Furious Fire: Grimm's Circle, Book 8 (6 page)

Finn jerked his head up to see Rip staring at the woman with stark, harsh eyes. “They?”

“Yes. Her thoughts are…strange and I’m not strong enough to pick through them but that’s what she wants.”

“De…mons,” she said, looking at him once more.

Rip crouched at her side, touching her brow, his mouth tight. “You know them.”

She never looked away from Finn’s face.

“We know,” he said, somehow certain that’s what she needed to hear. “We’ll get the rest of them. Stop them.”

A smile bowed her lips up, her lids drifting down yet again.

In that moment, she looked at peace.

Then, a sigh wracked her body and her lashes fluttered before she locked her gaze on him a final time. “You. I kept…’opin’…”
I kept hoping…
She lifted a hand, only to have it fall feebly to her side.

She thought he was somebody else in these final moments. Perhaps she only had seconds.

If that was the only way he could give her comfort in this moment, then he’d give it. “I’m here,” he said, wishing he knew who he was supposed to be. Who she was.

“Tommy…”

He stiffened.

He hadn’t heard that name in an age.

And he didn’t know this woman. But to hear that name, on a woman’s lips, it ripped a hole in him.

“Tommy,” she said again, her words a soft, liquid French, and oddly, clear, despite the injury. Clear, and strong. “I missed you…forgive me, my love.”

Then, just like that, she was gone.

Chapter Five

I looked into the eyes of death. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence. I’d faced death before, and normally it didn’t frighten me. It wasn’t my time to die. I knew that.

I would die at a set moment in time.

After I’d found Tommy. I’d see him and I’d know it was my time. Maybe in a few minutes, maybe in a few days or a few weeks, but it would signify the end.

But I hadn’t seen him yet so I couldn’t go—

Mr. Shiny here didn’t seem to realize this was the plan, though. He didn’t
get
that it wasn’t my time to die.

He looked at me and he decided to kill me. I could see it stamped on his features. I don’t think he took much pleasure in the idea.

He didn’t
want
to kill me, but that wasn’t going to stop him. My death was a job he had in front of him and he’d see it done. I could admire a determination to see a job done. Except
I
was the job.

He was going to kill me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop him.

Staring at him over the dead body of the demon, I figured all of this out in the span of a few seconds and I thought I was going to be sick. I’ve never been more terrified in my life.

His eyes flashed, glowing in the dim alley and I realized I was shaking.

Darkness swirled around me.

“Lower the weapon, child,” he murmured as that press on my brain grew heavier.

Lower…

My gaze flicked to the weapon.

Lower it.

It was kinda heavy.

I started to lower it, thought about maybe sitting down. I could rest a bit, then figure out what I was supposed—

Stop it!

Self-preservation, the one thing I’d always been able to count on, kicked me in the ass and I whipped the Glock back up, my hand still trembling, my muscles aching. Whoa. Whatever kind of mojo he was packing, it was deadly.

“Why?” I demanded, forcing the question out through gritted teeth. “I’ve done nothing to you.”

He cocked his head, looking puzzled.

“Are you not tired?” he asked. His voice was low…pleasant. “You fight and you fight with nothing to show for it but nightmares and broken bones and a battered spirit. You can rest now. You are tired.”

I
was
tired…so tired. I wanted to rest…

“Stop it!” I screeched it so loud, my throat was raw with it.

He blinked. The glow in his eyes ebbed.

A split second later, the gun was ripped away and one hand caught mine as I scrabbled for the knife I’d strapped to my back—how had he even known it was
there
? The other cupped my face.

His touch was absurdly gentle, like he didn’t want to hurt me.

Good
—I could use that.

As the knife clattered to the ground, I wrenched away.

I didn’t get far. Maybe a half inch.

“Be calm,” Will said, his voice soft. The last thing he’d wanted to do was frighten her. She had fought, long and hard, for a very long time, through a number of lifetimes.

But she was one mortal, and one mortal couldn’t touch on what his Grimm could do.

His allegiance would always be to them and her existence was driving Finn mad. This tragic loop had to be broken and Will could only see one way to do it.

“Be calm,” he said again, compulsion leaking from him.

“That is so
not
going to happen!” she all but shrieked, the shrill tone bouncing off the brick walls.

It was only the centuries he had behind him that gave him the strength of will to keep from gaping at her.

