Happy Holidays from Chloe

Hey everyone, Chlo here. Taking a week or two off for the holidays—and if you read GRIMM you know the trouble I got into last Christmas, so wish me luck for this year. I’ll be back soon with more Chloe Files and I hope you all ordered your copies of GRIMM for gifts :) So have a Merry one and a hauntingly fantastic New Years. And watch out for those Christmas ghosts…
Chloe

The Discovery

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm Part 32: The Discovery

“Arly!” I froze, my entire body shuddering with relief and horror at the same time.

The room was a large basement of some sort, walls dripping with moisture and coated with moss and some snaking branches that had wedged through cracks in the stone over time. Torches burned on the wall.

Arly was in the far corner, partially sitting, legs curled beneath his naked body, arms above his head, held to the wall by shackles. His head lifted when I let out my scream and my hands went to my open mouth. Bruises and scratches blemished his face and dried blood caked beneath his swollen nose and at the corners of his inflamed lips. Praetallious may not have been able to kill him outright, but he’d sure spared no effort in beating him within and inch of his life.

“Chlo...?” he mumbled, partially swollen-shut eyes trying to focus on me. “Chloe…”

I shook off my paralysis and ran to him, getting down beside him and throwing my arms around his neck. He groaned and I withdrew. My shaking hand went to his cheek and tears flooded my eyes, streamed down my face.

“Jesus, Arly, I’m usually the one who ends up naked,” I said, voice quivering with relief. I cranked my head back to Genie, who stood behind me now, peering down, little expression on her face. It was as if she’d expected to find him here. Something told me she had indeed expected just that, but it wasn’t the time to try to pry an answer out of her.

“There’s not much time,” she said again and I didn’t question her on it. I turned back to Arly. I had to get him to a hospital.

Getting to my feet, I grabbed one of the shackles, tried to pull it open like an idiot, but it wouldn’t budge. They were locked about his wrists and I had no chance in hell of breaking them open.

I glanced around for a key, knowing damn well no demon would be stupid enough to leave one lying around. A small table stood next to Arly, one that held scraps of bread and a silver pitcher of brownish water. They had been keeping him alive, but barely.

“Patricia…” Arly muttered. He was only half conscious, I realized.

“It’s not her, Arly,” I said, bending over him, kissing the top of his head. “It’s just appearing as her.”

“No…no, she…she tried to help me…came to me…but…”

“Shhhh, don’t try to talk. We’re going to get you out of here, somehow.”

A laugh came then, like that of a little girl. Only this time it was deeper, laced with menace. I swung toward Lansing, who was looking towards the stone stairwell.

“He’s coming…” she said, and I grabbed the silver pitcher form the table. I needed to find the key to these shackles, or at least get Sturdevant here with some kind of chain cutters before that demon showed up, but it looked like Lansing was right and time was just about up. Whatever she was doing to hold off Praetallious, if indeed she was doing anything, was being overpowered.

“Keep it away from him,” I said to her and ran to the base of the stairs. I think I intended to brain the demon with the silver pitcher, for all the good it would likely do. Silver only worked against werewolves in movies; I doubted it would stop Mr. Pestilence.

I gazed up into the stairwell but saw nothing but flickering torchlight. A shuddered ran through me and I wasn’t sure whether to go up after it or wait until it came down. I had the feeling it wouldn’t make much difference but my fingers tightened on the pitcher handle, my knuckles going white and my hand throbbing from gripping too hard.

The laugh came again, a shuddery, distorted child’s glee. “Frickin’ demons,” I whispered, trying to steel my nerve.

Behind me a I heard a sudden double clank and spun, heart jumping into my throat. Both shackles had dropped against the wall and Arly’s arms were free. Lansing was standing over him and the absurd jealous thought she was looking at my man naked jumped into my mind.

“How did—“ I blurted.

She looked back to me and by her expression I knew a lie was already on its way out of her mouth. “They were loose,” she said, turning back to Arly, and getting an arm beneath one of his own for support. I wondered if she were strong enough to lift him, tiny as she was.

I dropped the pitcher and ran to them. “No way those were loose. I pulled on them,” I said, jamming my arm beneath Alry’s other side and helping her hoist him to his feet.

“Does it matter?” she said, giving me an eyeful of shut the hell up.

“It will later, if we get out of this,” I said, not letting her intimidate me. I braced Arly against the wall, while she held him there, his left arm draped over her pixie shoulders. I whipped off my sweater, thankful I’d bothered wearing a bra today, then tied it around his waist. Didn’t need little Ms. Pixie Sticks getting more of an eyeful of his package than she had already. I’m not sure why I was jealous at a time like this but I was. I think it was a way to suppress the fear threatening to just crush any hope I had of getting Arly out of this church before that demon killed all of us.

I jammed my arm back beneath his left arm and we helped him towards the door. He stumbled, nearly went down. It took all the strength I had to hold him up. By the time we reached the steps sweat was streaming down my face and from beneath my arms.

“Jesus, Arly, you’re going on a diet,” I muttered, mostly from nerves. I thought I heard him utter a thin chuckle, but my blood was pounding so hard in my ears I might have only imagined it.

