Balam Wesen, maybe, Nick figured. Jaguar people. So many different types of Wesen seemed to be caught up in this thing...
Nick picked up a wallet from the floor, and opened it. He could see the cash and credit cards were still there. He stood up, silently handed the wallet to Hank.
“Here’s the ID,” Hank said. He looked at the driver’s license photo and then at the head on the pillow.
“Monroe—don’t come in here,” Hank called. “But is the guy’s name Lemuel Smith?”
“Yeah...” Monroe’s voice sounded half strangled. “Smitty.”
Nick sighed. “Okay, let’s send for forensics, the body bag boys, and...” His voice seemed to trail off of its own accord. The vic was Monroe’s old friend. This was gonna hit Monroe hard.
Hank nodded and they turned away, grateful to leave the charnel house bedroom, and went back into the living room.
Monroe was already out on the balcony, leaning on the iron railing.
Nick went out and stood beside him, looking down at the concrete courtyard. A child’s plastic tricycle, missing a wheel, lay on its side next to a rusty charcoal barbecue grill. Monroe was frowning down at the barbecue as if he was hoping to find an answer there.
“Sorry about your friend,” Nick said. “Wish we could’ve...”
“You couldn’t,” Monroe said, his voice husky. “Because I didn’t get on this fast enough.”
“Not your fault, Monroe.”
Monroe shook his head. “Theoretically—no, it isn’t. But still...”
Nick nodded. “I know how you feel.”
“You know—you’re not a Wesen. That’s something you don’t know—what it’s like for us.”
It began to rain again, the first drops freckling the concrete below them. The smell of concrete in rainwater rose to meet them. A few steps down the balcony, Hank was calling the crime scene in.
Monroe cleared his throat, and went on, “See, Nick... an ordinary human being gets scared, they can go to the nearest police department, or the FBI, and they can get help. But not a Wesen—not if the danger is from other Wesen. Or...” He smiled sadly. “Or from a Grimm. Nothing personal, there, bro. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“But—you know what I mean... We got no place to turn, really. I mean, there are Wesen organizations but they can’t do much. And when it’s something like this...”
“Yeah. We’ll find a way, Monroe. We can’t save everyone. But we’ll find a way to take these guys down.”
Monroe shook his head. “Hard to see how. I mean—I smelled cat in there. A big cat...”
“Yeah, maybe. Balam, I think. Jaguar people.”
“More than one. Maybe two of ’em. Least he didn’t get cooked alive like that Drang-zorn. Daemonfeuer hunting people down ”
“You heard about that?”
“Smitty told me. This Icy Touch, it’s leaving messages, man. Messages for Wesen. Newspapers will say drug-crazed killer, or something, when they report on Smitty’s murder. Chainsaws or whatever. But Wesen will know...”
“Looks that way. I figure the Drang-zorn death was another message. ‘If we come for you, you play along or you die ugly.’”
Monroe rubbed his eyes. “Man! Daemonfeuer and now Balam. What’s next, Spinnetod? How many kinds of Wesen are they bringing into this thing?”
“I was thinking about that too.”
Sirens sounded in the distance. Ambulances. Patrol cars. The body bag guys.
“That many types of Wesen—kind of says that this thing is big. And they plan to make it bigger...”
* * *
“So this guy Smitty said there was a tunnel, here?” Hank asked. He sounded doubtful.
Nick and Hank were walking along the dock under the massive freighter. It was still drizzling but they were used to it, and hardly noticed. To their left was the sheer black steel cliff of the freighter’s hull. The ship was called La Conquete. Above the ship towered the white painted cargo cranes.
“Not using those cranes today,” Hank said. “But it’s morning. There oughta be work getting done. And there’s containers up there to offload.”
“I thought that too. There could be reasons. But... yeah.” Nick replied.
No sound came from the ship at all, except a faint creaking. They could hear their footsteps echoing on the dock.
They walked past the high prow of the ship. Hank paused and looked up and down the terminal’s long metal and concrete dock.
“How could there be a tunnel here nobody would notice? Does it come out under water, or what?”
“I was thinking about that. There’s one possibility. Might be a culvert there, see it?”
