Ghoulies Abroad, Julie Steimle [libby ebook reader .TXT] 📗

trouble. Rick was sure both would say they never instigated the fight.

“We should be getting back.” Daniel leaned toward him.

Nodding once more, Rick turned to go.

“What about the dead?” someone murmured. “Those bodies will—”

Each of the demon bodies spontaneously burst into flames. Searing hot colors engulfed them into a scorching heat which incinerated each demon into piles of black ash. Daniel’s eyed focused on them while clutching his red crystal in his flaming right hand. His hand remained unharmed by the fire in it. When the fires died down, he let go of his crystal.

“Yaoguai…” the wolves murmured with fearful glowing eyes.

“No,” Rick said. “Wu shi.”

They walked away. The pack got quickly out of their path, leaving them alone. Rick used his cellphone to call for another didi driver.

As they walked along the road, the wolves giving them plenty of space as they were now terrified, Tom whispered. “What does wu shi mean?

“Warrior,” Chen said. He looked to Daniel. “A knight.”

Daniel nodded, walking a little more upright. He seemed to be walking as if he were proud he had not peed himself when Chen had become a dragon. It was a weird thing to be proud of, and yet that phrase dragon’o’phobia echoed in Rick’s head. There had to be a reason for it.

“So,” Rick said once they got further down the road. “Why dragons of all things are the one thing that scares you?”

Tom smirked, wondering that himself.

Chen looked subdued though, averting his eyes.

“One thing?” Daniel huffed.

“Ok, scares you enough to wet yourself,” Rick clarified, amazed that Daniel could be that frightened. “In every other situation you have been nothing but fearless.”

Tom nodded.

Chen still looked to the ground, openly ashamed that he knew too much.

Gazing skyward, Daniel said, cheeks coloring, “Back in the other world, way back when I was younger—about thirty something—” Tom laughed at that description of ‘younger’ as Daniel physically was in his twenties still. “—I and my fellow knights were besieging the castle of our worst enemy. We were on the verge of ending this centuries-long war—but we had to get past these two colossal dragons. And in my arrogance, back then I had the audacity to think I could slip past those dragons into the castle and take out the old villain O’thor myself.”

“Who?” Tom snickered in disbelief.

“Never mind his stupid name,” Daniel muttered, cheeks even pinker. “The point is, I was badly beaten in that battle by those dragons. I nearly lost my life. The dragon tore through my armor—which has long been replaced with better armor—and left me with some deep scars.”

Rick nodded, knowing a thing or two about scars. He had also seen the ones on Daniel’s back, though he had not known the origin of them until now.  

“The pain was so bad,” Daniel said, automatically cringing as he recalled it, “That I could not walk for months. I was paralyzed from the waist down. And to be honest, I should not be walking today. But somehow I recovered and joined back in the war as soon as I could run. I’ve been called Swift ever since.”

“What did they call you before that?” Rick asked, having never heard them call Daniel anything but Swift.

Daniel shrugged. “It depended on who was talking to me. Kid. Brownie. Pimple-face. Your jerk friend Dale used to call me turd.”

Rick cringed. His friend Dale Peterson was one of the boys who had died in the other world. Only ten out of all the hundreds who had been taken over decades had returned (not counting Jessica who was the only girl who had been abducted to that world).

“I’m sorry,” Daniel said, muttering. “But since then, every time I have met a dragon my mind just freezes.”

“How many dragons have you met since then?” Tom asked, smirking with doubt.

Chen silently lifted up four fingers, pointing also to himself to indicate he was the most recent. Apparently he got the entirety of Daniel’s history in his head now. Rick wondered if it was worth it to pick Chen’s brain to understand what the Seven were really thinking about him.

“You really need to get over that dragon’o’phobia of yours if we are going to battle demons here,” Rick muttered.

Daniel groaned, kicking the ground with teeth clenched. “I know…”

“I’m sorry,” Chen muttered.

Daniel and the rest looked at him, not sure what he was sorry about.

“I had no idea,” Chen nearly whispered. “You don’t want to be a warrior any more than I do.”

Rick shot Daniel a look.

Chucking, Daniel shrugged again. “Sometimes you have to accept a higher purpose you didn’t plan for.”

He had never heard Daniel say anything like that before. Daniel had always seemed so gung-ho for the Medieval Club and all the knight stuff with the fighting. It never occurred to Rick that maybe he did it out of a sense of duty.

“If you didn’t have to be one of the Holy Seven, what would you be?” Rick asked.

Gazing to him, eyebrows raised, Daniel thought for a second. He then shrugged. “I don’t know. When I was taken into that other world, my life was turned upside down. I simply was a knight. And when Jessica found us and brought us back, I hated being a kid again after being a grown man for so long. I mean, pimples—again. Puberty—again. And being scrawny, all over again. And worse, back in Middleton Village among the witches, with a traumatized father who became way too overprotective, an ex-stepmother who wanted me dead, and having to go to school where I would be bullied again. The only consolation was having my best friend from the other world with me, and we could fight the jerks together.”

