“One of them called me a Grimm,” I said softly, reaching up and folding my hand around the medallion I wore. “That’s what I am. That’s what we both are.”
“A Grimm?” Her forehead puckered as she scowled. “What in the hell is a Grimm?”
“It’s just what we’re called.”
She glanced at Rip, then back at me. Fear sparked through her eyes and she opened her mouth to ask me something, only to stop. Then start again. It took her three minutes to finally ask me anything. “We… You mean more than just you and him, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I toyed with my medallion as I worked my way through possible explanations, discarding them almost as quickly as I considered them. “There are a lot of us. And we’re here to protect people from things like the things we faced earlier.”
“You mean that big…what in the hell was that thing?”
“It’s called a bocan—it’s an old Irish name for what Americans call the bogey man.” I stared into the living room. Most of the blood had been cleaned up. For now, the bodies were wrapped in blankets and waiting by the door—it wouldn’t be long before I had to deal with them, though.
The bocan would be the hard part, though. How had Rip gotten rid of the first one?
I made myself focus back on Mandy. I was having a lot of trouble staying focused right now. “But the bocan wasn’t the only monster. The other two were monsters as well. The bocan could just kill you. The others—by the time you realize you can’t get away, you only wish they would just kill you.”
“But they were just…people.”
“No.” I closed my eyes. “They used to be people, and then they did something stupid—like using a book to call up an orin. Or maybe they were just weak to begin with and the orin toyed with them until it was time to feed. An orin is much, much worse than the bocan. A lot worse.”
“That thing damn near tore your friend to shreds. It could kill me in a heartbeat. What could be worse than that?”
“A quick death can be a blessing,” I said. Then I shrugged.
“You won’t find quick with the others. They are called orin—they feed on souls. And that’s a lot worse than just dying.” I watched her now—it was important that she understand, that she realize. Her soul wasn’t weak and she wasn’t blind to things now. Easy manipulation was no longer an option. She’d have to allow it. “You know the legends about vampires—how they need blood to live. Well, an orin is like a vampire, but you can’t see it. It has no physical body on this plain and it uses its magic to take one.”
“What do you mean, on this plain?”
“There are different plains—different levels of existence, so to speak. You and me, we live in the mortal plain. Then there’s the demon plain—the netherplain are where the demons are trapped.” I lifted a brow at her. “Do you believe in God?”
She snorted. “As in the biblical one? Hell, no. It’s just a crock.”
“You need to rethink that line of thinking.” And she probably would. If she decided to become one of us. It’s hard to ignore what’s right in front of your face. “Anyway, the netherplain is where the demons are trapped and most of them will stay trapped there, physically at least, until the end of the world. Then they will be given free reign, for a time.”
I drew my legs to my chest and rested my elbows on my knees. With a sigh, I said, “Unfortunately, a lot of demons are smart. Their physical bodies can’t break free, but the strong ones can manifest for short periods of time on this plain. If they can get themselves a body, they can even walk among us for as long the body lives. In the case of the orin, they can make that body live a very, very long time.”
That’s what would happen to her—if I failed. “That is what they want you for, Mandy. They want your body, and they want your soul. If you give them half a chance, they’ll take it and once they do, I can’t help you.” All I can do is kill you.
“How?” she demanded. “How can they take my body?”
“With your permission.”
“Like I’d give it.” She gave me a bizarre look, her eyes full of doubt and skepticism.
“But you were getting ready to do just that when I first found you with the book. It’s bastardized Latin, but basically you were getting ready to toss out the welcome mat for one of them.”
She didn’t want to believe me. I could see it. But my gut told me she did. Or at least she was starting to. Poor kid. The warm gold of her skin went white and her throat worked as she gulped.
She looked away for a minute then looked back at me and asked, “What happens once one of them gets inside you?”
“You die.” There’s no soft, easy way to explain that. “It feeds on your soul and once everything that is you is gone, the body becomes demon property and then it starts reaching out and munching on the souls of those in your life. Anybody and everybody you come in contact with. For as long as the body lives, and that can be a very, very long time.”
“That’s crazy.” She surged to her feet and started to pace the bedroom. She didn’t go far from me, though. She kept sending skittish looks into the living room and I suspected that as much as she might want to run, she didn’t want to risk coming in close range to the dead bodies. “This is all crazy. It’s all insane. Demons aren’t real.”
“I bet there are a lot of people who would insist that a girl healing a man with just her touch isn’t real either,” I said quietly.
She shot me a sidelong look.
I gestured towards the living room where the bocan’s corpse awaited disposal. “Go tell that to the bocan,” I offered. “Explain what that thing is, if it’s not a demon. I’m kind of curious how you’ll rationalize it away.”
She just shook her head and continued to pace.
“Mandy.”
She stopped in her tracks to look at me.
“Tell me where you got the book.”
“I told you that already. A friend gave it to me. Her name’s Fae. She… Well, she looks out after people.”
I looked her over from head to toe and then snorted. “Darling, it’s been a long time since you’ve let people look out for you.” She was diamond-hard, through and through. Or at least that was the image she projected and if I hadn’t seen her in very dire predicaments, I might have even bought it.
