Daragon—or any other mystic—so who had killed them? She already knew the answer.
“What do Alphas look like? I wouldn’t want to kill any of our own.”
Zoey squeezed her boomerang hard in her sudden rage, the pain from her previous fights forgotten.
Tristan shook his head and clenched his jaw. “Never seen one. All I know is that they look like us. They’re Sevenths—just not with the agency.”
“I’ve never seen one either,” said Simon. He stepped carefully over the bodies and tried his best not to look at their faces. But he couldn’t help himself.
“It’s not like the Alphas were best friends with the agency. They probably look like any of us—that’s why no one’s ever really paid closer attention to them—they didn’t think they’d turn out to be psychos.”
“Right.” Zoey looked around at the victims to see if she recognized any of them. She feared that Agent Barnes would be amongst the dead. Then she realized that they had forgotten something.
Zoey looked at her friends. “Guys—where’s the Daragon?”
Simon jumped, startled, and Tristan peered back down the corridor.
“It’s gone,” he said, with a surprised look on his face. “That’s weird. Why did it stop chasing us?”
A flash of red light zipped past Zoey’s cheek. Then a red flare scraped her thigh like a red-hot blade and hit the chair beside her. She cried out in pain and threw herself to the ground behind a row of chairs. Tristan and Simon flung themselves onto the ground next to her. At first she thought they had been attacked by mystics, but when she raised her head slightly between the seats, she realized how wrong she was.
A dozen men and women clad in exquisitely tailored, blood-red suits stood on the auditorium stage. The men had army-style crew cuts, and all the women had their hair pulled back into tight buns or ponytails. They all looked mildly amused—as if this was a game to them, and they were already winning. All except one of them carried large automatic weapons at their sides.
The woman without a gun had dark hair and milky white skin. She held her right hand out in front of her, and above her palm a glowing red sphere hovered like an apple suspended by invisible strings. The woman’s cold smile sent a chill rolling down Zoey’s back.
Then a man whom Zoey had thought was dead stood up in the middle of the auditorium. He started limping through the aisle towards one of the side exits. Zoey felt the strain and desperation that she saw on the man’s face.
The woman with the sphere stepped down from the platform calmly and moved toward the man. The man whimpered when he saw her, and in a last desperate attempt to save his life he moved as fast as he could. But it wasn’t fast enough, and the woman blocked his way
“NO!” cried the man. “No, please, don’t! Please!”
The woman smiled and lifted the sphere towards his face. A sudden beam of red light shot out from the globe and hit the man’s eyes. His expression twisted grotesquely from fear to a terror like nothing Zoey had ever seen before. Then he froze like a statue.
The woman laughed and pushed the man softly, with a single finger. He toppled to the ground, like a dead tree, and didn’t move again.
“That was pretty disturbing,” whispered Simon, who looked like he might throw up. “He died of fright. We better get out of here before the mad lady decides to use her freaky snow globe on us.”
“I’m guessing these are the Alphas, right?” said Zoey.
She looked away long enough to check the wound in her thigh. Blood soaked through her jeans, but it wasn’t a deep cut.
“Looks like it,” answered Tristan. “Now that they’ve seen us, they’re coming this way—and I have a feeling they don’t want to chat.”
Simon frowned. “Well, they dressed for the occasion. I guess they were going for a theme—red for blood.”
“And red for murder.”
The Alphas marched confidently across the atrium in a perfect horizontal line. They looked down at their victims in disgust—like they deserved to be dead. Zoey’s hatred for them grew— these weren’t Sevenths—they were nothing like the Sevenths in the agency. These soldier-type assassins appeared to kill for fun and to take pleasure in the suffering of others. They were the real monsters.
“We need to get out of here and find Agent Barnes,” she said quickly.
“There’s no way we can fight them all—and there’s a Daragon on our trail back in the corridors somewhere.”
Tristan looked at her. “This place is huge. It’ll take forever to search it. Do we even know where we’re going?”
“No, but we don’t have a choice, do we?” said Zoey.
The Alphas had already walked halfway across the auditorium and were closing in on their hiding place.
“They’re coming, and they’re going to kill us when they get here. We should double back. I saw some stairs near the entrance to the auditorium—so there’s another level—maybe Agent Barnes is there. We have to check it out.”
“Anywhere is better than here,” said Simon peering through a gap in the chairs. “If we want to make a move, we better go now.”
With a last look at the marching Alphas, they jumped up and sprinted back towards the exit. Bullets whizzed passed them and peppered the walls above them. They ducked and kept running. The corridor narrowed, and they made for the stairs.
They had almost made it when the Daragon smashed through the wall in front of them.
They leaped out of the way as the beast hurled its giant battle-axe. With a whoosh like a scythe through a field of wheat, the blade spun over Zoey’s head. She fell to the ground amid a shower of splinters and plaster rubble. She scrambled up to her feet with a mouth full of dust and a searing pain in her shoulder.
“Zoey? Why are you over there?” cried Simon, as he backed away slowly from the giant beast.
“Me?” Zoey coughed through the dust. “Why are you guys over there? I just jumped.”
Tristan and Simon were on one side of the Daragon, and she was on the other. She blinked through the dust and saw the stairs up ahead.
The Daragon wailed, turning its head from side to side to keep them all in sight. Its tail lashed out eagerly behind
it, and yellow drool dripped from the corners of its mouth. It swiveled its axe playfully, taunting them. It seemed to want to slice them up rather than burn them this time. It was enjoying their distress.
Zoey couldn’t think of anything clever to do without sacrificing herself. How could she help Agent Barnes and the agency if she were dead?
Tristan seemed to read her thoughts.
“Go! Go look for Agent Barnes while we distract the Daragon,” he said.
“What? No!” cried Zoey. “I’m not leaving you guys. Forget it.”
“Yes, you are,” pressed Tristan.
He armed his slingshot. “You don’t have a choice, Zoey. You’re the closest one to the stairs. Don’t worry—we’ve got this—Simon and I will take it on.”
Zoey’s voice wavered.
“But I can’t—I’m not going anywhere without you guys.” Their eyes locked.
But she knew Tristan was right—she had a chance to escape and get help. She had to take it.
The Daragon, cold and calculating, watched Zoey for a moment and then switched its attention on Simon. But as if it knew where the real threat lay, it turned finally to Tristan. It was sizing him up for something, and Zoey thought she could see an ugly smile forming on its face.
“It wants to fight me,” said Tristan calmly. “Daragon’s love to fight a worthy opponent, and I guess I’m it.”
“What? But why?” said Zoey, “Why you and not us? Tristan, please, don’t do anything heroic—it’s not worth it.”
“I have to do this. It’s our only chance,” said Tristan.
“Right now, I’m its biggest threat. I’m stronger than the two of you, so it sees me as a worthy challenge. Daragon’s are very arrogant—it wants to prove to itself that it’s stronger than me.”
“It is stronger,” said Zoey. “I know what you’re doing. Stop trying to be brave and think. This is crazy. It throws fire—remember? Tristan, don’t do this.”
“I have to. Go, Zoey—don’t worry—we’ll be right behind you.”
Zoey blinked the dust from her eyes. “Promise?”
Mystics 3-Book Collection Page 23