The good news was that he’d been somewhat prepared earlier, wrapping a muffling shell of his power around them the moment they left the bar—sometimes the work his Grimm did got messy. Couldn’t risk being discovered, especially in this day and age. His abilities had evolved and changed with the times and this particular talent was being put to use more and more.

No others would hear her cries.

Will, though, he’d have to hear.

Not that he couldn’t silence her.

He just…

He tried again. “Calm down. I won’t hurt you—”

She kicked him and he swore as her boot heel ripped down his shin. He didn’t move aside.

Like her screams, he’d take the fury and the pain she might inflict.

It was the only thing he could think that might help to balance the scales.

Nothing will do that. She is helpless and you will kill her. You take the pain to ease your own guilt
.

But even that was a lie, because nothing would ease his guilt and he would do this anyway.

Catching her chin in his hand, he lowered his mental shields.
Should have just done this without her seeing me
, he thought darkly. But a warrior should have a warrior’s death, not be taken down from behind, with no idea of why.

Not that he’d had any hope of offering her anything but a frantic, terror-filled death now. She’d taken one look at him and realized something was off with him.

Staring into her eyes, he slid past the frantic thoughts, tried to calm her mind.

“I’m not going to hurt you
,
”
he said, forcing the words into her head.

“No, you’re just going to kill me,” she shouted. Then, abruptly, she reached out, her hands curling into the front of his coat and she sagged. “No. I can’t…not…not…”

An image burst inside her mind.

“Not yet.”

It was a plea.

Will, shaken, backpedaled away from her, staring.

She fell forward, not seeming to realize he was no longer holding her.

“Finn,” he whispered. It wasn’t until the name had slipped past him that he realized he’d spoken.

She jerked her head up, stared.

“You.” A snarl contorted her face. Then she lunged at him.

She was fast.

He had to give her that.

For a mortal, she was beyond fast and she smashed her fist into his jaw with a force that would have done him serious damage had he still been human. As it was, he suspected she might have done herself damage.

She didn’t let that stop her. She had a gun—blast it, he hadn’t checked her for a second one—in her hand in the next moment. That speed, that skill, all of it, was startlingly familiar.

“You know him,” she said accusingly. “Where is he? If you plan on killing me, you can at least let me see him. Let me…” Her voice broke and she stared at him, confused, scared, but determined. She gripped her weapon, steady, surprisingly calm. She took a deep, slow breath. “Where is he?
Why
is this happening? You owe me that much.”

“Do I?” he mused, studying her.

There was nothing to be done for it, not really. He couldn’t let this go now, not knowing what he knew.

He struck out.

A split second later, she was on the ground.

Death didn’t linger.

Not like this.

Finn grimaced as he circled yet another island.

It was larger and the ruins of what he thought might be a hunting lodge perched overhead. It was full daylight, but he wasn’t concerned about being seen.

Lifetimes had taught him how to avoid it instinctively.

He was lost in the green. In the distance, cutting between the trees that wrapped around him, he could see the sun dancing off the water. It had pierced the clouds overhead and as the day grew later, more and more blue cut through.

Finn was honest enough to admit the beauty was staggering.

But he couldn’t enjoy it, not for longer than it took to notice it.

That taint of death was even stronger here.

It wasn’t a search to find its source, either.

There was a hotel, closed for the year, but apparently a caretaker lived—or had lived—here year around.

The walls were now stained with blood.

The stale reek of sex perfumed the air.

He almost thought he could hear the screams as he moved down the halls.

In the office, he stood, studying, looking for some idea of where to start, who to look for.

How long had the person or persons here been missing?

He found his first clue on the answering machine—clogged with messages. The oldest was three weeks old. A couple calling to check on a reservation. He barely noticed the names or the words, but she called twice more and her agitation grew with each call.

Another couple, calling to
make
reservations.

A man calling about a delivery not being collected.

A woman’s voice, laughing and amused.
“James, you forgot our date…working again? Call me.”

She called him twice more—the first call was irritated. The third call was angry.

She called a fourth time—Finn barely recognized her voice. Quavery, rough with worry. “
James, where
are
you? I was fed up with you not calling me, but I saw Angus in town and he said a shipment he’d sent to you wasn’t picked up. I called your mum—she hasn’t heard from you in two weeks. James? Call me back or I’ll…I’ll…”

The final call was from law enforcement.

