Grimm: The Killing Time (16 page)

Juliette frowned as she thought it over. Nick knew she hated the idea of leaving her friends during a time of need, but she was an intelligent and practical person. He knew what she’d decide to do.

“Fine,” Juliette said. “But you promise to call me the moment you need me, okay?” She looked at Nick. “That goes for you, too.”

“Promise,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride back to the storage facility so you can pick up your car.”

“You’ve got too much to do,” she said. “I’ll call a cab.” After she made the call, she kissed him goodbye. Then with a tired smile and wave for the others, she left the shop.

Nick was glad she was going home. He had no idea how bad the situation in town would become, and he felt better knowing she’d be safe. Juliette was smarter than he was, and brave as hell, but she didn’t have his Grimm abilities or Hank’s police training. He’d taught her to shoot and she practiced on a fairly regular basis, but she wasn’t ready to hold her own in a gun battle yet. He hoped she’d never have to.

“All right,” Nick said. “Let’s get to work.”

* * *

Juliette stared at the book open before her on the spice shop counter. She was trying to read it, but the text refused to come all the way into focus. And when it did clear for several seconds, it was a nonsense jumble of letters and weird symbols that weren’t letters at all. She didn’t recognize it as a foreign language, at least not any that she was familiar with.

She turned the book so Monroe and Rosalee could see it better.

“Hey, do either of you have any idea what…”

Her voice died when she looked away from the baffling pages and toward her friends. They stood behind the counter, fully woged—which should have bothered her, but for some reason it didn’t. It seemed almost normal somehow. What did bother her was how
much
they’d woged. Both were far more bestial than she’d ever seen them before. Even in Wesen form they normally remained human-looking, although with certain animal-like features. But while their bodies were still mostly humanoid, Monroe had the head of a brown-furred wolf, and Rosalee an orange-and-white-furred fox. As disturbing as that was, their features were exaggerated versions of those animals. Sharper teeth, longer tapering canine ears, lengthy lolling tongues, and eyes that seemed to glow with internal light: an angry crimson for Monroe, a baleful yellow for Rosalee. Both Wesen began growling deep in their throats, and they raised wickedly clawed hands and lunged across the counter to grab her.

Juliette stepped back just in time to avoid their swiping claws, but in doing so she lost her balance and stumbled backward. She would’ve fallen if she hadn’t backed into something solid which prevented her. She spun around and realized she’d bumped into someone, a slim man wearing a tailored suit.

“Oh, Sean, I’m so sorry, but—”

She broke off as she looked at his face and saw he’d undergone a transformation even more severe than Monroe’s and Rosalee’s. His face was covered with open wounds, festering sores, raw scar tissue, and places where the skin had been torn away to reveal gleaming bone. One eye was gone, submerged completely beneath distorted, swollen flesh, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth, giving him a perpetual grimace. His ears were little more than shriveled nubs, and most of his hair was gone, with only a few ragged patches remaining. A terrible smell of rot and infection wafted from him, so strong that it made her gorge rise. Hot acid seared her throat, and it took a supreme effort of will to keep from vomiting.

Renard’s lone eye blazed with hatred and he snarled as he took hold of her shoulders with ravaged hands. She screamed, tore free of his grasp, and ran past him toward the door. She heard Monroe and Rosalee come out from behind the counter, growling and breathing hard, and she didn’t have to look back to know they were coming after her. Renard, too, in all likelihood.

She threw open the door so hard it slammed against the inner wall and the bells jangled loudly. She plunged into the night and began running. She didn’t consciously pick a direction. She was operating almost entirely on survival instinct now. All she knew was she had to get as far away as possible from the spice shop and the nightmarish creatures her friends had become.

She ran faster than she ever had in her life. For a time during her teenage years, she’d run track, and she still ran whenever she could fit it into her busy schedule. But even at the peak of her training and conditioning, she’d never run like
this
. Her legs flew across the asphalt, her feet blurring. She ran lightly and easily, her heart-rate steady, her breath moving in and out of her lungs slow and even. She felt as if she could keep going like this for hours, maybe forever, her pace never slackening, her body never tiring. Despite the situation, the feeling was exhilarating, and she couldn’t help bursting out with a joyous laugh.

