The Daughters Grimm

by Minda Webber

  “Herr Humpty’s missing from his grave! Just like Frau Choplin!” one of the men cried out. His fat cheeks were ruddy, and his eyes widened with fear.

  “The groundskeeper is dead. His neck’s been broken,” another man exclaimed as he searched the ballroom now full of horrified faces. “Where’s the magistrate?”

  “He’s not here tonight; nor is his nephew,” one voice answered.

  Shouts of “Get the torches and pitchforks” filled the room, and the men began preparing to do battle with the forces of evil. Including, Greta would bet, a vampire or two.

  Greta was ecstatic. Finally! Her moment had arrived. She would see the face of a monster. “I must find my cloak and my Van Helsing stake,” she cried out. “Drat! It’s at Aunt’s house.”

  Suddenly another voice rose, high and shrill from the crowd. “The vampyrs are coming, the vampyrs are coming, and we’re all doomed.” Countess DeLuise’s eyes rolled back in her head. Clutching at her chest, the old woman sank heavily to the ground.

  Grabbing Greta by the arm, Baroness Snowe hurried over to her good friend and began issuing orders like a general. The last of these was to Greta. “Since I will be tending the countess, I’m sending you to your sister’s. She’ll make sure you’re not off and about the graveyard like some demented Frankenstein!”

  “But Aunt Vivian, everyone else is going—”

  “You’re not,” her aunt warned her. “A cemetery is no place for a lady.” Turning to a footman, she commanded, “Bring my coachman at once.”

  “I must go!” Greta actually whined, feeling her excitement drain away.

  Facing her niece once again, Aunt Vivian shook her head. “My coachman will take you directly to Rae’s. I will speak to him and warn him that if you set one foot into that cemetery, he will be driving someone else’s coaches and certainly not mine!”

  Greta’s heart sank. She was doomed. Doomed to disappointment both in love and in her quest.

  Her aunt was as good as her word. Within moments Greta was whisked off to Castle Durloc, despite all her protests. Above her, the full moon shone bright, highlighting the tracks the carriage was making in the hard-packed snow.

  “I’m missing all the excitement,” Greta complained. She kicked out with her slippers and hit the other side of the seat. “Ouch. I bet they’re chasing the vampires now, and here I am, stuck in a carriage while everyone else is having a grand adventure! My aunt is a witch!” she swore violently. “And the coachman is a coward.” She had tried bribing him, but not with much enthusiasm, as her conscience wouldn’t allow him sacrificing his position for her quest.

  “She’s worse than Mother! Jakob and William will never forgive me!” she said to the heavens. “Oh, this is monstrously unfair! I’m the one who believes in monsters. I’m the one who should be leading the pack. Now I’ve missed it all! I wonder how large its teeth are…?”

  Greta sighed. She sat up straight and brushed her tears away as the carriage slowed down. Outside her window, she heard the coachman calling out to someone. Surely they hadn’t arrived at Castle Durloc already.

  Sticking her head out the window, she spotted a large overturned carriage in a ditch. A body lay in the snow, blood spattered here and there. “Stop, we must help!” Greta commanded, beginning to rip a strip off her petticoats.

  The carriage halted and Greta jumped down, taking the carriage lantern with her. Kneeling in the snow beside the man, she briefly noted how he was dressed. His attire proclaimed him the driver of the coach. His neck lay at an unnatural angle. Also—Greta gasped—blood flowed from his neck. Leaning down to get a closer look, she muttered, “Those are bites!” And at the sight of the puncture wounds, her heart raced.

  Behind her, Greta heard the harsh cry of her own driver. Then, suddenly, all was silent. The hair stood up on the back on her neck. Whirling around, she held the lantern high and felt her heart drop in abject terror. “Who’s there?”

  “Surely you aren’t afraid, Fräulein,” the dark voice asked, “of things that bite in the night? After all, I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

  Greta’s jaw dropped open. “O-ho, you’re really real! You’re not a figment of someone’s imagination after one too many steins of ale. You’re not some legend from long ago, but a breathing creature of flesh and…” She trailed off as she realized she had almost mentioned his dinner.

