Locked in Silence: Grimm's Circle, Book 5 (17 page)

Silence stared at the TV, barely aware of the female anchor’s voice, barely aware of anything, save for the building in the background. He knew that building.

It was the club from last night.

“We have reports of gruesome murders that took place, right here in Ann Arbor. And even more upsetting—a hostage situation. The police who went in to investigate are being held captive—”

Silence swore.

And somewhere inside, he felt something break. His heart, he supposed.

He might have been able to ignore the bothersome call of duty, but human lives?

No.

The day he did that was the day he became a monster himself—he killed the monsters, he didn’t become one.

Turning away from the television, he gathered his weapons, dressed.

Something hot, wet rolled down his face and he absently brushed it away.

In the end, he supposed, this was how it was meant to be.

Perhaps this was God’s way of reminding him of that.

Silence was better alone.

“
Damn
it,” Will bellowed.

Mandy flinched as the sound rang through the cabin.

Okay, she’d seen the man upset before, but outright furious.

Peering around the corner, she blinked at him. “Ahhh…are you okay?”

He shot her a narrow look. “Apologies. Were you resting?”

“No.” She made a face at him. “I’m tired of resting. And I
don’t
need to keep resting that much. I was actually
reading
, thank you. What’s up? What did I do now?”

He frowned. “It wasn’t you.” Then he shook his head. “I must go.”

Before she could say another word, he was gone, in that familiar flash of light.

Silence weighed his options.

He could risk being seen by going in now, saving the policemen inside the building, while forcing to Will deal with the fallout.

Or he could take some time to plan, figure out a better way inside that wouldn’t involve him being seen, but it would probably mean some of the hostages would die.

None of them were ideal.

He was fifty yards away, watching from the relative anonymity of the crowd, a pair of black shades shielding his eyes as he studied the layout and ran through his decidedly short and limited list of options.

Around him, the crowd was wary, giving him strange looks, and while they weren’t overly obvious with it, none of them wanted to stand too close to him. He was used to it. Mortals were never particularly comfortable around him. They hadn’t been comfortable around him even in life.

He was acutely aware of the looks they gave him, acutely aware of the distance they worked to give him.

When he felt a familiar ripple in the air, he frowned. Moments later, Will emerged from the crowd, coming to stand next to him. Silence might have been a little thrown off by his appearance, if he’d care enough.

Will wasn’t in his trademark white—like Silence, he wore dark, utilitarian clothes, his silvery hair pulled back into a tight club and tucked under his shirt.

“You don’t need to be here,” Will said shortly. “I’ll handle this.”

Silence shook his head. He’d allowed this—he should have been more careful.

“Don’t you have something
else
you’d rather be doing?”

Silence sighed. Then he signed, automatically using the language they’d used before he learned ASL.
Yes. But this is where I belong—I made mistakes here and I won’t let mortals suffer for them. And I suspect this is God’s way of telling me I
shouldn’t
be doing something else. After all, it was right when I was leaving to go after her…no coincidence, that
.

“Don’t be a fool.”

That’s exactly why I’m here
.

Will swore. Then he shook his head. “Let’s get out of the crowd. I’ll get us inside and we’ll deal with this—maybe then you can think clearly again, and then you can go do what you need to be doing.”

But as they made their way out of the crowd, an icy-cold sense of foreboding flooded Silence. He found himself thinking about Vanya. He wished he would have told her—even if it was only once—that she’d mattered to him. A lot. In ways no other ever had.

In less than five minutes, Will had found a place remote and quiet, and Silence waited as he formed his doorway. Just before they would have passed through, he caught Will’s arm.

If I fall—will you do me a favor?

Will narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to fall. And if you have words for your woman, you’ll give them to her yourself.”

Silence shook his head.
Something dark and cold looms before me
.

“Perhaps it’s the fate that awaits you if you push her away.”

He stared at the other Grimm, waited.

“Silence…” Then he sighed. “Yes. If that’s your wish. But if you fall, you know I can follow you, and I will. I’ll follow you and make your resting days a nightmare. You’ll have no peace—know that.”

