SERGEANT VENASUS LED his squad carefully through the lower reaches of the traitor’s dwelling place. It was colder here, his suit of power armour registering a drop of fourteen degrees.
So far they had found nothing, and Venasus dearly hoped to find some of their enemies soon. Three of his men had died on the alien ship and there was a blood price to be paid for their deaths.
The bare stone passage led along to an iron door, padlocked shut and Venasus wasted no time smashing it from its frame with a well-placed kick. The sergeant powered through the doorway, his men following close behind. The room was in darkness, but his armour’s auto senses kicked in.
He saw the gleam of metal to his left. A grinning skull face leapt from the darkness of the room. Venasus swung his bolter up and opened fire at the deathly apparition.
URIEL HEARD THE burst of gunfire from the top landing and sprinted downwards, following the stairs to the lower levels of the house. His blood pounded in his veins, hoping that there would be enemies to slay, his heart hungry for vengeance. As he reached the source of the gunfire, he could see that he was to be denied such vengeance for now. The corridor was cold, its walls glistening with moisture.
Sergeant Venasus stood at the buckled doorway to a dimly lit room.
‘Report,’ ordered Uriel.
‘False alarm, captain. I was first through the door and acquired what I thought was a target. I opened fire, but I was mistaken.’
‘Assign yourself ten days of fasting and prayer to atone for your lax targeting rituals.’
‘Yes, captain.’
‘So what was it you fired upon, sergeant?’
Venasus paused before answering. ‘I am not sure, some kind of metallic skeleton. I do not know exactly what it is.’
The sergeant moved aside to allow Uriel and Pasanius to enter the room. A single glow-globe cast a fitful illumination around the small room, which looked like some insane mechanic’s workshop. All manner of tools lay strewn upon chipped and blackened benches, their exact use incomprehensible. In one corner of the room lay the shattered remains of Sergeant Venasus’s target. As the sergeant had described, it resembled a metallic skeleton, its once gleaming surface stained with a patina of green and its limbs twisted at unnatural angles. : Another skeleton of stained metal lay propped up on an angled bench, bundles of wires running from its open chest to rows of yellow battery packs with red lettering stencilled on their sides. Panels on its chest and skull had been prised open and Uriel peered into the darkness within its grotesque anatomy. It resembled a skull in that it had eye sockets and a skeletal grin but there was something horrendously alien about this construction, as though its maker had set out to mock humanity’s perfection.
The metallic form repulsed Uriel, though he could not say exactly why. Perhaps it was the loathsome malevolence that radiated from its expressionless features. Perhaps it was the metal’s resemblance to the substance they had removed from beneath the hillside on Caernus IV.
‘What in the name of all that’s holy is this?’ asked Pasanius.
Uriel shook his head. ‘I have no idea, my friend. Perhaps they were the crew of the ship Barzano spoke of.’
Pasanius pointed at the machine on the bench. ‘You think it is dead?’
Uriel walked over to it and wrenched the wires from the metal skeleton’s chest and skull. ‘It is now,’ he said.
URIEL WATCHED THE temperature reading on his visor creep slowly downwards as he approached the last door. Steam hissed from the power unit on the back of his armour and he could feel a strange sense of foreboding as he neared the rusted portal.
The door wasn’t shut, a sliver of darkness and stuttering light edging the frame. Wisps of condensing air soughed through from behind it.
He glanced behind him. Pasanius, Venasus and six Ultramarines stood ready to storm the room on his order. The remainder of his command were tearing the house apart from top to bottom, searching for a clue to de Valtos’s current whereabouts. He nodded to Pasanius and hammered his boot against the metal of the door.
It slammed inwards, Pasanius charging through with Venasus hot on his heels. Uriel spun into the room, covering the danger zone on their blindside as the remainder of the men charged in.
Uriel heard the clink of chains and soft moans emanating from the centre of the room. His auto-senses had trouble adjusting to the flickering light and he disengaged them, activating his armour lights. The other Ultramarines followed his example and slowly the horrendous centrepiece of the octagonal room became visible.