Despite the fear threatening to overwhelm me, I don’t think I have ever been so relieved in my life. Finding him, after damn near going out of my head with worry for more than a week now—finding him alive—it was more than I could have hoped for. But it wasn’t going to matter if we didn’t get him out of here soon. Either the demon or the combination of starvation, dehydration and the beating Praetallious had given him would finish him off and I damn well wasn’t going to let that happen after coming this far. A few months ago, he’d moved Hell and earth to bring me back from the brink of death…I wasn’t about to let him die on me now that the situation was reversed. I couldn’t lose him.

The laugh echoed through the stairwell again when we reached the halfway point. It washed through me like a river of ice. Lansing made no sound and the expression on her face didn’t change. She wasn’t even sweating, though a bit of a strain tightened her face. I still wanted to know how the hell she’d gotten those shackles off.

I was starting to gasp and my legs shook. I eyed the top of the well, about fifty feet distant, praying I wouldn’t collapse before we reached it. I was thankful I spent a lot of time training my legs for dancing, but I wasn’t used to carrying a 193-pound man on my shoulder.

“When we came in the door was locked from the inside…” I glanced at Lansing again, trying to take my mind off the quivering in my legs and burning in my lungs. “I saw no other way out down there.”

She uttered some kind of laugh, like I was an idiot. “Demons don’t use doors.”

No, they just locked them from the inside then disappeared to wherever they disappear to, I guess.

Arlo was getting a little stronger. I think the circulation was coming back into his legs because he was suddenly supporting more of his own weight and that might have been the only thing that stopped my legs from buckling before we reached the top.

We came out into the church, and Bob was staring at us like we were late for a party or something.

We helped Arly down off the altar and into the aisle and I had the momentary notion we might actually get him out of the cutch and to my car before the demon showed up.

A laugh that echoed like thunder throughout the stone-walled church killed that idea.

Follow the Devil Brick Road

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm Part 31: Follow the Devil Brick Road

I took a few steps downward, then paused, a wave of apprehension washing through me. What if Arly was at the end of wherever this stairway led…more to the point, what if he was dead?

“He’s not dead…” Lansing said behind me and I turned to look back at her, my surprise showing on my face.

“How did you know what I was—”

Pixie Sticks shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

Lying again, and I got the strange notion she was somehow rummaging around in my mind. That just made me comfortable as all hell.

“How can you be so sure they didn’t kill him?” I wasn’t really positive I wanted the answer to that, because if it made no sense to me I was only going to get more worried that something terrible had happened to him since he’d appeared to me in my dream. Like whatever had happened wasn’t already terrible enough.

“They need him.” She said it like I should have already known the answer—ok, I probably did, he was special and all that, but that arrogant edge to her tone just pissed me off, as did everything else about M-S Lansing.

“For what?” I took a step downward. The steps were made of stone, as were the walls. Torches in sconces spaced at uneven intervals gave the stairwell a dungeonlike creepy atmosphere that did my nerves no good whatsoever.

“Same thing Ficatier needed him for.”

She was answering without really answering and that was frickin’ annoying.

“Can’t you just give me a straight explanation?” A shard of anger got into my voice but I doubted she was intimidated. She might have been a bitch but I had a feeling damn little scared her. And right now just about everything was scaring me. “Czcarabus and Ficatier are both dead, gone to Hell or wherever naughty demons and their concubines go.”

“Hell has an open door policy.”

I paused again and tuned back to her, exasperation narrowing my eyes and forcing a sigh from my lips. “Please…”

I think she enjoyed my frustration because that damn little smile was back. “When Arlo Grimm destroyed Ficatier and her demon, he didn’t really destroy them. He merely sent them to what amounts to a confinement, like sending a killer to prison for life.”

“Except in this case it’s supposed to be eternity.”

“Eternity is a long time.”

Ok, that smile had to go. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said so far.”

Yup, smile gone. I’d gotten under her skin. Kudos to me.

“Eternity is not the problem. Prisoners escape jail. That happens with demons and witches such as Ficatier, too.”

“Arlo cut off her head. That seems like more like getting the death penalty.”

She shrugged and by the glint in her eyes I could tell it wasn’t like getting the death penalty; it was more like having a tooth extracted.

“There is only one permanent solution.”

“And that would be?” I started downward again, trying to suppress my growing mixture of fear and irritation.

“Sending them to the Vanished Place.”

“The what, now?” I made a mental note that Evil wasn’t the only thing that enjoyed talking in riddles. Lansing was from the same school, probably head of her class.

“The Vanished Place. The permanent deposition of Evil.”

“Uh-huh. And this would be where?”

“Who knows?”

I glanced back at her again, ready to let her have it, but her expression said she was perfectly serious. That just pissed me off even more.

“What do you men, ‘who knows’? If this Vanished Place exists for the supernatural, bad and the ugly someone must know a way to send these demons there so they don’t come back.”

“I’m sure someone does, or has. I do not. Only the worst end up there.”