Finn grimaced, listening to the timestamp.

That morning.

He’d have to be quick.

He left the beautiful, death-filled island behind.

He’d been rowing for fifteen minutes—keeping his speed to a human limit—when he heard the engine.

He looked back.

Cops—whatever they were called here.

“You won’t find anything,” he murmured.

But there would be another missing person added to the roster of the lost here.

Setting his jaw, Finn focused on the islands ahead, judged the distance. Too far to row. Well, not exactly. He could do it, and easily, but it would take forever if he kept to mortal means and he’d also catch some attention. Now, more than ever, it was important that he not do that.

Probably not best that it be discovered he’d borrowed the use of somebody’s boat, either.

“Being an angel would probably work better if we actually
did
have wings.”

The medallion he wore around his neck pulsed, hot against his flesh.

Finn snorted.

“Real ones.”

He needed to let it go for now. Figure out where to look next, get some food, clear his mind.

Then he had to decide what to do next. He thought for a minute about contacting Will for an update.

Nah
. It was better to go it alone. Just like he did with everything else.

Always alone.

“You don’t have to be…”

Chapter Six

Scotland, 1945

“Somebody is killing people in the infirmary.”

Finn didn’t like the uniform. Tugging at the neck of it, he looked over at Greta and decided it was a pain in the ass that he was in a uniform for this job, and she was wearing a pair of trousers and a heavy, cable knit sweater.

He didn’t like the uniform, he didn’t like the stink of blood and death and decay—and that had nothing to do with demons, and everything to do with the war.

He also didn’t like what Greta had said.

The war had killed enough people. Couldn’t those in the infirmary be left alone?

“Something?” he asked, sliding her a look. He missed home. He missed the long, hot days of summer and the dreary winters. Anything would be better than this—the gray days that never ended. This war that just went on and on.

“If I knew what was doing the killing, I would have said.” Her voice was calm. That was Greta. Little seemed to affect her. She was one of the few he didn’t mind working with, if he was forced to take on a partner.

There were rumors that a number of demons were highly ranked in Hitler’s army. None of them had anything to do with the war. They were just opportunistic scavengers and once the plans were in motion and they saw the chance for chaos, they’d moved on it.

But their presence was too large in Europe now. The majority of the Grimm had been positioned in various spots across Europe. He’d heard Will was in France with Sina, the two of them doing what they could to help there.

Help.

Help was limited when they couldn’t openly show what they were capable of.

“Demons?” he asked, keeping his voice low and his eyes on the people around them. He wore the uniform of s soldier, but it was stolen and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with any mortals if they decided to come nattering at him about why he was socializing.

Since they were doing what they could to help with the wounded, it was best to blend in and the uniform made it easier to do that.

Greta knew he wasn’t asking if it was possible that demons were in the area, because they both knew they were. They’d been dealing with them ever since they’d come here. Demons thrived on just this sort of chaos after all. No, it was likely a demon had claimed the infirmary as his own little banquet.

“Hmmm. Possible. But it doesn’t feel right to me. We need to start a watch there, though. I heard two bodies were found a few nights ago. Then one last week. The first was found two weeks before that. All killed the same way…shot, through the heart, single bullet. Bodies are discovered the next morning at the end of shift change or when somebody brings their breakfast or medication in—the dead ones are always the healthier people, expected to make a full recovery, so the nurses aren’t going in to check on them throughout the night.”

Squinting at her, Finn thought that through. “Am I to understand that people are being shot in the infirmary and nobody has heard gunshots?”

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

Finn scowled and then sighed. “They could be using a suppressor.”

“A what?”

“A suppressor—some new-fangled invention. Or new enough. You put it on a pistol and it minimizes the noise.” Finn rubbed his jaw, thought it through. More than a few could get their hands on something like that, but why kill people in an infirmary? “The staff…anybody showing up on the same shift when the killings happen?”

“Yes.” Greta smiled sweetly. “Both of them.”

Finn dragged a hand through his hair.

“They have four nurses. Two cover the day, two cover the night. They don’t change and none of them have had a day off in…” Her words trailed and she looked around. “I doubt any of these people remember what rest is.”

