Grimm - The Icy Touch (32 page)

Nick swallowed. Denswoz was right. He had no special skill with a saber, nor with a sword of any kind. He’d been hoping for hand-to-hand combat, or perhaps a duel with pistols—he was a pretty good shot.

He glanced at the sky. It wasn’t fully light out yet. The day was only just beginning...

Denswoz reached into a pocket with his free hand, and his eyes seemed to glow a little more. He glanced around the circle of Wesen and waved his saber like a wand of benediction.

“Brothers and Sisters!” he called. “In the tradition of The Icy Touch, we consecrate the dawn with the blood of the rising sun! It is the Grimm who comes like darkness! The rite of dawn blooding is upon us! The Grimm will die under my hand! And this will be a sign of the triumph of all the world’s warrior Wesen! Now at last comes the reign of The Icy Touch!”

Under the spell of the Coins of Zakynthos—the true source of the Icy Touch chieftain’s power—the Wesen roared and hissed and screeched in a monstrous litany of affirmation.

“You’re a lot of suckers, under the influence of the coins!” Nick shouted. And then he took up Johann Kessler’s saber, swinging it as he’d seen Denswoz do so. It felt good in his hand.

“You’ll find it has a good balance,” Denswoz said, with a sharklike grin, taking up a swordsman’s stance. “Let’s see what you can do with it.”

Nick turned sideways to Denswoz, and set his feet as he’d seen fencers do, raising the sword in an
en garde
stance.

The Wesen fell silent, entranced by the drama of the imminent fight. Nick could hear birds calling out in celebration of morning from the woods behind the mansion. Maybe his last morning ever...

“Denswoz,” Nick said, “my ancestors killed some of yours. They didn’t finish the job. I’m not a police officer now. I have no reason not to kill you. And it just feels... full circle.”

“Quit stalling!” a Steinadler said, its voice creaking like the squawk of an eagle.

“Come to me, Grimm, and join your ancestors,” Denswoz said, brandishing his saber between them.

Nick took a deep breath, and lunged, trying to stab his saber into Denswoz’s right forearm, hoping to cripple it.

But Denswoz neatly avoided him, stepping to one side, deflecting Nick’s saber with ease.

The encircling Wesen laughed and hooted and roared.

Nick slashed hard and fast down at his opponent’s blade, trying to knock it from his hand, attempting to get a better sense of what Denswoz was capable of.

But the blade wasn’t there to be struck—Denswoz adroitly swished it out of the way, doubled back and pierced Nick’s forearm, lightly, with the tip of his saber.

Nick grunted in pain and jumped back.

The Wesen roared and squawked and snarled.

“Just lay down and die, Grimm!” the Lowen growled.

Nick was tempted to turn and slash through the Lowen’s neck—striking an alternate target by surprise to take a few of the dark Wesen down with him.

But Denswoz chose that moment to attack.

The Icy Touch leader lunged, piercing Nick’s left shoulder with the tip of his saber.

“My steel fang strikes, Grimm!” he cried.

Nick grated his teeth with pain and backpedalled, shrugging his shoulder off the steel—the same shoulder that had been scratched by a bullet the night before.

“And again, Grimm!” Denswoz snarled, ducking under Nick’s swishing blade and piercing Nick’s right hip with his sword tip.

Nick ducked back from the burning pain of the saber. He could see his blood running down his enemy’s weapon. And he’d drawn no blood himself.

He’s toying with me, playing to the crowd... The coins have made him overconfident...

And the coins were toxic. Like a drug they might energize him for a short time, then weaken him. Like hard drugs, the Coins of Zakynthos were vampiric.

Wear him down. Survive! Draw this out...

Nick chose to bide his time, deliberately going on the defensive.

He let Denswoz back him up, and he moved like a boxer trying to get his strength back, keeping his ancestor’s falcon-crested saber between them, clumsily parrying his opponent’s thrusts and cuts. Blood was running down Nick’s arms, now, some of it making his saber grip slippery

Denswoz tried a clanging combination of cuts, driving Nick back toward the Geier, so close he could smell the vulture Wesen’s carrion breath. Soon, Denswoz would go for the killing blow...

But it seemed to him that Denswoz was weakening a little, the coins sapping him.

Nick glanced at Hank, saw a look of inquiry on his partner’s face. Hank nodded toward a gun held by a Blutbad beside him. No doubt hinting he could get loose from the Lowen, grab that gun, maybe shoot Denswoz...

