Chapter 7: Jay Junkies & Wands

Nick and Gretel were fighting again. Testing out their Grimm skills on each other. They'd fallen into something of a rhythm with their practice fights lately. Nick managed to be more careful of hurting her without -at the same time- holding back and offending her. This had gotten easier over the last few times they'd practiced, mainly because he was getting used to her.

Now that he knew his fellow Grimm better, he could predict more accurately where her blows were going to fall and, in turn, where he should aim his. Bruises galore still happened (and more than once he'd worried he had dislocated Gretel's chin or caused her a severe nose-bleed), but Gretel never limped into the house these days, actually looking like she'd suffered a beating. Of course, Nick was growing more sure than ever that, if it weren't for his enhanced abilities, he would be the one with the bruises to show for all their sparring.

Gretel had just kicked him -with a speedy roundhouse that swung around to hit him squarely in the gut- backwards into a tree, and he was grabbing onto her wrist and twisting it, jumping counterclockwise, so that she'd been the one cornered into the same tree she'd knocked him against, when he heard his iphone go off.

Naturally, he'd been smart enough not to fight with it in his pocket, setting it down on a rock a few feet away when they'd started.

Panting but stubbornly trying to hide it by inhaling sharply, swallowing, and thrusting her hips into a lazy 'I'm choosing to stand lopsided' pose, Gretel took a step back as Nick freed her wrist and walked over to the ringing phone. She still couldn't get over that initial rush of jealousy she felt every time he never broke a sweat during their practice fights. When he answered that phone he wasn't going to sound even remotely breathless. He was going to sound like he'd just been taking a casual stroll in the woods.

God, she effing hated him...

"Burkhardt." His eyes widened at what the person on the other end said. "Okay, I'll be right there."

Willing herself not to groan, Gretel came over and eased down onto the rock Nick had just taken his iphone off of. There was a sore spot between her shoulders, her feet ached, and she could feel part of her lower back that -rebelling against too many whip-lashed backward flip dodges- was was cramping up.

Nick ended the call and slipped the iphone into his jean's pocket.

"What happened?" Gretel asked.

"I have to go now," he told her, reaching for the jacket he'd left on the ground earlier. "It's about the Snowlight case. Can we pick this up later?"

"Yeah, sure." Gretel nodded; it hurt too much to shrug.

"It's over, Carl. Stop running. I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to take you back to the precinct to answer a few questions."

"Jesus..." Carl stopped running and sank to his knees, the Grimm at his back. He was only a block from the house he was squatting at, but it might as well have been a million miles; he was too tired to keep running like this. "August call you?"

The Grimm shook his head. "Bianca."

He turned around slowly, nodding. Okay, then. If August had called, it would just be another cruel trick of hers, using him then turning him over to the Grimm to get his head cut off. Bianca just thought she was calling the cops, who simply wanted to take him in for questioning. She'd never had anything to really protect him from -that she'd known of, anyway- but she hadn't exactly been willing to go out of her way to find him just so the police could badger him with questions. That was before. Now that he'd hurt her, and she knew about it, she'd just given in and done the right thing.

And, frankly, Carl didn't blame her. Not one bit.

His poor Bianca didn't know about Wesen or Grimms. She couldn't have known who -what- she was really calling. Besides, if the Grimm killed him now, he probably deserved it after what he'd done to her.

It flashed briefly into Carl's mind that he'd run out of August's house, on that horrible day Bianca walked in on him in her stepmother's bedroom, without even taking the Jay with him, but he pushed the thought away. That was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

Still, that didn't change the fact that the hand he held out to the Grimm's partner, so he could pull him back up onto his feet, was shaking like a leaf.

The Grimm's eyes seemed to zero in on the trembling hand. Carl swallowed hard, avoiding his gaze.

Gretel noticed the package at Nick's door almost immediately. She remembered what Sean had told her about expecting something from him and, looking both ways, bent down and picked it up.

Part of her felt vaguely excited to hold something that had belonged to her mother. Another part felt like she was betraying Hansel somehow by accepting it; even though she knew the truth about their parents now. Ending old beliefs -based on truth or not- is never easy, especially not for a stubborn half-Grimm, half-Hexenbiest.

And what if this was a trick? Sean Renard could just be screwing with her... But what would that get him?

