Michael Belmont and the Heir of Van Helsing (The Adventures of Michael Belmont) (9 page)

“Well,” Link said, “I’m waiting.
 
Are we gonna see this trick of yours or not?”

Everyone laughed.
 
Everyone except Michael.
 
He didn’t think it was funny at all.

“Oh, of course Lincoln, of course.
 
Do me a favor and give me your jacket, won’t you?”

Mihnea took off his own jacket, hung it on the back of his chair, and took the long leather duster Link had been wearing, put it on himself, then sat back down.

Everyone laughed again while Link looked around the table in confusion.

“Do someone else now,” Abby told him.

“Alright,” he smiled.

He looked at Raymond.
 
“Young man, what is your name?”

Raymond looked at him blankly.
 
“I…I can’t remember.”

“And where do you live?” Mihnea went on.

“I don’t know.”

“No? I think you’ll remember if you try.”

“Sure I remember, I live in Sedona.”

“And your name?
 
You remember, don’t you?”

“My name’s Raymond.”

Everyone looked impressed, but Michael noticed that his father looked a bit troubled.
 
It reminded him of the look he got when he was doing something his dad didn’t particularly approve of, but probably wasn’t going to yell at him for.

“Well, that’s enough of that,” Mihnea told them.
 
“Here comes our food.”

The conversation was pleasant through the rest of dinner.
 
Michael had some kind of chicken dish that he couldn’t quite pronounce.
 
He enjoyed the food, although he didn’t admit it to anyone.
 
What surprised him the most, and even disappointed him, was the way his uncle Link was acting toward Mihnea.
 
Michael had expected him to give the man a hard time, but he was actually being downright pleasant.

After dinner, Michael got Link off by himself in the parking lot.
 
“Hey, what’s wrong with you,” he whispered.
 
“How could you be so nice to that jerk in there?”

Link looked confused, as if he didn’t know what Michael was talking about.

“I…I don’t really know.
 
I mean, I came here tonight ready to smack the taste out of that guy’s mouth, but, well…”

“Well, WHAT?” Michael yelled.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “now that I’ve met him, I really like him.
 
I don’t know why, I just…really, really like that guy.
 
He’s okay in my book.”

“WHAT?” Michael growled.
 
“Uncle Link, that guy made you look like an
fool
tonight and now he’s your new best friend?
 
Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

Link just stood there and looked at him blankly.

Michael’s father had taken notice and came over to stand between them.

“Hey,” he told Michael calmly, “why don’t you go and pick on somebody your own size.”

“But—,”

“Get!” his father commanded, and he begrudgingly walked back to the car.
 
Elizabeth and his mother were jabbering nearby.

Michael looked back at his father and uncle, who continued to talk for a few minutes.
 
When his father came back over, he got in the car.

“Dad—,”

“Look, I know there’s something weird going on.
 
For now just keep your cool.
 
We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

Michael nodded.
 
At least he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed it.
 
He had a bad feeling about this Mihnea guy, and he was determined to figure out why.

The day soon came when the MacDonalds were scheduled to arrive, and Michael and Abigail were preparing one of the upstairs guest rooms for Liam.

Abigail insisted on making his bed with Strawberry Shortcake sheets, with a matching pillowcase and comforter.
 
She also brought in some potpourri and placed a pink towel in the bathroom for him.

“He’s getting off easy this time,” she told her brother, “and he’d better not complain about any of it either, or I’ll put food coloring in his shampoo to turn his hair pink.”

Michael knew his sister would do it, because she’d perfected the technique on him, so he wasn’t about to argue with her about it.

The second upstairs guest room was prepared for Mrs. Stoker, the guest the MacDonalds were bringing with them, and Mr. MacDonald’s room was located downstairs near his parents.

Once all the rooms were ready, Mrs. Belmont and Abigail began to prepare lunch, so that the guests could have a nice meal when they arrived.
 
Mr. Belmont had driven down to Phoenix to pick them up from the airport and would be getting back within the hour.

Michael’s mother seemed to be in an especially good mood, so he decided to tempt fate and bring up the subject of the amulet.

“Michael,” she told him sternly,
 
“I told you before that I’m not going to let you touch that amulet again until we get some more information about what happened with it the last time.
 
I want answers as much as you do, but you need to be patient.”
 
She looked at Anubis’s ring on his finger and frowned.
 
Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to get the thing off, and had even threatened to take him to the jeweler and have it cut.

‘But Mom, what if it explodes or something?’ he’d told her.
 
She hadn’t mentioned it since, but he often found her giving the ring distrustful looks.

Michael was disappointed that she wouldn’t let him handle the amulet, but knew that arguing would just put her in a bad mood.

“Oh,” she added, “By the way, don’t bother doing any of that fancy detective work of yours to try and find the thing either, because it won’t work.”
 
She gave him a big
I know something you don’t know
type of smile.
 
“Now why don’t you make yourself useful and set the table.”

He immediately headed to the silverware drawer, knowing it was too late to escape the menial task.
 
Abigail gave him a taunting smile, which he ignored.

“So, Mom, what do you think of this Mihnea guy anyway?”

“
I
think he’s charming,” broke in Abigail.

Mrs. Belmont rolled her eyes.
 
“Well, yes, he is charming, and very handsome as well…”

“And?” pressed Michael.

“And,” she continued carefully, “he seems to be making Elizabeth very happy.
 
In fact, she’s leaving tomorrow to spend a month in Romania with him.”

“What?” Michael grumbled.
 
“Why wasn’t I told about this?”

His mother put her hands on her hips and shook her head at him.
 
