"Oh god, not again..." whimpered Rachel.
She quickly raced to the medicine cabinet and dry swallowed a single off-color pill. It was the last in the glass bottle. She stared at the face in the mirror.
It looked like something out of a really bad zombie movie. The face was sunken in, the eyes were almost desiccated, the mouth had a large patch of skin missing like it had been rotted off, the teeth were dirty as if it had been buried for a long time. The hair was faded, as if the head it belonged to were old. Really old.
All in all, not something you'd want to see in the mirror a lot.
The face and hair shifted as the medicine kicked in.
Skin filled out, the eyes went back to a more pleasant forest green, the mouth became plump and full, the teeth straight and pearly white and the hair became a deep red almost like fire in the right light.
A major improvement from what was in the mirror before.
"I hate it when I run out," she muttered.
It was her curse. Because her father married a Grimm and didn't know about his own mother's heritage, she was stuck in between worlds. And thanks to her grandmother's heritage, she had to take certain painkiller to calm it down so it didn't bring her debilitating pain.
Really, after all the crap she went through until she finally had enough and left, she would get stuck finding out the hard way her grandmother was a Hexenbiest and the gene just happened to pass to HER after her father married a Grimm.
And of course, the other half of her heritage just had to wake up after the damn war. As if they needed another reason to come after her blood. Just when she had gotten used to her Grimm heritage too.
Still, leaving Europe was the best decision of her life.
She noticed her clock.
"Shit! I'm going to be late for work!"
She grabbed the vial and put it in her bag. It was a good thing her new job covered...unusual...prescriptions. The health insurance was great!
Though considering she worked as an on-again, off-again police officer whenever they needed extra manpower, it wasn't surprising. Most of the time she was the on-duty sketch artist and linguist. She only had the badge because she didn't want to be on the sidelines if they needed the help, and so she could arrest people if she had to and make it stick.
She would just have to hope the medicine kept working until she could make a lunch run.
Roselee Calvert was a little bored. She had ended up with her brother's shop when he was murdered. While she didn't mind running an apothecary, the fact she had to pick up the pieces after Freddy was killed by a pair of junkies had left a sour taste in her mouth.
Still, she had a job to do...especially with the call she just got this morning.
Whoever had to take this prescriptions had to be in a lot of pain to need this dosage. Especially if they needed a painkiller only Wesen could take.
It was around one that someone came in.
"Excuse me, I called in a prescription?"
"You must be Rachel, I'm Rosalee."
"Please tell me it's ready."
"Almost. Just need to add one last ingredient."
Rachel looked openly relieved.
"May I ask what this is for?"
"Persistent migraines. Whenever one hits, the pain makes it hard for me to do anything but wait until it passes...or I pass out."
"If you don't mind, I just need to confirm you're Wesen before I sell this. This particular painkiller..."
"Deadly to humans, I know. Freddy had me do this the first time I came asking for help, and I nearly gave him a heart attack," sighed Rachel.
Rosalee didn't understand why that would be...until the woman Woged. She would openly admit she jumped a little when she revealed she was a Hexenbiest.
"I would make it myself, but I'm not that great at potions. And I wouldn't know who to ask for help in learning," admitted Rachel. To change the awkwardness of the moment, she asked "So are you a Fuchsbau like Freddy was?"
"Freddy was my brother."
"He was a good man. Made an idiot mistake trusting those vultures, but still a good person."
"So why would a Hexenbiest need something this strong for migraines?"
"Opposing natures. One half of my heritage really, really doesn't like the other half, and unfortunately while it skipped my dad it hit me pretty hard," sighed Rachel.
Rosalee finished adding the last ingredient...the same ingredient that had gotten her brother killed. Once it was done, she let the mixture settle into the 'pill' form which took about five minutes.
"And here we are. That will be a hundred fifty," said Rosalee.
"Hang on... here's my card."
Rosalee swiped it through her credit machine, and it was approved.
"I didn't think insurance covered unconventional medicine."
"It does when nothing else has worked and you consistently come to the same apothecary. And that your brother had a license to sell holistic medicine. I had to get the special card so I could claim it on my medical insurance," said Rachel. She took the bottle and left.
Rosalee almost felt sorry for Nick, the Grimm who caught her brother's killers. He worked in the same department as a Hexenbiest. Though at least this one was nicer than any she had ever heard of.
"Nice drawing," said Nick.
"Thanks. Got to keep those skills sharp when I'm not helping someone make a sketch," said Rachel.
"So what animal are you grafting onto human faces this time?"
"Fox."
Nick Burkhardt was a Detective, but more than that he was a recently awakened Grimm. So the fact Rachel was drawing what was clearly a Fuchsbau bothered him. Especially since the one she was drawing looked very much like Rosalee when she woged.
"Hey I've got a few of my own. Want to compare for fun?" he asked.
"Sure!"
Nick went into his drawer for where he kept his own sketches. This one was devoted solely for Wesen he found.
"Oh...nice. Is that a dog and a condor?"
"Yeah."
"Nicely done. Check these out. Pig, rhino, rat, goat and zombie," said Rachel.
"What do you call them?" asked Nick. Rachel had a habit of giving her creations names, usually in other languages.
"Bauerschwein, Dickfellig, Reinigen, Ziegevolk and Hexenbitch," said Rachel.
