Chapter Text
“Burkhardt,” Sergeant Wu called across the precinct. “Got a vagrancy case for you in Room B.”
Detective Nick Burkhardt of the Portland Police Department looked up from his desk, eyebrows knotted. “Vagrancy? Wu, you realize we mostly deal with homicides here.”
“He said he’s got information for you. Asked for you by name.” Wu gave an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders as he approached the desk. “I mean, 10 to 1 guy’s just making it up, figures an hour sweating in a warm interrogation room is better than freezing out there in this cold, but when a hobo knows a cop’s full name and job description, that’s usually worth paying attention to.”
“True.” Nick looked at the sleet hurling against the windows and shivered. Oregon generally didn’t get very intense temperatures, which was what made this particular cold snap so devastating. People had been finding frozen bodies on the roads for weeks, bums who’d just lain down and never woken up. It’d make sense that one would come up with a story to find a quicker way to a warm room.
Nick’s partner, Hank, clearly had his mind on something else. “He asked for Nick by name, you say? Is there a chance he’s one of our…” his voice grew lower. “…y’know, special cases?”
“Wesen, you mean? How am I supposed to know?” muttered Wu. “I don’t have magic eyes like Wonderboy over here. Your bum sure looks like an animal, but then again, he probably hasn’t eaten in a day and slept in a drainpipe last night, so what would you expect?
“Fair point,” Nick said.
“Could be word’s getting around about you.” Hank looked over at Nick.
“Maybe.” Nick considered. A number of people in the Wesen community knew of his identity, but most were too terrified of his reputation as one of the feared Grimms to approach him openly, even if they’d heard rumors of his compassionate nature. “He give a name?”
“Left the sheet on my desk, but I think… Gerald?” Wu said.
Nick shook his head. “Can’t say I know a Gerald.” There were, of course, the Reapers and other agents of the Royal Family, but they were very unlikely to come to the middle of a police station. “Maybe it’s a new friend?”
“Only one way to know for sure.” Hank looked to Nick.
Nick nodded. “Let’s go,” he said, casting a look at the windows again as the wind rattled them.
Wu had been right about one thing, the man did look like an animal. In fact, with the wild, unkempt mane of white hair, and the scraggly beard on the sharp chin with it’s angular cheekbones, he put Nick most strongly in mind of a wolf—a hungry albino wolf. The impression was added to, strongly, by the wool winter overcoat, stained with mud and salt, several decades out of date, which hung loose about his body. He seemed almost slumped over the table, head resting on his clasped hands. With the opaque wraparound sunglasses he was wearing, the man could almost seem to be asleep, yet somehow he seemed intent, predatory. Perhaps that feeling came from the angry red scars that marked the man’s face.
“Yeah, I don’t know this guy,” Nick said, staring through the one-way mirror.
“You sure?” Wu asked. “Maybe you met him once on a case and just forgot?”
Nick gave Wu a disbelieving stare. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember this guy if I’d met him on a case before. Heck, I’m pretty sure I’d remember him if I’d been at the urinal next to him twenty years ago.”
“I hear that, brother,” Hank muttered.
Wu nodded. “See, that makes sense, and I hear what you’re both saying. Only tell me this, Nick. If you don’t know this guy, why’re you looking at him like you’ve seen a ghost?”
Nick’s eyes flickered over to him for a second, and then back to the man. “I can’t really say,” he said, quietly. “It’s just… something about him reminds me of my Aunt Marie.”
“Your Aunt Marie?” Hank looked at him. “Your Wesen-killing, enforcer of the Royal Family Aunt Marie?”
“The one who raised me, yeah.” Nick said. “I don’t know what it is, just…” he shook his head. “Something about the way he carries himself, maybe. And the other thing is, when I look at him…” he paused.
“…yes?” asked Wu.
“…it almost feels…” Nick swallowed. “as if he’s looking back.”
Hank and Wu both looked at the vagrant, sitting in the room at the table. Then they looked at each other, then at the man again. Hank suppressed a little shiver. “Okay, I get it, but Nick, that’s one-way glass. If he’s staring, he’s staring at himself. The room is soundproofed…”
“Not as soundproof as you might think.”
