Grimm: The Killing Time

by Tim Waggoner

Then he saw his desk. At least, he thought it was his desk. He started toward it, doing his best to look relaxed and unconcerned. Several of the men and women on duty looked up as he passed, nodded in greeting, sometimes adding a smile or a “Hey, Nick.” The Wechselbalg smiled back and returned their nods. He wondered who they all were, but his memories gave him no answers.

  He reached the desk that he was almost positive was Nick’s, and he only hesitated a few seconds before pulling out the chair and sitting. He glanced around, but no one was looking at him curiously, and he felt relieved.

  Nailed it, he thought.

  He took a couple moments to absorb the feel of the space. Aside from a computer monitor, keyboard, and phone, the top of the desk was clean. Nick was a man who liked to get his work done and off his desk before the end of the day. Good to know. He opened the desk drawers one at a time and sifted through their contents, occasionally picked up an object—a stapler, a quarter, a small stuffed dog with a heart in its mouth with the words “Happy Valentine’s Day!” stitched on it. He held each object for a time, turning it this way and that, before putting it away. Eventually, he found a blank incident-report form and a pen, and he got to work.

  He was concentrating so thoroughly that he was only partially aware of the sound of approaching footsteps. He didn’t worry, though. He recognized them.

  “Burning the midnight oil, I see,” Captain Renard said.

  The Wechselbalg looked up from the partially completed report.

  Renard was a tall, slender man with neatly trimmed black hair and an intense, penetrating gaze. Everything about him—suit and tie, facial expression, voice, stance—spoke of controlled strength and power.

  “Do you know how to spell Skalengeck?” the Wechselbalg asked.

  Renard didn’t answer right away. When he did, he simply said, “My office,” then turned and walked away.

  The Wechselbalg put down the pen, pushed the chair back from the desk, stood, and followed after the Captain.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Wechselbalg was glad Renard led the way. It meant he didn’t have to search his new memories for the route, which allowed him to concentrate on other matters. Nick’s feelings about Sean Renard were complicated, to say the least, and the Wechselbalg was having difficulty sorting through memories regarding the Captain. Some of the memory fragments indicated that Renard was an ally, if not exactly a friend, while others whispered that the man should not be trusted, at least not fully. But there was one memory—more of an image, really—of Renard’s face, the skin ravaged by what looked like raw, red wounds. But the Wechselbalg knew those marks weren’t injuries. They were signs that Renard was more than he appeared to be. He was Wesen. A… The Wechselbalg scowled. The name wouldn’t come to him, but he supposed it didn’t matter what type of Wesen the Captain was. All that mattered was what the Wechselbalg should do about him. Was he a good Wesen or a bad Wesen?

  Renard made a perfect target right then. His back was to the Wechselbalg, and he had no idea he might be in danger. And why should he? Nick Burkhardt was one of his people, wasn’t he? Renard had nothing to fear from one of his own. It would be so easy. All the Wechselbalg had to do was draw his Glock, take aim at the back of the Captain’s head, and fire.

  His right hand twitched, and he almost reached around to draw his weapon. But a couple things prevented him. If he killed the Captain—especially here in the Justice Center—that would end the Wechselbalg’s police career before it had properly started. And while the Wechselbalg wouldn’t have minded that, for it would give him more time to devote to killing bad Wesen, he could do without the extra burden of being a fugitive from “justice.” Plus, he supposed he really should give Renard the benefit of the doubt. For a little longer, anyway. His hand relaxed, and he followed the Captain into his office.

  Renard shut the door behind them. He didn’t sit, nor did he ask the Wechselbalg to, so he remained standing. He took a moment to glance around the office. The lighting was a bit on the dim side in here, and he wondered if there was something about the Captain’s Wesen nature that caused him to avoid bright light, or if it was simply a personal choice. If so, it was just about the only personal touch. There were a couple framed diplomas and certificates hanging on the walls, and a small picture or two sitting atop cabinets. But there was nothing about the office that gave a solid sense of the man who occupied it. Which, the Wechselbalg supposed, told him something about Renard after all. This office said Renard was a man who kept his true self—and his agenda—well hidden from others. And regardless of whether the Captain was ultimately “good” or “bad,” that made him dangerous.

