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

The next second a shot came out of Tom’s gun.

Schwitzer stared skyward as he fell back, dropping dead to the ground—his shock frozen on his face.

“And nobody messes with my old roommate,” Tom said.

Chapter Nine

Tom marched over to Peter’s abandoned motorbike. He gave a thumbs up to Semour while the others stared at what Tom had just done.

“Tom hates guns,” Rick murmured, his eyes on the flaming castle and dead Schwitzer. “I mean… he really hates them.”

“It shows how much he likes you,” Semour said as they pulled out and made a U turn on the road.

They put on the headlights as they rumbled down the mountain road, leaving the blazing castle behind them.

Rick felt sick. He had known going to Germany would be dangerous. He had known he should have listened to his instincts and nixed a stop in Cochem entirely. But he hadn’t. He had been a stupid pushover for Jordan and Emory. Now Jordan was dead. And it was all his fault.

“Hey.” James felt over Rick’s forehead. “Do you need any epinephrine? We might have got some garlic on us, and you might be feeling sick from that.”

It was difficult to breathe, though Rick had thought it was just from pure guilt. It was nice to have an allergy to blame it on.

“We need to disarm and pack up,” Semour said from the front seat as Daniel steered their way back down the dark mountain road. “We can’t go around in armor among the normies. And what do we do when the cops find out and get here?”

“We don’t stay in Germany,” Rick wheezed. He watched James as he dug out an epi-pen and handed it to him. Rick took the quick epinephrine syringe and jabbed it into his thigh, pressing the end. “We head to France. We take a plane out of there. My family has one waiting for us. We were going to use it at the end of the trip.”

Semour nodded.

“Peter called for an ambulance,” Daniel called back as he steered.

Rick shook his head. “No hospitals here. I’d be trapped.”

James peered at him while digging out more bandages and pads from the first aid kit, puzzled.

“We don’t know how large that pack actually is or how far their influence reaches,” Rick said, his breath coming back a bit better. “Schwitzer’s father was not home. He was the true alpha. And I don’t think the entire pack is located in Cochem either. Just their main, um, den. Dad said they were like the mafia.”

“Can you explain that better?” James asked.

Nodding, Rick sighed as all his body throbbed. “You guys ought to know about supernatural black holes—like Wolverton. That was a black hole. We were not meant to survive. Not me. Not my friends. They will hunt us down. And if we go to hospital here, I am sure to die. They’ll kill me.”

James looked to the pair in the front seats of the car and nodded. “Ok.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Daniel asked, listening.

Nodding, Semour said, “We take this car to France and—”

“Nope,” Daniel cut him off, shaking his head. So had James. “We sort of commandeered this car down in Cochem. It’s not ours. What we now need to do is commandeer the ambulance that’s coming.”

“And how do we do that?” Semour bit back. “An ambulance stands out. You remember what happened in that movie, the Fugitive.”

“Good point,” James spoke up. He glanced to Rick who looked terrible. He hardly had enough gauze for all the gashes and puncture wounds. Rick needed stitches and they only had one packet of butterfly bandages in the kit. “What we need is to get him to a hospital, get the damage recorded, then sneak him out again. We need publicity.”

“Publicity?” Rick sat up, shaking his head. “No. No, no, no.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Daniel retorted, eyes on a squirrel that just dashed across the road.

Even Semour was slowly nodding.

“Why?” Rick protested, hurting all over. He could hardly move.

“To create for you an alibi that is plausible. You had witnesses in Cochem that you were there, and witnesses that said you had gone up to Wolfsburg Castle. The locals were worried,” Daniel said.

Rick lifted his head, feeling hopeful. “Really?”

Daniel nodded and so did James.

“Yeah,” James confirmed. “The woman at the restaurant was the one who lent us the car. She told us where you had gone and what she had packed in the bag for you. Many of the locals are aware of the man-eating werewolf family in the woods. They just don’t tell tourists about them.”

A rippled went through Rick, realizing it wasn’t just super luck to get someone to cooperate with his weird take-out order for cash. They knew.

“And I’m sure they saw and heard the helicopter,” Daniel added.

Semour grinned. “Ok. So we do PR work. What story do we tell?”

“The truth,” Rick murmured, closing his eyes.

James and Semour stared at him. They were getting closer to Cochem. He could see the lights.

“Tell them a psychopath who owns pet wolves had lured my friends into the mountain area to tour his castle, and he sic’d the wolves on them.” Rick drew in a painful breath. “I alerted my bodyguard, Tom, and my friends who were nearby of my trouble, and my friends were flown out to safety. And the castle inadvertently caught fire.”

“Inadvertently…” Daniel murmured, chuckling while maintaining control of the vehicle. “I was trying to get him angry so he would go wolf so Semour could shoot him.”

“Didn’t work,” Semour muttered.

“Tom shot him,” Rick murmured under his breath.

They went silent for a second.