“Who are you all of a sudden?
 
Her father?
 
Besides,
I
didn’t even know about it until this morning.”

Michael thought she looked a little mad about that.
 

“Well I don’t like it, and I don’t trust him,” he told her.

“Oh yeah,” Abigail waved her finger in his face.
 
“Since when did
you
become such a great judge of character?”

“Get that finger out of my face before I break it off!” he ordered her.

She pursed her lips angrily.

“Knock it off you two,” their mother growled.
 
“I’m in no mood for this right now.”

“WELL,
HE
STARTED IT.”

“Shut your pie-hole,” Michael shot back at her.

Their mother closed her eyes and began to rub her temples.
 
“I don’t know what’s gotten into the two of you,” she said quietly, “but you’ve each earned yourselves a bathroom to clean.”

Despite their protests, and the fact that the bathrooms had been cleaned the night before, they dared not argue with her any further.
 
She was skilled at coming up with bizarre and meaningless chores whenever they refused to stop fighting.

Michael fumed as he re-scrubbed the upstairs bathroom.
 
He didn’t know why Abby had to be such a little know-it-all brat all the time.

It was so frustrating that no one was taking him seriously.
 
He knew that neither his mother or father trusted Mihnea, but for some reason they didn’t seem willing to admit it, at least not to him.
 
Maybe Liam could help him get answers when he arrived.
 
They always worked best as a team.
 
The amulet, the wolves, Elizabeth’s boyfriend- there were a lot of strange things going on, and he seemed to be the only one who cared.

“Maybe I ought to get the Cisco Kid to help me out,” he said under his breath.
 
“He can be a pest, but he did figure out mom’s secret on his own.”
 
He sprayed the mirror with window cleaner and made circles with his rag.
 
Wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off.
 
He caught his own reflection in the mirror and frowned seriously.
 
When he was done with all this he’d get some fresh air.
 
That always helped him think more clearly.

After cleaning the bathroom, and his mother
had
come in to check several times that he was doing it right, Michael headed out to the garage to get the recurve bow that Liam had given him from the armory at McGinty Castle.

'That’s quite a special bow,' Mr. MacDonald had told him.
 
'Make sure you take really good care of that, and your welcome to it.'

Michael had promised that he would take excellent care of the bow, and he had.
 
He picked it up admiringly.
 
It was dark red, and displayed intricate Celtic carvings.
 
It felt very old, ancient really, and the first few times he’d shot it he was afraid it would snap, but the more he used it the more confident he was in its strength and durability.

Michael walked out to the shooting range behind the shed and brushed the snow away from the bales of straw.
 
Then he clipped up one of the new targets he’d gotten from a gun shop in Prescott Valley; it was a zombie in a business suit with a briefcase.

Michael’s aim had improved over the last few months.
 
He’d been practicing almost every day, and his bow was beginning to feel so natural to him it was almost like an extension of his own body.

He had been shooting for a half hour or so, and was thinking about heading back inside to warm up, when he noticed movement out in the distance near a group of granite boulders.
 
He squatted down, held still for a moment, and watched.

After a while, he saw it again.
 
Some kind of animal…a dog perhaps?
 
It was white, blending in with the snow.

It’s that WOLF
, Michael yelled inside his head, gritting his teeth to stop from shouting.

Well, the cursed thing isn’t going to get away this time
, he thought.
 
He stealthily pulled an arrow out of his quiver and strung it on the bow.

THWOOT.

He heard a yip, and jumped to his feet, stumbling into a run as he scanned the forest ahead of him.
 
It only took him a few moments to reach the boulders where he’d seen the wolf, but it wasn’t there.
 
A few drops of blood stained the snow near his feet, which reminded him of the wolf’s red eyes, and how they stood out so brilliantly through its white fur.

No paw-prints could be found in the snow anywhere.

He cautiously combed the area, another arrow drawn and ready.
 
Scanning through the trees around him, he could find no more signs of the creature.
 
He was sure, from the blood and the cry he’d heard when the arrow struck, that his shot had been true.

Heading a little deeper into the woods, he was nearly to the edge of his family’s property when he found the arrow.
 
It had been snapped in half, and was lying in the snow.
 
A small amount of blood was splattered nearby.

That’s odd, Michael thought as he examined the broken pieces.
 
If it had simply dropped out or if the wolf had managed to shake it out, why was it snapped in half like this?
 
There were only two possibilities.
 
Either someone had pulled the arrow out of the wolf and snapped it, or the wolf had changed into a human, pulled the arrow out
himself
, and snapped it in half.
 
Neither of these thoughts was encouraging, and Michael decided that hanging around by himself might not be the best idea.

Cautiously, he jogged back toward his house, scanning the trees around him, and turning to check behind as he plodded through the snow.

“HEY!” came a shout from behind a nearby tree.

He stopped in his tracks, pulled back the arrow and stood his ground.

“Planning on shooting me then?
 
You Americans have a strange way of greeting guests.”

It was Liam.
 
He stepped out slowly from behind a large pine tree with his hands in the air.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Michael scolded him.
 
“Why were you hiding like that?”

“Hiding?” asked Liam.
 
“What are you
talking
about?
 
Put that thing DOWN!”

Michael lowered his bow.
 
“Sorry about that.
 
I just had, well, quite an unusual encounter.”
 
He told Liam about the white wolf he’d shot at, and about seeing the two wolves a few weeks before.

“Werewolves?”
 
Liam asked him uneasily.

“No, I don’t think so.
 
At least they weren’t like the ones we ran across last year.
 
I’m thinking now that these might be shape-shifters.”