Agent Nomad 1 Read online

  ‘Eat your chips and be patient, would you?’

  Billie stood, pushing back her chair. ‘Nat, I’m serious. Leave. It. Alone.’

  I blinked, startled. Without my noticing, the mood had shifted. Billie didn’t look bored now. Her face was oddly strained, her lips pressed thinly together, as if she was genuinely upset about something.

  ‘Is … is something wrong?’ I asked, confused.

  Perhaps Billie herself had wanted to apply. Perhaps she didn’t want to compete with me? No, that didn’t make sense. Her marks were just as average as mine, and I couldn’t picture her bothering to apply for an academic scholarship.

  ‘Please, Nat,’ she said. ‘Please, just leave it.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But why –’

  She stood abruptly, cutting me off. ‘Actually, I’ve gotta go,’ she said. ‘I forgot, I’ve got … I’ve got a family dinner tonight.’

  ‘It’s only four o’clock!’

  But Billie was already in the corridor, heading towards the front door. I stood to follow, torn between irritation and confusion. ‘Hang on, wait! I’ll watch your cat video, if you’ll just tell me what –’

  The front door slammed.

  For a moment, I considered following her. I’d known Billie for five years now, and we hardly ever argued. Not a real argument, at least. Not the sort of argument that led to someone storming out of the house.

  If she wasn’t in the mood to talk, I would make up with her at school tomorrow. And I could ask Mr Mullen about the scholarship foundation. He must know something about it, mustn’t he? After all, he’d allowed John Smith to speak at our assembly.

  Frustrated, I kneaded my hands into my forehead. I didn’t know who John Smith was. I didn’t know how his foundation worked, or what kind of scholarship he offered. But I knew one thing. His strange device had left me shaking. It had struck me hard, as violent as a bolt of lightning. Yet no one else had felt it, or seen the ethereal shine around his limbs.

  For the first time in years, my world had been shaken. And no matter what, I was going to get to the bottom of it.

  Earlier, I said I was completely normal. Just another Aussie schoolkid, playing soccer and painting pictures.

  But that hadn’t always been my life. I was ten years old when I moved in with Dad, and settled into the safety of suburbia. Until then, Hollingvale hadn’t been my home. Not even Australia had been my home.

  Until then, I didn’t have a home.

  My parents divorced when I was a baby. Mum was a foreign diplomat and, as a result, I’d spent half my childhood travelling the world. Two years in London, six months in Jakarta, a couple of years in Paris, seasons in New York and pit stops all over the world. Bright red buses and bustling markets, sizzling street food and honking yellow taxis …

  I loved them all, in a way: cities and countries, plane trips and adventures. They mashed together in my head, mixing like tunes on a DJ’s playlist.

  Of course, when you change your home, you also change your friends. I was a lonely kid, endlessly shifting from city to city, school to school. I was fluent in three languages, and passable in several others – yet half the time, I had only my imagination for company.

  When I was seven, I pretended to be a secret ninja, travelling in disguise to thwart a gang of evil assassins. When I was nine, I went through a stage of pretending Mum wasn’t really a diplomat, but a spy. If she took a late night phone call, it wasn’t an emergency meeting on trade sanctions, but a secret mission to save the world.

  When I was ten, Mum put her foot down. The tipping point came when she caught me searching her suitcase for a hidden spy compartment.

  ‘You’re growing up, Natalie,’ she said. ‘Enough with these silly fantasies! You need to settle down, focus on your studies, and decide what you want to do with your life.’

  And so she dumped me back in Australia: the country of my birth. Stuck with Dad in Hollingvale, I melted into life as an average schoolkid. No more daydreams. No more wild imaginings, or global adventures. I put my past aside, locked into a secret paintbox at the back of my mind. There was life before, and there was life after. At first, I defined it as life before and after Mum’s rejection. Later, it was before and after my life became ‘normal’.

  It hurt less to think of it that way.

