Chapter Eleven

As Nick left the precinct, the sun was just beginning to set. He was near certain he knew where he was going, but he allowed Manon to provide directions from the passenger seat of his SUV. He could have argued with her about supplying the physical address, but decided it was best to simply go along with whatever notion she had in her mind. It fell more in line with what he had planned anyway.

As they approached the neighborhood he was familiar with, he waited for her to tell him to pull over and park. When she did, he tried his best to look out the car windows as though he'd never been there before. But it was exactly as he suspected. 1118 Old Stable Drive.

They each stepped out of the vehicle and Nick walked up to the base of the stairs attached to the path leading up to the house and asked, "This it?"

Manon barely glimpsed up at the house as she passed him nodding her head in response. She walked with a sense of urgency, holding her head low and with her arms wrapped tight around her midsection as she made her way up the stairs.

Nick had no trouble keeping up with her but remained wary of his surroundings. He didn't see any obvious threats and waited patiently as Manon used her key to unlock the door to allow them entry. As she opened the door and stepped inside, Nick glanced around her, peering as best he could up the stairs and around the entrance way. When he saw they appeared to be alone he stepped in behind her. The last time Nick had been in the house, it had been a crime scene. Henrietta had been murdered by his boss, Sean Renard, when he had been possessed by what was believed to be the spirit of Jack the Ripper.

Back then, the house had more decorations and furniture. Now it was sparse. A table and chairs as well as a couch. But the walls were bare. Each step he took echoed loudly. He thought to himself that even if he were barefoot it would be difficult to step through the house silently.

Beneath the stairs leading up to the second floor was a door that Nick assumed led to a basement, but when Manon opened it, he saw that it was more a closet or a pantry. The shelves were lined with various dried foods but the floor was also lined with multiple pairs of women's shoes in different styles and sizes. Nick held the door for Manon as she stepped inside. She spun around looking at the shelves. She grabbed a few things and slid them around as though she wasn't finding what she was looking for. She looked at Nick with panic in her eyes. She knew that the trust between them was tissue paper thin and she had promised to retrieve the Siphon and give it to him. She spun around in a circle one last time, looking over all the shelves. When she saw that the box wasn't in there, she walked out of the pantry, squeezing her way past Nick who was still holding the door for her. Frantically, she walked around the first floor, looking in places for the box she logically knew it wouldn't be but was running out of ideas. She even ran to the kitchen and began looking through the cabinets. Nick walked after her casually. He leaned against the arch of the doorway to the kitchen, crossed his arms and watched Manon panic her way through the kitchen cabinets.

When she had finally exhausted that room she had every intention of running upstairs to check all the bedrooms, but when she attempted to pass Nick he placed a hand in front of her and attempted to speak but Manon cut him off, "It was in the pantry when I left, I swear!"

Nick nodded and kept a neutral expression. He didn't want to cause her to panic any more than she already was, "So one of the others either took it or moved it."

Manon began to ask, "But why-"

Nick cut her off, "We need to leave."

He grabbed her arm and pulled her firmly but with care back to the front door. Having left the door wide open, he could see her before they reached the threshold. Juliette was standing on the path leading to the house with her arms crossed as though she'd been waiting there impatiently, "Took you long enough."

Nick, not wanting to take any chances, kept a firm grip on Manon's arm just in case she was in on this ambush. When she saw Juliette she struggled for a moment to try to get away but gave up when she felt his grip tighten.

Nick walked down the front stairs and then walked down the path towards Juliette, bringing himself only close enough to speak without having to shout. At first, they both stared each other down for several seconds before Juliette eventually opened her mouth, "I don't expect you to tell me where she is, but I will find her. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen."

Nick took a moment to respond. He was still taking in the physical appearance of Juliette. Her face half Woged for all to see. She wasn't even trying to hide it. The sun had set but the lights along the walkway were enough to illuminate the dried up corpse like visage.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment and shook his head in disappointment, when he opened them again, he said, "Why can't you just let this go and move on with your life."

Juliette took a step forward. Manon took a small step back out of reflex but couldn't go far due to Nick's vice-like grip. Juliette spoke loud enough for her voice to echo around them, "Move on with my life? Move on with my life?! What life? You mean the life she stole from me?"

Nick shook his head, "You made choices."

