Kimura announced his arrival by killing Viktor's own people.
The Verrat observation team had been monitoring our headquarters from a warehouse across the street—standard surveillance, three operatives rotating through eight-hour shifts. They'd been there for weeks, documenting our movements, cataloguing our patterns, feeding intelligence back to Viktor's network.
We'd let them stay. Known enemies were preferable to unknown ones, and their reports gave us insight into what Viktor considered important.
On day seventeen, they stopped reporting.
Monroe found the bodies the next morning.
"It's bad." His voice came through the phone flat, controlled—the deliberate calm of someone suppressing horror. "You need to see this yourself."
The warehouse was a slaughterhouse.
Three bodies, arranged in a triangle, each one torn apart with surgical precision. Not random violence—deliberate mutilation designed to send a message. The Verrat operatives had been professional killers, armed and trained for exactly this kind of threat.
They'd lasted maybe thirty seconds.
Blood covered the walls in patterns that spoke of speed I couldn't comprehend. One operative had drawn his weapon; the gun lay near his body, unfired. Another had made it three steps toward the exit before being caught from behind.
The third had been posed—seated against the wall, hands folded in his lap, eyes carefully closed. A note had been pinned to his chest.
I hunt alone.
[SCENE ANALYSIS: MAUVAIS DENTES WORK CONFIRMED]
[VICTIM COUNT: 3 (VERRAT OPERATIVES)]
[TIME OF DEATH: APPROXIMATELY 8 HOURS PRIOR]
[MESSAGE INTERPRETATION: REJECTION OF ALLIANCE, ASSERTION OF DOMINANCE]
"He killed Viktor's people." Monroe stood in the doorway, refusing to enter further. "The people who were supposed to be his backup."
"They were in his way." I studied the blood patterns, trying to reconstruct the attack. "Kimura doesn't share territory. Doesn't work with teams. Viktor sent him here and lost control immediately."
"That's supposed to be reassuring?"
"It's information." I photographed the scene, documenting everything for later analysis. "Kimura isn't following Viktor's orders. He's following his own agenda."
"And his agenda is?"
"The Key. Me. The hunt itself." I moved toward the exit, having learned what I could. "Call the cleanup crew. This needs to disappear before the police find it."
The Pack council convened within the hour—emergency session, everyone present, tension thick enough to taste.
"He's here." I shared the photographs, watching reactions range from horror to rage. "Kimura arrived yesterday, eliminated the Verrat observation team, and announced his presence. He wants us to know he's hunting."
"Let him come." Angelina's chains clinked as she shifted. "I'm tired of waiting."
"You haven't seen what he can do." Monroe's voice was sharp. "This isn't like the Reapers or Viktor's soldiers. Mauvais Dentes are apex predators. Even full Blutbad packs avoid them."
"I'm not afraid of—"
"Then you're stupid." The words came out harder than I intended. "Being afraid is the correct response. Kimura has been killing longer than any of us have been alive. Confidence without capability is just suicide with extra steps."
Angelina's jaw tightened, but she didn't argue further.
"What's our play?" Ariel's question cut through the tension. "We can't hide forever. He'll find us eventually."
"We're not hiding. We're preparing." I pulled up the tactical display. "Adalind's contacts in Vienna responded. Hexenbiests have faced Mauvais Dentes before. The information is incomplete, but there are options."
"Such as?"
"Their regeneration has limits. Massive, overwhelming damage—the kind that destroys tissue faster than it can reform—can be lethal." I highlighted the relevant sections. "Fire is particularly effective. Burn them completely, and even regeneration can't bring them back."
Ariel's hands flickered with flame. "I can provide fire."
"You're one of our primary weapons against him. But it has to be concentrated, sustained, total destruction." I met her eyes. "That means getting close enough to use your abilities without getting killed first."
"And his speed?"
"We slow him down. Traps, obstacles, anything that limits his mobility." I turned to the full group. "This fight isn't about matching his capabilities. It's about creating conditions where his capabilities are neutralized."
The planning session lasted three hours. By the end, we had outlines for seventeen different engagement scenarios, each one designed to maximize our advantages while minimizing his.
None of them felt sufficient.
That evening, Angelina's patrol encountered Kimura directly.
She called from a street corner in the industrial district, her voice carrying an edge I'd never heard from her—not fear, not exactly, but something close.
"He's here. Standing in the middle of the road like he owns it."
"Don't engage. Maintain distance. I'm on my way."
"He's not attacking. He's just... standing there. Smiling."
I reached the location in twelve minutes—too long, but traffic and distance conspired against urgency. Angelina was exactly where she'd reported, chains ready, woge flickering at the edges of control.
Kimura was gone.
"He waited." Her voice was tight. "Waited until he saw you approaching, then vanished. I couldn't track him—one second he was there, the next, nothing."
"What did he say?"
"He said..." She swallowed, something I'd never seen from the Blutbad who'd faced Reapers without flinching. "He said to tell my master that he gives three days. Three days to surrender the Key. After that, he starts with the weakest and works up."
[ULTIMATUM RECEIVED: KIMURA]
[DEADLINE: 3 DAYS]
[THREAT: ATTACK ON VULNERABLE PACK MEMBERS]
[CONSEQUENCE: ESCALATING VIOLENCE UNTIL KEY SURRENDERED]
Three days. Seventy-two hours to find a way to kill something that had been murdering for three centuries.
"Come on." I guided Angelina back toward the car. "We need to regroup."
"He was fast." Her voice was distant, processing. "Faster than anything I've ever seen. Even the Reapers moved like normal people compared to him."
"I know."
"Can we actually beat him?"
The honest answer was: I didn't know. The answer I gave was: "We don't have a choice."
Back at the Spice Shop, I retreated to the planning room with the Key in my hand. The small artifact gleamed in the lamplight, its symbols catching shadows, its warmth pulsing against my palm.
Such a small thing. Four inches of ancient metal, worth dying for.
Viktor wanted it badly enough to send a monster. The Royals had been searching for it—for all seven Keys—for generations. Whatever they led to, whatever secret the Grimm ancestors had hidden, it was valuable enough to justify centuries of bloodshed.
If I surrendered the Key, Kimura would leave. The immediate threat would end. Viktor would have what he wanted, and I could rebuild without a predator hunting my Pack.
But if I surrendered, everything I'd built would mean nothing. The alliances, the reputation, the organization that protected Wesen who had nowhere else to go—all of it would crumble the moment I showed weakness.
"There has to be another option."
The System offered calculations, probabilities, tactical assessments. None of them suggested survival.
But the System had been wrong before. It had given me seventeen percent odds against the Reapers, and I'd killed them both.
Maybe—with preparation, with allies, with whatever weakness Adalind's contacts could identify—I could find a way to beat three centuries of killing experience.
Or maybe I'd die trying.
Either way, I wasn't running. Wasn't surrendering. Wasn't becoming the kind of Grimm who sacrificed everything to save himself.
The Key went back into its hidden compartment. I went back to planning.
Seventy-two hours. It would have to be enough.
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