‘I’ll take that.’ Drake strode forward to reclaim his lasgun, snatching it from the hands of the youth who’d picked it up, and striking him in the face with the butt. The fop folded, blood spurting from his nose, any ideas of attempting to use it clearly long gone.
‘Fascinating.’ Vex had retrieved his weapon as well, and was stowing it absently, his attention almost entirely taken up with the equipment in the middle of the room. ‘This is almost exactly the same as the mechanism we found in the Fathomsound.’ He poked around in the bowels of the machine for a moment, and looked relieved. ‘Apart from the booby trap, of course.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Horst replied grimly, glancing up as a squad of crimson and grey clad storm troopers appeared in the doorway, respirators still concealing most of their faces. He smiled. ‘Captain Malakai, thank you for responding so promptly.’
‘You seem to have managed well enough on your own,’ the veteran replied, a hint of disappointment in his voice. He gestured to the nearest troopers. ‘You, you and you, secure the prisoners. Shoot any that resist.’ A whinny of dismay rose from the surviving cultists as the men he’d detailed began to round them up and herd them, none too gently, from the room. He looked around, as much of his face as Keira could see behind the breathing mask displaying clear signs of puzzlement. ‘What were they doing down here anyway? This isn’t like any Chaos shrine I’ve ever seen.’
‘Trying to siphon off psychic energy,’ Keira said, more for Horst and Vex’s benefit than to satisfy Malakai’s curiosity, ‘from those people in the beds to him.’ She gestured towards the broken body of the magister. ‘But it all went klybo on them.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Vex said, lifting the fused remains of the component that Adrin had added at the magister’s urging from the bowels of the machine, an expression of amused disdain on his face. ‘This would have reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.’ He glanced scornfully at Adrin’s corpse. ‘None of the Omnissiah’s anointed could possibly have made so elementary a mistake.’
‘There was a piece missing,’ Keira explained. ‘That one was about the right size, so he thought it might be it.’
‘Oh no.’ Vex shook his head. ‘This was where I found the artefact, in the installation at the Fathomsound.’ His voice took on a speculative tone. ‘The question is, was it made to fit into a system like this, or was the system built around it, to take advantage of some innate property it has?’
‘Maybe Tonis’s notes will tell you,’ Keira suggested, pointing to the bundle of papers on the control lectern. ‘Adrin seemed to be using some kind of instruction manual his cousin left.’
‘Did he indeed?’ Vex said, grabbing the notebook with what under most circumstances he would undoubtedly have regarded as unseemly haste. ‘I’ll have to examine this carefully.’
‘Somewhere else,’ Horst said sharply, before the tech-priest could become engrossed in the slapdash calligraphy. ‘That fire’s still spreading.’ He glanced around the room, as the few remaining cultists left it at gunpoint, clinging to what shreds of dignity they could for as long as possible. ‘Is that the last of them?’
‘The last of the live ones,’ Malakai reported, giving Adrin’s corpse a contemptuous kick. ‘The ones in the beds are all dead too.’ He glanced across at the remains of the magister. ‘And he’s very dead indeed.’
Looking at the corpse of the wyrd, Keira found herself inclined to agree with the veteran storm trooper. She’d seen lives end more times than she could count, frequently at her own hands, and could generally tell at a glance whether a body was damaged beyond all hope of retaining the igniculus vitalis. This one, however, had belonged to a potent psyker, and there was no harm in making absolutely sure. She raised her sword, preparing to cut off his head, and froze momentarily in shock as the charred flesh at her feet began to stir.
‘He’s alive!’ She swept the blade down, feeling the familiar faint resistance as the keen edge parted flesh and bone, and grinned in vindictive satisfaction. ‘Now he’s not.’
‘Get back!’ Horst yelled, an unfamiliar edge of alarm in his voice, and, startled, she leapt away instinctively. ‘Something’s not right!’
‘No cak,’ Drake said sarcastically, opening up with his lasgun at the spasming corpse. ‘What was your first clue?’ The seared flesh was distorting even as they watched, stretching and splitting, with a faint cracking of dislocating joints and tearing tendons. Something pale and bulbous, which seemed far too large to have been contained by the bag of flesh it was birthing from, reached out a tendril, which Kiera leapt over as it tried to snare her ankle, slashing down with her sword to sever it as she did so.
‘It’s a daemon!’ she shouted, trying desperately to recall anything her Collegium tutors might have had to say about their vulnerabilities. Precious few came to mind, apart from holy water and weapons blessed by priests, neither of which seemed particularly likely to be lying around in a den of heretics.
