Mystics #1: The Seventh Sense (14 page)

A
second later, Zoey stood in a
swamp area with moss-draped trees and shallow waterways. The trees were tall
and curved with roots like knees that grew out from the trunk above the high
water level. The humid air felt like a hot shower. Birds chirped happily and rays
of sunlight escaped through breaks between the moss-covered branches. The
waterways curved around small islands of muck and thick green vegetation.

The waters moved. Zoey froze, her breath caught in her throat. Was
that an alligator?

Then something hard crashed into her back, and she fell face first
into the mucky ground. She lifted her head and spit frog-smelling earth from
her mouth.

“That is
so
gross.”

 
“Sorry,” laughed Simon as he
rolled off Zoey. “But thanks for the soft landing.”

“You’re welcome,” growled Zoey. She spit more of the grimy earth
from her mouth.

“Here, take my hand.” Tristan helped Zoey to her feet.

Zoey wiped her face clean with her sleeve. She didn’t want to think
about what she had tasted on her tongue. Her jeans and T-shirt had great brown
and green stains like she had rolled in the mud for fun. It was not at all what
she had wanted to look like for her first encounter with her mother. But it was
too late to go get changed now—her stinky self would have to do. She had half
the notion to ask Simon for
his
clean
T-shirt, but decided against it.

Behind her, an old dresser mirror was nailed to the trunk of a great
tree. The edges were cracked, and it was streaked with yellow and rusted stains
like a mirror you would find in an old antique shop. Zoey pointed to it.
“There’s the anchor. So agents
have
been here before.”

“Looks like it,” agreed Tristan. “Or just other Sevenths.”

Zoey inspected the mirror more closely. “Do you think they still use
it in secret? From what Agent Vargas was saying—I didn’t think they’d be coming
anywhere near this place.”

“Maybe just to keep tabs on the mystics,” said Simon. “We still need
to monitor them—to make sure they’re following the rules like the rest of us.”

“But we’re
breaking
the
rules.” Zoey smiled.

“Look, I think there’s a path over there.” Tristan pointed to a
break in the trees. It opened to a path of leaves and green mosses, and led away
from the anchor. “Let’s follow it.”

Zoey went first. The path followed a dark green waterway. It made
her feel uneasy, like anything could be lurking underneath. They moved quietly
because their footsteps were absorbed by the soft vegetation, and Zoey felt
like she was walking into some sort of fantasyland. The air was still and thick.
Sweat trickled down her back, and she began to think that perhaps she had
overdressed.

“So what are you going to say to her, if you find Elizabeth?” asked
Tristan, breaking the silence.

Zoey stepped over a dead tree carefully.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far yet.” Her stomach
tightened at the thought.

What
would
she say? What
if her mother didn’t even
want
to see
her? Secretly, that was her worst fear— that her parents had abandoned her
fourteen years ago because they didn’t
want
her. She forced the thought out of her head and kept moving.

As they walked in silence, Tristan kept giving her looks, like he
was trying to start up a conversation. But each time he opened his mouth, he
would shut it again and look away with a frustrated expression. She knew she
shouldn’t dwell on Tristan’s behavior too much. The truth was that she wasn’t
entirely sure how she felt about him.

After about a half hour of walking, they could still see no end to
the path. It seemed to go on forever. And the bugs were having a fiesta with
their blood.

Smack!

“I swear these are vampire mosquitoes. They’re
ginormous
,” said Simon as he squished another bug into a smear of
blood between his eyebrows.

“These are not the
normal
mosquitoes we have back home. I think they’re genetically engineered—like the
African killer bees I saw on a report on the National Geographic channel. I’m
going to get sick. I’m going to get malaria.”

“You’re not going to get malaria,” said Tristan lazily, and rolled
his eyes at Zoey who laughed.

“How would you know?” Simon pointed to a large mosquito on his arm.

“Look! Look at the girth of this thing—that’s no regular mosquito! That’s
like the
Bigfoot
of mosquitoes—these
are bloodsucking man-eaters.”

“Just keep moving and close your mouth,” said Zoey with a twinkle in
her eye. “You wouldn’t want to inhale any of them—”

A splash came from the stream.

Zoey stopped and looked over at the water. The circular ripple
dissipated, and the water was still again. There was nothing there. But her
seventh sense didn’t lie, and her skin was riddled in goose bumps.

“What is it?” Tristan stood next to her eyeing the water. “I don’t
see anything. And I’m not getting any senses either.”

Zoey shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought I heard a splash or
something coming from the water—and I
felt
something—I’m sure of it.”

“Well, I don’t see, sense, or hear anything,” said Simon looking
over Zoey’s shoulder. “You’re sure you don’t have mosquitoes in your ears? Hang
on—I think I see one of them in there.”

Zoey smacked Simon’s hand. “Hey! Don’t put your finger in my ear! You’re
totally crazy.”

“That’s what I keep telling people,” said Simon proudly.

Tristan turned away from the water. “Well, whatever it was, it’s
gone now. Let’s keep moving.”

Splash.
Gallooop
!

Zoey and the others froze.

