The Vendeleer Brothers Book 3: Nightmare on Holly
Chapter 12: Detectives and Dragons

Roderick wasn’t sure why Holly had suddenly jumped into all of this, but he felt up in the clouds. She had taken them to a Barn Dance, where Roderick had a blast square dancing. Despite the fun he was having, he couldn’t help but feel like something was a little off.

“Is everything ok?” he asked as they went to go get some water off to the side and catch their breath. Holly was quiet as she slowly sipped at a cup of water.

“I just… needed to get my mind off of something.” she replied vaguely. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself? Maybe start with an explanation with what happened the other night?”

Roderick scratched his scruffy chin.

“Yeah, I probably do owe you an explanation for that…”

So for the next several minutes, while people were country swing dancing on the floor and a man with a very strong dialect DJ’d, Roderick told Holly of all the things that had happened in Pinnacle Gulch and Serenity Hill, really hoping that he wasn’t talking her ear off and boring her.

Meanwhile, in Holly’s mind, she was completely enthralled. How was Roderick not scared to do anything after all of that? He talked about ghosts, spirits, and serial killers all so nonchalantly. As he talked, she started to understand a bit more why his brother and friends might have freaked out. She found herself forgetting the frustrations with Akaysha and really enjoying her conversation with him.

They stopped talking when the YMCA song came on, so they could both do the line dance. It was nice to get out and have fun, and as Holly danced with Roderick, she began to wonder why he was interested in her of all people.

While Holly was thinking of the possibilities of romance, Roderick suddenly remembered why he had gone to see Holly in the first place.

“Hey, quick random question, but on the day of the velociraptor, did you taste anything coppery in your mouth?” he asked. Holly took a moment to think about it as the song changed and they started to do the electric slide.

“I don’t really remember… But I did taste something like that yesterday morning. Why?”

“What happened yesterday morning?” Roderick asked with interest.

“Nothing really. Why? What does the copper taste mean?”

The two of them turned at the same time, so involved in their conversation, that they accidentally bumped into someone.

“Oops! Sorry!” Roderick said loudly over the music as they continued to dance. “Anyway-well, recently, we’ve come to replace that certain people have these… powers. I know someone who can make these illusions with his mind. He can alter sounds and images and a bunch of stuff like that! There’s also this woman who has telekinetic abilities.”

“Really?” Holly said in awe, feeling a little jealous of this guy’s crazy life for a second until she remembered what he had told her about almost dying several times. “But what does that have to do with the coppery taste?”

“Well,” Roderick began as the song ended. “After doing a little bit of research from these books my friend has, we found that sometimes, when a person loses control of their abilities, it can result in a coppery taste.”

“So you think the strange things happening in town has to do with that?”

“That’s what we’re thinking. In fact, I’m technically supposed to be uh… looking into some of that stuff right but…” he told her sheepishly. Holly looked at the dancing couples and then back at him with a smile.

“Well, we’ve already gotten some dancing in. What do you say we… go get some ice cream and look into it together?”

Roderick gave her a huge dorky smile, completely unaware that his brother and friends could very well be in danger at the moment.

“Man, you’re the coolest girl ever!”

At this, Holly felt herself blush, and the two of them ran out to get ice cream and do detective work.

Ian felt a little hesitant to get out of the van. Everyone had cleared out of downtown, probably due to Shaq’s illusions, but one thing still unsettled him. After all, even though Everett couldn’t see the illusions, he was still able to feel and see the initial explosion as well as the flames, which meant they weren’t fake.

So where was all the fire coming from?

However, despite his apprehensions, he knew a good detective did not just sit in the car, so he followed suit with everyone else and looked around. Ian expected things to be silent, but surprisingly, it wasn’t.

A deep rumble rattled their bones, and a hot wind whistled through the trees, some of which were crackling in flames. The five of them all made sure to stand on guard as they carefully made their way down the street, looking out for anything else out of the ordinary.