She might need a good slap on the head but she didn’t need somebody holding her hand either. Nor would she allow it.
“I don’t exactly let her look out for me. She just… Well, she was always around. Always willing to listen.” As she spoke, her features got colder and colder, her gaze darkening with anger.
She fooled you, didn’t she? She sucked you in. I think I felt sorry for her. Whoever this Fae was, Mandy had believed in her. And somehow, Fae had convinced Mandy that she’d returned that belief.
Having illusions shattered can be so very painful.
It was nearing dawn when she spoke again.
“So what exactly is a Grimm? I mean, where do you come from? Why are you here?”
“Didn’t I already explain that? We’re here to protect people from the things that try to escape from the netherplains.”
She shook her head. “But where do you come from? You said you were like me once. What made you like you are now? And why in the hell are you called Grimms? Of all things.”
“Because guardian angels just sounds so…theatrical.” I smirked inwardly at the look on her face.
“Guardian angel. As in wings. Harp. That kind of thing?”
I jerked my shoulder in a shrug. “Do you see any wings? They would kind of stick out here, don’t you think? And I couldn’t play a harp if I tried. But yeah, guardian angel—that’s the general idea.”
Now she really wanted to think I was crazy. I smiled.
She glanced at the door. I could all but see the wheels spinning in her head. She wanted to make a run for it. The night was pretty much gone. She’d feel safer in the daylight. Who knows—maybe if she ran long enough, hard enough, and didn’t get
her hands on another book, she just might be safe.
But she didn’t make a break for it.
“Let’s say I buy the guardian angel bit.” She didn’t want to. But something wasn’t letting her just brush me off either. I wonder what?
“Okay. Let’s say just that.”
“Explain why a guardian angel would be called a Grimm—it sounds kind of… Well, I don’t know…morbid, or freaky or…”
“Grim?” I offered with a smile. I shrugged again and said, “It wasn’t my idea. Up until a couple hundred years ago, we didn’t really have a name. Then stories about us started getting out. Not the real story, though. Just a few details, here and there. Stories started getting passed around, handed down from one generation to the next. One of the older ones had an idea on how to hide us—in plain sight. Fictionalize us—so to speak.”
She stared at me with a dumb, blank look on her face.
“You ever heard of Hansel and Gretel?”
She ran a hand over her hair and shook her head. “You mean like with the bread crumbs, candy houses and all that? The wicked witch?”
“You don’t know your fairy tales very well. In the story, it was a gingerbread house. But in reality, it was just a little house. No wicked witch. Hans, though…” I grimaced. I didn’t want to go into detail about Hans. Even though time has faded those memories quite a bit, it still took me back to a bad place.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
CHAPTER TEN
Rip drifted awake slowly. He could sense Greta was near. Feel her hand on his brow. The soft, gentle touch of her fingers stroking his hair. She wasn’t scared or worried, so that must mean they were safe—which meant he could enjoy waking up next to her.
They were talking.
Caught in the twilight between sleep and waking, he could hear Greta talking to…somebody. What was her name? Mandy—yes, that was it. Mandy. They were talking.
“You ever heard of Hansel and Gretel?” Greta asked.
“You mean like with the bread crumbs, candy houses and all that? The wicked witch?”
“You don’t know your fairy tales very well. In the story, it was a gingerbread house. But in reality, it was just a little house. No wicked witch. Hans, though…” her voice trailed off, but he knew her well enough to sense the pain, the remembered fear that lingered even after all this time.
He forced himself to come completely awake. He opened his eyes and stared up at Greta’s face.
She wasn’t looking at him.
She was watching the girl.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Mandy, see the disbelief on her face, the edge of cynical laughter trying to work its way free.
She shook her head and snapped, “You’re fucking kidding me.”
She started to pace, her heeled boots thudding dully on the floor. “Insane. Why in the hell do I always end up with insane people around me?”
“She’s not insane,” Rip said softly. His throat was dry—dry as a desert. Damn, he was thirsty. He didn’t even have to say anything though. Greta pushed a bottle of water into his hands and he eased halfway up in the bed, wincing as the healing muscles in his belly screamed a reminder at him.
Like he could forget that he’d been gutted not that long ago. He downed half the bottle before lying back down.
Mandy was watching him like she expected him to come after her at any second. Pale and spooked. She stared at his torso with an intensity that had him shifting on the bed until he realized what she was staring at. His healing wounds. Almost already completely healed. And scarred—he hadn’t scarred since he was a mortal.
He pressed a hand to his stomach and shot Greta a look. He knew how bad it had been. He should have spent another day or two, at least, healing.
“How long was I out?”
“Only six hours.”
Glancing at his stomach, he looked back at her. “I don’t heal this fast.”
“Mandy helped you.” She glanced at the girl and smiled faintly. “Apparently, she’s got a healing gift.”
“She’s a healer.”
“Yep.” Greta slouched over the bed, bracing her elbows on the mattress as she slanted a look at Mandy. “She’s got a gift that lets her heal some damn bad wounds, but she doesn’t believe in demons, in God, in us.”
