Remembering, he looked down at his hands and saw the red.
Perhaps it was gone now, but not for him. He still looked at his hands and saw the ugly stain of the blood.
Voices drifted to him on the wind and he closed his eyes, rested his head on the stone behind him.
He’d followed the tent dwellers.
He had a plan.
Weariness and misery drove him now and something close to madness overshadowed the voice in his head.
You cannot outrun yourself…
Perhaps he could not. But he knew how to escape this endless misery.
It just required bloodshed. He’d done it once before. He could do it again.
It felt like a lifetime before the camp went quiet for the night and he forced himself to wait even longer before he rose and eased into the shadows. Tired as his eyes were, the shadows were easy for his eyes to penetrate; he’d spent so much of his life in them.
He watched those who had stayed awake to protect their flocks and the camp itself. If he had truly wished to bring them harm, he would have backed away in that moment, because these people were well-armed and alert, prepared for whatever may come in the night.
But the only harm he wanted to bring was to himself.
Stop.
He froze as the voice rang through him. It didn’t come from without. It came from inside him and it filled him with terror. It was a voice he knew, one he’d never wanted to hear again.
Eyes clenched shut, he fought to recoil, to hide, but where was he to go?
You will not do this, child of mine.
“Please…I am so tired.” He thought the words in desperation, didn’t realize he’d spoken them until the motion of his lips moving forced one of the cracks to split open.
Your weariness will not end if you take this action.
Still, he gazed out at the tent dwellers, at weapons held strong and sure.
He was so tired. So tired. “What would you have me do?”
“What would you have me do, Grimm?” The orin, dying in his true form, sneered up at the man called Will.
Will plunged the curved blade deeper into the thing’s serpentine form. “Die.”
“I’m already doing that.” The orin shuddered, clutching at Will’s arm, his claws tearing deep furrows into Will’s swarthy skin, furrows that healed as soon as they formed, only for the thing to tear his flesh anew. “But you said you had questions…you wanted answers…”
Will bent low and stared into the orin’s eyes.
“Yes. But I’m not wasting my breath asking them of you.”
He’d found the thing feasting on a child.
The child had been dead—likely for a long time. On the other side of the veil, the orin were the strongest—the closest thing there truly was to a vampire, feeding on the soul as the mortal slowly died, bit by bit. It was an odd twist that in their true form they fed on nothing living, but on death.
One of the reasons they enjoyed their gluttonous feeds so much, Will had always thought. They couldn’t exist on anything but a decaying carcass here and they were few and far between.
Or they had been, until the rips in the barrier between worlds had become so commonplace.
The orin’s ugly maw opened, his laugh jagged splinters of sound that echoed in the small, shallow cave. “Come now, Grimm…it was already dead when I found it. What does it hurt for me to have a taste?”
Will closed a hand around the demon’s leathery neck. “I don’t know. You’re close to dead. Why don’t I tear out a few pieces of your hide and we can see if it hurts you…hmmm?”
Will shoved his blade in, twisted it and smiled as the orin screamed. It ended on a panting wail and when the noise was nothing but a dying echo, the orin glared up at him. “You…pathetic creature,” it said. “You’re cast out…of your world and…into mine. But you think…you…you…of all creatures…have the right to judge…me. Judge any of…”
The light went out of its eyes as Will used the blade to sever its head.
He flung out a hand, fury and disgust warring inside him.
Light ripped out of him.
It wasn’t the white light that had marked his power on the other side though. It was black, edged with red.
Just as lethal, just as devastating.
And another sign of his fall.
When the corpse was nothing more than charred and sticky ash, he stumbled back, resting his shoulders against the wall and staring at nothing.
You of all creatures.
Something wet trickled down his hand and he looked down to see that it was stained with the ichor that served for blood in the demons that populated this world.
He swiped it on the rags that had become of his clothes.
The smear faded into the others. It had been so long since he had been clean. He wouldn’t even remember how it felt. It had been so long since he had worn something other than these rags. He looked down, staring at the denim that lay under the dirt.
Mandy had given these to him.
Soon, they’d barely even resemble the jeans they’d once been. He stroked a finger down the worn seam and thought of her.
Drawn by an instinct he couldn’t explain, he slid to the ground and used his knife to cut a small strip from one leg’s hem. It was already ragged so he went up higher and cut where it wasn’t too torn or worn. Once he had a long enough strip, he tore it free from the rest of the leg and stared at it.
Is there anything you can wear that won’t end up white?
Laughter had echoed in her eyes as she walked in and found him plucking at the already fading shirt she’d given him. He’d warned her, told her she was wasting her money.
It’s my money. Let me waste it. You can come into the twenty-first century, Will. Wear some jeans. Wear a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, a Henley…be comfortable for once in your endless life.
Slowly, he wrapped the faded denim around the hilt of his knife, up near the top, smoothing it and tightening it until it didn’t interfere with his grip, and then adjusting it until it felt like it was part of the grip itself.
