Crimson Christmas by Rain Oxford Page B

on a light
switch, and smiled. “How can I help you?”
    “Are you Sylvester?” Dylan said.
    “No, that’s his brother. Sylvester wasn’t here last
time,” Ron said.
    The old man smiled kindly at the boys. “Well, hello
again, boys! It’s good to see repeat customers.”
    Instinctively, Mordon sniffed at the air. The man was
kind and moral, but someone of great darkness frequented the shop; someone with
a sour, rotting scent, similar to that of the fireproof creature, but it was
more humanoid. Before he could tell Dylan what he smelled, he caught another
scent.
    “Devon has been in here.”
    “You must be referring to the man who was here about
an hour and a half ago.”
    “Big man with brown hair and green eyes? He was
wearing a leather jacket?”
    “Yes, and he had a gun,” the man said happily.
    Mordon sniffed again, looking for anything suggesting
that the man was unstable, but he couldn’t smell much over the scent of the
death. “Where is he?” Mordon asked.
    Something is very wrong here , Rojan warned
him.
    I know . The last scent, which was growing to
overcome everything else, was gasoline.
    “Oh, he asked to speak to Sylvester and decided to
wait for Sylvester to return. When my brother got here, they went out back to
talk.”
    Dylan looked at Mordon expectantly. He wanted to know
if the man was telling the truth. “ There is gasoline somewhere and I can’t
smell this guy over it ,” he said in Dylan’s mind.
    Dylan turned to the old man. “Your toys are turning
into monsters and kidnapping children. How do we stop them?”
    The old man’s eyes widened. “Oh, goodness. That
sounds dangerous. You should speak to Sylvester. I bet he can help you. He
should be back by now. In fact, I believe I heard him go downstairs about ten
minutes ago.”
    As the scent of gasoline became strong enough for a
human to detect, Dylan coughed and covered his mouth with the collar of his
black sweater.
    “What is that?” Ron asked, mimicking his father.
    “Gasoline,” Mordon answered.
    “We could just blow the place up,” Dylan suggested.
    “It wouldn’t do any good,” the old man said calmly,
as if they weren’t talking about destroying his property. “You should really
talk to Sylvester.”
    “Whoa,” Hail said, stumbling. Ron caught him. “We’re
about to get attacked. Also, Devon is downstairs.”
    Mordon went around the counter, passed the old man,
and opened the door to the basement marked private . Since his senses
were muddled by the gasoline, he didn’t know what was waiting behind the door.
As soon as he opened it, the nonflammable creature he faced before burst out,
slamming him against the wall. Its claws sliced through his chest, but it was
more interested in the getting away than finishing the job.
    Except the creature didn’t go for the door; it went
for Dylan. Mordon let Rojan take over as his fingers changed into claws and his
teeth sharpened. He lunged at the creature and threw it to the floor, but he
wasn’t about to bite the foul-smelling beast. Instead, he clawed at it, tearing
into its chest. The creature became slimier until Mordon couldn’t stand
touching it another instant. He pulled away and the creature shot back into the
basement.
    Mordon started to go after it, but Hail grabbed his
arm. “We need to go.”
    “You said Devon is down there.”
    “We lost today. We need to go.”
    Mordon wanted to argue, but Dylan picked up Ron and
exited the shop. Mordon wasn’t going to leave his brother alone when he wasn’t
sure that creature wasn’t going to attack again.
     
    *          *          *
     
    Hail knew his family didn’t understand. Hell, he didn’t understand. All he knew was that Devon was like him; a seer. He could
feel Mordon’s eyes on him in the car. Mordon thinks I’m a coward . He had
to get them out. More than saving Devon, they had to save the kids, and Devon
had told him what he needed to do. What confused him was that Devon