Mystics 3-Book Collection by Kim Richardson Page A

each other until late at night. They were
her favorite memories.
    “Yes,” she said finally. “Lots of
times.”
    “Well, that’s fairies’ work,” said Agent
Vargas. “Although Mutes might think that power outages are caused
by storms or animals accidentally short circuiting the fuse box,
that’s not the case. Fairies love to cause power outages. Fairies
feed on electricity you see, and we need to stop them. They can
destroy an entire city’s main powerhouse in only a few hours. They
could wipe out a whole country’s power system in a week. Can you
image a world without power? Don’t be fooled. Fairies are hostiles
and extremely dangerous. It’s our job to spray them and bag
them.”
    “Bag them?”
    Agent Vargas dropped his duffel bag,
unzipped it, pulled out a large black garbage bag, and threw it to
Zoey.
    She caught the bag easily. “Bag them with
this?”
    She stood with the bag in her hand not
really knowing what to do with it.
    “That’s right. We bag them and take them
back to the hive with us. Everyone, grab a bag.” He stepped back
and waited until everyone had a black bag.
    “Operatives, we need to move fast. The
fairies are already mutating, and we all know what happens
when they do. Spray cans at the ready, boys and girls. There’s a
prize for the one with most bagged fairies. Move!”
    He marched across the field towards the
power lines. With their spray cans in one hand and bags in the
other, the operatives traipsed across the field after the big
man.
    Zoey walked alongside Tristan and Simon.
“Have you guys done this before? Spray and bag fairies?” She
noticed that Tristan had two more cans in his front jean
pockets.
    “This is our third time,” answered Simon. “I
bagged three, but Tristan’s the real champ—holds the academy’s
record for Most Bagged Fairies ever on one assignment.
Stuart wasn’t happy at all. You should have seen how his ugly face
went all twisted. I thought he was going to cry. I bet he cries
like a girl.”
    “Hey!” said Zoey, with mock anger.
    “Sorry,” laughed Simon. “But I bet he does.
Today it’s going to be me, you’ll see. I’ll get them all!
Whoa!”
    He waved his spray can like a weapon. He
used awkward martial arts moves, like someone with no real
experience who’d watched too many Kung Foo movies.
    Zoey caught Tristan staring at her. She
smiled at him, but he looked away. Perhaps he was still embarrassed
because she had asked if he had a girlfriend. He didn’t look
offended or put off. In fact, he had a tiny grin on his face that
hadn’t been there before, like he was pleased about
something. And she thought she knew what that was…
    Zoey focused on the task before her. Tristan
was obviously very good at spraying and bagging fairies—whatever
that was—and she wanted to be just as good as him. So, even though
she was a little self-conscious, she tried to stay close so she
could learn from him. She’d always been very good at standing back
and observing.
    They reached the base of power lines and the
operatives spread out. Blue electricity winked at Zoey from one of
the power lines. She looked up. Even in the night’s black sky she
could see fairies. There were hundreds of them. At first they
looked like birds sitting on the power lines, but the closer she
got and inspected them, it was clear that these were not birds.
    They were the ugliest creatures she’d ever
seen. These were not the beautiful fairies she’d imagined. They
were size of house sparrows and were covered in filthy brown fur.
They had veiny bat-like wings, pointy ears, and large, wet yellow
eyes. They glared at her from above with hairless gray-colored
faces that were twisted and wrinkled like dried up raisins. Some
had tails, while others did not. Some clung upside down like bats
with sharp talons, while others sat cross-legged. They were all
biting and tearing apart the electric wires. They ripped at the
lines with sharp pointy teeth, and chewed and swallowed