by Tim Waggoner
The female looked horrified at seeing her companion brought down so easily, and the Wechselbalg sensed that she was fighting an inner battle as she tried to decide between fight or flight. In the end, it wouldn’t matter which she chose because the Wechselbalg had no intention of allowing her to escape. But he was curious to see which way she would jump.
Fight won out. She spun to face the Wechselbalg, returning to her Skalengeck aspect as she did so. She still held onto her can of paint, and she raised it, stepped forward, aimed at his face, and pressed the nozzle. The Wechselbalg was impressed by the way the girl was using the only weapon available to her. But he was a Grimm—more or less—and he wasn’t about to let himself fall for such a simple trick. Just as paint began to shoot from the nozzle, he slapped the girl’s hand aside, and the blow caused her to lose her grip on the can. It hit the wall and bounced to the ground.
The girl didn’t wait for the Wechselbalg to make the next move. Snarling, she slashed at him with one of her clawed hands. The Wechselbalg pulled in his stomach just in time to avoid getting gutted. When the Skalengeck was off balance, he stepped forward, grabbed hold of her shoulders, and slammed her against the wall as hard as he could. Her back struck the brick where she and the male had been painting, and her head hit the spot where they’d rendered the lizard’s head. Breath gusted out of her lungs and she went limp. If the Wechselbalg hadn’t still been holding her against the wall, she would’ve slumped to the ground. She returned to her human appearance, the change occurring more slowly than normal, as if her body wasn’t functioning properly. He noticed a dark smear in the middle of the painted lizard’s green head. At first he thought the girl’s hair had smeared the paint, but then he realized that what he was looking at was blood.
It gave him a wonderful idea.
He placed his hand over her face, gripped her with his fingers, and then began pounding the back of her head against the brick. When he finally let go of the girl, her Grimm graffiti was almost completely obscured by blood and brain matter. The female Skalengeck’s body fell to the ground, and the Wechselbalg immediately forgot about her. She was no longer a threat, and therefore no longer important.
He turned his attention to the male. While the Wechselbalg had been dealing with his companion, he’d gotten to his feet, but he just stood there, staring in horror at the female’s corpse. The Wechselbalg decided to take advantage of the male’s distraction. He stepped forward and struck the male with an open-handed blow to the chest. The Wechselbalg felt bone crunch beneath his hand, but although the male Skalengeck staggered backward, this time he didn’t go down. The Skalengeck resistance to pain no doubt helped him remain on his feet. As much fun as the Wechselbalg was having, he needed to wrap this up. He could hardly stay here in the alley all night. He had an entire city to protect.
He rushed forward, grabbed hold of the male, and spun him around until he had him in a headlock from behind. He applied pressure to the boy’s neck, gritted his teeth, and gave a single hard twist. There was a harsh crack, and then the teen’s body went slack. The Wechselbalg held onto him for several more moments before releasing his grip and letting the corpse fall to the ground. The boy lay near the girl, their hands almost touching. The Wecheselbalg found it a rather poetic sight, in its own way.
The Wechselbalg turned away from the two dead teens and began walking toward the mouth of the alley. He’d made a good start at his work, but he had more to do. A lot more. And while he’d been capable of dealing with these two with only his bare hands, they were just kids with no combat experience. If he planned to continue with this work, he was going to need to equip himself.
He needed weapons.
* * *
“I’m sorry, but I’m getting nothing. And I mean nothing.”
Monroe stood in the middle of the Webbers’ living room while Nick and Hank stood off to the side to keep their scents from interfering with Monroe’s sense of smell. But some reason, it seemed as if it wasn’t working.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Monroe said. He tilted his head back and sniffed the air. “I can smell a lot of things—blood, mostly.” His stomach chose that moment to growl, and he looked suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry. Reflex action.”
