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

the fire blossomed on the edges of their metal-feather wings in bright blue and violet flames as a sort of coppery reaction. But then they all blazed out, letting off light like fireworks in the daylight sky. The Stymphalian birds shrieked as they scattered, trying to put out the fire that now engulfed them. Streaks of light plummeted down to the forest.

Sun Laoshi hissed in panic, “Put that fire out before it hits the trees!”

The eyes of the Seven seemed to glow as they focused on the fire and the light within their hands. And as the flames licked up from around the charred winged beasts into nothingness, a cloud of light swelled like a halo, encircling the Seven in a powerful visible aura.

Travelers on the path who were not with their group stared at them with wide eyes. Around them was silence. No more birds. No more fire. Only distant chatter and exclamations at what had just occurred in the sky.

The Seven dusted off their hands, rubbing their palms from the stinging of heat that had been in them, and they pulled their gloves on again against the cold.

“Let’s go.” Andy waved over his shoulder for them to continue.

The others of the Seven nodded and continued on their way down the mountain path. Chen was breathlessly following. Rick and Sun Laoshi took up the rear. And as the Seven continued on their journey into the mountains, those other tourists nearby on the path hurried out of their way, eyes wide with horror.

“I think everyone saw that…,” Rick murmured, his eyes tracking those on the path who had hastily parted for their group.

“No matter,” Sun Laoshi said. He then looked to Chen. “It is better than those birds swarming a dragon overhead for everyone to see. Most people can mentally write off a light show.” 

Everyone in the group considered this and nodded. It was a true enough statement. But even in the Seven’s experience, they knew people tended not to believe their eyes, writing off most things as digital projections or hallucinations… including dragons. Chen peeked at them, knowing from Daniel’s past that the Seven had once brought a dragon from another world to their hometown and hardly anyone had paid attention to it—though Chen was not sure the reason was because they had ignored it rather than they were incapable of seeing it. The Seven didn’t respond to Sun Laoshi to contradict him about the dragon though. Chen was impressed.

They continued on their stony mountain path.

 

Huaguo Shan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

As they went further down the stony path, taking each step carefully with their eyes to the foliage and skies, they noticed some dead Stymphalian birds which had reached that far before they had died. Their charred bones shone like bronze, as did their burned beaks. People were staring them, murmuring in wonder at what they were.

Nothing had come after the birds just yet, and they had reached the Wind Pavilion where they took the next path down into the valley. They saw more burned birds along this way.

They passed a place selling and advertising China Mist Tea and went further in toward what on the map said was the Nine Dragon General Temple. They didn’t quite know what that meant. The buildings were beautiful though. The sky was a clear blue. And surrounded by so much frost and thin pile of snow, it made the place look like another world. They headed on to the cableway.

The cableway had a long line. Those English-speaking tourists who had been at the main entrance when they had come in were further up the line, but Rick noticed some of them had bought the tea from that earlier place, and a few had stopped for souvenirs from another place. They were chatting ahead of the line, excited to be going up the mountain to the peak. They intended to go to the Fair Maiden Peak and the Dawn Pavilion before going down to the Buddhist temple in the center of the park.

“Alright,” Andy whispered. “Once we get on the cableway, we locate as many concentrations of demons as we can. I get a feeling that we won’t be dealing with triad or CIA here. Just demons.”

“Just remember,” Eddie cut in with peeks to the tourists. “We need to keep the body count discreet.”

“No witnesses.” Semour nodded.

James shot him a look. “That sounded nasty. Say that again the way you mean it.”

Groaning, Semour nodded. “I meant try not to let people see what we are doing. We don’t need people calling the police on us about things they don’t understand.”

They all agree with nods.

But already they could feel a demonic presence in the proximity of the cableway station. 

“We go up in pairs,” Daniel said, peering at the seating arrangement. They were two-seaters.

Andy grabbed Rick’s arm. “I’ve got my partner.”

Rick glanced to the others who were smirking at them. He was perhaps the only one who, if something bad happened on the cableway, would not be as able to defend himself. Chen could fly off as a dragon. As for the Seven, they all had their ways around trouble. And Sun Laoshi… well, he was the Monkey King. Rick was just merely a wolf.

“Ok.” Rick advanced in the line next to Andy.

As they advanced in the line, one of the foreign tourists eyed Daniel funny. Daniel was standing with James as he would be his traveling buddy as usual, which on the whole must have looked odd to the outsider as Daniel appeared very much the Arab while James had that all-American boy-scout  look about him. And as they continued up the line the tourist looked out of sorts with confusion as he listened in on James’s and Daniel’s conversation—which was in pure metropolitan, American English. They sounded like they could have been on the Disney channel.

“When we get up there, keep an eye out for Tom. I didn’t see him when I arrived here, and I am worried those demons might have caught him.”

“Tom?” James sounded incredulous.