Mandy sneered at them. “I’m in the room, hello? And the jury’s still out on the demon thing. The guardian-angel bit, though, that is messed up. No way.”
“Doesn’t it stand to reason that if demons exist, so do angels?” Rip asked. He couldn’t stand being flat on his back—left him feeling too vulnerable. He eased back up and shifted until he could rest against the headboard. It helped. Some.
“I still haven’t decided on the demons. And what does one have to do with the other?”
“Balance?” he suggested. “If there’s good, there’s evil. If there’s evil, there’s good.”
She just glared at him for a few seconds before looking back at Mandy. “So if you’re Gretel, who is he supposed to be? Hansel?”
Rip snarled and almost came out of the bed. Greta reached out and rested a hand on his thigh, stopping him. She gave him a gentle smile and shook her head. “Take it easy, darling. She doesn’t know.”
Darling… Rip wasn’t one from pet names or endearments. So why did it sound so wonderful for her to call him darling? He reached down and covered Greta’s hand with his, lacing their fingers. The sight of their joined hands mesmerized him. Glaring at Mandy from under his lashes, he said quietly, “Hans was a sick dog that should have been put down long before he was.”
Greta squeezed his hand. “His real name was Hans. Not Hansel. He was called Hans but my name really was Gretel. I just changed it after…after Hans died.”
“This is so confusing,” Mandy muttered. She rubbed her temples and slumped against the wall. She looked exhausted, like a stiff wind would blow her over. She wouldn’t let it, though. She had a well of strength in her.
Rip could feel it. At least now he understood why Greta had been so drawn to the girl.
“If you’re not Hansel—Hans—whatever, then who are you?”
“My name is Rip.”
A frown darkened her face. Squinting at him, she said, “Okay, so I’m not as up to date on my fairy tales as Gretel of breadcrumbs and candy houses, but I can’t think of a single fairy tale with a guy named Rip.”
“That’s because I’m not from a fairy tale.” Rip shrugged restlessly and took another drink of water. His stomach was starting to rumble. He needed food and he needed it yesterday. His body could heal damage, but it still needed fuel. “Not all of us are.”
Greta grinned at him. “No, he’s not a fairy tale. He’s more of a folk tale. Think of Rip Van Winkle.”
He scowled at her. It shouldn’t surprise him that she knew, although he hadn’t shared that story with others. It wasn’t one of the shining moments in his life. The only people who knew were those responsible. Himself…Fae. And probably the bastard in charge of them.
“Isn’t that the guy who slept for like a hundred years or something?”
Rip rolled out of the bed. His legs were still unsteady, but he needed food, and he needed out of the damn bed. “It wasn’t a hundred years. It was only five months—and I didn’t sleep.”
He had been hypnotized. There was a very big difference.
“Washington Irving put his own little artistic touches to the story,” Greta said, watching him as he reached for his jeans. They were blood-stained and torn, but clean. Somebody must have washed and dried them.
His shirt was done for, though. Unless he wanted to walk around with gaping tears in it. He wadded it up and tossed it on the bed and then turned to look at Mandy. She still had the horrified, yet entranced look on her face. Like she didn’t want to hear more, but needed to. “I didn’t sleep,” he said again. “I was already…” he reached for the words, wondered how much Mandy had been told.
“A Grimm,” Greta said, as though s
he’d read his mind. She gave him a small smile. “I’ve already explained that part—or most of it.”
He nodded. “I was already a Grimm, working with my trainer.” He closed his eyes and then opened them, staring at Greta. He hadn’t ever thought he would love again. Not until he met this woman.
“I met a woman. Fell in love with her. We had been married for a year when the war started. You’d know it as the Revolutionary War.” Folding his arms over his chest, he stared out the window. “She didn’t know about what I was. I never told her. She wouldn’t have understood. Wouldn’t have believed me. I left to fight in the war without telling her what I was. I wrote her letters. All the time. She would write back, telling me how she missed me, how much she loved me, how she longed for me to come back to her, safe and whole. And I did.”
He closed his eyes and remembered what happened the day he returned.
His beloved wife had been with another man. A man who Rip had loved dearly, like a brother. “I came home and found her longing and loving another man—my best friend.”
He’d nearly killed them both.
He might have if Fae hadn’t been there.
She’d been drawn there—much the same way Greta had been drawn to Ann Arbor. With the knowledge that she was needed.
He hadn’t seen the other woman in nearly forty years, not since she had trained him.
“Not the nicest homecoming,” Mandy said. Then she shrugged. “But that’s people for you. You can’t trust anybody. Especially those who claim to love you.”
“You’re awful young to have that outlook on life,” Greta said softly. She moved up to stand behind Rip. She slid her arms around his waist and pressed a kiss to his spine. In a voice too quiet for Mandy to hear, she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
He covered her hands with his and squeezed. Turning in her embrace, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close. “I wanted to kill them. I believe I would have killed them. But others had different plans. There was one of us there—a Grimm who had the ability to hypnotize others, with just a look. You look into her eyes and the whole world falls away.”
Candy Houses Page 10
