Mystics 3-Book Collection (22 page)

Rusty pointed to his right. “
This
is
my first in command, Warty O’Wicked.”

The entire leprechaun gang clapped and
stomped their boots in a loud cheer. Warty was the bald leprechaun
that Zoey had kicked. He was almost as tall as Rusty, but much more
muscular. He had scars on his face and arms, which were still
visible under his tattoos. He wore leather pants and a leather vest
that showed off his build. He flexed his muscles smugly. He was
pompous and had the look of a serial killer.

“And to my left,” continued Rusty, “is my
second in command, Crusher O’Looney.”

Crusher smiled and revealed teeth that were
capped in gold. He squared his shoulders at his round of applause.
He held a large club in his hand, and Zoey figured that’s how he
got his name. He sported a green Mohawk and wore leather overalls.
His body was covered in tattoos, and his eyebrows, nose, cheeks,
and lips were pierced.

“Did they pick their names out of a Cracker
Jack box?” whispered Simon.

“Now,” said Rusty as he leaned back against
his chair, “tell me who
you
are—and what you’re
doing
in my city.”

Tristan opened his mouth about to speak, but
Zoey cut him off.

“I’m Zoey,” she said and then pointed to the
others. “These are my friends, Tristan and Simon.” She stood at the
edge of the bars and looked up to the dais. “This has nothing to do
with them. This was
my
idea—me alone. I came here to look
for someone.”

“Yes, your
mother
.” Rusty slapped his
thigh, and all the leprechauns laughed like this was the best joke
they’d ever heard. A few fell over from laughing so hard, and some
even cried.

Zoey shut her mouth before she said
something rude. Clearly, they were not taking her seriously—she
hated it when that happened.

“
Humans
are not allowed in Troll
City,” continued Rusty. “According to the treaty,” he snapped his
fingers, and Warty O’Wicked fetched a scroll from behind the chair.
He handed it to Rusty who untied it, and the scroll unrolled all
the way to the floor.

Rusty cleared his throat.

“Article number one dash fifteen,” he read.
“We members of the agency and of the mystic council, hereby
acknowledge Troll City as a sanctuary for all mystics, and hereby
forbid any humans from entering. Bla, bla, bla—the rest is
unimportant.”

He rolled up the scroll and handed it back
to Warty.

“So you see, my little sheeplings, we
haven’t had the pleasure of a human visit in decades—and that visit
only lasted for twelve minutes before we cut him up in tiny pieces
and fed him to our pets. The penalty of trespassing is death—we’re
going to skin you alive.”

“Does it say that in your treaty? To kill
trespassers?” said Zoey.

She tried to sound authoritative and raised
her voice. “I didn’t hear you read that part? I doubt the agency
would allow something like that. I think you made it up. I think
you’re lying.”

“Shh, Zoey,” hissed Simon, “are you mad? You
want us to get killed or what?”

Zoey clenched her jaw and looked at Simon.
“This is supposed to be a trial. They need evidence against us,
right? Where does it say they have the right to imprison us and
kill us?”

“She’s right,” interjected Tristan, looking
grave. “They’re lying.”

Rusty smiled wickedly. “Well, I guess you’ll
never find out now, will you.”

He raised his voice. “Off with their heads!”
he called out dramatically. The leprechauns cheered.

“Wait!” cried Zoey. “What about our trial?
You said we were
on
trial—that means we must be allowed to
present our case.”

Rusty raised his eyebrows. “You don’t have a
case. You’re trespassers. And I rule to have you killed—it’s that
simple.”

He paused for a moment and scratched his
chin. “Unless you can come up with payment, then I might reconsider
your release.”

“What kind of payment?” Zoey feared she
already knew the answer.

Rusty smiled and his golden eyes sparkled
with greed. “Money or jewelry? Do you have anything of worth?” He
leaned forward, inspecting them through the bars.

Zoey huddled with the others. “
I
don’t have anything that’s worth anything. I’m freaking poor,
remember—I’m a stray orphan.”

Tristan and Simon pulled out their wallets.
Together they had a total of twenty-five dollars and fifty-five
cents. Zoey’s heart sunk. It wouldn’t be enough.

She took the money and stuck her hand out of
the bars. “Here, that’s all we have. Do we have a deal?”

