For the fifth time in the last half hour he paced the cell. It was about thirty by thirty-five feet, and contained only a wooden-framed cot, a pitcher of water, a stained toilet, and a sink. The toilet was the kind you saw in airports, with no tank, its pipes going into the floor. There was a blurred set of initials scratched into one of the bricks above the toilet. Someone else had been held here. He looked at the initials again. L.P.
Lily Perkins. Where had they moved her to?
Was she dead?
He heard footsteps; saw a shadow at the narrow rectangular space under the door where they had pushed through the tray.
Nick stood, bracing himself, hoping for a chance to rush whomever opened the door.
What about the cot? Wooden frame. Break it up, use pieces for a club. Maybe...
But there was no time for that now. The lock grated and the door creaked open, swinging outward.
Nick found himself staring down the barrels of a twelve-gauge shotgun and an AR15 assault rifle.
“If he so much as twitches,” Denswoz said, “blow his head off.”
The two Wesen keeping Nick covered were in human form just now; they were muscular, swarthy men wearing jeans, sweatshirts and Kevlar vests, standing to either side of Denswoz. Their weapons never wavered. Nick’s Grimm senses told him that one guard was Hundjager, the other a Königschlange—possibly the one who’d killed the Drang-zorn witness.
Denswoz was also in human form. He smiled urbanely, arms crossed over his chest. Just behind Denswoz was the Mordstier, woged. Grogan wore no shoes in his Wesen form. No need when you have hooves.
When he spoke, Grogan’s rough voice was barely understandable.
“You cops like putting people in cells,” Grogan said. “How you enjoying this one?”
“Not up to my standards,” Nick said.
Denswoz chuckled. “That’s it. Keep your spirits up.”
“Where’s the girl?” Nick asked.
Denswoz shook his head. “Not your business. Not that it matters what you know. It must have occurred to you that since I’m showing you my face... well...”
Nick nodded. “It occurred to me. You’re pretty confident you can keep me here.”
“I can keep you till you’re dead, and torn to pieces, and eaten, and digested.”
Nick frowned thoughtfully. “Seems to me most Hundjager don’t eat human flesh. The better class of Hundjager wouldn’t approve.”
“They’ll all join us, in time,” Denswoz said nonchalantly “Or we’ll kill them.”
“You have plans for me, I’m guessing, before you get to the killing and eating?”
Denswoz let his smile fade: his face became stony, his eyes flinty.
“My people... my family... has long had plans for you, Nick Burkhardt. They’ve had plans for you since the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.”
That caught Nick off guard.
“Since Napoleon’s time? That’s thinking ahead.”
“They’ve had plans for every member of your line, Burkhardt. One of your ancestors... another vile Grimm... committed a crime against one of mine, Alberle Denswoz. Alberle’s son swore an oath to punish your family. Destroy it, if he could. Each of his descendants has sworn the same oath. And we have hunted and killed your family ever since. When we have destroyed you, and your mother—I do believe that will end your line of Grimms. You see, my name is Albert Denswoz. I am Alberle’s direct descendant.”
“I see.” Nick’s mouth was very dry, all of a sudden. His mother. Denswoz would go after Kelly next.
“Just to make absolutely certain,” Denswoz went on musingly, “we’ll have to kill your girlfriend too. Juliette is her name, yes? On the off chance that she’s pregnant.”
Nick tensed—he was close to lunging at Denswoz.
Juliette.
He saw the eyes of the shotgunner narrowing; the one with the AR15 leaned forward, very slightly.
“They’re within an eyelash of opening fire, Burkhardt,” Denswoz warned. “Don’t be foolish. I have plans for you. Please don’t spoil them.”
“Okay,” Nick said, forcing himself to smile. “There are other options, though. You could surrender to me.”
Grogan laughed—a kind of bovine coughing sound.
“I have done what I came here to do,” Denswoz said. “It is part of my family tradition to inform you scum, before you die, that you are being destroyed as a result of our oath.”
“And what was the great crime my ancestor committed?” Nick asked.
