Mixed Messages
Chapter 24
Worlds collide

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Escaped?" The princess's saccharine tone never wavered as she innocently queried into her shiny pink phone, "How?"

Her eyes narrowed, but her voice maintained it's careful calm from the quiet of her white paneled office. She flipped a cheap white pen around her finger. "Sold them? I don't remember the particulars, was that part of our plan, Mrs. Prentice. Mmmm. So what is your current plan now? I'm assuming you will take care of this? Excellent. I am counting on you." She tapped the back of her pen against the white desktop and scribbled a note.

The gilded tea cup touched her lips. Her eyes closed as it's warmth and richness brightened her spirits. I believe that every scrap of competence in the Prentice family landed on Amanda and her mother. Her fingertips brushed across a picture of herself, Lukas, Amanda, and Antonia at the Christmas ball. She gazed out across the snow-covered fields and houses for several minutes, collecting herself as the ghost of a smile crossed her lips. I have no doubt that either of them would welcome the opportunity to tie up this loose end.

She paused in front of the mirror, straightening her hair and touching up her makeup, before pulling up the video monitor of the gym on her laptop. Amanda's broad smile as she sparred with Lukas brightened her day. I see he's finally broken her of trying to drag him to the ground to wrestle.

Amanda and Lukas transformed into their feline Wesen forms. Lukas' muscular frame, sheeted with slick white fur, striped with black contrasted against Amanda's tiny, blackish, and scruffy feline form. They flashed claws and fangs, brutally battering each other, sending echos crashing up the stairway into her office. Amanda looked like an elf sparring against an adult, until Lukas winced and waved her off, nursing his side and limping while she smiled and wiped crimson off her mouth.

Yes, watch those liver punches. He seems to treat her as if she is Lowen.

She remembered the first time Amanda and Lukas sparred as Wesen. The Verrat panicked and drew their guns on the girl. How could I forget. There's no joy like being on the phone with King Victor when a head comes bouncing in the door and splatters blood all over your shoes. If it wasn't for Antonia, I would still have a Grimm running around the castle, murdering Verrat.

She gave him an hour to shower and ice his ribs, then called him to her office.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

After dinner, she found Amanda hunched over a school book with scratch paper scattered across an intricately carved walnut table. She rapped on the door jamb, and said, "Good news, your parents have been recovered. The authorities just informed me."

A broad smile filled Amanda's face as the princess handed her a phone. Amanda dialed, waited, and then frowned and hung up. She tried twice more. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she closed her eyes and laid her head on the table. She slid the phone back to the princess and sobbed.

"Is everything ok?"

Amanda wiped tears and sniffed. "It won't let me leave a message. Her voice mail is full."

The princess put her arm around Amanda's shoulders. "I'm so sorry. Lets try again before bed."

Amanda slumped into the chair. "Ok."

-/-

Amanda sniffed as she laid the princess's pink cellphone back into her hand.

"Your mother didn't answer?"

Amanda shook her head as tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto the floor.

"I'm so sorry."

Amanda sobbed silently as the princess laid her arm around her. She slid a white handkerchief out of her pocket and into Amanda's hand. "You are welcome to stay here as long as you need to."

"I just want to go home."

"I know, but without your parents, we have no way to get the documents we need to get you home. Even now, we have no legal authority to keep you here. The police are allowing us to help you, but they could take you into custody if they wanted to."

-/-/-/-

Amanda moped around the castle all day. Lukas found her feet sticking out of the fluffy bed covers after dinner. "I heard your parents were recovered."

The lump shuffled under the down comforter and a sob echoed. "They won't answer the phone."

"I'm so sorry."

"I just want to go home."

"I understand. I've got some information that may interest you."

Amanda shuffled, uncovering her head.

Lukas moved closer and whispered, "Please, don't tell anyone I told you this. Do the names Jackson and Connie Prentice mean anything to you?"

Amanda quirked her brow. "That is my cousin and his wife."

"Why would they kidnap you and your parents?"