  “What the hell is going on?” Renard snapped.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” The Wechselbalg frowned. “Is this because I forgot how to spell Skalengeck?”

  “Quit joking around. This situation isn’t the least bit funny. I want to know what you were thinking killing a couple teenagers for the unspeakable crime of spraypainting a lizard on an alley wall.”

  The Wechselbalg wasn’t certain, but he thought Renard was being sarcastic. Renard went on.

  “I know you did it. I read Wu’s report. I came into the office this late in case you discovered something about the shapeshifter and needed help dealing with it. Little did I know I’d end up reading about you killing two different Wesen. One of the kids sprayed a word on the wall before they died. Can you remember what that word was?”

  The Wechselbalg remained silent. It was a tactic that had served him well over the long years. But not this night.

  “It was Grimm,” Renard said, his voice rising. “I can make sure that tidbit doesn’t go in the final report, but I want to know what’s gotten into you. Because unless there’s something I missed, it doesn’t look like there’s any evidence these two kids were anything other than the taggers they appeared to be.”

  Renard stopped talking and let out a long breath, and with it, much of the tension drained out of him.

  “We’ve worked together a long time, Nick. Even before either of us knew who and what the other was. I’m going to give you the opportunity to explain yourself, but right now I have to tell you—this doesn’t look good.”

  Renard moved behind his desk, pulled out his chair, and sat. He folded his hands on the desk before him, and looked at the Wechselbalg, waiting for him to start talking.

  The Wechselbalg understood that the protocol in this situation would be for him to also sit. There was a chair in front of the Captain’s desk for this very purpose. Sitting would’ve been the smart thing to do. It would be a sign that he recognized the Captain as his superior and was willing to submit to his authority. But the Wechselbalg didn’t want to do that. Renard might not know what the Wechselbalg was, but he clearly knew too much. And that made him even more dangerous than he already was. Instead of sitting, the Wechselbalg paced as he spoke.

  “I came across the Skalengeck teens when they were in the process of defacing private property. At first I only intended to talk to them, maybe scare them into thinking twice about going out and tagging again. But they became belligerent.”

  “So you decided to kill them?”

  “That’s not how it happened. They woged in an attempt to frighten me off. When it didn’t work, they became aggressive.”

  The Wechselbalg walked in a circular pattern around Renard’s desk as they talked. He wanted the Captain to become accustomed to having him standing behind him in order to make sure he kept his guard down. Until it was too late.

  “I didn’t have to tell them I was a Grimm. They sensed it. And while that initially gave them some pause, they came at me, claws and teeth bared. I tried to defend myself without hurting them, but you know how resistant to pain Skalengecken are. No matter what I did, they just shrugged it off. So I had to get tougher with them. I guess things just… got out of hand.”

  The Wechselbalg had continued his slow circuit of Renard’s desk, and the Captain continually turned his head to keep his gaze f
ocused on “Nick” as he spoke.

  “You slammed the girl’s head into the wall at least a half dozen times. And if you were attempting to exercise restraint, I’d say you did a pretty lousy job. And if the Skalengecken attacked you as you said, how come your clothes aren’t torn or your face scratched? You may be fast, but so are Skalengecken, and there were two of them. And where was Hank during all this? Was he in the alley, too?”

  At this point, the Wechselbalg was once again standing behind Renard, and as the Captain began to swivel in his chair to keep his gaze trained on the Wechselbalg, the shapeshifter grabbed hold of the man’s head with both hands and slammed his head down onto the desk. Since the Wechselbalg wasn’t sure what kind of Wesen Renard was, he slammed his head against the desk several more times until the man’s body fell limp. The Wechselbalg placed his fingers against Renard’s neck to check for a pulse. He found it, and although it was a bit uneven at the moment, it was steady enough. Renard might be unconscious, but he didn’t appear to be in any danger of dying soon. But that was easily remedied.