  I didn’t see Mum after that, apart from an occasional Skype session. Eventually, I stopped even wanting to talk to her. She’d dumped me in Hollingvale, hadn’t she? Every word that crossed her lips felt like a slap. My future was out of my hands, as random as the flip of a coin. It was hard not to feel disposable.

  And so I locked away my memories, and stomped down hard on my imagination. I became a chameleon. I changed. I adapted. I erased my old self and stepped into a new skin, determined to greet the world with a smile. I was just Natalie Palladino, the policeman’s kid. That was how I’d always coped, after all. It was how I survived when my life was rippling around me.

  Sometimes, I wondered what would be left at the end of it all.

  That night, the sky erupted.

  It was a summer storm – the type that saves its strength for the hottest and stickiest of nights. After simmering all day, the atmosphere had finally boiled over. The air was electric. Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed and rain pounded its fists on the roof.

  I ran about the house in a flurry, slamming windows and yanking up the sunblinds before the wind could shred them. Dad was on night shift at the police station, which for me usually meant a night with Billie watching movies on the couch.

  Tonight, though, I was on my own.

  For dinner, Dad had left homemade gnocchi in the fridge. His own parents were Italian migrants, and they’d raised a damn fine cook. Good thing too, or I would’ve been eating cereal for dinner. Cookery was not my forte. Once, when I tried to cook pumpkin soup, I’d created a pot of inedible sludge that would have more use in biological warfare than on a dinner table.

  Anyway, I zapped the gnocchi in the microwave and slumped onto the couch to eat. I balanced my Maths textbook on my lap, flicked on the TV and shovelled the food into my mouth. Mrs Strickland’s Trig Test of Doom would probably be rescheduled the next day, so I needed to refresh my memory about hypotenuses. Or possibly ‘hypoteni’, since I wasn’t sure what to call the plural.

  But I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t really eat, either. I found myself idly sketching, pencilling a pair of dark eyes in the margin of my exercise book. Dark eyes, and a dark coat. I shaded the pupils again and again, carving shadows into the page. All I could think about was the lingering itch in my throat, and that explosion of wild pain, and John Smith’s eyes upon my face …

  The lights went out.

  It began with a flicker – a burst of static on the TV – and then, nothing. The house was black. The only noise was the roar of the storm, thundering on the roof. Great. I was home alone with nothing but darkness for company.

  With a sigh, I flicked on my phone’s torch function. A beam of light emerged from the camera flash, slow and steady. Shadows bled across the walls, long and eerie, accentuated by the narrow beam.

  Occasionally, a flash of lightning would split the night outside, cracking the darkness open like an egg. Whenever it happened, the entire room was briefly illuminated. Couch. TV. Photo frames.

  In one violent flash, I caught a glimpse of a family photo from when I was a baby. My father, long and lean, with his arms wrapped around me. My mother, blonde hair tossed by a rumple of wind, staring at something just outside the frame. Even then, she was looking beyond our family. All she could ever think of was leaving.

  I turned my attention back to my dinner, leaning into the couch. This wasn’t so bad, was it? Just a blackout. I had a bowl of hot gnocchi, I was safe inside, and at least this storm had finally broken the heatwave.

  Something brushed my leg.

  I jolted, startled, and yanked my leg up. It had felt like a breath of air, brushing against my calf. But as lightning flashed again
, the room was empty. Nothing. Just vacant floor beneath me. My phone flickered, its torch stuttering like a strobe. Light, darkness. Light, darkness.

  I felt it again.

  It was a faint brush, almost animalistic. Like the nudge of a cat against my leg, asking for a scratch behind the ears. Yet there was nothing but darkness to rub against me, and my heart was pattering louder than the rain.

  And then it was gone. Nothing remained but shadows, dappled like leaves across the floor.

  Thunder rumbled. It was raw and primal, blasting a shiver through my bones. I was too old to be afraid of thunderstorms – but alone in the dark, it seemed to awaken some lost animal instinct in my belly. Danger, my instincts whispered. Run, run, run.

  Someone banged on the door.