Still, he had known her mother's name. Adrianna. He'd said it in a tone that actually passed for respectful, like he thought highly of her. More highly, probably, than he thought of Gretel and her brother: Hexenbiest killers.

Fingers curling around the cardboard, knowing better than to open it on her fellow Grimm's front porch in broad daylight -whatever was or was not inside- she fumbled in her leather pouch for the spare key Nick loaned her -the side of her hand brushing against Hansel's insulin needle- and let herself in.

She nearly bumped into Juliette, who was checking for messages on the answering machine. "Oh, sorry."

"It's okay." Juliette glanced at Gretel's hands and noticed the package. "You're getting mail here now?" She regretted saying anything almost immediately and forced herself to smile reassuringly.

This had nothing to do with the mail; she'd just felt a small twinge of annoyance a couple days ago when Nick decided Gretel needed her own key and anyone else treating this house like it was her address just chafed that annoyance. It really wasn't Gretel's fault, though. She hadn't even asked for the spare. Nick had just given it to her, said it made it easier than someone always having to be home to let her in. After all, he'd pointed out, Juliette was a full-time vet and he was a cop, so they couldn't always be on hand when Gretel came and went. It wasn't practical for her to be trapped in the house when they were at work if she hadn't left before they did, or out of it, if she had.

Juliette prided herself on being fair, and she knew it wasn't right to take out her frustration on Gretel.

She didn't want to blame Nick, either, though, despite the fact that it was more his fault than anybody else's in this situation. He was the softie who decided to let the first non-relative Grimm that turned up in Portland into their home.

"No, it's just something someone wanted me to have," Gretel said, walking past Juliette and putting the box down on the couch.

"Well, as long as your dry cleaning bill doesn't start showing up in our mailbox, I guess it's cool," Juliette joked. She wished she could do a better job of keeping the tension out of her voice. She really wanted any friend of Nick's to feel welcome. Why was it sometimes so hard with Gretel? She'd honestly thought that after inviting her to that party, seeing her dressed as a normal person, things would get easier. Somehow they hadn't.

Gretel did smile a little (or maybe it was a wince), but she didn't bother responding. She knew Juliette still didn't like or trust her. Nothing on that front had changed. It didn't matter how hard Juliette tried to hide it; Gretel was perfectly aware that Nick's girlfriend still saw her as a threat on some level. Maybe Juliette really believed she was after that mysterious key Renard had mentioned. Or maybe she just didn't like another young female in the house that had formally been occupied by only herself and Nick.

Either way, Gretel wasn't about to open the package in front of her. It would have to wait.

A scuffling sound came from the kitchen, followed by a mile-a-minute monologue about the problem with their freezer, ending in a long-winded apology for taking so long to come over and a thorough thanking of their patience and understanding.

"Bud's here," Juliette explained.

Nick's Eisbiber friend. Gretel smiled to herself, thinking of Ben. She imagined Bud might look -and maybe act- like an older version of him. It made her a little lonely, thinking of her friends she hadn't seen in a while. She didn't miss Ben as much as she missed Hansel, not by a long shot, but she still missed him.

Bud -what she could see of him as he pulled his head out of the freezer and bent over to pick up his toolbox as she and Juliette walked into the kitchen- didn't look much like Ben after all, but he did have that same chatty ice beaver spirit as her friend.

Or he did with Juliette, before his eyes landed on Gretel standing beside her and he jumped back and let out a startled gasp.

"Oh, God!" Bud held up his free hand. "Look, I don't want no trouble. Not that I'm trying to insult you by calling you trouble, it's just-"

Juliette choked back a giggle. "Bud, it's okay. This is Gretel; she's a friend of Nick's."

"Oh." Bud relaxed, pausing to think for a second. "Oh, yeah! I remember now, some of the guys down at the bar were talking about there being another Grimm in town, but I just figured they were telling tall tales." He looked at Gretel again. "Obviously you're not a tall tale." He stopped. "Not that you're not tall, you're very tall. Like an Amazon. No, I'm sorry, that must be insulting, an Eisbiber calling a Grimm an Amazon. Forget I said that. Besides, you're really not that tall; you're a nice normal height for your size." He inhaled several sharp breaths after not taking one for so many rambling sentences. "I'm Bud." Bud lifted up his already outstretched hand to shake Gretel's. "What am I saying? You already knew that. Juliette just called me Bud right in front of you. So obviously you know I'm Bud."