Atop a stinking, gore-smeared slab lay a large human skeleton, the bones bloody, its former wrapping suspended above it.
Chunks of excised flesh hung from the ceiling on scores of butchers’ hooks, each one set at precisely the correct height to shape the outline of the body they once enclosed. As though frozen a millisecond after his body had suffered some internal explosion, the flesh and organs of Taryn Honan hung suspended above his skeleton, each fatty slice of his body ribboned together with dripping sinew and pulsing cords of vein.
‘By the Emperor’s soul,’ whispered Uriel, horrified beyond belief. Honan’s head was a segmented, interconnected jigsaw
of individual lumps of flesh, the wobbling jowls and severed chins circling his steaming brain, each still juddering in an imitation of life.
Uriel saw that his eyes still rolled in their sockets, as though the corpse continued to relive its last agonising moments and Uriel commended his tortured soul to the Emperor.
The slab of fatty flesh that contained the mouth worked soundlessly up and down like a macabre marionette controlled by some unseen master. The gently spinning meat containing the lidless eyes fluttered and Uriel watched, horrified, as they focussed on him and a low moaning again spilled from Taryn Honan’s lips.
Fat tears rolled down Honan’s pallid flesh as his mouth impossibly gave voice a low, anguished moan that tore at the hearts of the Ultramarines. Uriel wanted to go to the man’s aid, but knew that it was beyond his, or any other man’s power to save Honan. There was a terrible pleading desperation in Honan’s eyes and his mouth kept flapping in a heroic effort to speak.
Uriel moved closer to the man’s exploded anatomy, masking his horror at the mutilation.
‘What are you trying to say?’ he whispered, unsure whether the fleshy jigsaw could hear him, let alone understand him.
Honan’s lips formed a pair of words and Uriel knew what the man desired.
Kill me…
He nodded and raised his bolter to point at Honan’s head. The grotesque form of Honan’s mouth formed more words before his eyes closed for the last time.
Uriel whispered the Prayer for the Martyr and pulled the trigger. A hail of bolts shredded the suspended chunks of flesh, tearing them from the hooks and granting oblivion to the mutilated cartel man.
Uriel let his fury flood through him in the cathartic fire of his bolter. His squad joined him, emptying their magazines in a storm of gunfire that tore the octagonal room to shreds, blasting great holes in the walls, smashing metal tray racks and utterly destroying any trace of the crime against nature, visited upon this latest victim of Kasimir de Valtos’s insane schemes.
As the smoke of their gunfire dissipated, Uriel felt his breathing return to normal and lowered his weapon. Honan’s soundless valediction echoed within his skull.
Thank you.
Their prey had flown.
No matter. They would hunt him down.
‘Inform Inquisitor Barzano what has happened here and tell him that we are returning to the palace,’ snapped Uriel. He turned on his heel and marched from the devastated room.
KASIMIR DE VALTOS reclined on the leather seats of his ground car. The vehicle was of a less traditional design than was usual on Pavonis, but since this was a time of change, it was not inappropriate, he thought.
He once again pictured the helpless face of Solana Vergen as he showed her the contents of his black leather case. He had savoured every scream a
nd every pleading whimper as she begged for her life, not realising that she had signed her own death sentence the moment she had accepted his dinner invitation. He was only sorry that he had not had the opportunity to watch the Surgeon work on fat Honan, but his own needs and desires had taken priority.
Yes, Solana Vergen had been exquisite. Her death would keep the demons from assailing his every thought with blood and pain for a time. But he knew they would be back soon enough and that he would have to wash them away in the blood of another.
Kasimir looked up from his reverie at the other passengers in his vehicle, experiencing an uncharacteristic desire to share his good spirits.
The Surgeon sat opposite him, hands clasped in his lap and his eyes drifting over Kasimir’s body, as though pondering the best method of dissecting him. He remembered all too well the pain of the last procedure to purge his ravaged internal organs and renew his polluted circulatory system.