  I froze. Who would be visiting at this time? It could be Billie, but surely she would have texted before she –

  My phone beeped. I grabbed it as a message popped up on the screen. But it wasn’t from Billie, or even my dad. It was an unknown number with no Caller ID. With a knot in my stomach, I stared at the message.

  The Inductors are coming.

  Get out.

  ‘What the …?’ I muttered.

  The door banged again. I pocketed my phone and hurried to the corridor. I could see the front door from here – and as the lightning flashed, two enormous figures were briefly silhouetted behind its glass pane.

  These weren’t friends from school, or kids playing a stupid prank. They were full-grown men, larger than even the boys on the local footy team. My throat tightened as I watched the door – and in that instant, the doorknob began to jiggle, as if someone had stuck something into the keyhole, trying to …

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  They were trying to pick the lock.

  One man raised his hand. The world around me darkened even further, as if my fear had sucked the shadows into my retinas. Then a burst of wild light spilled from his fingers, painting an eerie blue shine upon the black. It didn’t come from a torch, or even a phone screen, but from his very fingertips. As if his flesh itself were shining, spilling an ethereal glow into the night …

  Magic, I thought wildly. It was magic, like a spell from a fairytale: a tale of wizards and quests and sorcery. The thought was mad, insane. And yet …

  The man’s companion raised his hand. He pressed a small object, round and gleaming, directly to the lock.

  The lock began to sizzle.

  I stared at it, my entire body tingling. It wasn’t possible. This object was hot enough to melt through steel – and yet this stranger clutched it in bare fingers, as if it could not hurt him.

  I clamped down on a wild laugh, almost hysterical with disbelief and terror. Was I losing my mind? The whole thing was ridiculous; there was no such thing as magic, no such thing as sorcery. I was clearly hallucinating, driven mad by fear. But still the lock was sizzling, and still that light shone eerie tendrils through the door.

  ‘Stupid,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t be stupid!’

  I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, on the day she sent me packing. ‘You’re growing up, Natalie. Enough of these silly fantasies.’ The childish part of my brain was supposed to be exiled, locked away at the back of my skull.

  Slowly, the door began to open.

  I moved before I knew what I was doing. I hurtled back through the living room, down the corridor and into my bedroom. All I could think of was that message on my phone, sent from an unknown caller.

  The Inductors are coming.

  What did it mean? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that two massive strangers were breaking into my house, and I was alone. I couldn’t even scream to alert the neighbours; they’d never hear me over the roar of the storm.

  Breathing heavily, I burst into my bedroom and shut the door. The floor was drowning in clothes and god-knows-what-else, so I kicked a clear path before I dragged my desk across to barricade the door. It was only chipboard, and it wouldn’t hold for long, but I had nothing else to keep them out.

  Lightning flashed. For a moment, my room lit up – a sea of paintings, sketches and half-finished canvases – and with a wild rush, I spotted it. My old cricket bat. A couple of years ago, Billie had roped me into joining the local cricket team with her, and I still had my bat. Right now, it was as effective a weapon as I was likely to get my hands on.

  As I seized the handle, I fought another hysterical urge to laugh. If only the Hollingvale Under-13 Girls Team could see me now. In my last few matches, before the team dumped me, I’d managed to score a whopping three runs and a golden duck. My only skill was whacking the ball into a lovely high arc, which inevitably fell into a fielder’s outstretched hands. Right now, though, a wild swing of the bat could save my life.

  Bat at the ready, I approached the window. I fumbled for my phone with my spare hand and dialled the emergency number.

  Nothing.

  I stared at the phone, my heart racing. Intruders had just broken into my house, and suddenly my phone wasn’t working? Perhaps the mobile tower had been struck by lightning, or …

  My phone buzzed. A new message lit up the screen.

  The police cannot save you.

  Get out. NOW.

  Suddenly, my mouth was dry as dust. If this message could get through, there clearly wasn’t a problem with the phone towers. Frantically, I tried to call Dad – but again, the call cut out before it had even started to ring. The screen stuttered, flickering like a candle in the darkness.