He closed his eyes and stroked his thumb down. He held it in place with his thumb as he walked across the ground, returning to what had become his base. Any number of things ended up on this side. In the time since he’d been here—weeks, months, years—he’d come across the salvaged remains of a bus, a small private jet, numerous cars, numerous corpses.
Few of the demons had the strength, but on rare occasion, some horror allowed a creature like an orin to twist at a rip and make it large enough for a few moments, just a few, to pull something massive through. Something like a bus, a small private jet…a few cars.
He scavenged those sites, falling back on skills he hadn’t had to use since early in his life, but some things, it seemed, were never truly lost. Food, while not crucial, made things easier so he took every bit he found, eating the perishables immediately and saving anything that didn’t have a shelf life. The few times he’d been able to make any attempt to clean himself had been because he’d come across a diaper bag or something of that sort.
The item he needed today had come from a bag as well.
A woman’s purse. He found a small sewing kit tucked inside his cache and sat down, his back to the rough rock wall just outside the mouth of his cave, and he threaded the needle as he stared out across a barren landscape.
He went over the scrap of fabric with careful, neat stitches, reliving the past dozen years—or the dozen years he’d had with her—over in his mind. They were painfully clear, like they’d been cut with crystal and etched upon his brain.
“She’s a fighter, Will.”
“She can’t survive these wounds. And they are too severe for me to heal.”
“Then bring her over. She fought fucking parasei. They raped her, and she still fought.”
He shoved the needle through the material.
Laughing at him when he felt the tug of one of his Grimm.
“Obi Wan
Kenobi needs to commune with the Force.”
Another stitch.
“I’m not hovering.”
“And what would you call it, Will? You’re never more than three feet away!”
The needle stabbed into his finger and broke when it hit his bone. He swore and jerked it out, staring at the blood as it welled. But he didn’t see the blood.
He saw her.
Pleading with him.
“Don’t. Don’t do this, Will. I love you.”
With a roar, he shoved upright and spun, slamming his fist into the rock. It did nothing to ease his pain and he did it again and again and again. Rock cracked and dust rose around him and he never noticed.
He continued to pound on the massive wall of stone even as pebbles, small bits of rock and debris started to rain down on him from above.
If it hadn’t been for the ripple in the air, he might have buried himself. Might have, and he likely would have welcomed it. The crushing, suffocating weight of being buried under tons of stone would have been a welcome respite from the weight of his own guilt and every other obstacle he’d placed between himself and the one woman in all his years that he’d actually ever wanted.
But he felt the ripple in the air and millennia of duty had honed his sense of honor. Before, it hadn’t existed.
Now, there was little left in him but duty. Duty and the need he’d never be able to ease.
“Come to me,” he whispered, closing his eyes and reaching out to her. It felt like it had been months since she’d answered him.
“Come to me.”
But there was no answer.
The pain in his throbbing hand began to make itself known, and Will felt something streak up his spine, tightening the air around him.
“Come to me,” he said again, although he knew it was pointless. He didn’t have time now.
That ripple—that odd, tight sensation.
It meant only one thing.
There was a new—a fresh—rip that had formed between the worlds.
Without bothering to dress the wounds he’d given himself or attempt to set the bones in his right hand, he leaped off the lip of the cave. It was nearly a fifty-story drop and he felt bones crunch.
But the pain was gone in less than a minute—the pain in his legs, anyway. It took longer for the bones in his hand to knit together, but he’d probably shattered every last one of them.
He left behind a cracked and fractured wall, the dust just starting to settle.
* * * * *
“Here we are then.”
Rob’s eyes gleamed red in the gloom.
Clouds fogged my sight—or at least I hoped they were clouds and I wasn’t going blind. Just then, I was having a hard time telling.
I dug my hands into cracked and pocked ground and looked away from him.
He was sitting on his ass like we’d just thrown ourselves a blanket on the lawn of some elegant park and were about to have a picnic. He looked pleased with himself, bracing his hands behind his back and looking around.
“Man…I thought Ren had been the craziest mother-fucker around, but he ain’t got nothing on you.”
Rob slanted me a look and to my surprise, he grinned.
“Oh, Ren, he was a crazy bugger, yeah. If he’d been around a few more years, I dunno, a century or two, he might have given me a right turn for my money.” Then he shrugged. “But I’ve had a few more years to stew in my insanity.”
He winked and leaped to his feet.
My head swam just watching him.
But at the same time, I was happy to note that I could watch him.
My vision was clearing. That meant I wasn’t going blind.
I didn’t think I’d be able to manage the awesome grace that Luc could command.
“What’s wrong with my head?” I asked, focusing on some point in the distance as I waited for the vertigo to subside.
“It’s the passage,” Rob said, unconcerned. “You weren’t meant for this world so it’s not settling right on you.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s doing you any harm,” I muttered.
“Oh, I was born here.”
I whipped my head around and gaped at him.
Big mistake.
“You were…what?”
Rob’s eyes gleamed. “Haven’t you heard, poppet?” He smiled and suddenly, that smile looked a lot toothier, a lot deadlier than I thought it should. “I’m not entirely…well. Right.”