Gretel laughed and shook his hand. "It's very nice to meet you, Bud."

"Nice to meet you, too." He stared at her, half in relief and half in mild awe. He was still in awe of Nick sometimes, and Gretel was an unknown Grimm being nice to him. He couldn't help being a little starstruck.

"Are you all right?" She cocked her head at him, concerned.

"Oh..." Bud shook his head and snapped out of it. "I'm fine. One of you tell Nick I said hi and to call me if the freezer acts up again. Not that it should. Hopefully I've fixed it right this time...not that I fixed it wrong on purpose the last time...it just..."

"It's okay, Bud, I'm sure you did great." Juliette handed him a small roll of twenties. "And I hope you don't mind, but I threw in a tip."

"Oh, that's not necessary," he tried. "I couldn't..."

"No, keep it," Juliette insisted. "Though, if you wanted to bring over another one of your wife's pies, I'm sure Nick wouldn't say no. The last one was fantastic."

Bud grinned widely. "I'll pass on the message."

The grin was for her, but Juliette noticed that last look Bud cast back in their direction was for Gretel.

She told herself to stop being so petty. It was only natural Bud would look back at Gretel; she was new, and a Grimm. Still, deep down, Juliette could feel that slight chafing rubbing away at her buried negative emotions, trying to bring them back up against her will.

"When Bianca called you, she say she hated me?" Carl wanted to know.

Nick almost told him they hadn't brought him in to answer his questions, but seeing the desperate look on the kid's face, he held off.

His hands were shaking even more now, his face paler than a bleached sheet. The creepiest part were his colorless, blood-drained lips; they could have belonged to an albino.

"Thanks for not trying to barbecue us, by the way," Hank said, leaning against the wall and folding his arms across his chest.

Carl's eyes flickered over to him, stunned.

"Yeah, that's right, Nick's told me all about you being a Daemonfeuer."

Carl shrugged, slumping in his seat. "It doesn't matter anymore. My life's over. I've lost everything. Poor Bianca...she deserved so much better..."

Nick sighed. "Carl, look, I know you don't want to talk to me. And I know that if you weren't depressed, you would have put up a hell more of a fight before you'd have let me take you anywhere. I'm not stupid. But I meant it when I said I wasn't going to hurt you. I'm only concerned with finding out who tried to kill Bianca."

Carl sucked his teeth. "Then you're just wasting time. I don't know anyone who would want to hurt her."

"Besides you?" Nick raised an eyebrow.

"That-" Carl's spine strained up, and for a split-second there was a dash of color rushing back to his face. Then he seemed to remember he was talking to a Grimm. His eyes dropped down to the table. "That's not fair."

"You've been having an affair with her stepmother," Hank pointed out. "How's that for fair?"

Carl laughed under his breath.

"What's so funny?" Hank asked, walking over and pulling out the chair across from him.

"Whatever August and I had," Carl said, his tone growing snide, "it was not a relationship."

"Oh?" Nick leaned in, folding his hands on the table.

Grimacing, Carl closed his eyes and inhaled so deeply he shuddered. "I told you I don't know who tried to kill Bianca. I'm not a good guy, and August brings a whole new meaning to the word slut, but neither of us tried to kill her."

August was a complete and total bitch, and she'd been smart enough to set him up, but Carl didn't believe that made her guilty of attempted murder. He wished it did -maybe then they'd lock her up and he'd never be tempted to go crawling back to her for Jay again- but he couldn't accuse her of a crime he knew she was too selfish to commit.

August wanted her stepdaughter alive, if only so she could rub her victories in her face. Even the hollow ones.

"Carl-" Hank started.

Looking up, Carl's face hardened and he glared at Nick. "I'm done."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm done with everything." He tried to clench his fists but his shaking fingers wouldn't cooperate. "I'm done hoping things will get better, I'm done waiting on myself to get smarter, and -most of all- I'm done answering your stupid questions. None of this is going to help Bianca. So I'm done." He turned his head away. "I have nothing else to say to you. So you might as well just cut off my head now and get it over with."

Nick saw what was going on. Carl had tried to make his turning away look tough, but Nick's sharp eyes saw the three tears that escaped and rolled down the side of his face. More than that, they saw -and took serious notice of- his hands. Their bad color, the way they had the jitters... Add that to the fact that Carl Fieri was Wesen, and Nick had a pretty damn good idea of exactly what was wrong with this kid.