“Does anyone else hear a… growling sound?” Brian asked, clutching onto one of his gadgets fearfully. Ian turned a corner ahead of them and then immediately backed up and started walking the other way.

“Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope.” he said over and over again to himself. The others peeked around the corner to see what on Earth he was ‘noping’ about. In the middle of the street, surrounded by grotesque, charred corpses, was a great crimson beast with large wings and horns. It’s claws and teeth dripped with blood, and it was currently distracted because it was eating something.

“Is that-a freaking dragon?!” Brian whispered in half excitement and half horror.

“Uh… E-Everett, do-do you see that?” Jordyn stuttered. The old man swallowed and shrank back.

“Er… yes… I see it.”

“Great. So that means this blasted thing isn’t an illusion…” she grumbled.

“So, with Shaq’s illusions, does that mean he’s in the area?” Shannon asked. “You don’t think he’s-uh…”

“Don’t worry. He’s not dead. I’m pretty sure if he was, then the barricade illusion wouldn’t still be up.” Ian reassured her. “Right Jordyn?”

“Right. I’m going to give him another call and see if we can somehow get to him. He could need our help.

So carefully, the five of them backed farther away from the street with the dragon so she could make her phone call.

“Hello?” Shaq answered after a few rings.

“Shaq! Hey-where are you? We see the freaking dragon and are here to help.” Jordyn whispered.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this handled. You and the others get to safety.”

“You’ve got this handled?! Are you daft?” Jordyn raged, doing her very best not to be too loud because there was a dragon nearby that could kill them all.

“Trust me Jordyn. You guys would just be in the way. Let me take care of this.”

And with that, he hung up the phone on her. Jordyn let out a string of curses under her breath.

“That moron is going to get himself killed. There’s no way he could do an illusion powerful enough to defeat a dragon.”

“Brian, you seem like you would know this-.” Ian started, turning to him suddenly. “How do we kill a dragon?” They all turned to Brian, who immediately threw his hands up in defeat.

“Hey! Just because I can kill one in a video game it doesn’t mean I can do it in real life! Those are two very different things you know!”

“We know that dorkwad.” Jordyn said with a roll of her eyes. “But don’t these things have legends or lores about them or something along those lines?”

“Oh. Well, in common folklore, you usually have to go up against them with fairy magic…”

At the sound of this, the rest of them groaned, and Ian once again found himself facepalming.

“That settles it then. We’re doomed.” he grumbled, the heat of the summer really starting to get to him all f a sudden. A blast of hot wind blew through them as they tried to come up with a plan until Ian realized in horror that the blasts of hot wind they were getting might not be from the Missouri heat.

As Jordyn started arguing with Brian, Ian slowly turned around to replace two large eyes staring at them. He stood there, paralyzed with fear, trying to figure out if it would be better to be quiet and still or to run and warn everyone, but as soon as Shannon saw that the dragon was upon them, she screamed. The beast before them snarled, dark smoke churning within its nostrils.

“MOVE!” Brian screeched. “He’s about to fire!!”

They all did as they were told as the dragon roared. Red hot flames billowed out of its mouth like some kind of wave from hell. Ian could feel the heat of it above him, rolling desperately out of the way. He then scrambled to et up, and did so only just in time, for the dragon came down with its giant clawed foot, its wings pulsing with a great gust of wind. They ducked into a craft store right as another stream of first burst behind them.

“Ok-Shannon-you’ve got to do something.” Brian gasped, sweating in the unbearable heat. “You’re the only one who has a shot of beating that thing.”

“Uh-hello? I do have a gun here!” Jordyn panted.

“Yes. Because your little pistol is going to take down a dragon.” Ian grumbled, unimpressed.

No one had any more time to argue however, for at that moment, they ceiling came down on top of them, sending dust everywhere. Ian coughed, pulling himself out of the rubble, now extremely filthy. He whirled around when he heard Everett scream in terror, and found that the dragon was standing over him, large globs of saliva dripping onto the surrounding rubble.