I’ve never known peace—why should I expect that to change
?

Then he signed a simple message, thankful, for once, that he didn’t need to rely on his voice. Because the knot in his throat wouldn’t have allowed him to speak anyway.

Will nodded and then looked away. “But you’re not going to fall, damn it. It’s a nest of succubae. If we can’t handle that, there’s a problem.”

She was bleeding, bruised and pretty sure that she’d broken something—or several somethings.

The good news was that the demon in front of her was in the same shape.

The bad news—and no, the injuries weren’t the bad news—he was getting pissed.

The couch went airborne as he stalked her through the little house. Thankfully the hotel wasn’t connected to the office, currently located in said trashed house, but it wouldn’t be long before somebody heard them, she feared. Heard them. Reported them.

It wouldn’t be the hotel owner and his wife, though.

She’d just glimpsed them busting ass out of there, speeding off in a truck like the hounds of hell were after them.

“You just lost your lunch,” she said, smiling at him despite the way it made her busted lip hurt.

He snarled at her. “I’ll make do with you.”

“Haven’t you figured it out?” She laughed at him. “You
can’t
. I’m useless to you, as far as food goes.”

“Then I’ll just rip your guts out and fuck your corpse,” he said grimly. “You’ll be good for something.”

She saw his muscles coiling and she braced herself, waited until he was sailing through the air before she shifted and brought her staff up. He still managed to twist away, right before he would have impaled himself on it too—damn it.

He laughed at her as she stumbled away. “You’re good, you little bitch. But you’re not good enough.”

She suspected he was right.

Her hands were slipping on the weapon too, and this time, when he came for her, she didn’t move in time. He managed to wrench it away, hurling it across the room. The blow to her stomach that followed had her doubled over. The one to the back of her head sent her sprawling to the floor.

He crouched over her and she cringed as he eyed the silver chain around her neck.

“Well, well, well…I had a feeling,” he muttered. “But, baby, they should have trained you better. You’re not good enough to be out on your own yet.”

“What makes you think she’s alone?”

Chapter Nine

They didn’t dare use the shadows yet.

Not until they knew what the succubae were doing with the cops.

Although guessing by the breathy moans and hoarse grunts, it wasn’t hard to figure out.

Up ahead, something lay on the middle of the floor.

Something slippery, wet…and broken. It had been a man, once, although it was hard to tell at first. Guilt tore at Silence and he closed his eyes. He should have taken more care last night.

Will touched his shoulder. When he looked at him, Will signed slowly,
You were worried for Vanya—your concerns were for her
.

Silence shook his head and didn’t answer. It was no excuse.

He could have gotten her out of here and returned.

His carelessness had led to this.

As they drew closer to the sounds of sex, he drew his battle axe.
I’ll deal with them if you’ll handle the mortals, get them someplace where they can be rescued with the smallest chance of exposing us.

Will gave a short nod and signed,
We need to distract them, draw them out. Any ideas?

Silence smiled grimly and lifted his axe. Slowly, methodically, he started to thump the flat of it against the wall.

“Subtle,” Will muttered, shaking his head.

As far as Silence was concerned,
subtle
could get fucked.

She didn’t know that voice.

Rolling her head to the side, she glimpsed a face—nope. Didn’t know the face either. But something about the man standing in the doorway made her breathe easier—or at least she would have, except for the agony of the broken ribs.

They were healing, knitting together—she could even
feel
that, but damn, it still hurt—she hurt more now than she had when she’d taken a beating as a human.

The demon turned and looked at the stranger.

“Oh. It’s you. I thought I’d killed you.”

The man gave him a boyish, charming smile. “Oh, I’m hard to kill…apparently even harder than you.”

“Hmmm. What’s it going to be this time, Grimm?” The demon cast a glance down at her.

Vanya shuddered, forced herself to her hands and knees. She didn’t like the speculation in that thing’s eyes. Not at all.

