The Inquisition III

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

As for Duroi, we'll figure out his angle sooner or later, just like Godwyn has him more or less figured now. Truth be told, I thought up the character as I was getting out of the shower - could be that he was tarred from the start!

 

Oh dear...poor guy, he has no hope then to have redemption.

 

Shall have to grant him the Emperor's mercy then :lol:

[Lady_Canoness]

Part 7 arrives!

 

BE WARNED: This part contains some graphic scenes that some people may find uncomfortable or distasteful.

 

THAT BEING SAID: This part also moves the story along quite well so you might not wish to skip it, though you probably will be able to form your own conclusions in part 8.

 

I'm also aware that this has been the longest of my stories so far without a single gunshot Not to worry, for there will be plenty o' shooting soon enough!

In the meantime, I've never written a sex scene before now. I've tried to keep it within reason (and tastefulness) but we'll see how it goes. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't - you tell me.

 

___________________________________________

 

*part 7*

 

The better part of two weeks passed with Inquisitor Godwyn routinely meeting Jaquobime Duroi at his estate aboard the station and accompanying him as the trader treated her to tours in the upper-class market gardens, dinner circuits, and even a guided tour of his own personal art collection. He was well connected on the station, allowing him to treat his younger lady friend to only the finest luxuries available, and it quickly became evident that Jaquobime Duroi considered Erebus one of his homes and spent a great deal of time on there.

He was clearly not a man without purpose, however, and his stay on the station was not one of simple pleasure. On multiple occasions, while they would be enjoying a private meal or conversing over fine liqueur, one of the art dealer’s many handlers would interrupt their privacy (whilst apologising profusely) and summon Duroi to meet with someone come to see him. The name was always different and the length of his absence always changed, but his evasive air upon returning remained consistent, prompting Godwyn to believe that he was hiding something more than the dealings of art, and that he was in fact doing something altogether different than what he proposed.

Consequently, the Inquisitor had her means hidden as well and, unbeknownst to Duroi or his handlers, was secretly recording every conversation between them and was surveying him very closely indeed.

Aquinas, quickly agreeing that the friend of Columbo’s could be a valuable source while they were aboard Erebus station, had furnished the Inquisitor with a psychically charged crystalline powder which could be applied to her human hand and, upon contact, be transferred to another surface; the idea being that if she touched him a residue would be left on the point of contact. A handshake, he claimed, would be enough, at which point the librarian could trace his movements through psychic means. Unfortunately, Duroi seemed to be a more than regular bather, and their attempts at tracking him proved only marginally effective.

“The identities of his contacts on this station are likely to be of great importance to us,” Aquinas announced, sitting cross-legged on the factory floor in the dim torchlight as Godwyn washed her face at a nearby basin attached to the wall and Nerf leaned against the guard-rail with his arms folded, “finding that information should be a top priority of our search.”

Unconvinced, Nerf shook his head and chuckled in doubt at what he was hearing. Half hidden in the darkness, however, his grin quickly disappeared under the librarian’s cold stare.

“You have doubts, guardsman?”

“Yea, I’ve got doubts,” Nerf replied hotly. “You sit down and pronounce that this one guy is the answer to all our problems and I’m supposed to believe you just like that?” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

“I do not seek to gratify you, guardsman. I seek the truth.”

The Catachan groaned – the sound of his annoyance echoing in the darkness of the empty factory. “I’ve run in to that house gang more times than I can count,” he referred to the steady increase of close-calls he’d had with the thugs in maroon jacket’s since he’d stolen one of their vehicles. “They seem to be everywhere. Why wouldn’t *they* know about this mirror you are looking for?!”

“Because Jaquobime is a collector at heart,” Godwyn interjected, drawing a nod of agreement from the space marine as she wiped her face on a nearby towel and turned towards her agent. “A rarity like the mirror would be irresistible to him, so if someone was willing to sell he would definitely put himself in a position to buy.”

“That’s a lot of guesswork since we’re talking about one guy on a station of millions.”

“One man is all that is required to make a difference,” Aquinas replied coolly, and Godwyn agreed, though Nerf clearly needed much more in the way of convincing.

“We cannot act upon that which we do not know, however,” the librarian continued now that Nerf was silent. “I would like to meet this man next time you speak with him. Perhaps my abilities can provide us with some clarity where none currently exists.”

Godwyn shook her head. “I’ll need time to prepare him for that,” she said. “He hasn’t proven very open so far, so I’ll work on him until he is ready to meet you.”

The librarian inclined his head in assent. “If you think that necessary…”

“I do,” she insisted as Nerf looked on; “Let me introduce the notion of a business partner and get it so that he asks to meet you.”

“How long would that take?”

