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

Rhett asked after a while as they went down a steep slope.

Jordan had been listening to Rhett’s commentary the entire hike about the land and what they were going to do after Germany, but this was a tangent. Jordan had pondered the same question during the past two days and finally felt it was safe to voice his opinion since it was just those three there. “What I really think?”

“Well, yeah,” Rhett said with a chuckle. “You’ve been his roomie since forever.”

Nodding, Jordan sighed. “Alright… Um, Rick is from a really superstitious town. Almost backward. I don’t know if you have ever tried to find it on a map, but the place isn’t even there. Rick had to draw it on for me.”

“Are you sure he is not lying about the place?” Emory snickered. “I mean the guy’s got penthouses in New York and LA and—”

“No. It’s there,” Jordan said. “I’ve met people from that town. His bestie is from there. Born and raised. So are most of his friends, whom he calls ‘the Seven’, like some kind of code name.”

“Or that girl Silvia,” Rhett chimed in. “You know Rick said she was a witch.”

Emory choked on a laugh, halting where he was on the path. “You’re kidding? That hair salon chick? Like a Wiccan?”

Rhett nodded, continuing his march over the path. “Yep. He told me she was leaving her coven—though I am no sure she is Wiccan, per se. More like pagan-ish and claims to do black magic and stuff. I do know he doesn’t entirely trust her.” He then chuckled, shaking his head. “But man… I wonder if all he says about witches in his town is real, or just superstition?”

Jordan shrugged as Emory picked up the pace again to keep up with them. “I dunno. I don’t really believe in that kind of creepy stuff. But Rick for some crazy reason seems to. He doesn’t admit it, not openly—but I’ve seen him mark the full moons on a calendar, and he does not just write ‘dinner with Dad’ on it. It’s different. It’s like… it’s like… he feels hunted.”

“Well, he is hunted,” Emory put in, carefully placing his feet as he descended down the slope. “Just by freaks.”

“…Who think he is a werewolf,” Rhett chimed in, laughing.

“Did Rick ever explain why people think that to you?” Emory called ahead to Jordan.

Nodding weakly, Jordan then shook his head. “Yeah. It is a rumor the ‘witches of the town’ spread. That’s what he says anyway. His family’s fondness for wolves and their weird allergies don’t help any.”

“He has a lot of allergies,” Emory muttered.

“Do you know them all?” Rhett asked Jordan.

Jordan listed them on one hand. “Garlic, honey, silver, and this plant called aconite—which consequently is also called wolfsbane.”

Rhett laughed at the list, shaking his head. “Yeah… I guess that would make him sound like a werewolf.”

 “He’s got a supersensitive nose in general,” Jordan explained. “He hates strong perfume and most scented detergents and colognes. The guy sneezes at almost anything.”

“Ok, ok… that aside,” Emory said. “I’ve been dying to know…. You know that rumor about Rick being on drugs or something before coming to college and his dad having people watch him all the time because of an addiction? Is any of that true?”

“I thought the story was that he had fallen in with a cult one summer and he had gotten a girl pregnant,” Rhett said, halting on the path. He lifted his eyebrows in doubt as he gazed over the landscape, thinking that such a straight laced guy like Rick would not have done such a thing. Rick hardly drank, even at parties. He chuckled deeply at the incredulity of it.

Jordan colored. He even peeked over his shoulder, just to make sure no other hikers were around to overhear. He even lowered his voice as he said, “Ok. Guys, I’m gonna tell you a secret that I had sworn not to divulge… as yeah, I have seen some pretty weird stuff with Rick as my roomie. But you two gotta know.” He looked to Rhett. “There is more truth to that story you heard than the other rumor.”

Both of his friends gasped. They couldn’t believe it. And worse, they wondered which part was true.

Jordan led the way, explaining, “His dad was worried about him that first year, and so he confided in me that his son had been manipulated by a cult group he just called ‘the pack’. And yeah, he got a girl pregnant.”

They stared more, genuinely surprised. It seemed impossible as Rick was also circumspect when it came to the ladies. In fact, they thought he was a bit prudish about it all. He hardly dated, though he did flirt. But he was more of a buddy to the women he hung out with than seeking physical company. And the only crushing they knew of that he engaged in, was of ladies who were already taken… like his best friend’s girlfriend now wife, and some surfer chick in California who also had a med student boyfriend.

“And Rick had finally confided in me about it three years after the fact,” Jordan said, “Calling it the biggest mistake of his life.”

“No way,” Emory muttered, going quicker down the path to get closer so he could to hear more.

“He called her his addiction,” Jordan added with a nod.

“His addiction?” Rhett exclaimed, really interested now. “In what way is a woman an addiction?”

“Did she have his kid?” Emory asked, thinking already of the headlines that would make the news if this information got out.

Jordan shook his head. “Nope. She miscarried four months in. And after that, his father made sure he never had contact with her ever again.”

Both guys pulled back skeptically. How was that possible? Rick traveled freely all the time without bodyguards.

“So how can she be an addiction?” Emory asked, huffing.

Jordan shrugged his shoulders a smidgeon as he said, “Well… he dreams about her practically every night—and I mean intense dreams—and he’s constantly fighting the urge to go back to her. At least, that’s what he says.”

