Dedication
For my family…my guy and our kids. Always.
Prologue
“You can chase death a little too closely.”
Death was no stranger to the Grimm—men and women who dealt with the demons who managed to cross over into the mortal world.
The three men stood there, staring down over the edge of the building into the alley below, watching the bloody, brutal battle taking place. Will—their leader—watched the woman closely. Few others knew him by any other name. Their leader was rather closed-mouthed, especially about himself.
“Who is chasing death? Finn?” The blond at Will’s side cocked his head as he studied the Grimm with a knack for fire and fondness for firearms. “Or the baby Grimm?”
“Is it hard to figure out, Rob?” Will murmured.
Rob smirked in response.
No. It wasn’t hard, not for anybody with eyes. Finn fought like a hellion, but he fought like a hellion with a focus.
The woman, though…
“She doesn’t seem to care if she lives or dies,” Rob murmured. “As long as she kills things.” His eyes—the strangest eyes—glowed red in the dark, a sign he was either pissed off or amused. Neither boded well. Rob was the dangerous sort when he was pissed. When he was amused… Hell. He was the dangerous sort no matter what.
But he’d been the most dangerous when he’d chased his own death hundreds of years earlier.
The other man, Jacob, stood with his hands linked loosely at his back. His eyes were a cool, flinty gray and although they were nowhere near as odd as Rob’s, they were still unsettling. As he stared at the duo fighting in the alley below, he eyed the woman’s technique—it was flawless. She knew how to fight. She was green, but that was to be expected. She was still young—he could feel it.
He knew her name. Celine. A lovely name—graceful. It suited her.
Most of the Grimm this side of the Atlantic knew who she was. She’d crossed over nearly four years earlier and she’d gone through more trainers in those four years than any ten Grimm usually went through in the same time frame combined.
Sometimes new ones went through a rough patch and needed an adjustment period. Just not such an extensive one.
It wasn’t that she was a bad student. She learned fast, she trained hard and once she’d figured out what she was supposed to be doing, no demon put in front of her stood a chance.
Grimms were made to kill demons and she did it very, very well.
She just might become a legend among them. A legend among legends…strange, that.
If she survived.
That was a big if.
Her fight wasn’t about the mission. She hadn’t become the whirlwind he saw before him because she cared all that much about what they were doing. It was, to her, a means to an end. She fought like there was no tomorrow, because she didn’t want a tomorrow.
She fought because she wanted to die. It was all but etched upon her skin. Her problem was that she was just too damn good at what she did.
But sooner or later, that luck would run out. And as he watched, it almost happened—too fast for any of them to even stop it, considering how far away they stood.
A silver flash caught the faint light as a demon came up behind her. If it weren’t for her trainer, Finn, she would have been toast. Finn was pyrokinetic and he used that handy little talent for fire to eliminate the other demons who managed to surround them. As the flames ripped through the alley like an inferno, Finn stormed up to Celine, his face tight and angry.
Celine didn’t look like she appreciated the save.
“Will, what do you expect us to do with her?” Jacob slanted a look at Rob. “And are you actually expecting the two of us to work together with her?”
“No. But one of you will be the one to get through to her.” A faint smile curled Will’s lips and the simple silver disc at his neck glowed. “It will be one of you—because there aren’t many left who have the experience to guide her. She’s gone through most of the others I thought could help her. So it’s down to one of you.”
“Down to one of us?” Rob stroked a finger across one eyebrow. “So did you save the best for last or hope like hell you wouldn’t need one of us?”
Will’s mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “To be honest, I never thought it would be one of you. But today I…had a feeling.”
A feeling. Yes, Will’s feelings were another thing of legend. He had “feelings” and cities rose and fell, saints wept and angels bled.
The Grimm, usually. They were angels—of the guardian variety. And they could bleed. It wasn’t unusual for one of Will’s feelings to lead to bloodshed. The Grimm were a tough lot and they could heal just about anything short of losing their heads, which, all things considered, was a good thing.
“So this feeling,” Jacob asked, “did it say which one of us, or are we here just to see if you can have us both manage to be in the same hemisphere without killing each other?”
“You’ve both been in the same hemisphere for six years now and you haven’t killed each other,” Will chuckled. “No. I wasn’t sure which one. You’ll both be connected to something that’s coming up for her. I don’t know how. I can’t see that clearly. But I suspect the one who can help her will feel it.”
“That girl down there needs serious guidance, Will. Everybody knows what a mess she is, but you’re moving down the food chain.” The glow in Rob’s eyes glinted hotter, redder, as he crouched down, almost animal-like, one hand gripping the edge of the building. “I’m the biggest head case among a party of head cases. And that one?” He nodded at Jacob. “This chit’s problem is that she can’t stop living in the past, right? She’s only been one of us a few years. Jacob though? He’s still dragging his chains after close to two hundred years.”
