“Some of your people probably wanted to head for the hills, when I got away,” Nick said calmly, as he massaged Hank’s wrists.
“Yes. There was some dispute, as you may imagine. But... we have connections. Even if there was a police raid, our contacts would ease our way—and most of us would go free, fairly soon. And federal agents, or those clowns in the Sheriff’s department—they wouldn’t find much here. We’ve cleaned up the place quite well, since you got out. We’ll be a convention of nature lovers, as far as they’re concerned. Nor is there any talk on police frequencies about a raid on this property. But still—I wonder why you came back here. And why your partner is here.”
Nick smiled. “You’re not the only one who took an oath. And it wasn’t only my kind who killed yours. You killed mine. I will kill you—and I just might get away with the coins. The ones you’re toying with, right now...”
Denswoz quickly withdrew his hand from his coat pocket, scowling.
“Your kind never gives up till they’re dead. So be it. You will be dead in a couple of hours. And I will demonstrate that we cannot be stopped. That we are invincible.”
Nick smiled and shook his head.
“All you’re demonstrating is that you are megalomaniacal. And sick from the coins.”
Hearing that, Denswoz seemed to be the one who had to hold onto his temper, now. He turned, gestured to someone in the hall. They handed him a sweetened electrolyte drink in a sealed bottle.
“Here.” He tossed the plastic bottle, and Nick caught it. “You can’t say I didn’t let you have a drink before you died, Detective Burkhardt. It’s not poisoned or dosed, I promise you. I’ll see you shortly.”
The Icy Touch chieftain turned and left the room; the gunmen backed up into the hall, and the door was hastily locked.
Nick looked at the raspberry-colored drink.
“Just like you’d buy in a convenience store.” He held it up to the light to check it was sealed, and to look for puncture marks. “Don’t see anything. I’ll test it for you, Hank.”
He knew he was taking a chance but he was tremendously thirsty. He twisted the top off and drank deeply.
It was too sweet for his taste, but it strengthened him a little, and he felt no ill effect.
Nick waited, closing the bottle.
A few minutes later, Hank groaned again, turned on his back and, grimacing with pain, sat up.
“Something... drink...” he managed.
Nick decided he’d have felt the poison by now, if there were any. He unscrewed the top, and gave it to Hank.
“Knock yourself out, Hank. Just an expression.”
Hank drank down half the remaining bottle, then put it aside, gasping.
“Oh God. Nick. I don’t know what I might’ve told them. I’m not sure.”
Nick shrugged. “You don’t know anything that could hurt. Not today. I only told you part of it.”
“My head is pounding...”
“They gave you Seele Dichtungsmittel. You told them the truth—that there’s no police raid planned. Good that you told them that. It’s true and they needed to hear it. But you shouldn’t have come out here, Hank. Is the girl okay? And Monroe?”
“Yeah. On their way to town. I just... couldn’t leave you here.”
“They catch you trying to break in?”
“You guessed it.” Hank moaned softly. “Hellfire, but that hurts.” He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, they... it turns out to be harder to climb over a fence when your ribs are cracked than I figured. And I didn’t see the security cameras till too late. I fell off a fence on the inside, and one of the Monroe’s evil cousins leaped out, couple more piled on and... I didn’t even get off a shot. Feel like a jackass now.”
“I know the feeling. They pretty rough when they interrogate you?” Nick could see that Hank’s eye sockets were swollen from a beating.
“Gave me a good thumping. Then they dosed me with something. Like, blew it in my mouth with a tube. I don’t remember much after that. Hope they didn’t rape me.”
Nick laughed softly. At least Hank still had his sense of humor.
“Naw. You’re not that good looking.”
“What happens now?”
“I challenged Denswoz to a fight. He’s got an obsession about me—and my family. I knew he couldn’t resist. And looking through my books in the trailer, I came across a couple of references to La Caresse Glacée. They have a penchant for rituals at sunset and dawn. I knew he’d probably set it up for dawn. I was counting on it.”
“Ow, my head, my side, my face—lots of different kinds of pain. Like a smorgasbord. So, Nick? What’s the plan? ’Cause I sure hope you have one.”
Nick looked at the window. He couldn’t see clearly, in the glare from the security lights. He got up, and peered outside, squinting up at the sky.
“Looks like... maybe an hour before dawn. So the plan is to...” He yawned. “To get some rest. Going to need it.”
* * *
The sun was rising behind the line of fir trees, when Nick and Hank were brought under close guard out a back door of the mansion. The sky was almost blue, the overhanging clouds gray in the muted morning light.
They found themselves in a Mediterranean-style garden, with a circle of red crushed stone in the middle, surrounded by low green shrubs cut into topiary shapes— wolves, wild dogs, dragons. Enclosing the garden was a high black-painted iron fence topped with very sharp-looking spikes.
Nick noticed a dried brown puddle in the center of the circle: Blood. He’d probably never find out whose blood it was.
Around the circle stood a crowd of woged Wesen: the troll on his right, the ogre on his left, Blutbaden and Hundjager and Geier and Lowen and others. Most of them had guns in their clawed hands. The Lowen and the sabertoothed Mauvais Dentes and the pale-furred Wendigo, who looked at him with such fixed hunger—they were all there, and more, surrounding him on the edge of the red-gravel circle.
Hank was held back, the Lowen clasping the back of Hank’s collar like an irritable father holding a small child. Hank swayed, blinking as he looked around as if suddenly confused. Nick knew Hank was pretending to be more fazed by injury and the Hexenbiest drug than he was in reality.
The Wesen growled and chuckled and muttered to one another. They bared their teeth and their clawed hands clenched and unclenched.
Wearing an old-fashioned costume of silk, breaches, a white shirt with French cuffs—like something from the early nineteenth century—Albert Denswoz pushed through the encircling rows of his followers. In each of his hands was a saber.
Denswoz was the only one not woged. Not yet. His eyes glowed faintly. The coins would be on his person, somewhere—Nick felt sure of that.
Denswoz approached Nick and thrust one of the antique sabers into the ground between them. It quivered there. A ribbon hung from a golden pommel shaped like the head of a falcon. The weapon was old, but it reflected the morning light with a kind of steely confidence.
“Napoleonic era sabers,” Denswoz remarked, giving his blade a practice swing that cut singingly through the air. “Just a little curved, as you see. Springsteel blades! They’re both nicely balanced dragoon sabers. Yours is a bit more... ornate. Do you recognize it, Burkhardt?”
“No.”
“I suppose there’s no reason you should. Your blade belonged to the murderer, your ancestor—Johann Kessler. One of my own ancestors took it from one of Kessler’s descendants. Took it from the fellow’s dead body, in fact. And the saber I hold belonged to Alberle Denswoz. It is only right that I should kill you with it. And I will use the same saber to kill your friend there. And I’ll use it to slice open your woman, when I find her. And your mother—she is proving elusive, but have no doubt, I will find her. And then the long march to a reckoning will be completed! We will have triumphed over you, and soon—over all Grimms! I promised you a chance, and you shall have it—though I doubt they taught you to use a sword in the police academy. Pick up your ancestor’s weapon
and die with a blade in your hand!”
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 las
t 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.
Grimm - The Icy Touch Page 25
