Grimm: The Killing Time (11 page)

Nick tensed. “What sort of disease?” Was he in danger of infecting Juliette and Hank? Should he get away from them? Without thinking about it, he took a step backward.

As if sensing his unease, Juliette said, “Don’t worry. It only affects Wesen.”

Nick let out a relieved breath. If he did have this disease, or whatever it was, it sounded like Juliette and Hank were in the clear.

“What are the symptoms?” Hank asked.

“Wesen are normally able to control their transformations, but this condition caused them to woge uncontrollably, and eventually they became stuck in their Wesen forms, unable to change back. What’s more, they were unable to conceal their Wesen appearance from humans. Anyone could see what they truly were.”

“That’s bad,” Nick said. “
Really
bad.”

“I can see how not being able to hide their Wesen identities would be a problem,” Hank said, “but couldn’t they have just left the village and gone into hiding? I’m not saying it’s a perfect solution, but it would’ve gotten them away from humans. And more importantly, from the kill-crazy shapeshifter.”

“Some tried,” Juliette said. “But they soon realized they could spread the condition to other Wesen. That meant they couldn’t go anywhere, because if they did, they risked breaking the Wesen’s highest law.”

Nick nodded. “The Wesen’s book of law, the
Gesetzbuch Ehrenkodex
, states that Wesen must keep their true nature a secret from humanity at all costs.”

“Right,” Juliette said. “And the Wesen Council enforces those laws.”

“With an iron hand,” Nick said. “Or maybe that should be with an iron claw.”

“The Wesen Council feared the Woge Plague, as they called it, would spread out of control if they didn’t act swiftly. So they sent an agent to stop the disease.”

Nick had a sinking feeling he knew where this was leading. “This
agent
was really an assassin, right? He or she was sent to kill the Wechselbalg and Soffya.”

“Yes,” Juliette said. “As well as all the infected Wesen. And after that, this assassin—who’d also become infected—committed suicide. The incident became known as
die Zeit Totzuschlagen
: the Killing Time.”

The phrase sent a chill through Nick. “Do you think it’s happened again? Am I carrying this… whatever it’s called?”

“
Ewig Woge
,” Juliette said. “According to the entry, it’s German for ‘perpetual wave.’ And there’s no way to know until Wesen you’ve come into contact with start to show signs of being affected.”

“You were around Monroe and Rosalee,” Hank said. “Bud, too.”

“And Bud was going to visit more Wesen to drop off his wife’s thank-you gifts,” Nick said. “If he had the
Ewig Woge
, he might’ve given it to all of them.”

He thought of how Monroe, Rosalee, and Bud had all complained about how hot it was in the spice shop, even though none of the humans had been uncomfortable with the temperature.

“They’ve got it,” he said.

Juliette’s eyes widened. “They kept talking about the heat.”

“That’s right,” Hank said. “And Monroe mentioned being bothered by how warm it was when we were trying to find the shapeshifter’s trail. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but …”

Nick took out his phone and called Monroe. As it rang on the other end, he waited impatiently for his friend to answer, but eventually it sent him to voicemail.

“I don’t want you to panic,” Nick said, “but there’s a chance that you and Rosalee were exposed to a disease that makes Wesen lose control of their ability to woge. Sit tight. I’m on my way.”

He disconnected and put his phone away.

“Maybe he and Rosalee are busy researching and he didn’t notice you were calling,” Juliette said.

“Maybe.” But he doubted it. Monroe would’ve kept his phone close by since he and Rosalee were helping him with a case. The fact that he hadn’t answered was more than a little troubling. “Come on. Let’s get back to the spice shop and check on them.”

Juliette grabbed the book that contained the account of the Killing Time, and the three of them left the trailer. Juliette decided to ride with Nick and Hank. She’d come back for her car later.

As they left Forest Hills Storage and pulled onto the street, Nick prayed that another Killing Time wasn’t beginning in Portland, but if the
Ewig Woge
was already spreading, what could they possibly do to contain it before the Wesen Council got wind of what was happening? And once that occurred, would any of the city’s Wesen survive? And if the disease spread outside the city limits, would it eventually affect Wesen worldwide?

They had to do whatever they could to prevent that from happening—if it wasn’t already too late.