But her joy instantly gave way to terror when she heard loud snarling behind her, accompanied by the skittering of claws on the hard surface of the street. She knew she shouldn’t look back, but she couldn’t stop herself. She glanced over her shoulder, and for an instant, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. Two canines were running alongside a twisted, misshapen being that could only generously be referred to as human. Then she realized the canines were a wolf and a fox—not Wesen, but actual animals. The other creature, which ran with lurching, spastic motions because of its malformed limbs, was covered with grotesquely ravaged skin that put her in mind of someone who’d been severely burned over his or her entire body. The creature was naked, but its skin was so mottled by wounds and scars that it almost looked like it was clothed. All three beasts were snarling, teeth gnashing, foam flecking their jaws. She could feel the mindless bloodlust pouring from them, and she knew that if they managed to run her down, they would tear her limb from limb and laugh as they bathed in her blood.

She faced forward and put on a fresh burst of speed, determined to outdistance her savage pursuers. But no matter how fast she ran, they were always there behind her, a little closer each time she looked.

She had no idea how long she ran. It could’ve been minutes, hours, or days. But just as she feared that she’d never be able to escape the creatures who had once been her friends, a dark figure stepped out from an alley ahead of her, walked into the middle of the street, and turned to face her. She felt a stab of fear upon seeing the figure, but as she drew closer to it, she was almost deliriously relieved to see that it was Nick. He was holding a large object in his hand, and as she neared him, she saw that it was a medieval battle-axe, the polished blade gleaming with a silvery light.

Her seemingly endless energy drained out of her then, and her heart began pounding rapidly. She couldn’t breathe, and her arms and legs felt as they were filled with wet cement. She stumbled as she reached Nick, and fell to her knees before him.

“Thank God,” she said. Or rather, tried to say. Instead of words, what came out of her mouth was an unintelligible combination of sounds, shrill and high-pitched, wet and gurgly, low and gravelly. She looked at her hands and was horrified to see that they were no longer fully human. Instead of skin, her hands were covered with a patchwork of fur, scales, and feathers, and her slender fingers—which now seemed to possess too many joints—ended in sharp claws, talons, or spines, depending on the finger.

She looked up at Nick, confused and frightened, but instead of seeing loving concern in his eyes, she saw cold cruelty and disgust.

“
Wesen
,” he said harshly, almost spitting the word. Then he gripped the battle-axe with both hands and raised it high over his head. Juliette heard snuffling laughter from the creatures that had pursued her for so long, and then Nick swung the axe downward in a vicious strike so swift she didn’t have time to scream.

* * *

Someone was pounding on the door, hitting it so hard it sounded as if they were trying to batter it down. The sound was so startling that she was up and halfway to the door before she was aware of being conscious. She stopped, momentarily disoriented, and then the details of her nightmare came back to her to a jumble of images, sounds, and emotions. She checked her hands, half-expecting to see them as a conglomeration of various animal species, but she was relieved to find them normal.

The pounding continued, becoming louder and more insistent, the force of the blows making the windows in the front room vibrate. Who in the hell could it be, she wondered, especially this late? Then the last of the sleep fog dissipated, and she remembered the
Ewig Woge
. Maybe Monroe or Rosalee was at the door, maybe they’d tried calling her, and she’d been sleeping too deeply to hear her phone ring. Maybe something bad had happened to one of them, or to Hank. Or Nick.

She hurried the rest of the way to the door, unlocked it, and threw it open wide.

Nick stood on the porch, fist raised, hand red from pounding so hard.

“Juliette,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Is everything okay? Did you lose your keys?” She looked past him and saw he was alone. “Where’s Hank?”

He didn’t answer her at first. He continued to look at her, an unreadable expression on his face. She’d seen him go blank like this before, and it worried her. Was it due to the lingering effects of the Cracher-Mortel toxin? Or was it an aftereffect of the woge hormone the Wechselbalg had injected him with? Worse, could it be an interaction between the two?

