Ghoulies Abroad by Julie Steimle (bts book recommendations txt) 📖

the place while Tom ordered the imps to tear apart all the inside security cameras.

Trembling, the thug nodded. “…Most of us, yes. And if any of them come back here and see me here with you, I am a dead man.”

They considered that for a second, until Tom said. “That is easily taken care of.”

The man about screamed—but Daniel knocked the thug out then both he and Tom dragged the guy into another room where they tied him up and gagged him.

“This is not how I intended to go through China,” Rick muttered, watching them.

“I know.” Chen looked around. “I feel a little dirty—but they are triad—Chinese mob.”

Rick nodded. “Yeah… Dangerous folk. I wonder who their boss is. He must be some big wig if that guy was so terrified to say who he was.”

Hopping back, Tom nodded. “Yep. I don’t even know. We could really use Matt right about now.”

“Nah.” Rick shook his head on that thought. “I don’t want Matt to get shot.”

The Seven all gave him a funny look, then shrugged it off.

“I’ll take first watch,” Daniel announced.

They all agreed and chose a room to congregate in for sleep.

While on watch, three men came to the apartment that evening. Daniel dispatched them easily enough. Semour leveled two more during his shift. None of them were killed, but all five of intruders ended up stripped and tied together, then stuffed into the spare room where the Seven had left their first thug guide. When the Seven and the rest awoke to the smell of Tom raiding their kitchen and cooking up breakfast, Andy dragged Chen into the backroom for an interrogation session.

Andy tugged off the gag from one of the later thug intruders, leaving their first captive alone.

“Ok,” Andy severely eyed him, “Talk. Who is your boss, and what deal did he make with those demons?”

The guy pretended not to understand him. However, Chen translated everything in clear Mandarin.

But the man just cussed at Chen with language that made Chen color.

Rick wandered in, scratching his head. “Hey, I’m gonna hit the showers. It looks like the place is well stocked with…” He stopped when the eyes of those thugs widened on him. They recognized him almost immediately. “Hi.”

Their thug from last night shuddered. He looked meaningfully on his cohorts with the desire to tell them what he knew about Rick. Unfortunately for him, his gag was duct tape that Tom somehow had on him.

“I’ll just…” Rick gestured back out the door.

Chen and Andy both nodded, urging him to leave the room.

“You work for the Deacons?” that thug said in clear English, with barely an accent.

Turning to look at the Chinese thug, Andy shook his head, peering coldly at him. His eyes raked over his gang symbol tattoos and his punked hair. “Nah. I’ve known him for years. We grew up together. He just funds this little adventure.”

The thug spat at Andy.

Stiffening, Andy closed his eyes, wiping the goo off.

In most cases, people would have shaken in their socks from the killer look on Andy’s face just then. But this thug merely cursed at him with a mixture of English and Mandarin as he shouted, “And share that with your friend! I’m telling you nothing!”

Chen raised his eyebrows with a look to Andy. Then he said, “Can I eat him?”

Their first thug made panicked noises under his gag.

Shooting Chen a narrow looks, Andy shook his head. “Are you serious?”

“I can be a dragon. One bite,” Chen offered helpfully.

Andy stared blankly, still not sure he was not merely being facetious.

“I ate the old witch who kept me captive in China Town. Go ask Rick,” Chen explained, not so much eagerly, but matter-of-factly as if to say ‘I’m not hungry or anything—I can just do the job’.

Shaking his head, Andy said, repressing a chuckle, “No. This apartment can’t handle a dragon. Besides, Swift would have a cow—and honestly you should not suggest eating people as an option. What’s wrong with you?”

Chen raised his hands in exasperation, giving up. He stepped back.

“You’re crazy,” that one thug said. “You both are.”

But Chen peeled down the gag of the first one they had caught. Immediately freed, that one shouted in Mandarin every bit of his terror, relating what he had seen the night before.

Of course his fellow thugs stared at that one as if the guy and been huffing some kind of drug. They had not believed a word of it. They accused him of being insane also.

Andy shrugged. “Fine. We’ll just leave you here and keep going. We already know we need to go to Lianyungang.”

“You told!” the one thug accused their first captive.

“We were already heading there,” Chen freely replied. He then taped up their gags again, patting their cheeks

When they left the room and shut the door, Andy muttered to himself, “Well that was useless.”

The others stared when they saw the two of them emerge.

“So what are our options?” Eddie asked.

Yet Andy turned and looked around the corner of one hallway “What is that sound?”

“Laundry,” Daniel said. He pointed into that side room. “They actually have a washer and a drier. Rick said a drier is rare in this country so I figured…”

“Good point,” Andy murmured, thinking about his own filthy clothes. “But we can’t stay here all day waiting for laundry.”

“But we should stay here long enough to check out our tech,” Semour called over. “We need to find out what is dry and still functioning.”

Nodding toward him, Andy pointed. “I’ll leave that to you.”

Rick eventually came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and carrying his clothes with a dismayed understanding that all his things were mucky with river water. James went in the room the second he was out.

The towels were perfect. Incredibly soft. The place was better than a five star hotel. The beds were phenomenal. Whoever they were, the mobsters in that town lived well. Whoever owned that apartment was stinking rich.

