Grimm - The Icy Touch (16 page)

Monroe moved deeper into the dark shadow of the backyard. Behind the house was a strip of trees, just past a dilapidated wooden fence. He took two quick running steps, jumped over the fence, slipped into the trees, then turned, ducked low, wondering if he’d been seen.

No. The cops weren’t turned his way—they were running flashlights over the back wall of the house. If they kept looking around they might find his footprints...

He turned and hurried off through the trees, to the nearest street. He had to get to his truck, get rid of these boots, get to Rosalee.

Oh God. Lily. They’ve got her. They’ve got the ranger’s daughter.

And it was his fault...

It tumbled breathlessly out of Monroe all at once.

“Nick... They were following me, then they lost me— and taking the girl is supposed to be one of their cute little messages.” Monroe paused to catch his breath. “They’ve got her—and she might turn up dead.”

They were in the back room of Rosalee’s Spice Shop early the following morning. Rosalee was half sitting on the edge of a work table, with her arms folded over her chest. Nick sat in a chair while Monroe paced the room restlessly.

“How’d you come to know this family?” Nick asked.

Monroe looked startled. “I
don’t
know them. I mean... I do. But I don’t. I don’t know them
know them,
but...”

“Monroe?”

“Nick, I never
met
the girl or her mom, or her brother. Their dad is dead. I... had an encounter with him. But that’s really all I can tell you.”

“Hey. You’re going to hold out on me?”

“Nick,” Rosalee said softly.

He looked at her. “Yeah?”

“He really can’t tell you. And... this would be a good time to remember what he’s done for you. For the department. For everyone. He’s taken a lot of chances, helping a Grimm.”

Nick nodded.
Fair enough
, he owed Monroe.

“Okay. Monroe—what makes you so sure Icy Touch took her? Or even Wesen...”

“That claw mark was fresh—the cops were doing a forensic test on it, Nick. And it was definitely what you see when a woged Blutbad slashes wood. But—oh, I didn’t tell you!
Piss,
Nick! Piss!”

“What? You have to go now?”

“No, I mean—the guy marked the place! He urinated against the side of the Perkins’ house. He put that scent there for me! It’s a Blutbad thing.”

“Still not necessarily Icy Touch,” Rosalee pointed out.

Monroe looked at her. “After what happened to Smitty, and me being mixed up with that—and the Perkins family too? Hel-
lo
! It’s got their frozen fingerprints all over it!”

The front door jangled as someone entered the shop, and Rosalee went out to wait on the customer. Looking through the passage to the front, Nick could see a squat man with a round face and slightly prominent front teeth crossing to the counter. The Grimm vision kicked in, and he saw it was an Eisbiber. Beaver Wesen.

Nick leaned back so his face was hidden from the view. A lot of Eisbiber knew about his Grimm status, and he preferred they didn’t know he was here. They had a way of chattering too much to other Wesen. Rosalee was already at risk. Speaking of which...

“Monroe,” Nick said, keeping his voice down, “you two need to stay someplace else. Not your place, not here. Rosalee needs to take some time off from the shop. If they went after Lily Perkins...” He shrugged. “Maybe Rosalee’s next. Chances are they want to put some kind of pressure on you.”

Monroe slapped his forehead.

“Oh Jeez. Wow. Crap. You’re right!”

The door jangled again, announcing the departure of the Eisbiber, and Rosalee returned to the back room.

“Just an Eisbiber needing a birth control lotion,” she said with a shrug.

Monroe grimaced. “An Eisbiber birth control lotion? How does that work? No, never mind, I don’t want to know. Rosalee—Nick thinks you ought to lie low for a few days, someplace else. Not my place, not here. Just to be safe.”

“You too, Monroe,” Nick said, standing up. “You’ve been a big help. I’ll see what I can find out about the abduction—”

His phone chimed. He took it from his coat, saw Renard’s name on the display.

“Captain?”

“They definitely have more
Seele Dichtungsmittel,”
Renard told him. “Forensics found traces of scopolamine at the site of that abduction on Shady Court. We also got a partial on the license plate used—neighborhood watch saw it peeling out. The partial and vehicle description led to a stolen van, abandoned in North precinct.”

“What neighborhood?”

Renard snorted. “Guess.”

