Grimm - The Icy Touch

by Shirley, John

  Wellington’s dense ranks of musketry played havoc with the Napoleonic forces. Men fell by the score, dead or dying, torn to pieces by chain shot and musket balls, cavalry horses screaming as shrapnel tore into them. Smoke billowed over the battlefield, carrying the reek of gunpowder, followed by the distinct smell of blood—a great deal of blood.

  Kessler looked at the fallen French soldiers through his small brass telescope; saw them lying across one another, a few twitching and groaning, blue coats staining red. Strange to think each fallen man had been born, had lived a life of hopes and plans, only to end here, breathing his last in this muddy battlefield...

  Standing near Napoleon now, Kessler lowered the telescope and turned to see the Emperor once again clasping the Coins of Zakynthos, clicking them together like a gambler flipping chips between his fingers as he gazed broodingly out over the field of battle. He’d had the coins constantly within reach since the day Denswoz had urged them upon him outside Lyons. But in Kessler’s view, their effect on Napoleon was increasingly dismaying. The great man seemed to be gradually wilting, becoming sickly, complaining of kidney afflictions and malaise. He rarely sat on his horse, and appeared to have difficulty seeing the battlefield clearly

  As Kessler watched, Napoleon seemed to become aware of his scrutiny. The Emperor put the coins back in his coat. But they were never far away from him.

  The coins have turned against him, just as the legend warned, Kessler thought. Still, their effectiveness in ensuring the loyalty of his soldiers was undiminished. If Napoleon continued to hold the coins, he might well win this battle. And if Napoleon won the battle, it would only bring more war and chaos on Europe.

  Napoleon. Kessler felt some anguish, thinking about Napoleon’s undoubted civilizing influence on the world. The great man’s dreams of a rational, enlightened empire sometimes seemed the best course for Western civilization. But Kessler’s loyalty was to Germany, and the Archduke Charles. And Napoleon had subjugated much of Germany And yet—Kessler regarded Napoleon as his friend.

  In many ways he felt it would be doing his friend a service, in the long run, if he could get the coins away from him. Once he’d lost the Coins of Zakynthos, Napoleon might lose heart. He had become dependent on them. Without them, he would likely lose the battle—a defeat that Kessler’s employer desired—and perhaps Napoleon would be saved from the madness and physical deterioration contact with the coins would inevitably bring.

  Napoleon took off his overcoat as the afternoon grew warmer. Kessler waited his chance... and when Denswoz had gone to get them some water, Kessler stepped up beside Napoleon as if joining the Emperor in examining the maps. With his left hand Kessler reached into the coat folded over the back of the camp chair—and quickly filched the coins. He straightened up in time to see Denswoz striding toward them, carrying a canteen of water and frowning. In his position bent over the maps, Napoleon blocked Denswoz’s view of Kessler as he entered the field headquarters, so he could not have seen the theft. Not directly. But something had aroused his suspicion.

  Kessler looked quickly away, and said something about “seeing that my horse is watered as well.” He headed to the edge of the camp, then glanced back at Napoleon—his last sight of him ever—and went quickly out to where the horses were picketed.

  He had another duty, he reflected, as he strode to his chestnut mare—when the time came, he must kill Denswoz. Alberle Denswoz was a predatory Hundjager and Kessler suspected him of feeding on dying soldiers and killing peasants purely for the sake of amusement along their route. But there would be time to execute Denswoz later. First Kessler wanted to uncover his agenda and killing him might sever traceable ties. And Denswoz would not be hard to find when the time came.

  The sentries were used to seeing Johann Kessler come and go and no one said a word as he rode past them into the damp Sonian Forest. Ghosts of misty evaporation ascended from the ferns like the souls of fallen soldiers. The sounds of battle echoed between the boles of the beech trees, growing muted as he continued along the sunken, winding lane. His horse’s hooves gave out a lonely clopping as his mount trotted along.

  He would skirt the battle in the forest, then head east to Germany...

  But the urgent hoof-beats of galloping horses came drumming behind him. Kessler turned in his saddle, half expecting to see a troupe of cavalrymen coming after him. But it was Alberle Denswoz who pursued him—accompanied by a young man Kessler hadn’t seen before. The brutal, fixated look on their faces made their intentions clear.