Black fur sheeted Amanda's body as her face rounded and sharp fangs slid past her lips. She extended her claws and snapped her jaws. "I'm going to hunt them down and hack them to pieces. I'll tear out their throats. Their son tried to rape me, and I killed him."

"I see. I just got the information from one of my intelligence contacts. I knew you would want to know."

"I have to get back home before they kill my mother or Misty."

"We are working on that. Unfortunately, we have no way to get you home without your parents legal documents. I'm sorry."

Amanda set her face like stone towards the window and gritted her teeth.

"I have something that might help you feel better."

She rolled her eyes and shuffled under the covers.

He unfolded a piece of paper and slid is across the bed. "You want to come with me?"

She looked over the Wesen Council Bounty paperwork. "What's a Malin Fatal?"

"Sort of like a Bauerschwein except more hairy and bigger tusks."

"How do they taste?"

Lukas chuckled. "Seriously?"

"What? Is the Grimm going to chop off my head?"

Lukas paused and then shook his head. "Grimms here are not our friends, but, have you ever heard of Grimm books?"

"I saw one at my father's house."

"I have been told we have several here, in a special library. Would you like to see if we can find it?"

A broad smile lit her face. Amanda followed him out of her bedroom and into a secret passage leading down. They wound past raw timbers, rough plaster pushed through wooden slats, and stonework stained black by hundreds of years of use, passing a dozen doors until they stopped at doubled timbers covered in paneling. Lukas pulled a ring on the lamp and a click echoed. He slid his fingers behind the paneling and gave a tug, revealing a doorway into darkness. "Ready?"

Amanda nodded as Lukas flicked the switch on his flashlight, and descended into the inky blackness. They followed the smooth stone steps into the earth, passing shelves full of bones, skulls, and ancient carvings until the hallway opened into a round chamber lined with shelves full of bones.

"The princess told me that we would reach this chamber, and that only a Grimm could find the path."

Lukas handed Amanda the flashlight. She poked and prodded the room, finding nothing, then shrugged her shoulders. They felt the walls, looking for clues, but there weren't any.

Amanda wiggled rocks and pushed stones, but nothing happened. She quirked her brow, and turned off the flashlight, soaking the tunnel in black.

"Oh, that's neat." echoed Amanda's voice.

"I can't see anything."

Lukas twisted his head and his body sheeted with slick white fur striped with black. A lone pair of yellow eyes cut through the darkness and scanned across the room, stopping with a shudder.

"Remember, it's just me. Do you see this?" Amanda tapped her fingers on a blue spark set into the wall.

"No. I see your fingers, but not what you are pointing at."

"Calm down. I can't see the marks as well when your headlights are on. You don't really need them anyway. Come on."

Lukas grumbled. Darkness enveloped him as he retracted into his human form. "Can you see anything?"

"I can see just fine. Now come on."

Lukas pushed his fingertips against Amanda, following as her body vanished into the darkness. She navigated like they had practiced for the last three months, using the signals and motions he had trained her from his years in the Russian army. There was no stumbling, bumping, or confusion. Move as a team, kill as a team. Everybody knows where everybody else is. No mistakes.

She focused, letting her senses prickle as a slight breeze trickled over her skin. She perked her ears and scented the damp air while her brain processed the network of catacombs marked only by the glittering specks. She pushed on and soon came to a series tunnels that crossed the main path.

"Did you lose the trail?"

"No, just making sure we got the right one." A click, then a creak and the rattling of dry bones echoed in the darkness followed by a puff of musty air. Amanda wiggled into a narrow opening. "Come on. This way."

Lukas grunted, sucking his stomach in. He shifted back and forth. His clothes snagged on hewn stone and rough timbers as he forced his broad shoulders into the tiny passage.

Amanda chuckled as Lukas grumbled and hunched, shuffling down the tunnel that just barely scrubbed her hair.

"Are you sure this is it?"

"See? Look." She ran her hand along another blue spark. He shrugged and followed her down the pitch black tunnel.

Lukas moaned and groaned, scraping and shoving his body along as they wound through passages and passed piles of bones and dozens of unmarked openings before the way stopped.

