Grimm Wolf by Julie Steimle (well read books TXT) 📕

Daniel staggered under the weight, holding him up.

“Glad you kept your shorts on,” James said, jogging up. He was as battle worn as Daniel was—and a sight for sore eyes.

Breathless, Rick looked around, realizing he had survived that attack. Four out of the six wolves who had been attacking him were dead. But no Schwitzer.

Damn. Schwitzer was smart. He and that other wolf had to have run.

“Was that a helicopter we just heard?” James asked, gesturing with his flaming sword to the castle.

Rick nodded, heaving breaths. “Yeah. Um… Michael and Semour I think came on it. I think they took my friends out. How did you get here?”

“Car,” Daniel said. He peered Rick over, looking up and down him. “You’re badly hurt.”

Waving it away, Rick panted more as he could not let his aches overcome him. It was not over yet. “But not dead. Did you find Emory and Rhett?”

Daniel and James nodded. They looked battle shocked.

“They were badly wounded,” Daniel said, peering into Rick’s eyes, examining them. “But I think they’ll survive.”

“Rhett’s ok?” Rick’s eyes widened on Daniel, then James.

“One of his legs is pretty bad,” James explained, his eyes turning back and scanning the darkness for more wolves. “He lost a lot of blood, but Tom took care of them.”

Rick nodded. That was good then. Yet he looked back to the castle. “What about Jordan?”

Daniel and James exchanged a worried look.

Rick closed his eyes cringing. He shook his head. “Ok. I know he’s dead. But… did you see him? Did nothing worse happen to him?”

Quickly slinging an arm around Rick to hold him up, Daniel motioned for James to help carry their friend. He whispered, “We didn’t get to see him. We were looking for you.”

Nodding, Rick sighed. His head was feeling light. He was starting to black out.

“Hang on.”

“I think… I think Michael got him out….” Rick staggered with them.

They went back around to the front of the castle. As they did this, or tried to, three more wolves charged after them. Daniel dispatched them while James helped Rick walk farther. When they finally managed to get around to the front of the castle, they spotted Tom and Semour standing in the center of the gravel drive. Tom’s usually pristine CIA suit was splattered with honey and smeared with dirt with flecks of blood. Next to him, Semour stood in all his silver armored glory with his crossbow aimed right at Schwitzer-the-man.

Shirtless, scratched with war wounds, pompous… the German werewolf smugly gazed at them with hands held up in surrender. “You can’t kill me as a man. It would be murder.”

“What you did was murder,” Semour replied, crossbow high and fixed on its target. Clearly even he did not want to take on Schwitzer in close combat. The beast was ripped, even as a human.

“But you are one of the Holy Seven,” Schwitzer taunted. “You have to be holy.”

Semour snorted, not inclined to be holy to a werewolf.

“Maybe I should be clearer,” the German werewolf said, realizing quickly that Semour was a killer who hated werewolves, “You cannot legally kill me. I know all about you. I did my research.”

He then looked back, recognizing Rick’s scent on the air. He turned his head to take in the sight of the two men he had just run from, but his eyes tracked Rick and only Rick as Daniel and James helped him across the open area back to Tom and Semour.

Tom perked up anxiously when he spotted them. He dashed over to them like a shot, tossing off his honey stained coat and grabbing Rick with both arms to heave him out of Daniel’s and James’s grasp. He lifted Rick with ease, lightening Rick’s own gravity as he hugged him. Tom hissed, “You’re alive.”

Rick nodded. But then broke down toward sobs, thinking of Jordan.

“He’ll pay for it,” Tom hissed even darker.

“Don’t go evil, Tom,” Rick whispered back, looking savagely to Schwitzer again.

Following his gaze, Tom nodded. “Got it. Justice only.”

Rick wondered what Tom had meant by that. Tom used words funny. He definitely understood them differently than he did, like he had his own dictionary and rule book. While Tom helped him walk back toward the far gates where Daniel and James’s car was situated, the others guarded against more wolves.

Schwitzer called out, watching them. “This isn’t over kleiner Welpe!”

Halting, Rick turned around. His neck stiffened and he squared his shoulders. “Not over? Oh no. Definitely not. You wanted to see who the most powerful werewolf was?”

Schwitzer grinned, preparing for another battle.

Rick, however, shook his head. “You seem to forget—the other half of what makes a werewolf is that he is also a man. I may be a decent enough wolf. But it is the man that makes me powerful. You’re nothing but a savage animal. A bloody cannibal. The Deacon family’s power is in being human. And we have grasped the potential of humanity and all that it has to offer better than you can comprehend. Our influence around the world is our strength. And our intelligence. Beat that, you beast.”

The wolf within Schwitzer rippled through him. But he remained a man. He understandably knew his safety was in that form. Yet Schwitzer snarled back, “You don’t think the Schwitzer family has any influence in society here? When the public finds out what you have done—?”

“Defended my friends from cannibals you mean?” Rick barked in vicious retort, sinews stiffening.

“No,” Schwitzer replied smugly, chin lifting. “You brought in mercenaries and pillaged my home. You will be arrested and then executed. The police here are in our pocket.”

Rick shuddered, realizing that part was most likely true. His father had said the pack operated like the Mafia. How else had they gotten away with murder for so long? How else had the news of people disappearing in Cochem been suppressed as long as it had?

