they were nothing more than empty masks, pinned to a wall. At rest, at last.
Fisher touched a few of them tentatively, but they didn't respond. The skin was
soft, but already cooling. Just to be sure, Hawk had her run the suppressor
stone over the dissected cat as well.
They took turns examining the papers Fisher had found in Grimm's desk. They
seemed to be records of services Grimm had provided in the past, but no names
were ever mentioned, only initials. It was mostly cosmetic sorcery, though some
of the more bizarre requests made Hawk blink. There was no accounting for taste.
But interesting though the documents were, there was nothing in them to tie
Grimm in with the spy Fenris. Or at least, nothing Hawk could recognize. He
threw the papers back onto the desk, and looked frustratedly around him.
'We're not going to find anything here. He's too careful, too meticulous.
Probably keeps the important information locked up in his head.'
So let the Guard sorcerers get it out of him,' said Fisher. 'Let them earn their
money for a change.'
There was a low groan from behind them, and they looked quickly round. At the
other end of the room the sorcerer Grimm was rising unsteadily to his feet. He
shook his head once to clear it, and then his gaze fell on Hawk and Fisher and
his face darkened. He smiled slowly, removed his robe and threw it to one side.
Ropes of muscle bulged suddenly across his bare chest and shoulders, pushing out
the taut skin. Hawk and Fisher watched transfixed as the sorcerer changed. His
body stretched and swelled, impossible muscles crawling over an inhumanly
magnified frame. His face trembled, the features shifting grotesquely as his
inner rage expressed itself in distorted flesh and bone. His eyes became
featureless black pools, and sharp jagged teeth distorted the shape of his
mouth. Grimm padded slowly forward, his crooked hands growing razored claws.
'I think we may have a problem here,' said Hawk, taking a firm hold on his axe.
'You always did have a gift for understatement,' said Fisher. 'What the hell's
happening to him?'
'From the look of it, I'd say the sorcerer wasn't averse to sampling his own
wares. He's got to the stage where he can shapechange at will.'
'You know, this strikes me as a good time to get the hell out of here and yell
for reinforcements.'
'We can't. He's between us and the nearest door. We're going to have to stop him
ourselves.'
'Oh, great. How?'
'I'm thinking!'
Grimm lurched forward, his jaws snapping shut like a steel trap. There was no
longer anything human in his face. Hawk and Fisher quickly separated, to attack
him from different sides, and each of the sorcerer's eyes crawled to different
positions on his head so that he could watch both Guards at once. Hawk darted in
and cut at Grimm with his axe. The heavy steel head sheared through the
sorcerer's waist and out again, but no blood flew. The wound closed immediately,
the unnatural flesh flowing seamlessly back together again. Fisher cut at Grimm
from the other side, to no better effect. The sorcerer reached for Hawk with a
gnarled, clawed hand. Hawk quickly retreated, but the hand just kept coming
after him as the arm stretched to an impossible length.
'The stone!' yelled Hawk, backing frantically away. 'Try the suppressor stone on
him!'
'I've already tried that! It doesn't seem to affect him!'
'Well, keep trying!' Hawk threw himself to one side and the clawing hand dug
deep furrows in the wall behind him. He darted behind the writing desk. Grimm
demolished it with one blow of a spiked arm. Hawk looked quickly round the room,
checking for possible escape routes. Fisher clutched the suppressor stone in her
hand, muttering the activating phrase over and over again. The stone suddenly
flared with light, bright and dazzling, burning her hand with sudden heat.
Fisher threw the stone straight at the sorcerer's misshapen face. He snatched it
out of midair and looked at it curiously. The stone exploded, ripping the
sorcerer's head from his body and shattering every window in the room.
For a long moment there was silence, broken only by soft settling sounds as
debris from the explosion pattered to the floor. Hawk and Fisher got slowly to
their feet, brushing dust from their clothes. Where the hideous creature had
been, lay a headless human body. Hawk shook his head gingerly, trying to shift
the ringing in his ears. Fisher put an arm round his shoulders, and they leaned
companionably together for a moment.
'We didn't do too well with this one, did we, Hawk?'
'You could say that. Fenris has escaped, with a new face and body. The one man
who could have helped us find him is now dead. And on top of all that, we've
lost our suppressor stone. Some days you just shouldn't get out of bed.'
'Well,' said Fisher, 'at least this time they can't blame us for being
impulsive.' Hawk looked at her. Fisher gestured at Grimm's body. 'After all,
he's the one who lost his head.'
Chapter Two
Fenris Gone to Ground
The cleanup squad finally made its appearance, with a meat wagon not far behind.
Two Guard Constables chalked a rough outline round the headless body, and made
laborious notes about the state of the corpse. The forensic sorcerer waited
impatiently for them to finish, already in a foul mood at being dragged from his
bed so early in the morning. Hawk and Fisher leant against a wall together,
drinking the late sorcerer's wine and trying to put together some kind of report
that wouldn't get them both busted down to Constable, or beyond.
The two Constables unhurriedly compared notes, and then got out of the way so
that the forensic sorcerer could do his stuff. He glared venomously at them,
then knelt down by the body and rolled up his sleeves. Hawk and Fisher looked at
each other and unanimously decided this might be a good time to get some fresh
air. On-the-spot autopsies tended to be thorough, but messy. Hawk drained the
last of the wine from the bottle he and Fisher had been passing back and forth,
and his lips thinned away from the dregs. It had been a piss-poor vintage, but
the sourness suited his mood. No matter what kind of report he and Fisher
eventually handed in, he had no doubt they were both in real trouble.
They left Grimm's quarters and clattered down the exterior stairway to the
street below. The meat wagon's horses tossed their heads and snorted loudly,
their breath steaming on the chill air. Hawk looked away. Reminders of his own
mortality made him uncomfortable. Strange lights flared in the windows above as
the forensic sorcerer set about dismantling Grimm's remaining wards and shields,
and defusing any booby traps that hadn't yet been triggered. Fisher hugged
herself as a cold wind swept by.
'I can't help thinking we're missing something, Hawk. We know why Fenris came
here; to get a new face. But how did Grimm get involved with Fenris in the first