They were the only people in the house. The CSU techs had finished, and the Deputy Coroner had removed Rich Webber’s body. No one had found anymore “goo puddles,” which indicated to Nick that there hadn’t been a third person present in the house. The place now had the empty, uneasy atmosphere that Nick had become all too familiar with during his time working homicide. This was a place where violence and death had occurred, and that dark energy seemed to linger in the air, like the aftereffect of a turbulent storm.
Monroe walked slowly around the small living room, picking his way around the remains of the smashed TV. He continued to sniff the air as he spoke. “I can smell the couple who lived here. The man’s scent is fresher than the woman’s. He was here a couple hours ago. The woman—her scent is real faint. I’d say the last time she was in this room was sometime this morning.”
Nick frowned. “But she sat in that chair when I questioned her earlier. I mean, when I questioned the Wechselbalg.”
Monroe stepped over the chair and leaned close to it. He breathed in and out several times, then straightened and faced Nick.
“I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t smell anything. It’s like no one’s sat in this chair for at least twelve hours, maybe longer.”
“You mean the shapeshifter doesn’t have any scent?” Hank asked.
“It would make sense,” Monroe said. “A Wechselbalg can protect itself by taking on different shapes, but it would need another form of defense to protect it from predators who can track it by smell. Can’t find what you can’t smell.” He looked around the room. “Where did you say the Wechselbalg attacked you?’
Nick pointed to the area where he’d battled the Wechselbalg. Monroe nodded, went over to it, got down on his hands and knees, and sniffed.
“There’s definitely plenty of you here, Nick, but that’s all. You might think about switching deodorants. The one you’re using isn’t doing its job.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Nick muttered.
Monroe stood. “Don’t get defensive. Friends tell each other these things. Once my cousin Albrecht came down with haarlos. It’s a kind of mange Blutbaden get sometimes. But he got it in a certain area of the body that you can’t see yourself, if you know what I mean. No one wanted to tell him. I mean, how do you tell a guy that he’s got haarlos on his—”
Hank interrupted him, and none too soon, Nick thought.
“How is it possible for the Wechselbalg to have no scent at all? Wouldn’t its clothes have some kind of scent? And wouldn’t the things it touched leave some kind of residue on its skin? Couldn’t you smell that?”
“Look, I don’t understand how it works. But it does. I can tell by the amount of scent. There’s only enough here for one person. Second, Nick’s scent is fresh enough that I can not only smell him here, I can see what he did. Well, see isn’t the right word, of course, but I know which movements he made and what sequence they were in. From what I can smell, it’s like he was the only one here—except based on his movements, it’s clear that he was fighting someone. I’d say that pretty strong evidence that our Wechselbalg doesn’t have a scent, no matter what form it’s in. But let’s go outside and I’ll have a sniff around to make sure.”
As Monroe started toward the door, he drew the back of his hand across his forehead, just as Nick had seen Bud do at the spice shop.
“Something wrong?” he asked as he and Hank followed after Monroe.
“It’s just warm in here, that’s all,” Monroe said. “I’ll be glad to get back outside in the cool air.”
Nick exchanged a look with Hank. It didn’t seem particularly warm inside to Nick, and from Hank’s expression, he felt the same. Weird. But then again, Wesen were all about the weird, weren’t they?
The three men
stepped out into the night once more, ducking beneath the yellow crime-scene tape affixed to the outer door frame. Nick closed the door behind them, and once they were in the yard, he and Hank stepped a dozen feet away from Monroe to give him room to work. As he’d done inside the home, Monroe walked slowly around the Webbers’ front yard, scenting the air, at times getting down on his hands and knees and lowering his face to the glass. He woged only once, fur sprouting on the backs of his hands, the sides of his face and neck. The hair on the top of his head became thicker, and his mustache and beard became wild and tangled. His facial features sharpened, his brow became more pronounced, his eyes bestial. His teeth sharpened, and he inhaled deeply, exhaling with a soft growl.
For a moment, Nick felt hope that Monroe had been wrong, that the Wechselbalg did have some kind of scent, and he’d found a trace of it. But then Monroe returned to his human form and stood.
“Sorry about that. I thought I had something, but it turned out to be a squirrel.”