She pulled the latches next to a spark by the ceiling, unlocking a wooden door. She slid through, unlocked and slid another piece of paneling aside which elicited a metallic crash. She climbed through a snarl of farm tools, steel fence posts, machine parts, and in fishing poles, and found herself looking at a half dozen tractors bathed in darkness. She squinted and held up her hand, shielding her eyes from the moonlight streaming through a square doorway and illuminating the cottony clouds of breath that hung over their faces. "This doesn't look like a library."

Oil cans and a metal shelf full of glass jars brimming with rusty bits and greasy pieces shifted as Lukas bulled his way through the dusty thicket of spiny metal and wooden tools.

He rubbed his back and neck as he stretched to unstick his hunched body. He pulled himself straight against the roll-bar of a tractor. "It's not. It used to be the servant's stables. Now we use it for the groundskeeping equipment."

Amanda slid another piece of wood aside, pointed at a series of blue sparks on the wall, and snickered. "I think I know where the Grimm books are."

"Huh? It's not here?"

She traced her fingers along the patterns and slid the wood back into place. "I think this is how they snuck into the castle when the Royals needed Grimms."

"Do we have to go back through all those tunnels?"

Amanda winked and pushed his shoulder. "Come on, it will be fun."

-/-/-/-/-

Half an hour later they stood in the servants access behind the walls of the foyer. Lukas groaned as he pulled himself up against the rough-hewn beams. "We could have just taken a golf cart back to the castle and walked in the door."

Amanda chuckled as he pulled and stretched. "Then, I wouldn't know the way when I have to get in.

"I have no idea how you found that. I would die down there without a map."

"Turn off the lights."

Lukas shrugged and flipped the switch, blanketing the underside of the stairway in darkness.

"Look." Amanda brushed her hand along a series of blue sparks and stopped at a paneled wall. She clicked a concealed latch and pushed the door open.

Lukas followed, then pushed a round switch at the end of two bare copper wires. Two flickering light bulbs bathed the dim room in orange shadows, revealing rough wooden walls, a rack of woolen hunting clothing, a cabinet full of ancient weapons, shelves full of liquids and powders, and stacks of books.

Amanda's eyes glittered at the antique guns, knives, and swords hanging in cabinets and on pegs.. She let her fingertips glide along the treasure as she took it all in.

Lukas winced as he twisted and turned. "Can you walk on my back. I can barely stand up after all those catacombs."

"Sure." She kicked off her shoes as Lukas stretched out on an oriental rug laid across the stone floor. Cracks and pops echoed as she gently shifted from side to side, massaging her sock feet into his muscular back.

She worked her way from his hips to his shoulders, eliciting a sigh of relief from Lukas. "Better?"

"Thank you."

They inspected the old Grimm quarters. Lukas paused at a silenced pistol. He hefted it's worn grips, then checked the metalwork. "This one was made at the end of World War One. I don't see anything newer."

"Can I have it?"

"No."

"How about a Krinkov? I promise I'll keep it in here."

He tousled her hair. "Maybe when you turn eighteen."

She stopped at a dagger with a glittering blue stone set in it's pommel. She hefted the knife. "Mmmmm. I think this is one of those stones."

"It just looks like a lump of brownish coal to me."

Lukas stood, wondering as the dusty scent of old pipe tobacco, leather, and wool told the story of a place which hadn't seen a single soul in nearly seventy years. "The Grimms and the Royals had a falling out after WWI. The Royals have only managed to attract a handful of Grimms since then."

She slid a curved dagger out of a shiny wooden sheath. "I wonder what they used this for?"

"Your ancestors used these to hunt my ancestors."

"They hunted my ancestors too. You know, my parents never taught me about Grimms."

"Really? Every single story I learned as a child was about Grimms chopping off my head."

Amanda ran her fingers over a rough wooden bench, and nestled into the spot rubbed smooth by centuries of use. "My mom said they didn't believe Grimms even existed. Imagine their surprise when I Grimmed."

"Rough, eh."