“Where?”
“Over here...”
Nick walked quickly up the dock, stopped another fifty paces on, Hank jogged after him.
Nick could see the outflow from the culvert, the wrinkling of the water’s surface as run off flowed at right angles into the river. Nick lay down on his stomach, shuffled forward, and looked over the edge. The culvert was hard to see from the dock, but from here it was a barred opening about twenty feet in diameter, stretching into darkness. Water ran along the bottom, just a stream about three feet wide, to a concrete lip where it spilled into the river. A rusty barred gate closed the culvert off, just above the outflow.
Hank laid down beside him.
“You wear those cheap suits, doesn’t bother you to lie on the damn ground. Nick, that thing’s all locked up.”
“It’s closed. It’s got hinges on it. There’s a padlock. Padlocks can be opened.”
“You think they load stuff in and out from a boat?”
“A big launch could lower off the far side of that boat at night, carry stuff over here. They could get it up there and into the tunnel.”
Hank stood up, dusting himself off. “Wrinkling my clean pants,” he muttered. He indicated. “That ship there, you think?”
“Hard to say. But they were kind of pushy about getting Smitty to help them with something. Like it was happening soon. And there’s the ship.”
“That’s not probable cause. We need a warrant to get on that ship. We could call the Coast Guard, I guess...”
“Rather we searched the ship ourselves. I’ll call Renard about the warrant.”
“They don’t give out warrants like French fries at a drive-thru. Going to take some time.”
“Something else we can do in the meantime. You hear that?”
Hank shook his head. “What?”
Nick cupped his ear and pretended to hear something.
“There’s someone yelling for help from that culvert.”
“No, there isn’t. If there were, protocol would be call the fire department.”
“No time for that. Sounds urgent.”
“We even need a warrant for a culvert?”
“I don’t think so. But we should have a reason for going in there, just in case.”
“Like imagining we hear someone down there?”
“I almost do hear them. Kind of.”
“Okay, Nick. Well, you enjoy hunting around in there.”
“Not going alone, Detective Griffin. Need you there, pal.”
“No way, not in these shoes. Not going to do it.”
“We can get some wading boots from somewhere. Hey, look—” Nick pointed at a blue and white boat moving slowly up the river. “—one of those little Coast Guard river boats! We can wave ’em over, get ’em to loan us some boots, take us in a boat right up to the culvert...”
“Hey, wait—what if that gate’s locked?”
“I can accidentally break the lock. Accidents happen, Hank.”
* * *
Monroe knew he shouldn’t be following Nick and Hank like this. He shouldn’t have followed them in his truck, and now on foot. He was using Blutbad skills to evade their notice, following back at the fence, moving along parallel to them as they walked up the dock. Keeping his distance—knowing if he got any closer Nick’s Grimm
abilities would alert him.
This is wrong.
They were his friends, Nick even more so than Smitty. But his loyalty to Smitty was paramount just now. Smitty had been a fellow Blutbad in recovery who’d died—at least from Monroe’s point of view—for ordinary humanity. He’d died for refusing to revert to Blutbad predation. Because when Blutbaden tried not to be predators, they did it partly to protect human beings. Of course—they also did it to protect themselves from human beings; from being hunted in retaliation... And they did it to escape the notice of Grimms, of course.
Why were Nick and Hank waving to that Coast Guard boat? He could see the gleam in Nick’s badge in his hand. It was coming over to them...
Monroe waited, and watched.
Shouldn’t be doing this...Nick’s gonna be mad...
But Monroe had to know what was going down. Who, exactly, was behind Smitty’s death. If he found out who they were, maybe he could get in touch with the Verrat, the Royals, someone who could rein these bastards in. Or maybe he could get the Wesen who’d torn Smitty to pieces himself. Get the scumbag alone. Take him down.
He’d sworn no more predation against animals or people.
But against a Wesen murderer... that was a death he could live with.
What would Rosalee say, if she knew what he was thinking? What would Nick say, for that matter. This is nuts...
But still Monroe waited, and watched.
CHAPTER SIX
Nick led the way, gun in one hand, Hank’s flashlight in the other.
