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

He dropped down in front of Andy and materialized.

Andy drew his sword.

“Woah! Woah!” Tom raised his hands. “It’s the real me!”

“Prove it!” Andy, clenched his sword tighter.

Sighing, Tom said, “Your imps have been tempting you to ditch this quest for just a moment for a McDonald’s ice cream cone.”

Andy stared then sheathed his sword. “Where is Howie?”

“I left him with the monk,” Tom said, gesturing for him to follow.

“The monk?”

“The real monk,” Tom said, quickening his pace. “He showed up and bashed a me-demon over the head right before I found him.”

“And you were lured away…” Andy said.

Tom shrugged. “I thought I saw Selena. What about you?”

“Jessica,” Andy murmured. “Only I could tell it wasn’t her. She would have been with Michael and I didn’t see him. Besides—when I saw she wasn’t reacting to the demons I could feel I knew for certain it wasn’t her.”

Tom frowned. “Don’t say stuff like that out loud. Demons might be listening.”

“Jessica is not coming,” Andy bit out angrily and stomped through the crowd. “She is in the middle of an important murder case—which takes precedence.”

Patting Andy on the shoulder, Tom sighed. “I know. It hurts.”

They continued on, making their way back in the direction they hoped they had come. It was possible they got turned around, though, and Andy still did not entirely trust Tom, even though this Tom felt right.

“Am I losing her?” Andy muttered as they continued on through the crowd, his mind distracted. That demon had brought up that sore point again.  

Tom chuckled, matching his pace. “To Matt? No. Are you kidding? Matt would never ever go after your girl.” He quietly ordered imps to clear their path. People were hopping away as they felt someone pinching them and prodding their backsides.

“What about Joshua Johnson?” Andy grumbled, ignoring the looks of the people who shot him, his red hair and freckles—a double take, then dirty glances.

“JJ?” Tom laughed more, shaking his head. “Not a chance. JJ might flirt with her, but I don’t think for a minute Jessica would go for him.”

Andy nodded, knowing that already. Rick had said as much.

“She’d go for Peter,” Tom said.

Andy moaned. Rick had said that too.

“Heck,” Tom continued laughed. “She’d even go for Rick if you make yourself complete jack—”

“I get it!” Andy moaned, marching faster.

They hurried on.

*

The monk had just been there, but now, because of that rush of people following a delivery scooter through the walkway, Rick found himself standing alone in an alleyway. And he saw her.

“Daisy?” He did a double take, staring.

“Hi Rick,” Daisy lifted a hand, smiling in that way of her which usually sent him to his knees. But this one didn’t—because of course it wasn’t the real Daisy.

The real Daisy would never have left her pack. Not only would the pack have never let her, she would not have wanted to. So it was impossible that she would ever be in China. This Daisy had to be the same kind of demon as that Tom—a shapeshifter that somehow detected the thing he wanted most in that moment—or his biggest temptation. Daisy was always on the periphery of this thoughts, no matter how much he fought to keep her out of his mind. So whatever that demon was, it could read strong desires and create an accurate interpretation… except for the crucial details such as Daisy not being the kind of person to ever venture into China. Which made Rick wonder, were similar demons going after his friends? He could only imagine what forms they would take.

“I know you are a demon,” Rick said, keeping his distance.

Daisy looked affronted. “Are you serious? You see me and that is what you say to me?”

Tiredly, Rick shook his head. “You can’t change your smell, and you don’t sound like a wolf. If you could, might have deceived me for a few seconds at least.”

Daisy’s face went hard. Lifting her chin coldly, she said, “We have the others.”

Rick raised his eyebrows, highly doubting that. Even without Matthew’s or Tom’s gifts, he could tell when someone was lying. “You don’t know whom you are dealing with.”

“No,” said Daisy, approaching him. “You don’t.”

Backing up, understanding she was right as he really didn’t know whom he was dealing with, Rick said, “True. But I am a quick learner.”

The monk jumped in then, long staff swinging down. He barely missed Daisy who jumped out of the way just in time.

“So that’s your biggest temptation…” the monk murmured. He looked Daisy up and down. “I can see why.”

Rick leaned near him. “The real Daisy is more alluring than that.”

“That’s Daisy?” Andy ran in with Tom on his heels.

Immediately going beet red, Rick turned.

Andy drew his sword, pointing it at the demon. “I thought you preferred girls with darker hair.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Tom patted Rick on the shoulder reassuringly. “Selena came to visit me.”

“Jessica,” Andy said, raising his hand.

Rick looked horrified at Andy having to battle it out with Jessica. That was way worse than him dealing with Daisy by far.

Daniel ran in with James and Eddie, looking like a young yet lost Arab.

Shrieking, Daisy fled. At least this demon was smart enough to see she was outnumbered.

The Seven chased after her.

The chase took them though the market, where she tried to lose them among the police who had been dragged on the scene Daniel, Eddie, and James had just left. Yet as Tom muttered for the police to be disarmed, and they plowed through the ‘Canadians’ who immediately attacked them. The Seven soon tracked Daisy back to a closed pagoda. She slithered inside—literally. Each of the doors were padlocked on the outside, but the Seven could feel inside that the pagoda was infested with demons.

