Grimm Wolf - Julie Steimle (fantasy novels to read .txt) 📗

knew who would fit the description of the moniker ‘Red’ was Andrew, Rick’s best friend who was a redhead. But Andrew didn’t seem the kind of guy who would put up with the nickname of ‘Red’. Rick called him A.B. after a childhood nickname. Others had called him Andy. Red had to be somebody else. Probably somebody very bloody.

“Hey! Watch it, Zombie!” James called out, his voice getting distant. They were making chase.  

“Sorry! I’m finding it hard to see,” the newcomer said, then pulled up his own flaming light from his hand. “There’re hardly any light now.”

“The moon has nearly set.”

“They’re getting away!” James shouted.

So… the famous guy was called Zombie. He didn’t sound like one. No lurching. No moaning. It was probably just a nickname, like Red.

“How are you holding up?”

Emory jumped, whipping around. Tom Brown stood as a shadow over him, back on the branch again.

Grabbing his chest, Emory snapped, “Don’t do that!”

Tom laughed, squatting down. He looked sticky with honey and sweat. His white hair was awry. His reflective orange eyes turned on Rhett. “How’s he holding up?”

Crawling up the branch to Rhett, Emory checked for breath again. Rhett was quietly breathing, but still breathing. “Out cold.”

Tom nodded, no longer grinning now. He climbed down and dug into the backpack which he had left there hanging on the tree branch, digging out a camping lantern. Hanging the lantern on a branch overhead, he turned it on.

“Is that a good idea?” Emory looked back down at the forest floor for wolves.

“They can’t touch you now, so you’re safe,” Tom said, adjusting the brightness of the lamp. “Besides, the Seven needs to be able to find you two again.”

“Who are they?” Emory asked, glancing back into the darkness.

“You mean besides Rick’s friends?” Tom chuckled.

Emory nodded.

Drawing in a deep thinking breath, Tom eyed him a moment. “As a general rule, we don’t talk about this stuff with normies. But, uh, after today you two aren’t normies anymore, but ghoulies.”

“What?” Emory felt his stomach sink. Gastric juices rose in his throat.

Raising his hands in self-defense, Tom said, “Don’t worry. Nothing that’s happened to you can’t be cured. It’s just a term we use for people who have had clashes with the supernatural. We call them ghoulies because ghoulish things have happened to them—and being bit by werewolves is a high grade ghoulish thing.”

Emory leaned back against the tree, shaking his head as stress swept through him, tensing up his muscles. He then looked out into the darkness. Everything had gone wrong. Everything. Why had he been so ignorant? But then he looked to Tom and asked, “What are you?”

Tom grinned crookedly. Resting a bit in the tree, he said, “I’m half imp. My mom is human and my dad is an imp.”

For a second Emory was breathless. “A what?”

“Imp,” Tom said, his grin crooking more to one side. “A little devil.”

Emory’s eyes widened.

“Yeah.” Tom nodded. “They’re real.”

“No way…” Emory stared more. He had been atheist.

Tom still nodded. “Yep.”

“But,” Emory shook his head as the very idea was impossible. “No one has ever seen—”

“Oh, don’t say no one,” Tom cut him off. “You go on the internet. There are thousands if not millions of first hand stories about people seeing angels, devils, demons, witches, vampires, whatever… And they’re all discounted as kooks.”

“But all of that—”

“I know,” Tom interrupted again, nodding frankly. “Impossible to prove. Anecdotal evidence. And a lot are lies of attention-getters. The real stuff is much more subtle.”

Emory’s wide eyes on him said it all. But he murmured, “What’s real?”

Grinning widely now, Tom winked, “The real stuff is creepier and more dangerous than most people can imagine. And also more beautiful.”

Shivers ran down Emory’s skin. He shuddered back toward the tree branch away from Tom.

“You see, I, as a half imp, see things most people don’t,” Tom explained, hunching closer. “My orange eyes can see the naturally invisible world. And that includes angels as well as demons.”

“Angels?” Emory’s chest heaved with hope for some reason. He had never believed in angels, but after being attacked by werewolves, angels were welcome.

Tom shrugged, tilting his head as if it were not that important. “There’s all kinds. Guardian angels are not bad, but they can be scary. Destroying angels are freaky.”

“Destroying angels?” Emory gasped.

“Death angels,” Tom said gravely. “There’s a whole bunch here right now. Their job is to reap souls—take them to where they belong. Prevent hauntings. They even hunt down slippery ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” Emory’s mouth felt dry. This was not sounding good. He wanted fluffy angels. Saving angels. He’d rather have that myth than the other one.

Tom nodded. He then gazed toward the castle. “Yeah. Ghosts are people who cling to life and refuse to move on. I don’t see them as they aren’t physical beings. But I have an old classmate that sees them all the time. He’s a homicide cop now.”

“Homicide cop?” Rhett creaked out, breathing with a stretch as his eyes stickily opened, fighting the honey.

“Ah! The dead awakes!” Tom grinned. He then handed over a wet wipe for Rhett’s face. But then he changed his mind and rubbed it on before Rhett could grab it and wipe off the honey away from his eyes himself.

“Oh… thank heaven,” Emory murmured. Rhett had been way too quiet. He was afraid he had slipped into a coma.

Tom laughed. “Do you mean that now? I could have sworn you were an atheist a second ago.”

Emory shot him a look. Somehow, though he could not tell how, Tom had been reading into his thoughts. “I’ll thank whomever is helping us.”

“Good answer,” Tom said, rising to his feet. He had perfect balance on that thin branch, though it wobbled. He gazed over the darkness as if he could see perfectly in it.

“Can you see anything?” Rhett asked, looking also.

