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

they have been doing together. Rick, I am afraid for her. Jessica thinks Silvia is going straight. She thinks Silvia is leaving the coven.”

“Silvia is leaving the coven,” Daniel cut in, calling up from his seat.

Andy looked back to him. His eyes narrowed. “You’ve been suckered in too?”

Daniel shook his head. “Not suckered in. I have proof.”

Andy paled, clearly not believing it.

“What proof do you have?” Rick asked, because he truly wanted to know.

Snorting, Daniel nodded to him. “You know that hair you gave her?”

Andy whipped his eyes on Rick now. Rick blinked, thinking about that hair. That last incident was a while ago.

“You gave her one of your hairs?” Andy exclaimed.

“Through a friend,” Rick murmured, still thinking about it.

Emitting another snort, Daniel started to smirk. “Yeah. Well, Silvia purposely lost it and sent the hair of an ex-boyfriend instead.”

Entirely surprised, Rick busted up, laughing. He was sure he knew which ex it was too. Harlin Nichols. A cocky guy from NYU who deserved a little harassment after the way he had stalked another ex of his, a girl whom Rick also knew.

“It got the coven all riled up when they found out it wasn’t yours,” Daniel said. “Totally freaked that guy out. And Silvia just pretended that it was an accident. You know she works in a hair salon right now. Your girlfriend told me all about it.”

“Girlfriend?” Completely bewildered, Rick wondered how Daisy would possibly know Silvia Lewis?

The flight attendants (while continuing with their safety demonstration) walked down the middle of them to break up the conversation, shooting Rick chastening looks.

They all pulled back into their seats.

Once the flight attendants finished their demonstration they took their seats near the front of the plane.

Andy leaned across the aisle. “What girlfriend? Are you dating finally?”

Rick growled, peeking once to Chen and then to Tom. “I go on dates, but I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Daniel laughed. “You tell that to Silvia. She’s convinced Audry and you are going to end up together.”

“Audry?” Rick blinked. It took a second for the name to register. When it did, he blushed. “Audry Bruchenhaus? She’s hanging around Silvia? I told her not to!”

Daniel shrugged, smirking. “Audry is the one helping her leave the coven—with Jessica.”

Andy, though, stared at Rick with a look of faint betrayal. “You know that other friend of hers?”

Overwhelmed by the information, Rick pulled back. The airplane was starting to go a little faster. It was finally preparing to lift off the tarmac. “Are you saying Jessica is emailing you about Audry Bruchenhaus?”

“Who’s Audry?” Chen chimed up.

Other heads perked, listening.

Groaning, Rick clenched his hair. The plane went even faster, drawing them into their seats.

“You don’t mean that chick we met at the ski lodge, do you?” Tom chimed in, snickering.

Rick gazed at the cabin ceiling. “Yes.”

“She’s your girlfriend?” Chen’s face had cranked up into a crooked smirk.

“No.” Rick moaned. “She’s just a girl I know.”

Andy closed one eye and peered at him. “Just a girl?”

“Sounds suspicious to me,” James said.

Daniel was also smirking.

Eddie smiled. “Tell us about her.”

Groaning louder as the plane lifted off, Rick said. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a girl I keep running into. We barely have anything in common.”

“She’s an animal rescue worker,” Tom interjected.

Rick kicked his seat. “She’s a VEGAN. And she doesn’t like rich boys. So get off it already.”

Daniel snickered, shaking his head. He was enjoying this too much.

“You think she’s hot,” Tom said.

Rick kicked his seat again. “Beside the point. I think a lot of girls are hot.”

“She dug a silver bullet out of your leg,” Tom put in again, and popped out of seatbelt, turning around so he could face Rick.

The guys from the Seven gasped.

“You didn’t tell us this,” Andy said, now really interested.

“When did this happen?” Eddie asked, intrigued.

Semour listened intently, while James looked to Daniel to see if he had heard the story.

“That winter just before your mom came back, right?” Chen said. “It was on that ski trip.”

“What ski trip?” Andy asked jealously.

Moaning, Rick replied, “It was a ski trip I arranged for my friends from Brown and my friends from Gulinger. I had gone early for the full moon, hoping the animal reserve at the ski resort would be a good cover, as the SRA had followed me to my first place. But they found me and followed me to the resort. Audry…” He heaved a weary sigh. “Audry was there working on her Master’s degree, and she happened to be in the den I escaped into just after I was shot in the leg. She tranquilized the wolf, and pulled the bullet out. She has no clue that I was the wolf—and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Oh.” James and Eddie sounded disappointed. Semour closed his eyes and leaned back again in his seat, the story over. Daniel gazed with smirking eyes, not saying what he was thinking. Chen and Tom exchanged grinning looks.

Andy, however, eyed Rick critically as the plane was rising higher into the air, eventually reaching altitude. “But you like her.”

Feeling hot in the face, Rick tried to maintain his composure. “Audry is a decent person. I’d like to keep her out of the mess that is my life.” He then turned toward Daniel, “You should keep her away from Silvia.”

“Too late,” Daniel said. “They became roommates.”

“What?” Rick almost jumped from his seat.

Raising his hands, Daniel explained. “Audry has been her salvation, Rick. Because you entrusted your hair with Audry to give to Silvia, and because you told Audry to tell her to see me about leaving the coven… Silvia has… she has hope. You gave her a chance to do the right thing. And Audry is helping her out.”