Nick gave a subtle shake of his head, and then felt Denswoz’s blade raking across his ribs, on his right side.

Sucking his breath through his teeth with the agony, Nick reacted reflexively, his wrist and hand working neatly to flip round the Hundjager’s blade, pushing it away

Denswoz looked surprised at the speed of Nick’s move.

And Nick was surprised by it too.
What if a Grimm has innate swordsmanship too—and I haven’t been letting it come through?

He made himself relax, and slide into the Grimm state of mind.

Let the Grimm control the sword.

His Grimm genes came from his ancestors—and it felt as though one of his ancestors was suddenly in control of the saber.

All at once Nick found himself slashing, cutting, using feinting, then contratempo. His blood was up; the pain receded behind fury, and his feet seem to know the right steps, as if he’d been taking sword-fighting lessons all his life.

Denswoz was startled, suddenly off his game, stumbling back.

Nick advanced with such skill that the Icy Touch chieftain’s eyes widened, his mouth fell open, gasping as he strove to keep up.

Denswoz stumbled back under Nick’s attack—and suddenly he woged, as if seeking an edge in Hundjager form. Denswoz snarled, Hundjager fangs bared in a furred muzzle.

But the woge took a moment of his concentration— and Nick saw his opening.

Nick stepped in, turning sideways to slip past his enemy’s saber point—and thrust his arm out straight and true, in a
coup de main.
He drove the saber deep into Albert Denswoz’s breast, the blade turned to slip between the Hundjager’s ribs.

Denswoz howled in pain—and the Wesen thugs around them roared and shouted in rage as their chieftain went to his knees, dying.

“No!”

“Kill him!”

Nick drew the sword back for a
coup de grace...

Then he heard Hank shout, “Nick!”

Nick turned, seeing the Lowen shove Hank aside and rush to try to save his leader.

Nick set himself for the Lowen’s attack, but then the cracking rattle of an assault rifle went off and the Wesen spun toward the gun. Somehow Hank had knocked a Blutbad down, torn the gun loose from its grip, and turned it on the Lowen. The lion-like Wesen was thickly built and powerful and not immediately stopped by the bullets. But Nick slashed through the Lowen’s throat with the saber, finishing him.

The Lowen whirled, clutching its neck, gurgling and stumbling in the way of a Siegbarste—which was probably all that stopped the ogre from coming at Nick.

Hank fired the rifle at the ogre’s head at point-blank range and the creature staggered to one side.

Nick spun to face the other Wesen, three of them coming his way. One of them, a Hundjager, was aiming a pistol right at him—

Then the Hundjager’s head seemed to explode—a moment later the crack of a sniper rifle was heard, echoing from the woods. And then a Blutbad went down, shot the same way.

The Wesen turned toward the woods beyond the fence—gunsmoke was visible but nothing else.

A squeal of tortured metal was heard from close to the mansion, and the roar of engines.

Hank fired the last of his clip as a troll rushed toward Nick.

Nick sidestepped the troll, and, giving his Grimm reflexes full sway, slashed at its hamstrings as it went by so that it collapsed, roaring.

He turned, ducked beneath the gnashing beak of a Steinadler, stepped back and hacked at the creature so hard its head flew from its shoulders.

Then Nick saw the black iron fence collapsing, to the right, and black-uniformed Wesen rushing through toward him.

They must be Icy Touch reinforcements. He and Hank had fought well, at least...

But then he saw Renard behind them, following the wave of incoming Wesen—and he realized that Gegengewicht had come at last. These weren’t reinforcements for The Icy Touch after all—they were the better class of Wesen, here to destroy the cartel.

There were Steinadlers, Blutbaden, trolls, Lowen, among the onrushing Wesen troops, even two male Fuchsbau carrying elephant guns. And there were many others, and they far outnumbered the Icy Touch Wesen. The Gegengewicht were all dressed in black, neck to toe, a kind of uniform.

Hank had gotten a pistol—and he turned to fire it at an advancing Hundjager.

A few Icy Touch ran for the intact back fences, only to be shot off as they climbed by the Gegengewicht snipers in the woods.

Nick turned to Denswoz, who’d shifted back to human form. Nick knelt by him—and was surprised to see the Icy Touch leader open his eyes.

Denswoz looked at him accusingly.

“You... Burkhardt!” he croaked. “You knew they were coming... you set... all this up...”