  The Wechselbalg lifted Renard off the desk and pushed him back in his chair. He then wrapped his hands around the man’s throat and began to squeeze. The Captain might fall into the “good’ category of Wesen, but the Wechselbalg couldn’t let him live. As the saying went, he knew too much.

  The Wechselbalg squeezed harder, but as Renard’s face reddened, he began having second thoughts. Nick Burkhardt might not consider the Captain a friend, but he didn’t think of him as an enemy, either. The man had done a lot of good as a police captain—and as a Wesen in a position of authority. Nick couldn’t have accomplished as much as he had without Renard’s support.

  The Wechselbalg’s grip began to loosen until he removed his hands from the man’s throat. He watched as the Captain’s face—which had been edging toward dark purple—slowly returned to its normal color. Reassured that the Captain would recover, the Wechselbalg left his office. But instead of returning to Nick’s—to his—desk, he headed for the lobby. In time, maybe he could come up with some kind of explanation for why he’d assaulted his superior officer. But right now he needed to get out of the building and away from Renard. When the man returned to consciousness, he was not going to be happy, and the Wechselbalg didn’t want to be around when Renard woke up pissed and started looking for him.

  As the Wechselbalg headed for the lobby, Wu crossed his path once more. The officer was holding another manila folder containing papers, but this time the sticky notes affixed to the pages were purple.

  “Leaving? Good thing I caught you. We just got the Coroner’s preliminary findings on the tapioca we recovered near the Webbers’ house. You want to take a look at the report, or do you want me to give you the Cliff Notes version?”

  The Wechselbalg frowned. This man spoke too fast, and he had trouble understanding the words he used. The Wechselbalg had no time to stand here and listen to the man’s prattling. He was tempted to punch the man in his throat and crush his trachea, but he restrained himself. Wu was a fellow cop and a friend. The part of the Wechselbalg that was Nick Burkhardt wouldn’t allow him to hurt Wu any more than he’d been able to hurt Renard.

  “Neither,” the Wechselbalg said, then turned and continued toward the lobby.

  He didn’t look back, but he heard Wu mutter to himself. “Looks like someone gets cranky when he stays up past his bedtime.”

  The Wechselbalg went outside and into the parking lot. He headed for the Cherokee and pulled the key out of his pocket. He wasn’t sure where he would go, but he’d figure that out once he was on the road. Right now he just wanted to get out of there.

  “I see you got a new ride,” Renard said.

  The Cherokee was less than ten yards from where the Wechselbalg stood. He debated whether he could reach the vehicle before Renard attacked. He didn’t think much of his chances, so he turned around to face the Captain. Renard’s forehead was swollen and already in the process of bruising, but otherwise, he didn’t seem much the worse for wear.

  “What happened to your Toyota?” Renard asked. He glanced around the deserted lot. “For that matter, what happened to the Charger you and Hank took out?’

  The Wechselbalg strugged to think of a reply, but the questions came at him too fast. Renard didn’t let up on the pressure. He took a step closer and said, “You didn’t tell me how the investigation into the shapeshifter murders was going. How about it, Nick? Do you have any idea where the shapeshifter might be—or who it might be?”

  The Wechselbalg’s instincts—both Wesen and Grimm—told him that the Captain’s true intent wasn’t to talk, but rather to keep his opponent off-balance and stall for time to get close enough to attack. But the Wechselbalg wasn’t going to continue playing this game. Renard had just proved himself to be a clear and persistent threat, and whether or not the Nick part of the Wechselbalg liked it, the man had to be eliminated.

  He reached around to draw his Glock from where it was tucked against his back. But before he could bring the weapon around and train it on Renard, the Captain twisted his head from one side to another, and patches of ravaged crimson skin erupted on his face. Renard lunged forward, moving far more swiftly than a human, and as he came, he let out a sound that was a cross between a shout of fury and an animalistic roar.

  The Wechselbalg was just raising the Glock for a shot when Renard slammed into him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and drove him backward against the Cherokee. The impact crumpled metal and drove the Wechselbalg’s breath from his lungs. It also caused him to lose his grip on his weapon. He heard the sound of the Glock clattering to the ground, but he didn’t see where it landed.