“Tom’s got a license to kill,” Semour replied, loud so no one could doubt he believed Tom had acted right.

Rick shook his head, pain in his chest… and shoulder. And really, all over. Adrenalin had been keeping him going, but now he hurt everywhere.

“There’s plenty of evidence the guy was crazy,” Daniel added, steering them into Cochem finally. He pulled around and steered back to the restaurant where Rick had met Schwitzer earlier that evening. It felt surreal being back. “Your rent-a-car is still there and in bad shape. It is perfect proof.”

Rick nodded. “Yeah.”

The ambulance they had called was there, sitting three spaces away on the curb. The driver was outside of it, drinking a beer and talking to the locals about why he should or shouldn’t go up the mountain. Clearly even he knew no one sane went to Wolfsburg Castle.

Parking, Daniel quickly turned off the ignition and climbed out the driver’s seat. He called to the ambulance driver for help, rushing over. There were no EMTs. Apparently the man had expected only the dead.

Several locals swarmed around them once James and Semour got Rick out of the car. The lady who had fetched Rick his silver, garlic, and honey stared at him and all his bite wounds and rough bandages. She gasped, fainting on the walkway. Someone caught her and revived her. And the police were quickly called.

As James dragged Rick to the ambulance, opening the back doors so they could get him in, Semour opened up the car trunk to pull out Rick’s things. As they did this, people stared at their armor over their clothing, murmuring in German.

“Oh snap,” a tourist said, peering in at the bloody damage on Rick.

“Hey you!”  James called him over. “Do you speak English?”

The tourist nodded, hesitating as he stared at James’s breastplate as well as the sword at his side.

“I need you to take pictures of his wounds.” James then beckoned the tourist in.

Obliging, the tourist used his cell phone to snap as many pics as possible.

“Do you have a Twitter account? Facebook or Snapchat?” James asked while taking off his armor and stacking it to the side as Rick allowed the pictures to be taken.

“Sure,” the tourist said, “All three.”

“Post these pics,” James said with a nod. “The news has to get out that Howard Richard Deacon the Third and his friends were attacked by a lunatic who sic’d his pet wolves on them.”

Gasps echoed in the gathering crowd who were rubbernecking for a look.

“All of you take pictures,” James called out to them.

“Seriously?” Rick protested. “It’s bad enough sitting here nearly naked. I want to get to a hospital.”

But pictures were taken up until the time the police showed up. Copies were sent to Rick’s email as well.

The police were stunned when Daniel recounted what he had discovered. Daniel lied and said he was supposed to meet with ‘H. Richard Deacon III and his friends’ up at the castle and they had discovered the lunatic attacking them with wolves. Daniel claimed that Rick was rich enough to call for an emergency helicopter, which lifted out his other three buddies who were badly hurt, but there had not been room for them all. And Daniel also mentioned the fire that had broken out.

“Wir müssen löschte das Feuer!”

The smell was already on the air, and people could see the light from the blaze in the hills. Rick, however, could smell wolves among the crowd. He was luckily surrounded by normal humans, but the wolves when they heard about the fire freaked.

“Feuer?” Some of the locals were astonished.

Calls for the fire brigade started to go into the air.

“Who are you?” the local policeman asked Daniel and friends as they had finally got Rick onto a stretcher within the ambulance, insisting they ride along with him in it. They were was plenty of space, they had said. They also stared at Rick’s honey-coated backpack and the armor they had been removing. Semour apologized for the honey and blood damage on the seats and in the trunk.

When Rick heard it, he sat up, pawing his empty pockets, insisting that she be paid for damages. His wallet was missing, but Daniel started to look in his wallet for something to give.

The woman, shoved away the money, grinning at Rick with tears in her eyes. “Segnen Sie. Segnen Sie. Sie aßen meinen Bruder.”

“What did she say?” James turned to Rick who seemed to understand.

“I think they ate her brother,” Rick said. He took her hand. “You saved my friends. Uh… Du hast meine Freunde… uh… gerettet.”

Tears filled her eyes. She smiled, nodding.

The cop had been watching.

“We’re representatives of the UN. The Holy Seven,” Daniel said to him, handing the man one of their cards. He could tell this policeman was a genuine human. He then showed him his UN issued ID.

“Dämonenjäger,” the policeman murmured. He lifted his eyes to Daniel.

 “That’s right,” Daniel said. “We’re authorized to deal with dangerous folk such as the Schwitzer family. If you go up and investigate the scene, you will find they had entrapped Howie and his friends at the castle. His vehicle is still up there, tires slashed, windows broken—damaged by them to keep them trapped. Now we have air-lifted out his other three friends to a safe location. But if you will excuse us, we will be taking Mr. Deacon to the hospital for treatment.”

“Warte jetzt eine Minute…” another policeman said, looking to Rick and then nervously to the local pack wolf who was freaking out over the news of a fire at the castle. “Wait a minute—”

“No