He was a junkie, just like Bianca's uncles thought. But now Nick knew it wasn't crack or dope Carl was so severely addicted to and having painful withdrawals from.

Twisting his mouth in pretend pensiveness, Nick got up and motioned for Hank to leave the room with him.

"We got any idea if this kid's covering up for August?"

"I don't know, Hank." Nick shrugged. "But what I do know is he's not going to tell us anything else. He's serious about that."

"So what, we just let him go?" Hank didn't look too happy about the idea.

Nick shook his head. "No. I said he won't talk to us."

"Yeah, so? We don't have anything to hold him here, if he decides to use his right to remain silent now..."

"Maybe he'll talk to somebody else," Nick suggested. "Somebody who's not a Grimm. Somebody he can relate to; somebody who's been where he is right now."

Hank blinked. "Like who?"

Nick pulled his iphone out, preparing to make a call. "I think I know someone."

Alone at last, Gretel tore at the clear plastic tape over the box and forced it open, grunting slightly.

What was it Sean Renard could have sent her -could even have had- that belonged to her mother?

With curious, tingling fingertips, she reached in and pulled out a slender but curvy wooden object with a glowing reddish-orange sphere in the middle.

It was something only the very best Hexenbiest would have known how to use. Only a truly powerful witch could own such an object, let alone use one to channel and enhance her skills.

It was a the wand of a grand white Hexenbiest.

Captain Renard had given her Adrianna's wand.

Did he expect her to know how to use it? Or learn how?

Doing that would only mean admitting she was as much Hexenbiest as she was Grimm, and even now Gretel wasn't ready to do that. She was a Grimm. Her and her brother both. It was what and who they were, part of what bonded them together. That they were both Grimms was just as important to their identities as the fact that they were twins, or siblings at all.

Hansel was Adrianna's too, but he'd never been able to woge. The Grimm blood in him must have overpowered it somehow, maybe because he was male. His Grimm senses could have come in later and stronger and never left room for any Zauberbiest genes to manifest themselves.

She could never know for sure, of course. This was only speculation. Thanks to the vengeful Verrat, she and Hansel would never have parents to explain the details.

And how could she ever explain to Nick that half of her biological make up matched that of the Hexenbiests she'd always hated so passionately? He would be disgusted. It would be like one big lie to him, and after he'd been a good friend to her, taking her in and trusting her almost without question...

Gretel bit her lower lip, held the wand's stem tightly in her hand for one long minute, as if that drew her to her dead mother for just that moment, then let go and slipped it back into the box.

That was where the wand needed to stay. She wasn't about to start strutting around her fellow Grimm's house waving a Hexenbiest's wand like it was some kind of dark Wesen free for all.

Gretel had absolutely no intention of embracing her darker side.

So it needed to go back in the box and be tucked away with her other weapons.

For now, anyway.

If Carl hadn't been so apathetic, he might have wondered when Hank and Nick were going to let him out. The Grimm and his partner couldn't keep him in the interrogation room forever... But, frankly, he didn't care. If they forgot him, left him there to rot, it was no less than he deserved. Maybe he should just throw himself onto the floor, curl up in a little ball, and die right beside his chair.

That was when he heard the door creaking open again.

"I told you, I-" He stopped, blinking at the woman who'd entered. "You're not the Grimm."

She woged, revealing her fox-like face. Fuchsbau; not a threat.

The presence of another Wesen would have made him feel more relaxed if the blood in his veins didn't already feel like slow-moving ice washing out his emotions until there was nothing but numbness left -a bad feeling for a natural fire creature like a Daemonfeuer to be stuck with.

"Who are you?"

The woman glanced at his shaking hands. It was hard to say for sure, from just one look, but if she had to bet on it, she'd say Nick had guessed right. This Carl Fieri was a hardcore Jay addict who'd hit rock bottom.

"Why you looking at me like that?"

She took a step towards him. "My name's Rosalee Calvert. I know you don't want to talk to the cops, but I also know you need help."

The so-called 'man' who ran the mental institution on Abby Avenue in Henderson, Nevada had prided himself on always doing his job and doing it unbelievably well.

In actuality a Löwen, he had never once handed over a patient. Not even to pleading and crying family members. Sometimes he had to go into a full woge just to scare their insistent whiny little asses off when nothing else worked. It might have been reckless, but it wasn't like anyone was going to believe them. And it generally kept them away, after they ran off in terror, if you didn't count the ones who ended up coming back as patients themselves...