“There were several crimes. The murder of Alberle Denswoz. The mutilation of his son. The theft of objects sacred to us.”
“Objects...”
Denswoz smiled mysteriously. “Objects which are at last back in our possession. But the crime goes unpunished— until you and your kind are wiped out. Of course, all Grimms will be exterminated, when we’re done. But you being a descendant of Johann Kessler—you must die a particularly slow and memorable death.”
“Naturally,” Nick said calmly. “A sadist loves a rationale for cruelty.”
The Hundjager’s eyes widened, his hands balled into fists.
“You will not provoke me. I am not the fool you are. You came into our arms with charming alacrity.”
“I knew something was up,” Nick said. “I figured it might be a trap. But—here’s an old Grimm expression for you: Sometimes, in order to find out where the wasp nest is, you have to kick the tree.”
“Won’t do you any good, coming here,” Grogan rumbled. “And you don’t know where you are anyway.”
“Chances are,” Nick remarked, glancing around, “I’m still somewhere in Oregon. Near the Columbia.”
“How’d he—”
“Shut up, Grogan,” Denswoz said wearily. “He didn’t know it. I don’t suppose it matters, but—information hygiene in all things. That’s our way.”
“The Icy Touch’s way,” Nick said. “La Caresse Glacée.”
Denswoz sniffed and waved a dismissive hand.
“All will be clear quite soon. Better eat those eggs, Detective. Probably your last meal.”
Denswoz stepped back and murmured to the Mordstier, who slammed the door shut with a resounding clang.
The locked turned, and Nick thought ruefully, I’m not really making a lot of progress here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BERLIN, GERMANY. DECEMBER, 1936.
“It seems foolish to move the coins,” Jonathan Kessler said in German, as his fellow Grimm worked the combination lock on the office safe. “Suppose we’re stopped? The Gestapo have been putting up checkpoints.”
“Only within a certain distance of the Reichstag,” Berg replied, flicking through the combination that Kessler had given him. “I doubt there’ll be one around here. It is the security of this building that worries me. And if Berlin is bombed...”
Kessler reached into his coat, drew out his pocket watch. It was two-ten in the afternoon.
“We must hurry.”
“Yes, yes... I got one of the numbers wrong... Let me start over...”
Hans Berg was a young man, no more than thirty, with prematurely thinning blond hair, a long nose to go with his long face and long pale fingers. He was thirty years Kessler’s junior, but prone to imagining himself in charge. Like Kessler, Berg wore a heavy overcoat over his suit. The heated room was too warm for their attire, but they intended to leave the building quickly as possible and it was snowing outside. Kessler wore a gray fedora; Berg had a damp woolen watch cap half stuffed in a pocket.
Berg swung the door of the floor safe open, and swiftly began to search through deeds and other church paperwork in the safe.
“The envelope is marked with two circles...” he muttered.
Kessler glanced at the window but there was nothing to see there since he’d pulled the shades. They were in the office of a Lutheran church, behind the chapel. It had been thought that no criminal would bother to break into a minister’s safe. The Coins of Zakynthos should have been sa
fe here. But there were rumors that Rudolf Hess was searching for “occult” artifacts and now the decision had been made to move the coins out of Berlin.
The Lutheran minister who officiated at this church was a Grimm—usually the only Grimm in Berlin. At present he was off in Bavaria searching for a certain Hundjager, one he said was “particularly vile.” The Reverend Scheller was one of those Grimms who believed that all Wesen should be exterminated. Kessler didn’t share that view. But Scheller believed all Wesen demonic; he clung to the old ways.
“Here they are,” Berg whispered at last, taking a manila envelope from the safe. He opened it and peered inside, his voice tremulous. “Yes. They are here.”
He began to reach into the envelope, and Kessler grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t touch them.”
Berg glared at Kessler. “The coins don’t affect Grimms.”
“We’re not sure they never affect Grimms. The coins are dangerous.” Kessler took the envelope from Berg and resealed it.
Berg frowned. “They’re dangerous for humans—and Wesen. Not for us.”
