Leslie looked down. “So you’ve got no choice.”
“I’m afraid not,” Grimm confirmed. “It appears that we’re going to have to take on Naecken ourselves.”
“So all of you just up and run out again?”
The biker shrugged. “There’s always the ‘sit around and let the known world go down the shitter’ option. Doesn’t really do it for me.”
Kline shook her head. “I don’t have nearly as much information on this Naecken as you do, but I know enough to know that it’s pretty damned near suicidal to try and take him on when he’s this powerful.”
The undead man looked at her with what would probably have been a smirk. “Bigger they are, harder they fall. ‘Sides, I like a good challenge, and so do the others.” He paused. “I’m the fuckin’ Avatar of Death. I’m damn near indestructible. Taking on supernatural badasses like Naecken is the closest I get to an adrenaline rush these days.”
Leslie rolled her eyes. “So taking impossible missions is to you what skydiving is to any other adrenaline junkie?”
“Look, lady,” Grimm said impatiently, “I didn’t volunteer us for this mission. The deal was made with Cha-“
He paused and looked down. Leslie’s face fell and she turned away. There was an awkward pause.
“Shit,” Grimm muttered. “He’s really not coming back.”
Miss Kline nodded.
“Damn.” Grimm thought a moment. “My point is,” he said more quietly, “I didn’t get us into this. But given our circumstances, for the time being I’ve gotta run this show, whether I like it or not. And that means I gotta figure out how to finish what was started. All I was trying to say was that the thrill of the chase is the only real reward I get out of all this.”
Leslie started pacing the room. “I didn’t leave the EPS with you guys because I missed the thrill of the chase. Someone very close to me goes with you on all your missions, and somehow he always winds up in harm’s way.”
“That’s his decision,” the skull-faced biker countered, “not yours.” He turned to her. “Look, I used to know everything it took to get laid, but I’ve never known anything about relationships and all that shit. But I do know that if you really care about Phil that much, you’ve got to let him make his own choices. He chooses to help us because he feels he belongs here, and he thinks this is how he can give something to people.” He shook his head. “I think we’re all like that here. We belong here because we don’t belong anywhere else. And we figure doing things to help the world and shit is the best way to pass the time.”
“How heroic,” Leslie sneered. “Well, as much as I’d enjoy living by a rosy ideal like that, I don’t particularly like the fact that you let Phil charge headlong into suicide missions like this without being able to come up with a better reason than that for doing all this.”
“It’s like this,” Grimm replied. “Right now, Naecken’s just a breath away from fucking the whole planet up beyond repair. We’ve got to do something, even if it is suicidal. Even if all they can do is run interference, we need as many bodies as we can get for this. Someone has to stop this before it spins out of control.”
Leslie stopped pacing. She thought a moment. “Interference?”
Grimm nodded.
“Then take me too.”
It was for moments like this that Grimm really should have had facial expressions. “Excuse me?” the biker stammered.
Leslie stepped forward. “I’ve dealt with crazies of all kinds. This can’t be too much different. Like you said, you need all the bodies you can get.”
“You’ve never been on a mission with this team before,” Grimm protested. “Hell, less than a month ago you were doing dirty work for the E-P-fuckin’-S!”
“That’s not fair,” Leslie argued. “I spent two months with all of you before I left for the EPS.”
“After being sent by Rob-knows-who to bag the guy you’re so worried about now,” Grimm retorted.
“That was business,” Leslie argued. “This is personal. If Phil insists on going on this mission, I’m gonna do whatever I can to keep him from getting himself killed.”
Grimm snorted.
Leslie’s eyes widened. “How did you-“
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Okay.”
“If you really wanna do this,” Grimm said, “then you’re doing it at your own risk. You’re not on the roster of active employees, so you’ll be going on this mission without pay or benefits. You’ll be pulling your own weight here.”
The former bounty hunter shrugged. “Nothing I haven’t been through before.”
“In that case,” Grimm said, “you had better notify the others that you’ll be coming with us.”
Leslie smiled. “Thank you.”
The biker nodded. “Think nothing of it.”
“And sorry if I was being a bitch.”
Grimm shrugged. “Nothing I haven’t been through before.”