  Backing away, she stared at the figure before her. He was taller than she, but slender of build. He had long brown hair which hung loose past his shoulders. His eyes were a bright red, and when he smiled he revealed two very sharp fangs.

  Stilling her impulse to run very fast to a place far away, she took a deep breath. Running might incite his predatory instinct. “Yes, I guess I have, and here you are. I can’t believe it, though. I should, I know, because I knew you existed even when others proclaimed you did not,” she stated, still in shock. Then, more to herself, she added, “And Rolpe was so certain that the woodcutter’s mother’s corpse was stolen by grave robbers.”

  “It appears you were both correct,” the vampire replied silkily, his teeth glistening in the lights of the full moon and her flickering lantern.

  “I…don’t understand,” Greta said, fear making her legs quake beneath her cloak. Her breathing quickened.

  “I am a grave robber as well as a Nosferatu.”

  “You mean, Frau Choplin was not bitten by you?” Greta was both terrified and amazed. And she was both terrified and amazed that she was even thinking about legends when she was about to become a vampire’s dinner. If she was fortunate enough to survive this night, she would write home at once. Jakob and William would be up in the boughs over this strange, deadly and exciting adventure.

  “Nein. I did not bite her. I merely wanted her corpse, since she was six-fingered on her left hand. An oddity which medical universities will pay well for.”

  “How did you know about this oddity?” Greta asked, courageously keeping the conversation going while her eyes darted around for any chance of escape.

  “The undead have their ways, and one of the peddlers who travels the area happens to be a great-nephew of mine. He tells me these things and gets a percentage of the profit. I’m known far and wide in the business of dead bodies as the man who delivers the exotic and unusual.”

  “How interesting.” She gulped. “So, when you found out about Frau Choplin, you merely dug up her corpse?”

  “It didn’t take long. Six feet is not really all that deep. Why, I have risen from beneath more than sixteen feet of dirt myself,” he boasted shamelessly, savoring the taste of her fear. Soon she would be his, but for now he was enjoying toying with her as a cat with a mouse. He had been curious to meet the lovely lady so determined to reveal him, and now that he had, he couldn’t let go. He had a mess to clean up. But first he would enjoy a little fine dining—and a sexual conquest.

  Slipping her hand around her neck, Greta found her silver cross. The cold metal felt strong and hard beneath her fingers. It reassured her somewhat. Although she was in a dire and dangerous predicament, she would prevail or go down trying. “Herr Humpty was taken tonight from his final resting place. I presume that was you?” she asked. Evidently no one rested in peace around this vampire.

  His smile was beyond wicked, his fangs deadly and sharp. “Aye, I did. He’s got a hump on his back, which makes him different, so I came back and took him. Except, I encountered some trouble when my coach crashed. But now I have yours to carry me and the bodies to safety.”

  Aha! He was getting out of Wolfach in a one-horse carriage, since the other horses were limping. It also appeared that the traces might be broken. If she could delay him, the townspeople might be able to follow his carriage tracks in the snow and rescue her before she became a part of a legend—a legend that she once would have loved to be included in. Not so much anymore.

  “I’ve never heard of a grave-robbing vampire before. Wouldn’t it be easier if you were to simply drink their blood like other vamps? In
fact, if you made them vampires, they could dig themselves up!”

  A sharp bark of laughter filled the night, the sound cruel and guttural. “Don’t you think that the medical universities would frown on their experiments waking up at night and chomping on their students? Besides, my kind require secrecy. When we hunt, we hunt the stranger on the road or those that won’t be missed. We rarely hunt in towns anymore, because people would soon wise up to us. Now we seem the stuff of nightmares. But we are real.”

  “Oh, I see your point,” Greta hedged. “But why grave robbing?” She flashed a coy smile. In the very far distance, she caught glimpses of torches. Their lights darted in and out of the far trees like fireflies. If she could just keep this monster distracted, she might be rescued from a fate worse than death. “There are more lucrative professions,” she added, both afraid and exhilarated as she plotted her next move.

