Hank climbed down, wincing when the ladder squeaked, returned the ladder, and headed back to his car. He sat inside, and called Captain Renard.
“Captain? I’ve got something solid. Young girl in distress. Suspicious persons possibly connected to kidnapping and vehicular theft and the smuggling of...”
“Alright, alright, Griffin. Check your email in ten.”
Hank hung up and waited impatiently, phone in one hand, checking his watch, knowing that the Captain had sent some patrol cars out and worried that some overeager rookie would run his siren and alert the gang.
Finally his smartphone signaled to tell him he’d gotten an email. He opened the message, and smiled. The warrant.
Hank backed onto the street, drove to the corner and turned left. He went around the block to where he found four patrol cars waiting, along with a van of vice officers just finishing putting on helmets and bulletproof vests.
Sergeant Wu emerged from a patrol car, returning Hank’s wave.
A lanky guy with a blond crewcut nodded to Hank. Aaron Kasacki, the vice lieutenant.
“Detective!” he called. “We’re ready when the warrant’s here!”
“Already got it. Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Standing in the alley across the street from the warehouse, Hank took the digital print out from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and looked at it again.
It was a photograph of Lily Perkins.
He shook his head, thinking of this young teenager in the hands of these monsters. Not Wesen monsters—he’d come around to Nick’s viewpoint, that Wesen differences were sometimes monstrous, like the Jinnamuru Xunte, the flylike Wesen who’d temporarily blinded Nick, but others were just people with unusual characteristics. Maybe Wesen weren’t exactly human. But they were still people.
No, these guys would be monsters whether they were ordinary humans or not. The Wesen element just made them much trickier to apprehend. And maybe lethal to handle.
He folded the picture up, checked the straps on his Kevlar vest, and spoke into the radio on his shoulder.
“Okay, Lieutenant, let’s do this. Just remember, speed matters. These guys have a tendency to use tunnels to escape. We don’t know where those tunnels are and where they go, so we need to catch them before they can use one.”
“Copy that, Detective. We’re moving in.”
Moments later a large police van pulled up in front of the warehouse. The van was unmarked—they were going for a “jump out” style raid.
The back of the van popped open, and Kevlar-strapped officers with handguns, helmets, and headsets jumped out, and lined up to one side of the warehouse’s front door. Both hands on his semi-auto pistol, Hank hurried over to join them as an officer tried the door. It was locked.
Lieutenant Kasacki nodded to a powerfully built officer carrying the big metal handheld battering ram. The officer slammed the bazooka-shaped steel ram into the door close to the knob and the door flew inward.
The Lieutenant shouted, “Portland Police! Stay where you are!” as the officers streamed into the building, with Hank just a few steps behind the leader.
The door opened into a lobby done in red velvet, with several red velvet plush chairs, presumably for waiting customers.
Hank figured none of the Icy Touch thugs would be woged—they wouldn’t risk that in front of a phalanx of police officers. And by now they must know that cops were raiding the warehouse.
He followed the lieutenant and two other officers down the hallway at the back of the lobby. Immediately Hank saw Hergden ahead of them, running away at the other end of the hall, his distinctive bushy hair bobbing as he went. The officers with Hank were already rushing through a side door off the hallway—they’d seen the girls in there.
Hank shouted, “Hergden! Police! Stop!”
Hergden partly turned as he ran, and fired a random shot down the hall with a big revolver. Hank moved to the side and the bullet hummed passed his right ear.
Hank paused, then fired back, aiming carefully and using only two rounds, afraid he might accidentally hit one of the girls. The bullets from his powerful police handgun could punch right through these thin walls.
Hergden was hit, stumbled, then fired again, the shot going into the floor. He fell on his side, doubling up, groaning, then he tossed the gun aside.
“Don’t shoot!” he grunted. “I’m not going anywhere!”
Hank moved to him—saw the injured man half woge into a growling wolflike face for a moment, maybe in sheer pain and fury. Then the Blutbad suppressed the woge, gritting his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut.
