Grimm: The Chopping Block (24 page)

Nick spread out the four versions of the flyer. Each had an address to a location where another copy of the flyer could be found. He had a hard time believing that any of the four public locations hosted nefarious activity during business hours or after hours. The symbol
had
to mean something to someone.

And there was one place he hadn’t checked.

Hank noticed Nick staring at the flyers and said, “Wild goose chase?”

“We’re missing the significance of these,” Nick said, gathering up the flyers. “One place left to check.”

“Aunt Marie’s trailer?”

Nick nodded. “You coming?”

“Got a few more calls to make.”

“I find anything, I’ll let you know.”

As Nick walked out, Hank picked up the phone again.

Nishimura Koji sat slumped against the basement wall, the iron collar heavy around his neck, his right eye swollen where he’d been elbowed by his abductor in his attempt to escape.

He’d left work after finishing the evening shift at Office Silo, an office supply chain store, but never made it to his car. He hadn’t seen his kidnapper since he’d been dumped in the basement with the other chained prisoners. But a different man had come to the basement on several occasions, dragging one of them away to protests and screams. A massive man wearing some kind of hellish, horned mask to terrify them.

As the hours passed, and the manacles and chains securing his wrists and ankles clanked with each slight movement, Nishimura began to feel as if he were trapped in a nightmare and couldn’t wake up. The sodden gag in his mouth was rancid, and the odors permeating the basement were nauseating.

And yet, in the distance, coming from rooms above them, he heard the strains of classical music playing, each note drifting downward like pristine snow over a cesspool. If he paused in his movements, he could distinguish the harpsichord and cello, a viola and a flute.

He’d had a girlfriend who’d loved classical music and she’d dragged him to various concerts over the course of their eighteen-month relationship. Since he was infatuated with her—for a time, anyway—he went to the concerts, listened to the CDs in the car and the playlists on her iPod blasting from her Bluetooth speakers. After ten minutes or so, he convinced himself that he was listening to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. He hadn’t heard it in over a year—since his girlfriend had ditched him, rather than continue a long-distance relationship while she attended college.

Now he had the crazy idea that she’d escaped the living nightmare in which he found himself trapped, carried away on musical notes far from danger, as if she’d anticipated this outcome. Illogically, he became mad at her—like a nightmare-induced grudge—for abandoning him to this fate.

An equally irrational idea occurred to him, that if he could somehow make his way to the source of that pleasant music, he would leave this hell behind and return unscathed to the real world. Maybe even see Gillian again. He could move to the East Coast. Ithaca, New York, wasn’t so far away in the grand scheme of things. He fell into a dreamy daze, transported by the music, a faint smile on his face as he considered the changes he would make to take control of his life…

Minutes, possibly hours, passed before the basement door opened and the steps creaked. He was startled out of his reverie as the horn-masked man came to collect another victim.

But this time he came for Nishimura.

* * *

Upstairs, the elegant ground floor—featuring rooms with coffered ceilings and glittering chandeliers—had been turned into several dining rooms. Most of the guests milled about as candlelight reflected off their champagne flutes and wine glasses, chatting amiably. Classical music played in the background, piped through speakers concealed throughout the house, as they waited to be served their evening meal.

The men wore bespoke suits or dinner jackets, the bejeweled women evening gowns fit for a red carpet lined with paparazzi and celebrity gossip columnists. But nobody would mistake those gathered for celebrities, though a few might have been considered stars in Fortune 500 boardrooms. While those in attendance enjoyed the finer things in life, they also enjoyed anonymity.

For some in the Silver Plate Society, this was their second feasting ritual. A handful of those present had enjoyed two previous feasts. Of that number, two sat in wheelchairs, needing assistance to navigate the host’s sprawling house.

Though the members exuded a sense of extravagant celebration, they also exchanged bittersweet knowing glances when Host escorted nonmembers, who had responded to the open invitations, to the back room. Empty Chair days meant that the feasts were winding down. And many of those present this time would not live long enough to attend the next official gathering.

The classical music faded and a bell clanged three times. Conversations gave way to an expectant silence.