  They came on rapidly, galloping up to either side of him, the young man on a roan, Denswoz on his burly cloudy-white horse. Kessler reined in so that their momentum would carry them past. He prepared to turn, thinking to dodge into the depths of the forest. But Denswoz turned in his saddle and fired a pistol—striking Kessler’s mare in the head. The horse collapsed beneath him and he was only just able to jump clear.

  Kessler regained his footing and drew his dragoon saber with his right hand; the saber had a falcon worked into its pommel, a part of his family crest. He had a loaded pistol in his sash, ready to draw if he had a clear target.

  The two horsemen had already turned their mounts, and were riding hard at him—but then Denswoz reined in his horse so abruptly it skidded on its hooves, neighing, eyes wild.

  “Did you think I couldn’t track you down?” Denswoz snarled.

  “I should have known you would,” Kessler admitted. “Tracking is a Hundjager gift, after all.”

  “I’ll kill you face to face, up close, you thieving scum,” Denswoz growled. His face was transforming, as he dismounted, devolving into the Hundjager’s doglike features; the Wesen’s eyes, the color of the juice of blood oranges, glinted with bloodlust.

  Denswoz came at him, uplifted dragoon saber shining in a shaft of light angling down through the trees. Kessler moved whiplash quick, and sidestepped out of the saber’s whistling arc, at the same instant stabbing his own blade deeply into Denswoz’s left armpit. The agonized Hundjager howled, the sound distinctly wolflike, and twisted loose from the blade. He stared, blinking, seeming startled by Kessler’s speed.

  But a powerful Wesen was not so easy to kill, and the Hundjager squared off with him again, teeth clenched, growling, upper lip peeling back in a snarl. The boy, no more than fifteen, climbed off his horse with less skill than Denswoz had shown, and came at Kessler from the left.

  “Lukas, stay back!” Denswoz growled.

  “Father—let me help! You’re wounded!”

  So this was Denswoz’s son, Lukas. He’d heard it mentioned that the boy was meeting Denswoz at Waterloo.

  “Listen to your father,” Kessler urged. “I don’t want to have to kill you too.”

  Blood was leaking from Denswoz’s Hundjager muzzle. But he charged Kessler, leaping and swinging the saber at once. Kessler’s Grimm reflexes did not fail him: he ducked easily under the assault, and let Denswoz’s momentum carry him past, so that the Wesen fell heavily on the path close beside Kessler’s fallen horse.

  Kessler spun toward the boy, who was aiming a pistol from four paces away. Lukas Denswoz fired, and the ball hissed past Kessler’s left ear. Lukas cursed, and threw the pistol aside, raising his saber. The teenager’s face was transforming—the Hundjager in him forcing its way into view.

  Kessler drew his own pistol—a Lepage that was a gift from Napoleon himself—and aimed carefully at the boy’s right shoulder. He fired, and the boy yelped, stumbled, and fell groaning. The pistol ball had shattered the bone of his shoulder.

  Kessler turned just in time to see that the older Denswoz was up, his bestial mouth bubbling with red foam.

  “Kessler—throw the coins down and walk away! I will let you live a while longer!” he demanded.

  “Why did you use the damned things to prod Napoleon into all this?” Kessler asked.

  “That you will never know!”

  Denswoz rushed him, but the deep wound under his arm was draining his strength, and his sword st
roke at Kessler’s head was clumsy.

  Kessler parried, slipped aside with Grimm rapidity, and struck down hard, cutting through the back of Denswoz’s neck—and severing the Wesen’s head from his body.

  The body staggered, spurting from the stump—and then fell twitching to the clay.

  “No!” Lukas howled, swaying as he struggled to his feet.

  “You cannot hope to kill me, boy,” Kessler told him.

  The young Wesen took an uncertain step toward Kessler, staring at his father’s severed head. Then the saber fell from his nerveless fingers to ring dully on a stone.

  Kessler walked to within a pace of the boy and pressed the tip of his blade to Lukas’s jugular.