Crusher stepped down and took the money from
Zoey. Without counting it, he handed it to Rusty who took it
eagerly and began to count it. He frowned.

“Twenty-five dollars and fifty-five cents?
That’s it? That’s all you can come up with? Three classy looking
kids, and that’s
all
you’ve got?”

Zoey looked down. “I’ve never thought of
myself as classy, but if we had known, we could have brought more,
I promise—”

Rusty brushed her off with his hand. “Kill
them.”

“Wait! But you said if we paid you you’d let
us go!”

The leprechaun leader grinned. “I lied. Cut
them up and feed them to the Grohemoths —”

“You can’t do this!” Zoey started to
panic.

“We didn’t mean any harm. Please—we only
came here to look for a woman named Elizabeth.”

Rusty leaned forward in his chair, and his
face paled. “What did you say?”

Zoey looked at the others and then said, “I
said we didn’t mean any harm—”

“No—the other part,” urged Rusty. He sounded
desperate. “The part where you said a name—what was the name you
said?”

Zoey paused for a moment, and then said with
a shrug. “I said
Elizabeth
.”

Rusty’s eyes widened. He shared a sidelong
glance with Warty and then whispered something that she couldn’t
hear.

Rusty spoke again. “And how do you know
this, Elizabeth? Who sent you?”

He scowled, and his face suddenly began to
twist in rage.

“No one sent me,” said Zoey as calmly as she
could. “I disobeyed the agency to come here to look for a woman
named Elizabeth. I think she’s my mother.”

Zoey continued, “You see—I don’t know who my
parents are because I’m an orphan. But a dying man told me that I
looked like a woman he knew—that we had the same hair. He told me
to look for her in Troll City. I only came here to look for her—to
talk to her—that’s all.”

“She does have the same hair as Elizabeth,”
said Crusher, “and she looks like her, too.”

“Shut up!” roared Rusty.

He jumped off his throne and walked over to
the cage.

He eyed Zoey suspiciously. “Hmmm. You do
look like her—a lot like her.”

Zoey’s eyes widened. “You know her? Is she
here? Please—I need to see her. Can I see her?”

A wave of sadness passed in Rusty’s eyes.
“She’s not here. Not anymore.”

“What? What do you mean?” Zoey felt
empty.

Rusty looked away from Zoey and unlocked the
cage. He opened the door.

“You should leave.”

Tristan and Simon followed Zoey out of the
cage.

Zoey looked down at Rusty. “Please, if you
know anything, I’ve been searching all my life for my parents.”

When Rusty looked up at her, tears brimmed
his eyes. He wiped his large nose on the back of his hand. “She was
sent to us as a prisoner. We were paid to keep her and to torture
her.”

“You tortured her!” Zoey’s voice cracked.
Blood rushed to her face. If her hands had not been bound she would
have punched him.

Rusty shook his head. “No, of course not. I
loved her…we all did. She was
our
Elizabeth.”

Suddenly, the entire leprechaun gang started
to cry like little girls. They howled loudly and wept. And then
they all hugged each other, as though they had lost someone dear to
them. It was touching to watch, but ugly at the same time.

Zoey turned away from the crying
leprechauns. “You said she wasn’t here anymore—so what happened to
her?”

Rusty dabbed his tears with a green
handkerchief. “We were instructed to imprison her for life, but we
couldn’t—we just couldn’t—not our sweet, loving, dear, Elizabeth.
She stayed here for about ten years, and then we let her go.”

Rusty’s bottom lip quivered, and he burst
into tears again.

Zoey’s anger for the leprechauns had melted
away and for a moment she wondered if she should comfort Rusty, but
then he
did
imprisoner her and her friends and threatened to
kill
them. But something didn’t make sense.

“Who paid you to keep her a prisoner?” she
said. “Why was she a prisoner at all?”

Rusty’s crying had become so hysterical that
he choked on his sobs and could not answer.

Warty answered for him.

“The Alphas,” he said, with a touch of anger
in his voice. “And they paid us a heavy sum to keep it secret, too.
They didn’t want anyone to know she was here.”

Warty padded his boss’s shoulders tenderly.
“But we were good to our Elizabeth, boss, weren’t we?”

“I’m lost—what are the Alphas?” asked
Zoey.

It was Tristan’s turn to speak. “The Alpha
Nation is a group of Sevenths who objected to living with mystics.
They hate everything to do with human and mystics. Alphas have been
around like for a very long time. They believe that mystics should
be returned to the Nexus—or destroyed
permanently
.”