A portly older gentleman in a chef’s hat and jacket wheeled out a large serving cart filled with covered silver dishes and silver serving trays. Though everyone addressed him as Chef, his current role in the society, most members knew his unspoken name: Oscar Cavendish.

With a series of dramatic flourishes, he lifted the covers off the dishes one by one, announcing the menu as he did so, so the participants could choose their courses for the evening.

“For your dining pleasure, I present Greek heart topped with capers, rocket greens, a fried egg, and a bordelaise sauce. Enjoy this one with sweetbreads in an offal croquette.”

He revealed the next dish.

“Or choose Korean tongue marinated in soy sauce and sugar, deep fried with garlic and pepper.”

Someone asked, “Adult or juvenile?”

“Both of these dishes come from hearty adults,” Cavendish said. “For those preferring juvenile cuisine, let me turn your attention to this next dish, Russian kidney served with a light arrachera sauce. And next we have…”

After uncovering the specials, Cavendish placed them on the long banquet table so the guests could serve themselves. In the middle of that table, two severed human hands with painted fingernails had been arranged palms up to support a woman’s severed head. The head and hands served as a decorative centerpiece. The woman’s flesh and organs were not, however, featured on the evening’s menu.

The remainder of Sheila Jenkins’ dismembered body had washed up in a tidal pool.

“Meat?” someone called from the vicinity of the nonmember room.

“Ah, for those of you skipping our organ specials tonight, we will have rib roast, sirloin, porterhouse and rump roast platters coming up shortly, adult and juvenile, in a variety of ethnicities, including Greek, Korean and Russian, with more savory choices coming later this evening. One and all, please enjoy your meals as we savor the last days of this quarter’s festival.”

With that, Chef received a polite round of applause from the members, and somewhat of an uncouth whistle from the nonmember contingent. Chef smiled, bowed slightly, and returned to his kitchen.

As the formally attired participants edged toward their preferred meal choices, they woged in delight, one after the other, almost in a ripple effect. The majority revealed themselves as Geiers, with a smattering of Coyotls and Schakal, with even greater Wesen variety in the nonmember section of the house.

A short time later, one woman said to another, “Have you tried the Greek heart? It’s to die for!”

“Well, somebody certainly did!”

The first chuckled, delighted. “I heard they collected a whole family.”

“Maybe the others will turn up in the later dishes,” the second said optimistically. “Certainly on the meat platters.”

“The young are so sweet and tender,” the first commented. “It would be a crime to waste a single morsel.”

“Don’t know about you,” the other whispered conspiratorially, “but I skipped breakfast and lunch so I could gorge myself tonight.”

* * *

He drove the speed limit, stopped at red lights, and signaled his turns to avoid any hint of law breaking. They got Al Capone for tax evasion. He had no intention of getting nabbed for reckless driving.

As he approached the designated location, he signaled this one last turn and drove carefully into the dark alley. The hood of the white van gleamed under the sickly pallor of one weak light bulb over the rear door of some unidentifiable business. But the scant illumination succumbed to the surrounding darkness within a few feet of the door. A fading island of light.

The van’s headlights cast twin cones of brightness directly ahead in the suffocating darkness, but could not banish the shadowy edges of the confined space. On the other side of the alley, he noticed a battered Dumpster, overflowing with refuse. As the van slowed to a stop, a dark silhouette stepped out from behind the far side of the Dumpster, raising a shielding forearm as he neared the headlight beams.

Conscious of the possibility that he’d driven into a trap, the driver scanned the other man’s silhouette for any telltale signs of a firearm. Knives and hand-to-hand combat he could handle. Bullets flying out of the darkness were another matter.

He leaned out the side window and addressed the other man.

“You alone?”

“Of course,” Ray Swartley said. “Ron’s in jail.”

The brothers worked as a team, but that didn’t rule out the possibility of accomplices or hired guns.

“And you got away,” the driver said. “Good for you, Ray. You want a gold star? I’m fresh out.”

“No, I’m not—I asked you to meet me because… I need your help.”

