Ghoulies Abroad by Julie Steimle (ebook reader with built in dictionary .txt) 📕

That was bad news. Rick was fond of that computer. It still had some older ports besides USBs so he could use them in countries with older tech, and it also did not nag him to upload things to The Cloud like the newer computers that were coming out. He didn’t trust The Cloud. The Cloud felt so entirely 1984 Big Brother, and he liked his autonomy. However, Rick was sure Semour was right. Semour was the expert on such things after all.

“But, you know…” Semour side glanced him, understanding his resistance. “I can make you one made that will be waterproof.”

Rick stared.

“I just need the funding,” Semour said not quite innocently. His gaze was telling, but not begging.

With such an amused laugh, Rick nodded. “Alright. I’ll pay you. It’s not like you have to beg or anything. Make a waterproof cell phone, if you can. I will fund any innovation you come up with that would make my life and everyone else’s life easier.”

Semour nodded, grinning. Rick had a feeling he had just agreed to start up a tech company that would be named DawsonTech—or perhaps SilverTech, knowing Semour.

The moment laundry was done, they grabbed their clothes, sorted things out between them, dressed and packed, then left the apartment. They didn’t even look in on their captives.

Chapter Thirteen

Rick got an answer from his father in the form of a brief text while they were on the road in the huali.

Get out of Yancheng now. You don’t want to mess with the crime boss there.

“Too late,” Rick murmured as he showed the text to Andy.

Andy sighed heavily. “So we are here to deal with him.”

Rick shrugged. “Possibly. Or we just stepped in dangerous human territory.”

“That too,” Daniel murmured, gazing out the window at the city.

After they had left the apartment they formulated a simple plan of attack. Tom had the license plate on the CIA car snatched by imps, and he put it on the huali they stole from the mob group. And they rode the huali through the city, feeling out for demons. Since they had nothing else to go on, that felt like the best approach.

They ended up at a street market—one which did not allow vehicles on its paths.

“On foot, huh?” Semour muttered when he climbed out onto the curb.

Tom, who was in the driver’s seat, nodded, calling to all of them as they stepped onto the sidewalk, “I’ll find a place to park this and meet up with you.”

“Just park where you won’t get a ticket,” Rick said, eying the cramped roadside parking. Cars in China were a fiasco in and of itself.

Smirking back at him, Tom nodded. He steered back into traffic.

The group lingered at the mouth of the market which sold various food items and trinkets for tourists while they waited. James picked up some bamboo-skewered meat with Daniel while Eddie was peering at local movie poster emblazoned in medieval Chinese warlord themed battle imagery with fantasy kung fu intermixed. He was making commentary to anyone who would listen while Semour was deeply inspecting some jade tourist baubles. Semour was muttering under his breath, “…Not silver, but jade….” Chen glanced over at him and nodded. Rick wondered what they were talking about. Andy stuck next to him, his eyes raking over the scene. Andy whispered, “I can feel it. We are already being watched.”

“I’m here!” In hopped Tom, grinning.

Andy shot him a sharp look.

Rick lifted his eyebrows.

“Are you in a bad mood?” Andy asked, rubbing his palm which seemed to surge up in heat.

Tom shrugged, but then rolled his eyes grumpily… which wasn’t exactly Tom since he wasn’t a moody kind of guy normally. “Fine. Finding parking sucks. But anyway, we were gonna do stuff? And I’m getting hungry.”

“Leave my wallet alone,” Rick said, hanging his shoulders. “Didn’t you have enough for breakfast? You made it.”

Tom delivered him an undeserved dirty look. “No. Not enough.” His voice for some reason, grated against the inside of Rick’s ears.

Nodding, Andy turned and beckoned to the others. “Ok. Simple drill. Feel out for the enemy.”

Chen nodded.

At times like this, Rick wished he had an extra sense to feel out demons. His sense of smell and hearing only worked so far.

They entered the market.

The crowds were thick with New Year’s tourists. As they went through them, the throng itself seemed to get between them, separating James and Daniel first from them as they were always farther ahead. Then they cut through the crowd, Eddie trying to catch up but getting almost swallowed in the mobs. When Rick was finding it difficult to keep up with Andy, he heard behind them Tom call out, “Hey! Why didn’t you wait up for me?”

But Tom was standing right next to him.

Rick looked back to the source of Tom’s voice.

Tom was pushing through the crowd trying to reach them.

The Tom next to Rick chuckled. Instinctively, Rick jumped back from him—before the real Tom could catch up to expose the fake. But the fake seemed to melt into an ordinary Chinese man with wrinkled skin and laughing eyes. And no one around them noticed except Rick and Tom himself.

“You can’t hurt me,” the man that had just been Tom said, chuckling. “This is a public place, and you cannot afford bad publicity, wolf.”

Tom pounced on him with both feet and hands. “How dare you pretend to be me!”