She wiped the dust off of a dog eared book and flipped it open. "Worst day ever. I woged in the mirror and my eyes turned black. I had no idea what was going on. Then, my mom tried to kill me."

Lukas's mind wandered to the internet videos of Sandra mauling Wesen in cage fights. "Were you badly hurt?"

"I almost killed her. She's really tricky, hard to catch."

Lukas paused, rubbing his ribs as he pondered. "Let's see what we are dealing with."

They spread books across the rough-hewn table and started searching. Amanda let her fingers trail over wood grain of the worn table top as she flipped page after page, peering at ancient script versions of languages she had just begun to learn. "This one looks like French, but it's not French."

He inspected it for a moment. "That's Provencal. The French abolished it in the 1970's."

"And this one looks like a cross between German and French."

"That's Alsatian."

Lukas looked up from an old brown book. "How did you know this was here?"

"I saw the markings before. I just didn't know what they were. You really can't see them?"

"No. I doubt anyone else here can, besides you."

Amanda's face lit as she considered the revelation.

-/-/-/-/-/-

The next day after school, Lukas found Amanda studying a Grimm book in her bedroom.

"Are you ready?"

She tapped her finger on pictures of Lowen dressed in armor. "It says Lowen used to fight in some sort of gladiator games?"

"Did your mother tell you anything about that?"

"No. Lowen don't do things like that anymore do they?"

"Wasn't your mother a fighter?"

"Not like that. She fought professionally for a year or two before I was born, but she's an accountant. I doubt she's ever even heard of Lowen Games."

Lukas thought to the videos of Amanda's mother ripping Wesen apart and even eating them in Lowen gladiator fights. Her family was one of the most prominent champion bloodlines. I can tell by the way Amanda fights that they trained her for Lowen Games. She's not going to learn that from me, though. "Ready"

She slid a machete from under the covers and tested it's edge. "It just sounds like fun."

"You sleep with that?"

"You sleep with your Krink. Can I have a gun?"

He tousled her hair. "No."

"You trained me, you know I'll be safe."

He rubbed his eyes and groaned. "This isn't America where everybody has ten guns. We need special permits, and you're not old enough. How about this. We'll train more with guns, but we need to keep them locked up in the armory."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Lukas and Amanda sat on a park bench under bare trees looking out over the snow-dotted bushes. He licked a blob of green Pistachio ice cream off his hand. "How do you know she will be here?"

She looked up from her chocolate ice cream. "She's looking for kids. You don't find them in bars or on streets late at night."

"But here?"

Lukas waited for an answer, and when none came, he glanced at the empty park bench and groaned. Dammit!

He found Amanda half an hour later, crouched behind bushes at the edge of the park.

She shushed him when he started to chide her. "I saw a Grimm. I think she's after the same bounty we are."

"Did she see you?"

"I'm not sure, I was in a shadow and had my head in my hoodie."

"How do you know it's is a woman?"

"I can smell her. She's small, about my size. And this." Amanda plucked a brown, curly hair out of a tiny boot print and held it up to Lukas while she raised her head and scented the air.

Lukas lifted the hair to his nose. "Definitely a woman. We should go."

Lukas looked down and Amanda was already gone. I'm going to kill her.

Half an hour later, Lukas had his phone ready to dial, trying to figure out how to explain that he lost Amanda when her voice startled him."She is tricky."

"You lost her?"

Amanda nodded.

"Then she made you. Did you get a good look at her?"

Amanda shook her head. "I want to meet her."

"No. Absolutely not. Let's just hope she didn't get a good look at you, or she'll be hunting us."

Amanda crossed her arms and grumped.

"You're Lowen. Grimms kill us because we exist. They don't need a reason."

"I always have a reason."

"You aren't like them. You're Wesen. You understand this world. They exist only for genocide, nothing more. Come on, the last thing I need is some Grimm hunting you and I back to the castle."

Visions flashed of being attacked by the Verrat and Wesen staff, simply because she was a Grimm. They have to know I hear them call me Black-eyed demon.

She was about to protest, but his face was set like flint. I'll just have to find her myself.