Mystics 3-Book Collection Read online

  MYSTICS

  3-BOOK COLLECTION

  THE SEVENTH SENSE, Mystics #1

  THE ALPHA NATION, Mystics # 2

  THE NEXUS, Mystics # 3

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Kim Richardson on Smashwords

  Mystics 3-Book Collection

  Copyright © 2014 by Kim Richardson

  More books by Kim Richardson

  SOUL GUARDIANS SERIES

  Marked Book # 1

  Elemental Book # 2

  Horizon Book # 3

  Netherworld Book # 4

  Seirs Book # 5

  Mortal Book # 6

  Reapers Book # 7

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  MYSTICS BOOK 1

  Chapter 1 - Zoey

  Chapter 2 - The Sevenths

  Chapter 3 – Hive # 146

  Chapter 4 - Management

  Chapter 5 – The Sevenths’ Academy

  Chapter 6 – Mirror-port

  Chapter 7 – Attack of the killer fairies

  Chapter 8 – Dino-Fairy

  Chapter 9 – A DSM Malfunction

  Chapter 10 - Boomerang

  Chapter 11 - Krakenite

  Chapter 12 – A leap at Midnight

  Chapter 13 – Troll City, Louisiana

  Chapter 14 – Gangsters and Leprechauns

  Chapter 15 - Suspended

  Chapter 16 – Attack of the fat vampires

  Chapter 17 – Basement level

  Chapter 18 – A Mystic Brawl

  Chapter 19 – Parrods Department store, London

  Chapter 20 – The Alpha Nation

  Chapter 21 - Interloper

  Chapter 22 - Payback

  Chapter 23 – Resolution

  MYSTICS BOOK 2

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 – Dust Devils

  Chapter 2 –Playing with Twisters

  Chapter 3 – Mirror-port Manipulation

  Chapter 4 – A Secret Message

  Chapter 5 – Mishap in New York

  Chapter 6 – The Black Oil

  Chapter 7 – The Accused

  Chapter 8 – Lock Up

  Chapter 9 – The Antidote

  Chapter 10 – Attack of the Headless Horsemen

  Chapter 11 – A Leap of Faith

  Chapter 12 – The True Nation

  Chapter 13 – Changelings

  Chapter 14 – The True Descendant

  Chapter 15 – The Transfiguration Chamber

  Chapter 16 – The Great Junction

  Chapter 17 – A Mouthful of Spiders

  Chapter 18 – The Antidote

  Chapter 19 – Making a Trade

  Chapter 20 – Heroes and Villains

  Chapter 21 – A Special Celebration

  Chapter 22 – To the Rescue

  MYSTICS BOOK 3

  Chapter 1 - A Giant Pain in the Neck

  Chapter 2 – Portals

  Chapter 3 – Old Enemies

  Chapter 4 – The National Assembly

  Chapter 5 – The Contract

  Chapter 6 – A Quest for Volunteers

  Chapter 7 – Attack of the Bearded Babies

  Chapter 8 – Utron Energy Capsule

  Chapter 9 – The White Fortress

  Chapter 10 – The High Sorceress

  Chapter 11 – Masters of Illusions

  Chapter 12 – A Teaspoon of Magic

  Chapter 13 – The Nexus

  Chapter 14 – Black Waters

  Chapter 15 – Nexus City

  Chapter 16 – The Doctors are In

  Chapter 17 – Locked Up

  Chapter 18 – Reunited

  Chapter 19 – Trapped

  Chapter 20 – Lord Gigor

  Chapter 21 – Blood Games

  Chapter 22 – An Army of Skeletons

  Chapter 23 – A Race against Time

  Chapter 24 – Graduation

  SOUL GUARDIANS

  Chapter 1 – Reborn

  About the Author

  MYSTICS

  * Book One *

  THE SEVENTH SENSE

  By

  KIM RICHARDSON

  THE SEVENTH SENSE

  Mystics Book 1

  By

  Kim Richardson

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Kim Richardson on Smashwords

  The Seventh Sense, Mystics Book 1:

  Copyright © 2013 by Kim Richardson

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  More books by Kim Richardson

  SOUL GUARDIANS SERIES

  Marked Book # 1

  Elemental Book # 2

  Horizon Book # 3

  Netherworld Book # 4

  Seirs Book # 5

  Mortal Book # 6

  MYSTICS SERIES

  The Seventh Sense Book # 1

  For my beloved Simba

  Chapter 1

  Zoey

  Zoey rounded a corner in the alley, and something moved along the wall in front of her. She could see green and red scales glinting like jewels in the soft light as the head and body of a giant snake crossed the alley behind Poo Ping Palace Thai Cuisine, blocking her way. It had a second head, instead of a tail, and both heads licked the air with their gray forked tongues and spoke together.

  “We are not going back. You can’t make us. We will rip your heart out if you try, human.”

  She had no idea what it was talking about. It was the third creature that she had seen today, and the nastiest. Foamy white venomous spit puddled on the ground below its heads.

