Michael Belmont and the Heir of Van Helsing (The Adventures of Michael Belmont) (3 page)

Armando cringed.
 
“I’m begging you.
 
Please.
 
Stop.
 
Screaming.
 
I told you it’s just a young cougar.
 
It’s not going to hurt you.
 
Its mother might be someplace nearby though.
 
You’d better take the Cisco Kid and go back inside.
 
I’ll call Fish and Game, okay?”

Grandma Elena shooed the little superhero along through the backyard despite his protests, and the two of them disappeared into the house.

“Oh, thank God,” Armando said quietly as they went inside.
 
He rubbed his temples to ease his pounding head, and looked back up at the young lion.
 
Although it was a beautiful animal, he knew it was dangerous for a wild creature to come in so close like this.
 
If it grew used to people it would eventually prey on pets and maybe even children who lived in the neighborhood.
 
He didn’t want to see it hurt, but knew he needed to have someone come out and get it.

“She’s a real beauty,” came a voice from behind him.
 
Armando turned around to see that a small group of his neighbors had gathered to investigate what Grandma Elena was screaming about this time.
 
He knew her reactions had become a bit of an ongoing neighborhood joke, but at least that meant they were less likely to get the cops called on them.

The voice he’d heard belonged to the neighbor’s gardener, Wandering Bear, a tall Yavapai who was well known locally for his magical green thumb.

“Ooooh, she’s pretty,” said Sarah Axtell, a little girl who lived across the street.
 
“How can you tell it’s a female though?”

“I can see it in her eyes,” Wandering Bear explained.

“Alrighty then,” responded the girl unbelievingly.

Armando took out his phone.
 
“Let me call Fish and Game.
 
They’ll come and get it.”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any need to do that,” said Wandering Bear calmly.
 
He walked over to the base of the tree and stared up at the young cat.
 
“Hello up there,” he told her.
 
“I don’t think this is a very safe place for you right now.
 
You had better come on down so I can take you out of here.”

The cat cocked her head at him, as if she might be considering what he’d just said, but she didn’t budge.

Sarah rolled her eyes at Cisco, who had snuck back out of the house and was pulling off his mask to get a better look.

“Come on down now, you know I’m not going to hurt you.
 
If the game warden comes he’ll shoot you in the butt with a tranquilizer dart.
 
You don’t want that, do you?”

Sarah leaned over to Cisco, who was looking on, wearing a dumb smile.
 
“I don’t think his elevator goes all the way to the top floor,” she told him.

Suddenly the cat got up to her feet, stretched out, and began to climb down.
 
Her claws dug into the pine as she moved headfirst down the trunk.
 
Then she hopped to the ground and sat at Wandering Bear’s feet, staring up at him.

Armando’s jaw dropped open.
 
“How…how exactly did you do that?”

Wandering Bear looked at him thoughtfully.

“I didn’t do anything.
 
She knows what is best for her.”
 
Then looking down at the lioness he said, “Come along.
 
I think it’s time to leave.”

He walked out to the road, the cat sauntering along behind him.
 
Upon reaching his truck, he opened up the passenger side door and the cat jumped up into the seat, sitting attentively and looking back at the small group of people who had followed them out to the sidewalk.
 
They watched Wandering Bear as he got into the truck.
 
He waved goodbye as he pulled away and started off down the road.

He hadn’t gotten far before he picked up his pipe from the dashboard and reached into his shirt pocket for some tobacco.
 
He carefully mashed a bit down while keeping his eyes on the road, and then lit the pipe, taking in a few sucks to get it going.

“You know, you really need to be more careful, Abigail.
 
If that boy had called a game warden it might not have been a tranq dart you’d get shot with.”

The little blonde girl sitting next to him crossed her arms.
 
“How did you know it was me?”

“Oh, like I told little Sarah, I saw it in your eyes.
 
What were you doing up in that tree anyway?”

“Wait a minute.
 
I don’t understand how you knew it was me.
 
You don’t look very concerned by the fact that I have the ability to change into a mountain lion.”

“Oh I’ve known for some time that your
mother
is a skin-walker.
 
It tends to run in the family.”

“What about you?
 
Can you change too?”

“Me?
 
No, I’m afraid the only thing I have the ability to change is my clothes.”

“Does my mom know that you know about her?”

“Sure she does.
 
I’m not some sort of peeping tom.
 
We gardeners get a bad rap.”
 
He winked at her.
 
“You didn’t answer my question though.
 
What were you doing up there in your neighbors’ tree?
 
You need to learn to be more careful.”

She shrugged.
 
“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.
 
I just wanted to see if I could climb it.
 
It’s the tallest one around.”

He was quiet for a moment.
 
“Well, I can’t blame you for wanting to test your limits, but I strongly encourage you to be more discreet.
 
Not everyone is as kind as that boy who lives next to you.
 
Some other teenager might have blasted you right out of that tree.”

She nodded, but wore a pout on her lips.
 
Abigail had never been a fan of being reprimanded.

Wandering Bear circled the truck around and headed back toward home.

“You aren’t going to tell my mom about this are you?”

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
 
“No, I have no desire to try and get you into trouble, Abigail, but I’m sure if anyone would understand what you’re going through, it would be your mother.”

After a few minutes, the truck pulled up in front of the Belmont home, an old blue and white Victorian style house.
 
Abigail jumped out of the truck.
 
The neighbors were still standing out on the sidewalk talking about what they’d seen.