The crowds around him sprang back, screaming.

But Tom, seeing this, went translucent as a ghost, throwing the demon who was pretending to be an innocent local hard—so much that the demon heavily struck the ground.

That got more screams… But at least now Rick wasn’t being blamed for them. For that matter, the man on the ground was stripped by invisible hands, leaving him bare and soon hideously identifiable as a demon. Apparently he was unable to keep shape after being repeatedly struck and pinched by imps. Tom reappeared, stomping on the demon’s stomach with one foot and wrenching off his horns—or at least trying to take them off. They were well rooted.

“Damn!” Tom kicked the demon again, this time in the jaw. “And I bloody well don’t have a gun to vanquish him!”

Almost in answer, the very next second a familiar gold and red staff crashed down on the demon’s skull, splitting it open. Tom and Rick looked up at the wielder of the staff, hoping they did not have to fend it off themselves.

They saw the monk.

“You.” Rick stared more, heaving a sigh of relief.

Tom lifted his eyebrows, eyeing the monk carefully.

The monk shook his head, marching past the demon he had just killed going up to Rick. “What am I going to do with you?”

Behind him, Tom mouthed, ‘He’s the real deal.’

Rick shrugged as he said to the monk, “I dunno. Tell us what we are actually looking for?”

Ironically laughing, the monk patted Rick on the head. This monk smelled different than the first one. This one smelled solid. The other one, honestly, smelled like monkey hair. This one smelled of sweat, breath, and all those wonderfully pungent body odors that people had. Only this monk didn’t smell quite human. Rick didn’t know what he was, but he could tell just from the quality of his voice that he was extremely ancient, to some degree weary, and the rest of him a peculiar kind of… elvish. Rick had never told anyone this, but elves had a particularly elemental smell that humans just didn’t have. Likewise, other supernatural beings carried different odors. And the sound of elvish voices had an added range that humans did not have. He should have recognized that other Tom was wrong by the grating noise he had detected… only the real Tom had an itching kind of sound in his voice that had always whispered just barely beyond Rick’s actual hearing… as the same with Eve. And for that matter, Chen. Chen would not like hearing that, of course. And it was not time to tell him.

Gazing into the market crowd as he thought this, Rick searched for Chen—then for everybody.

They were gone.

“Oh no.” Rick clenched his jaw and shook his head.

Tom looked also, frowning. “Where’d they go?”

The monk sighed, gesturing. “There somewhere.”

“It was a blasted trap,” Rick muttered.

Nodding, the monk sighed. “Of course. They knew you were coming.”

“Why did you want us to come here then?” Tom asked peevishly, especially looking irritated as he really hated crowds. Crowds meant tons of shouting imps and heaps of distracting mischief.

Eying him over, the monk replied, “I didn’t actually ask for you. That was your friend’s call.” He looked to the crowd, frowning. “A wise move, though.”

“What did you want the Seven here for then?” Rick asked.

Nodding to him with a fatherly gaze, the monk replied, “Among those allies who understand the need to maintain balance in the universe, the Holy Seven are well known warriors for good. And this city in particular needs that force.”

“The city?” Rick stared at him.

The monk nodded.

Tom frowned, folding his arms. “Ok… But how exactly? What we got so far is a triad group making deals with demons. Is that all, or is there more?”

Smirking, turning wryly towards Tom, the monk replied, “Have you thought about asking the Company that question?”

Rolling his eyes, Tom huffed. “Are you kidding? When they find out I borrowed a van and am in the area, I might get fired. They kinda sorta told me to stay out of Jiangsu Provenance.”

“What?” Rick gaped at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tom waved it away as if the thought was unimportant.

The monk smirked more, lifting his chin as if he were enjoying this.

Rick grabbed Tom’s shirt. “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?”

Tom shook him off, pushing Rick back. “Because, wolf. I joined the CIA to protect you… and all other ghoulies. I couldn’t care less what the Company thinks.”

But Rick shook his head. “This is the CIA we are talking about, Tom. They kill people. Their whole purpose is to—”

“Further the US’s agenda,” Tom finished with a dry roll of his eyes. He then gestured for them to go further in as people were staring at the dead demon at their feet and it was drawing unwanted attention.

The monk acted as if he were performing last Buddhist rites—though he kicked the demon in the head when they walked off.

“The problem is,” Tom added as they continued toward the side of the market, “the CIA meddling in China’s affairs is not the worst that could be happening right now.”

The monk nodded knowingly and approvingly now, a little repentant that he had judged Tom so quickly. This monk’s personality was different from his doppelganger.

“What’s the worst?” Rick asked, watching him.

Tom’s face was turning pink as he lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. “That the CIA is also making deals with demons.”

Rick gazed dryly at him. Not that he didn’t believe it. On the contrary. He believed it very easily. That was the problem. The fact that the CIA wanted Tom Brown so badly was evidence enough that things