‘Fire!’ Malakai roared, and his storm troopers began pouring hellgun rounds into the bloated monstrosity, while Horst and Vex added what firepower they could with their hand weapons. The tentacled horror rose clear of the mangled corpse, shrugging it off like a soiled cape, and swooped across the room, shimmering insubstantially as each shot slammed into it. Tentacles lashed out, striking down a couple of the storm troopers, and flinging another into the wall.
‘So that’s what killed Tonis,’ Vex said, a note of wonderment entering his voice for the first time since Keira had met him. Ducking a flailing tentacle, he snapped off another shot at it, pulled his data-slate out of his robe with the other hand, and began recording whatever he could of the encounter.
‘Hybris, look out!’ Horst called, as another tentacle snared the tech-priest.
Keira heard something crack as it constricted, and slashed at it with her sword. For a moment, it seemed, there was nothing there to strike. Then she felt some resistance, and the strange flesh parted. Vex fell heavily, his face ashen, but there was no time to check on him. Keira braced herself, commended her soul to the Emperor, and began moving the sword in a defensive pattern, resolving to sell her life as dearly as she could as the mass of writhing tendrils fringing the thing’s body stretched out towards her.
An instant before it could strike, however, Drake emptied his power pack into the thing on full auto, somehow managing to remain on aim despite the rapid movement of his target, and the entity shuddered, losing momentum. A moment later it vanished entirely, disappearing back into the warp with a howl of frustration and a crackle of arcane energies, and she let out a long, slow breath. ‘Thanks,’ she said simply.
‘You’re welcome.’ Drake grinned at her, and turned to Vex. ‘Lucky I asked you for that benediction on the way in.’
‘The Omnissiah certainly seems to have guided your hand,’ the tech-priest agreed gravely, rising to his feet with some difficulty. He turned to Keira. ‘Thank you for your timely intervention.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she told him. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ None of the storm troopers the thing had attacked seemed to be moving.
‘Nothing that can’t be repaired,’ Vex assured her. ‘Fortunately my augmetic systems are considerably more robust than the organic ones.’
‘So they were summoning daemons after all,’ Horst said, an expression of wonderment in his eyes. He shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘They may not have intended to,’ Vex said cautiously. ‘If they were experimenting with psychic energy, they might have opened a portal to the warp by accident. I’ll need to read Tonis’s notes before we can reach any definite conclusions.’
‘Then let’s get out of here while we still can,’ Horst said, ‘before the paper combusts.’ He looked at Keira with an expression she couldn’t quite make out. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, feeling that oddly pleasurable tingling in the pit of her stomach again. Unsettled by it, she resheathed her sword, and
followed the others into the purifying flames that were slowly consuming the works of those who’d sought to challenge the word of the Emperor.
The Gorgonid Mine, Sepheris Secundus
108.993.M41
‘About rutting time,’ Kyrlock grumbled, as the last of the ore rumbled off the end of the conveyor belt and into the bowels of the waiting shuttle. The skinny little wyrd was still hanging around him, and he forced himself to smile at her, ignoring the way her presence made his skin crawl. Elyra had made it abundantly clear that keeping the girl and her friends sweet was the key to the next stage of the operation, so he’d better do his best to seem friendly. She smiled back, tentatively, the first real expression she’d shown since Kantris had jumped her the previous day, and for a moment he felt an unexpected flicker of sympathy.
‘Will it be much longer, do you think?’ she asked.
Kyrlock shrugged. ‘Better ask them,’ he suggested, inclining his head towards where Elyra and Greel were huddled together in muted conversation. Becoming aware of his scrutiny, Elyra glanced up.
‘We’re boarding now,’ she said flatly, as Greel turned away, and began ambling towards the ramp leading up to the cargo hold. ‘Better step it up.’ She turned to indicate the milling mass of refugees, who were beginning to drift hopefully towards the grounded shuttle. ‘It’s going to be a grox pen in there, so we need to stick close.’
‘We will,’ Zusen assured her, moving up to Kyrlock, and seizing his arm. The Guardsman fought down the urge to flinch.
‘If you say so.’ Trosk prodded Ven into motion again, and the little group walked purposefully towards the boarding ramp.
‘Is it dawn already?’ Zusen asked, and Elyra shook her head.
‘Another couple of hours yet. Why?’
The young wyrd looked confused, and pointed off into the distance. ‘The sky’s red over there.’
‘Blood and burning,’ Ven mumbled. ‘Pain and death.’
Kyrlock and Elyra looked at one another, the same unspoken thought occurring to them both simultaneously, and Kyrlock shrugged. If their colleagues were responsible, they had no way of knowing. ‘That’s night life in the Tumble for you,’ he said. He smiled at Zusen, trying to sound reassuring. ‘I’m going to miss this place.’
