Locked in Silence: Grimm's Circle, Book 5 (3 page)

Once the screams went silent though…they were silent…forever.

Now…

“Where are you going?” Sina asked, watching as Silence packed his things—his weapons. Most of them were axes…he’d always liked his axes.

He answered with a half shrug. Sina knew better than to be bothered by the lack of a better answer. He would know where he was going—Will told him more than he usually told others. Many people did. It was a gift, she supposed, although Silence probably didn’t view it as such.

She supposed some people thought it easier to tell their secrets to a man who had no voice. He wouldn’t be able to tell those secrets, as least not with his voice. Not that Silence was the kind to share secrets, even if he could speak.

It wasn’t just that, though.

Silence had few friends, but there was something about him that compelled others to confide in him, that compelled trust.

Perhaps they looked at him and saw the echoes of the horrors he’d known.

Perhaps they looked at him and knew there was nothing they could say that would shock, horrify or surprise him.

Sina knew that to be true. Nothing horrified him. Nothing shocked him. Nothing surprised him.

Except that was getting ready to change… Silence was in for a surprise, the shock of his life. It wouldn’t horrify him, but he wasn’t going to welcome this.

Sighing, she rolled onto her belly and stared out the window. As far as the eye could see, there were mountains. Tucked away high in the Rockies, her little cabin was unknown to most people. Silence knew, Will, a few select others. But that was all.

And Silence was the only one she’d welcomed into this bed as a lover.

It hurt her heart to realize that last night had been the end for them.

Part of her wondered if it would make it easier for him if she said something…warned him.

But Silence wouldn’t be looking for this.

It was why they had gotten along so well. Neither of them wanted anything more.

Silence needed a woman’s warm body, took comfort in Sina’s presence when the days stretched on endlessly. But he had no desire for love or anything deeper.

Sina’s heart belonged to somebody else.

Yes, they were a good match, neither of them able to promise anything but the pleasure they shared in bed. And friendship.

That friendship was a deep one, strong and true, forged over years…centuries. And she knew him well. Knew the set of his shoulders was tense, knew that his reticence was unusual…even for him.

Sliding from the bed, she walked to him and slipped her arms around his waist.

“You’re not happy.”

Big, scarred hands covered hers and squeezed gently. He tried to nudge her away, but she wasn’t in the mood to be nudged, budged or distracted. Working her way between the bed and him, she caught his face in her hands and made him look at her.

He had the features of an angel—too perfect, far too perfect. His ice-blue eyes met hers as he caught her hands in his. Gently, he squeezed them then let go, signing to her in a language that only existed for some of the Grimm.

It had been one they had created so they could speak with Silence, this man who was trapped in a silence of his own, his voice gone.

Locked in silence—not a way to spend eternity.

Am I ever happy, my lady?

“This is different,” she said, shaking her head.

He sighed, his ice-blue gaze staring off into the distance. His hands moved and Sina watched.

Yes. Something feels
—

He paused, shook his head. Then resumed, his big, scarred hands so fluid, so graceful.
Something is different. There is change coming. A darkness looming.

She wondered at the darkness, although she suspected that was just the change he sensed, and his own misgivings. Once he made it through this, if he could simply accept it, his days wouldn’t be taking a turn for the darker, but for the brighter…the better. Lucky bastard.

Her heart ached for her friend as his eyes returned to hers and she saw the fear in his gaze. He’d never admit it, that fear. But she saw it, felt it even as it swelled inside him.

Silence had never handled change all that well…and with the touch of precognition that he had, it was enough for some part of him to realize this change was big. It would make it harder, make him dread it all the more.

Reaching up, she touched his cheek.

“Everything changes. We’ve lived long enough to know that, lover.”

With a soundless laugh, he shook his head.
Yes. Everything changes. And nothing changes. That much I know. But this—something feels different. I do not want to go on this mission, Sina. In my soul, I feel that everything is about to change.