He had more to say but he was cut off by the shouts of a woman on the street, "Can we get to why we're here?!" It was dark, but Nick could see that she too was nearly completely Woged, though she seemed to have the good sense to at least wear a hoodie pulled up over her head. He wondered to himself how long she had been out there without him noticing.

Without being prompted, Manon whispered into Nick's ear that the woman in the street's name is Collette. The de facto leader of Juliette's new coven. As quietly as she whispered, Nick's Grimm hearing could make out the concern and fear in her voice. He removed his grip from her arm and motioned for her to stand behind him. Manon wasn't going to argue about it, but her eyes widened in surprise at being offered a small amount of shelter.

Juliette was disgusted at the gesture. It reminded her too much of the day Nick stood between her and Adalind. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw to keep hold of her hatred and anger. When she opened them again, she said, "I'm sure Manon told you what they're here for?" She raised her voice a bit as she directed her words over Nick's shoulder to Manon, "Did you really think you had tricked us? That we're that stupid?"

Collette's patience was wearing thin, "What are you doing? If he won't tell us where the staff is, kill him."

Without turning around, Julliette called back, "Check the back of his SUV!" Then she addressed Nick directly, "I'd be more surprised if it wasn't there than if it was. You're getting a bit predictable, Nick."

Collette didn't open the hatch, she didn't even glance in the window to see if there was a staff in it or not. She simply reached out towards it with her hands and grabbed what seemed to be nothing and then slowly pulled her arms back as though she were pulling something towards herself and the hatch of the SUV made a loud crackle and a harmony of screeching as the metal twisted and tore from this hinges. The glass shattered and within a few seconds the hatch crashed onto the ground.

Collette reached out with her hand again, flicked her wrist and the hatch slid along the road a dozen or so feet simply to get it out of her way so she could look in the rear of the SUV.

Nick's eyes widened both in shock and dismay at the unnecessary use of force as he shouted, "It wasn't even locked!"

Collette looked back at him and with as much sarcasm as she could, shrugged her shoulders and mouthed the word, "Oops."

Juliette was staring down Nick, daring him to do something. She smirked at him, but with her face half Woged it was far more grotesque than arrogant.

Collette took out her cell phone and shined a light into the back of the SUV and said, "I think it's here?" Nick still had it wrapped in bed sheets. He wasn't sure if it was necessary to do so or not, but to the average person who happened to glance in the back of his SUV it would be meaningless to see a staff wrapped in them.

Collette reached her arm into the back of the SUV to pick it up but before she could get her hand on it she was suddenly and violently struck by something large knocking her down to the ground. She lay there disoriented, not even sure what had happened. She felt someone grab her ankle and when she looked up she saw it was Juliette who was somehow on the ground with her. She had grabbed Collette's ankle as a way to pull herself up. Not that it did any good. Juliette made it to one knee and fell back to the ground again. She seemed to be even more dazed than Collette.

Juliette attempted to sit upright again as she spoke words that made her question her perception of reality, "Did... Did you just..." She fell back onto her rear and then looked up at Nick who was walking towards them. Manon was left speechless standing in the spot that Nick had left her in. She had witnessed his actions with her own eyes and still couldn't believe what she had just seen.

Finally, Juliette was able to sit upright, with Collette grabbing onto her shoulders to also bring herself to a sitting position. Collette reached up to feel her face and felt blood dripping from her nose.

Juliette couldn't hide her disbelief but also couldn't deny what had just happened, "Did you just... throw me?"

When Nick saw Collette reach out for the Staff, Nick's instincts kicked in and he quickly closed the gap between him and Juliette. With swift and precise movements, he grabbed Juliette's arm, twisting it around his body and performed a textbook shoulder throw, sending her flying further than even he thought possible. The impact with Collette was brutal as the heels of Juliette's shoes struck her in the face before both of them hit the ground with a heavy thud.

The absurdity of the conclusion Collette was being forced to draw about how she had been knocked down made her so angry she clenched her fists and she began to breathe in and out heavily. At first, she tried to calm herself, but then she remembered she's facing a Grimm, there's no reason to calm down. Then she smiled. She was going to enjoy this.

Without standing up she looked up at Nick who was standing over them calmly and, in Collette's opinion, arrogantly. Nick began to speak again, but then Collette lashed out in anger. She kicked at his legs and he dodged the blows. She quickly got to her feet and she attempted to strike at his face, his throat, anything she could get her hands on, but Nick was able to dodge and duck everything she attempted. When she attempted to strike his face one last time, Nick deftly blocked it and then struck her in the face with the back of his fist.

