Grimm: A Novel In The Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Series (The Temple Chronicles Book 3) (16 page)

I shook my head. “It’s not that easy. We were running for our lives. I’m pretty sure they would need us to be at least as keyed up as that in order to believe it. After all, they can’t change every detail.” At least these two Grimms hadn’t been able to. “Did you feel the cool wind?”

She thought about it then shook her head.

“I did. It’s what tipped me off. We just need to be hyper aware from now on. Look for inconsistencies in our environment.”

She shivered. “Okay. I’ll try. We need to warn the others. No wonder these guys have been so successful in killing off freaks. If they can trick their prey with glamour…”

I nodded morosely. She wasn’t even bringing up the worst part. These two had shifted into uber-predator monsters. A fire-Liger and an intelligent cave-ape.

The driver made a left turn and I frowned. I hit the glass with a fist. “You’re going the wrong way.” The driver didn’t acknowledge me and I felt a mild freak out coming on. Ashley noticed and began rattling the door handles and pushing the window buttons, but they were all locked up tight. She immediately pulled out one of her pistols and held it up to the window separating us from the driver. All I could see was a black, wiry beard and a
Fidel Castro
looking cap – or whatever they were called. Then she tapped the window in warning, staring into the rearview mirror. “Stop. The. Car.”

The man lifted his eyes to meet mine and I frowned. He looked familiar. Then he tore off his hat and his fake beard. He pulled out two molded hunks of silly putty from inside his mouth, deflating his cheeks, and peeled off both a wart and a particularly nasty liver spot stuck to his cheek with adhesive. I began to laugh and waved for Ashley to withdraw the gun.

“Laddie,” the man spoke with his usual Scottish brogue after rolling the dividing window down. “Thought you might need an extra set of eyes. One of my boys was on sniper duty outside the hotel, but his shots didn’t seem to bother ‘em too much. We’ll upgrade our arsenal. Apparently, we needed big game ammunition and an elephant rifle after they shifted.” He grunted. I was still reeling from the fact that Mallory had
boys
on the payroll. “Ye’ did good. But I reckon we stop and get ye’ patched up. Here. Now.” He pulled over into a deserted church parking lot in a quiet section of town.

“Why? Let’s go to
Chateau Falco
. I need to talk to everyone.”

“That can wait,” he mumbled, and then climbed out of the car. I began to open my now unlocked door, but Ashley gripped my hand.

“He’s probably right.”

I frowned at her.

“I wasn’t asking for a vote. The others could be in danger. I need to get to them before the Grimms do.”

“Not with a leaky stomach.” Mallory grunted, opening my door and letting out all the hot air. He was clutching a familiar leather valise that belonged to Dean. He knelt on the slushy asphalt, giving me no room to climb out. “Stay in the car. We don’t want a crowd seeing what we’re doing.”

I grunted. “Well this sure won’t attract a nosy old lady’s attention.” I motioned at the sight of a man kneeling over the lap of another man in a parked car in a church parking lot.

Mallory chuckled. “Your car door is facing the church, which is empty. No one to see what looks like your everyday…
man on man action
.” He laughed harder at Ashley’s suddenly blushing cheeks. But instead of wimping out, Ashley held out her hands, inviting me to lean back so Mallory could get at my stomach. I sighed. Her chest did look rather comfortable – it came stock with twin pillows that looked truly inviting – even if her werewolf fiancé would rip my eyes out for even teasing about it. Ashley shook her head and flicked my nose.

“I won’t tell if you don’t.” She teased.

“Given your fiancé, that sounds almost as dire as you saying,
here, hold my beer for a second and watch this
! Usually never ends well.” She laughed lightly and I turned my head before relaxing into her chest and lifting my shirt over my wound.

Yep.

Her pillows were great. In a strictly professional medical assessment. Better than any doctor’s office bed I had sat in.