She took his hand and pulled him inside. He gave no resistance, and once he was in, she closed and locked the door once more. Since becoming aware of Nick’s legacy as a Grimm, she’d become more security conscious than ever. If something had come running out of the night to attack them, she wouldn’t have been surprised. After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

And to think I used to worry about Nick dealing with ordinary human criminals.

She turned to him. “Come on, let’s get you onto the couch.”

She took his hand once more and led him to the couch where she’d been dozing. He looked around as they walked into the living room, his gaze sweeping over the place, taking in everything. She’d grown used to him surveying his immediate environment wherever they went. His police training and experience made him far more aware of his surroundings than ordinary people, and his observational abilities had grown even stronger since he’d come into his heritage as a Grimm. Usually he was more circumspect in observing whenever he entered a room, and she couldn’t recall seeing him observe so intently in his own home.

He sat on the couch and glanced down at the upholstery. He ran his hand over it slowly.

“Are you okay?” she asked again.

“Hmmm? Oh, yeah. I’m fine. A little tired. It’s been a long night.”

“Yes, it has. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Sure.”

When he didn’t say anything more, she asked, “Anything in particular you want?”

He considered the question for several moments, an expression of deep thought on his face, as if he were debating a serious matter.

“Whatever I usually have is fine,” he said.

She frowned, but said, “Okay.” She then started for the kitchen.

She was standing at the fridge, door open, trying to decide whether she should get Nick a beer or a bottled water, when it hit her. The person sitting on the couch wasn’t Nick. At least not
her
Nick.

She reached into her pants pocket for her phone, but then realized she’d left it on the end table next to the couch when she’d been sleeping.

“Damn it!” she whispered. She didn’t have her keys, either. If she decided to sneak out the back, she’d be forced to go on foot. It wasn’t so cold out that she’d need a jacket or shoes, as long as she was outside only for a short time. But she needed to let Nick know the Wechselbalg was here as soon as possible. If she left the house, the Wechselbalg might too. She needed to keep him here until Nick could arrive. More importantly, she needed to keep the creature here so it wasn’t running loose and threatening people’s lives.

Her mind made up, she reached into the fridge, grabbed two bottles of water, closed the door, and headed back into the living room. Her heart was pounding, and when she held out a bottle for “Nick,” she couldn’t keep her hand from trembling. The Wechselbalg didn’t seem to notice, and he took the bottle from her, twisted off the cap, and took a long drink, polishing off the entire bottle. He then handed the empty to her and took the second bottle. He drained that one even faster.

It made sense. If the Wechselbalg’s true form was a semisolid mass of highly evolved woge hormone, it would need a lot of liquid to survive, far more than a human needed. She took the second empty from him, walked over to the end table, put the bottles down, and picked up her phone.

“You really worked up a thirst tonight. I’ll go get you some more water.” She slipped the phone into her pocket and started toward the kitchen.

“No need,” the Wechselbalg said. “I’m satisfied.”

She paused and turned back to face him.

“But I’m still thirsty. Be right back, okay?”

The Wechselbalg looked at her for a moment. No longer was there any confusion in his eyes. His gaze was sharp and focused. She wondered if he’d copied Nick’s observation skills. Probably. But even if he hadn’t, a creature like the Wechselbalg was like a chameleon, only his protection came not from coloration but rather from being a consummate actor. Observation would be a key component in determining if his audience found his act convincing. If they didn’t, he’d adjust his behavior quickly and efficiently. And if he still couldn’t convince them, he might flee—or kill them.

She was no actress, but she knew enough to know that if she tried too hard to look innocent, it would only make her seem even more suspicious. So she tried not to do anything, just stand there and look back at the Wechselbalg with as little expression on her face as possible.

The Wechselbalg frowned slightly, his eyes narrowing. The expression was one she’d seen on Nick many times. She was certain Nick had no idea that he looked that way when he was concentrating on something he was observing. She found the Wechselbalg’s imitation of the expression to be perfect, eerily so. If she hadn’t known she was looking at a Wesen shapeshifter, she would’ve sworn it was her Nick.