Hank picked up the discarded revolver and glanced behind him to see if Hergden’s shot had hit anyone. Sergeant Wu and the other officers were ushering two girls out of one of the rooms. No one seemed hurt.
He turned back to Hergden.
“Where are the rest of the girls, Hergden? And where’s the tunnel?”
“You shot me,” Hergden groaned, sounding amazed.
“Yeah. Where’s the...”
“Detective?”
Hank turned to see the lieutenant coming toward him. Kasacki opened his visor, revealing a grin.
“We’ve got the girls. At least some of them—maybe all. And I think we found that tunnel, too. It’s another closet setup. The other suspects seemed to have busted ass like rats down a hole already...”
A uniformed African-American female hurried down the hall toward them. She had a stethoscope around her neck and carried a large red and white medical kit.
“Man down?” she asked.
“Suspect, here, took two rounds,” Hank said. “I’d like to cuff him if you okay it.”
She went down on one knee and examined the now-limp form of Hergden.
“You won’t have to, Detective,” she said after a moment. “Two hits, one up pretty high in the rib cage— doesn’t look like there’s any point in trying to resuscitate.”
* * *
They didn’t have a warrant for the adjacent buildings but they had probable cause to follow the tunnel back.
Hank broke out his flashlight. He and Sergeant Wu shared a look of resignation as they approached the tunnel.
“Not this again,” Hank murmured. Peering into the opening, he could see the tunnel was pretty poorly shored-up. Nodding to Wu, but wishing it was Nick and his finely honed Grimm instincts following him into the hole and not the sergeant, who knew nothing of the real dangers that lurked inside, Hank climbed down the ladder and began to walk along the grimy passage. Wu shuffled along behind him.
The narrow way soon broke through a curved concrete wall and they found themselves in a large drainage tunnel, full of old silt deposited on the floor by a shallow green stream.
Wu hesitated, looking at the ground.
“That’s weird,” he said.
“What?”
Wu laughed softly. “Those tracks look almost like hooves. Like someone was really hoofing it.”
Hank realized he couldn’t let the sergeant come any further, not without telling him about the Wesen. And he couldn’t do that, not without speaking to Nick.
“Yeah—um, Wu, how about if you head back, get some patrol cars looking wide through the area. Maybe someone can figure out where this tunnel comes out.”
“Good call, Detective. You’d better not follow this thing back yourself...”
“Right. I’ll be up there pretty soon.”
Hank didn’t like misleading Wu, but he felt he had no choice. Plus, he’d noticed another track near the hooflike mark. It was the footprint of a girl’s shoe.
He was fairly certain the Icy Touch gangsters had taken at least one of the girls with them. It didn’t matter which one.
Sergeant Wu went back up the tunnel. Hank stayed, thought about it for a moment. Once again wished he had Nick with him.
This, right now, would be a really handy time to have a Grimm around.
He shook his head and started down the drainage tunnel.
The dripping, cracked ceiling was barely an inch over Hank’s head; though he tried to stay quiet his footsteps alternately clacked and squished on the muddy edges of the tunnel floor. Hank walked on about fifty yards, came to a turn and halted; he heard the echo of unintelligible voices. He switched off the flashlight, pocketed it, drew his gun, and craned to look around the corner.
Standing in a pool of light about thirty feet ahead, two figures were at the bottom of a ladder. One was climbing quickly up; the other, with a silhouette almost like a two-legged bull—reminding Hank of a minotaur—was looking up, waiting for his turn.
Hank stepped into view.
“Police! Hold it!”
The minotaur turned, and roared, its guttural voice booming up and down the tunnel. Half bent over, the Icy Touch Wesen charged toward Hank, like a bull charging toward a matador.
Hank raised the pistol, started to shout a warning—the Wesen wasn’t showing a weapon and Hank was reluctant to just open up on him. But the creature came at him so quickly, before Hank could pull the trigger he was past Hank’s gun muzzle, and on him, driving him back.