“Do any of us?” But it wasn’t the same. The Grimm, like Greta, like Finn, they could survive going days without rest and then fall down for two or three hours and drag themselves back up and be fine. If they cut back to starvation-type rations like many of these people, it wouldn’t have any affect. Neither Greta nor Finn had eaten any of the food in the village since they’d arrived six months ago. What food they ate was food they’d found for themselves well away from here.

“What are you going to do when this is over?” Greta asked, tipping her head up to stare at the sky, a blue so pure it hurt the eye, dotted with fat puffs of clouds.

“Will this ever be over?” Finn was starting think this war had no end. No end. No beginning.

“Of course it will.” Greta slid him a look from under her lashes. “Nobody understands better than you that a fire can only burn as long as there is fuel.”

“And how will it end?” he asked softly.

Greta shrugged. “A few who have the ability to foresee that Germany will surrender.” She paused, then added, “I guess that means we win.”

He watched a woman trudge by. Despite the smashed mess of his heart, there was a stir of interest in him—one he’d felt so rarely, but far too often since he’d come here.

As though she felt his gaze, the mortal turned her head toward him. Her name was Ada. He’d heard it, caught in the snatches of conversations he’d picked up.

Ada…with a smattering of freckles across her nose, echoed on her throat and across her hands. He wondered what else was freckled before he could stop that line of thought and then he made himself think of other things as she continued on.

Like the way her cheekbones protruded too sharply against her skin. How her eyes, a beautiful, light brown were too sunken in her narrow face. Like everybody else here, she was too thin and probably hadn’t had a decent meal in longer than she could remember.

“Does this look like winning?” He watched as Ada turned the corner up ahead, heading toward the infirmary.

Ada was one of the nurses.

Aw, shit.

He’d have to spend more time observing her now and that wasn’t at all what he wanted.

“Everybody loses in a war, Finn,” Greta said. “There are never any true victors, but there are the vanquished. This man must be stopped. We all know that.”

Turning his head, he met Greta’s gaze. Yes, Hitler must be stopped. Once or twice, he’d entertained thoughts he should never let enter his head. It could cost him his life, but it wasn’t worth much, really.

What he felt must have been written on his face because Greta reached up, patted his cheek in what he could only describe as a motherly gesture. Even though she looked a year or two younger, she had him by centuries. “It will end.” Then she went back to her perusal of the sky. “I’m going to sleep. For a week. Then I’m going eat all the delicious food we haven’t been able to eat in so long and I’ll take a hot bath every day. And I’ll wear a pretty dress every day—I might even change my dress two or three times a day. I’ll eat chocolate and have coffee. I might even go out and find a stranger and have crazy sex with him.”

Finn lifted an eyebrow as she grinned at him.

Then she cocked her head. “What about you?”

“I don’t know. Sleep. Sleep sounds good.” He was tired. Not physically. His body could handle everything thrown at him and more, but mentally, he was worn thin.

“What, no plans for extravagant meals, nights on the town…you can go to New York and see a play, take a lady—or five—out on the town,” she teased, bumping her shoulder against his. “We’ve lived monkish lives lately.”

“Wouldn’t that be nunnish for you?”

“You get the point. We’ve lived and breathed this war.” She watched as a man, missing the lower half of his left arm, walked down the street. “Everybody has. For too long. We deserve a chance to forget it all for a while.”

“Burying myself in vice won’t make me forget. It won’t help.”

Greta sighed. “Neither will chaining yourself to the past.”

He flinched when she reached out this time, her hand resting on his arm. “You carry too much grief, Finn, and not just from the war. Maybe it’s time you talk.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“You should.” The compassion in her eyes, in her voice, infuriated him. Not just because he didn’t want it, but he actually almost wanted to talk. To tell her about the misery…the pain. About Becky.

Lashing out, he snarled, “So this is why Will put me with you. It makes sense now. If I choose not to talk, what then…are you going to force it out of me?”

Her mouth went tight. “Finn, now wait—”

“I know about you. People talk. Even to me, sometimes. I’m one of the freaks like you. My abilities aren’t the same as yours, but you freak people out as much as I do. My ability works on everybody—human and Grimm alike…just the way yours does. Only I can’t mind-fuck people. I burn them alive.” That ability to coerce people, force them to do things against their will, was an unnerving one.

Little more than a silent rape, but it had been put into the hands of a woman with a will of iron, and Finn knew, just as he stood there, that he was off-base.

Greta only used it when there was no other option—to save lives.

