Agent Nomad 1 Read online

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Natalie Palladino was a normal fifteen-year-old, at a normal school, about to face a normal maths test.

  Now her codename is Nomad, and she’s training to become a secret agent for HELIX.

  No one can know that sorcery exists. No one can know that HELIX protects humanity from the Inductors.

  And no one can know that Nomad is a Witness, with a dangerous magical gift. The Inductors are hunting her. If they find her, they will kill her.

  But there’s a traitor inside HELIX, and only a Witness can identify them. The problem is, Nomad hasn’t mastered her powers. She can’t levitate, fight or wield magic like her fellow recruits.

  If she’s the only hope to stop a sorcerous bomb being detonated, the world is in trouble.

  The eleventh hour is coming…

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1: THE STRANGER

  CHAPTER 2: THUNDER AND DARKNESS

  CHAPTER 3: HELIX

  CHAPTER 4: THE HALL OF QUIET EYES

  CHAPTER 5: PURSUIT

  CHAPTER 6: RIFF AND PHOENIX

  CHAPTER 7: THE CORKSCREW

  CHAPTER 8: SECRETS AND SORCERY

  CHAPTER 9: THE TENEBROUS SHROUD

  CHAPTER 10: ZEPHYR

  CHAPTER 11: COMBAT AND WEAPONRY

  CHAPTER 12: ENEMY TACTICS

  CHAPTER 13: ALLEY OF MONSTERS

  CHAPTER 14: DEADLY NEWS

  CHAPTER 15: THE CHAMELEON

  CHAPTER 16: LONDON

  CHAPTER 17: A SECRET MESSAGE

  CHAPTER 18: LIVE DROP, DEAD DROP

  CHAPTER 19: THE SPIDER

  CHAPTER 20: A TANGLED WEB

  CHAPTER 21: FACES IN THE CROWD

  CHAPTER 22: DARK WINGS

  CHAPTER 23: A DRASTIC PLAN

  CHAPTER 24: THE CROWN JEWELS

  CHAPTER 25: THE TRAITOR

  CHAPTER 26: THE ELEVENTH HOUR

  CHAPTER 27: AWAKENING

  CHAPTER 28: THE SILVER GLOBE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  AGENT NOMAD: DEADLY MAGIC

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  For Grandma Gwen and Papa George

  It began on the nineteenth of February, a scorching day at the tail end of the Aussie summer. The time of year when it’s about to fade into autumn, but the sun decides to give you one last whack across the face before it bails.

  My name was Natalie Palladino and I was a normal fifteen-year-old. A bit on the short side, perhaps, with a crooked smile and a knack for trouble. I had dark eyes from my mum, frizzy hair from my dad, and so many freckles that my smile looked like a line on a dot-to-dot puzzle.

  I went to school, did my homework, and kept my bedroom in a state that could be called either a ‘rubbish dump’ or a ‘floordrobe’, depending on your point of view. On weeknights I watched trashy TV, on weekends I played for a local soccer team, and I divided my spare time between painting, sketching and doodling on my schoolbooks.

  Nothing too strange. Nothing unusual.

  And certainly nothing unexpected.

  I lived with my dad in Hollingvale, a stumpy little town on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. It was the sort of town that pressed its lips to the sea, spilling down from bushland to beach. Over summer, the influx of tourists tripled our normal population.

  ‘Summertime, we get dangers on all sides,’ Dad would say. ‘Sharks in the ocean, fires in the bush, and more stinking tourists than you can shake a stick at!’

  Those dangers, of course, were exaggerated. There was hardly ever a shark sighting, and the last deadly bushfires were forty years ago. In reality, Hollingvale was possibly the dullest town in the southern hemisphere. Although Dad was a local policeman, most of the ‘criminals’ he caught were P-platers doing wheelies.

  It hit forty-one degrees that day. The entire world was bright blue sky, rippling heat and sunlight. A breeze kicked up half-hearted eddies of dust and chip packets, tickling the tawny grass. One of those days when everything lingers, long and languid, and you feel like you’re waiting for a storm to break.