Rick felt breathless. This was what Daniel was thinking the entire time. And most likely so were his other friends.

“Becoming the Seven just put all my past agony in perspective, and things finally made sense,” Daniel murmured as they continued on to the main road. “I have no clue what I would have chosen for my future all those many years ago. Back before I went into that other world, I just wanted to survive school.”

“And now?” Chen murmured, listening intently.

“Now…” Daniel looked around himself. “I want to do a good job being a knight of the Seven. I can feel this is important. And career is just a means to an end. It is not my identity.”

“Does everybody think the same way?” Rick asked, wondering.

Daniel shook his head, knowing exactly what Rick was leading up to. “I don’t speak for the others. Red was young when he was freed. Near the same age I was when I encountered those dragons. He still has things in this world that matter to him more than his duty, and he gets distracted. In many ways, this is his knight’s quest. The rest of us had ours.”

Rick nodded.

“And as for Peter and Jessica,” Daniel murmured. “They are in an entirely different realm altogether. In many ways, they are our anchors to this world, keeping the rest of us grounded in this reality.”

“Grounded?” Chen listened intently, wondering.

Nodding to him, a lot more friendlily now, Daniel explained, “Yes. All of us former knights would run around swinging our swords like psychos at anything that threatened us, if you know what I mean. If it weren’t for them.”

A car drove up. Rick checked the license plate to see if it matched the one on his phone. The driver was smiling when he saw they were mostly foreigners. “Wai guo ren! Tai hao le!”

Daniel eyed him funny as he climbed into the backseat.

Tom grinned crookedly hopping in after him. Chen sat in the front for personal space while Rick squeezed in the back.

As they drove home, the driver attempted to practice his broken English on him. It was kind of amusing, actually, though he looked back a lot and did not seem to be keeping his eye on the road. The driver had a couple near misses on the road, but he cheerfully ignored them.

“Were you from?”

“Mei guo,” Chen said.

“The US,” Rick replied.

Tom bounced in his seat giddily, staring out the window as they barely scraped past a scooter and one of those electric tricycle carts, muttering, “Inches! Man! Just inches. This guy’s an expert!”

Daniel said nothing, arms folded, his mind clearly somewhere else.

“Why you come to China?” The driver grinned toothily.

Chen shrugged. “Spring Festival trip.”

Rick smirked. “I’m here for business.”

“Oh, you big businessman?” the driver asked, his interest and enthusiasm swelling as he squeezed his vehicle through a tight bit of traffic.

“That was millimeters!” Tom cheered, fists high. He looked like he would go through the ceiling and ride on the top.

Rick chuckled within himself. “One day. I’m a student right now. Wo shi xuesheng.”

“Oh! Ni shuo zhongwen ma?”

Shaking his head, Rick replied, “I am still learning.”

Nodding, the driver turned a corner, almost hit a pedestrian, and veered through two large passing trucks before taking the lead on to the next road ahead of traffic. That move was surely illegal. Tom was cackling, which was proof that it was. “Hen hao. Good. You learn. Be good big businessman.” The driver then directed at Daniel, “What you do? You businessman too?”

“Wo shi wushi,” Daniel said deadpan.

Chen looked back at him, surprised. Daniel just said he was a knight in not bad Mandarin. But Rick wasn’t surprised. Daniel picked up things rather quickly. It only made sense he was trying to pick up Mandarin too.

The driver winked at him, smiling. “Ah. Tianshang wushi. Ni shi kuai ren.”

Rick stared at the driver, understanding him with chills. The driver winked at him. “Ni hen hao xuesheng.”

They halted at the curb. How they got there so swiftly, Rick had no clue, but they were already at the hotel. As they climbed out—Tom thanking the driver for the fun trip—Chen staring with confusion over the conversation he was clearly listening in to but wasn’t for him, and Daniel just as subdued as before—Rick exited with the inclination to ask the driver who he was. But immediately as the doors shut, the driver sped off without that chance.

“Who was that?” Chen murmured, staring out into the road.

“He wasn’t human,” Daniel said, nodding. “But he wasn’t hostile.”

Rick looked to him. Chills ran up and down his arms again. Especially since the driver had named Daniel by his knight’s title—Swift—just in Mandarin. Kuai. He knew who they were.

“Not human?” Chen took to Daniel.

“Nope!” Tom laughed, grinning. “His imps were hilarious though.”

Rick looked to him.

Tom winked. “I think we are being helped.”

“By whom?” Daniel asked, truly puzzled.

Tom shrugged. So did Chen. But Rick had a guess, which he did not dare voice just quite yet. He was afraid he would jinx their trip.

 

Tiger, Tiger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

 

When Daniel joined his fellows of the Seven, he promptly gave his report over what had occurred. Rick was standing in the doorway with Tom and Chen, arms folded and peevish over the fact that nothing could stay secret. But he’d rather be there and hear what Daniel had to say than have them talking behind his back.

Andy delivered Rick a chastening look at the end of the report. “Why can’t you just trust us?”

Shrugging, yet not apologetic, Rick replied, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know the nature of this wolf pack. And