* * *

“Want some tea?” Rosalee asked.

Monroe didn’t look up from the book currently open in front of him. “Better make it coffee—and strong. We might be at this for a while.”

But as Rosalee started for the back room, Monroe looked up from the page he had been reading—an entry on Siegbarste foot fungus—which was precisely as interesting as it sounded—and gestured to catch her attention.

“On second thought, skip the coffee. It’s too hot in here for coffee. Same for tea.”

Rosalee frowned at him. Actually, it was closer to a scowl. But then her brow smoothed and she smiled.

“I think we have some regular soda in the back. Chock full of sugar and caffeine.”

“
And
calories,” Monroe said, patting his stomach. “How about energy drinks?”

Now she did scowl. “I said we have
soda
. If you want an energy drink, maybe you should go get in your car, drive to a convenience store, and get one.”

Normally, Monroe would’ve been shocked by Rosalee’s attitude, which was so unlike her usual easygoing, gentle personality. But all he felt at that moment was a surge of anger that rapidly built to all-out fury. A part of him that was still calm, still in control, warned him not to give in to the turbulent emotions roiling inside him.

“What did you say?” he said, almost growling.

“I thought Blutbaden had strong hearing,” Rosalee said, also through gritted teeth. “Or is that just a bit of exaggerated folklore?”

A snarl escaped Monroe’s lips, and he felt a woge coming. He didn’t try to resist it, but even if he had, it came upon him so fast and strong that he couldn’t have stopped it. He changed so swiftly he was barely aware of it, and his snarl—which had already sounded bestial while he was in his human form—became deeper and more menacing.

As if in response to his transformation, Rosalee woged as well. Her features became a cross between human and vulpine, and reddish-brown hair with hints of white covered her skin. Normally when she changed, her large dark eyes remained gentle, and her expression one of calm watchfulness. But now her lips curled away from sharp teeth, and she returned his snarl. Although hers was higher-pitched and not as loud as his, it contained an equal amount of anger. Fuchsbau might not be Blutbaden, but they were still predators, and Rosalee showed no signs of submitting to him.

Blutbaden were not wolves any more than they were humans, but one of the traits that they shared with their canine cousins was a pack hierarchy based on dominance and submission. As a modern and, more importantly, reformed Blutbad, Monroe didn’t take part in such rituals, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the drive to indulge in them at times. And this was definitely one of those times.

Rosalee’s defiance was what set him off. When a Blutbad snarled and displayed his or her teeth, that was a sign for another to back down or risk getting into a fight. And the last thing most Wesen wanted to do was go claw-to-claw with a pissed-off Blutbad—unless they were Blutbaden themselves, of course.

Monroe’s instincts told him that a Fuchsbau might put up a brave front for a moment or two, but in the end, he or she would always stand down rather than risk getting torn to bits. Monroe’s kind hadn’t been named ‘blood bath’ for nothing.

But Rosalee continued snarling, her voice rising in pitch and volume. He could sense the fury emanating from her, could smell it, could almost
feel
it roll over him like psychic waves of force. His snarl became a deep-throated growl, and he flexed his hands, his claws growing longer and sharper. He could feel his features taking on an even wilder aspect, fur growing thicker, eyes more feral, nose sharper, teeth longer… This had never happened to him before. Until now, when he changed, he changed. He didn’t get more Blutbady the angrier he got. It wasn’t like he was some kind of Wesen version of the Incredible Hulk. But that was exactly what it felt like was happening, including the increasing rage that threatened to sweep away the last vestiges of his reason and turn him completely into a beast.

The same thing was happening to Rosalee, too. Her fur grew thicker, its colors more intense, her snout lengthened, and her teeth became more pronounced. Her claws normally weren’t very sharp in her Wesen form, and while they were nothing compared to his, they were larger and sharper than he’d ever seen them before.

It was Rosalee who made the first move. In this situation, she should’ve turned to flee, for a Fuchsbau—no matter how skilled a fighter—simply wasn’t a match for an enraged Blutbad. But she raised her claws and came rushing toward him. Monroe responded as if a switch had been thrown inside him. He released a roar and ran forward to meet Rosalee’s challenge.

* * *

“I’m still not getting an answer,” Juliette said. “From either of their phones.”