He bent to grab her and she gathered her strength, forced herself to roll away. It wasn’t graceful and it wasn’t pretty, but it put a few feet between them. Spitting the blood in her mouth onto the floor, she sneered at him. “Find another bargaining tool,” she suggested.

The other man laughed—man…Grimm?

The pendant between her breasts heated.

“Oh, you’re feisty. I like that,” he said.

“How sweet of you.” She panted, pressed a hand to her side. “Do you know this asshole?”

“Sadly, yeah. Been trailing after him for a few months. He’s slippery.” Then he smiled. “He’s not getting away this time.”

The demon grinned. “Don’t so sure.”

Then he blinked—looked stupidly down at his chest.

He was staring at the same thing Vanya was staring at—the large, bleeding hole there.

As he toppled to the ground, his face lifeless and slack, Vanya looked back at the Grimm and saw him tucking a gun into a holster that made her think of tumbleweeds, shootouts and saloons. “A gun? I can use a gun? That was too damn easy,” she muttered, fully aware of the borderline whine creeping into her voice.

“That’s why a lot of the older bastards don’t like them. Me, I’m all for the ‘line ’em up, shoot ’em down’ premise. Of course, the first time I caught this one he was in a crowd—can’t go shooting people down in public anymore.” The man frowned, tugged at his lower lip. “People freak out about that.”

Vanya gave him a weak smile. “Imagine that…” She grunted and struggled to her feet, swaying a little. More blood gushed from the ragged wound in her side.

Her unexpected rescuer scowled. “He really did a number on you. How new are you, anyway?”

“Changed over a few months ago.” Her mouth felt horribly dry. And her tongue felt thick. She squinted at him, but his face was wavering back and forth in front of her.

She stumbled, saw the floor speeding up to meet her. But then hands caught her. Steadied her. She gasped as pain flooded her entire body.

“Sorry.”

“’S okay. Maybe…ah, I think maybe I should siddown or sumpin,” she mumbled, looking up at him.

He had freckles, she noticed. Strange thing to notice.. He had freckles and coppery-colored eyes, coppery-colored hair that matched those coppery freckles. And he looked like he ought to be smiling, all the time. But he wasn’t smiling now.

“You can’t sit, lady. Damn. A few months. We have to get out of here.
Now
.”

“Huh?”

She looked down, staring at the body on the floor. “But ish—
it’s
dead.”

“I’m getting your things. Then we’ll get out of here. Damn it, this is a mess. Going to have to clean it up too…”

Her head started to spin.

The last thing she remembered was that she still needed to yell at Silence.

Finn caught her before she could collapse.

He had her blood all over him. She was healing too slow.

“Damn it, why are you alone right now?” he muttered.

She should have had somebody with her for another few years.

He didn’t have time to worry about that right now, though. He wasn’t even supposed to
be
here, really. Just chasing after the now-dead orin. Why there was a broken, abandoned baby Grimm in his arms, that was a mystery he’d have to figure out later, after he’d cleaned up the mess.

Of course, his idea of cleaning up was messy.

She was tucked into his car across the street when the flames started. Finn remained close by, keeping the fire hot and bright until the central area was destroyed—all but the body of the demon. Enough remained of him for the family to identify and bury if they wanted, but he knew too much about this orin—he’d killed his kid sister a few months back, and the parents knew. They wouldn’t want him. Once he was sure the fire had burned hot enough to destroy any other possible evidence, he used his power to dampen it then extinguish it.

As he strode back to his car, he felt a touch on his mind.

I hope you were careful
.

“Hiya, Will!” he said cheerfully. Will hated the way he liked to burn things.

Were you?

“Hey, I’m always careful.”

There was a sigh.
You’ve got a young Grimm with you, yes?

As he opened the door to his car, he paused then shrugged. After more than a hundred years, you’d think he’d be used to how Will seemed to see all, know all. He wasn’t. “Yeah, I got her. She’s a mess too. You need to come get her, figure out what’s going on. She shouldn’t be on her own yet.”

Right now, she’s your responsibility. I’m…otherwise engaged
.