A series of muggings and car thefts had been plaguing the city of Portland.
These thefts would occur in broad daylight outside crowded stores and in busy parking lots. The thieves would always target women who had their hands full of packages, and unable to defend themselves in the slightest.
The thieves would also make sure to take purses with the victim's wallet and cellphone, forcing the woman to go call for help from another location and allowing the thieves plenty of time to get away.
Nick and Hank were assigned to the case and met up with the latest victim, who was crying hysterically as they approached her.
"What am I going to do? They took everything! The kids will have nothing for Christmas!"
Her grief caused her to go in and out of a woge, and Nick saw she was an eisbiber.
She must have seen his eyes and realized he was a grimm, because her eyes got wide. But instead of getting even more scared and shrinking away, her face lit up brighter than Christmas lights and she declared happily, "You're the grimm! The good grimm of Portland who is very good to eisbiber!"
Nick smiled at her warmly. He really enjoyed it when wesen didn't shriek from him in terror or try to kill him, and always preferred when they had already heard of him and trusted him to do what was right.
It always made his job, and his day, a lot easier.
Case in point, with the woman trusting him, and not trembling in fear, she would be able to be comfortable enough to give him and Hank a description of the assailants.
"They were scalengects." The woman, whose name was Ellen Parker, said angrily. "They were laughing about how easy it was to go after lesser wesen."
By lesser, Nick believed the men were really saying docile. All of the wesen that had been those whose nature was usually mild mannered. Mauzhertz, willahara, and eisbiber had been the primary wesen targeted.
Of course, Nick knew by first hand experience that not all wesen fit the in the category others put them in. And he believed that it was mostly due to the fact the women were tired from hours of shopping and had been caught off guard that had really made them such easy targets.
Unfortunately, they couldn't use the fact that the assailants were scalengects to catch them. Nick and Hank needed to know what their human forms were, and the wesen alway woged before attacking, making it very difficult to find them.
But this time they had made a mistake. Nick noticed some blood under Ellen's nails.
"Were you able to scratch one of your attackers?"
She looked at her hand. "I guess I did. Good, I hope it gets infected."
Nick grinned. "Mrs. Parker. I think you might have gotten what we need to catch these guys."
"I take it we're going to be calling your wife?" Hank asked with a knowing smirk.
"My wife, Adalind, is a powerful hexenbiest." The grimm explained to the mugging victim. "I think she might be able to create a tracking spell. We'll not only be able to arrest these guys, but also maybe find the items they stole."
Nick scraped the blood and skin from under Mrs. Parker's fingernails off into a cloth handkerchief Adalind always insisted he have with him. Then he called his wife and explained to her what happened and what he needed her to do.
She of course readily agreed to help and told Nick of a spell that would give him the ability to see where the former owner of the removed blood and skin was located. The ingredients would be mixed in a copper bowl and images would appear of where the person had been most often, it would be as if they were seeing through the thief's eyes. Hopefully, they would be able to find an address.
The group met at the spice shop, where Rosalee helped Adalind with the spell that would help Nick and Hank find the Christmas bandits.
"How are we going to explain how we found these guys?" Hank asked. "We can't exactly say your wife used her magic to track them down."
"We'll just say a reliable source who wishes to remain anonymous tipped us off to the thieves location." Nick replied with a smirk. "It's sort of the truth."
Luck was on their side and it was very easy to identify the location of the criminals and their hideout.
Nick thanked his wife by wrapping her tightly in his arms, kissing her passionately and promising to really thank her later that night.
The looks on the thieves faces when a grimm came bursting through their door was a hilarious Christmas present in both detectives opinions.
Another added bonus was discovering the thieves had not yet sold off a single one of the items they had stolen.
The arrest was called in and the items were returned to the victims.
All of the families were very grateful and kept asking what they could do to thank the detectives, but Nick and Hank both insisted they were just doing their job and were happy everything had turned out alright.
Then, as she was signing the paperwork declaring her stolen items had been returned to her, Ellen Parker overheard the wonderful grimm say to his partner. "I'm telling you, now that this case is wrapped up, all I want to do is curl up in bed with Adalind and just live there till Christmas morning."
Mrs. Parker decided to tell the other eisbiber what she had overheard. Not only would they be able to thank the grimm, but also his wife for using her abilities to help.
One week later, Adalind was putting the groceries away when Nick walked into the kitchen with a look on his face that was a strange mixture of nervousness and like he was holding in laughter.
"Honey, apparently, the eisbiber were insistent on thanking Hank and us for catching those muggers. Hank called and told me he has enough gift baskets to provide an army. But they must have decided to go a different route with us."
Adalind furrowed her brows and asked slowly, very concerned about what was in store, "What did the eisbiber do?"
"Come upstairs and see." Nick said with a far too big grin on his face.
As it turned out, that grin was the perfect size, because it matched the far too big bed that was now in the master bedroom.
Ten feet wide and twelve feet long, the bed took up over half of the room. A small comfort was that the eisbiber had provided sheet sets and blankets, as well as a mattress of course, to fit the size of the new far too large bed.
"This bed is ridiculous." Adalind said. "How did they even get it in here?"
"I think they built in in the room." Nick explained.
"In one afternoon!"
"It's amazing what an army of eisbiber can accomplish."
Nick looked his new bed over and said. "I'm not sure if they're trying to keep us from having any more kids, by making sure we have plenty of space between us, or ensuring we have a lot more babies by making it impossible to reach for the condoms in our nightstand drawer if we are making love in the middle of the bed."
"With how big that bed is, we could have six more kids and three large dogs all in with us and still have room for a few cats. I think the eisbiber believe we're going to have a large family." Adalind looked at her husband pointedly. "I wonder what gave them that idea."
Nick shrugged, but had a devilish smirk on his face when he said, "I think Hank, or Wu might have said about me not being able to take my hands off of you."
"Oh, Hank and Wu said something?" Adalind spoke as if she didn't believe that for a moment.
Instead of confirming or denying her suspicions, Nick told his wife, pulling her in his arms, "The Worstners have offered to keep the kids tonight, so you and I can enjoy are new bed."
With a different sort of smile on her face, Adalind wrapped her arms around her husband's neck and said, "Well, if they want to be that generous, the least we can do is appreciate their gesture."