Read Between The Lines

Chapter 4: An Interview With A Blutbad

"Monroe."

"Hi, it's—"

"Oh wait!" the Blutbad snapped, "Let me try that again: Wesen Consulting Services—about the only creature in the world stupid enough to actually help a Grimm eradicate his—"

"All right, all right, I get it!" Nick rolled his eyes. "I just have a question."

"Why else would you call me?"

Nick ignored his needling. "Would there be a Wesen associated with worms that you would know of?"

"Worms? Wait, like what is the worm doing?"

Nick grimaced at having to explain, "We have four dead, and about as many victims saved from being eaten by worms."

"Eaten where, exactly? In the stomach?"

"No, the brain, actually."

"Oh." Monroe was silent for so long, Nick wondered if he perhaps had gotten sidetracked and left the phone behind. "Hello?"

"Oh!" The gasp was sudden. "You have gotta be kidding me!"

Nick had never heard so much fear in his friend's voice. "What?"

"Where there's a Bücherwurm, there's a Kinderphantasie."

"Where there's a who, there's a what?"

"Really, Nick? Have you seen the Kinderphantasie yet?"

Nick's head spun, "Man, I just found out that these mysterious worms showing up were in fact an epidemic, and not just four people dying around the same time. What the heck is a Kinderphantasie?"

Monroe didn't answer his question. "Tell me, did the victims all know each other? Did they attend anything like a book reading or a club or anything like that?"

Nick sighed, "No! The only related vics were two of the last three, close friends in a book club."

"Uh-huh, and where did they get their books?"

"All over the place—wait," the pieces began falling into place, "Did you say Bookworm? Like all these people got their brains eaten by a bookworm?"

"Pretty much; they're called Bücherwurmer and yeah, they feed on mental energy."

"I—" Nick felt his stomach turn at the thought. "I thought bookworms ate books."

Monroe gave a dark laugh, "That's just because they're only found when a person reads a book. But a Bücherwurm doesn't eat books; it eats the mind that understands the book."

"So what does the Kinder-phantom have to do with it?"

Monroe sighed, "The Kinderphantasie is the creature responsible for the manifestation of the Bücherwurm. A Bücherwurm only comes out of books that the Kinderphantasie has read. The more familiar he or she is with the book, the faster the Bücherwurm will feed."

"He or she?" Nick echoed, "Great, so more people are going to die, and until I know what I'm looking for and where—"

"Dude! The key is in the books, man! Where do people go to get books?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "I don't know; libraries, bookstores?"

"Start with the largest group of people reading the same book."

"Okay, that would be the book club—but what about the others? There were more members of the book club who all had the worms, but only two out of the club—plus one boyfriend who did not regularly attend—were completely consumed by the Bookworm."

"If even one of them bought the Kinderphantasie's book, and read it aloud to the others, that would reasonably infect them all."

"Well at least we know it's reasonable!" Nate retorted sarcastically.

"Okay, don't get all jumpy on me," Monroe challenged him, "Just tell me something: if your ancestors never met a Kinderphantasie, does your aunt have something called Gedankewasser?"

"Gee-what?"

"Okay, I guess not; come by the spice shop, I think I saw some on a shelf somewhere. If you're going up against a Kinderphantasie, you're going to need it."

"What does it do?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I'm sure Rosalee has the instructions somewhere. I'll check around while I wait for you."

"Okay, I'm on my way." Nick hung up. Now all he needed to do was justify himself to his partner.

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"You want to what, now?" Hank couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"It's the books, Hank!" Nick tried to be as compelling as possible. "At least one victim each time had to have gotten his or her book from the same place!"
Hank rubbed his eyes, "Okay, let's find out."

They noted the books found in the victims' possession and tried to find where they got them. In Alden Hoffman's house they found a receipt for his book The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but the store's name was not on the receipt. That narrowed it down to about five independent bookshops in the area.

Joyce's book was a bit more difficult to track down, since she had received it in New Mexico, mailed to her from her French-Canadian cousin in Quebec. Three long phone calls later, Nick was able to confirm that yes, Monique did buy the book in Portland a few years ago, though she could not say where. "The little green house with the nice books," she repeated, nothing further.

Hank contacted the surviving members of the book club and procured a list of all the places they searched to find their books, making special note of the places Tessa and Frances visited.
From there, Hank and Nick compared lists and narrowed the focus down to at least four shops that could have been visited by Alden, Tessa, Frances, and possibly Monique: on the West side, Reading Frenzy and New Renaissance Books; on the East side of the Williamette River lay Title Wave Used Bookstore and Broadway Books.

"Okay," Nick said, "How about one of us takes West, the other takes East?"

Hank compared the distances between the two shops on either side.

"Since you mention it," he remarked with a grin, "I'll take the East side, you can take the West."

Nick was well aware his partner had left him the longer route. "All right, fine. I have to stop by the spice shop anyway. Let's see if either of them are the 'little green house' Monique mentioned."

"Let's do this," Hank agreed.

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