“Seems to me Ficatier and Czcarabus qualify there.”

“Maybe. Bu the point is moot because neither went to the Vanished Place.”

For a museum curator she was just a fount of information on the spooky, things she shouldn’t have known. I bet she wouldn’t tell me but I asked anyway: “You know this how?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Take your pick.”

Bitch, bitch, bitch. I was really piqued now. “So you’re telling me this Praetallious wants to bring back Angelique Ficatier and Czcarabus?”

“No.”

“No?” My tone went up a couple notes. “What the hell do you mean, ‘no’?”

“As in the opposite of yes.”

That did it. “This isn’t the time to be funny, even if for a friggin’ moment anyone might have thought you were. I want answers now, Lansing. I think at this point Arlo and I deserve more from you than some kind of stupid word dance.”

She didn’t say anything for a couple more steps. The stairway wound down; we’d descended at least fifty feet so far.

“When Arlo Grimm confronted Ficatier and Czcarabus and stopped them from achieving their goal, a doorway opened. A doorway to the outer realms of Hell. There were…things lurking about that doorway, things that had found their way to it and were waiting for an opportunity...”

“To escape.”

“Praetallious was one of them.”

Oh, great. Just from the way she phrased it I knew Praetallious wasn’t the only thing that had escaped. There were more and even if Arly and I got out of this…

“What does he-it-whatever want?”

“Pestilence.”

I stopped again, my stomach plunging. I looked back to her. “He’s one of the Four frickin’ Horsemen?”

“Oh, most certainly not. If he were he wouldn’t be bothering with you. He’s a minor demon but he can do a lot of damage.”

Well, that was comforting…and oddly insulting. “So he’s the one spreading this disease I heard about on the news?”

She nodded. “A variation of other plagues history has seen.”

“Ring-a-ring of roses…” I said and she nodded again. “Can’t give him points for originality, but why doesn’t he just wipe out the whole town, then? Infect everyone in the state?”

“Evil doesn’t work that way. It enjoys spreading fear, panic. That takes time, calculation. You’ll find whoever was infected was part of a design, a plan to sow the most fear possible.”

I let out a nervous laugh. “So you’re basically telling me fear is a dish best served in a crock pot?”

She didn’t find that funny, I could tell. “So if that’s the case, it still doesn’t explain why Praetallious didn’t just kill Arly, or me, for that matter.”

“He can…”

Whoops, didn’t like the way she said that. I was almost under a notion we were protected because of that special thing she had mentioned.

“I thought you said—”

“Evil has a hierarchy. He can kill Arlo, but he was forbidden to do so.”

Um, wait, she said Arlo. No mention of me. “And myself?” Did I really want the answer that one? Seemed like one of those damned if I did damned if I didn’t things.

“You have the locket.”

“That protects me?”

“To an extent but it is more than that.”

“More. What?”

“I am not—”

“Allowed, yeah, yeah, I know. But he could have killed me before I got the locket, right? Special or not?”

“Possibly. Depends on what his superiors told him, though I suspect they would sacrifice you to get to Grimm…or if Praetallious could pass it off as an accident. You are of no use to them in bringing back something of Czcarabus’ level, though maybe Ficatier is a possibility. Even so, there are others they could use.”

“That’s totally comforting—Not!”

She almost laughed. One of the few times anything close to humor had shown on her face. “But you had other protection.”

“Pat…” I whispered.

“She’s trying to reach you.”

“Then she’s…dead?” My stomach headed south again and I swallowed at a knot of emotion suddenly lodged in my throat.

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you that.”

I wanted to grab her and shake the living crap right out her little Pixie ass. “Is there another choice?” My voice was getting shrill and I tried to calm myself.

“There are always choices.”

“Goddammit, I wish for once you’d just come out with it.”

“I’m sure you do. Things don’t work that way.”

Note to self: kick her ass if I get out of this in one piece. Kick it hard. And often.

“Where’s Bob?” I asked, changing the subject before the urge to throw her down the stairs took over completely.

“He’s claustrophobic. He wished to remain upstairs.”

“Guess I would be too if my bones were in a box some place.”

“We don’t have much time…” she said, ignoring my leading statement.

“That another one of your cryptic non-replies or are you just stating the obvious?”

Another glance back told me she was serious.

“I can’t hold him off much longer,” she said. “How’s that for a non-reply?”

“Hold off who?”

“Praetallious.”

“You’re—what do you mean you can’t hold him off?”

She didn’t say anything further and I wasn’t certain which irritated me more, her silence or her idiot non-answers.

We went down, the sound of my boots hitting the stone like a gunshot against each step. I started to sweat. I could feel it trickling down from my arm pits under my sweater. It might have been cool outside but in this stairway it was hot as…

Uh, great. Poor choice of almost word.

My heart banged, throbbing in my throat. It was as if I could feel something building, but couldn’t see it. Like the air was thick with answers, yet all of them invisible.

Another fifty feet down. The stairwell widened some and ended in a stone-walled room lined with torches.

I froze. It was as if time had just suddenly stopped and the world had ended.

And I let out a cry.