Tom nodded. “Yeah. Imp eyes. I can see where imps are. And they linger near people. Animals don’t have imps, but werewolves do.”

“Do you know where Rick is?” Rhett asked.

Tom shook his head. “No. And I’m worried.”

Rhett shot a look to Emory. Emory frowned. He had lost track of Rick when Tom had first arrived.

“But Rick is smart,” Tom murmured. “He’s probably been working to lead those wolves away from you. But I think he can smell the honey now, and the wolves will avoid this place. And that includes him.”

The leaves crackled below with the sound of foot falls. Out of the darkness, up rushed to the tree that newcomer in leather and garlic. He was still carrying the backpack, but it looked like it was weighing him down and he was ready to chuck it aside. Drawn to the light, the guy hurried straight to the tree and shouted, “Tom! Are you guarding them? Or are you going to join us?”

“Well, what are you up to?” Tom asked, hanging on the branch as if reluctant to leave Rhett and Emory them by themselves.

“Hunting down wolves.” The guy shrugged. He came into the light of the lantern finally, and Rhett drew in a breath. Emory could also make out his face, and it did look familiar, he just didn’t know how. “Looking for Howie. Do you know where he is?”

Tom shook his head and hopped out of the tree. He landed on the forest floor as if he had merely jumped off a small step. “No. And I’m worried about him. I thought I had seen him fighting another wolf at that castle, but—”

“So he was there?” The guy with the famous face, turned around, looking toward the far building.

“Was,” Tom said grimly. “I almost set the imps on the werewolf fighting him, but I was afraid Rick would get some of it too, so I didn’t.”

The guy they called the Zombie nodded. “Wise move. Thanks.”

“Imps are impulsive,” Tom murmured as if he weren’t himself. “And they don’t care whom they hurt.”

The Zombie immediately headed in the direction of the castle.

“Peter,” Tom called after him, “Who else is coming?”

Jogging backwards still towards the castle, Peter-called-Zombie replied, “As far as I know? Sir Cooly and Sir Longshanks are on their way. They’re bringing air support, but I don’t see a place where they can land.”

Rhett and Emory exchanged looks. Air support? Like an air force? Or was this life-flight for a hospital?

“On the road?” Tom murmured, looking up at the thick tree cover with a frown.

“On the castle,” Rhett called out, his mind waking more.

They both looked up to him. Peter called up to the tree, halting in his backward walk to the castle, “Where? It’s entirely covered in plants.”

“Shrubbery,” Emory shouted down. “We went up in the turret and saw it was all shrubbery, like bushes in potted plants.”

Tom brightened. He cheered with a crooked grin. “I can get those moved.”

Peter nodded to him, also looking hopeful. “Good.” He then gazed up at Rhett and Emory in the tree. His face was grim. “Was there a third member of your group?”

Emory and Rhett nodded, the grief of Jordan’s murder overwhelming them again. “Yes.”

“They killed him,” Emory said, his voice breaking. “They killed him to get Rick to…”

Peter advanced on the tree. “To do what?”

“They’re man-eating monsters.” Rhett said, fighting the urge to scream. “But Rick wouldn’t—”

“Of course Rick wouldn’t,” Tom bit off before Rhett could say it. He marched up to Peter as he said to them. “Where is your friend?”

“Still in the house,” Emory said. “Rick threw us his car keys and told us to run. He had stayed back with Jordan.”

Tom paled. “Jordan?”

They both nodded.

Tom put a hand over his mouth. He seemed to go whiter.

“Who is that?” Peter asked, trying to read Tom’s face.

“Rick’s college roommate,” Tom breathed out. “Nice guy. Totally cool guy, really. Decent imps.”

“Ah man…” Peter clenched his teeth, shaking his head. He then looked to Emory and Rhett. “Is Jordan still in the castle?”

“If they didn’t eat him,” Rhett said.

Peter looked like he was about to vomit. He turned and ran straight for the castle. Tom lifted a hand to say stay where they were, and he ran after Peter.

Rhett and Emory watched until they could no longer make out Tom and Peter’s silhouettes in the dark. Emory leaned against the tree branch, now shaking. He hadn’t thought along the lines of Rhett until now—but most likely Rick, when he had stumbled out of the castle, had been badly hurt because he was trying to stop those werewolves from eating Jordan.

“That was the Witchdoctor,” Rhett murmured.

Emory turned to look at him. “What?”

Cringing from the pain in his leg, Rhett sat up more, pulling out of the sticky honey and tent. “That guy with Tom Brown down there. It was the Witchdoctor.”

Emory tried to scrape his brain for the meaning of that, but the only thing it could come up with was this famous rising soccer star who was currently training in Archaeology and Ancient languages somewhere in Europe—a brilliant player but a weirdo. Rumor had it, he was currently studying Celtic runes in England. The reason he was called the Witchdoctor and everyone knew about him was that his college team (where he had been a key player) had dominated that last year, and the Olympic soccer team desperately wanted him. His footwork, people said, was like magic. Oh, and he carried with him faux shrunken heads and wore a red crystal around his neck. People thought he was a New Age junkie.

But what would an American soccer player be doing in Germany with ropes of garlic and throwing magic silver knives? It made no sense.

“Maybe he is a lookalike,” Emory suggested.

Rhett shook his head. “No way. It’s him. It sounds like him.”

“Sounds?” Emory stared at Rhett. Admittedly, Rhett was way deeper into soccer than he was. He even called it ‘football’ like they did in England. He went nuts around the time of the World Cup.

“I’ve seen him in interviews,” Rhett said. “I swear, he looks and sounds just like the Witchdoctor, Peter McCabe.”

Peter. Tom had called the guy that. Rhett had to be right. The