“Oh. Northeast Salem?”

Northeast Salem Boulevard, along with its side streets, was the worst neighborhood in NE Portland. A series of raids had cleaned it up somewhat, a year earlier, but that just left a power vacuum, long as no one invested in a better quality of life for people there. And no one did.

“Northeast Salem Boulevard it is. Pick Griffin up on the way, and check it out ASAP.”

“You got it, Captain.”

Nick put the phone away.

“Got something, Monroe.
Seele Dichtungsmittel
found at the Perkins place. And maybe a lead in the North precinct—we might have the van that was used over there. Could be they took her to the area, dumped the van...” He didn’t go on speculating aloud. But panderers in the area were known to use young girls. “I’m going to pick up Hank, see what we can find out...”

“I’m going with you,” Monroe said, jumping to his feet. He started for the door.

Nick caught him by the shoulder.

“Uh—no. You’re not.”

Monroe turned to him, mouth open, eyes wild.

“I have to, Nick. If she’s over there I can find her. Hey dude, I can sniff the guy out who took her—literally. I have to go.”

“And I said no. Not this time. You two need to keep a low profile. And we don’t know what we have here, for sure. If I need you, I’ll call. Find another place to stay. Motel, friend’s house. Somewhere out of town. Call me if you think anyone’s on your tail.”

“Nick—!”

“I said
no,
Monroe.”

“Monroe, he’s right!” Rosalee put in.

“No—he doesn’t understand!”

Nick hurried out of the shop, leaving Monroe and Rosalee behind him heatedly discussing what they should do—and what Monroe shouldn’t do.

* * *

Sergeant Wu was already there, on the side street off NE Salem Boulevard, keeping an eye on the van as the forensics team swept it. The yellow tape was up, the rain was drifting by in thin veils, and Wu had his police cap on with the plastic rain cover over it.

At the corner of the street was a bar called The Flyover, the name written in red neon, with a blue neon airplane flying at the top of the sign. The rain-slick streets reflected the neon with the distorted vividness of an expressionist painting.

“Detectives Griffin and Burkhardt in person, so early in all this?” Wu said, as they walked up to him.

“Could be related to another case we’re working on,” Hank said. “What you got here?”

“Not a lot,” Wu said. “Not a goose egg but not a grown goose either.” He hooked a thumb toward the van. “Vehicle stolen from a J. Baldwin, over in Southeast. Seems like a random theft. Likely the vehicle used in the abduction. We found strands of hair matching the mother’s description of the girl’s in the back—the strand was tipped with hot pink, like teenagers do. Found some powder too, we don’t know what it is—we got a good guess, though. Looking for prints now.”

“Blood?” Nick asked.

“Not so far. ’Course, in this ’hood, you might find blood anywhere, including the bottom of your shoes if you take a short walk. You guys want some coffee? I brought along a couple extra cups.”

“Did it come from that machine at the department?” Hank asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then no. Call us if you come up with anything interesting.”

Wu nodded toward the bar.

“The watering hole over there might have some beasties at it.”

Nick and Hank looked at one another, then at Wu.

“‘Beasties?’” Nick asked.

“Get it? Waterhole, beasties? Local thugs hang out there. Neighborhood’s once more chockablock with ’em. Like the raids happened a century back instead of a year ago.”

Nick nodded, relieved.

“Thanks, Wu.”

* * *

“How do they look?” Denswoz asked. “Not like a bunch of zombies, I hope.”

“Nope. Nice and fresh and fully alive, boss,” Malo said. The young man smoothed back his mane of long black curly hair as they walked past the rooms where the girls awaited a call. There were four such rooms, in this particular “massage parlor.” Two girls waited listlessly in each of the first three.

“I don’t mean
that
kind of zombie, Federico,” Denswoz said impatiently. “I mean are they, you know... like somebody gave them a roofie or something?”

“Nah, the Seele’s not that heavy. Have a look...”

They stopped at the fourth room. Inside four lingerie-clad girls waited seated on bunk beds, all gazing benignly into space. One of them hummed to the old Rick James song that piped through the brothel.

“What’s up with the bunk beds?” Denswoz asked.

“These are the teens. It’s part of the whole, you know,
thing
the clients go for, like they’re teens at a slumber party or something.”