She sounded worried, and Nick didn’t blame her. He was plenty worried, too.

He drove this time, Juliette in the passenger seat, Hank in the back.

“We’ll be there in a couple minutes,” he said, although he knew it wouldn’t make her feel better. He was glad for his police training. It allowed him to put aside his fear for his friends and concentrate on the task at hand. Mostly.

“So how does this woge sickness work?” Hank asked.

Juliette thought for a moment before answering. “Without blood samples from Nick, the Wechselbalg, and affected Wesen—along with a few weeks in a specially equipped lab with the help of a geneticist or two—I can only speculate. Nick described the Wechselbalg’s true form as looking like a semi-solid silvery mass. All Wesen change shape, but none do so as completely as Wechselbalgen. None that we know of, anyway. I suspect Wechselbalgen possess an enormous amount of the hormone that allows all Wesen to woge. In fact, its entire being might be comprised of a highly evolved form of the chemical.” She thought for a moment. “It’s even possible that this creature is the ancestor of all Wesen. If it can sample DNA and replicate bodies, it might’ve done so with animals as well as humans in the past. And then the two types of DNA become combined, and hybrid creatures developed, which eventually became the Wesen we know today.”

“So how does the
Ewig Woge
work?” Nick asked.

“When the Wechselbalg tried to duplicate you, it caused a chain reaction in both your bodies. You received an infusion of Wechselbalg super-woge hormone, which your body is working to expel, probably in both breath and sweat. Wesen are so sensitive to this hormone that when they’re in the presence of a carrier—in this case you, Nick—their bodies go into overdrive and produce too much of it. Then
their
bodies try to shed the excess—”

“And the condition spreads like a disease,” Nick said.

“Right. Technically, it’s not a disease but a severe hormone imbalance. But people in the past wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. By this point, you’ve probably expelled all traces of the hormone, and it’s safe for Wesen to be around you. But the damage has been done. The hormone imbalance will keep spreading, like a row of falling dominoes, until all but the most reclusive Wesen in town are affected.”

“But why is the shapeshifter a carrier, too?” Hank asked.

“Because it copied Nick’s form down to the cellular level,” Juliette said. “So now its own body is trying to expel its own woge hormone just like Nick’s. But because it has so much more of the hormone inside, it will remain a carrier for much longer than Nick.

“And if all that wasn’t bad enough,” Juliette continued, “the Wechselbalg’s version of the hormone is much stronger than the normal Wesen version, and it overwhelms their systems. They can no longer control their woge and remain stuck in their Wesen forms. I’m afraid that the longer they stay changed, the more they’ll exhibit the behaviors of their particular type. If that’s true, then Mauzhertzen would become more meek than usual, and Blutbaden—”

“Would become more aggressive,” Nick said.

She nodded.

“But how can the Wechselbalg dissolve its victims like that?” Nick asked.

“And it’s not just flesh and bone that gets dissolved,” Hank added. “The victim’s clothes do, too.”

Juliette thought for a moment before answering. “A lot of creatures in nature produce powerful chemicals that liquefy their prey, especially in the insect kingdom. The hormone that allows Wesen to woge could act the same way. A substance like that, which promotes change in Wesen, could totally destabilize the structure of a human body. And once the biological material starts to break down, it could in turn become acidic enough to dissolve clothing.”

At first it didn’t seem possible that a victim’s clothes might be dissolved by a biologically produced chemical, but as a homicide detective, Nick had seen bodies in all sorts of conditions, and he knew it didn’t take long for a corpse to basically become toxic waste. He’d seen some horrific crime scenes where the bodies weren’t discovered for some time, and the things that happened to their clothes or any cloth, upholstery, or carpet the corpses were in contact with… When he thought of those scenes, he had no trouble believing the Wechselbalg’s super-woge hormone could dissolve an entire victim, clothing and all.

He recalled his encounter with a type of Wesen called a Fuchsteufelwild. That creature had two bone-like fingers which released a type of acid. He wondered if the Wechselbalg was related to Fuchsteufelwilden in some way. He supposed it was possible.

“If the victims’ remains are acidic enough to dissolve clothing, are the CSU techs in danger from them?” Hank asked.