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

us,” Andy said, rising to the occasion—as he should. He gently walked past Rick and pushed Rick behind. “He said there was trouble among the tigers—” and with a look to Rick he added, “—and wolves.”

Heart racing, the prickles on Rick’s neck increased. He could feel that very many tigers were surrounding them.

“Who are you?” the voice called out.

Lifting his chin, Andy said, “I am Andrew Cartwright. Leader of the Holy Seven and sanctioned by the UN with approval of China for the regulation of wayward supernatural behavior.”

That was a mouthful. Rick stared at his friend, wondering if Andy had practiced that for just such an occasion.

A growl answered him. “So why do you bring a wolf among us?”

Andy did not even look back. “That is Howard Richard Deacon the Third. The monk contacted him to reach us. He has brought us here, as he has already finished dealing with the wayward wolf pack.”

A tiger showed himself. He immediately formed into a man—a man who luckily had shorts on. His face was still tiger-like, but the rest of him appeared as naturally Asian as the wolves did. “We do not recognize the authority of this monk or that wolf. You will leave this mountain now.”

But Andy did not budge. He gazed squarely at the tiger, clenching his right fist as if it was causing him great pain as he said, “Let me make this clear. Either you let us investigate if the rumors of weretigers going wild are true and deal with those who are acting wrongly, or—”

“What?” the tiger man laughed. “You will destroy us?”

“If needs be,” Andy replied.

Each one of the Seven drew their swords.

Tom performed a mid-air flip backward, landing within the group next to Chen, whispering for any guns to be empty of bullets and weapons to slip from their enemy’s fingers.

Rick took a step down towards them.

The tiger man snorted. “You are either very foolish or extremely brave.”

“We have defeated dragons and sorcerers,” Andy replied with resolution unmoved. “And we have been soldiers at war for many years. I have slain more than you can imagine—including wolves and tigers.”

Rick wondered about the tigers. It was possible, but it could also be a bluff.

“And zombies and elves and demons…” James added nonchalantly.

The tiger man stared at him, then shot a look to Rick. He spoke to him. “Are you their pet?”

Blinking, surprised he was talking to him, Rick said, “Uh, no. Tamen wo de pengyou.”

With a doubtful huff that they were his friends as Rick had stated, the tiger man then looked at Chen, clearly ignoring Tom for some reason. “And him?”

“Translator,” Andy said.

However, the tiger man shook his head. “No… He is not that. I can feel it.”

Rick cricked his head. He then sniffed. His eyes then raked the shadows and the glowing eyes among them. He drew in a breath. Shooting a look to Tom, he met Tom’s orange-eyed gaze. His sunglasses were in his hands. Tom nodded grimly. Rick said loudly, “That’s amazing. I had no idea weretigers had that kind of gift. Us wolves don’t have such a thing.”

Everyone in the Seven shared a look. They gripped their swords a little tighter.

Snarling, the eloquently-spoken tiger man fixed his eyes on Rick. “Wolves are pathetic.”

“Hey Red! Catch!” Daniel tossed ahead something.

Andy caught it, then stared at it. It was a bottle of honey. A little oozy and not well sealed. There was still a store tag on it though.

Rick pulled away. So did a number of those tigers in the shadows. But not the leader.

“Are you wearing the ring I gave you for luck?” Daniel also asked.

Nodding, Andrew rested his right hand on his sword hilt and extended his left hand (which was now a little sticky from the honey that had leaked from the bottle) to the tiger man. “Just shake my hand in truce and we will walk away from here.”

Narrowing his eyes on Andy, the tiger man shook his head. “You would stab me.”

“On my honor as a knight of the Seven, I will not stab you,” Andy said gravely. “We have no proof that you are up to no good. Only rumor. Your fellow tigers will attack us if I stab you anyway.”

Thinking over that logic, the tiger man glanced to his cohorts. More than half of the tiger people had pulled back and were now just watching him.

Rick held his breath.

The tiger man gripped Andy’s hand, grinning with sharp tiger teeth. He began to sprout fur again. He clearly intended to bite Andy—though he never got that far. Several tigers sprang from the shadows, snarling and pounced on their leader.

Yowling, cursing, the tiger man immediately fleshed out as a tiger to fight back. “Wo shi ni de tou’r!”

“Bu shi!” several tigers roared out. “Ni shi yaoguai!”

“Bu! Bu! Bu! Shi tamen!” the tiger leader screamed, pointing to the seven as he swiped away one of those attacking him.

“Bu dui!” screamed another, this one a supporter of the tiger man. Then he rattled off something Rick did not comprehend at all.

Chen immediately stamped his foot, grumbling. He yanked off his coat, handing it to Tom, then he kicked off his shoes. In three seconds he slithered out of his clothes as a coral snake then fleshed out as a Bengal tiger, letting off an enormous roar.

The entire tiger village turned with recognition as well as bowing respect toward him. Chen could not speak like they could, of course. He was all tiger when he was tiger. It was entirely different from being part tiger part human. So Rick shouted, “That so-called leader of yours is a demon! Nimen de tou’r shi yaoguai!”

“Women zhi dao!” snapped back a huge orange and black striped cat. It snarled with an angry look at Rick. “Ta zhao fengmi he yuqi le! Women bu ke neng!”

Those who had supported their leader against the rest of the pack shared worried looks and pulled back, looking for escape. But their fellow tigers had surrounded them.

“What did they say?” Eddie asked, looking to Rick.