Two could play at that game, vowed de Valtos, remembering the screams of over a hundred different victims he had practiced his own art upon. Soon there would be a reversal of roles when he was in possession of the Nightbringer. Its sleeping master would grant him the immortality he so craved and these upstart aliens would understand that they were the servants, not he.
The Surgeon’s female accomplice reclined next to him, her long, ivory legs stretched languidly across the floor of the vehicle. Her eyes glittered playfully, arousing and repulsive at the same time. She blew him a kiss and he flinched as though she had threatened to touch him with her loathsome, yet sensual flesh.
Despite her proud words, her warp-spawned beasts had failed their mission, but he did not feel disappointed. He would, after all, get the chance to see Shonai’s face as she realised he was the person behind all her years of misery.
He could feel his good mood evaporating as the tap, tap, tapping of the vehicle’s last occupant intruded on his thoughts. Vendare Taloun studiously avoided looking at his fellow passengers, rapping his ring finger on the one-way glass of the window. He wanted to pity Vendare, but that emotion had died within him the moment the haemonculi’s blades had peeled the skin from his muscles.
If anything he felt contempt for the man. His petty, small-mindedness had led him into this pact with de Valtos. How else did he think they were going to wrest control of this world from Shonai? With words and democratic process? He wanted to laugh and had to stifle the urge to erupt in hysterical laughter.
He forced himself to get a grip on his wildly fluctuating emotions, knowing that with the end in sight, he must not lose control. Control was everything.
As the car rounded a corner in the road, he caught a glimpse of the city of Brandon Gate ahead. He lifted his hand and squinted through a gap he formed with his forefinger and thumb. He could fit the image of the distant city between his digits and smiled as he pressed them closer together, imagining that the shortening distance separating them was the lifespan of Governor Shonai. He rolled his arm, noting the time on his wrist chrono patch as the Surgeon removed a long, curved device from the inside of his robes and peered intently at it. De Valtos was struck again by the delicate structure and dexterity of his finger movements.
The alien’s lips were pursed together in displeasure. He replaced the device in his robes and said, The flesh sculpture has expired. There are enemies within the vivisectoria.’
De Valtos was surprised, but hid his reaction. If someone had discovered Honan, they must already know a measure of his plans.
No matter. Events were already in motion and nothing now could prevent their ordained path. They were almost at the shuttle platform where he would board the craft that would carry him to his destiny in the palace.
He thought of Beauchamp Abrogas in the cells of the Arbites precinct and almost laughed.
He spoke to the hateful alien woman, ‘You gave the Abrogas boy the inhaler?’
She nodded, not even deigning to speak to him.
So strange that it would be a fool like Beauchamp who heralded the beginning of Pavonis’s new age.
But that was in the future. There were matters afoot now that demanded his attention.
‘SO IT HAS begun then?’ asked Mykola Shonai.
‘It certainly looks like it. De Valtos wouldn’t abandon his home unless his plans were moving into their final stages,’ answered Inquisitor Barzano snapping off the vox-caster and drawing his pistol and sword. He was possibly overreacting, but after the attack of the warp beasts, he was taking no chances.
His mood was foul, as he had just learned that Amel Vedden, the traitor Learchus had captured following the riot in Liberation Square, was dead.
Despite being kept in restraints the man had somehow managed to dislodge one of his intravenous lines and blow an air bolus into his bloodstream, resulting in a massive embolism and heart attack. It was a painful way to die and, though Vedden had escaped justice in this world, Barzano knew that all the daemons of hell were now rending his soul.
Scores of armed guards ringed the governor’s private wing of the palace and Learchus had pulled the Ultramarines back to the inner chambers. Mykola Shonai and Ario Barzano were about as well protected as they could be.
‘So what do we do now, inquisitor?’ said Leland Corteo, obviously trying to hide the nervousness he felt. Barzano turned to the ageing advisor and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulders.