Mallory got to work instantly, cleaning the wound with iodine, which felt like slightly cooled lava and sulfuric acid had made a love child. I hissed a bit and Mallory rolled his eyes before continuing. I glanced down to see the wound and my guts did a nauseating little flip-flop. It wasn’t pretty. The bullets had hit the side of my abdomen. I closed my eyes, not wanting to throw up on Ashley and ruin my very temporary pillows. Ashley sucked in a sharp breath as she saw the wound up close. Her hands instantly went to my scalp, fingers massaging idly.

“I’m so sorry, Nate. You should have had Gunnar or someone else here. Not me. I don’t have a lick of power. This is my fault. If you hadn’t been watching out for me you could have laid waste to them without worrying about collateral damage.”

I reached up and squeezed her hand, not immediately telling her the truth of the situation. I almost hadn’t been able to tap into my power in time to do us any good. “You did great. Seriously. Great shooting skills. This had nothing to do with me being distracted. These guys are just that good. I’m lucky you were there.” I hissed at a sharp pain from my stomach before admitting the truth aloud. “I’m not as formidable as I used to be. I’m still learning about my new powers. It will be a little while before I’m back to my old level. You saved us, Annie Oakley.”

She chuckled with a barely restrained sob, and then continued massaging my head.

“I’m going to take the bullet out now.”

“If the bullet broke into my stomach wall, mind shoving a protein bar in there for me? I’m starving.”

“Fresh out. But I think it missed the organ anyway.”

“Okay. Ready, I guess.”

Then the wound was spread open further, twisted up, squeezed, and generally abused for a few excruciating seconds. Ashley groaned at the sight, increasing her massage reflexively. It didn’t help me ignore the pain.

Mallory finally grunted and pulled something out with a wet sucking sound. I looked down to see him holding up a small piece of metal. “Huh. Small caliber.” He looked up at my eyes. “They weren’t trying to kill you.” He said ominously.

I shivered, kind of hoping it had been the opposite. I didn’t want to imagine why they wanted me incapacitated but alive.

“Now if the bullet had been anything larger caliber, your coat wouldn’t have prevented it from entering ‘yer stomach, which would have guaranteed a hospital trip, and likely death.” He added soberly. I grunted.

“Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket.”

Mallory wordlessly began closing up the wound. I suddenly felt a gentle warmth pulsing from his fingers and my eyes shot wide open as I watched him. He looked up once, a look of mild embarrassment on his features and a frown directed at me, calmly, harshly, commanding me to seal my lips. I watched in awe as the power dribbled from his fingertips, a golden glow like magic dust forming the shape of a knot before settling inside my wounds. Ashley didn’t seem to notice. With the sensation came the realization that my power was roaring back into me, leaving me feeling refreshed and no longer exhausted. In fact, I felt downright chipper. He wiped it down when finished, and wrapped me up with gauze before Ashley helped me to sit up fully. Mallory shot me a look, shook his head once, and then packed up his bag, closed the door, and got back behind the wheel. I stared at the back of his head thoughtfully as he started the car and we began to pull out of the parking lot, the talking heads on the radio idly chattering in the background.

Looks like Mallory and I needed to have a chat soon. But he was right. Not now.

I felt a weight in my coat pocket and stuck my fist in there to see what it was. My fingers closed around an unfamiliar shape and I blinked. I pulled out a long, heavy chain with an amulet attached to the end. Another rested within the pocket but I left it alone.

I held it up to the light and watched a pendant swing by a thick, linked chain of an unfamiliar metal. An obsidian gem hung in the shape of a double crescent, like that of an axe, encased in a ring of blood red stone to hold it in place. Power ebbed from the amulet, and I felt a minor resonance deep within my own reservoir of power.

But I also felt a darkness. A hunger to consume. I shivered and shoved it in my pocket. I hoped it wouldn’t contaminate me or anything sinister like that.

