A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) (31 page)

"Hey!" Fredrick screamed.

She jabbed an elbow into a guard’s face, connecting hard with his cheek. He shook head like an angry dog and came at her with the butt of his gun raised.

"Andi!
” Fredrick screamed. “Stop! You've gotta stop!"

Slowing her wild swinging, she considered the end of the guard
’s gun. Her options had run out. She contented herself with glaring viciously at her captors and trying to contain the full body trembling she couldn’t seem to control.

Dame Gothel strolled from the other side of the tower, the wolves heeling like well-trained dogs.

"Lovely," she exclaimed, her green eyes drinking in the scene with a smile. "Shall we go?"

The guard
with a malicious sneer thrust the solid oak stock of his shotgun directly at Andi’s head.

"I swear, entitlement hangs off every single one of you like a stench."

Fredrick paced another lap in the cramped, airless cellar. It was a nervous habit of his and there was plenty to be concerned about. He strode by a barrel of apples, countless jars of vegetables stacked on shelves, and a single candle that guttered as he passed by. Andi groaned from her post, propped against a sack of potatoes on the hard packed dirt.

"Stop, Fredrick. You
’re making me dizzy,” she pleaded clutching at her head. “Plus, if you make that candle go out, I'll also be claustrophobic, and neither of us wants to experience that."

"Let him be," Quinn said from her perch on another barrel. The contents were unknown, but Fredrick heard sloshing from within. "If there was enough room, I'd be pacing too."

Andi threw up her hands in mock surrender. She staggered to the deep freezer hunched in a corner. Snagging three ice cream bars, she let the lid bang shut and tossed a few to the others, putting her own on her throbbing head.

“
Ahh, that’s better.”

Andi wasn
’t sure about this bizarre world where magical trees handed out formal wear and princes kept deep freezes full of ice cream in their medieval castles. It might be an okay place if the people that lived here weren’t bent on imprisoning them.

The tiny wooden door to the cellar flew open and one of the hawk nosed palace guards shoved his face in the doorway.
“Get up you lot. Herrchen is ready to see you."

With the door finally open, Fredrick moved slowly, his eyes searching out potential danger. Andi tossed her half melted ice cream to the guard and shoved past him as Quinn tried smoothing the wr
inkles out of her ruined dress.

"Dylan is still out there somewhere,
” Fredrick whispered to Quinn, heading up the stairs to their unknown fate. “He could get us out of this.”

He blinked when the bright sunlight from the window hit his eyes. It had been a miserable night trying to sleep in the frigid underground room. Although it stung his sensitive eyes, the morn
ing light was a welcome relief.

"I stink,
” Andi said to no one in particular, taking in her filthy clothes in the harsh reality of daylight.

Fredrick still wasn
’t sure where they were. The cold stone walls didn’t offer many clues, and the single window showed a forest of pine trees that had so far been everywhere in Elorium.

They shuffled through a wooden door and filed into a large room towering with windows and early sunlight. It was either a small library or an enormous study. Books lined every surface
—the walls and tops of tables. The precarious stacks on the floor inadvertently erected a short maze. Dominant in the middle of the room sat a heavy mahogany desk, big enough to nap on.

Fredrick frowned at the pattern on the rug and the shape of the windows, craning his neck to see if the view from here would give him a clue to where they were. He caught sight of the garden and the tree he
’d stepped out of only two nights ago. They were back at Prince Wilhelm’s castle.

“
Feels like we just left this place, right?”

Dylan stood in the middle of the landslide of books with his right arm pulled awkwardly across his chest. The girls sandwiched him between them in a hug, making him gasp before they noticed his broken wrist. Fredrick strode over and clapped him on the shoulder, relieved. He didn't even try to make himself heard over the girls
’ exclamations of "Where were you!" and "What happened?"

"I'm glad to see you
’re well."

Fredrick spun around, searching for the source of the newcomer
’s voice.

Mr. Jackson emerged from the shadow of a pile of books. The girls stuttered to silence. His hair was a bird
’s nest, and his normally impeccable clothes looked as though he’d slept for several days in a cellar. He sported two black eyes and numerous other small lacerations on his face, neck, and hands. And those were just the injuries Fredrick could see.

"What are you doing here?" Fredrick asked.

"Jack here needed to be brought in and reminded who he works for. He’s been unwilling to follow orders, as of late." A stranger stood from behind the desk. His work sat interrupted, a quill and bottle of ink lay beside scattered sheets of parchment. "He needed a bit of… persuasion to come and finish what he started."

The small man's dress was immaculate; cravat bleached white and tied with precision under a rich vest and a dark suit coat with wide lapels. The entire ensemble looked like it had been starched with him in it. Every wave of his dark hair was perfectly in place, and he glared down at them from behind his thin, pointed nose.

"But I believe we understand each other better now, don't we Jack?" the man asked emphatically.

"Yes, Herrchen," Mr. Jackson said in a clear voice, although he addressed his feet. He briefly looked at Fredrick with helplessness and fear plain on his face, then quickly back at his toes. The glance was lost on Herrchen, who clasped his hands behind his back and strode
out from the behind the desk.

"My, my, you do look like you
've been roughing it, Cynthia."

The last person in the room, a silhouette that detached itse
lf from the bright light of the window behind the desk, stepped forward. Wilhelm’s handsome face came into the light. Andi stood next to Dylan and took his uninjured hand and, as a pair, they glared in his direction.

Prince Wilhelm only chuckled at her burning gaze. "Now, don't be like that, Andi. I can be perfectly charming if you behave yourself."

"You
do
know who I am,” she accused him.