  “Just a short thrust and a twist, and you will join your father,” Kessler told him. “You’ll be with him in Hell— damned like all Wesen as you are unchristian.” He had heard that this was not entirely so, that some Wesen were indeed Christian. But Kessler wanted to make the boy’s flesh creep.

  The boy gaped at him, and licked his lips. His right arm hung limp, and useless.

  “I...have to try to kill you.”

  “No, no you don’t. I should, in fact, kill you. But...my people only kill Wesen when they have to. You are young, and you could learn to live off cattle, and lambs—you could swear to never prey on a man or woman born.”

  “I...I swear it.”

  “But you must do one other thing, if you want to live. You must tell me why your father gave Napoleon the coins. Why did he want him to attack the allies again?”

  The boy shook his head. “I don’t know.” He averted his eyes.

  “Indeed. Then—greet your father for me.” He pushed minutely on the sabertip.

  “Wait! Father said...the war would not last. Napoleon would win for a time—and then fail. And there would be chaos afterward. And the chaos would suit those he’d sworn to uphold.”

  “And to whom had he sworn himself?”

  “He said I was not to know until I was a man. He said it was ‘those who feed on war and human dissolution.’”

  “Indeed. You have no names to give me?”

  “No!” Lukas put a shaking hand up to cover his tearful eyes. “Oh my father, I have betrayed your trust.”

  Kessler snorted. “You have told me little enough. But— you may go. I give you your life. Remember that there is greatness in being merciful. It has given you another chance to see the deeper truths of the world. Take your saber, and depart.”

  He lowered his saber, and nodded toward the young Wesen’s horse.

  Lukas caught up his saber and backed away from Kessler, then turned quickly to the horse. The injured boy had difficulty mounting but at last he was galloping back the way he’d come.

  As Kessler watched, after about thirty yards, the young Wesen reined in the horse and turned toward him, face drawn in pain and frustrated rage.

  “You sir!” the young man shouted. “You and all your family will pay the price for this deed! I swear it now!” Then he turned and galloped away.

  Kessler walked over to his saddlebags, retrieved a few things, including the leather bag containing the Coins of Zakynthos. Then he mounted Denswoz’s horse and rode off toward Germany.

  He told himself that there was no need to be troubled by Lukas Denswoz’s oath. The boy was injured, emotional, and not the ruthless operative his father had been.

  But intuition told Kessler that he had made a dire mistake in letting the young Hundjager live.

  And that intuition was correct. Johann Kessler’s mistake would crystallize like roof water in a wintry blast of wind. In time its poison would trickle like drips from melting ice; like frosty fingers it would stretch out, seeking with an icy touch...

  CHAPTER ONE

  PORTLAND, OREGON, U.S.A.

  PRESENT DAY.

  Captain Sean Renard stared at the badly burned body on the morgue table. It smelled of smoke and burnt flesh— and methane.

  “How’d they find this guy?” he asked. Though he had his suspicions, he had encountered the odor before.

  “Fire Department got a call about smoke coming out of the ground in a vacant lot,” Sergeant Wu said, blinking in the glare of the bright light over the stainless steel table. He tugged nervously at the jacket of his new police department uniform. “Damn thing doesn’t fit right,” he muttered. The new dark blue uniforms had been hastily made up, and didn’t seem to hang as well as the old two-tone ones.

  “Cause of fire determined?” Renard continued.

  “Just guesswork, Captain. Some guy walking by the lot saw smoke, thought it might be some kind of underground natural gas fire so they called the gas company and the fire department. Gas line was ruled out. Firemen looked down in the hole, saw this guy’s legs down there. Like he’d crawled down and died there. I’ve felt like crawling in a hole and pulling the dirt over me in my time but...”

  Renard noticed that Wu was glancing around the room, looking at anything but the body. It was indeed a repulsive corpse. The skin had been scorched off most of the upper half, exposing charred muscles and membranes. The eyes had melted out. The hands too were badly burned...

  Wu glanced down at the body, winced, looked away.

  “Weird about that donut box...” he said.

  Renard nodded. The corpse’s clawlike right hand gripped a piece of torn, charred cardboard. All that was legible on the cardboard was the name, “WICKED DONUTS” and a shop address on Halsey.

