He waved his dust devil buster at her happily, like he was next up to bat at a baseball game.
“This is the best part! Happy cleaning!”
Across from her, Agent Lee was singing a tune. He hopped around with his free hand behind his back and stabbed his dust devil buster at the fallen mystics like a sword.
Zoey sighed cheerfully. There was no place in the world she’d rather be than scooping up piles of disgusting little dust devils with Agent Barnes and Agent Lee.
She was positive that Tristan and Simon would be jealous of her right now, and that made everything a tad more delightful.
Zoey cringed as she thrust the nozzle toward the nearest pile of dust devils. She clenched her jaw when she saw two red eyes blinking angrily above the pyramid of dust. If the eyes could talk, she was sure they’d be shouting out plenty of curse words at her. She flicked the power button, and the red eyes disintegrated and shot up the nozzle like specks of sand.
After the first one, the others went down like nothing.
“What you lookin’ at?” she laughed, as she scooped up other sets of mad eyes.
She imagined she was a cleaning lady, sweeping up dirt. But instead of working in a vast manor, she was cleaning a farmer’s field of hostile mystics. It was surprisingly easy after she got over the smell. She was on pile number two hundred and three when she heard Agent Barnes yell from across the field.
“You almost done over there, Zoey?”
“Yes, I think so,” she called back to Agent Barnes.
She looked around carefully. “Just five more to go. I’ll be done soon.”
“Well hurry up,” he called back. “We’re almost done over here, and the dust devils are starting to reform. Be quick about it.”
“Okay.”
Agent Barnes was right. She saw a nearby pile of gray dust start to spin like a top. The particles stuck together, and soon a semi-transparent and very angry mystic stood in front of her. She swung the dust buster at it, and it was sucked up into the machine before it could take solid form.
“That was close.” Zoey wiped her brow and hoped the agents didn’t see how close she had come to letting the dust devil recover.
A twig broke behind her. She turned around.
Something hard hit her, and she was thrown twenty feet in the air. Her dust buster flew out of her hand, and she landed on the ground hard and rolled. The grasses had cushioned her fall somewhat, but she felt a stabbing pain in her lower back. She scrambled to her feet, disoriented, and turned.
Her breath died in her throat. A giant dust devil was right behind her, enraged and snarling.
Chapter 2
Playing with Twisters
The creature was solid. Muscles rippled under its coat of thick gray fur. It was about the size of a small black bear — a very angry black bear. Its face was even uglier up close, as though it hadn’t decided if it was going to be monkey or wolf. Zoey gagged as its smell burned her eyes and throat, like she had swallowed a bucket of raw onions. Long black talons gleamed at the end of its twisted fingers. Its wet red eyes looked angry, frustrated, and hungry all at the same time.
The mystic crouched, and then it leaped at her.
Zoey jumped out of the way, and the mystic’s teeth just grazed her jacket.
She ran straight toward the beast, charging it with her shoulder, but the creature stepped aside, and she missed it. Then she felt cold talons around her neck, and she was flung to the ground again. She pushed herself up and launched herself at it again. This time she hit the beast’s head with her fist.
“AH!” Her hand seared with pain. It was like hitting a brick wall. She drove a kick angrily into its chest, and the creature staggered.
And then something unexpected happened.
The mystic opened its large maw and spewed out a waterfall of dust that formed into two miniature twisters.
“Great, baby tornados, that’s just what I needed.”
The dust devil smiled at Zoey’s surprise. Its stench was right up close and personal, like a public toilet.
“Kill you, Agent,” growled the dust devil, with a voice that sounded like a blender on high speed. “Eat your flesh.”
“It speaks English!” said Zoey, astonished. “How about a nice vacation back home, eh? Doesn’t that sound good? Free of charge. It’s on us. What do you say?”
“Die, Agent,” snarled the mystic, yellow drool, like thick mustard, dripping from the corners of its mouth.