“I heard that,” whispered Simon. “What was it?”

The waters around them exploded.

A gigantic creature rose out of the murky waters and heaved itself
onto shore.

It looked like a mixture between a frog and fish, with scales and
slimy-looking, green skin. It had huge bulbous eyes and a globular head with a
large, gaping mouth. Vegetation and moss sprouted from its back, like
protective armor, and frogs and other slimy creatures slid off of its back as
though it were shedding. It was the size of a hippopotamus, and its wet, yellow
eyes glared at them with hatred.

Simon bent down and grabbed a stick.

“Hey doggy, doggy, that’s a good boy. You want the stick? Do
ya
? Here, go fetch.” He tossed the stick into the swamp.

The creature’s eyes didn’t move.

“It’s not a dog, stupid,” said Tristan in a low voice.

“I know that,” snapped Simon, “but no one else was doing anything!”

“What
is
it?” asked Zoey,
the creature’s stare was making her feel uneasy.

“It’s a
Grohemoth
, a swamp mystic,” said
Tristan. “They’re from a herd group, which means there’s a lot more out there.”

“That’s just great. Is it a friend or a hostile?”

“Hostile.”

“Figures,” said Zoey. She screwed up her face. “Yuck, can you smell
that?”

“Sorry, I had chili for lunch,” said Simon, with a lopsided grin.

Zoey pretended she hadn’t heard what he just said. “No—I mean the
creature. It smells like a public toilet.”

With another splash, two more identical
Grohemoths
heaved themselves out of the swamp. The swamp creatures quickly circled around
them and boxed them in. Before they knew it, they were trapped. They would have
to fight their way out.

“Oh goody, now we have one for each of us.” Tristan pulled out his
S9 slingshot and armed it with a miniature wooden arrow that looked homemade.

“Stand back to back, and stick together.”

Zoey’s eyes watered as the onion-smelling gas from the beasts burned
her retinas. She blinked through her tears. The
Grohemoths
watched without blinking.

“Well, it was nice knowing you guys,” said Simon. “I was really
hoping to graduate to agent in a few years—I’ve been working on my speech—you
want to hear it?”

“Not right now, no.” Zoey unfastened her boomerang, flipped it open,
and aimed it at the nearest
Grohemoth
.

“We’re going to make it. I’m not letting these giant freak
salamanders kill us.”

The creatures seemed to understand her, and with a wet growl the
three
Grohemoths
attacked.

Tristan fired first.

His short arrow punctured a charging beast’s eye. The eye exploded
in a yellow liquid, like egg yolk, and the beast wailed in pain and went sprawling.

Simon loaded his slingshot with a steel ball and fired at the second
Grohemoth
—but he missed the target by five feet.

“
Ooops
,” Simon pointed at the beast. “You
can’t blame me for that. The thing moved! I swear.”

Zoey hurled her boomerang and hit the creature in the head with such
brute force that it collapsed on the wet ground like a dead tree. The gold
boomerang glittered in the sun’s rays as it ricocheted back to Zoey.

The third
Grohemoth
leaped over its
stunned brethren. It dove at them like a giant whale, ready to swallow them
whole.

Both Zoey and Tristan fired at the same time.

Tristan’s arrow perforated the creature’s abdomen, and Zoey’s boomerang
hit its massive neck with a sickening crack—but the beast didn’t flinch and kept
coming.

“MOVE!” Tristan pushed Zoey and Simon out of the way, but he collided
with the great mystic himself and disappeared underneath it.

“Tristan!” Zoey caught her boomerang and then started forward to
help him, but her right foot was stuck.

She was yanked hard to the ground by a green tongue that was wrapped
around her ankle. It pulled her at a frightening speed towards the great, wet
mouth of the
Grohemoth
she thought she had already
killed. Its yellow eyes widened with delight as it dragged her closer—she
thought she could almost see it smile.

She could hear Tristan yelling, and the sound of fists hitting
flesh.

She grabbed at the soft ground, desperate to stop herself, but it
was no use. She tried to pry the tongue from her ankle, but her fingers kept
slipping, and she couldn’t get a decent hold. In seconds she would be frog-meat
or salamander-meat, whatever it was. She was too close to it. She needed more
space to throw her boomerang.

The great mouth opened wider, and she stared inside it helplessly.

She did the only thing that she could. She grabbed her boomerang so
that the opposite wing pointed out like a dagger and stabbed into the soft
flesh inside the beast’s enormous mouth. Green blood spurted into her face,
blinding her, and the
Grohemoth
let go with a howl of
pain. Zoey jumped back and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Much to her horror,
she had only angered it more. It lunged again.

Zoey threw her boomerang, but the
Grohemoth
saw it just in time and ducked. The boomerang missed, circled back, and she
caught it. Without stopping, she shot it again. This time the creature dodged it
easily, as though it sensed where the boomerang was going to go.

And in the next moment, the
Grohemoth
was
on her.

Zoey spun and kicked out as hard as she could. The
Grohemoth
went sprawling to the ground, but it scrambled to
its feet, and hissed and spit at her as it advanced again. She was ready this
time.

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?”