“Even Tom can be outwitted. Imps are impulsive. And Tom sometimes jumps at the first idea in his head.”

“But catch Tom? The dude can walk through walls.”

“I know, but I was doing some research on that, and Silvia says—”

“That witch? Swift, why are you trusting your sister so much now? She can’t possibly have reformed that quickly.”

“I’m not saying I trust her exactly… it’s just that she has access to information we don’t. Things that witches look for.”

James looked nonplussed.

“Remember when Tom came to Middleton Village for the first time?”

“Yeah?”

“The witches were all agog at his orange eyes. And I asked Rick about that—and he says Megan Delane was interested in his eyes as well, like a potion ingredient. So it got me thinking. How would a witch catch an imp? Or a half-imp like Tom?”

James shuddered, glancing over at Rick who also had to dodge witches as his body parts would be ‘prime’ witch potion ingredients.

“So… I researched some of the books Silvia has. She just let me.”

“No way,” James sounded breathless.

“Yeah. I really think she really intends to leave the coven. But that aside, in the book, it says an imp can be held captive by his wings. If you catch an imp by its wings, it can’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah, Eve told me that,” Rick interjected, overhearing them as well.

The eavesdropper peeked to Rick, then squinted at him, a flicker of vague recognition in his eyes, like he knew Rick was famous but he didn’t know how.

“Really?” Daniel looked impressed as well as surprised.

Rick nodded. “Yeah. She showed me once. She can catch imp real easy ‘cause she is so fast. And she said in an email that one girl had gotten a witch hex to lock her wings into her back once—I think her freshman year at college. It freaked her out.”

“Do you have a lot of contact with Eve McAllister?” Andy smirked at him.

Chuckling, Rick shook his head. “We used to email frequently—before she met Hans Johaansen again. After that… eh.”

“Wow.” Eddie snickered. “It still kills me she chose a poor med student over a multi-billionaire.”

Their eavesdropper colored. Now he fully recognized Rick. He quickly whispered over to his friends, pointing Rick out as surreptitiously as possible. But of course, both Sun Laoshi and Daniel noticed. So had Andy who quickly tugged Rick behind Eddie so their eavesdropper and crew could not see him so well. When they looked, they were disappointed. And Daniel smiled back at them.

“Ahsalamu ‘alaykum.”

They stared at him, pulling back.

“What was that?” James whispered into Daniel’s ear.

“Arabic,” Daniel whispered back. “It means hello.”

“You’re studying Arabic?” James hissed at him.

Daniel shook his head. “Peter is. But he taught me a few phrases.”

“I thought he was studying ancient Egyptian.”

“And modern Egyptian.”

“Oh.”

Their eavesdropper stared more.

Daniel gazed back then smiled, showing his bright teeth. It confused the man incredibly. He then looked over Daniel’s shoulder searching for Rick. But he could not see him as Andy was now in front of him and Sun Laoshi had also placed himself between them so that Rick was hidden.

“Is it always this hard for you to walk around in public?” Chen asked, too quiet for their eavesdropper to hear.

Rick shook his head. “No. Most people who don’t know me don’t recognize me. It was Eddie’s remark that tipped him off.”

“Sorry.” But Eddie chuckled at it.  

Semour shook his head.

And the line moved on.

Soon most of those tourists went onto the cableway cabins in pairs. The eavesdropper had eventually given up looking for Rick and he had soon gone on ahead on one. Then Daniel and James stepped on theirs. Behind them came Semour and Eddie. Andy and Rick were up next with Chen and Sun Laoshi taking the rear. The view, once they were lifted on the thick wires up toward Yunu Peak, gave them amazing view of numerous pine trees covered in frost, a good number of different pavilions in ancient Chinese style, the Jiulong Bridge, and most of the mountain area.

“Alright,” Andy said as he was alone with Rick. “You keep your eyes open for demons while I feel out for them.”

Rick nodded.

Over the frosted land of leafless trees, rooftops, and rocky terrain, they saw tourists like specks walking below. Andy cringed, clutching his wrist as they went past the watery areas.

“Damn,” Andy cursed under his breath. “That monk was right. Most of those demons are at those waterfalls. But also feel them over there. And they are angry.”

“You can feel that?” Rick peered hard at him.

Nodding, Andy said, “We can feel when a supernatural thing wishes to harm us. It is why having you and Tom near hardly bothers us.”

Rick slowly nodded. It was a comforting assurance—like an alarm system. Andy could probably tell when a friend was turning into a foe—if it were a supernatural creature, that is.

It was a slow trip up. Andy seemed to get tenser the closer they came to the station up top—like he could feel something was waiting for them. Rick wondered if that were the case, wouldn’t the demonic force just try to destroy the cableway?

“Are you preparing to jump?” Rick asked, watching his friend intently.

Andy, who was shifting to the edge his seat said, “Let’s hope it does not come to that.”

Daniel’s and