Read Grimm: The Killing Time for Free Online Page B

worse since he’d become aware of his identity as a Grimm. He had a tendency to think that, until proven otherwise, everyone he met was Wesen and potentially dangerous. He didn’t want to think like this, though. It wasn’t a healthy way to live, let alone do his job properly. “Innocent until proven guilty” wasn’t just a legal maxim when you were a cop. It was an important reminder, and he did his best to live by those words as both a cop
and
as a Grimm. Maybe if his ancestors had done the same, they wouldn’t have the bloodthirsty reputation that they did.
    So there’d been a report of something weird happening in the neighborhood tonight, and there was a strange puddle of goo on the sidewalk. That didn’t necessarily mean Wesen were involved. Then again, it didn’t mean they weren’t, either.
    Dana closed the door and locked it. Nick found that odd. In his experience, most people didn’t lock the door after letting the police inside. It might just be a habit, though, especially if she was security-conscious. But this wasn’t a dangerous neighborhood. He mentally shrugged. Who said he was the only one allowed to be a little paranoid?
    The Webbers’ front door led to an open hallway, to the left of which was a small living space consisting of a couch, chair, chrome-and-glass coffee table, and a medium-sized flat-screen TV sitting on top of a wooden stand.
    Dana gestured toward the couch. “Would you like to sit down?”
    “Sure.”
    He took a seat on the couch, and she sat in the chair next to it.
    “According to Sergeant Wu’s notes, you’re married,” Nick said. “Is your husband here?”
    She hesitated. Not long, only a split second, but enough for him to notice.
    “He went to the store.”
    “Really? Because there’s a sack of groceries out in the hall.”
    Another hesitation, a bit longer this time.
    “We needed more ice cream.”
    There was something off about her reply. Not the words themselves, although they were strange enough, but rather the way they sounded. They sounded slurred, as if her mouth had trouble forming them.
    “All you all right?” he asked.
    “Fine. Never better.” It sound like she said
“Ffffine. Neffer bedder.
”
    Her voice was lower now, the words garbled and drawn out, as if it were a recording that was slowing down. Her facial features slacked, the skin sagging as if she were aging before his eyes. No, not aging. More like
melting
. He thought of the goo puddle on the sidewalk that Wu was guarding.
    He stood. “Mrs. Webber, I think you should—”
    “Sorry,” she said. “I tried to keep myself together. I’m so glad I restrained myself and left the other officer alone. You’re a strong one. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever met before. I could sense it when I opened the door. You’ll do just fine.”
    Her head tilted to one side and then the other in a gesture Nick had become very familiar with over the last few years. Her hair withdrew into her skull and her sagging features disappeared as her flesh became a silvery liquid mass. She no longer had eyes, ears, nose, or mouth—just a rippling quicksilver surface that was unlike anything he had ever seen before. If she was Wesen, she was a type new to him. All of her skin had taken on a silvery cast, and she—if she even
was
a she anymore—raised her silver hands and flexed all ten of her fingers in a single spastic motion. Needle-like spines extended from her fingertips, and she leaped out of the chair and came at him.
    Nick had no idea what those finger spines could do, but he didn’t want to find out. Moving with inhuman speed, he grabbed hold of the metal-and-glass coffee table and swung it toward the faceless creature. Glass shattered as the table struck the creature’s outstretched hands, and the impact knocked her to the side. She stumbled and hit the TV, knocking it off the stand. Only the metal frame of the coffee table remained in Nick’s hands, and he threw it aside and reached for his