  Zoey swallowed her fear.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, her voice steady. She measured the alleyway for an escape and made sure no one else was watching her.

  “I’m just on my way home,” she continued, “and I don’t want any trouble, Mr. Snake—or is it Mrs. Snake? I can’t really tell since your back-end has a head—or is that the head, and your other head is your back-end? How do you even go to the—”

  “It lies!” Hatred flashed in its yellow eyes.

  Both heads opened their maws to reveal teeth like rows of kitchen knives.

  “It wants to kill us! It’s trying to trick us.”

  The heads spoke to each other, “You can never trust a human—they are all liars and tricksters! It wants to send us back! But we won’t go. No—we will never go back!”

  It turned both heads back toward Zoey, “We won’t let you!”

  Zoey wasn’t about to be squeezed to death by the Mr. and Mrs. Snake Freak Show—she had big plans for her future. She had to do something right now.

  The snake recoiled to strike.

  She didn’t even have enough time to rummage through her backpack for a weapon when the giant snake shot up in the air, just like a Jack-in-the-box, and soared towards her.

  A door burst open, and a dark-skinned man in a stained apron rushed out. “Hey! What are you doing there?” he yelled angrily.

  The creature slumped to the ground and retreated into the shadows with a hateful hiss, faster than Zoey thought possible for such a large snake.

  The man tossed two large black garbage bags on the ground and waved his fist furiously at Zoey. “You’re the one who’s been spraying graffiti on my walls, are
n’t you? Get out of here kid, before I call the police!”

  Zoey smiled and sprinted away down the alleyway, but not before she caught a glimpse of the giant snake disappearing through a basement window.

  With the angry man’s voice still ringing in her ears, she reached the end of the alley and turned right onto Wade Street. The old maple trees that lined the street on either side were the only visible vegetation. She ran through the orphan district and passed a series of rundown buildings and boarded up factories, relieved to have escaped.

  It would have been too good to be true—to have had an entirely uneventful day. The monsters always found her.

  Number 85 Wade Street was a ghost-gray crumbled old house with a lopsided roof, a large rotten wooden porch, peeling window panes, and a chipped beige door that had once been painted white. The front lawn was a mess of dandelions and knee-high straw grass. Zoey ran up the stairs, pushed through the front door, and dashed straight through to the kitchen at the opposite end of the house. She slipped her backpack off her shoulders, and it dropped to the floor with a soft plop.

  “You’re late.”

  Foster mother number 28 had a huge purple vein that throbbed on her forehead as she spoke. She reminded Zoey of a gorilla in a tight workout outfit. She was thick and beefy, with a mess of black hair on the top of her large head and dark facial hair that sprouted from her chin like grasses. She could easily have passed for a man. Although she usually frowned like this, there was something different about her today. Her eyes were dim, as though she was in a trance.

  Zoey’s skin prickled with icy goose bumps.

  “How many times have I warned you, Zoey? Late means no supper. You’ll just have to starve until tomorrow.”

  Zoey forgot about the eerie feeling she had just felt in an instant.

  “But it’s only ten past six,” she protested as her stomach gave a rumble.

  She looked down at herself. Her shapeless sweater hung loosely over her skinny frame, and her blue jeans were two sizes too big. The only things that fit properly were her black and white Converse sneakers.

  Foster mother number 28’s upper mustache twitched as she examined Zoey.

  “It’s your own fault, rules are rules. If you’d pay more attention to them and spend less time in that library looking up God knows what on the Internet, you’d be on time like the rest of us.” Her voice rang out in the small kitchen like a bullhorn.

  “You can sit beside Thomas and watch him and the other children eat. Sit!” she ordered.

  Zoey staggered towards the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and sat. She knew arguing was a losing battle, so she looked around the table instead.

  Thomas was an eleven-year-old boy with large front teeth and a nervous laugh. His brown eyes widened, and he gave her a quick smile before returning to his supper. Isabelle and Andy sat across the table. Isabelle was a thirteen-year-old girl with a sponge cake of curly brown hair and a fondness for makeup and large costume jewels. Andy sat beside her. Although he hid his face behind layers of black hair, Zoey could see red around his eyes. She guessed he was about ten. He had only been with them for a few days and hadn’t said a word yet.

  “How you feeling today, Andy?” whispered Zoey.

  She edged closer trying to get a better look at his face.

  “You haven’t touched your supper. Aren’t you hungry?”

  But Andy didn’t answer. Instead he stared gloomily into his bowl of stew, not really seeing it. His sad eyes were somewhere far away.

  Zoey knew that look. The foster system had that effect on children. They were lonely and abandoned, never to be found or loved again. It was a horrible prospect. They were society’s rejects, throwaways—even their own families wouldn’t take care of them. Every foster kid she had known had counted the days until their eighteenth birthday—the day when they would be considered adults, when they would be free.

  Zoey had four more years to go.