“Thought so.”
Zoey unfastened her boomerang, her eyes never leaving the dust devil.
The mystic scooped up its mini-twisters, which it held hovering above its palms for a moment as if it were taunting her. And then, with a growl that meant business, it hurtled them at her. The tiny twisters flew at her like angry wasps.
Zoey threw her golden boomerang with a flick of her wrist.
It spiraled in the air, emitting tiny bursts of reflected light, flying gracefully like a falcon. She held her breath as it sliced through both twisters, which dissipated like the smoke of a dying fire.
She caught her returning boomerang easily, and for a moment she felt victorious. But then then the dust devil opened its mouth again and vomited two more tiny twisters. It smiled a toothy grin at her.
“Why do these things always happen to me?” Zoey waited for a second attack.
The mystic howled and launched his two twisters like cannonballs.
Zoey evaporated them with her boomerang, but before it had returned the mystic threw yet another set of twisters at her.
They slammed into her with a force that blew her off her feet. She cried out in excruciating pain as they ate away at her clothes and cut into her flesh like hot blades. She felt blood seep from her shoulder and could see blood trickling from a giant hole that had been ripped in her jeans.
Her boomerang had landed beside her, and she reached out and clasped it.
She blinked through her tears and could see the same horrifying smile on the dust devil’s face.
“Die, Agent. I kill you now. I will eat you later.”
Zoey lowered her eyes. “I’m not an agent…well, not yet anyway. And I’m nobody’s lunch.”
The creature vomited four more twisters and blasted them towards her.
She whacked at the first one, using the boomerang like a sword, and the twister disintegrated immediately. She ignored the stinging pain in her thigh and chest, and parried the three remaining twisters with her boomerang. They dissipated and floated in the wind.
But the creature just vomited up more little twisters.
She knew she couldn’t keep fighting like this. She was already feeling the strain in her arms. The dust devil would just keep spewing more and more mini-devils until she tired, and ultimately they would kill her.
Then she got an idea.
She waited for the exact right moment and whacked the two remaining twisters back towards the dust devil. The mystic opened its mouth in surprise, and the twisters disappeared down its throat. It swallowed inadvertently, belched, and then exploded in a cloud of dust.
“Die, Agent!” echoed in the air as it disappeared.
Agent Barnes and Agent Lee arrived at her side, breathless from their own battles with the other dust devils.
“Now that’s what I call, eating your own dirt,” remarked Agent Barnes with an astonished smile on his face.
“You never cease to amaze me with your inventiveness, Zoey. That’s why I wanted you to assist us today. You’ll make quite the agent, and one day you’ll make us all look bad.”
He looked at her like a proud father, and she felt heat rise on her face.
Zoey smirked and sucked up the last remains of the dust devil.
“I’m glad you think so,” she said, a little out of breath. She raised her head and looked around. “Are there any more of these dust devils to get rid of today?”
“No, the one that exploded was the last one,” said Agent Barnes.
He inspecte
d the ground, and when he looked up he had a frown on his face.
“Judging by the size of the dust devil combo, these critters must have crossed over into our world through the same portal that was created by the stolen interlopers. It’s the only way so many could have passed through without us knowing about them.”
Agent Lee’s black shirt stuck to him, and he reached up and brushed back the hair that was glued on his sweaty forehead.
“These guys were nothing, compared to the other monsters that crossed over.” His face looked troubled, and Zoey had a feeling he was stopping himself from saying more.
Agent Barnes had told her that she had closed the portal in time, but that loads of hostile mystics had still crossed over — especially a very dangerous one.
“You mean that demon lord, right?” she said.
She cringed at the memory of the hordes of nasty beasts that had charged towards the opening of the portal a few months back. It had been like a horrifying chariot race of giant insect-like beasts and dead things. Ever since then she’d been having nightmares in which their twisted faces stared down at her from the London sky.
Now Agents Barnes and Lee shared a look.