“Will, bear in mind, if you expect me to work with that imbecile, I’m likely to use any chains I might carry to strangle him.” Jacob had worked with Rob. Once. Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. It had ended in a bloodbath—for them. Not the demons. Jacob had spent nearly two weeks in stasis, the healing sleep a Grimm needed when the damage was too extensive. Rob had needed a few days of downtime himself, even though he was somewhat older than Jacob.
It was a well-known fact Rob and Jacob didn’t get along. At all. It hadn’t been a joke about keeping them in different parts of the world. For a very long time, Will had done just that.
“Don’t worry. I need to bring the girl down to earth—make her accept her reality. Only one of you can do that. And I think the right one already knows who it is.”
Jacob wore a silver pendant around his neck. The other Grimm wore one like it, a silver disc, etched with wings, upswept. And right now, Jacob’s pendant was pulsing, throbbing, heating from within. The medallion wasn’t just for decoration. It served as both a reminder, a connection to what he was, who had made him—and in times like this, it could be a silent nudge.
This time, though, he hadn’t needed it. He already knew.
He’d known the moment he saw the girl she was for him.
Memory stabbed at him—he was no good at saving people. He was good at fighting and excelled at killing things. Those were his talents. Oh, and reminding people of things they’d rather forget, stripping them bare of all defenses until they had to face things they’d rather die than accept. Nothing else.
Moving to the very edge of the building, he watched as Finn finished banking the fires he’d called. The woman stood off to the side, cleaning her blades and tucking them away, looking cold and unaffected.
She wasn’t, though. Unaffected. There was pain inside her. The power inside him, that monstrous power that had almost
driven him mad, pulled at him, teased him… What lies behind the pain, let us see…
Jacob pushed it down. He wasn’t going there, not with a Grimm. Her pain was her own.
Turning, he stood with his back at the very edge of the building, the wind slamming against him. It was cold, the bitter edge of winter sharp in the air.
His eyes met Will’s silvery ones and he saw nothing there—no satisfaction, no interest, no curiosity. Not even that keen intelligence he knew existed.
“And if I can’t help her, what then?”
Something flashed in Will’s eyes. It might have been relief. But then Will lowered his lids, his gaze shifting away to linger on the woman down in the alley. “We don’t want that to happen, Jacob. It’s been a long time since we’ve lost one. Let’s not let it happen now.”
Chapter One
Then…
Slowing to a stop at the intersection, Celine swallowed against the tears, the pain, the anger. He wanted a fucking divorce—
It’s never enough to say I’m sorry… It’s never enough to say I care…
Theory of a Deadman. “We’re Not Meant to Be”. Also known as “one of the absolute last songs she needed to hear”.
Cutting her gaze to the radio, she stared at it in disbelief. She couldn’t believe that song was on. Jamming the power button with her finger, she turned the radio off, plunging the car into silence.
A divorce.
Gavin wanted a divorce…
She needed to breathe. Fuck. Usually coming up into the Knobs made it easier for her to think, but she couldn’t think—
A sharp, broken scream cut through the night.
Celine stiffened, slanting her eyes out the passenger window. Squinting her eyes, she searched the night. Dark, so fucking dark—
Just go home. You need to go home and work things out with Gavin, she told herself.
But she heard it again—another scream. Fainter. Weaker. Off in the dark parking lot of a closed bar, she thought she saw shadows…
The woman had been screaming, all right.
And Celine understood why as the pain tore through every last millimeter of her body—pain unlike anything she’d ever felt.
They held her down with hands so strong and so cruel.
And their eyes—there was a madness in them. Madness, and a lack of…human.
One of them came at her again—she jerked a knee up, even though it hurt so fucking bad to move—
He laughed and backhanded her. She blacked out, and when she woke up, he was already done with her. Numb, she stared at the broken body off to the side. The woman she’d heard screaming. Dead. She’d tried to help…and she was going to die…
“You’re a fun little piece. I don’t think we should kill you yet,” somebody muttered. It was the one she’d tried to rack earlier. He was crouching by her. He reached down, fisted a hand in her hair and jerked her up.
She bit back a scream.
Fought the urge to beg. She had to live, damn it.
She couldn’t die… She had to get back to Gavin… As the man grabbed her breast, she couldn’t stop herself from fighting. Get back to Gavin… That was the one thing in her mind.
Curling her hand into a fist, she struck.
As she punched him in the gut, there was a brilliant flash of light.
It almost blinded her—or it might have been the way the bastard bellowed and punched her in the temple, knocking her to the ground.
Then there was only darkness…
“Shit.” Mandy stared down at the broken body of the woman at their feet. She was still alive. Barely.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Will muttered, shaking his head.
“Did you see her fighting him?” Mandy knelt down by the woman, grimacing at the blood spilling out from under her head. “She’s bleeding like crazy.”
“She’s dying.”
The woman’s lashes fluttered and Will found himself staring in to desperate eyes.
“Help…”
And then Mandy looked at him. “She’s a fighter, Will.”