  “What were you doing in the library?” whispered Thomas, careful not to attract foster mother number 28’s attention. And when Zoey didn’t answer, he sighed heavily and went back to his stew. He seemed to be the only one interested in eating the gluey brown clumps.

  It’s not that Zoey didn’t want to tell Thomas what she’d been reading on the net; she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him. Relentless research on the Internet about demons and the occult wasn’t a normal thing for a fourteen-year-old girl to do.

  And Zoey was far from normal.

  In fact, she was the complete opposite of normal. Instead of drooling over boy bands, makeup, and clothes—like normal teen girls—she’d use every free moment to investigate supernatural phenomena. She’d be all over anything to do with monsters and the supernatural. It was like an addiction. She was a walking supernatural Wikipedia.

  Zoey was afraid of how people would react to her if they knew that she could see monsters. She knew she wasn’t normal. And she was desperate to find the truth about who she was. She’d kept her abilities a secret and had done her best to blend in with the normal kids. The problem was, trouble always seemed to find Zoey.

  She slouched in her chair and sighed. “Well, I guess I’m not missing much. I’ve eaten so much beef stew in my life, it’s a miracle I haven’t grown a pair of hooves.”

  Isabelle looked over at Thomas, and both were suddenly overcome by fits of giggles.

  “BE QUIET!” Foster mother number 28 slammed her fist on the table, sending cups, knives, plates, and spoons spinning on to the floor.

  “I’ve had just about enough of you, you little delinquent. Think you’re above the rules, don’t ya? Well you’re not! You ain’t nothin’ but trash, Zoey, miserable leftover trash.”

  She gripped the sides of the kitchen table, and beads of sweat rolled down her fat face. “We should have left you to rot in that orphanage,” she said with a nasty smile.

  “Well, maybe you should have.”

  Zoey glanced casually at her dirty finger-nails. She picked at them and shrugged. “But I guess the government’s checks helped you make that decision. I mean—let’s be real here—it’s the only reason why we’re all here, isn’t it? All of us cramped up in one room? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t feel any love.”

  Her foster mother frowned sourly and examined Zoey as if she were contagious, “With that cheeky attitude, no one will ever want you. You’ll never belong anywhere. You’ll never have a real family. You’ll be stuck in this system forever.”

  Although Zoey felt a pain in her chest, her expression remained stone cold. “Not forever. I’ve got four more years to go, then I’ll be kissing this system goodbye.”

  “They told us you were different back at the orphanage.” Her foster mother pointed her stew-coated spoon at Zoey as though it were a sword. “But except for that awful red hair of yours that looks like a forest fire and your disregard for rules, I’ve never seen anything different or special about you. You’re just like every other foster kid that comes through here…nothin’ but garbage that won’t amount to nothin’.”

  Zoey saw the pain flash on each of the other children’s faces. She cracked her knuckles under the table and wanted nothing more than to punch the smile off the woman’s face.

  “If you’d been pretty like Isabelle here,” said foster mother number 28 as she licked the spoon, “then maybe we’d have something to work with—”

  “She can see monsters,” interrupted Isabelle innocently.

  She smiled at Zoey like she was doing her a favor and twirled her large green necklace around her wrist. “She said there was a monster in the backyard last night. I couldn’t see anything, but she said she could. So I guess that makes her special.”

  Zoey’s secret was out.

  All eyes rested on her. She could already see them making up scenarios in their heads. She’d seen that nervous look before.

  Isabelle met Zoey’s angry stare and lost her smile. As her face paled, tears brimmed in her eyes, and Zoe
y immediately felt ashamed. It wasn’t Isabelle’s fault. She was just trying to help.

  Foster mother number 28 stepped forward triumphantly, as though she’d been waiting to hear this all her life. A weird noise escaped her throat, like the growling of a wild animal. Sweat dripped from her nose and onto the table.

  Zoey looked away and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Why was her foster mother staring at her like that? Usually when people learned of her ability, they avoided her.

  And then she felt the goose bumps again.

  An uncontrollable shudder rippled through her, as though thousands of ants were crawling all over her skin. She always reacted like this around demons and monsters. She had felt it when she had first stepped into the kitchen. She called it her creeps. It was like a warning, and she had no idea where it came from, but it had kept her alive.

  But why was she feeling it now?

  When she looked up, foster mother number 28’s eyes had gone completely black, like the eyes of a shark. Her clothes had become soaked in sweat, and the smell of body odor intensified. The woman started to tremble and scratched at her arms feverishly until blood oozed from the deep gashes she had made in her flesh.

  “Uh…maybe you should stop doing that,” said Zoey.

  She watched her foster mother without blinking, preparing herself for any sudden moment. A strange smell came off the woman, like rotten eggs mixed with wet earth. Then she grunted hungrily, as though something inhumane lived in her throat.

  Zoey felt a chill roll down her back.

  Great, here we go again, she said to herself. And I didn’t even get to eat anything.

  The woman leaned forward on the table, her black eyes gleaming with spite and hatred. “You thought you could hide in this place, away from the others, so we wouldn’t know who you were.”