“I hoped they would. Waiting for the Dawn Rite gave them time to arrive. You left your computer on. I copied the evidence we needed. Not very good ‘information hygiene’, Denswoz. Sloppy.”

“I’ve failed.” He spat blood. “They’re all dead. But... she is safe... she is alive... and perhaps...” He coughed, and licked his lips. His eyes glazed over; death silenced him and he said no more.

But she is safe... and she is alive...

Who would that be?
Nick wondered.

He found the Coins of Zakynthos in the dead chieftain’s trouser pocket. He quickly stuck them in his own pocket, and turned to see...

A slaughter. The badly outnumbered Icy Touch were being torn to pieces.

It was horrible to watch, and Nick had an impulse to put a stop to it, if he could.

But then he remembered the poor girls The Icy Touch had drugged and abducted. And the hideous remains of Smitty’s body.

Nick shook his head. Still carrying the saber, he walked away from the fight, letting the Gegengewicht mop up.

He saw Hank, leaning against the back wall of the mansion, clutching a wounded shoulder.

“Hurt bad, Hank?”

“It smarts, but nothing serious. You?”

“Same for me.”

Renard walked over to them, a smoking pistol in his hand, shifting back to his human appearance as he came.

“Burkhardt. About those coins...”

“Sorry, Captain. Shoot me if you want. But I’m not turning them over to you. I’ll arrange with my mother. She’ll pick them up.”

“She had them last time. And lost them.”

“She won’t make the same mistake. She’ll find a way to keep them safe.”

Renard looked angry, clearly about to challenge Nick.

Nick said, “Captain—look at what’s going on, over there. You think there’s no connection? Denswoz used the coins to control The Icy Touch. Probably to turn decent Wesen, in some cases, into psychotics. It was a cult. And it killed him. You don’t want the things. They’re poison.”

Renard’s jaws clenched. Then a particularly piteous scream from the battlefield made all three men shiver.

“Maybe you’re right.” Renard took a deep breath, and walked away.

Hank grimaced at the bestial screams—as the Gegengewicht tore the Icy Touch gangsters to pieces.

“Let’s get out of here. What do you say?”

“I’m with you, man.”

Leaning on one another, they walked away, stumblingly, leaving the field of carnage behind.

Nick’s left hand bore his ancestor’s saber, slippery with blood.

Two weeks later... a windswept October morning...

Nick stepped back from the opened weapons cabinet in his aunt’s trailer, where he’d mounted the saber. It looked fine there, hanging horizontally over the more traditional Grimm implements of destruction. It had more style, he thought, than the decapitation blade, the spiked mace, the special blunderbuss, the crossbow, the peculiar hooks. The saber, cleaned and shining now, had a certain elegance. He hoped his ancestors, wherever they were, felt that this vendetta was done; that it was at last truly over.

But the work of a Grimm might never be done. Not as long as there were Wesen like Denswoz in the world.

And Hank was right, Nick thought, as he closed the cabinet. There was a tension, a disharmony between being a police detective, and being a Grimm.

Maybe he couldn’t do both.

He’d failed to maintain correct police procedure, when he’d interrogated the Geier. He had lost his badge as a result.

And keeping relevant information back from the authorities—the truth about Wesen involved in crimes—was against the law. But as a Grimm—how could he do anything else?

He couldn’t give up being a Grimm. Especially not after what had happened with The Icy Touch. It wasn’t just about destroying bad Wesen—it was also about protecting good ones. The police department wasn’t qualified to get that job done, not by itself. So he had to be a Grimm.

But could he continue being a cop?

Maybe not. Maybe he’d have to give up his job, even if he was reinstated.

He turned to the work table, thinking he’d make an entry—he’d started his own Grimm journal—on The Icy Touch, when someone knocked at the door.

Nick picked up the Smith and Wesson on the table, checked that it was ready to fire, and called out, “Who is it?”

“It’s the damned fool who gets your back, who the hell you think it is?”

Nick put the gun down and went to let Hank in.

“Still raining out there?” he asked.

“If I say it isn’t raining,” Hank said, coming in, and unbuttoning his trench coat, “it’ll be a lie the second it’s out of my mouth. Liable to start any second. Weather around here likes to make fun of me. You remember when I took that vacation to Hawaii? I heard they were looking for police detectives in Honolulu. Was I tempted?” He sat down in one of the chairs at the work table. “Yes I was. Still am.” He looked at the cot. “You sleeping here in the trailer?”