Page 9 of Looking Grimm

Grumbling, I went for my cigarettes and earned a sour glare from Ripley. But, without a no smoking sign to back him up, he had no grounds for protest.

“I want to makeprogress,” I said. “For as much good as this is doing, I could’ve just stayed at the bar.”

“But look.” Ripley tapped a finger against the whiskey bottle lying in the center console. “You brought the bar with you. It’s like being at home.”

The Bitters’ End wasn’t quite home. Neither was the Lazy Daze motel, or the houseboat, as much as I’d wanted it to be. It seemed I’d spent the bulk of my life displaced. Rarely where I wanted to be and surrounded by people I didn’t want to be with. Nash would have argued that, saying I was always welcome at his place but, even in his company, I often felt adrift.

Taking a drag off the cigarette, I levered the car door open and stepped out. “Gotta take a piss,” I said in response to the question Ripley hadn’t asked. He was consumed with the K-pop dancers in glitter and pastels prancing across his phone.

His inattention grated on me, and I ducked my head back into the car to add, “And then I’m gonna kill some people.”

He flapped his fingers in a dismissive wave. “Have fun.”

Scowling, I added magic to my push on the door, slamming it so hard the little red coupe rocked.

Turning toward the street stretching before and behind me, I studied windowed shop fronts and flickering streetlamps. The area had recovered nicely from the plague closures, a rash of looting, and Avery’s earthquake prank. It looked almost as idyllic as it had in my youth, full of nostalgia with a quaintly small-town vibe.

I’d lied about my reason for leaving, of course. Businesses downtown didn’t take kindly to passersby ducking in to use the facilities and then leaving. Restrooms were for paying customers only. And I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to take a leak in the alley like a bum, so I started walking instead.

As far as I knew, I was still welcome at the Blooming Orchid. The last time I’d been by with Holland, following a lead on the missing persons case, Isha had opted not to incriminate me. Or herself, since she was the one who delivered Lover Boy to me in the first place.

My cigarette flared where I held it between my pursed lips as I advanced toward the tattoo parlor. I didn’t expect the whore madam to incriminate Grimm, either, or betray his whereabouts to me. But I could make her talk aboutsomething—anything—and see what came of it.

I crossed the street toward my destination, not bothering to wait for the intersection. Once my feet hit the sidewalk in front of the Blooming Orchid, I hesitated. I’d come at night, during business hours, and I could see through the front glass that the tattoo parlor was crowded with customers. Isha herself was a vision as always, sitting bent over a man in a chair with her tattoo gun poised above his left hand. I leaned against the brick wall at the edge of the window and watched while she finished her work, then cleaned and bandaged the fresh ink.

The man stood and offered thanks—I assumed, as I was unable to hear or see much but his lips moving in profile—before he turned to go. His left side faced me as he walked with his hand hanging near his waist. I cast a passing glance at his tattoo, thinking the placement interesting, though hardly significant until he drew close enough for the design to become clear.

It was a grayscale skull with thorny vines winding around and through the gaping eye sockets. He was practically at the door when I realized. This man—this stranger—now wore a Hex mark.

My stomach lurched so abruptly that I thought I might retch all over the pavement. There was only one Hex mark up for grabs since Jax had died before being able to claim it. That meant Grimm had found an alternate to fill Donovan’s spot. As the man reached the door inside, I glowered at him through a film of stinging tears.

I was too raw these days, leaking anger and sadness like a goddamned faucet.

Plucking the cigarette from my mouth, I flung it to theground and wiped my sleeve across my face. The door swung open outward, and I expected the stranger to come my way but was relieved when he turned the opposite direction.

Relieved, yes, but no less enraged. Why was this so casual? If a new member was being inducted, why weren’t Grimm and the others here to bear witness? Where was the pomp and circumstance? I flexed the muscles in my arms as I took off after the retreating stranger. They forced my brother to trade his innocence for his place among them. What did this man give? Not nearly enough.

I tailed him at a distance, cutting my own path through the narrow shadows that lined the storefronts. A few pedestrians passed, engaged in small talk that came and went as background noise. Something predatory grew inside of me, malevolent thoughts that had been pushed out of my mind by the hope of redemption. I’d been a killer for a long time. Far longer than I’d been Capitol Fitch, or whoever I was trying to be now. Somehow, things were simpler when I was a puppet under Grimm’s control. Problems were easily solved.

I could solve this problem, too. By eliminating it.

We traveled about a block before he turned off toward a parked car. I could have followed him in there, piled into the passenger seat, and forced him to drive us somewhere secluded. Downtown was not an ideal place to drop a body, but I had plans for this one.

Power sparked between my fingers, then fizzled out. I was a functional drunk, and imbibing less than usual tonight, but liquor had a way of going straight to the part of my brain that controlled my magic and causing untimely misfires. Looked like I would have to settle for manual operation.

The man had opened the door of his beater sedan and swung a leg inside by the time I caught up to him. I came around the back end of the car and was convinced he didn’t see me before I grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt and yanked him out.

He made a choked sound as I flung him backward onto the ground. His head hit the pavement with an audible knock.

The man blinked and gasped as he stared up from under me, his eyes dark and wide in the moonlight.

I got a better look at my incidental victim. He was older than me—mid-thirties maybe?—and prematurely balding. His dark hair arched back from his brow in a deep widow’s peak. I assumed he was a witch, but the type was not immediately obvious, and he seemed in no hurry to show me.

“Who are you?” I demanded, planting my boot in the center of the downed man’s chest.

He raised both hands in pitiful defense. A fitting replacement for my brother, all right. Didn’t have an ounce of fight in him.

“Charles,” he replied in a rush of the air I was currently grinding out of him. “Charlie. Charlie Porter.”

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