BANG!!

The monster roared in pain, blood spilling out of its eye. To the side, Jordyn stood there, her gun pointed at it, covered in scratches and dust. The dragon lunged for her, but ended up smashing into a cement wall that had raised itself in the nick of time, courtesy of Shannon. The dragon reared up on its hind legs, extremely angry now. Its nostrils flared with yellow flames, and it crouched down, ready to fire again.

Then, something happened that no one expected. Brian came running at the dragon with a tremendous war cry, holding a large bowl of something… sparkly. When the beast opened its mouth, Brian dumped what looked to be an entire gallon or more of glitter down its throat. Immediately, the dragon began to choke. Then, everyone watched in amazement as the beast staggered, trying to breathe fire without success, and then finally topple over and die. They all turned to Brian, the dragon smoking behind him.

“Glitter.” he panted. “Fairies are always seen with glitter in movies, so I figured…”

“YES! This is why we have Brian on our team!” Jordyn exclaimed in triumph. Unexpectedly, she came up and high fived him, which seemed to get Brian riled up. With that, he dropped the bowl he was holding and did a double fist pump to the air.

“YEAH! I JUST TOOK DOWN A DRAGON!” he yelled. “MONSTER HUNTER IN REAL LIIIIIFE!”

“And Shaq said he could handle this thing on his own.” Jordyn scoffed. “He’s probably hiding around here somewhere still trying to think of a plan. Let’s go replace him and tell him it’s ok to come out.”

The five of them made their way passed the rubble, feeling very exhausted now, all except for Brian, who had adrenaline and excitement coursing through him because he had just battled a dragon and lived to tell the tale. It took a bit of searching, but they finally started to hear something beyond the shattered glass of one of the buildings. Ian looked up to see that it was a bank, and thought of how clever it would be to hid from a dragon behind something heavy duty like a safe.

“Shaq! Where are you?” Jordyn called out, stepping over some glass and ducking inside. They heard some rummaging going on nearby. Jordyn peered into the open safe, where someone was stuffing a duffle bag full of cash. The five of them all stood there in silent disbelief for moment.

“Shaq?” Jordyn said again.

The man froze mid cash-stuff.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jordyn demanded, her hand hovering over her holster. Shaq slowly turned around, but as he did so, Ian felt the world around him spin and distort-similar to what the Illusionist had done before. He did his best to remain standing, but it was no use, for he found himself falling to his knees. It looked to be this way with everyone else as well, except for Everett.

“I told you to get to safety…” Shaq told them, sinister undertones creeping into his voice. Ian looked up to see that the man’s irises had turned a bright green, and he was shrouding himself in darkness.

“You weren’t supposed to see me this way.” he told them, bringing out a gun and pointing it at Jordyn. “But I can’t let any of you live now and tell anyone else.”

“Agggh!” Everett yelled, ramming himself in Shaq and getting locked in a desperate fight with him. At that moment, beside them, Shannon jumped up despite the sickening illusions going on, and raised her clawed hands in fury.

Ian didn’t see what happened next however, for everything went completely black, and he couldn’t hear anything.

“Hello?” he called out. But couldn’t even hear his own voice. He reached out into the void, and then the world crashed back to him suddenly, piece by piece. When it did, he looked around to see that Everett was on the ground, holding a hand to his head, blood trickling out from under his fingers. Shannon was looking around, her cheeks flushed, and Shaq was nowhere to be found.

“Wha-what happened?” Brian asked, shakily standing up. Shannon helped the old man off the ground.

“Everett was able to put some of his ability onto me for a time so I could fight back, but Shaq got the better of us. And then somehow he turned himself invisible and ran off!!”

“That. Damn. Traitor.” Jordyn growled, kicking a wall.

Ian had to admit, he felt pretty angry about this himself. It left him with a lot to think about. For instance, Shaq did illusions, but things like the dragon and velociraptor were more than just illusions, so…

Where had they come from?