  Before the Wechselbalg could do anything else, Renard pulled him away from the vehicle and then slammed him back into it again. The Captain had hold of his arms, so since the Wechselbalg couldn’t strike the man with his fists, he was forced to improvise. He drove his forehead into Renard’s, and although he’d never attempted such a blow in his life, his new body knew what it was doing. The blow hurt far less than he expected, and it had the desired effect on Renard. The man’s head snapped back and he released his grip on the Wechselbalg’s shoulders. He staggered backward a couple steps, shaking his head as if to clear it. The Wechselbalg wasn’t about to give him that chance. He stepped forward, curled his right hand into a fist, and struck Renard on the jaw. Once more Renard’s head snapped back and he took another couple stagger-steps backward.

  The Wechselbalg pressed his advantage, stepping forward and following up his first punch with a hard left. This time Renard went down on one knee, and the Wechselbalg grinned. Whatever type of Wesen Renard was, he didn’t seem to be all that tough. The Wechselbalg took a quick look around for his Glock, but didn’t see it. He realized then that he’d lost the Cherokee’s key as well. He’d been holding it when Renard had first attacked. He must have dropped it the same time he’d lost his grip on the Glock. He looked for the key, but couldn’t see that either. To hell with it. He’d finish Renard off with his bare hands, just as he’d done with the two Skalengeck teens.

  He turned to Renard and saw that the Captain stood upright. And he’d drawn his own Glock. His facial features had returned to full humanity, and he fixed the Wechselbalg with a deadly serious look.

  “Let’s try this again,” Renard said.

  The Wechselbalg didn’t take his gaze off Renard’s eyes. Looking into them, he saw no doubt, no wavering. If the Wechselbalg so much as twitched a finger, the man would start firing. Renard had the upper hand, and the Wechselbalg knew it. There was no way he would be able to beat the man in a physical confrontation now. If he hoped to defeat Renard and escape, he would have to find another way.

  He rapidly searched through Nick’s memories, but he couldn’t find anything in the Grimm’s repertoire that would serve him now. But he had other skills to draw on, honed from a long lifetime of pretending to be something he wasn’t.

  He lowered his head and reached up slowly with trem
bling fingers and ran them through his hair.

  “I’m sorry, Captain. I… Something’s not right with me. The shapeshifter attacked me. Injected me with some sort of chemical. I think it was trying to copy me, but something went wrong.”

  He ran his hand down his face and rubbed his stubbled chin.

  The Wechselbalg snuck a quick glance at Renard. The man hadn’t lowered his Glock so much as an inch. But his gaze no longer seemed quite so certain.

  “Nick told me that,” he said evenly.

  These words shocked the Wechselbalg. Nick couldn’t have spoken with Renard. He’d died when the Wechselbalg duplicated his form, just as all the Wechselbalg’s victims had over the years. Hadn’t he?

  Did you see Nick die? Did you stay to watch his body liquefy?

  No, he hadn’t.

  The Wechselbalg would worry about that later. Right now he had a performance to finish. He rubbed the back of his neck, then curled his shoulders forward and drew in his abdomen to make himself look weaker, less of a threat.

  “I think the process, whatever it is, goes both ways. At least it did this time. The shapeshifter took something from me, but it also gave me something of itself. It…”

  The Wechselbalg allowed his knees to buckle, and slumped to the ground. He put out a hand to catch himself and fell into a sitting position.

  Renard lowered his weapon. Not much, but it was a start.

  The Wechselbalg raised his eyes, looked directly at Renard, and spoke in a near whisper. “I’m having trouble remembering who I am.”

  Renard lowered his Glock a bit more.

  “If you really are Nick Burkhardt, then you’ll come with me peacefully, and you’ll let me put you into a holding cell until we can figure this out.”

  The Wechselbalg nodded.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Since collapsing to the ground, the Wechselbalg had been slowly edging his hand beneath the Cherokee—toward his Glock, which had slid underneath the vehicle when he’d dropped it.