“The coins are dangerous in other ways,” Kessler said. “For all humanity.” He closed the safe, and removed his hat, wiping sweat from his forehead. “If it were up to me, they would be melted down. Destroyed.”
Berg’s frown deepened. “That could be dangerous in itself. Who knows what would happen if that were tried?”
Kessler replaced his hat on his head.
“They could be sealed in lead and dumped in the deepest trench of the sea. But they should not be where men can get them, no matter what. Napoleon himself misused them.” He folded the envelope as small as he could and put it in the inside pocket of his overcoat. “If Hitler got hold of them...”
“They’ve been used by Wesen—so we need them for Grimm studies,” Berg said stiffly. “Herr Kessler—I think you should give me the coins to carry. I am a younger man. Stronger. If we have to run...”
“Don’t be absurd,” Kessler said. “You are no stronger than I.”
The two men left the office, relocking it and going down a hall to the back door. Outside, they paused to look around, blinking in the sudden afternoon light; the snowfall had stopped, and the sun had broken through the clouds. The streets were slushy with wet snow. A delivery truck swished by, sliding a little as the driver fought to keep it on the slippery road.
The lot back of the church was a garden, right now mostly covered in snow; withered brown plants poked through the white covering here and there. Feeling exposed, Kessler led the way along the snow-encrusted path to the street where his silver-painted touring sedan was parked.
“I hope to buy a motorcar soon myself,” Berg remarked wistfully. “But, I am a poor lawyer, taking clients I should not take. You, however—a professor must make a good living, to have such a fine motorcar.”
“I am no longer a professor,” Kessler said. “Eighteen years was enough. And when I inherited my father’s estate, I retired. I write papers, I research our... our undertaking. This is my life now.”
“Ah. Your father’s estate.” Berg’s bitterness was quite unveiled; he looked as if he’d sunk his teeth into a lemon. “My father killed himself when he lost his business. He left me nothing. I am a poor man.”
Kessler remembered Scheller had told him that Berg had a bad gambling habit. Perhaps that was the real source of his poverty.
He unlocked the car and they got in, Kessler nervously starting the vehicle before Berg had even closed his door.
The wheels spun in tractionless frustration for a few moments, and then they gripped the road and the low-slung sedan swished along the slush-filled street with the other cars. Kessler drove past row houses and a beer hall with a taxicab parked in front of it, and then he turned left at the corner.
Not far down the street, three men in long gray Gestapo winter coats had set up a checkpoint beside a large black car, half blocking the road. Behind them stood an SS soldier with a rifle. The Gestapo were checking papers, talking to the driver of a bakery truck, their breath steamed in the cold.
It was too late to turn around now—the Gestapo was looking for someone, perhaps the so-called anarchists Hitler was worried about, and they would pursue in their state-issued black car if Kessler suddenly swung the car about and tried to avoid the checkpoint.
Heart banging in his chest, Kessler looked for a place to pull over. Perhaps he and Berg could pretend they were going somewhere on the street, and wait out the checkpoint. They could act as if they planned to visit one of the lodging houses here...
“Give me the coins,” Berg said suddenly. “They will more likely search the driver. Quickly!”
“What? That’s not so! If they choose to search at all, both of us will be searched.”
“I was to take them, anyway, Herr Scheller told me so,” Berg asserted.
Kessler glanced at Berg—he could see he was lying. He’d sensed that Berg was hiding something earlier, and here was an outright lie—Kessler was never wrong in recognizing a liar.
As the delivery truck was waved through, Kessler pulled over in front of a lodging house, as if parking. But they were too close to the checkpoint, and seeing them the tallest of the Gestapo men, in an officer’s cap, scowled and gave an order. Another officer and the SS soldier with the rifle strode over to Kessler’s car, gesturing for him to roll down the window.
Kessler smiled in a puzzled sort of way as he complied. He kept the touring car’s engine running.
“Yes, gentlemen, can I be of assistance?” he asked politely.