She stopped in her tracks. The blow hadn't hurt, but everything he had done in the last minute had been embarrassing. It was like he was mocking her and she hated him for it. If she couldn't punch him, she wanted to see how much he enjoyed flying. She took a step back and flicked her wrist at him. She fully expected him to launch into the air dozens, possibly even hundreds, of feet. She wasn't even sure how powerful she was anymore.

But nothing happened.

She didn't understand. She tried again. Nothing. She tried again and again with each hand. Nothing. What is happening? She should be one of the most powerful Hexenbiests on the planet. She should be able to send him screaming into the sky and watch him plummet to his death. Juliette who had seen the whole thing was equally as confused, though a bit more merciful, she attempted to push Nick back up the hill using her abilities and still nothing happened.

To anyone who may have been watching, the scene would have been comical. The two women kept trying to effect Nick in some way using their magical abilities, making exaggerated motions with their hands and not a single thing they attempted worked. At first, Nick flinched at the what the women were trying, but after a few seconds his muscles relaxed. He walked forward, planning to make the fight physical once more and Juliette was the first to give up on magic. She lunged at him. It wasn't easy for him to fight her. At one time she had been the love of his life and, through him being a Grimm, all the consequences of who and what he is fell back onto Juliette. He felt guilty for the changes that have happened to her. But he had a wife and a son to protect and he was going to make sure these women didn't hurt them or anyone else.

Though Nick was faster and physically stronger than the two Hexenbiests, there were still two of them and only the one of him. They kept trying to punch him, kick him, claw at his eyes. Collette leapt onto his back and screamed in his ear while Juliette attempted to bring him down to the ground. It seemed it was about to work when finally the plan that Nick had set in motion came to fruition.

Two vehicles came to screeching stops in front of the property and Sergeant Drew Wu and Detective Hank Griffin came out of each vehicle accompanied by a group of Hexenbiests that all Woged as soon as they stepped onto the pavement.

Juliette was not surprised to see Wu nor Hank. But the Hexenbiests they brought... that was completely unexpected. She reached out and pulled Collette off of Nick, though at first Collette didn't understand why. When she got turned around and saw what they'd be up against, she muttered to herself, "What the hell."

Wu and Hank had no idea what to do. Wu removed his gun from its holster but the women who he brought with him were all running in front of him making it far too dangerous to attempt to aim it at either Juliette, or Collette. He kept his gun pointed at the ground as he watched a bevy of women run towards Nick and engage in the strangest battle he'd ever witnessed.

Collette immediately began flicking her hands at her oncoming opponents, lifting their bodies high into the air, but their allies used their combined powers to bring them back down the ground safely.

The street they were on wasn't typically busy. Several minutes had passed since another vehicle made its way past the house they were at, but at this moment Wu saw the headlights of an oncoming car and decided that since he was of no use in a Hexenbiest fight, he could at least direct traffic away from the area.

He holstered his weapon while walking to the center of the street and put a hand up to motion the car to stop then began signaling to the driver that they had to put the car in reverse and back away. However, the driver brought the vehicle to a complete stop and put the car in park. Wu rolled his eyes. He stepped to approach the driver's side door when it opened and a woman stepped out.

Wu began issuing instructions for her to get back into her car and drive away but Wu saw the smirk on her face and realized he'd stepped into a trap. He attempted to grab his gun out its holster again but the woman flicked her wrist at him and within a blink he was soaring into the sky.

The woman watched and decided to herself that when Wu came back down it would make quite a mess, so she took a few steps back and waited.

The street lights illuminated the immediate vicinity, however Wu was not visible in the night sky. Seconds ticked by and she knew there was no way it would take this long for him to fall back down. She looked up and squinted into the night hoping to at least see the light blue of his police uniform shirt. When she spotted the shirt, she calculated that he wasn't falling at a natural speed. She began looking around the area and found what she suspected. Well, she had expected to see perhaps a Hexenbiest, but wasn't terribly surprised to see a fully Woged Zauberbiest crouched beside a parked car obviously using his abilities to slow Wu's descent. She flicked her wrist at the Zauberbiest knocking him back several feet, his head hitting hard against the pavement and cutting the connection between his abilities and Wu.

