Opening Fire and Saving a Life

The two then walked into the kitchen, where the rich, sweet aroma of apple pie kept wafting from the open oven, making their mouths water.

"Excuse me, may I ask what you do for work?" Nick asked, seemingly casually, as he looked around the kitchen.

Exquisite English bone china sat in the cupboards, and even the little curtains used to keep drafts out of the windows were spotless. The only things that seemed out of place were the meat grinder by the wall, used for stuffing sausages, and several strings of hanging sausages.

The height of summer was hardly a good time to make sausages.

"Like you two, I work for the city government." The middle-aged man put on thick oven mitts and took the apple pie out of the oven.

"I'm a mail carrier. It's not a particularly prestigious job, but I like it."

At this point, Hancock finally lost patience. He forced a smile and prepared to take his leave. "Sorry for disturbing you. I think it's time we left."

Without waiting for his partner to say anything else, he turned and strode through the living room toward the front door.

Nick caught his arm before he could open the door and complained under his breath, "Come on, couldn't you ask a few more questions?"

"There's no point wasting time. If this guy had something to hide, he wouldn't have let us in to begin with. We've looked through the rooms, too. Can you really believe someone like him could be the killer?

"I might as well question my grandmother as suspect him. I'd still like to keep my job..."

Hancock was about to shake his arm free when he heard the middle-aged man humming softly as he carried the apple pie into the living room. "Are you two sure you don't want to try my baking?"

The Black detective's expression changed abruptly. He turned to stare at the middle-aged man in shock, his voice suddenly rising an octave. "What are you singing?"

Nick was still considering whether he should call out the man's identity-perhaps by suddenly saying "Blutbad" or something-when he belatedly realized that the song the middle-aged man had just been humming was "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics.

It was the song that had been playing on repeat on the abandoned iPod belonging to the girl who had been torn to pieces in Forest Park.

"It was you!" Hancock roared and reached for his gun.

Suddenly, the lights went out. With a wolf's howl, the middle-aged man reacted with extraordinary speed, hurling the metal tray holding the apple pie at Nick, who stood closest to him. He then completed a voluntary transformation in an instant, his eyes glowing red in the darkness.

Nick had just dodged aside with his far-above-average reflexes when he felt a foul-smelling rush of air sweep past him and lunge toward the door.

"Awooo!"

With the second wolf howl, Hancock, who stood in the doorway, was knocked straight out of the house before he could fire.

"Stop!"

Nick chased him to the door and was about to raise his gun and issue a warning when he saw Hancock, who had rolled twice across the ground, raise his gun from his prone position and fire.

Bang! Bang! Two shots rang out. Under the moonlight, the middle-aged man, who had already sprinted more than ten yards on all fours, fell.

"Shit, this is trouble." Nick felt an enormous headache coming on. They still had no idea where the abducted girl was.

He rushed out of the cabin and first pulled Hancock to his feet. Keeping their guns ready, the two quickly approached the fallen man.

"Nick, did you see all that? He... he just..." Hancock was somewhat incoherent, and his hands would not stop trembling around his gun.

"We'll talk later."

Nick cut him off and bent down to roll the man over. At the very moment he turned him, the red glow flashed and faded from the eyes of the man, who had only just returned to human form, startling Hancock into taking half a step back.

"Where did you hide her?"

Seeing two patches of blood seeping through the man's chest, Nick was speechless. He had never expected his partner's mediocre marksmanship to surpass itself today, with both shots hitting vital areas.

"Hah... hah..." Though he had been shot in the back, the bullets had passed clean through him, and the man struggled to breathe as blood kept flowing from his chest, mouth, and nose.

"You... you're a Grimm..." After struggling to get those few words out, the man promptly breathed his last.

"Fuck!" Nick felt his anger boil over and, for once, swore aloud.

"She must still be in the house. Let's go look." Clutching his side below his ribs, Hancock turned to head back inside.

"No, I'll look. You stay here, contact headquarters, and call for backup." Nick had calmed down a little by now and motioned for his injured partner to remain where he was.

Since they had already found the killer's lair, Robin, the abducted little girl, should be nearby. If all else failed, he could call Monroe back with his keen sense of smell. They would find her eventually.

Nick went back inside and turned on the lights. He searched every possible hiding place in the rooms, including under the beds and inside the closets, but still found no trace of her.

This Blutbad seemed to be something of a neat freak. Not only was the house spotless, but even the closets were meticulously organized.

Standing beside the living room fireplace, Nick forced himself to calm down and carefully consider where someone could be hidden.

The cabin had no attic, nor any hollow walls large enough to hide a person, so the only possibility seemed to be underground.

At that thought, he began stamping hard on the floor. Before long, he detected something unusual in the sound near the loveseat.

He pushed the loveseat aside and lifted the handwoven rug beneath it, revealing a concealed wooden hatch just as he had expected. Overjoyed, Nick seized its iron ring.

As he pulled the wooden hatch upward with a creak, faint muffled sounds drifted from the pitch-black cellar, like the noises someone could only make through their nose with their mouth gagged.

In his haste, Nick stumbled down the wooden steps and fumbled for the switch on the wall. As the light came on, he saw a child tied to a child-sized bed at the far end of the cellar. It was Robin, the missing little girl.

He hurried over and removed the gag from her mouth, then began untying the ropes, murmuring reassurance all the while. "Hey, I'm a police officer. It's okay, sweetheart. I'm here to get you out."

As the little girl looked at him with tear-filled eyes, Nick felt as though a hand had gently squeezed his heart. The feeling was both aching and filled with the relief of a great weight lifting. At least it didn't end in tragedy.

Hancock stood uneasily beside the body. Every rustle in the surrounding woods sent him glancing nervously around.

In the darkness earlier, he had not actually seen very clearly, but those two inhuman wolf howls and the strange way the man had fled on all fours were unlikely to have been hallucinations.

And, of course, there had been the eerie red glow from the man's eyes.

Remembering how he had mocked his partner just a couple of days ago for developing PTSD after firing his gun for the first time, only to find himself in the same position so soon, Hancock could not help feeling a jumble of emotions.

He vaguely remembered Nick mentioning something about five psychological stages. The Black detective, who had likewise just shot and killed a suspect for the first time, began considering whether he should go have a proper talk tomorrow with his ex-wife, who was a psychologist.

Just then, sirens finally sounded in the distance and gradually drew closer. Hancock had only just breathed a sigh of relief when he turned and saw his partner emerge from the cabin carrying little Robin.

The little girl clung tightly to Nick's neck. Even as innocent as she was, she seemed to understand now that she was safe. Though glistening tears still clung to her long lashes, she gave a sweet smile in Hancock's direction.