“We haven’t been able to find him,” Agent Barnes said.
“We had him but then he vanished right off the grid. But he’s the least of our problems right now. The Agency doesn’t want us to say anything. They don’t want to start a panic at the Agencies, to scare you Operatives, but I disagree. I think you should know.”
“Know what?” asked Zoey, her stomach in knots. Her eyes darted from agent to agent.
“What is it?”
Agent Barnes’ eyes narrowed.
“For the past month, we’ve been gathering intel that mysterious deaths are occurring all over the globe. So far, the Mutes have labeled these deaths as freak accidents and even classified some as the work of serial killers — but we recognize the signs — illegal hostiles are attacking humans. Entire cities are affected. Thousands of hostiles crossed over into our world, and we’re only just beginning to uncover them.”
“Why do you think you’ve been given more field assignments than usual?”
Agent Lee picked some wheat out of his hair. “It’s only your first week back. Did you wonder about that?”
“I don’t know, I thought it was the normal training,” answered Zoey.
The truth was, she preferred to be out on field assignments rather than indoors.
When Agents Barnes and Lee had come to ask for Zoey’s assistance on this job, Agent Ward had been making the class learn a mystic dialect that sounded a lot like Klingon, and it had given Zoey a massive headache. She couldn’t even sound out the first letter in the mystic alphabet. She had practically thrown herself out of the room when they had asked for her help; she had been so eager to get away.
Agent Lee shook his head and adjusted his glasses.
“Sorry to disappoint you Zoey, but this is not normal training. Fourth years are out on the fields practically every day — but that’s beside the point. You’re here because we need as many able bodies as possible. We need to secure the cities and protect the humans from the illegal mystics, before we get a real uncontrollable mess on our hands.”
Zoey didn’t say anything. She knew the Agency’s first priority was to keep the human population safe, and she was glad to be part of something important. She felt honored to be working alongside the two seasoned Agents. She would learn a lot from them, and she desperately wanted to learn everything there was to know about being an agent. For the first time in her life, she was good at something. She just happened to be good at catching monsters.
Her skills came naturally to her. Maybe it was a result of her non-existent upbringing and the fact that she had had to fend for herself since she was just a small child. Or maybe she just had a natural flair for apprehending hostile mystics. Either way, she was proud to think she could help.
Only last summer, Zoey had been cornered by a group of people who shared her unique ability to see monsters. If someone had told her a year ago that she’d be here now, fighting the very same creatures that she’d tried to hide from most of her life, she would have laughed in their faces and maybe even punched them.
“I’ll take that now,” said Agent Barnes, interrupting Zoey’s thoughts. He took her pink dust devil buster, grabbed Agent Lee’s as well, and then shoved them all back into his duffel bag.
“We better get these little devils back soon. They don’t stay in their dust state for more than twenty minutes. We don’t want to be near them if they unexpectedly reform.”
“I’m trying hard not to think about it,” said Zoey, as images of being shredded by thousands of mini-tornados flashed in her mind’s eye.
Agent Barnes threw his bag over his shoulder. Then he withdrew a round silver compact with a ring dial and maps etched on the top from inside his jacket. Zoey saw his reflection on the mirrored surfaces. The Double-Sided Mirrors always made her think of fancy compasses.
“Double-Sided Mirrors ready!” ordered Agent Barnes with a smile. “I want a smooth ride back home, people.”
Zoey flipped open her DSM. She could see the reflection of her dirty, sweaty face staring back at her. She desperately needed a shower and a Big Mac. Ready, she stood as still as a statue and waited.
“There’s a cold beer I’d like to cuddle with back at the inn.” Agent Barnes and Agent Lee shared goofy grins.
“On my mark!” He angled his reflection in his DSM. As his body started to flicker he said, “Ready — now!”