“He’s right,” agreed Simon. “The Alphas
don’t believe in treaties. They’re completely crazy. But it doesn’t
make any sense that they would send a Seventh to be imprisoned
here.”

“They never told us anything,” said Rusty
and he blew his nose loudly. “They just paid us to be quiet. They
figured no one would ever come here to look for her. They were
right—until now.”

Zoey felt cold and empty. She had come all
this way and disobeyed the agency to find her mother—only to find
out that she wasn’t even here. Her great plan had been a great
waste of time.

“Do you know where she went?”

Rusty shrugged. “No. She didn’t tell us, and
we didn’t ask. She never talked much about herself before she came
here. She was very quiet about it. I always thought she looked sad,
but she never talked about it. I’m really sorry about the cage. We
were just playing around, having some fun.”

He stuck out his hand. “Friends? No hard
feelings? We would have never killed you for
real
.”

“Yeah, like I believe you,” said Simon
sarcastically and jumped at the sight of Crusher leaning closer to
him.

Zoey shook Rusty’s hand. “No hard feelings,
Rusty. It has been a very
educational
experience.”

Rusty squeezed Zoey’s hand. “When you find
Elizabeth, tell her—tell her we miss her.”

“I will,” she said, feeling sorry for him,
“
if
I find her. I promise.”

From the folds on his coat, Rusty pulled out
their DSM’s.

“Here,” he said as he handed the devices
back to them. “I figure you’ll need these to get back home.”

“Thank you.” Zoey took her DSM gladly, but
her heart was heavy. She had no real leads. How was she ever going
to find her mother now?

After a moment, she looked down at Rusty.
“Thanks for not killing us.”

Rusty’s eyes were bloodshot and wet. “If
ever you need anything,
anything
at all, just let us
know—it’ll be a pleasure to see Elizabeth’s daughter again. I feel
like I’m looking at her when I look at you now. I can’t believe I
didn’t see it before. I’m sorry.”

Zoey smiled at the small man. “It’s fine,
really. And thanks. I’ll hold you to that promise. I have a feeling
I might need it someday—maybe sooner than later.”

“Zoey, we should go,” said Tristan as he
popped his DSM open. Simon shifted his weight anxiously, eyeing
Zoey impatiently. He mouthed
come on
.

“Good-bye.”

With a final smile at the leprechauns, Zoey
flipped open her DSM. She angled her reflection properly, stood
very
still, and a second later her body flickered,
transformed into a semi-transparent shadow, and she
disappeared.

A
s soon as Zoey,
Tristan, and Simon reappeared back at the hive, Agent Vargas was
waiting for them with muscles bulging. He eyeballed them like an
executioner. Zoey shrunk back at the sight of him.

“YOU!” he bellowed. His red face contorted
grotesquely, and Zoey could almost see the fumes coming off his
head. He could only speak in single word sentences, as though he
would run amok if he didn’t discipline his words.

“You! Follow! Me! Trouble!”

The three of them followed the agent
wearily. Their lack of sleep had kicked in, and Zoey had to
concentrate to keep her lids from shutting. She kept bumping into
Tristan, who couldn’t keep up because he was supporting Simon with
one arm. Like a sergeant major, Agent Vargas marched down the hall
and held the academy door open for them. If he could have shot
lasers from his eyes, Zoey was sure they’d be burnt to a crisp.

Once they entered the classroom, she could
see through the windows that the sun was just coming up over the
hill and trees to the east. She figured it was about seven or eight
in the morning. Classes hadn’t started yet. Thank God. It would
have been a million times more humiliating to be scolded in front
of the entire academy.

Zoey’s stomach did a somersault when she
spotted Agent Barnes. He was leaning on the far wall, behind the
agent’s desk. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he looked
as livid as Agent Vargas. This time, she really did think she was
going to be sick.

“Sit!” ordered Agent Vargas, and Zoey
jumped. A large vein pulsed on his forehead, and his face looked as
if it were about to explode. The three of them sat silently and
hung their heads. Zoey was certain everyone could hear her heart
thundering in her chest. She tried to swallow, but her throat was
dry. She didn’t dare look at Tristan or Simon—she kept her eyes
low. What were they going to do to them?