  ‘Geez, it’s hot,’ Billie said, as we lined up for icy poles at the school canteen. ‘Reckon we can knock off early and hit the beach?’

  Billie Jones was a skinny girl, all knobbly knees and elbows, and the star of the local girl’s cricket team. She’d moved to Hollingvale just a few weeks after me, and we’d quickly ended up as friends.

  ‘You know,’ Billie went on, with a vague gesture at the scorching air, ‘if it keeps up like this, I reckon we’ll melt before Mrs Strickland has a chance to fail us.’

  We had a trigonometry test next period, so Billie was belatedly cramming during our lunch break. She stood behind me, balancing her textbook against my spine.

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘She’ll fail us anyway, and give us detentions for melting without permission.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Billie said. ‘Bet she’d send a note home to Mum, too. “Dear Mrs Jones, Belinda has misbehaved again by dissolving into a pile of mushy liquid and innards without a signed note of permission from a teacher. Accordingly, I have assigned her three lunchtime detentions.”’

  ‘Mushy liquids and innards?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ Billie said, brightening a little. ‘And disgusting blobby bits, and half-melted lumps of stomach and brain juices …’

  ‘You sound a bit too pleased by the idea,’ I said. ‘Generally, people aren’t supposed to want to dissolve into lumps and brain juices.’

  ‘Yeah, but most people aren’t facing Mrs Strickland’s Trig Test of Doom, are they?’

  ‘Fair point,’ I conceded. ‘Probably the lesser of two evils.’

  As it turned out, however, we were spared the horrors of the Trig Test of Doom. A moment after the locker bell rang, a buzzing announcement summoned us all to the gym for an assembly.

  Billie raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you reckon that’s about?’

  ‘Maybe they’ll send us home early?’ I said hopefully. ‘If it’s hot enough, they might –’

  Billie shook her head. ‘Nah, they’d need consent from our parents. Can’t just turn us loose in the middle of the day, can they?’

  ‘Well, we’re about to find out.’

  Five minutes later, the entire student body slouched into the gym and sat cross-legged on the polished floor. Half the room stank of sweat, and the other half stank of cheap perfume sprays, which wafted together to create a nasal sensation that was almost physical enough to be called soup.

  Mr Mullen, my English teacher, raised his hands and revealed the wet underarms of his shirt. Little by little, everyone settled into silence. The only sound was a blowfly, buzzing near the back of the room. There was an outburst of giggling as someone shrieked and shooed it away, before Mrs Strickland menaced the gigglers back into silence with a glare.

  ‘Right,’ Mr Mullen said. He was a squat little man in his fifties, grey hair scraped across his scalp to disguise his bald patch. ‘As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, it’s a bit hot today.’

  Cue murmurs of agreement.

  ‘However, we have a few items on the agenda, so let’s get down to business. Mrs Strickland will be handing out certificates for last year’s Maths Competition –’

  A few quiet groans.

  ‘– and the PE teachers want to say a few words about footy tryouts, and give an update on inter-school swimming. Before all that, though, I’ve called this assembly because we have a special guest here to speak to you.’

  I glanced at Billie, who shrugged.

  ‘Another scholarship thing?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  Hollingvale Hig
h was a bit of a dive, to be honest – a patchwork of portable classrooms with broken ceiling fans – so every now and then, a few well-dressed visitors would come to speak about equity scholarships and financial assistance programs we might be eligible for. Their eyes would roam across the gym as they spoke, lips curling a little as they took in the faded paint and the pile of mangy gym mats.

  ‘Today,’ Mr Mullen said, ‘I’d like to introduce John Smith from the Brighter Future Foundation.’

  He raised his hands in applause to welcome the visitor. About half the students bothered to join in, flapping our hands weakly to produce a feeble scattershot of claps.

  ‘John Smith?’ Billie mouthed.