‘Are you really?’ she asked, her voice disbelieving.
Kyrlock paused at the bottom of the boarding ramp, took one last look at the world of his birth, and shook his head. ‘No, not much,’ he admitted.
Epilogue
The Tricorn, Scintilla: Calixis Sector
231.993.M41
‘You’re absolutely certain of this?’ Inquisitor Grynner asked, looking at Pieter Quillem with his habitual expression of mild curiosity.
‘Absolutely,’ Quillem confirmed, sitting down on the opposite bench. The cloister his mentor had suggested they meet in was a quiet and secluded one. Nowhere in the headquarters of the Ordo Calixis was truly far from the ceaseless activity of the thousands of inquisitors, interrogators and acolytes charged with preserving this far-flung province of the Emperor’s realm from the perils that constantly assailed it. There were, however, a number of nooks and half-forgotten crannies where a little peace could be found to discuss sensitive matters in as much privacy as anyone could hope to find here, and Inquisitor Grynner seemed to know them all. The bench the two men occupied ran around all three sides of an alcove between two of the buttresses supporting the high vaulted ceiling, and would be almost invisible to any casual strollers retreating here for a little peace and relaxation. ‘Your friend Finurbi seems to have vanished without trace.’
‘How very like the man,’ Grynner commented, with a quiet sigh of resignation. He removed his spectacles, breathed on the lenses, and polished them thoughtfully with the end of his neck cloth. ‘Are there any indications of foul play?’
‘Nothing overt,’ Quillem said cautiously. ‘He seems to have gone blue entirely of his own accord.’
‘Hm.’ Grynner replaced the spectacles, after examining them minutely for any lingering traces of dust. ‘Did he see fit to inform the Ordo of why he’s decided to invoke Special Circumstances?’
Quillem shrugged. ‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he?’ An inquisitor only invoked the right of Special Circumstances, effectively removing himself from the oversight, support and resources of his sector’s Ordo, if he felt that his own colleagues couldn’t be trusted, or that his activities might expose them to some unacceptable level of danger. The young interrogator found neither possibility particularly reassuring.
‘No, I suppose not.’ Grynner sighed again. ‘It seems we must proceed without his aid after all.’
‘Unless we can find him ourselves,’ Quillem suggested.
Grynner cocked his head slightly to the left, and looked searchingly at his assistant. ‘Pieter,’ he said carefully, ‘have you been up to something I’d rather not be appraised of?’
‘Of course not,’ Quillem assured him, reaching inside his robe for a data-slate. ‘I simply pointed out to the senior custodian that, prior to his departure from Sepheris Secundus, Inquisitor Finurbi sent us an astropathic message agreeing to meet us here. That must have meant that he was willing to share whatever information he had with us.’
‘A reasonable inference,’ Grynner agreed, with a slight tilt of the head. ‘Unfortunately, whatever information he may have had disappeared along with him.’
‘Not all of it,’ Quillem demurred. He activated the screen of his data-slate. ‘He left a cell of his Angelae network following up some leads on Sepheris Secundus, and their leader has been quite punctilious about filing reports on their progress.’ He handed the slate to Grynner. ‘I think you’ll find they make interesting reading.’
Grynner glanced at the screen, deactivated it, and stowed the slate in the pocket of his jacket. ‘I’ll peruse them at the first opportunity.’ He nodded approvingly at his apprentice. ‘Well done, Pieter, commendably resourceful. Was there anything else?’
Quillem nodded. ‘According to their last report, they were about to take ship for Scintilla. If the warp currents were favourable, they might even have arrived in system by now.’
‘I see.’ Grynner looked thoughtful for a moment, allowing the young interrogator to see beyond his habitual veneer of vagueness to the razor-sharp mind it so effectively concealed. ‘Then it’s possible that Carolus might break cover to contact them.’ He stood. ‘Perhaps it would be prudent to keep an eye on these Angelae, Pieter. I take it I can trust you to make the arrangements?’
Quillem rose too. ‘They’re already in hand,’ he assured the inquisitor.
About The Author
Sandy Mitchell is a pseudonym of Alex Stewart, who has been writing successfully under both names since the mid 1980s. As Sandy, he's best known for his work for the Black Library, particularly the Ciaphas Cain series. He's recently completed an MA in Screenwriting at the London College of Communication, which left far less time than usual for having fun in the 41st Millennium, and is looking forward to spending more time in the Emperor's service now that it has concluded.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2008 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Clint Langley
Calexis Sector map by Andy Law
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ISBN 978-0-85787-386-6
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