Armando ran up to them.
 
“Hey, what did you do with that cougar?” he asked excitedly.

“I dropped her off with a friend of mine.
 
She’s going to be reintroduced to the wild.”

“Hey that’s great.
 
It was really amazing what you did.
 
You’re just like Dr. Doolittle or something.”

The Cisco Kid tugged on Abigail’s sleeve. He had a mischievous look in his eyes.
 
“Abby, you missed something really cool.”
 
He recounted the whole story while following her along the sidewalk and up into her yard, and was still speaking when she opened the front door.

“Hey, where are you going?
 
You should stay out here with me and play.
 
I’ll get my Superman costume, and you can be Wonder-Woman, and we’ll pretend like Armando is trying to take over the city again.”

“That sounds like fun, Cisco, but I’m not feeling very well right now.
 
I think I’m just going to lie down and read or something.”

He looked disappointed.
 
“Oh, okay.
 
Well, let me know if you change your mind later.”

“Okay, bye.”
 
He was still waving and smiling expectantly as she shut the door on him.

She turned to find Elizabeth standing in the living room looking at her.
 
Her hands were on her hips and a broad smile spread across her face.
 
“I think that little boy really likes you.
 
He sure seems to follow you around everywhere.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.
 
He’s a pretty nice kid, but he gets a little annoying sometimes.”

“So where have you
been
? I’ve been looking for you for a half hour.
 
I thought we were going to make dinner together.”

“Oh, we are.
 
I’m sorry; I just got a little distracted.
 
There was a mountain lion in Cisco’s back yard.”

“A mountain lion?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard correctly.
 
“I don’t like the sound of that.
 
Do they usually come in this close?”

“Not very often.”

“Well did they get rid of the thing?”

Abigail nodded.
 
She suddenly felt self-conscious.

“Well, that’s good.”
 
Elizabeth smiled at her enthusiastically.
 
“So do you want to peel the potatoes or trim the fat off the chicken?”

Michael sat across from his mother at the little table in their hotel room.
 
They were finishing up some fried chicken they’d picked up before checking in.

His father had gotten out of the hospital and was now asleep in bed.
 
The doctor had wanted to admit him for the night, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
 
After being cleaned and checked out, he was bandaged up and instructed to watch carefully for signs of infection.

“What is this anyway?” the doctor had asked.
 
“It looks like you’ve been attacked by a bear.”

“I was, Doc.
 
Out in the woods.
 
A really nasty sucker.
 
Very territorial.”

The doctor kept pressing for more information, but his answers were comical and evasive.
 
Eventually the doctor just gave up and treated the injury.

Looking across the table at his mother, Michael was relieved to see that she’d finally calmed down, but despite her smiles she still looked sad.
 
He noticed every time she tried to wipe the occasional tear away, hoping he wouldn’t see, and he didn’t let on that he did.

“So, Mom, what exactly was it that you wanted to pick up from…from your er, father?”

For a moment she looked stunned, but then attempted another smile.

“To tell you the truth, I’m surprised that we found him alive.
 
I thought that he’d have drank himself to death a long time ago.”

She paused for a while, and looked off into the distance as if she was replaying the past in her mind.
 
Michael just waited for her patiently.

She turned to him, snapping back into the present.
 
“As for what we were after,” she said, reaching into her jacket pocket, “we came to find this.”
 
She pulled out an old tarnished amulet.
 
It wasn’t a very pretty thing, but it did look interesting.
 
It looked to be made of iron, and was fixed to a heavy chain.
 
In its center was a gray stone.

“This belonged to your great-grandmother, Aileen Stewart.
 
She was an Irish immigrant, and brought this to America when she came.”

Michael stared at the amulet as though he were missing something.
 
“That’s, ah, very nice,” he said clumsily, not quite understanding why his parents had put themselves in danger to obtain such a thing.

His mother seemed to know what he was thinking.
 
“When I was a very young girl, about six years old, my grandmother gave this to me.
 
She said it was a very important artifact.
 
She said it was invaluable, and told me that I needed to protect it, and never tell anyone I had it.”

Michael looked confused.
 
He was about to say something, but his mother went on.

“I decided to bury this amulet to keep it safe.
 
One of my friends had given me a time capsule for my birthday, so I put it in, and started digging a hole in the forest behind our house.
 
Then my father found out what I was doing.
 
He was infuriated that I had hidden the amulet from him.
 
He told me that my grandmother was an insane old woman and I shouldn’t be concerned with anything she had to say.
 
He took the amulet away from me and…
punished
me, for what I’d done.”
 
Tears began running down her soft, red cheeks once again.

“But
you
didn’t do anything wrong,” Michael protested angrily.

“Well, as you’ve seen from what happened to your dad, my father is not what you would call a reasonable person.”

“But why did you go back for it, what’s so special about this thing.
 
I mean, no offense or anything, but it kind of just looks like an old piece of junk.”

“That’s possible,” she told him with a smile.
 
“Then again, what if my grandmother was right?
 
You know that we’ve been searching for answers about our family.
 
What if this amulet has something to do with where we come from?”

Michael shrugged, considering what she’d said, but he still felt doubtful.

“Can I take a look at it?” he asked her.
 
She nodded and handed it to him.

Michael looked the trinket over.
 
The iron was pitted, and a bit rusty.
 
The unimpressive gray stone was held in place by an iron bird’s talon, and was about the size of a golf ball.
 
All things considered, he didn’t see anything special about it.