Struck in the lower chest, Hank felt like he’d just been hit by a car. He found himself skidding backwards on the slimy floor, water sloshing over the shoulders of his trench coat.
Another perfectly good coat, ruined, he thought dimly.
The breath was knocked out of him and the dark tunnel seemed to spin around the looming outline of the Wesen. But Hank still had the gun—he raised it and fired. The muzzle flash lit a snarling bestial face, exposing a flattened nose, red eyes, downturned bovine ears, and horns.
Mordstier, Hank remembered. He’d seen the entry in one of Nick’s Grimm books.
Hank could see blood along the creature’s side—his bullet had torn into the Mordstier’s shirt, slicing along the ribs.
Hank raised up on an elbow for a better shot—but suddenly the creature was gone, hooves clacking as it moved away.
Hank got to his knees, sucking his breath through his teeth, pain shooting up his side. Seemed like he had a cracked rib.
He struggled to his feet, pushing the pain aside, and moved to the corner just in time to see the Mordstier’s bare feet climbing the ladder into the ceiling... The Wesen had shifted back into human form.
“Stop!” Hank shouted, limping closer. But the Wesen climbed out of sight—and before Hank could reach it, the Mordstier was drawing the ladder up after him. Then the light from above abruptly cut off, and Hank was in deep darkness.
Cursing, he got the flashlight out, and directed it upward to the hole in the ceiling.
A wooden trapdoor blocked the exit.
He turned away, and sloshed back to the other tunnel. Remembering that girl’s footprint in the mud...
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Maybe you’re the one who should be in a hospital bed,” Nick said, as he and Hank walked down the hallway to Monroe’s hospital room.
Nick had seen Hank grimacing with pain.
“Rib’s just cracked. Not a big deal.”
“Hurts like a bitch though, I bet,” Nick said, remembering some of his own injuries.
“You win the bet.”
“So, no prisoners to interrogate.”
“Nope. One shot dead, the others got out. I guess four in all. I had a bullfight with one. And the matador lost.”
“The girls been... used by customers?”
“Nah, we got there soon enough. But they weren’t much help. Too out of it on that stuff. But we lost the Perkins girl... The other girls said two of these creeps took Lily into the tunnel.”
“Why her?”
“Seems like one of the bigshots came around and took an interest in her.”
“Crap. Not going to be good, telling Monroe we lost her.”
“We’ll get her back.”
But Hank didn’t sound convinced.
Nick knocked on the door to Monroe’s hospital room.
Rosalee answered. “Nick! And Hank.” She didn’t seem terribly happy to see them. She looked at Hank. “You okay?”
“Just a little bruised. Maybe from having to spend a lot of money on dry-cleaning. How’s Monroe?”
“See for yourself.”
She opened the door for them, and they found Monroe fully dressed, muttering to himself as he packed a small bag.
“Should I take these hospital slippers with me or not?” he said.
“Hey Monroe,” Nick called.
He glanced up at them. “There they are. And I don’t see good news in those eyes. Please tell me I’m wrong.”
Hank shook his head. “It’s bad—with some good. Bad news is, Icy Touch still has Lily Perkins. Good news is—we got the others out. And we rolled up that operation, at least for now. Seized a lot of that Seele stuff.”
Monroe closed his eyes. “She wasn’t there?”
“She was the only one they took with them when they got out,” Nick said. “Somebody in the organization took a fancy to her. Maybe that’ll keep her safe for a while.”
“I’d guess that’s not much consolation for her mom.”
“No. It isn’t. I’ll find her, Monroe,” Nick said.
“We’ll both find her,” Monroe said.
Nick looked at him questioningly. “You look better, but...”
“Nick?” Monroe zipped his bag shut and turned him a look that fairly throbbed with emotion. “We. The term is we. As in you and me, Detective Burkhardt.”
Hank shrugged. “Maybe working outside official channels, you guys can do more than the PD can...”
* * *
Burkhardt... .
Kessler.