One reason this Löwen prided himself on keeping his supposed patients prisoners was that -more often than not- he was holding them for someone special. Usually someone of tremendous influence. He'd even held secondhand prisoners for distant royalty before, under the orders of someone else hired to take the heat, less it become known that a royal was allowing such a wild Wesen to work for them.

Of course, he'd just as often held prisoners for plain, boring thugs who just happened to have a lot of spare cash. Payment was payment, as far as the Löwen was concerned.

And he never, ever did anything that would make even a possibility of his not getting his money at the end of a job.

But, then again, he'd never, ever met anyone quite like Ariel Eberthart.

Ariel had strutted, in a delightfully high-hiked miniskirt, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders and down her back, right up to the front desk. Her smooth talking worked wonders on the Löwen who, for all his stubbornness, wasn't exactly the brightest lion-faced guy to ever walk the planet.

And when this striking young woman had gone and woged into a Daemonfeuer right before his eyes, he was as good as putty in her hands.

Yes, yes, of course she could see this particular patient they'd been holding. The one with the ability to see things others could not; this dangerous rare catch of a lifetime. Yes, certainly he believed she'd been sent to pick him up.

He didn't, really, but he couldn't say that; he didn't want to upset her, didn't want her attentions going away from him, for that seductive smile to leave her face, replaced by a disappointed frown... So no, he definitely did not need to see any further proof of ID. Not for a lovely creature such as her; he'd never accuse her of lying to him. Never!

Ariel smirked to herself as the Löwen led her down the white-and-gray hallway, telling her over his shoulder to ignore the pathetic cries of the rooms and padded cells they slipped past. This was a mental hospital, she had to understand, there was naturally a lot of screaming; she really shouldn't pay it any serious mind.

"Of course not," Ariel agreed with her most pleasing grin.

The Löwen melted like a kitten in the sun. Even if the Daemonfeuer babe was a liar, ready to rob him, this was one time he was glad to lose. He was so close to her now he could feel her body heat and smell her perfume. She was so sane, unlike the mad, sobbing, screaming, cursing females he so often had to deal with. This was the closest he'd ever had to a real love affair, and he was soaking up each moment. Soon she'd be gone, taking what was probably the most valuable prisoner in the entire institution with her, but he would always have this borderline erotic memory.

At least, in his mind -mainly imagination, however limited the faculties in that department were- it was erotic.

If not erotic, then it was sensual. Very sensual.

"Here we are." The Löwen opened a door to a -surprisingly sparsely- padded cell.

Inside, a shivering, shirtless young man sustaining too many bruises to count, his eyes half-closed from exhaustion, was chained by his wrists to a wall. He was probably screaming and trying to throw the few parts of his body he could still move roughly into the nearest wall earlier, but now he'd worn himself out, looking all the worse for it.

Ariel cocked her head at the Löwen. "You could have taken better care of him." She pouted, pursing her lips instead of frowning, which only excited the besotted Löwen even further. "He's not in great shape."

"He's been difficult to us," he explained. "Our policy here is to be difficult right back. It's the only way they learn to control themselves, you know."

She wasn't convinced.

Trying to appease her, the Löwen offered, "I suppose taking his shirt away was a tad unnecessary, though."

Ariel smiled and arched an eyebrow, nodding in the man's direction. "Oh, no... I'd say that's the one part you got right." He wasn't the sort of man who young women like Ariel didn't enjoy seeing shirtless. Suffering and beat up (and obviously poorly fed), not so much; but the whole bare muscles thing was kind of a turn on...

The Löwen inwardly contemplated taking off his own shirt to get Ariel's attention back on him for the few more minutes he had left with her, then decided against it.

"You sure it's him?" Ariel raised her arched eyebrow up higher.

"How could I prove it to you?"

Opening his eyes, the prisoner/patient lifted his head and looked straight at Ariel with tired hatred. He didn't bother craning his neck any further to see the Löwen; he'd seen the lion-faced monster enough times during his stay here. Ariel was most likely a monster, too -most people that came in here were- but at least she was a new one.

"Rumor is he screams a name out in his sleep," Ariel said, pushing back her hair and leaning in closer to the Löwen so that her breath tickled his ear. "What's the name?"

"Gretel."