“You know,” Hank whispered, as they waded quietly up the culvert, into ever deeper darkness, “I used to work in Vice, busting crack heads and tweakers. They’d be outta their damn minds every single time. Never knew what they were going to do. Some of ’em bit you when you arrested ’em.”
“So I’ve heard,” Nick replied. They’d gone about fifty yards into the culvert, after using a Coastie’s crowbar to break the lock on the gate. Now and then something other than their boots splashed in the darkness. Rats, Nick guessed.
“Yeah. Twice I had to get antibiotics and tetanus shots, from crackhead bites. But you know what, that’s starting to sound pretty good to me right now. I never had to wade up a stinking culvert, stepping on rats, looking for...”
“Shhh...” Nick stopped, aiming the light on the curved cement wall to their left. There was a dark place there, oblong, rough-edged. In a barely audible mutter, Nick added, “Might have our Drang-zorn tunnel...”
Nick moved toward the tunnel, trying not to slosh too loudly—it was difficult in hip waders on a curved, slime-slick surface, to keep from slipping and making a lot of noise.
Yes. A side tunnel.
It was cut into the wall—broken through, really—just above the water level. The tunnel beyond was formed of packed clay and rock, with characteristic Drang-zorn marks. They’d evidently found some other badger people to dig for them. Maybe the Daemonfeuer had scared them into it.
Nick moved up to the side of the tunnel, leaned out to look without showing too much of himself. He angled the light down and peered along the tunnel, hoping to see someone, or something, that might give him a clue what he and Hank were getting into.
“Let’s just do this, at least then we’ll be out of this rat waterpark,” Hank said.
Nick holstered his gun, and climbed up into the tunnel, keeping the light angled down. Hank climbed after him. Nick created a pool of light so they could see what they were standing on then, hunched over a little beneath the dirt ceiling, they moved off down the tunnel. It smelled of clay and worms and wet rock.
Near as Nick could tell they were moving along at a sharp angle from the culvert, heading for Old Town Portland.
After an indeterminate distance, Hank whispered, “That flashlight goes out, I’m gonna light your hair on fire, so I can see my way. I don’t like rats. Did I mention that?”
“I inferred it.”
“That look like light up ahead to you?”
“Yeah...”
Another forty steps and they came to a wooden door, loosely fitted in a brick frame. A little light showed around the edges.
“Got a locked chain on it,” Nick said, inspecting it with the flashlight. “You didn’t bring the crowbar?”
“Wasn’t our crowbar. But you know what, I didn’t come all this way to stop here. Let me get out of these damned waders...”
They both discarded their waders. Then Hank looked at the door, searching for the right spot. He took a step back.
“You hear someone yelling for help, right?” he asked.
Nick put his hand to his ear, made a great show of pretending to hear something.
“Definitely.”
“Okay then.”
Hank gave the door his best kick-boxing slam, hitting it right by the chain. The frame shattered with a sharp crack and the door teetered inward.
“So much for surprising anyone,” Nick said, putting the flashlight away and drawing his Glock.
But the door opened to reveal another empty tunnel. This one was made of brick, stone, and old timbers. The light came from electric lanterns which hung from the ceiling. Water dripped, hissing as it fell onto the lamps.
“Smells like river water,” Nick said. “Must be right up close to it.”
“Shanghai tunnels,” Hank said.
“Yeah, they connected the culvert to their own tunnel and hooked that one up to one of the old underground tunnels,” Nick murmured, looking around. Given the noise they had made breaking down the door, he was fully expecting any second some woged Wesen to come snarling around the curve up ahead, fangs bared and claws slashing. But he heard nothing apart from a faint hissing, and sizzling.
“I thought there were people going on tours down in these things...” Hank said.
Nick nodded. “I heard the tours were shut down because of some structural problem. Which maybe they faked up so they could use them.”
They started down the tunnel toward Old Town, Nick ahead, Hank close behind him.
“They really Shanghai sailors in these things? Smuggle heroin, all that?” Hank asked.