Uneasy, I forced myself upright. Even in a Grimm, adrenaline can kick in. All the while, though, my mind was whispering, Rip trusts him. Will trusted—no, TRUSTS him. Will trusts him. You can too.
“Just what does that mean?”
“It means…” That wide grin on his face faded and looked around. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a staff. In the next movement, he shed the coat and moved to stand in front of me. “Better get yourself squared away, angel baby. We’ve got family coming to visit me, but they aren’t happy. They never were quite pleased with my career choice, I’m sad to say.”
Family…?
I decided I didn’t want to know more.
But as howls began to fill the night air, I had a bad feeling I already knew too much.
The things that filled my vision weren’t like the demons I was used to seeing.
Their presence pinged on my senses in a way that felt familiar, almost as if I was seeing through a grotesque funhouse mirror, but it wasn’t my eyes that recognized them. And my eyes didn’t want to process this sight anyway.
The things were leathery gray.
Like the flesh of a reanimated corpse, and tall. Too tall. The limbs were stretched out, like a wax figure left too long in the sun, and when they moved, bits and pieces of the innards were revealed to the eye. But that didn’t make me think it would be easy to tear them apart.
One of them caught sight of me and I watched as its eyes flashed red.
Red…
Like Rob’s.
He glanced at me and arched an eyebrow.
“Here I was hoping I could get away from the normal family welcome. You want to run for it or fight?”
“Family.” I swallowed. “How exactly is a Grimm related to a pack of orin?”
“Long story. Short version? One of those sons of bitches dragged my mother through a rip and raped her. Then, because these sods aren’t brainless, they kept her alive until she was far enough along that they could tear me out of her.” He bared his teeth as he started to spin his staff around. “It took a while, but I managed to kill the one who did it. She was long gone by then, may she rest in peace.”
One of them lunged—for me.
I jerked up the crossbow I’d managed to covertly draw.
He was dead a split second before his feet left the ground.
I smiled as he fell. “Well. Look at that…you are easier to kill on your home turf.”
“Don’t enjoy it too much, pet.” Rob moved, cutting off one of them before he could pounce on me.
Hot, thick black ichor splashed across me and immediately my skin started to sting. In their true forms, the blood a demon shed was toxic but it wouldn’t kill me. Would hurt like hell, but that wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to.
Before any of the others could move closer, I came to my feet and drew the sword I’d strapped on.
With the sword in my left hand and the self-loading crossbow in my right, I settled in.
This could get ugly.
“How many?” I asked Rob.
“Eight. At the moment—make that seven. Now…nine. Two more just showed.”
“Son of a bitch.” I sighted on one, took him down with a bolt in his left eye. Rob disappeared at my back but before I could even process his absence, he returned.
“Seven again!” He sounded almost cheerful. “This is fun, innit!”
My brain processed his heavy accent. This is fun, isn’t it?
Snorting, I lunged forward and took out the legs—literally—of one of the orin. He w
ent down with a scream that lasted all of two seconds. By the time I’d buried my blade in his throat, Rob had killed two more.
But more swarmed up to their places.
We were faster than them. Even here, we were faster.
But we were just two.
One of them snaked in close just as I lopped off a head. I screamed as hooked, dagger-like claws jabbed into my side.
An arm came around me and jerked me back.
“Hold on!”
Rob said nothing else and then we were moving. Almost like we flew. I felt half-sick, the poison of the orin working through me. He must have been bleeding when he tore into me, because now his blood was mixing with mine and I felt…
My vision blurred.
Voices rolled in and out. I heard…
No.
I didn’t hear.
That…
A face loomed before me and then I screamed as a hand tried to grab me.
I swung out, tried to stab, although I couldn’t stab anything with a crossbow.
There was a bellow, deep and powerful. It made me shudder, because that voice… I knew that voice.
My eyes were burning. Burning in the dry sockets of my skull and I moaned.
Turning my head, I tried to follow the sound of the voice.
“You fool!”
I flinched at the sound of it, scrambling away. My fingers dug at the earth as I tried to retreat. So angry…he was so angry. I whimpered.
A hand touched my arm. “Stop yer bloody yelling, you oaf. It doesn’t matter…she’s here now, right?”
“I’ll kill you, you stupid—”
A screech. It echoed and echoed and echoed—
Clapping my hands over my ears, I jerked away from it and then I screeched too. So long and loud and hard, it hurt my throat, but I couldn’t stop.
Arms cradled me. Somebody spoke. “It’s okay, poppet.”
I tried to twist away. But the arms that held me were strong. Strong. Steady. And wrong. I hadn’t come here for him…
Poison chewed at me and I shuddered.
“Get her safe. Don’t bring her back. Ever.”
I cracked open one eye and stared up, searching for him. I looked for the silvery hair that I knew so well, for eyes of the palest, almost surreal gray. A swatch of black fell against my cheek and I batted at it. I couldn’t see him. I could barely see anything. But I knew he was there.
Grimm's End: Grimm's Circle, Book 9 Page 6