Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Grimm the Icy Touch by John Shirley
Grimm the Icy Touch by John Shirley
The first original novel to tie-in with the hit US show inspired by the Grimm Brothers classic fairy tales.
There once was a man who lived a life so strange, it had to be true. Only he could see what no one else can: the darkness inside, the real monster within. And he’s the one who must stop them..
This is his calling. This is his duty. This is the life of a Grimm.
When a torched body is found in an underground tunnel, Portland Police Captain Sean Renard takes one look at the victim’s burned claws and assigns the case to homicide detectives Nick Burkhardt and Hank Griffin. They soon discover that a international crime cartel named Le Touche Givre (The Icy Touch) is threatening Wesen into joining their illegal drug-smuggling operation, and brutally murdering those who refuse.
As they close in on the cartel, Nick begins to realise that their charismatic and dangerous leader is just as intent on tracking him down...
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An excerpt from Grimm - the Icy Touch by John Shirley ebook
On a cold dawn, on March 1, 1815, six ships arrived together on the Mediterranean coast of France. The flagship of this small fleet was the brig Inconstant, carrying the exiled Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his retinue. The vessels dropped anchor in the Golfe-Juan, near the Cape of Antibes, just a 147 miles north of Corsica, where, not much more than forty years earlier, the Emperor’s destiny had begun to unfold.
Johann Kessler waited in the launch for the return of the Emperor of France. Kessler’s tanned, dark-eyed face was impassive, but his heart was troubled because amongst the other seven men waiting in the gently rocking boat with him was one Alberle Denswoz?and Kessler was sitting beside him. The irony fairly tingled in the air: Denswoz was Hundjager Wesen, after all. Kessler had only recently discovered the man’s Wesen nature when Denswoz let down his guard, briefly revealing his true bestial form.
Not so long before, the old folk tales collected by the Brothers Grimm?tales of witches, wolf-men, dragons, and many others?had become enormously popular. Few readers knew that the creatures described by the Grimms actually existed. The brothers themselves had assumed they were only mythology.
But in the dark heart of each fairy tale was something true; something fantastic yet real: the Wesen. Some were essentially beast-men, and women, disguised as human; some were more monstrous.
Another ancient line of beings, both human and more than human, sought out the more dangerous Wesen and destroyed them. Lately, in sardonic homage to the compilers of the fairy tales, these secretive hunters were called... Grimms.
As far as Kessler knew, Denswoz was unaware that one of these almost superhuman beings was seated next to him.
Now, the Emperor climbed lithely down to the boat that would take him ashore. Colonel Mallet helped the great man into the stern sheets.
The Emperor was a compact, pale, slightly plump, long-nosed man with deep-set eyes and black hair. He was wearing a long black overcoat, and a white weskit over which slanted his sash; his famous bicorn hat adorned his head. He peered through the streamers of mist rising from a sea the color of his gray-blue eyes; he strove to see if anyone awaited them on the shore. Napoleon would have preferred to take a place in the bow, but Colonel Mallet had begged him to sit in the stern, for fear of hostile sharpshooters awaiting them on the beach. They had escaped easily from Elba, with almost 1,100 grenadiers, while the British and Bourbon ships were away; but the journey to the French coast had been tediously dragged out by contrary winds, so that the Emperor joked that Inconstant had lived up to its name. In that time, word may have reached France of the Emperor’s impending return. Enemies could be waiting.
Kessler was half expecting to see Bourbon soldiers on the shore, perhaps a detachment from one of the hostile garrisons in Provence, training cannon on the launch. He had no wish to die in a cannon fusillade, nor did he wish Napoleon’s death. But the Emperor’s own scouts stepped into view on the beach to wave the all clear. Kessler’s spirits rose?and though it was a chill daybreak on a cold sea, everyone in the boat was smiling, their eyes bright. They were back in France after ten months of exile on the island of Elba. La France!
Johann Kessler was German, but had become a French citizen under Napoleon; Denswoz was Austrian but when Austria had been annexed by Napoleon, he had eagerly sought to advise the Emperor?only recently had he been accepted, on sailing to Elba. In fact, Kessler suspected that Denswoz was in part the cause of the Emperor’s decision to return to France. Denswoz?and the coins. Kessler had only caught a glimpse of the large, curious Greek coins that the Emperor kept in his coat pocket; that he took out from time to time; that seemed to transfer their ancient shine to those gray-blue eyes...
If Kessler’s theory was confirmed, these were no ordinary coins. They were strange and powerful artifacts, created on an island of Greece centuries ago?they’d passed through many hands: Caligula had clasped them lovingly; Nero had caressed them. They had vanished into China, last seen in the Han Dynasty. If they’d reappeared, and if the dark Wesen had given them to the Emperor, it might be that Kessler’s true, secret cause was hopeless.
The coxswain directed the sailors to begin rowing, and the launch set off, as the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte turned to speak to Colonel Mallet.
“Yonder is an olive orchard, Colonel,” he said. “Let us bivouac there until everyone is ashore and organized for the march.”
“Very good, my Emperor.”
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