The phone rang again in the silence that had suddenly fallen.

"Qui diable a quitté son téléphone allumé?" the leader of his kidnappers angrily demanded as the phone rang a third time. Nick heard several voices around him muttering in French as each likely denied being the owner of the offending device.

"You should probably get that - might be important," Nick remarked impudently, offering his captors an insolent smirk. The ringing ceased after a moment - only to be followed by the sound of five other phones ringing.

The sudden misbehavior of the phones did not amuse the kidnappers. Their leader began cursing volubly - being a cop, Nick easily recognized the profanity, even in French. While they were distracted, he started working on his bonds, trying to pull loose from his chair. To his surprise, he felt the zip ties securing his legs abruptly sever. Someone had obviously just cut them, freeing his lower body.

All at once, the phones stopped ringing. Only the faint dripping of water could be heard for a moment. Then one phone rang out, to be cut off by a snarl a moment later. "Whoever you are," Nick's captor said, "you obviously do not know who you are dealing with."

Nick couldn't make out what was being said by whoever it was on the other end of the call, but it certainly didn't make his captor happy. "Your little tricks won't save your pet, and you will have to answer to the Verrat for your interference!" he snarled. There was a slight pause. "This day, you are a dead man!"

"Oh, really," a soft voice abruptly cut in from the shadows. "I was just going to tell you the same thing."

All at once, the room exploded into violence. The lamp shining in Nick's face crashed over and shattered, flashing briefly before dying out. All around him, he could hear the sounds of men fighting, coupled with more canine-like snarls and growls. Nick twisted and pulled and managed to free his right wrist from the binding, leaving only his left tied to the chair.

He felt a gun barrel press against the back of his head. "Do not mo-" The command was cut off, devolving into a gurgling whimper, and the pressure vanished. With a grimace, Nick finally yanked himself free of the chair and stood up, just in time to intercept a blow that would have hit him squarely in the temple. Even in the dark, his instincts remained spot on. Twisting his assailant's arm around viciously, Nick executed a sweep that took the man's legs out from under him, sending him to the hard floor with a brutal crack. Grabbing the chair he'd been tied to, he slammed it down on the guy like a bludgeon and heard a sound like a spattered melon - probably the man's head.

The entire fight from beginning to end lasted maybe two minutes. Then it was just Nick standing in the dark, wondering what was going to happen next.

"Who are you?" he asked the darkness. He could sense his unknown savior's presence.

A soft light appeared - the screen of a cell phone, pushing back against the blackness. Its dim illumination revealed at least six bodies on the ground, most of them quite obviously dead, with brutally broken limbs and necks. The phone rotated slightly to reveal the man holding it; he was tall (wearing a suit, of all things) with dark hair and pale eyes, either blue or grey. "You can call me John. I had information that you were in danger. Tell me, how does a Portland police detective upset the Verrat so much they send a Hundjäger pack after you?"

It was not much of a revelation that his kidnappers had been Hundjäger. However, Nick was not at all inclined to tell a complete stranger about the key, even if the man had just rescued him. "I don't know," he said with sarcastic bite, "Maybe you should ask them that. It was a nice trick you pulled with the phones, by the way. And, just for the record, how did you know I was in danger before even I did?"

The man, John, smirked slightly. "I have my sources," he replied simply. "Now, unless you want to wait around for someone to find us with a half-dozen dead European criminals, we should probably leave." Without waiting for a reply, he started walking off into the darkness. Nick scoffed in disbelief before following in his wake, stepping carefully over the body of the Hundjäger he'd taken down.

Throwing open a door, John stepped out into harsh outdoor lighting. The lights of the city reflected off the clouds, creating an eerie orange glow to the night sky. Nick had apparently been held in an abandoned warehouse, a cliché if he ever heard one. Parked by the loading docks were an SUV and sedan, which presumably belonged to the Hundjäger inside.

"I see you found our guy," a familiar voice remarked from the shadow of the SUV. A, overcoat-clad form detached itself, revealing, to Nick's great surprise, NYPD Detective Lionel Fusco, the same guy who had seemed so useless earlier. This whole trip to New York was growing more surreal by the minute.

"No thanks to you, Lionel," John replied mildly. "At least his purchase at the herb store came in useful. I could never have gotten as close as I did without the wolfsbane. Thanks for that." He offered a brief nod to Nick.

"Uh, you're welcome, I guess." Nick's mind roiled in confusion. "Are you a cop? Because you sure don't look like one."

"What, him, a cop? Not on your life. Even if he plays one now and again." Fusco shot a glare at the man in the suit. "So, are we goin', or just hanging around? 'Cause I haven't eaten yet, and I'm st- Whoah, what the hell!"

Without warning, John had drawn a semiautomatic handgun from nowhere, aiming it with cool precision at Nick's head.

"Hey, hey, hey!" objected Nick, backing up several paces and carefully keeping his hands visible in a non-threatening manner. "You just saved me, and now you want to kill me?"

John's face changed; the features become sharp, feral, his pale eyes shifting from blue to blood red. The fingers gripping the gun resembled claws more than human hands. A low, almost inaudible growl filled the air; Nick could feel the vibrations in his chest.

"He's a Grimm."