“My help?” the driver asked. “Why should I help you?”

“You know why.”

“Do I?” he said menacingly.

“You know…” Ray glanced around the alley, as if somebody might overhear him. “For looking the other way.”

“You were paid to look the other way, Ray,” he said. “Your brother, too.”

“It’s gone,” Ray said sheepishly.

“What’s gone? Your money? How is that my problem?”

“The cops confiscated it, along with our pills,” Ray said. “And they pinched Doc Filbert. I lost the money, the pills, and my source.”

“Again, Ray, how is this my problem?”

“I need some money,” Ray said. “To bail out Ron. Once he’s out, we’ll run. You’ll never see us again.”

“You’ve already been paid, Ray,” he said. “I’m not a bank. Or a soft touch. And I’m not your friend. We conducted a business transaction and that transaction is over.”

He shifted the van into reverse, but Ray reached out and grabbed the doorframe.

“C’mon, I don’t need much money,” Ray wheedled. A sign of his desperation, Ray woged into his Reinigen form, his rat-like features twitching. “You know Ron and I would never talk. We’d never tell anybody you buried those bodies in the vacant lot. And once we leave town, the cops won’t even be able to find us to ask.”

“Glad to hear you would never talk, Ray,” he said. “Because we had a deal. I paid you well to keep your damn mouth shut.”

“Yeah—but—only thing is, with Ron locked up, the cops, they’re gonna put pressure on him to make a deal,” Ray said. “Hell, you know they’re gonna offer me a deal if I tell them what I know. Maybe one of those witness protection things. They’d hide us away good, and all we’d need to tell them was who buried those bodies.”

“Changed my mind, Ray,” the driver said. “I’d like you to deliver a message to your brother.”

“Sure. What’s the message?”

He grabbed the automatic he’d placed on the car seat under his leg, pointed the barrel out the window at Ray—whose mouth dropped open in surprise—and blew a hole through his throat.

The round ripped through Ray’s spine and ricocheted off the side of the Dumpster. Ray stumbled backward in a collapsing, uncontrolled stutter-step, and flopped to the ground, staring up into the evening sky as he bled out in the smelly alley.

Tossing the gun on the passenger seat, he backed out of the alley in a smooth, cautious arc, then drove away, signaling as he switched lanes, traveling a couple miles per hour under the speed limit.

* * *

Aunt Marie’s trailer was a treasure trove of Wesen lore and weapons to combat them, but after flipping through several old tomes and illustrated journals, Nick had found nothing specifically dealing with the circle-and-triangles symbol.

Many different types of Wesen had been known to eat human flesh and organs, or employ specific human body parts as ingredients in various remedies. Which helped explain why Lamar Crawford had colluded with the Wesen responsible for the bare bones murders. He must have clung to the possibility that they could whip up a cure for his fatal illness with spare parts from the humans they butchered.

Aunt Marie’s journals listed various species of Wesen who might consume human flesh and organs, and discussed those who believed that sliced-and-diced or liquefied or powdered human organs possessed magical healing abilities, but he found nothing related to the symbol on the flyers. Nick was missing a bigger picture, a conspiracy of silence about something that happened every twenty years, possibly less often.

In addition to researching the symbol, he’d checked for references to Rio and found nothing other than the usual Grimm hunting and killing instructions with notations about potential dangers and difficulties. In other words, more of what he’d been accustomed to reading in these pages.

With a sense of futility, he left the trailer, locked it behind him, and drove from the lot to Monroe’s house. Though the Blutbad hadn’t recognized the symbol immediately, he had his own arcane reference materials for research. And, unless something turned up there, Nick would have to wait for somebody to break the code of silence about the cannibalistic event, or hope a witness to one of the abductions came forward.

Meanwhile, judging by television, print and radio coverage, the press was having a field day raking the entire Portland Police Department over the coals for ineffectual investigative methods. Multiple murders, the remains of abducted tourists found in shallow graves, and not a single viable suspect had been brought in for questioning. Captain Renard parroted the official line of “pursuing multiple lines of inquiry,” a response only marginally more substantial than “no comment.”