There it was. The Icy Touch’s documentation on Grimms made the lineage quite clear...
Denswoz leaned back in the leather chair of his den in the Red Lodge, and looked at the family tree for the descendants of Johann Kessler. There were some question marks on the breakdown but what he needed was there. Kelly Kessler had married a Grimm named Burkhardt. Her whereabouts were unknown. But it was she who’d taken the Coins of Zakynthos to other Grimm for safekeeping.
Denswoz grinned at that. “A safe deposit box is really not terribly safe, Mrs. Burkhardt,” he murmured.
It was late, and he had been tired, thinking of going to bed. But not now. Now he was energized. He’d been coached by his father about the ancestral vendetta against the descendants of Johann Kessler.
More than once they’d struck down members of the Kessler family. One, he remembered, had been fed to a Spinnetod in London. And then there was another encounter, in the following century. Berlin...
He scowled, remembering that story. Only a partial victory...
So. Kelly Kessler was the mother of Nick Burkhardt, the most troublesome detective in the Portland Police Department. Not only was he related to the Kesslers— Detective Burkhardt was a Grimm.
He heard footsteps outside the door; a soft, familiar knock.
“Come in.”
Malo opened the door and entered pushing a disheveled, dazed teenage girl ahead of him. The teenager’s wrists were cuffed behind her; there was duct tape over her mouth. She looked around the book-lined den, her reddened eyes finally resting on the ornately barred windows.
“You wanted to see the Perkins kid?” Malo asked.
“Yes. Is she the only one we got out?”
“Afraid so. And Grogan was lucky to get her out. Just her and a couple of our sentries.”
“Burkhardt was in on the raid?”
“Nope, Burkhardt’s on suspension. It was his partner. The black dude, Griffin. And he was the one asked about the girl, too, when they detained Hergden.”
Denswoz nodded thoughtfully. First had come indications that a Wesen connected to Burkhardt had a special interest in this girl. Then Hank Griffin had asked Hergden about the Perkins girl specifically. If she was of interest to Burkhardt and Griffin, she was a valuable lure. Denswoz was glad he’d told Grogan to make absolutely sure she was kept out of police hands.
He looked the girl over. Seele Dichtungsmittel had glazed her eyes—but there was a glint of defiance there, too.
She was a strong one. And that was good.
When it came time to kill and eat her, that would make it all the more delectable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
About four in the morning, Renard gave up trying to sleep. The greatest challenge of his career was out there in the world, just beyond his reach; The Icy Touch was humming in the darkness like some sinister dynamo, and he didn’t have a handle on it. Sleep wasn’t an option tonight.
He got out of bed, put on his bathrobe, went to the kitchen. When he turned on the lights the room seemed too bright to his tired eyes, at first. Beyond the window, a distant siren sang mournfully. He might get a call about whatever that was about...
He unlocked the drawer that contained his Hexenbiest essences. He wasn’t as up on Hexenbiest “potioning” as most. As he took out the relevant bottles and small jars of rare herbs and dried fungi, he thought wryly that maybe he had half the expertise because he was only half Hexenbiest.
But was there such a thing, really, as half a Hexenbiest? When he woged, he was full Hexenbiest. And the potions seemed to take shape under his fingers with an instinctive, intuitive ease.
Renard quickly concocted the fatigue neutralizer, and drank it down. He felt himself woge as it hit him, his face contorting. He let the woge take its course, for a moment, his back arching with the energy of the transformation, combined with the power of the potion. Then he shook himself and shifted back to ordinary human appearance.
He needed to stay calm, to think...
He made himself a cup of green tea, found some scones, and took this light breakfast into the extra bedroom he used as an office when he was at home.
He sat at the desk, his nervous system buzzing with the Hexenbiest remedy, and his mind riding a white-water course of possibilities. He switched on his computer and checked the time in Europe. Lunchtime in France, now— maybe it was time to talk to Beatrice. Would she feel safe talking on the phone? Probably not. Not the usual way.
Grimm - The Icy Touch Page 17