  “And look at that hand,” Wu went on. He was clearly trying to find something he could deal with to make an observation about. “Like a sloth’s claws. Kinda weird.”

  “Enfoncer des portes ouvertes,” Renard muttered.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Hm? Oh it’s a French expression about ‘breaking down open doors.’ Stating the obvious. Okay...” He drew the sheet over the body, to Wu’s visible relief. “Let’s get the coroner on this.”

  As they went to the door, Wu said, “I figure he was a bum getting sloppy with Sterno, or something. Tries to crawl down a hole to put the fire out, maybe.”

  “The boys in rubber boots find anything else down in that hole?”

  “Naw, just hooked the guy out with a grabber. Firemen’s job isn’t to climb down holes. Well, except now and then. I knew a case where this Chihuahua was stuck in a—”

  “Never mind the Chihuahua, Wu. Have the report on my desk.”

  “You got it, Captain. You want that hole excavated?”

  Renard shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s see what the coroner says about this guy.”

  “What’s up with the sloth claw?”

  “Deformity. Or damage to bone from fire.” Renard didn’t want Wu thinking about it too much. “Who knows?”

  That telltale claw might be left over from a woge event, Renard figured. Maybe it hadn’t disappeared on death, the way they usually do, because of the fire trauma. But he was pretty sure he knew what kind of claw that was.

  Chances were, it was the claw of a Drang-zorn.

  “You know,” Wu said, frowning, as they walked up the hall to the elevator. “I saw something about Wicked Donuts on an incident report... Yeah. Guy over on Halsey said his store was robbed. But they only took donuts.” After a moment he added, “Perp mighta been a cop.”

  Renard winced.

  “Sorry, Captain. It had to be said.”

  “Just—send me that donut shop report, Wu.”

  * * *

  “Nick—you’re joking, right? You don’t really want me to climb inside that weird little thing do you?”

  “Hey, it wasn’t my decision, Hank.”

  Hank Griffin snorted. “Suppose the Sheriff’s department sees us? We’ll be a laughing stock. We’re supposed to be homicide detectives, not circus clowns.”

  Nick Burkhardt nodded slowly, looking at the little car.

  “It does look like a clown car.”

  It was a wet October morning and they were standing in the Portland Police Department
parking lot staring at the tiny vehicle, each of them with take-out coffee cups in hand.

  “Is that a whatsit—a ‘Smart Car?’” Hank asked.

  “Um... no. This is a new thing. It’s called a ‘Pocket Car.’ Kind of a Mini Cooper, kind of a Smart Car. Even a little smaller. More... sustainable? The City is trying to be environmentally conscious.”

  “Nick—screw this. Why don’t we just drive my car?”

  “Department policy. They want someone to show off how concerned they are. They mean well.”

  “I’m all for clean air, Nick, but this thing, forget it. Hey... I don’t see any others in the lot.”

  “Department only has one other so far. Renard wants us to have this one.” Nick chuckled, and opened the passenger side door. “I mean—can you see a couple of street cops driving in something like this? I heard they’re gonna get Chevy Volts for patrol cruisers.”

  “Patrolmen gonna get Chevy Volts?” Hank went around to the driver’s side, and angrily yanked the door open. “A Chevy Volt’d be a damn Humvee compared to this thing. And it’s got that PPD rose painted on the side, too.” He climbed in, grimacing as he folded his long legs into the car. Hank was a tall black man, and had a hard time fitting into the seat. “I’ve heard patrolmen grumble about that rose symbol on the cruiser. ‘Other cops get a bad-ass badge symbol.’ But I never minded it till today Now I feel like I should put on a clown nose and find the Rose Parade.”

  Nick wasn’t much shorter than Hank. He squeezed in, putting the seat back as far as it would go. But he still felt like a hunchback.

  “Yeah. It sucks,” he said. “It’s just for now, Hank. Let’s see how it drives.”

  As they pulled out of the lot, he turned to look out of the side window. The glass was glazed to reflect heat, which inside made it almost mirror-like. A dark-haired man in his early thirties looked back at him; the man had rather large, dark eyes. Not bad looking. A little too babyfaced, perhaps. It was his own reflection. He could almost see the Grimm in that shadowed face...