"While the resemblance to your grandmother is remarkable, only a fool would be confused. And I am no fool." His eyes narrowed and Fredrick remembered all too clearly the idiot she made him look when she ran away. "You are very
—human. I swear, entitlement hangs off every single one of you like a stench."

"Not now, Wilhelm." Herrchen waved away his banter without a backward
glance. “I’m not happy to have to come here and sort this out myself. It has made for a long night.”

The prince straightened himself and came to stand beside his master. Quinn bumped Fredrick quietly with her hip,
nodding in the direction of the desk. He caught a glimpse of Andi’s pack—missing since their arrest—half propped up against one of the desk legs. Fredrick raised an eyebrow at Quinn in acknowledgement.

"You four
…
”
Herrchen glared up his nose at them. “No, five," he added as he included Mr. Jackson in his glare, "have made quite the mess for me to clean up."

"I'm sorry," Quinn interrupted, not sounding sorry at all, "but who are you?"

Herrchen turned as if noticing her for the first time. "I am Herrchen, the master of these lands. It is my responsibility to keep them running in the proper manner. And as I have said, you five have mucked that up."

"You're the one who yanked us out of our world," Dylan accused him
.

"I did, as is my right. Despite several explicit commands
—one being for Jack to bring you straight here—you seem to have gone astray.” He leveled a ferocious glare at Mr. Jackson, who met his eyes impassively. "More than once.” Herrchen shifted his gaze to Wilhelm, who looked bored with the entire conversation.

“
He has managed to keep you from me, until now that is. You picked up some very bad habits in their world, Jack."

"What do you mean it's your right to pluck us from our homes and bring us here?"

Quinn's question lapped over the top of Fredrick's asking, "You're from our world?"

Herrchen's gaze flipped toward the ceiling as if looking for patience among the rafters. He addressed Wilhelm lounging next to his desk. "This is the problem with humans.
They’re used to having a say in everything. It gives one a headache."

"Tell me about it." Wilhelm raised an eyebrow at Andi
, who scowled so deeply that the loathsome prince should have burst into flames.

"Your grandparents belonged to me, they were
my
property to dictate
my
will upon!" Herrchen thundered down the row of people, his accusatory finger finding each of them. "As the children of their children, you are also mine to command. They left holes in their stories, ones needing to be filled, and if it hadn't taken me more than fifty years to find those conniving usurpers, I would have hauled their sorry selves back here."

He
’d worked himself into lather now, and a few careful waves of hair began to droop as Fredrick listened in horrified fascination.

"But they had the audacity to grow old and die, leaving me with you three," he said, his wildly gesturing hand took in Andi, Quinn, and Dylan. "Which I would have made work, except you are so, so... human!"

"You can't command us,
”
Fredrick blurted out.

The others looked at him
like he’d lost it.

"Remember what Rumplestiltskin said when we turned down his offer? 'How can you just walk away like that?'"

Andi caught on. "It's because we're human. We have a will, we have choices."

Herrchen pulled himself together, smoothing back his hair and straightening his coat as he sneered at them. "Yes, choices that have made my life nothing but a circus since you landed in El
orium."

"Sounds to me like you need to work on your management skills. You don't strike me as a people person,
” Dylan quipped.

Herrchen snapped his fingers and Wilhelm came around the desk and kidney punched Dylan before anyone could blink. Stepping back, he smiled down at the doubled over teenager as the others crowded around.

"It may be funny to you now, Mr. Peterson, but we'll see what 200 years under your grandmother's thumb does for your sense of humor."

“
You’re crazy,” Andi said, her voice a sharp hiss. One of her arms wrapped protectively around Dylan, who was still bent over in pain.

Herrchen waved Wilhelm toward the door, not even pretending to listen or care
. “We leave in ten minutes, make the necessary preparations."

"Wait!" Andi called at his retreating back. "Where are you taking us?"

Herrchen raised a well-groomed eyebrow. "I thought I made myself clear. You're going back to where you belong, even if I have to chain you there." Wilhelm gave Andi an oily smile as he strode out the door
.
“Back to your
stories
.”

"Where am I going? I don't seem to have a story." Fredrick's quiet question brought a look of delight to Herrchen's face
and a hard edge to Mr. Jackson's.

"He doesn
’t know?" Herrchen asked Mr. Jackson. “I guess that would have been a difficult conversation to have.” He addressed Fredrick again. "I will keep you with me as assurance Jack will behave. I think I'll leave it to your grandfather to explain." He strode out the door, leaving two guards flanking the only way out.

"No," Fredrick shook his head at the man who
suddenly came into focus as familiar. The green eyes and dark hair, the slight build
…
He could have been a cross between Fredrick and his father. "That can't be true. My grandfather disappeared—"

"
—when your dad was five," Mr. Jackson finished for him. He took a step toward Fredrick. "Let me explain.”

Fredrick continued to mutely shake his head at him. Mr. Jackson calmly soldiered on, like the words have been waiting decades to come out.

“Your grandmothers were best friends." He nodded at Andi and Quinn. "Cynthia was a sweet natured girl, never getting riled and always patient, even with her step-family." Andi grimaced as he continued. "She was over the moon when she found out she was supposed to marry Prince Wilhelm… until she found out what he was really like."

"You don't need to tell me,
” Andi said.

"She felt trapped. The hazel tree that grew on her mother
’s grave always aided Cindy when she needed it. It was as if her mother was trying to make up for leaving her so young to such a hard life.  That’s where the cloak and the shoes came from, tools for escaping from the prince and her supposed 'happily ever after.'”