“Would that truly be a bad thing?”

He stiffened and pulled away, going to stare out the window. He braced his hands on the sill, bowed his head. With his broad back rigid, he stood there.

She could feel the turmoil inside him, although she didn’t allow herself to pry. She didn’t need to, truly. As long as she had known him, she suspected she knew what he was thinking.

Slowly, he turned, facing her. His eyes stared into hers, and she saw the torment of centuries of memories burning in his eyes.
Any time my life has taken a drastic change, Sina, has it brought me pleasure? Or more pain?

Sina didn’t answer.

They both knew the answer.

In his mortal life, the first major change in his life had come when he had been a child, and he’d developed those unusual…gifts. Or curses.

He had been brutalized, beaten, tortured by people who thought his unusual abilities marked him as some spawn of Satan. The injuries brought upon him were so grievous they rendered him mute, locked him in silence for eternity.

He would have been put to death, but a so-called man of God had taken him, said he’d try to save the boy’s soul. What happened for the next few years were things that Silence had never told anybody.

Sina knew, though, and she knew enough to tell her that unless that so-called man of God had come to see the error of his ways before his untimely death, his sorry ass was burning in hell.

She’d seen the memories locked in the back of Silence’s mind, nightmares he never shared. Years of torture, humiliation and horror that ended when he snapped and killed his abuser—another change, one that led to years where he lived alone, hardly more than an animal, unable to speak, hardly seen by people, tormented by his memories, terrified by the gift that had led to all his problems.

Then a chance at happiness, what he’d hoped was friendship, only to be betrayed and imprisoned yet again. A decade, he’d spent locked away, and it was there that Will came to him.

Even the change from mortal to Grimm hadn’t been easy—many of the others shied away from the big, strange, silent man…he’d spent too much time on his own in life and rarely interacted with others. Rarely cared enough to try.

And it showed.

No, Silence had every reason to not welcome change.

She understood.

But there was no way she could soothe him. Not now.

If he had any idea what was coming for him, he’d fight it. Perhaps even run from it.

Then…

It was cold.

It was hungry.

The scent of food was the only reason it left the warmth of its cave. The smell of meat cooking tickled something in its mind, something that almost made it smile. It saw somebody in its head, a memory forgotten until that moment.
Mother…
it had called her Mother. It saw her bent over the fire, stirring something that smelled like cooking meat.

Thinking of Mother made its chest hurt.

It hadn’t thought of her in so long. Creeping through the forest, it wondered if it could find her.

Dirty hair, so long it almost touched its waist, hung in its face. It did not understand why, but when it passed the water, it stopped and cupped some in its hand, splashed it on its face.
Cold…so cold
…

It didn’t matter, though, because Mother liked it clean.

So it did it again and again then twisted, dipped its head in the water. Mother didn’t like it when it got dirty. It…

It frowned and peered into the water, waited for the surface to calm. It…

Not
it
.

He
.

And
he
had a name…

Mother had called him something…what had she called him?

He did not remember. He closed his eyes, tears burning them. He sniffled, and when he did, the scent of the cooking meat filled his senses again. Made him think of Mother.

Rising, he started to walk.

When he heard the scream, he started to run.

Mother…?

He burst into the clearing, silent as death. His eyes scanned around, searching for Mother. She wasn’t there. But he saw a woman, several men—most of the men were dead. The woman was being held down.

Mother…

It wasn’t her, but in that moment, it didn’t matter.

She had been cooking, and these men wanted to hurt her.

From the corner of his eye, he saw something gleam.

An axe—he knew what it was, for he had seen his father using one many times. Snarling, he grabbed it and lunged.

Now…

When he stepped from Will’s pathway, Silence lingered long enough to glance back at his friend.

Will smiled at him. It wasn’t much of a smile—hardly one Silence could call reassuring.