“
In last night’s news, a local land owner woke up in the middle of the night to find his fields burning with a forest fire the likes of which St. Louis has never seen. Police have been on site trying to discover the source of the blaze, but have found no help from the land owner, Mr. Kingston
.”

My breath caught as the name rang a bell. “Stop the car.”

Mallory did, looking around cautiously for an impending attack.

“We need to go to that farm.”

“What farm, Laddie? We’re in the middle of the city.”

“The one on the radio. I know it. A friend lives there.”

Ashley looked at me. “Do you really think you have time for that? They didn’t say anything about any injuries. The landowner is fine. Just a fire.”

“You’re going to have to trust me on this. It’s not the farmer I’m worried about.”

Mallory eyed me in the rearview mirror. “If ‘yer certain ‘bout it…”

I nodded. “Drive.”

I hoped Asterion, the Minotaur, was safe. His relationship with me had apparently made him a target too.

God damn the Grimms.

Chapter 15

W
e pulled up to the farmer’s house, which looked much… wealthier than I remembered, although I really hadn’t spent any time in any place but his fields. But I did remember seeing it from a distance, and I recalled it looking like any farm you might find in any section of the Midwest. Nothing special. But the home in front of me wasn’t similar to any farm I had ever seen in my life.

At all. I briefly wondered if we were at the right place, but the heavy scent of smoke made it pretty obvious. There wasn’t another home for miles.

Mr. Kingston’s farming operation looked
mysteriously
successful. Something was odd about the structure, but I was too busy scanning for threats and masking my dull pain to spot what exactly had caught my attention. Mallory’s unspoken power had helped, but not eliminated my discomfort. Still, my magic was back, which was a plus.

No police presence was in sight, but I was still nervous. I didn’t want my name attached as a person of interest to whatever had gone down here, especially after the Board meeting. I’d had enough of affiliating with crime scenes in the past. In fact, I had once been arrested in the very field adjacent to Kingston’s house, and declared high on ‘
shrooms
. All because my car had been spotted outside the field and the police had wanted to question me about my parents’ murder. Poor timing to say the least.

The detective in charge of that particular investigation had suffered quite the career change as a result of my not so subtle retaliation. Something to do with pictures of him in bondage gear or some kind of deviant outfit appearing in a file on a policeman’s desk, as well as documentation of his secret interest in certain dark Craigslist ads, which had immediately been publicized via the local news channel. I actually wasn’t sure if he was even in police work anymore. The world was a better place for it. He had been an incompetent hack, and a danger to citizens everywhere he had jurisdiction. He was more interested in the collar than the crime. The fame more than the justice.

I had…
fixed
that.

Allegedly.

Heh.

I studied the house, the shadows, the barn, the garage, and every single tree within jumping distance of a liger or an intelligent ape. But I saw nothing. If the Grimms had truly been behind the blaze, I didn’t want to be caught with my pants around my ankles again. Especially after taking down two of their brothers. How many did that make now? Ten? More? Could they call in reinforcements quickly or did they need the book first?

Mallory clicked off the engine.

We sat there for a few minutes, listening to the engine cycle down.

Then the scene before us abruptly folded in on itself like a mirage, and a very normal quaint looking farm briefly stood in its place. Mallory grunted, and Ashley gasped. The familiar farm I had seen in the past, complete with a worn out barn and broken fence stood before us. Then another ripple to the air and the wealthy farm was back. The scene remained solidly on the wealthy farm for a good ten seconds before I shook my head. My friends were staring at me, waiting for an explanation, but I had none. Well,
that
was a first. I was beginning to realize that perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that the Minotaur resided nearby.

There was magic hinkyness afoot.

Before anyone could speak I opened my door. The front door to the house opened at the exact same time. I stayed in place, not wanting to appear threatening to an elderly farmer. They tended to shoot trespassers. I imagined him growling,
Get off my lawn
, like that Clint Eastwood movie, before whipping out a twelve-gauge exclamation mark.