She frowned. “One meeting,” she offered as a rough estimate. “I’ll meet with him in the next cycle and persuade him then.”

The librarian seemed satisfied, but Nerf shook his head in apparent disbelief. Godwyn was sure of her course of action, however. She knew what she had to do.

Her path now set, the Inquisitor headed back through the dark sections of the factory to one of the side rooms with the easiest access to their back-alley escape where she’d made her bed. Her mind was surprisingly empty as she walked, free of thought, wishing only for rest, but as she closed the door of her room behind her with a *clunk* she noticed that something was different.

The long, black outline of a discarded shadow-suit lay crumpled on her bunk. She felt a tingle of excitement sparkle down her back.

“Mercy?” she asked into the darkness. Of course there was no answer, but she turned to see the assassin exposed and beautiful in her nakedness as she waited for her in the corner of her room.

A lithe but powerful arm snaked around Godwyn’s hips and grabbed her buttocks as she was drawn backwards into the shadow, and, kissing her with moist lips, the assassin’s tongue tasted the inside of the Inquisitor’s mouth as the killer came for her. Warm, long-fingered hands tugged on Cassandra’s clothes and rubbed against the sensitive skin of her belly and breasts, but even as she tried to caress her lover’s body in return Mercy’s firm yet gentle embrace swept her off her feet and planted her back against door she had just closed. Moaning with longing, they sucked each other’s lips until at last Godwyn’s blouse came loose as the last line of her undergarments came free from her figure.

Arching her back, Cassandra invited the silent woman to the rest of her body and tugged at her hair as her lover’s tongue streaked the length of her neck while her hands massaged the supple curves of the woman’s bared chest.

It was too good, too much, and she felt a surge of excitement every time their bodies touched.

Cassandra Godwyn hadn’t realized just how much she’d needed her willowy lover until she loosened her belt and slipped what was left of her restrictive clothing down from her hips so it landed in a pile around her ankles – drawing a delicious smile as Mercy invited herself to what she thought best and slid a hand over the woman’s navel and down.

The sound of their intimacy did not carry too far into the neighbouring rooms, but any rest was at least another hour away.

 

* *

 

As planned, Godwyn met with Duroi the following cycle at his palatial estate for an early lunch and a walk along the concourse during which they discussed all manner of things from local gossip to the traders own exploration of the far reaches of space (which may or may not have been a pleasant fiction concocted simply for her company.) These stories went on for ages, but as Godwyn encouraged him to talk for hours – feeding the man’s need to apologize for what he thought must be making him a pompous host in the lady’s eyes – she succeeded in sampling the name of her ‘partner’ with just enough of a hook to catch the older man’s interest. It worked, and after hours together they parted ways with Jaquobime entreating the younger woman to bring this partner of hers the next cycle when she visited.

Returning to their hideout in the bottom of the factory district, the librarian only nodded briefly as she told him the news. It was but a small success, and they were still no closer to their goal.

 

“What was it you told this man?” Aquinas asked from where he was wedged in the passenger’s seat of the black speedster with his knees cramped against the dash.

Beside him at the wheel, Godwyn only spared the space marine a quick glance as she kept her eyes peeled to the crowded road. “The truth,” she said, pulling an inquiring eye from the giant; “that you are a man the likes of whom is seldom met. Naturally, he couldn’t resist knowing more.”

He nodded. “I see.”

“Do you think he might recognize you?”

Unconcerned, Aquinas shook his head. “Few people have set eyes upon a space marine in the flesh, and fewer still will know to recognize one without armour.” He gave a contemplative frown. “We shall see.”

 

Just as he had on their previous visits, Jaquobime Duroi greeted his guests in the foyer of his estate and graciously welcomed them into his home, and, just as he had on previous visits, took the extra time to show his guests through the various galleries, studies, and libraries en route to the garden room where they always began their time together with delicate teas and pastries.

The estate, much like the man himself, was both immaculate and measured beyond a fault with each room leaving an impression that was carefully balanced with the rooms that had come before it. The libraries seemed learned, and stocked with only the works and items that were suitable for a trader to have read. The galleries displaying the priceless art of his collections were preened to perfection where every piece seemed naturally placed in accordance to one another to draw the eye along the finest lines as they walked. In each room the intention was so clear that it became difficult to see, leaving one confused and wondering whether Jaquobime was the genuine man of experience and expertise that his appearance suggested, or perhaps a buffoon who played at greatness. Even Godwyn could not draw a distinction either way, though, as she walked with him, Aquinas seemed to place their host in the latter camp.

Upon his introduction to Godwyn’s accomplice, Duroi addressed the giant space marine with the same grace and warmth as if he were addressing an old friend, and hid any trace of discomfort behind a faultless veneer of poise and manners.

