Grimm Tidings: Grimm's Circle, Book 6 (2 page)

Perhaps he was here for this woman…

She could handle the journey one had to take to go from human to Grimm. He knew that in a way only he could know.

Shifting his gaze down to her, he pushed into the woman’s fading mind and offered her the choice. He’d never done it with one so close to death, with one who had no idea what he was…what
they
were.

Even angels make mistakes.

Now…

“The whole damn city is infested,” Celine muttered as she followed her trainer into a crowded mall south of Cincinnati. It was in Kentucky, and being so close to home made her heart ache.

The good news—judging by how many fricking demons there were, she was going to have her hands too full to think for a while.

“Which is why we are here,” Jacob said, his voice flat, level. Just as always. He was a cool, icy son of a bitch, one who showed absolutely no emotion. Ever. In the past nine months, she’d never once heard him raise his voice, never seen him angry, never seen him laugh, never seen him smile.

Not that I really care
, she told herself. But it was hard to get booted to another trainer when she couldn’t piss him off. And she wanted to get booted. Again. And again. Until they gave up on her and let her go.

She never should have agreed to this…

“Watch for groups of them. We need to see who they are targeting,” Jacob said quietly. “And keep yourself cloaked.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, master.” She wasn’t
new
at this. But she didn’t bother pointing that out because it wouldn’t do any good. Cloaking herself kept her unseen by human—and demon—eyes. Demons. It had only been a few years ago when she hadn’t even known they existed. And now she fought and killed them. Now she was a reluctant guardian angel in a paranormal army.

It was disconcerting, even now, to see the demons. She eyed one that wore the body of a girl who was probably barely out of her teenaged years. She’d have to be adult—or mostly. Stripped of her innocence in some way. Jaded. Demons couldn’t inhabit all bodies. They could only enter with an invitation, although the invitation wasn’t always worded so clearly.

It wasn’t like people would just go,
Hello, demon. Yes, you can take over my body, even though it’s going to end up killing me…

It happened slowly. Insidiously. Through random, reckless wishes and careless words and cruelty. That was what drew the demons near. And then seductive whisperings…

Wouldn’t you like to be strong?

Wouldn’t you like to stay young forever?

Wouldn’t you like to fuck like a sex god?

By the time a person realized things weren’t right, it was very often too late. Once a demon had fully settled inside a mortal body, they
possessed
it, completely. The only way to end a possession was through the death of the mortal coil.

Kids, and a few select other people, were protected against demonic invasions. They still possessed an innocence demons couldn’t break. The stronger-willed were a harder lot for demons to take over as well.

Next to her, Jacob slowed and took a slow study of the crowd. “What do you see?”

“Young people,” Celine murmured, scowling as another demon with a pretty, barely adult face strutted past.

“More than that, please.”

She sighed, skimming a hand back over her hair. “A lot of demons in here—twenty, easy. And almost every one I’ve seen is young. That’s weird.”

“The young don’t keep their innocence the way they used to.”

“They shouldn’t
all
be young.” She paused as she watched a guy coming out of Hot Topic. He was dressed all in blank, including his lipstick. A girl came up to him. Demon clung to the girl. The boy took one look at her and spun on his wheel, heading the other direction as fast as his long, skinny legs could carry him.
Smart boy
.

“He sees the demon in her,” Jacob said, noticing her attention on the boy before shifting his elsewhere. “Many do. They don’t fully realize
what
they see, but they see something. The smart ones steer clear.”

Which means we’ve got a lot of fools around us
. Of course, she wasn’t surprised by that.
 

She knew what a demon dressed in mortal clothing looked like though. She knew it intimately. She’d seen it…felt it. Hurt from it. Died from it.

That madness, that blackness, that
evil
had been the last thing she’d ever seen…until it was too late.

Too late to go back to her life…too late for everything.

Once more, the fury started to whisper in her blood. And once more, she fed it, nurtured it. “Are we here to walk around or kill things?” she demanded.

“You have no patience.” Jacob continued to walk.

And that was about all the answer she’d get from him too. She thought about just
leaving
. She could find a few demons of her own to kill. But he was better at it. If she wanted to kill more than one or two at a time, she should stick with him.

Shit.

So she’d stay with him. But she wasn’t playing the good little pupil bit anymore. As her mind started to drift, she let it. It circled, back to the past…back to when her life had been something…
more
.

Then…

“There is more to life than this, old friend.”

Jacob sat across from a man who had been his friend for a lifetime…no. Longer.

After all, Jacob was dead.

At least, as far as the world was concerned. They had done all the trappings associated with a person’s death, the mourning, although only Ben had mourned him.

It had been more than a decade, and only one friend to mourn his passing. How pathetic.

Strangely, though, more people knew of him ten years
after
his death. Thanks to that bloody novel. Not that his name had been Jacob Marley.

No, in his life, he had been called Jacob Clarke. His friend had been called Benjamin Allen. He supposed
Clarke
and
Allen
hadn’t had enough of a dramatic bent for the novelist. Both of them had been miserly bastards—Jacob had come to realize that in the years since his…death.

Although Benjamin hadn’t always been. Not until he lost the woman.
 

Jacob had never met her, nor did he wish to. He did remember how his friend had been when they’d first met—a laughing, jovial lad. And then it had changed. Slowly. If the changes the woman had wrought on Ben were the risks, Jacob was happier without them.