  I shook my head. You couldn’t come up with a more generic name if you tried. A few people started to mutter jokes about Pocahontas, but Mrs Strickland shut them up with another glare.

  As our applause died away, John Smith emerged from the back of the gym. His greying hair was shorn into a buzz cut, and deep lines burrowed through his face. No real way to guess his age. He could have been a well-aged sixty, or a forty-year-old who’d survived a lot of hard living.

  It was his clothing, however, which prompted a sudden outburst of muttering. He wore a long black trench coat, slick and sweeping, more suited to a European winter than an Aussie summer. As he strode forward, it flapped behind him: a whirl of shadow in his wake.

  ‘What the …?’ Billie said.

  ‘Maybe he’s got a trig test this afternoon too,’ I said. ‘I mean, clearly he wants to die of heat stroke.’

  John Smith, however, showed no sign of being affected by the heat. There was something predatory about his movements – his darting gaze, deliberate strides and dark coat gave the impression of a panther, prowling forth in search of prey. If I’d had my sketchbook with me, I might have drawn him with a set of claws.

  As John Smith swept through the crowd, heading towards the front of the gym, students scrambled aside to let him through. He seemed to erase the whispers as he passed, like a living silencer on a pistol.

  We stared at him. He stared at us.

  Silence.

  ‘I am pleased to be here,’ he said. ‘I hope this shall be a productive meeting.’

  His voice was hoarse, but there was something oddly compelling in its tone. Each syllable was slow and deliberate, chosen carefully. As though he were a stern old miser, and every word was a coin to be spent.

  ‘I am here,’ he said, ‘to seek an applicant for a special opportunity. You will forgive me, I hope, if I first assess your suitability.’

  No one spoke. No one even whispered. I could hear the rustle of the wind outside, churning rubbish and dust across the senior school quadrangle. At the back of the gym, the blowfly was droning again.

  John Smith drew a small black bar from his pocket and held it up for us all to see. At first I assumed it was just a phone – but with a quiet smile, he flicked a switch on its side.

  And in that instant, everything changed.

  Pain hit me as intensely as an exploding star. A burst of unnatural light rippled around John Smith’s body: a skin of flickering amber. I doubled over, my eyes hot and aching, as another wallop of agony sliced my skull. Heat and cold, light and dark. It felt as though someone had driven a hot metal blade into my brain. I forgot how to breathe. There was nothing but the blazing burn in my veins, trickling down from my head into my chest, my belly, my hands and legs and …

  Nothing.

  I drew a violent breath. When I finally looked up, I saw that John Smith had put the bar away. He looked normal again: no flickers of amber, no scorching light. He was staring at me – not the crowd, but me.

  ‘Nat!’ Billie hissed, tugging on my sleeve. ‘Are you all right?’

  I barely heard her. There was nothing but the weight of the stranger’s gaze, peering down at me from the front of the gym. My skin tingled.

  Finally, he looked away.

  I exhaled. As the gym broke into murmurs again, I turned slowly to Billie. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide.

  ‘Nat?’ she said. ‘You with me?’

  Throat dry, I nodded. ‘I … I just …’

  ‘You just collapsed,’ Billie said. ‘Well, not collapsed exactly. You sort of slumped forward, like when Jason had an asthma attack at the school walkathon.’

  ‘The light …’

  Billie frowned. ‘What light?’

  ‘From that thing,’ I said. ‘The thing John Smith was holding up … and then it was all around him, this golden glow …’

  Billie started and stared at me closely, a strange look in her eye. ‘Um, you didn’t hit your head, did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well,’ Billie said, ‘if you’re gonna go bonkers, it’d be nice to know there’s a good reason for it.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘There wasn’t any light, Nat. It was just his phone.’

  ‘You didn’t see it?’ I said. ‘There was this bright amber light – you can’t have missed it, I swear it was the brightest thing I’ve ever seen.’

  Billie stared at me as though I’d just proclaimed that Santa Claus had galloped into the gym on the back of a sparkly unicorn.