“You do not wish to pass through the checkpoint?” said the officer, with a pronounced Austrian accent. He was a tall man with a jutting chin, high cheekbones, and ice-blue eyes.
“Checkpoint?” Kessler replied easily. “No, no, we have no problem with checkpoints. I am simply planning to visit a lady at the lodge here. My young friend has not had much experience with women. I believe she will be of service to him.”
The young SS soldier leered at that, but the Gestapo officer didn’t seem convinced. He scowled—and then Kessler saw it.
The bestial face emerged, for just a moment. The officer was a Hundjager.
The SS soldier saw nothing of this since the officer had not woged.
The Gestapo officer bent over slightly and looked through the window at Berg.
“Your name, and identity papers, please.”
“My name is Mueller,” Berg said. “I am... Otto Mueller.”
Kessler looked at Berg. Otto Mueller? He hadn’t mentioned using such a cover name.
The Hundjager officer stared at Berg, his eyes widening.
“Mueller? I did not expect you to be with anyone else!”
Kessler suppressed a gasp. The Hundjager had been waiting for someone going by the name Mueller. And Berg had given that name. Therefore...
He reached down to put the car in gear—but then Berg put the muzzle of a Luger against the side of Kessler’s head.
“I am sorry, Herr Professor,” Berg said. “But I must have the coins. I have made an arrangement. Herr Hess has offered me a great deal of money. You knew where the coins were; I did not. I am afraid I forged the coded letter...”
Kessler let out a long sigh. The letter had come through the mail, stating the coins must be removed to a safer place. He had a tendency to trust other Grimms implicitly. But they were prone to human failings like anyone else.
The Gestapo officer smacked his hand on the roof of the car.
“If you have the package, give it to me now!” he demanded angrily.
“I shall hand it over to Herr Hess personally, as arranged,” Berg said. “That is Herr Hess’s wish.”
The officer grunted, and straightened up.
“Then take it from him, and come out of the car.” He turned to the soldier. “Take this ‘Herr Professor’ prisoner.”
“Kessler!” Berg snapped. “The envelope! Now!”
Kessler reached into his pocket, took out the
envelope with the coins—and tossed it into the back seat.
As he’d hoped, Berg turned to grab at the envelope, looking away for a moment. Kessler’s Grimm reflexes came into play and he wrenched the gun from Berg’s hand, turned it about and fired the Luger at the officer and the soldier, two shots, all in less than a second.
The bullets struck both men, hitting each one consecutively in the forehead, and they fell back, dead as they hit the snowy ground.
Kessler thrust the gun into his coat, put the car in reverse, slammed on the accelerator, and backed up down the gutter, splashing slush.
The men remaining at the checkpoint shouted. As Kessler shifted gears and spun the wheel, one of the Gestapo fired a gun—a pistol by the sound of it. A bullet pinged off one of the touring car’s fenders.
Kessler accelerated as he turned the car to head back off down the street, ignoring Berg—who was ducking down beside him, shouting for him to stop.
I should kill him right now, he thought.
And then he heard the car door open and, turning his head, Kessler saw Berg had the envelope with the coins in it—and was leaping from the moving car, shouting, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” at the Gestapo. Berg cried out in pain as he struck the road. “No!” he cried out, “I have a package for Herr Hess!”
Another gunshot cracked, and Kessler swore and hit the brakes. The car spun on the slick road, half turning, and stopped. He saw Berg lying face down in the slush, legs twitching, his arms outstretched toward the checkpoint, one of his hands clutching the envelope containing the coins. Blood was pooling around his head. A Gestapo officer was running toward Berg’s body.
Kessler ducked down as a side window of the touring car blew inward with a tinkling sound. They were still firing at Kessler, shouting at him to surrender.
I cannot leave the coins.
Another bullet smacked into the car and then he shifted himself high enough to get the car moving again, turning it toward the Gestapo.
But one of them had the envelope, was running with it toward the black sedan. The other was standing in the middle of the street, aiming with two hands on his gun.
Grimm - The Icy Touch Page 20