The fairer sex hadn’t ever been a big necessity in his life, not any longer than a night or two, at least. He did enjoy those nights.

But that was all he’d needed.

His life had been focused on his business, the one he’d built with Ben. They had lived for making money, and more money, and more. Then Jacob had found himself in a position where he simply wasn’t going to live as he had anymore. Or he wouldn’t live at all.

The idea of death hadn’t appealed to him. The idea of giving up the life he’d known had appealed even less. But he’d had little choice. He’d walked in on a fight that hadn’t been his own and one thing he’d always enjoyed almost as much as money…a bloody fight. That one had been bloodier than most and if he’d stopped to think, he would have realized it wasn’t a normal fight.

But he hadn’t stopped and by the time he’d figured it out, he’d been bleeding from too many places. As his life’s blood spilled out of him, the vicious battle in front of him had ended and the victors had turned to face him. One had been curious—a lean man with a naked scalp and a biting intelligence in his eyes. The other man’s face had been impassive.

The choice had been given then. There was a world Jacob hadn’t ever dreamed about, and he could join it. Angels. Demons. Death. He could become one of the angels, one of the Grimm. He could kill the demons. Or he could let nature take its course and he’d die of the wounds he’d taken. The choice was his.

Jacob should have taken the death.

The one reason he didn’t completely regret it was that he could look back at the waste of his life—now, years later—and see it as a waste. And perhaps convince Benjamin to find something else.

Something more. Before it was too late.

“Don’t you think you should stop living this empty mockery and find something that makes you happy?”

Benjamin lifted his mug to his mouth, shrewd eyes set under bushy gray brows. “Happy? Like you are?” He snorted.

“Have I ever told you I’m happy?”

Instead of answering, Benjamin took a deep drink of the ale he’d come to love—too much. It had aged him. The ale, the grief, the loneliness. Perhaps all of it. He looked like an old man now and he should have had years still left in him.

But he did not.

Sighing, Jacob rose from his chair.

“
You
should be happy,” Ben said, staring into his ale. “That fool published his piece of drivel and made you rather famous. I actually tried to pay him
not
to, but he insisted.” Benjamin’s mouth twisted. “I’m a laughing stock.”

“I thought you said he had changed the names.”

“Oh, he has.
Ebenezer
.”

Jacob lifted a shoulder. What did he care? Save for Benjamin, nobody knew Jacob was still alive—nobody knew how much truth the story held. Most people who
had
known him in life had likely forgotten about him.

Except for Ben. And one night, Ben had spent too much time in his cups. That night, he’d been drunk when he’d spoken a little too freely with somebody he never should have spoken to at all. And of course, that fault lie with Jacob. He never should have returned here all those years ago, never should have sought out his old friend.

But he had done so, had continued to do so, and over time, he’d told Benjamin more than he should have. Then Ben had told somebody else more than he should have—a novelist, one far too intrigued by Ben’s supposed drunken ramblings.

Well, they
were
drunken. They just weren’t as…insane as one might think.

It wasn’t until months later that Ben saw the novelist again and heard what the man planned to do—work some of Ben’s story into a tale of his own. Oh, there were
other
inspirations. And the novelist already had some success. Nobody could trace the piece back to Ben, and nobody, save for Ben, knew how much truth lie in the tale.

Well, nobody except for those like Jacob. The truth was actually far more bizarre, Jacob knew.

He never should have sought Ben out. If he hadn’t been so bloody lonely in this new life.

Pacing the floor, his booted heels muffled on the lush, but dusty, carpeted floors, he went to stare out the window. A cold rain fell—a typical London afternoon. He’d spent the past two months in Africa. The heat had driven him mad. He missed London. He missed his old life. His missed his friend.

My friend…the only true friend I have.

How pathetic. But it was his own fault. He hadn’t settled into his life because he hadn’t let himself. He needed to fix that. He simply lacked the energy to care. Ennui could even haunt angels, it seemed.

Turning, he looked at Benjamin. An old man now. Made old by bitterness, loneliness, grief; an empty life.

Soon, Ben would be gone. Jacob had seen it when he’d first seen him earlier.

Benjamin was not just aging poorly. He was ill. An air of weakness, illness hung on him.

He’d die before he’d ever really enjoyed his life.

And that strange tugging unfurled inside him. He felt the ghosts that haunted his friend pulling at him once more.

Ghosts, regrets, loneliness…they were all one to Jacob—this unwelcome gift that had emerged only within the past year.

Now…

Her ghosts were pulling at her harder than normal. Jacob sighed as they slipped out of the now-silent house. Something in the mall had set her off, but he didn’t know what. Nor would he let himself look.

Celine needed her privacy. Just as she’d needed this fight, he imagined.

There had been three parasei there.

All were dead now.

Celine had killed two of them. After he’d dispatched the first one, he’d stood back and let her handle the other two, knowing she needed it. The fight was all that mattered to her.

The fight, the push to drive memories and pain from her mind. But this one hadn’t been hard enough for her. The harder the fight, the easier it was for her to forget for a while. Or maybe she pretended she’d actually be able to
lose
the fight. It would take more than a few demons to do her in, though.

“You did well,” he said quietly as she cleaned her weapons.

Under the close-fitting black sweater she wore, her shoulders tensed. But she didn’t say anything.

She rarely spoke to him.

Even after all this time.

She didn’t speak unless she had to.

She didn’t let him help her.