“I think the tunnels were supposed to be for moving freight from the docks to the old-timey shops, without having to get past all the wagons and traffic. But they found other uses for ’em. Knocking sailors out, dragging them through a tunnel to a ship they didn’t want to ship out on...”
Another fifty paces, they came to a corner... and Nick stopped in his tracks.
Someone was behind them.
Nick spun round, signaling to Hank for silence, and listened. There was a squelching sound behind them, like wet, hesitant footsteps.
Nick eased back, waiting at the corner, his back against the dirt wall by the turn, gun raised. Hank was about three paces past, waiting silently, gun aimed at the bend in the tunnel.
Monroe stepped around the corner—and froze, seeing Hank.
“Oh. Hi, Hank. Um...you like to come down here too, huh?” Then he sniffed the air, turned and looked at Nick. “Well, well. Nick. There you are. Uh...”
“You just ‘like to come down here’?” Nick said, lowering his gun. He pointed at Monroe’s soaking pants legs and shoes. “And you like wading around in your best loafers, I see.”
Monroe looked at his feet. “Oh, yeah. That’s probably what you heard. Damned shoes were so loud with the water in them.”
“Why are you following us, Monroe?” Hank asked softly, walking up to him, gun now at his side.
“Because—I feel responsible. I mean, not directly but... you know, Smitty was my friend and I just feel like I should be in on this. Not in on it like, I’m a cop, I know, but maybe an advisor, civilian advisor, or...”
“Or pain in the ass?” Hank suggested.
“Hey, I’m gonna be a help, I promise, I just need to know what’s going on with this thing, you know, as much as you can tell me, which should be, I’d hope, a lot, because—”
“Monroe? Keep your voice down,” Nick to
ld him. “Since you’re here, let’s see if you can make yourself useful. Come on. Stay behind Hank and keep as quiet as you can.”
Nick started off down the tunnel again, Hank and Monroe following...
Squelch, squelch, squelch.
Nick threw Monroe a look of irritation.
“Sorry!” he whispered. “They’re wet... Hold on... screw it...” He rolled his pants legs up, and quickly pulled off his shoes and socks. “Always feels better to me anyway.”
Nick nodded, and they continued on their way.
Another thirty paces... and voices reached their ears.
Nick could smell Wesen; could feel them nearby, a kind of subtle electric tension in his jaw and forehead. He could feel his Grimm side coming alert: colors and shapes suddenly seemed more vivid, and smells more potent.
Nick looked at Hank. Hank nodded and drew his 9 mm automatic.
They crept forward, quickly reaching another bend in the tunnel. Nick peeked around the corner.
Three Wesen stood in a small chamber, little more than a widening of the corridor, around a half-size fiberglass pallet stacked with pound-sized bricks of yellow-white powder. A “Lift’n Buddy” electric hand truck stood against the wall. Leaning beside that was a woged Blutbad, in black T-shirt and jeans, growling to itself, its furred arms folded on its chest. A submachine gun on a strap hung over one of its shoulders.
The other two figures were just finishing stacking powder bricks on the palette. They appeared human—but using his Grimm sight, Nick could see they weren’t. One of them, short, thick, and blunt featured, was a Drang-zorn. The other was bigger, scowling... probably a Hasslich.
Nick drew back, and pulled out his cell phone. Perhaps if the Icy Touch thugs were surrounded by uniformed officers, they’d revert to human appearance and come along quietly. Maybe. But his cell phone had no signal. Figured, this far underground. Nick sighed, shook his head at the others, and put the phone away.
They’d have to come up with something else—maybe a decoy, someone to distract them while he and Hank got the drop... Since Monroe was here, he might as well be useful.
Nick turned to Monroe, signaled with a finger on his lips for silence, and tried to mime what he wanted Monroe to do—as if he were playing charades. He acted out a woge, miming turning visibly Wesen, making fangs with two fingers at Monroe. Aware, as he did this, that despite the danger, Hank was covering his mouth to keep from laughing. Monroe just gaped at him in puzzlement, and then started to speak. Nick quickly put a hand over Monroe’s mouth and shook his head. Then he enacted the woge again, pointed toward the Wesen guards... and Monroe’s eyes lit up.
Grimm - The Icy Touch Page 6