Zoey watched her reflection in her DSM. Just as she began to shimmer, in the corner of her eye, just for a second, she saw a dark shape standing in the middle of the field. It was the same human-like silhouette she had glimpsed before. It was staring right at her. But as Zoey tried to see more, her body rippled, and the fields surrounding her vanished.
Chapter 3
Mirror-port Manipulation
That night Zoey dreamed she was tied to a bed in a room with white walls. She had a large sign around her neck that read PROPERTY OF NEXUS CITY, PLEASE DON’T FEED THE LUNATIC. The walls glistened, and five men wearing surgical masks and white uniforms emerged from the walls. She couldn’t see their twisted, scary faces clearly. All at once the men came at her. They wrapped their cold hands around her neck. She couldn’t breathe. Her throat burned as she gasped for air. They were going to kill her.
“Open the gates! Open them now!” said one of the men angrily.
Zoey blinked the tears from her eyes. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t.
“Do it, or you’re going to die!”
And just when she felt her life slipping away, she woke up with a start. She was sweating, and her heart beat in her ears like she had just run a marathon. Her head pounded as though someone inside her forehead was trying to kick their way out. A cold chill rippled down her spine as the images from her dream lingered as if they had been real.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead and swung her legs off her bed. She stretched and made her way towards the window. The sun blazed in a blue sky, and the grounds were blanketed with a glittering white crystal carpet of snow.
Her nightmares had started a week after the Alphas had attacked Headquarters in London. The dreams were always the same. She would be tied to a bed in a white room with crazy surgeon doctors going psycho on her and screaming at her to open a gate to somewhere. And every morning she’d wake up in a sweat.
After the first nightmare, she had thought about telling Tristan and Simon, but then had decided against it. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just the pressure of being in a new environment. Besides, she didn’t want them thinking she was going a little crazy.
Most of the kids would leave the Hive on Friday evenings and spend the rest of the weekend with their parents. But since Zoey had no family, she spent the weekends at the Wander Inn with Aria, helping her with cleaning the rooms and kitchen duties. She would also spend time talking with Age
nts Barnes and Vargas who never seemed to go home. She would listen eagerly as she picked their brains about their most dangerous assignments. She was perfectly happy to spend her weekends exploring the Hive and the woodland borders that surrounded it — and practicing her new-found abilities.
Ever since Mrs. Dupont had insinuated that Zoey, like her mother, had unusual abilities for a Seventh, she had used the weekends to practice mirror-porting with her DSM in her room.
After a quick shower, Zoey rushed downstairs for a bite to eat. She skipped into the dining room and made her way towards the long counter at the back. A few agents sat sipping coffee as they conversed with each other. She pulled out a chair and sat in her usual spot at the end table next to the window. She had just gulped down half of the glass of orange juice that had been waiting for her when six-foot tall Aria hurried over, balancing four plates in her four arms.
“I made blueberry pancakes for you this morning,” said Aria as she placed a plate toppling with pancakes in front of Zoey.
Zoey stared at the mountain of delicious pancakes. “You overestimate the size of my belly! There’s no way I can eat all that.”
Aria placed a bottle of maple syrup on the table. “You still need fattening up. You’re way too skinny. A growing girl like you needs to eat more.” Her yellow cat-like eyes sparkled.
Zoey laughed. “Duly noted, doctor. But I’m sure I’ve already probably gained like ten pounds since I came to the Hive.”
“You needed ten pounds,” said Aria.
“Don’t think I don’t remember the state of you when Agent Barnes brought you in. The Mutes had been starving you. It’s just not right. All those foster children cramped together in one room without enough food. What kind of Mute government would let that sort of thing happen?”
“It’s all right.” Zoey plunged her fork into the stack of pancakes. “I’m eating. See?”
Aria frowned. Her shark-gray skin creased on her forehead.
“Take your time,” she said in a reproving tone. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you rushing to get back into your room on Saturdays. You spend all weekend cooped up in there. It’s not healthy. You need to go out and play with your friends.”
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