“And this Audry is hanging out with Jessica,” Andy added.

Rick whipped his eyes to him. “What?”

Andy sighed, nodding. “Jessica told me she and Silvia were helping this girl Audry stay safe from her ex, whom she had taken out a court order against. The guy violated it twice now.”

“Harlin,” Rick muttered.

Andy blinked, hearing Rick’s irritation. “Yeah. Jessica said it was some jerk named Harlin.”

Rick moaned.

“So that’s your Audry…” Andy murmured, sitting back in his seat, somehow more relaxed.

“Not my Audry,” Rick snapped. “Audry is a free person. Not my girlfriend. We hardly know each other.”

Daniel chuckled.

“That’s too bad,” Tom said, slipping back into his seat. “I totally shipped the Vegewolf.”

“The what?” Rick dryly stared toward Tom’s seat.

Popping up again, Tom said, “The Vegewolf. You know, the vegan-werewolf.”

“I’m not going vegan,” Rick bit back.

Smirking, Tom winked at Rick. “Nah, but you looked cute together.”

“Better than Daisy…” Eddie muttered.

Rick colored. He had not told Chen or Tom about Daisy. But when he met Tom’s eyes, Tom leaned back, huffed, and shook his head. He wondered what Tom culled from his shouting imps about Daisy. Rick still had those temptations tormenting the back of his thoughts, urging him to just ditch everything to go find Daisy for a love tryst. His nagging addiction wasn’t as bad as it used to be, but it was still there.

Journey to the West Coast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

 

 

Once the pilot announced they could leave their seats, Tom popped out and sat lightly on a seat back. At first the flight attendant tried to get him to get off the back of the seat fearing he might break it from his weight, but Rick hushed her and said it was ok. Tom could make himself lighter than a bubble and float around if he wanted—and he usually did when he was bored. Rick only gave him one rule: Don’t leave the aircraft. He could get blown away at the speed they were going, even if he could fly.

Tom took off his suit coat and let his wings stretch. The fight attendants stared at them, though they didn’t say anything. Hand-sized, Tom’s wings stuck out through two nicely tailored slits in his shirt, which he could easily slip them in and out of when necessary. Rick also discovered he had the slits in his vest and jacket too, so it really was just itchy to Tom.

As they cruised across the US to the west coast, Rick got out of his seat and said to his friends, “Alright, we need to brief ourselves on what we might expect. Daniel, if you could please tell us about the Chinese demons you have researched and something about that book, I’ll give the floor to you. Chen if you can chime in and confirm anything, I’d also appreciate it.”

“Man, you really got this businessman thing working for you,” Tom said, smirking at Rick while Daniel rose from his seat and Rick sat next to Andy.

Daniel nodded, chuckling as he took his place. However, he also pulled out his touchpad computer and pulled up the information. “Ok, here it is. In China you have all kinds of demons and ghosts—”

“We should have brought JJ then,” Tom murmured to himself.

Andy bristled at the mention of JJ. But Rick said, “He is in the middle of a homicide case with Jessica and Matt.”

“You called him?” Andy asked, his voice grating with irritation.

Rick shook his head. “Jessica told me.”

“You talked to Jessica?” Andy said, even more irritated.

“For this trip,” Rick said, “But yeah. She and I talk all the time. And you should regularly talk with her too.”

Andy flushed, looking away.

“Ok… after being so rudely interrupted,” Daniel continued. “As I said, ghosts and demons. The Chinese also have various celestial deities. I’m assuming these are actually elves and god-elves.”

The others in the Seven nodded, well-versed in true elf-lore. Chen and Rick looked puzzled, though.

“And they have this kind of zombie, which is more like a vampire with really stiff arms,” Daniel said. “They’ve also got weretigers rather than werewolves, and…” he shuddered, “dragons.”

“Dragons bother you?” Chen spoke up.

James said, “He’s got dragon-o-phobia.”

Semour and Eddie snorted.

Daniel threw the nearest seat pillow at James.

“Anyway, anything specific we need to watch out for?” Rick asked.

Looking to his touchpad, Daniel said, “Specifics… uh, I got a list of really weird names of things and what they do.”

“Read it,” Andy militaristically said. “We need specifics.”

“Ok… Ghosts.” Daniel peered at the list, reading them off deadpan. “Shuigui—ghosts of the drowned that like to drown people. And Hungry ghosts who are doomed to starvation. The banana tree ghost who can give you really good lotto numbers if you tie a red string to their tree. But you have to free them afterward or they will kill you—”

“They have a ghost for lotto numbers?” Tom laughed.

Daniel shrugged, nodding.

The others looked to Chen who shrugged. Apparently he really didn’t know much of the mythology. Rick was a little surprised and also disappointed.

“The Yangui—restless wandering ghosts. The You hun ye gui—ghosts trapped in a state of undeath—”

“What does that mean?” Semour asked, raising a finger.

Daniel read over the passage. “It is a ghost who has delayed reincarnation and is at risk at remaining trapped in the intermediate state forever. I think this is based on the concept of Buddhist reincarnation.” He then read on. “The Gui po, also known as the Old Witch—a ghost who takes the appearance of a friendly old man or woman who are supposedly ghosts of the servants in wealthy families. They return to help with the housework or to care of the master’s