“This is the source,” Andy murmured.

“A nest,” said the monk.

Daniel shot him a hard look. “Are you the real thing or a doppelganger again? You feel real.”

“He doesn’t feel hostile,” James murmured, elbowing Daniel.

They noticed the concentration of demons inside was reducing also.

“Maybe Sir Cooly and Chen are in there,” Eddie muttered. Eddie walked around looking for a way in—that is until Tom stuck his somehow-no-longer-solid head through the door to have a peek for himself.

“It is really dark in here,” Tom’s voice echoed from inside.

Andy frowned deep, looking around the street. “You’d think Sir Cooly would be able to avoid getting caught.”

“Unless his temptation was even worse than any of ours,” James muttered.

“What would tempt Sir Cooly?” Andy was genuinely befuddled. “He’s got a will of iron. Nothing would lure him—”

“Except a good piece of fine tech or an awesome sword,” Eddie said, coming back around.

James and Daniel snorted, smothering laughs.

“And how would that—?” Andy gazed disparagingly on them.

Tom stepped entirely into the pagoda.

“Tom!” Rick ran at the door.” Hey! Don’t go in alone!”

“There’s no one in here,” Tom murmured.

All of them looked toward the closed door.

“Let me pull you through,” Tom said.

Daniel shrugged, stepping up for that.

“Pull us through?” James held back.

Rick shook his head. “Tom—”

But Tom grabbed his shirt and yanked Rick through the wood first. His mouth tasted of termites and sawdust as he was plunged through solid matter and into pitch darkness. Except for the fine cracks of light from the locked doors, he could see nothing. Then Tom yanked in Daniel who immediately dug out a flashlight. 

“Where’d they go?” Daniel said, getting out of the way while Tom went back for the others. The monk staggered in next. Eddie had to be pushed in. And Andy made a yelp when he passed through the solid wood. When Tom hopped out for James, they heard a number of James’s protests outside before he too staggered in. Tom looked pleased with himself yet also weary when he hopped back next to Rick, dusting his hands off.

“Such babies,” Tom muttered.

The monk chuckled, going forward into the dark.

The rest of them, except Rick and the monk, pulled out flashlights. The pagoda was entire empty of demons.

“Where did they go?” Eddie asked, not seeing an exit beside the entrance itself.

Daniel shot him a look. “That’s what I asked. I still feel them…. But they are heading in that direction.” He pointed to a stone wall.

Eddie moaned, stepping back, “No. Please tell me there is a secret door. I don’t want to get pushed through that next.”

“We are missing Chen and Sir Cooly,” Andy said. “I don’t think we should go forward until we know where they are and have retrieved them.”

“I don’t think they are here in the pagoda,” Tom murmured, gazing up the stairs on one side.

“I doubt they are even in the market anymore,” the monk said.

They looked to him. Andy most especially fixed his eyes hard on this monk, perhaps reading something about him that Rick could not detect. He said, “What is really going on here?”

Sighing, the monk stepped back from Andy, a hand up to stop an aggressive progression towards him. “Please. I am not an enemy.”

“But who are you?” Andy asked.

Peeking to Rick, the monk chuckled. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?” Andy’s voice rose. “We are missing two friends, and you are leading us along through demon infested territory! I think we deserve to know what is going on!”

Daniel’s mini cell phone beeped—the one Semour had given out to him. All of them had been waterproof—a feature Semour explained while they had been drying out their other things.

Then James’s went off. And Eddie’s and Andy’s. They quickly picked them up, staring at them.

“You gotta hand it to Sir Cooly…” James muttered, flipping his open to a screen that looked a bit like a radar except that it also functioned like a compass. “I totally forgot I had this, but it is pointing right at him.”

Rick peered over at the nearest one, Eddie’s. It had a small map display—hacked from Apple maps—showing that very town. On it was a message.

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Chapter Fourteen

If Swift could do it, so can I, Semour thought as he let those thugs drag him and Chen into a car, tied and gagged—thinking about the time the presumed FBI had taken Daniel into custody for his protection (when in actuality they were SRA agents) using that to find out what those people were up to. Semour told Chen not to transform into anything unless he knew for certain he was going to get shot. Chen nodded, though his expression showed he’s rather just grow into a dragon again and eat them all.

The whole thing was stupid.

Chen was embarrassed because he had been initially tricked by a demon masquerading as a beautiful girl. Semour could feel right away she was a demon, but as he was about to tell Chen to not follow her, he saw this amazing display of tech for a really cheap price. It was just too good to be true.

It really was way too good to be true—because it wasn’t real. Who would have thought a demon could actually take the shape of an inanimate object? It was mortifying.

And they got caught.

Chen could have become a dragon then had Semour not had his bright idea to let them be captured and hopefully get led to the boss of it all. Bright idea indeed. Semour felt like an idiot as he and Chen got