When the passed the doorway containing their captives, Rick peeked in. He noticed some of them had managed to get their gags off and they were whispering among themselves plans for escape. He slipped inside, still just in a towel. All of them stared.

“Hi,” Rick said, wrapping his towel tighter around his waist. They stared at his face, then the huge obvious scars on his shoulder. “Look, I don’t actually want my friends to kill you and all, but they have been at war for a long time and they were called here to China to do a special job. Now, if you interfere in their job, they’re just going to lop your heads off. I just want to warn you.”

“You’re full of it,” one of them said in excellent English. “And you’re dead for messing with us.”

Rick glanced to their first captive, who was still gagged for some reason. “Should I tell them the truth?”

That guy whimpered shaking his head and pulling back.

Thinking that thug was probably right, shrugging, Rick turned and walked out of the room. There was no point in telling them anything that would cause them more trouble. He didn’t need to give them any leverage.

“Do you know who they are?” Daniel asked when Rick entered the kitchen. He tried to keep his eyes off of Rick’s large scars.  

Rick shook his head. “Nah. A triad. I don’t know which. They’re territorial, and Dad has had encounters with a few mob groups here and there, you know.”

“They seem to know you.” James eyed him. He had been engulfing a plateful of eggs. The refrigerator had been fully stocked with nearly anything a western person could want—including meats and ready-made food. Same with the pantry.

“Just my face,” Rick replied in protest. It was a pretty normal thing for him. He tugged around his towel more to keep it on.

“Where are your clothes?” Andy asked, eyeing Rick’s bare chest and scars.

Rick pointed with his head. “Laundry.”

“Can you put something on?” Eddie snapped, eyeing him also.

Nodding, Rick dropped on all paws and jogged away from his towel as a wolf, going to a back bedroom where he had seen a bathrobe. Most of them laughed as he went. It took a moment, but Rick grabbed the robe, put that on, and strolled back into the front room. When he came back out where everyone was, they were discussing what to do with their captives.

“I say we just leave them here,” Daniel suggested.

“But they are witnesses,” Chen replied with annoyance.

Sighing, both James and Semour nodded with full understanding what it meant to leave witnesses who could cause trouble.

“They are thugs that screwed up,” Eddie chuckled as if he didn’t think it was that big of a deal. “Their boss might punish them for us.”

“Or get information from them,” Andy interjected.

“We should just leave them,” Tom declared, setting down a plate of delicious smelling omelets on the table. He had already put out bread, bacon and some reheated waffles. “It doesn’t really matter what they say or if they live or not. We were hired to deal with demons, not their mob. If they are making deals with demons, they will deserve what they get from those demons—but we can’t turn them over to the cops without a crime or evidence. Besides, it would slow us down.”

“They might follow us,” Chen retorted, looking meaningfully at Tom.

Tom nodded back. “True. But I can sabotage their mob group now that I know they exist.”

That was a fair point. All of them gazed at Tom in appreciation that he had come on that trip. Tom had, after all, an army of imps at his beck and call whenever he needed them. And sabotage was Tom’s expertise.

Semour looked up from his tech, pulling out their cell phones from where he had placed them after extracting them from the rice. “Ok. So let’s just make sure we are on the same page.” He handed out each phone, gesturing for them all to check them. “We still don’t know why we had to come to Yancheng. I don’t think those, uh, zombie vampires—”

“Jianshi,” Chen corrected.

“—were the reason. Those two ladies were fox demons, and that whole thing on the river bank and in the village was a trap.” Semour handed Rick back his phone. “Maybe this whole thing has to do with the triad here and their involvement with demons.”

“That’s a thought…” Tom stroked his chin introspectively. He twirled his sunglasses, thinking more about it. He leaned against the counter top.

“A very good point,” Andy murmured, resting more heavily on his stool.

Daniel went silent, nodding pensively to himself.

“The problem is we don’t know for certain,” Semour grumbled. He stared at his computer things irritably.

“So maybe we need to find out what local triads are in this area” Daniel then shot a look to Rick. “How’s your cell phone?”

Rick shrugged then pressed the on button. It slowly booted. Then it turned on completely. Nothing damaged. He lifted it. “Good shape.”

“Call your dad,” Daniel suggested. “As him about any local triads he knows in this area.”

Nodding, Rick dialed. It made total sense.

The phone went directly to voice message, as usual. So he left a brief message to call or text him. Rick then texted out the question.

 

We’re in Yancheng. Do you know of any triads in this area? You know, mob groups.

 

When he closed his phone, Rick said, “Give him a bit. Dad doesn’t like to pick up the phone directly. He’ll answer as soon as he can.”

With that said, there was nothing else to do but get breakfast and dry their musty bags before repacking them. Semour used that time to examine Rick’s computer, salvaging what he could. He beckoned Rick over when he dragged it from the rice.

“I hate to tell you this, but uh… you can’t use your computer for a while.” Semour shook his head. “I separated the battery from it and uh, I got as much water as I could out… but even if we dried it out for a month, eventually the parts are going to oxidize.