‘Our first priority must be to ready all the loyal armed forces. Vox a warning to the Arbites and place the palace guard on full alert. Also, tell the defence commander to have each of his weapon emplacements acquire one of the tanks waiting outside the city walls. Hopefully it won’t be required, but if de Valtos tries anything, I want us to be ready for him. You understand?’
‘Of course, I’ll see to it personally. I know the commander, Danil Vorens, and I shall ensure that your wishes are carried out.’
Corteo sped from the room, leaving Barzano, Jenna Sharben, Almerz Chanda and Mykola Shonai staring through the armoured glass of the governor’s chambers over the smouldering city.
The exhaust fumes of dozens of tanks rose from beyond the walls, and Barzano knew it was just a matter of time until their guns were turned upon the walls of the palace.
‘Judge Sharben?’
‘What?’ she asked, turning to face him.
‘I want you to escort the governor to her personal shuttle. Then you are to travel with her to the Vae Victus,’
Mykola Shonai’s face hardened, and she folded her arms across her chest.
‘Inquisitor Barzano, this is a time of crisis for my planet and you wish me to flee? My duty is here, leading my people through this.’
‘I know, Mykola,’ explained Barzano, ‘and normally I would agree with you, but our enemies have shown that they can reach into your most protected sanctum and strike at you. I am moving you to the Vae Victus for your own safety until I can be sure that the palace is secure. If this is the opening move in a full-scale rebellion, then logic dictates that there will be another attempt on your life.’
‘But surely we are well protected here? Sergeant Learchus assures me that I am quite safe.’
‘I do not doubt the sergeant’s capabilities, but I will not be argued with. You are bound for the Vae Victus, and that is the end of the matter.’
‘No, it is not,’ stated Mykola Shonai. ‘I am not leaving Pavonis, running like a scared child. I will not let my people down again. I will not run, I will stay, and if that puts my life in danger, then so be it.’
Barzano took a deep breath and scratched his forehead. Determination shone in Shonai’s features and he saw that if he wanted her on the shuttle he was going to have to order Learchus to drag her there.
‘Very well,’ he relented, ‘but I want your word that if things deteriorate further and it becomes too dangerous to remain here, men you will allow us to move you to the Vae Victus’.
For a moment, he thought she would refuse, but at last she nodded. Very well, if the situation here beco
mes too dangerous, ‘I will accede to your request.’
‘Thank you, that’s all I ask,’ said Barzano.
WHEN THE DOOR to his cell had opened and the surly gaoler told him that a member of his family had come to pay his fine, it was the best news Beauchamp Abrogas could remember hearing in a long time.
His head pounded with a splitting headache. He squinted as he was led along a long corridor, bright and featureless save for the bare iron doors to the cells that studded its length.
Already he felt superior to those poor unfortunates locked inside. Not for them the speedy payment of a fine, paid from bulging ancestral coffers.
His thoughts felt clearer now than they had for many months and Beauchamp vowed to go easy on the opiatix, perhaps even give it up for good.
Beauchamp was marched along some depressingly drab corridors, filed through several offices, and made to sign various forms, none of which he read, before finally being allowed to depart the detention level.
His spirits soared as he entered the elevator, carrying a bundle of his own clothes. They were absolutely filthy and he doubted whether even his faithful servants could get the stains from them.
He licked his lips as the elevator doors opened and he was again marched through a series of featureless corridors towards his freedom. Eventually, he was led to a plain room containing a chipped table and chairs bolted to the floor. A judge pushed him into one of the seats and said, ‘Wait.’
Beauchamp nodded and crossed his arms, propping his feet up on the table as his former arrogance and poise began returning. Long minutes passed and he began to get restless, pacing the small room as his impatience mounted. Tired of pacing, he returned to the chair as he heard the locks on the door disengage.
A new judge entered, leading a heavyset man in long robes with a short, neatly trimmed beard. The new arrival carried a metal box and wore an Abrogas cartel pin in his lapel, but Beauchamp didn’t recognise him.
The judge left the room as the Abrogas man sat opposite Beauchamp and slid the box forward across the table.
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