The old man nodded. “Fitzroy was quite excited, and a tad arrogant, if I might say so, to be meeting with mages of such caliber,” the councillor explained, referring to the close friend whose disappearance had led Pepoy to seek out the aid of the constable. The constable, among whose duties was the investigation of those very disappearances. “He was very specific as to whom he had become acquainted with.”
“Excellent, this should make my job much easier.”
The councillor smiled, nervously playing with the collar of his dressing gown. “I’m so glad that I could be of assistance,” he fawned. “So I would imagine you will be placing the final two mages under your watchful eye?” the aged man pried. “To protect them from the dangerous threat that stalks our fair city?”
Grimshaw looked up from the list as it suddenly burst into flames in his hand. “Oh yes, I’ll surely be protecting them,” he said, the burning parchment dissolving to nothing before it even had a chance to land on the floor. “I’ll be protecting them just as diligently as I protected the others on your list.”
And then he smiled, even though he knew he shouldn’t have, and by the look that blossomed on the face of the old man, the expression must have been something to behold.
“I … I don’t think I understand,” Pepoy stammered nervously, twisting his nightclothes in his hands.
“But given time, you might,” Grimshaw growled, extending his arm and opening his fingers wide. “Which is why you must be dealt with, just as the remaining two enemies on the list will be.”
“Constable Grimshaw, please,” the councillor yelped, his face twisted in a mask of fear. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about. I’ve done nothing—”
Five tendrils of crackling black energy erupted from Grimshaw’s outstretched hand to strike the old man in the center of his chest, cutting off his panicked speech and hurling him against the wall of the office.
“Hush now,” Grimshaw said, manipulating his fingers so that the ebony magic at his command could perform its function.
The old man opened his mouth in a silent scream, but the constable’s black sorcery had stolen the councillor’s voice away.
“Feel pride in knowing that your sacrifice this night will bring my master’s plans that much closer to fruition.”
Pepoy’s body had begun to wither. Held aloft by the five spears of magic trailing from Grimshaw’s fingertips, his body shriveled with a sound very much like the rustling of autumn leaves.
Flesh and bone became dust, and the councillor’s clothes fell to the office floor in a lonely heap. Grimshaw retracted his voracious power, the crackling energies returning to spin upon his fingertips. He retrieved his cloak from the rack and, with just the one, deft hand—the one that had just committed the act of murder—he draped the cloak over his shoulders and attached the clasp about his throat.
It was time for him to be on his way. He glanced once at the pile of cloth on the floor, which had begun to burn with an eerie green light. Soon that, too, would be gone, not a trace of the fussy old man to be found.
Just like all of the others.
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Dragon Secrets Page 23