  ‘I think we’d better get you to the sick bay,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you hit your head, but …’

  She raised her hand to snare a teacher’s attention, but it was too late. The teachers were all busy shushing other students who had lost interest in John Smith’s peculiar recruiting techniques. Mrs Strickland was glaring around the room, and – little by little – everyone’s attention was swivelling back to the front.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I whispered. ‘It must just be the heat.’

  ‘Dehydration?’

  I shook my head, uncertain, as Billie lowered her hand. As we turned back to face John Smith, though, I knew my words had been a lie. I wasn’t fine, not by a long shot. My skull was throbbing, and a strange tingle itched in my throat. It wasn’t exactly nausea, but … something. A sensation I’d never felt before.

  ‘Very well,’ John Smith said. ‘That will be all, I think. Thank you for your cooperation.’

  A kid in the front row thrust up his hand.

  ‘Yes?’ John Smith said.

  ‘Wait – you haven’t told us how to apply! I mean, is there an online application, or a form to fill out, or …?’

  John Smith stared at him. ‘Our application process is … unusual.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Smith,’ Mr Mullen said, stepping forward. He looked slightly flustered, and I didn’t blame him. He’d probably expected a speech about academic merit and the value of education. ‘If anyone requires more information, the Brighter Future Foundation will send us an application bundle tomorrow with the necessary paperwork. Now, onto other matters …’

  As Mrs Strickland stepped up to present the Maths certificates, John Smith retreated. His gaze swept one last time across the crowd. His expression was neutral, his eyes narrow. Slowly, he turned to exit through the gym door.

  But just for a moment, before he left, I could have sworn his eyes fixed right on me.

  After school, we headed back to my house. While Billie rummaged in the pantry for chips, I grabbed a can of lemonade and hurried straight to my laptop. If John Smith worked for the ‘Brighter Future Foundation’, I was going to find out everything I could about it. Where was it based? What sort of scholarships did it offer?

  What had he meant about ‘testing’ us?

  I browsed the search results, my stomach tight with excitement. Even as a kid, I’d never been able to just leave things alone. Once my curiosity was piqued, I would gnaw at a question until I knew exactly what I was dealing with. And so, although my encounter with John Smith had left me feeling physically sick, it also thrilled me beyond anything I’d experienced in months.

  ‘Damn,’ I whispered.

  There were thousands of hits. John Smith hadn’t just chosen a generic name for himself, but also for his scholarship foundation. I scrolled pa
st countless variations on the name: Bright Futures for All, Brightest Futures Association, Creating Brighter Futures …

  ‘Hey, Nat,’ Billie said, joining me at the computer, ‘shove over, will you? There’s this funny video I want to show you.’

  ‘Hang on, I’m looking something up.’

  She peered over my shoulder and groaned dramatically. ‘You’re not gonna apply, are you? Hate to break it to you, but those scholarship things are always based on Maths and English and stuff, not just Art class. You’d need to bump up your report scores by about … I don’t know … a squillion?’

  ‘I don’t think Hollingvale High reports go up to a squillion.’

  ‘And thank God for that,’ Billie said. ‘Now, will you pass the laptop? Get this, right: it’s a video of a cat, dressed as Batman, fighting a robotic vacuum cleaner. I mean, what’s not to love?’

  ‘Yeah, sounds good,’ I said, distracted. ‘But I just want to know what that John Smith bloke was banging on about. I can’t find his website, and something didn’t … I don’t know. It didn’t feel right.’

  Billie rolled her eyes. ‘Who cares?’

  ‘Just give me a sec …’

  Quickly, I limited the results to an exact phrase match, and the location to Australia. Still nothing. I added ‘John Smith’ to the search field, although my gut told me it was futile. I found some study guides, a company that ran year twelve revision seminars and a couple of charities.

  Did the foundation even exist?

  Billie cleared her throat. She looked genuinely irritated now, and she hadn’t even opened her packet of chips. ‘Seriously, Nat, leave it alone. It’s just some stupid scholarship foundation.’