Grimm - The Icy Touch Read Online Free PDF Page B

“You and Juliette wanna do a double date thing, this weekend? I can get free tickets to Princess.”
    “What’s Princess?”
    “Prince cover band, man. Girl singers. Maya Rudolph. It’s awesome.”
    “Prince? You’re old school! I’m up for it if Juliette is.”
    I’m up for it if Juliette is. Nick smiled. That covered a lot of territory. Nick would be up for marriage, if Juliette was. Only, since she found out about the Grimm thing— and how he’d kept it from her—there was still some distance between them. Be awhile before she’d trust him enough to consider it.
    Maybe stupid to get married anyway, being a Grimm. Tough enough to marry a homicide detective. Always a high risk that the next time she sees him after that last kiss goodbye, he’ll be in a body bag. But a Grimm? The risk was even higher. And it was risking Juliette’s life, too. She’d already almost gotten killed because of her association with Nick.
    As they rode the elevator up, Hank asked, “What’s this damon thing Mrs. Clement was talking about?”
    “Daemonfeuer—a Wesen that’s kind of a dragon man. They can incinerate their own fat, inside, breath flames out. Tough and nasty. You wouldn’t like ’em.”
    Hank did a short leg squat, grimacing, as the elevator door opened.
    “My legs are cramped from that damned car. They want to discipline me, they can talk to the police union. But I’m not getting inside that thing again.”
    Nick chuckled, leading the way down the hall.
    “I hear you. You know, Renard could’ve picked a lot of guys to drive that thing. But he picked us. Like he was trying to kind of... send us a message.”
    “Yeah? That we’re clowns?”
    “That we shouldn’t get too big for our boots, maybe. That he’s still got his thumb on us. He’s always had a Napoleon complex. Even looks like Napoleon some.”
    “You’re right, he does! Remember that press conference, the way he was talking as if he was going to conquer the town to bring order? He had a whole megalomaniacal thing going on, man.”
    “Yeah. About that...” But they’d just reached the door of Renard’s corner office. Through the office windows Nick could see Renard at his desk. “Tell you later.” Nick hadn’t briefed Hank on the Coins of Zakynthos—and Renard’s period of being under their influence.
    Nick knocked on the captain’s door.
    “Come in,” came Renard’s voice. They entered but Renard didn’t even glance up from the report he was scanning on his computer. “Shut the door and sit down.”
    “Yes sir ,” Hank said, a hint of rancor in his voice, as they sat.
    “About that car you wedged us into, Captain,” Nick began. “Message received, but we—”
    “Not going to argue about your vehicle assignments,” Renard interrupted snappishly. “I want to know what you found out this morning.”
    “You mean at the donut shop?” Hank asked. “Found out the price has gone up on the jellied fire hydrants.”
    Captain Renard looked coldly up at him. His face looked distinctly Napoleonic in that moment.
    “You have any Bonaparte blood, Captain?” Nick asked, to head off more friction between the two men.
    Renard looked at him in mild surprise.
    “Some. How’d you know that?”
    “Just wondered. What we found out this morning—if you were hinting at Drang-zorn in that report, you were right. Burned body in the morgue is probably a Drang-zorn named Buddy Clement—same guy who broke into the donut shop. He was hiding in that hole from some organized crime outfit. His wife says they tried to strong-arm him into tunneling up under a pharm warehouse in Gresham. She says he was killed by a Daemonfeuer.”
    “A Daemonfeuer!” Renard leaned back in his chair, and tented his hands. “Thought it might be. They’re rare. Didn’t think we had any more in town. But then...” He glanced at the computer screen. “Looks like there’s a big influx of Wesen, lately.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got