All three froze. The voice was deep, gravelly, with a thick European accent. It’d come from the speaker next to the glass—the one let them listen in on what was being said inside.
“Your aunt sounds like an interesting person, Detective Burkhardt.” The vagrant inside shifted position, leaning back and wrapping his dirty brown overcoat around him. “Why don’t you come inside so we can talk about her?”
Nick came inside the interrogation room, Hank a step behind him. “So,” Nick said, as he sat down across from the white-haired man. “You’ve got really good hearing.”
“Freakish, I’ve been told.” There was no humor or rancor in the man’s voice. He was simply stating a fact.
“As you probably heard, then, I don’t remember you, but you asked for me by name, so you clearly know me.” Nick shrugged. “How about we start there, Gerald.”
“Geralt.”
Nick frowned. “Sorry?”
“Not Gerald. Geralt. My name is Geralt.” The thick accent made the distinction hard to catch, but it was there. “Though I’ve been called worse, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter what name you give me.” Geralt scratched his chin absently. Nick caught sight of a metal chain or something around the man’s neck.
“Got a last name, Geralt?” Hank asked.
“Just Geralt’s fine.” Again, no humor, no irritation.
“Okay, Geralt. How’d you hear my name?” Nick asked, signaling to his partner to let it go.
“Around,” Geralt replied. “Word is you’re the detective who deals with the strange and unexplained. The monsters.”
Hank and Nick again exchanged a glance. “All police officers deal with monsters, in one way or another,” Nick said carefully.
“True. Didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.” Geralt lifted his grimy hands in a gesture of surrender. “But you tend to deal with the more inhuman sort, correct?”
This time Nick didn’t even bother to look at Hank. There was no question about what the man was implying. “Wu,” he said, raising his voice just enough to alert the sergeant. The last thing they needed was a random cop walking into the next room to overhear a discussion about fairy-tale creatures and royal families. He took a breath. “You mean Wesen, I take it,” he said in a lower tone.
“Werewolves, alps, striggas, botchlings, bluebeards, whatever you call them here.” Again, no inflection in the man’s tone. He was as calm as if he were discussing the weather. “You deal with them. Help them sometimes.”
“I try.” Nick watched the man. There was something eerie about the sunglasses and the man’s unflappable calm. “Though not many Wesen reach out, because of my family.”
“Your charming Aunt Marie, who you mentioned.” The man inclined his head.
“Among others.” Nick gave a short nod. “I’m what they call a Grimm.” He waited for a reaction and saw nothing. “You’re not bothered by that?”
“Why would I be?” The vagrant reached for his sunglasses and took them off.
A pair of glowing, amber-yellow slitted cat’s eyes stared back.
“Shit!” Hank recoiled slightly, stumbling over his chair.
“You can see that?” Nick glanced at his partner. It was rare for a Wesen to do a full woge that even a normal human could see, while in a police station.
“Hell yeah,” Hank breathed.
“Naturally he can see them, they’re my eyes,” the man retorted, sounding impatient. “It’s not some transformation or shifting or whatever you call it. That’s just the way my eyes are. So he can see them, and you, and that sergeant behind the glass door, along with the bran half-breed that I’d assume is your captain.”
There was a thumping at the door, and in burst Police Captain Sean Renard, zauberbiest and erstwhile Prince of the Royal Family. “You,” he half-hissed, staring at the vagrant. “You died!” He openly woged, showing the corpselike expression of a zauberbiest. “All of your kind died!”
“Hm. Guess I missed that memo.” Geralt shrugged. “Too stubborn, I guess.”
Renard ignored the response, whirling instead on Nick and Hank. “Get him out of here,” he said, his human form reasserting itself. “Get him out my station, get him out of my city. Put him in a car and drive him until it’s too far for him to walk back. Put him on a plane, I don’t care.”
“Uh, sir, no disrespect intended,” Nick said, half-standing, staring at his captain with concern. “But why would…”
“Get him out!” The captain half-shouted, turning from the room. “That’s an order, detective! I want that butcher gone.”
“Why? What is he?” Nick asked.
Geralt answered. “I am what people used to call a Witcher.” He gave a light smile at Nick’s expression. “We were the first Grimms.”