She crossed her arms and smirked to herself, satisfied that Wu would be killed and that she could next take care of the Zauberbiest. Wu fell the remaining distance to the ground, a dozen or so feet from the Hexenbiest woman.

But when Wu crashed to the ground, it wasn't with the bloody mess that the woman was expecting. Instead he landed on all fours. He was breathing heavily, his head was lowered but she could see the arch of his back rising and falling. Rather than say anything or extend any sort of social interaction between the two of them, she reached her arm out and was about to flick her wrist at him once more sending him into the sky to hopefully finish him off.

Before she could finish the motion, Wu's neck snapped up and he looked at her. His face was distorted. His brow, cheek bones and jaw line had all expanded, the hair on his head was longer and scraggily. A bit of facial hair had formed where, before, he had been clean shaven. She then noticed that his hands were unnaturally large and his fingernails appeared more claw-like.

The woman furrowed her brow. Had she done this to him? Or perhaps the Zauberbiest somehow? Neither was the case, as Wu had been scratched in the past by a Blutbud with Lycanthropy, passing the disease onto him but it seemed to effect him in new and unexpected ways. He has less control over it than he'd like, but when he's under extreme stress or fear, his body is taken over by a Neanderthal like personality and physical appearance.

Their eyes met and the Neanderthal Wu's face distorted with rage before he let out a roar that could be heard for miles. The woman yelped and flicked her wrist at him. Had she not been panicking the motion may have sent Wu high in the air again, but her aim was off. Instead of sending him up, she sent him back. Wu's body twisted and turned and he landed on all fours again. He looked up at her and roared again and began sprinting in her direction.

She turned and ran away from him. Reaching back with her hand she flicked her wrist at him again and again. With each attempt he'd be knocked back several feet and each time he'd land, sometimes on all fours, sometimes landing with much less grace, but he would make a mad scramble back onto this feet and begin closing the distance between them. She found a parked car and ran around it trying to keep it between her and Wu, but Wu jumped up onto the roof of the car and then leapt onto her. If not for her Hexenbiest abilities she likely would have been dead within seconds. However, she was able to use her powers to push him off of her, this time, with much more effectiveness. His back and legs collided with the roof of the car he'd just leapt off of and he rolled backwards onto the pavement.

The woman got back to her feet and began running towards her Coven who were having troubles of their own.

As she was running, she heard Wu's roars and knew she only had seconds to catch up to her group before something terrible happened to her. When she reached the crest of the hill she was running up, she saw chaos as two women, far more powerful than what came naturally to Hexenbiests, were fighting what had to be at least ten other Hexenbiest women plus the Grimm. The Kehrseite Detective, Hank, seemed to be sitting back and doing what he could to flash his badge and keep civilians out of the area. Redirecting the occasional passing car out of the area.

At one point one of the Hexenbiests had seen the hatch that had been torn off of Nick's SUV laying on the ground and decided to use it was a weapon. It was too heavy for one of them to lift, but she had signaled to another and they worked together to send the hatch soaring and spinning through the air. Instead of it crashing into either Juliette or Collette as intended, the power thieves used their combined might to stop the motion of the hatch and sent it back towards the senders. It would have killed them had other Hexenbiests not intervened.

The hatch continued to fly and spin back and forth through the air as though it was simply a piece of paper caught in a whirlwind. The power thieves, however, were simply too powerful. They used the hatch to knock down one Hexenbiest after another.

Nick looked around and saw that the numbers that were on his side were dwindling. He needed to take a more direct approach. He didn't understand how the Staff worked, he knew it healed, but had never bothered to experiment with it to see what else it could do. Though the healing abilities alone would be worth taking it into battle. He ran toward the SUV with every intention of grabbing it out of the rear of the SUV but as he reached it, a woman stepped out from behind it, flicked her wrist at him sent him flying back several feet. His back and head colliding hard and fast with the street pavement.

Juliette and Collette were just finishing up with eliminating the Hexenbiests when they shared a glance with each after they saw Nick being launched into the air.

The roars of Wu in the distance became close enough to become a new concern. Collette looked at Juliette and asked, "What's that noise?"

Before Juliette could respond, the question was answered for her as Wu sprinted over the hill towards them. Collette muttered to herself for the second time that night, "What the hell."