Kneeling down, he cupped the woman’s head in his hands. “She can’t survive these wounds,” he said quietly. “And they are too severe for me to heal.”
“Then bring her over.” Mandy stared at him, her eyes pleading. “She fought fucking parasei. They raped her, and she still fought.”
Mandy was his student. She was also his weakness. As she continued to watch him with those pleading eyes, he wavered. The woman was strong. And something had led him here, directly here. There were parasei, and other demons, everywhere.
Perhaps he was here for this woman…
She could handle the journey one had to take to go from human to Grimm. He knew that in a way only he could know.
Shifting his gaze down to her, he pushed into the woman’s fading mind and offered her the choice. He’d never done it with one so close to death, with one who had no idea what he was…what they were.
Even angels make mistakes.
Now…
“The whole damn city is infested,” Celine muttered as she followed her trainer into a crowded mall south of Cincinnati. It was in Kentucky, and being so close to home made her heart ache.
The good news—judging by how many fricking demons there were, she was going to have her hands too full to think for a while.
“Which is why we are here,” Jacob said, his voice flat, level. Just as always. He was a cool, icy son of a bitch, one who showed absolutely no emotion. Ever. In the past nine months, she’d never once heard him raise his voice, never seen him angry, never seen him laugh, never seen him smile.
Not that I really care, she told herself. But it was hard to get booted to another trainer when she couldn’t piss him off. And she wanted to get booted. Again. And again. Until they gave up on her and let her go.
She never should have agreed to this…
“Watch for groups of them. We need to see who they are targeting,” Jacob said quietly. “And keep yourself cloaked.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, master.” She wasn’t new at this. But she didn’t bother pointing that out because it wouldn’t do any good. Cloaking herself kept her unseen by human—and demon—eyes. Demons. It had only been a few years ago when she hadn’t even known they existed. And now she fought and killed them. Now she was a reluctant guardian angel in a paranormal army.
It was disconcerting, even now, to see the demons. She eyed one that wore the body of a girl who was probably barely out of her teenaged years. She’d have to be adult—or mostly. Stripped of her innocence in some way. Jaded. Demons couldn’t inhabit all bodies. They could only enter with an invitation, although the invitation wasn’t always worded so clearly.
It wasn’t like people would just go, Hello, demon. Yes, you can take over my body, even though it’s going to end up killing me…
It happened slowly. Insidiously. Through random, reckless wishes and careless words and cruelty. That was what drew the demons near. And then seductive whisperings…
Wouldn’t you like to be strong?
Wouldn’t you like to stay young forever?
Wouldn’t you like to fuck like a sex god?
By the time a person realized things weren’t right, it was very often too late. Once a demon had fully settled inside a mortal body, they possessed it, completely. The only way to end a possession was through the death of the mortal coil.
Kids, and a few select other people, were protected against demonic invasions. They still possessed an innocence demons couldn’t break. The stronger-willed were a harder lot for demons to take over as well.
Next to her, Jacob slowed and took a slow study of the crowd. “What do you see?”
“Young people,” Celine murmured, scowling as another demon with a pretty, barely adult face strutted past.
“More than that, please.”
She sighed, skimming a hand back over her hair. “A lot of demons in here—twenty, easy. And almost every one I’ve seen is young. That
’s weird.”
“The young don’t keep their innocence the way they used to.”
“They shouldn’t all be young.” She paused as she watched a guy coming out of Hot Topic. He was dressed all in blank, including his lipstick. A girl came up to him. Demon clung to the girl. The boy took one look at her and spun on his wheel, heading the other direction as fast as his long, skinny legs could carry him. Smart boy.
“He sees the demon in her,” Jacob said, noticing her attention on the boy before shifting his elsewhere. “Many do. They don’t fully realize what they see, but they see something. The smart ones steer clear.”
Which means we’ve got a lot of fools around us. Of course, she wasn’t surprised by that.
She knew what a demon dressed in mortal clothing looked like though. She knew it intimately. She’d seen it…felt it. Hurt from it. Died from it.
That madness, that blackness, that evil had been the last thing she’d ever seen…until it was too late.
Too late to go back to her life…too late for everything.
Once more, the fury started to whisper in her blood. And once more, she fed it, nurtured it. “Are we here to walk around or kill things?” she demanded.
“You have no patience.” Jacob continued to walk.
And that was about all the answer she’d get from him too. She thought about just leaving. She could find a few demons of her own to kill. But he was better at it. If she wanted to kill more than one or two at a time, she should stick with him.
Shit.
So she’d stay with him. But she wasn’t playing the good little pupil bit anymore. As her mind started to drift, she let it. It circled, back to the past…back to when her life had been something…more.
Then…
“There is more to life than this, old friend.”
Jacob sat across from a man who had been his friend for a lifetime…no. Longer.
After all, Jacob was dead.
At least, as far as the world was concerned. They had done all the trappings associated with a person’s death, the mourning, although only Ben had mourned him.
Grimm Tidings: Grimm's Circle, Book 6 Page 1