She went white, the only sign that his jab had found its mark. Even that was enough to fill him with guilt. Even as the apology churned inside him, Greta started to speak.

“Finn, I—”

“I don’t want this,” he said, the words ripping out of him in a torrent. “I never wanted this. I thought I was being given a chance to save her. To have her back, to have my life back. But she died right in front of me and I see it every time I close my eyes and…”

The words tumbled to a halt and he stopped, dragged a hand down his face. He’d kept it locked inside for eight decades. But Greta, with her calm eyes and quiet voice, she’d had broken the dam. The rest of it wanted to spill out of him, like she’d sliced him open and he held himself together with his hands and desperation alone.

“I’m trapped now.” The words were wooden. Gently, he broke her grasp and moved away. “I’m trapped here, and she’s lost to me and I still love her so much that I can smell her skin on mine, feel the softness of her hair. I close my eyes and I see her in front of me. How many years am I going to live like this, Greta?”

She was silent. In that moment, he could hear the families all around them. The family across the street was sitting down to their meager dinner, while a man berated his wife a few more houses down. A baby wailed somewhere close by and a mother, her voice fretful, tried to calm the infant.

Finally, Greta spoke, her voice gentle. “Maybe it’s time you let her go. You’re alone, always alone. But you don’t have to be.”

Like he chose to feel this way. But even as that thought rolled through his head, he pushed it aside. In a way, he realized he did. Even if he could find a way to let Becky go, he wouldn’t. The very thought of it felt like betrayal. It wasn’t just guilt. In his mind, she was still there. How could he ever let her go when she still felt so real to him? So very much alive? He half-expected to turn and see her.

“Yes,” he murmured. “I do.”

Perhaps it was his penance. Regardless, there was no way he could let his woman go. She was still too alive inside him.

So alive, that even looking at another woman made him feel as though he’d broken the most sacred of trusts.

“I spoke with one of the day nurses,” Greta said, settling with him not even an hour later. He passed her some jerky left from a deer he’d shot and killed a week earlier.

She eyed it with disdain before taking a bite and washing it down with the beer she’d carried over from the bar.

“A soldier was brought in—collapsed. Has pneumonia. Stable and he’s not going to die. Has all his parts in working order.”

Finn lifted a brow.

She tapped a finger against the table, eyeing him. “An able-bodied, relatively healthy young man with a condition that will likely pass. That is what our killer is looking for. We need to watch the infirmary tonight.”

Finn set his jaw.

Then he nodded.

They didn’t get to pick and choose how they did their job. If they were lucky, this mystery would be easily solved and he could go back to ignoring the pretty blonde with pale eyes and freckled skin.

They finished up in short order and made their way to the infirmary under cover of night.

Most of the small village was already tucked away for the day, worn thin and ready for their rest. More than a few soldiers walked the streets and both Finn and Greta turned a blind eye when they came across one who had a woman pressed up against the wall. They were well out of sight and although they were making a great deal of noise, the woman was clearly enjoying herself.

Everybody should have a break away from this, after all…if they could find it.

Finn couldn’t find it.

It was too soon that he found himself looking through the window in the back, while Greta settled herself on the roof. He was always left on the ground, but it made sense. He could do plenty of damage from a distance with his pistols and he had a close-up view of the nurse sitting at her station, her pretty blonde hair tucked up neat.

Looking at Ada, and all those pretty freckles on her neck—

Stop it.

He could punch himself in the head for every thought he had about her and it wouldn’t be enough to assuage the guilt.

Becky’s face swam through his mind and that cooled the need to go to the young nurse, kiss that freckled neck. Setting his jaw, he ground his teeth together and started to scan the interior. He could get inside quietly, but if she turned—

Her head lifted.

He pulled back just as she glanced over her shoulder, her gaze unerringly seeking out the spot where he’d just been.

As though she’d sensed him.

She pushed the chair back and his skin pricked in warning as she started toward the back door. He started to pull back into the shadows, but then he stopped.

A whisper of evil slid down his spine.

Damnation.

Demon. Coming in fast.

He had to get in there and get her out. He took off at a run.

Ada spun around and he gaped as she lunged for her desk. She grabbed a bag from the floor, jerked it up. In the time it took him to reach the door, she’d opened it and pulled out a gun.

Her head whipped toward him and she froze, her weapon hand falling slack to her side.