Juliette was the first to react, she flicked her wrist at Wu sending him flying, his back colliding flush against a large tree. He collapsed onto the ground and lay there not moving. Juliette and Collette looked around and saw that there was no more opposition with the exception of Hank.

Hank had drawn his weapon and had it aimed at the women. He was slowly walking toward them and had quite a distance to close between them.

Nick, laying on the street, motioned his hand at Hank to lower his weapon. Hank didn't like the idea of giving up, but also wasn't dumb enough to think he could somehow survive a fight with Hexenbiests.

Juliette chose to ignore Hank, walking instead to Nick, "Where is she Nick?"

Before Nick could respond Collette shouted, "Nikki, what are you doing here?"

"We felt you'd been gone too long and we decided that at least one of us should check up on you."

Collette shrugged, "We're fine. Check out the back of the SUV."

Nikki took her phone out and used the lit up screen to peer inside. She reached in and picked up the Staff that remained wrapped in the bed sheets that Trubel had begun the practice of keeping around it. Nikki asked, "Is this what we're here for then? We can leave?"

Collette nodded her head. Juliette stayed silent. She didn't care about the Staff at all. All she cared about was killing Adalind and now it appeared that if she was going to accomplish that, she wasn't going to have anymore help. The women had got what they wanted before she could get the revenge she had desired for so long.

She looked around and saw on the street and on the lawn of Henrietta's old home the Hexenbiests were either unconscious or rolling around in too much pain to stand.

Nick also lay on the ground. He wasn't so badly injured that he couldn't stand, but he remained on the ground for the same reason he gestured to Hank to lower his weapon. He was biding his time, knowing there was no point in escalating things now that the women had the Staff. Instead, he patiently waited.

Collette looked around. Satisfied there was nothing more to accomplish, she said, "Yeah, alright, we can go now."

Nikki turned to Juliette and asked, "Um, Juliette, is the Staff supposed to be shaking like this? Is it normal?" She held her arm out to show her hand shaking ever so slightly with the Staff in her hand.

Nick, laying on the ground, put his hands behind his head and crossed his feet at his ankles. As cocky as he could he said loudly, "You didn't tell them did you?"

Collette's head snapped to look at Juliette, "Tell us what?"

Juliette was genuinely confused and she turned to Nick to ask the same, "Tell them what?!"

When Nick didn't respond, the realization struck her. She had been too focused on wanting to kill Adalind with no genuine interest in obtaining the Staff. If things had gone according to plan that's what should have happened. Juliette would have gotten out of Portland long before now. But somehow the Coven had screwed up the power theft intended for Adalind and Juliette was in a fight she didn't even care about. All of that led to her forgetting a very critical detail.

The stick.

When a shard of the Staff had been in Nick's possession and someone tried to take it from him, the shard had defended itself. Now, it was reconnected with the Staff. But would it try to defend itself in the same way?

It felt like time had slowed to a crawl. She began to run at Nikki, shouting for her to drop it. When Nikki responded, shaking her hand to illustrate, that she couldn't drop it and that the shaking was increasing in intensity, Juliette shifted her weight and changed the direction she was running in towards Collette who was frozen in place having no idea what was going to happen. For a moment Collette thought about stepping forward in an attempt to help remove the Staff from Nikki's hand and took half a step forward to do so when Juliette grabbed her by the waist and twisted her around so that they both crashed onto the ground alongside of the SUV.

Before Collette could ask what was going on, a flash of light blinded her and simultaneously an explosive sound deafened her. An arc of electrical energy had come down from the sky and struck Nikki. To the average person they would have called it a bolt of lightning. But Hank and Nick had both seen electrical energy like it before. The blue tint. One could call it lightning, but it was clearly magical in nature. The ground Nikki had been standing on had exploded with bits of pavement and rocks flying in all directions.

When Collette could see again, though her ears were still ringing, she stood up and walked around the SUV to find the body of Nikki on the ground. The intense heat of the lightning strike had seared her skin and left behind a trail of electrical burns. The flesh sizzled and blackened where the electricity made contact, leaving behind deep charred grooves that crackled and smoked. The burns extended from her fingertips all the way up to her shoulders, leaving her skin looking like a patchwork quilt of scorched flesh. Her clothes were singed and melted in places, the fabric fused to her skin in a gruesome display. The odor of burnt flesh and hair wafted through the air. One of her eye sockets were empty, her other eye glassy and staring at nothing.

Nikki was dead.