  “How do you think I became as I am? I was robbing graves when I dug up the wrong corpse,” the creature explained to her.

  Greta nodded, easing toward one of the horses that had become unhitched in the accident. “A thief never profits from his crimes.”

  The vampire’s slender shoulders began to shake as he erupted in laughter. Taking advantage of his distraction, Greta inched closer to the untethered horse. She kept her eyes on the undead highwayman, who was still chortling. Her pride battled with her fear and, piqued, she retorted, “It’s not funny. My Sunday school teacher taught me that.”

  He wiped blood-red tears from his eyes and just stood there, watching her try to sneak to the horse with all the stealth of a large ox.

  Noting the bloody spots on his hands and speckling his greatcoat, Greta shuddered. “You bit your driver, and you killed mine,” she accused.

  “Why do you think I have such big teeth? All the better to bite with, my dear. Alas, my driver was already dead.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I couldn’t see letting his blood go to waste. I’ll take yours with me when I leave.”

  His pride in his killing was more than obvious. She found his demeanor both repulsive and cruel, and she shuddered all the harder when he added, “And your driver was a danger. I’ve lived too long to be careless. I’m just doing my part to keep the roads safe.”

  He winked, causing her to catch her breath at the grossly inappropriate gesture. His eyes were truly appalling. “My, what red eyes you have,” she remarked. But bloody hell—she shouldn’t have voiced that thought.

  The vampire smiled—an evil smile, where the fires of hell resided. “They match your cloak, my dear.”

  “I didn’t realize that vampire eyes were red,” she admitted. Then, hoping she hadn’t insulted him, as that might not be the wisest of plans, she quickly added, “It is a nice red. Like an apple or bl—”

  The vampire put a hand to his ear as he stepped closer. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you, my dear.”

  “Nothing of great import,” Greta hurried to say. Drat! What was taking those villagers so long? The lights still flitted in the woods behind the vampire, but if they were torches, they didn’t appear to be getting much closer. At least, not as quickly as she desired.

  Her foe laughed in delight. “You are a beauty,” he said. “And with me, you’ll be so forever. You’ll make a fine companion for me. Much better than the last female I turned. She turned out to be utterly lacking in finesse and always smelled of the brewery.”

  Greta shivered with fear and revulsion. Though the vampire was not old or unattractive, she found his eyes cruel and his fangs very sharp and long. “You can’t touch me. I’m wearing a big silver cross,” she said, wishing for garlic and her Van Helsing vampire-slayer, too. She was always missing something when things were at stake!

  “Now, that could present a problem,” the vampire admitted. “I detest silver; it burns. But it won’t stop me,” he said. “I intend to savor you with my big sharp teeth, my dear. Then I shall make you mine.”

  His intent finally set in and had her panicking. She bolted around the back of the carriage door and lunged for the horse. It bolted. And with it went all hope of escape.

  In this situation, Greta did what any proper lady would do: screamed. She screamed for all she was worth, which at the moment wasn’t very much. She’d forgotten to take out a life insurance policy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A White Knight (or Black Wolf) to the Rescue

  The vampire scrambled after her. Still screaming, Greta could feel his hot breath scorching her neck. Slipping and sliding in the snow, she tried to crawl out of the ditch where the carriage crashed. Just as she reached the top of the crest, her foe grabbed her from behind. Greta didn’t think; she just reacted, jabbing backward with her cross and hitting the vampire in his groin.

  The air filled with the scent of burnt flesh and the vampire howled as the holiness of the cross burned his groin. In his rage, he shoved her. Greta flew out and against an embankment, her head hitting the side of the hard, crusted snow with enough force to cause stars to float before her eyes.

  Grabbing some snow, the vampire quickly placed it over the deep burn on his crotch and doubled over, screeching obscenities and a threat or two that dealt with intestines and thumbscrews. Greta was glad she was too dazed and dizzy to understand his German completely; but unfortunately, she was also too dazed to flee.

  After several more moments of intense cursing, the vampire rose to his feet and came toward her. He was no longer graceful in his stalking. There was a blackened area of clothing and flesh below his stomach, and his eyes carried the wildness of a savage beast. His fangs looked deadly.