Rick hopped down the stairs toward him for safety. “Daniel’s trick worked. They know their so-called leader is a demon. They saw him touch the honey and the jade without a reaction—while of course they can’t.”

Hearing him, the demons in the group changed shape, shooting off in different directions.

But Chen changed also.

Twisting skyward, a green dragon snaked upward among the tall trees and snatched with his claws at all the demons he could. The tigers scattered.

Daniel was shaking, grabbing onto James to keep from falling down the stairs. Rick took cover behind a tree just off the path while Chen’s tail lashed about, swatting down those demons he could not catch. Unfortunately he missed three of them.

“Mine!” Semour shouted. He drew out a folded cross bow from his pack, picking the fleeing demons off like balloons pinned up at a fair booth. Each shape-shifting demon dropped to the ground with an arrow bolt in his skull.

Eddie stepped next to him. “Your aim is getting scarier each time I see you with that.”

Semour smirked like an old man.

But they had missed one. It had contorted into the shape of a dragon also, forcing Chen to drop two of his captives. Those two scrambled on clawed paws into the bushes—only the tigers went after them. Yowls ensued, though it was not clear if it was the tiger or the demon who was getting hurt.

“Bai Nian!” snarled the dragon battling Chen. “Ni si le!” His claws elongated treacherously close to throat, straining to slashing deep into Chen’s scales.

As another demon fell from Chen’s grip, Daniel nailed it with a thrown knife, piercing through his temple. Chen slashed and bit at the other dragon, crushing one demon within his claws while tossing the other to the tigers. Both dragons dropped hard onto the stairs, rolling down with heavy painful thuds.

Everyone scrambled out of the way. However, Chen-the-dragon soon had bitten off one of his adversary’s arms and clamped down on the demon dragon’s throat.

“Whoa! Don’t kill it yet!” Eddie rushed up to them, hands up. “We need to find out where he comes from!”

“And why’s that?” Tom asked, hopping down from his perch, which had been in the nearest branch of a very high tree.

“Because I don’t think they are on their own. We thing something bigger is going on,” Eddie shouted.

James advanced on the dragons, nodding with Daniel in tow—though Daniel currently was unable to support his own weight out of sheer terror. Semour and Andy crept forward with swords pointed at their captive. The demon’s eyes goggled on their weapons. “You foul yangguizi!”

Chen clamped down harder.

“What did he call us?” James snapped.

Rick rolled his eyes. “Foreign devils.”

Tom snorted. Slapping his chest he said, “Let’s get one thing straight here, I am the closest to a foreign devil you are going to meet. Who is your boss?”

Spitting at him, the demon dragon hissed. “Ni xiaogui, ni shi miaoxiao.”

Chen bit even harder. It yowled and shrank down into a nasty looking yellowish thing with bulgy red eyes, a jutting chin and inordinately huge fangs from both the top and bottom teeth. In fact he looked just like one of those wood-carved Chinese demon face masks, only alive.

“What did he just say to Tom?” James asked.

Rick shrugged. “Not sure.”

But Tom spat back at the demon. “Oh yeah? You tell that to Queen Maeve for me! Because that stinking fairy won’t leave me alone!”

“Tom!” Rick stared. “Do you understand him?”

Nodding sharply, Tom said, “Of course. Demons all speak the same language even when they are speaking in another one. He could be speaking Ancient Greek and I would understand him. It is the language of the mind. It’s just on another wavelength.” He then shot the demon another scathing look.

“So what did he say?” James asked.

“Irrelevant,” Tom bit back. He then growled at the demon, rattling off a tirade none had heard from Tom before. “…so there! Now you had better fess up or—”

“I’m telling you nothing! This Bai Nian would sooner eat me than let me go for my troubles!” The demon clawed at Chen the dragon for spite, but made no mark in Chen scales at all. A low rumble in Chen’s throat answered that he was more inclined to just rip the demon apart than trouble his stomach with a demon lunch.

Andy advanced on the demon with his sword, pointing the red blade at its throat. “Perhaps not. But if you confess, you may go to heaven.”

“Which one?” the demon cackled, now choking on his own blood.

Rolling his eyes, Andy groaned. Rick recalled that the Chinese had more hells and heaven was a physical reachable place where immortals dwelt with their own bureaucracy—a place he would not have described as Heaven.

“Diyu will take me,” the demon growled. “I care not for your Heaven.”

Huffing, Chen stabbed in deeper with his claws.

The demon yowled. He let out a torrent of unintelligible curses. Infuriated, Tom jumped up and stomped on one of Chen’s digging-in claws, ramming it entirely into the creature, killing it.

“Tom!” Rick shouted.

Tom vehemently shook his head. “No. He was calling on a curse to damn us all. I had to end it.”

They stared.

“What kind of demon was that?” Daniel asked, breathless.

“How could he damn us?” Eddie muttered.

Semour nodded to him, agreeing.

Chen shrank down into monkey shape, shuddering. He scrambled back to his clothes.

Tom sighed, shaking his head. “Figuratively. In the case of stopping our progress to…” he peeked to Rick and the watching tigers, “…our destination.”

They nodded, getting it.

“He was summoning more help to stop our progress,” Chen said once human again and dressed. He nodded to Tom. “You did right.”

But the tigers pulled back from Chen. One of them hissed, “Are you really a Bai Nian?”

Chen stiffened with a side peek to them. He looked ready to go dragon again.

Andy stepped up and said, “He is under our protection.”

They tigers eyed him. “Who are you again?”

“Show him your ID,” Rick said.

The tigers shot him a savage look.

“Hey!”