Nick and Hank looked at him.
“What? It was a really big squirrel.” He wiped his hand across his forehead again, and this time when he finished, he removed his jacket and draped it over his arm. “Man, you wouldn’t know it’s November, as warm as it is tonight.”
Nick and Hank walked over to join him.
“You sure you’re okay?” Nick asked.
Monroe looked puzzled. “Why do you keep asking? It’s not like I’m the one who went a couple rounds with a psychotic shapeshifter tonight.”
“Touché,” Nick said.
“So now what?” Hank asked. “We know what we’re dealing with, but we don’t have any way of finding it.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help you out,” Monroe said. “I’m going to head back to the shop and see if I can help Rosalee with her research. Maybe we’ll turn up something that’ll help us locate the Wechselbalg.”
Monroe gave them a parting wave and headed toward his beloved 1973 yellow Volkswagen Super Beetle. It wasn’t the kind of car Nick would drive, but it suited Monroe’s personality. A little offbeat and old-fashioned at the same time.
“Well, we need to do something,” Hank said. “Or else we’re going to be stuck twiddling our thumbs until the shapeshifter kills someone else.”
Nick’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and checked the display to see who was calling. He was hoping it was either Juliette or Rosalee with a new lead on the Wechselbalg. Instead, he saw that it was Sergeant Wu.
“I think we can stop twiddling our thumbs,” Nick said.
* * *
The Wechselbalg continued walking through the streets of Portland, with only a vague notion of where he was going. There was a place—a special place—where Nick Burkhardt kept the weapons of his trade, and since he was Nick Burkhardt, he should remember where it was. And he did… after a fashion. He could see the trailer—a 1963 Airstream Globetrotter—sitting in a lot with various other vehicles. He had memories of being there before, of spending hours looking through old volumes with dry yellowed pages. Of taking medieval-looking weapons from a cabinet, holding them, running his hands over them, trying to guess what they had been designed to do, wondering how many Wesen lives they’d taken. But despite having these memories, which were so strong and clear it was as if he’d experienced them only a few hours ago, he could not for the life of him access any memories that told him where the damned trailer was. It was beyond frustrating.
So… where else could he get his hands on weapons? He considered stealing some from a gun shop, but he immediately discarded this idea. Not because he was against stealing, per se. Sure, he was a cop and sworn to uphold the law, but that didn’t mean he had to be fanatical about it. Besides, the way he saw it, his duties as a Grimm took precedence over everything else. He was part of an ancient lineage, a protector of humanity, and his people pre-dated modern notions of law and justice. Grimms were born with the ability to see Wesen for what they truly were, and that meant they had a responsibility to stop them, regardless of the cost. What was a little theft compared to that?
No, the main reason he decided against trying to break into a gun shop was because they were too well protected. Alarm systems, security cameras… His mission was too important to risk being arrested for attempting to arm himself. So if gun shops were out, what was left?
He turned a corner, and as he did, he saw a police cruiser and a red pickup truck sitting in the parking lot of a strip mall. The cruiser’s emergency lights were on, and a uniformed officer stood next to the pickup’s driver’s side window, talking with the vehicle’s operator. The businesses in the strip mall—a short-term loan place, a Thai takeout restaurant, and a thrift store—were all closed, but the parking lot was well lit, which, the Wechselbalg’s stolen memories told him, made it a good location for a traffic stop—which in turn presented a good opportunity for him.
The strip mall was across the street from him, so he waited for a break in the traffic and then jogged over. The officer was too busy dealing with the motorist to notice his approach, which was just the way he wanted it. As he drew closer, he saw that the officer was female, medium height, with short blond hair. Her gender didn’t make any difference to him. An officer was an officer as far as he was concerned. Besides, he wasn’t here for her, but rather for what she carried on her person—and what was stored in the cruiser.
The officer was in the process of writing a ticket, and the driver—a greasy-haired, pimple-faced kid who appeared as if he’d gotten his license yesterday—looked on the verge of tears.