“One of these is that new girl Hergden brought in?”

“The Perkins kid. Top right, there.”

Denswoz and Malo stood in the open door, just steps from the girls, but none of the young women looked their way. They’d been told not to, and the
Seele Dichtungsmittel
was in full effect. The girl on the top bunk to the right trembled in her translucent purple lingerie, her face twitched like she was fighting the drug.

“Looks like she’s coming out of it,” Malo muttered. “I’ll have them give her a booster.”

Denswoz felt a momentary twinge of something like conscience, looking at the girl, but he pushed it away, dismissed it with ease. They were, after all, just ordinary
Homo sapiens,
these girls. They were not
Duo homo
as he and his followers thought of the Wesen.
Homo sapiens
— ordinary humans— had only a partial nature. They were only half there. The deeper, more vital form was absent. Non-Wesen were
merely
human.

And of course the irony was that their limited and feeble human type had persecuted Duo Man for thousands of years, using the Grimms as their assassins.
Deny your true selves!
the humans seemed to say.
Do you feel the need to prey on human beings, to eat their flesh? Deny your true nature! Destroy yourselves, monsters!

And yet humanity butchered, murdered one another— they feasted on animal flesh and some of them ate human flesh...

No. He would feel no guilt for enslaving humanity. When The Icy Touch moved on to its final phase, many centuries of oppression would be repaid. And every Grimm in the world would be hunted down... and put to death, the way human beings slaughtered pigs.

Or the way some human beings killed dogs. As a Hundjager, he hated the human practice of forcing dogs to fight one another; of exterminating them in kill shelters. They even
ate
them, in Korea, and China. One day Icy Touch would take over Asia. Then there’d be payback for that, too.

And payback is a bitch...

They turned away from the girls, headed down the hall toward the store front of the supposed massage parlor. A Blutbad sentry walked down the hall, nodding respectfully to Denswoz as he passed.

“All right, Malo,” Denswoz said, when they reached the entrance. “Give them their boosters. We want this place open tomorrow night. Grogan’ll probably come by with a few guys to try them out tonight. To check out the full service. But keep an eye out. This neighborhood was raided last year, it could happen again.”

“We’re aware. We’ve got a couple of
Geiers
up on the roofs, here and across the street. They’re watching the whole block real close. Not much gets past the vulture brothers. And we won’t be in this building more than a month. This place is a dump anyway—wait’ll you see how we’re fixing up the new place. Nice!” Malo clapped his hands together once in his enthusiasm. “Red velvet, porn on big screen TV, full bar, the works. It’s in an old warehouse out by the airport, right across the street from the runways. No housing there, no neighbors to complain, not much city police patrolling at all. And Homeland Security won’t be interested in us.”

“Yeah—about those HSA guys. You set up our Wesen in airport security?”

Malo grinned proudly. “Two in every major airport on the West Coast.”

“I need somebody they know. We’ve got some new captains coming over from Europe. They’re going to have clean passports, beautiful IDs, can’t tell them from the real thing. But even so—anybody gets suspicious, detains them, it could get ugly. We’ll give you the flight numbers, you talk to our Wesen in HSA.”

“Just email me the itineraries, boss, I’m all over it.”

Denswoz nodded and walked out to where his driver awaited him on NE Salem Boulevard.

* * *

Monroe hadn’t followed Nick and Hank this time. But he’d bought a Bearcat police scanner a while back, and he was listening to it while he was packing a bag. Right away he heard chatter about “Burkhardt and Griffin” requesting Sergeant Wu remain on site for them out at the abandoned stolen vehicle. Must be what Nick had gone to look into. And he figured Nick would following up on the Perkins abduction.

Of course,
Monroe thought, as he stowed his bag in the truck,
I’m just supposed to be home packing up a few things so I can drive back to meet Rosalee at the hotel.
But she was doing some errands too, so what’s a little delay— it was no more than a mere, minor, infinitesimal teensy-weensy little side trip...

Monroe sighed. She was going to be mad when she found out.

But he felt a connection to the Perkins. He felt a responsibility toward the ranger’s family and Lily was... He sort of thought of her as a daughter. Silly, he supposed, as he climbed behind the wheel, since they’d never even
met
.