“That sounds like love to me,” Rhett remarked, thinking on it. A girl he dreamed about every night?

Emory nodded, agreeing.

But Jordan shook his head, explaining, “But Rick says it isn’t. He was tricked into having sex with her, and his addiction for her is uh… entirely physical.”

His pals exchanged looks, still of the same mind. And honestly if he was dreaming about her every night that must have been some amazing sex. It didn’t make any sense.

Sighing, Jordan added, “Look, his pastor had him write up a list naming all the things he is looking for a wife. I saw it. He showed it to me. And next to that list, he made Rick list all the reasons why he was attracted to Daisy.”

“Her name is Daisy?” Rhett perked up. He wondered what kind of girl she was.

“Shhh!” Jordan hissed, looking around.

“No one is going to hear us!” Rhett waved his arms around at the German forest terrain. “We’re not even speaking German, for pity’s sake.”

But Jordan shook his head. “Alright, but don’t spread the word, ok? Rick entrusted this secret to me. Besides, I told you, I saw the list. He’s really not interested in her.”

They raised their eyebrows in tandem. They wondered why Jordan was so sure.

“I mean, yeah, he’s sexually attracted in a maddening way, but—and these are his words—that wasn’t love.”

Both Rhett and Emory sighed. That sounded like Rick. The words at least. Rick seemed a bit like a romantic. He could have his pick of women—he was handsome and rich enough—but he seemed to be looking for an impossible ‘soul mate’.

“So then why isn’t he dating other girls?” Emory asked, annoyed.

Jordan shrugged and marched on. “Come on. You guys know the guy’s damn picky. Besides, Rick’s grandma got murdered for being married to his grandpa—by a freak seeking a werewolf—and his mother divorced his father. I think he is scared to death for the girl he dates.”

They marched after him, not exactly sure they heard him right. “What?”

Nodding, sighing more, and they continued down into the valley, Jordan explained, “Rick told me, he has no desire to bring an innocent woman into a relationship without her knowing exactly what she was getting into. Somebody strong who can fight back against all the… I dunno craziness that haunts him. And I think he’s afraid no such woman exists.”

“So he wants to marry Wonder Woman,” Rhett said dryly, thinking Rick could afford to.

Emory laughed, “Or Electricity—that comic book heroine he likes so much.”

Jordan chuckled, nodding. “Yeah, I guess so.”

 

It was a long way, but eventually they reached Burgruine Winneburg. They picked their way through the remnants of the outer bailey, the ring walls and the circular keep. It was amazing. They imagined what had happened here in the medieval days, took pictures and posted what they could online, hoping Rick would see it and know what he was missing out on.

It was cool, great for their travelogue, perfect for the stories to share when they got home, but eventually they continued on.

There was a hotel down in the valley where they decided to catch some lunch before continuing on their hike back to Cochem. They ordered lots of water—their bottles long empty. But also they got a hearty meal to fill their stomachs. As they were eating, they overheard a conversation coming from a couple of bearded men walking into the establishment looking like disheveled professors in the midst of a heated conversation. They were speaking with a British-like accent, though they were not sure if it was. They didn’t want to label their nationality quite yet because they could have also been New Zealanders. They had that Jurassic Park professor look about them—whatever that actor’s name was. The conversation seemed to resonate in the room around them in a cloud of oblivious preoccupation at the effect they were having on everyone else.

“…and I am telling you, supernatural things do exist. They are not all legend. I mean have you hear the local stories that surround Cochem, the ones that are whispered rather than openly shared?”

“What are you saying? The Morbac monster is real? It is a folk tale. An urban legend at best.”

“Never dismiss a local legend,” the first man said gravely, the one the three of them mentally nicknamed the professor. “They have roots in historical truth.”

Several eyes and ears turned besides their own. Those that knew English were curious. Rhett glanced at the locals, wondering what Cochem urban legends were being whispered. And what was the Morbac monster?

“So, you are saying that back in Wittlich there really was a man who was cursed to be a wolf?”

“Possibly. You know the legend really spread due to the military base in Morbac. That part might just be urban legend. But the story is that the town of Wittlich is the last place in Germany where a werewolf had been killed. But the shrine in the Morbac monster story is actually in Wenigerath.”

“You know, though, most werewolf tales are just stories about serial killers, or people who lived to excess.”

“Indeed, though that does not discount the possibility that there are real werewolves about,” the professor said.

Jordan rolled his eyes. Emory snorted and Rhett chuckled.

The Brits’ heads turned. They gave dry looks, but did not argue when they saw the three young Americans eating there.

“Anyway,” the one man said to the other, “What proof do you have that such supernatural things are real. You keep claiming that they are, but narratives are not enough.”

“What about personal testimonials?” the professor asked.

“Lies and rumors.”

Jordan nodded, looking to his friends. All they had ever heard about the Deacons as werewolves were just that.

“Why is it that people are so willing to discount a personal account as a lie or a rumor when they themselves say they have experienced such things?”

“They could be delusional.”

“Another rationalization. My friend, I have seen things. If I could tell you all the things I have witnessed