Probably figures he’s going to get in a heap of trouble when his parents find out, the Wechselbalg thought. They might even take his license away for a time as punishment. Sitting next to the kid was a teenage girl with curly black hair. To add insult to injury, it looked as if the kid was also being embarrassed in front of his date. The Wechselbalg almost felt sorry for him.
The Wechselbalg drew nearer the officer as she tore the completed ticket from her pad and handed it through the window to the kid behind the wheel, along with his license. The kid took them, looking absolutely miserable.
“Can’t you just let me off with a warning? Please?” He sounded scared, and his voice had a wheedling tone.
“Afraid not,” the officer said. “You were doing thirty miles an hour over the speed limit. Five I could let go. Ten, even. But not thirty. I should arrest you.”
The Wechselbalg knew she was bluffing about this last part as an attempt to scare the kid into driving more safely. He doubted it would work.
“Try to take it easy from now on, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure,” the kid mumbled. “Can I go now?” He seemed nervous, and the Wechselbalg guessed that the girl had a curfew and he’d been rushing to get her home before it was too late. If he hadn’t gotten pulled over, he might’ve made it, the Wechselbalg thought. Too bad.
“You can go,” the officer said. “Have a good evening.”
The Wechselbalg had reached her now, and just as she was turning to head back to her cruiser, he rushed forward, grabbed the side of her head, and slammed it into the side of the pickup’s cab. The officer went limp and fell to the ground, out cold.
The Wechselbalg had moved so fast, he’d doubted she’d been aware of his presence, let alone realized what he’d intended to do. And because of that, he’d taken her out easily.
The kid in the pickup gaped at the downed officer while his girlfriend stared at the Wechselbalg with wide, frightened eyes. The kid then turned his gaze on the Wechselbalg.
“What the hell did you do that for?” He sounded more incredulous than scared.
“Secret sting operation for Internal Affairs,” the Wechselbalg said. He held out his hand. “Let me see that ticket she gave you.”
The kid hesitated, then passed the slip of paper through the open window. The Wechselbalg pretended to read it, then tore the ticket into shreds and allowed the bits of paper to fall from his hands. The Wechselbalg’s eyes narrowed as he pe
ered closely at the kid. He looked human, but that didn’t mean he was. Same for the girl.
“How do I know you’re not Wesen?”
The kid looked blankly at the Wechselbalg for a moment before turning to his girlfriend.
“You know what he’s talking about, Mandy?”
She didn’t respond. She continued starting at the Wechselbalg, eyes glistening with the beginnings of tears. The kid faced the Wechselbalg once more.
“I—I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t know—”
The kid’s words were cut off as the Wechselbalg reached through the pickup’s open window, grabbed hold of the kid’s shirt, and pulled him halfway out of the vehicle.
“Woge,” the Wechselbalg ordered.
The kid paled, and although he opened his mouth to reply no sound emerged. Mandy more than made up for his silence by screaming. The Wechselbalg ignored her and leaned his face close to the kid’s until they were only a couple inches apart.
“Woge,” he repeated, low and dangerous. “Change.”
Mandy kept screaming, and the kid’s mouth opened and closed, as if he were desperately trying to form words, but still he made no sound.
The Wechselbalg waited several more seconds, but still the kid didn’t woge. Maybe he wasn’t Wesen, the Wechselbalg thought. But he couldn’t be sure. Same with the girl. They were both under obvious emotional stress, and most Wesen woged during such times, if only for a moment or two. But the teenagers maintained human appearance. This could mean two things. Either they were human, or they were Wesen who possessed an uncommon degree of control over their transformations.
Maybe he should kill them both, just to be sure.
He almost did it, but then something—not a memory, precisely, but rather a strong, almost overpowering instinct—told him that wasn’t what Nick Burkhardt would do. That meant it wasn’t something that he would do, either. The Wechselbalg wasn’t happy at the prospect of releasing the teens, but he could see no help for it. Besides, he had to deal with the police officer. She wouldn’t remain unconscious forever.