  The vampire snarled at her. Claws extended, he lunged. In mid-lunge, he was disrupted by a large beast leaping over the crest of the hill. It was the biggest wolf Greta had ever seen, and what a set of teeth he had on him! If she’d thought the vampire’s fangs were large, he had nothing on this wolf.

  Like a bolt of lightning, the Black Forest black wolf attacked the evil vampire with a feral growl. The pair went down in a tangle of legs and paws, with growls, curses, flying fur and howls of rage emitting from the tangled mess.

  Greta leaned back weakly against the bank. Closing her eyes for a moment, she hoped to still the dizziness enough for her to run. But suddenly a loud scream rent the air. Opening her eyes, she saw that the vampire’s head was no longer attached to his neck. The big wolf howled in triumph.

  Coming to her senses, Greta’s eyes widened in fear. Was she next? This was a huge wolf, clearly dangerous. Her heart pounded. She had to leave this cursed place immediately.

  Unsteadily, she regained her footing and staggered up the snowbank, only to be brought down by a tug on her cloak. Weakly she fell to the ground, awaiting the lunge that would end her life. It never came. Instead, the wolf circled Greta and began to whine. After this startling development, all she could do was stare, both stunned and amazed. The wolf looked very familiar, and his eyes were lit with intelligence. This was no mean and savage beast.

  “No, you are far more,” she said. Then the light dawned, and she knew.

  Taking the shaggy head in her hands, she stared into those deep blue eyes, eyes she would know anywhere. Even in the face of a heroic wolf or roguish prince. “It’s you!”

  The wolf nodded his majestic head, and she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him to her. “You saved my life. You were absolutely magnificent. How on earth did you find me?”

  Rolpe yearned to answer her. To tell her that he had felt a cold fear take hold of his heart and somehow he had known she was in trouble. It was then he knew that Fen was right: Greta Grimm was his soul mate. And so he had followed her scent and found her there in the dark woods. A few moments later, he might have lost her forever. He shivered in his wolf form.

  As Rolpe leaned into her and she placed her arms around his massive wolf frame, Greta felt such a strong wave of love that it took her breath away. Leaning back, she petted his furry head. “You were so brave and strong.” The love of her life had come
bursting out like in a fairy tale, like the heroes did in her stories, to rescue the fair maid. So, maybe he hadn’t ridden up on a white horse. Or even been a white horse. No, apparently her prince was a wolf in sheik’s clothing. Well, not a sheik, but just a regular Prussian prince.

  Greta sighed. Nobody was perfect.

  “Now, I know that you believe love is better served in fairy tales, and not for someone like you…but I believe in the power of love,” she declared firmly. “And I love you, Rolpe, and I intend to be with you.”

  He threw back his head and howled. Then he licked her face, tenderly took her hand between his teeth, and shook.

  Greta laughingly petted him, then replied. “Yes, you have very sharp teeth. Very big teeth. They scare me so completely that I agree to your proposal. I will marry you.”

  He threw back his head and howled again.

  “That howl was a proposal of marriage, was it not?”

  His wolfish eyes held a wicked look, and she laughed. They would have a grand and glorious life.

  She smiled at him adoringly. “That will teach you, Rolpe von Hanzen, to accuse a Grimm of trying to trap a man. However,” she added, grinning, “I’m not above trapping a beast. Especially a wolf.”

  Rolpe howled again, and she recognized the sound as his victory cry. Then Greta remarked teasingly, “I think we should have a nice long engagement—perhaps seven or eight months?”

  He growled.

  “Five?”

  “Another low growl, rumbling from his furry chest.

  “Three? Three is really a very short time to prepare a wedding. And I would like my family to attend. They will need some kind of notice.” She stopped what she was saying when she noticed Rolpe look away with wolfish disdain. A tiny frown furrowed her brow. Apparently even three months was too long. “Fine, you may set the date when you are able to converse like a civilized human being about the whole affair. But I warn you now: you won’t always get your way when we are married. And I intend to keep up my search for the paranormal. No matter how much you growl at me.”