“Then I guess we ought to do a good job of it,” Daniel said. He sheathed his sword, pulling the flame in his hand off it. Then lifting his flaming palm into the air, he grasped his red crystal with his left hand and set his eyes on the old castle.  

Immediately, bursting like a nuclear bomb exploding within, the castle widows shattered. Flames bellowed out of it in huge plumes. The entire structure engulfed quickly into flame.

“Damn… you pyromaniac,” Tom laughed, propping Rick up again as he wobbled on his feet from the shock. “That’s perfect.”

Schwitzer’s eyes widened on the swelling conflagration. He screamed, grabbing his head. “My home!” He almost ran to it, but the heat was already radiating into the courtyard like the sun. Yowling screams came from within.

Surprised at the noises, Daniel looked to Rick then Tom who gazed dryly back and mouthed they were all wolves in there and he had no reason to worry.

“It was your home,” Daniel retorted, regaining his composure. He then smirked and stalked away with James, gesturing that they go now before it was too late. “I hope your cell phone was not in there. Otherwise you can’t call the fire department.”

James also recovered with a laugh, relieved that Daniel’s fiery haste had not harmed an innocent. He gesturing for Tom to come with them and take Rick to the car again.

Rick stared up at the inferno, then looked to Schwitzer who, despite all, remained human. If it had been his home, Rick would have gone wolf and run in to see whom he could save. Schwitzer turned his hate filled eyes on him and muttered, “Verräter” again.

Traitor.

A shudder whipped through Rick. Was he a traitor to wolf kind as Schwitzer was accusing him?

Yet looking to his friends and the carnage of the trip, the rent-a-car especially, Rick shook his head. No. That wolf was a traitor to his own kind. A true werewolf could not afford to become a man-eater. It was an unspoken law. Even the Loup Garou in France knew it. Choosing to hunt humans was the betrayal.

“I need my car keys,” Rick said, feeling his legs wobble and knees lose strength.

“Done,” Tom held them up for Rick. “But you can’t have them. They’re covered in garlic oil.”

Rick nodded, sighing. “Leave the rent-a-car key there.”

His mind swarmed with thoughts. His friends had used the weapons he had given them. They had been saved. Tom had taken care of things. All was good. But then another thought came to him. “My backpack. I need my passport in it and other things. My cellphone.”

“I’ll get them,” Tom announced, dropping Rick with James like a sack of potatoes. James bowed under his weight for a second as it was unexpected. They both watched as Tom did not go back to the car, but went to that far tree where the light was. Rick’s head was swimming too much for him to figure out why. And he was finding it difficult to walk on his own again.

“He’s bleeding a lot,” James murmured. “We need to give him first aid.”

“Feigling!” Schwitzer shouted after them, not moving. “Verräter! I curse you by the power of the goddess! May the goddess bring down Hell upon you and all you associate with! May your next hunt be your last! May the Jäger gut you and wear your skin as a coat!”

Daniel halted, looking back on Semour who had not moved a step. Semour’s crossbow was still fixed on Schwitzer. His eyes had long taken aim. He was just waiting for permission to shoot. “Sir Cooly, are you coming?”

“In a second,” Semour said, unmoving.

“You are disgrace to all wolves!” Spit flew from Schwitzer’s mouth now, though he remained a man. “A pariah! The foulest heretic ever to walk the earth!”

“Ah, shut up!” Rick called back. “I was never part of your stupid moon cult in the first place, you nasty cannibal!”

“You are not a real wolf!” Schwitzer shouted back.

“Real wolves don’t go around eating people!” Rick barked back, fur sprouting in his anger.

“Calm down,” James hissed. “He’s just riling you.”

“But if I can rile him, Semour can shoot him,” Rick hissed in a lower voice.

They all looked to Schwitzer, who remained human, unruffled. They realized then that unlike Rick, he was able to maintain form despite his emotional state. That’s when Rick remembered that he, Rick Deacon, was a unique sort of werewolf, called by some packs a mingled soul wolf. Often, transformation was involuntary for him. For most other wolves, except on the full moon, the transformation took effort. Rick could be both wolf and man at the same time, which was how he was able to fight off the wolves so well when they had attacked him. It was also why Schwitzer was so stinking jealous of him and had wanted that fight. Even now, while maintaining his dignity as a man, Schwitzer’s eyes flashed with savage anger at how close Ruck was to his wolf side.

“I’m back!” Tom announced, causing Rick to jump from nerves. He then strolled past them to Semour. “Shoot him already and go.”

Semour’s mouth thinned into a line. “Technically, I can’t. Unlike you, I’m not CIA. I don’t have a license to kill any old human I want. He has to be a wolf for me to shoot him.”

Tom glanced to Semour, their eyes meeting briefly. He cringed as something unspoken had passed between them. Rick wondered what. But then Tom looked to Schwitzer, stiffening.

As he lowered his crossbow, Semour said to Tom in a low voice, “Remember, he killed Jordan and tried to make Howie eat him.”

Tom nodded, eyes on Schwitzer who smugly gazed back.

Tom drew out his Walther p99.

Schwitzer chuckled.

Lifting the gun, Tom pointed it at him. “You may not know this, and it will not matter much after I tell you this, but I really hate guns.”

Schwitzer tracked Rick and the others with his eyes as Semour joined James and Daniel. He watched as they hefted Rick into the backseat of the car and Daniel took the driver’s seat. James climbed into the back with Rick while Semour took