"Hexenbitch?" said Nick, amused. Bitch did suit the one he had seen.
"Hexenbiest if you want to get technical, but frankly they make me think Hexenbitch whenever I draw one," said Rachel with a straight face. Nick snorted. "So what do you call yours?"
"Blutbad and Stienadler," he said with a straight face.
"Really? Did they look like this?" said Rachel, bringing out her tablet...something she got on the department payroll when she demonstrated it was easier for her to work with it and used less paper. She got to keep it, so long as she made sure to use it for work purposes.
Nick took one look at the page Rachel pulled up and nearly dropped his coffee.
It was a digitized version of the books in his aunt's trailer.
"You're a Grimm too?" he asked in shock.
"Half of one. The other half...let's just say my dad's side of the family doesn't really agree with it. If you want, we can compare notes sometime. Odds are I'll know what something is since I've seen them and studied the books longer," said Rachel.
"You're not one of those who kills every Wesen you come across are you?"
"I get my prescription from a Fuchsbau because I can't make it myself, and I've been studying the books since I was twelve when I first found them and learned what I was. The only time I kill Wesen is if they bother me or try to kill me. I normally could care less."
Rachel paused, before she thought of something else.
"By the way, if you want to avoid being busted as a Grimm, I'd recommend getting into the habit of wearing sunglasses often."
"Why?"
"Well for starters, when I wore sunglasses and a Wesen woged in front of me they didn't recognize me as a Grimm immediately until I said something about it. And I remember reading in one of my books about how the reason Wesen can identify Grimms is because of the eyes. Something to do with the reflection I think," said Rachel. She pulled up the page in question.
"Huh. Wonder why Monroe never mentioned it."
"Who's Monroe?"
"He's a Blutbad."
"Well if you need any help translating your books, let me know. It's actually the reason I became a linguist," said Rachel.
Rachel was in a foul mood. Because the insurance company the precinct used was undergoing a mandatory evaluation, she had to pay for her prescription out of pocket because it was considered holistic medicine. As a result, she had to do some budgeting for a while until she could charge the medicine to the insurance again.
"What can I do for you today?" asked the teller.
"I need to make a withdrawal and I would like a print out of my account transactions for the past two weeks," said Rachel.
"Hold on a minute, I'll print that right out for you. And how much will you be withdrawing today?"
"Three hundred," said Rachel.
As the teller went to get the money, the bank exploded into action as three Wesen burst in. Nearby she noticed a Blutbad who apparently worked with clocks staring at them in outright disbelief.
Oh she was not letting her already bad migraine get any worse because some idiots decided to woge in front of everyone. The minute one of them came close enough she kicked her leg into the knee joint of the female Blutbad, causing her to go down in a pain-filled scream when it broke. Rachel then slammed her head hard enough to make the female see stars.
It was a good thing she could wandlessly conjure things, otherwise she would have to explain where she got zip-ties.
Once the female was bound (all of this took the span of less than a minute), she went after the other two. She went after the Skalengeck next, taking him down almost as fast as she had the female Blutbad. She zip-tied him far enough that the Blutbad couldn't get to him. The second Blutbad was next, and he had enough warning of what she was planning to do, because he leveled his gun at her.
That was when she unleashed something that scared the shit out of him. Her Hexenbiest side. The second he saw that, he was caught off guard enough that she was able to disarm him and tie him up to another spot in the bank.
All in the span of ten minutes.
Once she was sure they weren't going anywhere, she pulled out her wallet and started reading them their rights with a peeved look on her face. Once she finished that, she gave all three of them an annoyed look.
"Next time you plan to rob a bank, make sure there aren't any off-duty cops inside, you bloody idiots," she told them.
She might not go on patrol or do any investigating, but she was still technically a cop, even if most of her time was spent doing illustrations of suspects and translating for the others. Just because she usually stayed in-house, so to speak, didn't mean she was useless in situations like this.
"Holy crap..."
"You alright?" asked Rachel.
"Yeah..." said the Blutbad who worked with clocks.
Wu was the first one too arrive. Rachel actually rather liked him, because his dry wit made her laugh. Sometimes they would spend a few hours throwing sarcastic comments back and forth, amusing most of the precinct.
"What the hell happened here?" he asked.
"These three idiots came in while I was here to get some cash to pay for my prescription, so I reprimanded them before leaving them gift wrapped for you. I already read them their rights, so feel free to throw all three into the car."
"You do realize that you'll have to go to court, since you're the arresting officer, right?" said Wu, as the others got statements and generally cleaned up."
"First time for everything."
Rachel had never been in court. She did her patrol hours years ago, and mostly function as a secretary when her skills weren't required. She made the coffee, she brought in fresh food for those doing late hours, and more or less kept things running. She had never been called to testify in court, because she had never made an actual arrest before. She mostly got the quiet cases.
Be a bit interesting to see how the defense took that.
"You okay Monroe?" asked Nick.
"Considering I just watched a Hexenbiest beat the crap out of two Blutbad and a Skalengeck before arresting them, yeah."
"Hexenbiest?"
"The woman who tied up the three coming in? She woged to throw off the last one."
Nick looked a little confused. As far as he knew, the arresting officer was Rachel, the department's sketch artist and part time linguist when the other one wasn't available or didn't know the language. And the last time he spoke to her, she confirmed she was a Grimm. Perhaps he should talk to her about what Monroe saw.