“Go on,” he said, adding on a name that Silence automatically tuned out. He didn’t answer to that name, didn’t respond to it—hated to even hear it. He’d been nameless so very long, and then out of the blue Sina had started calling him Silence—Silence was all he would answer to now.

But Will was a bastard who liked to poke at old wounds.

I’m not cut out to teach—how am I to speak to her?
he signed, shaking his head.

Will cocked a brow. “You know as well as I do this isn’t really something I decide. I do what I’m told—the same as you. But if I was told to send you here, then it was for good reason. Have faith in that.”

Silence smirked. Faith. He didn’t have faith in much of anything anymore. Faith had fucked him over too many times. But he did trust Will. Mostly. Sighing, he looked toward the warehouse looming over him. He felt the punch of power, evil, lust and death emanating from it—incubae, succubae. Riding high on their power as they sucked it through their drones.

And somewhere in that was his human.

Somebody he was to teach. To train.

After, of course, he’d let him or her die.

This wasn’t going to be a fun night.

He broke in through the fourth-floor window.

The punch of their power was stronger here—a lot stronger. It was an arousing, uncomfortable itch that flowed over his skin and stiffened his cock even as it made him wish he had a swimming pool of bleach he could go immerse himself in. That might be enough to clear their noxious power from his pores, but he didn’t think so.

At least he no longer had that overpowering effect where he felt like he had to have sex or die—he was immune to that much, at least. Still, he hated succubae, incubae. Damn parasites. Sexual ticks—worse. And there was never just a couple of them because they didn’t like to travel in small groups—always had to be in large groups. The weaker ones—the drones—siphoned energy from their lovers and they fed their stolen power to their leader.

It was a living, breathing orgy—an unclean one.

As he made his way through the darkness and silence of the top floor, he drew his axe. Absently, he stroked a thumb along the blade—lightly. Wouldn’t do to draw blood. Not this close. They couldn’t hear him unless he made noise, and he wouldn’t. They couldn’t sense him—the Grimm were naturally able to dampen their presence. But drawing blood around a demon—might as well do it in shark-infested waters.

Of course, sharks were a quicker, cleaner way to go.

He extended his senses, focusing. How many…

One. Two—eight. Ten.

He could handle those odds.

And the human—female.

He winced automatically. He’d hoped for a man. He didn’t want to train a woman—didn’t want to stand by and watch a woman die, either.

A soft voice, low and husky, drifted up. It was a nice voice, he thought. And since it didn’t make his eardrums shudder, cringe and long for more Clorox, he already knew whose it belonged to—his human.

“I’ve got a better idea—why don’t you just bite me?”

He snorted and shook his head. Bad words to say to a sex demon—anything that could be taken remotely sexual, they would.

Somebody laughed, and the sound of it made his skin crawl. Worse, the power he felt throb in the air was strong.

The queen—his human was talking to the queen.

Edging to the railing, he peered out of the shadows down to the lower level. It was set up to resemble something like a porn scene. Beds, several of them. A rack that looked part medieval torture device and sex toy—although why a person would willingly go on that, he didn’t know. He’d done his time on the real rack and there wasn’t anything one could say that would get him back on one, no matter the sexual enticement offered.

His sexual tastes might sometimes run to the perverse, but a rack? No. Just…no. Looking at it, even thinking of seeing his human on it was enough to make him want to use one of his larger axes and hack it into splinters.

His human was being backed up, closer and closer to it.

She had a knife in her hand—long, closer to a sword than a knife, but it wasn’t going to do much good against that many of the demonic. The bodies the succubae and incubae possessed became stronger, and even if she could hold her own against a couple…well, ten was too much to ask of any mortal.

Still, there was something about the way she held it that made him think she knew how to use it.

Demons didn’t like pain more than anybody else, and they could be killed—not the way mortals could, but if she dealt a killing blow, their souls would be sucked back to the netherplains. It weakened them, and if they survived, it would take them a good long while to try to cross back over into this world.