  Something was blocking my phone signal. No network connection either. I hurried to check my computer – and again, no internet. No way to send a message, no way to call for help.

  I was on my own.

  There was a loud crash, followed by a shout of pain. I cringed at the clatter of metal on tiles. The burglars must have opened the cookware cupboard, which was large enough to hide in and quite precariously stacked. Clearly, they hadn’t planned on being assaulted by an avalanche of saucepans.

  Great. Now they were huge and ticked off. If they wanted someone to take out their anger on …

  They were in the kitchen. That meant they would search Dad’s bedroom next, and then the bathroom. Then they would reach the end of the corridor, and my desk would start to shake as they banged against the door.

  I had to move. Even with my cricket bat, I was no match for a pair of men who were each at least double my size. But I was cut off from the corridor, and that left only one means of escape.

  The window.

  I yanked it open. Rain pelted inside and I staggered backward, shocked by the fury of the storm. I grappled with the fly screen. It took a few grunts to shove it up and out of its frame – but finally, it tipped into the garden bed outside. I shoved on my runners, grabbed my coat and yanked it over my school dress.

  And with a sharp breath, I scrambled out into the night.

  Outside, all was dark.

  The blackout had killed the streetlights, and even the moon had been swallowed by the storm. I staggered towards the garden shed, where my bicycle was waiting. It felt like the world had turned to film, and the director had gone overboard with slow-motion effects. My heart in my throat, my feet slipping and skidding, a burst of lightning, a wild rush of shadow …

  The lights flashed on.

  All the houses around me lit up – golden squares at every window – as if the street had just switched on its annual display of Christmas lights. My own house was also bright. Through the gleaming kitchen window, I caught a glimpse of two huge silhouettes before they vanished into the corridor.

  Move, move, move …

  Another belch of thunder. I flung open the shed, grabbed my bicycle and wheeled it out towards the street. On the way, I dumped my cricket bat in a flowerbed; I needed speed now, not makeshift weaponry. I checked my phone again – still no signal. But the police station was only a five-minute trip by bike, and Dad would be there.

  Unfortunately, my bike was ancient. It had been Dad’s when he was a kid
and the handlebars were slippery steel, not plastic. I grasped the cold metal, wiped my hands on my coat, and tried again to keep my grip.

  As I hurtled down the street, the rain grew stronger. I’ve never understood why storybook rain goes ‘pitter-patter’ on people’s roofs. This rain would have been insulted by the suggestion. It whipped and crashed on the road, on rooftops, and through one open window until the occupant of the house, half-drowned and fuming, managed to slam it shut.

  I briefly considered asking a neighbour for aid – but if my phone wasn’t working, surely theirs would be out too. Besides, they were mostly elderly, or young families, and how could they help? I’d only be putting them in danger. A cold curl of fear settled in my belly. I thought of melting steel, and the man whose fingers had shone with unnatural light …

  ‘No!’ I spat the word into the rain, my voice cracking in sheer defiance. No, I wouldn’t believe it. It had been too dark to make out the details, hadn’t it? Surely I’d imagined the heat, the light … the magic.

  I had to reach my dad. He was a policeman, trained for this kind of stuff. All I had to do was reach the station, and he would help me. We could drive home in his work car, sirens blazing, and he’d chase those burglars out into the rain and slap handcuffs on their wrists.

  Burglars. That was all. They were just stupid burglars, trying to take advantage of the storm. But then I thought of the text messages, and an uneasy feeling swelled in my stomach.

  The Inductors are coming. The police cannot save you.

  I pedalled faster.

  My fingers were numb, my nose stung and my entire world had compressed into the whip of darkness, the sting of rain, and the fear that gnawed like a ravenous beast in my belly. My breath came hot and fast as my lungs heaved. My legs were churning so hard that they burned, even soaking wet.

  Suddenly, my foot slipped on the pedal. The front wheel screeched, skidding to the side. My bike crashed into the gutter and with a wild lurch, I was airborne. The handlebars were gone and I clutched at empty night, unable to breathe. There was nothing but the wind and rain as I hurtled down and –