“This, my dear sir,” he said to Aquinas as he pointed out an ornate and bejewelled boltgun that rested within a glass case in one of his more militant galleries, “was the pinnacle of my war-time collections as a young man. Fired in battle during the Second War for Armageddon, this came to me through an acquaintance of mine who bore it during his time with the Imperial Army.”

“Exquisite,” Aquinas commented dryly, hardly impressed by the man’s ability to take a magnificent weapon and hide it behind a pane of glass. “Do you know if it killed any of the aliens there?”

Godwyn, waiting in silence between the two, held her tongue as she admired the weapon for what was probably the sixth time. Unlike their host, the space marine did not hide his feelings deeply beneath the surface, and as they talked she could feel the disdain only growing in his words. Yet it didn’t bother her – in fact, it was exactly what was required. The librarian’s abrasive tone put Duroi on the defensive, and – if sufficiently insulted by her partner’s manner – would make him more susceptible to Godwyn’s attempts at charm.

“I’m sure a weapon such as that would have had to,” Godwyn replied, flushing slightly on behalf of the space marine and making sure that the trader noticed.

“Indeed it is magnificent, my lady,” Duroi agreed with a gracious nod in her direction that preceded a generous smile. “Both in function and in beauty…”

“Both are meaningless without skill,” Aquinas noted bluntly, though Godwyn had the feeling that their host had been referring to her instead of the weapon. Playing coy, she licked her upper lip and ran her gloved hand through the hair over her human ear as she made a show of looking away.

“Perhaps we should move on?”

“Pray-so indeed, indeed, my lady,” Duroi ushered them onwards with a flourish of delight as he directed them further along the gallery. “This next piece, you should find quite inviting…”

 

It was not commonplace for Godwyn to find herself as the field battle over which two men duelled with words and wit, yet it suited her well as the men lambasted each other in showy displays as they competed for her favour while she quietly sipped at the tea the others seemed to ignore and did her best to look both meek and embarrassed.

Duroi, the louder of the two, assailed the passionless space marine with stinging critiques and grandiose rebukes at his obvious lack of business tact and skill, while Aquinas, as icy as ever, put down the trader as the petty and selfish little man that he was increasingly starting to look like.

“You, sir, cannot ostensibly fathom your own deluded stupidity in the matters of trade,” Duroi boisterously exclaimed, quickly stealing a glance towards the lady sitting to his left before redoubling his attack against the giant man who sat calmly on the third side of the miniature coffee table. “Espousing such an attitude is likely what set you, sir, on your miserable course, and is what still separate the likes of the sir from the likes of me…”

“Principle outweighs mere trickery,” Aquinas replied flatly, thoroughly unimpressed with his host, “that is why I needn’t hide myself behind material possessions to obscure ineptitude.”

“Indeed it is so!” the trader replied with a laugh: “Your ineptitudes are left bare for the eye to see!”

There was a momentary silence which Godwyn quickly filled by once again apologizing for her partner’s atrocious behaviour, though Duroi seemed to only relish the battle more and launched again at the giant who sat opposite from him. This continued for quite some time – hours perhaps – as the servants continued to bring forth more tea and pastries until Godwyn could no longer keep up at eating them. Their host didn’t seem to mind and, even though the Inquisitor had long since stopped talking, he and Aquinas continued to joust as if for sport.

“It is the shortcomings exhibited by the likes of you, sir, which allows for proliferation of the upper classes,” Jaquobime Duroi remarked with some satisfaction, “and for that, dear sir,” he finally took a sip from his tea which was more than likely stone-cold, “I am eternally grateful.”

The librarian scoffed in reply, but just as it looked as though the trader would launch into a new avenue of attack, one of his handlers – a tall man dressed in a macabre black gown that looked frightfully out of place – entered the room through the servants’ entrance and cleared his throat to be heard.

“Dear mercy, sir!” Duroi nearly jumped out of his seat as his surprise quickly turned into a laugh and he turned in his seat to meet this new arrival. “I had hardly expected to see you until this eve!”

A thin smile crossed the paper-white face of the new arrival, and his cheeks rose to reveal stained teeth. He was atrociously thin – something that only served to augment his already unnerving height – and his eyes were large and dark, making them look like pits in the middle of his cranial-looking bald head. When he spoke, however, his voice was much stronger than Godwyn had expected, and his words sounded like a dull hum that reverberated around the garden-room.

“Your pardon, master Duroi, but it is already eve,” he said with an air of satisfaction, “though if you should desire it, I will wait in your study a while longer.”

“No – no, I shan’t allow it, dear sir,” he announced, rising from his seat and giving Godwyn the distinct impression that this wasn’t one of his handlers after all; “Sir and madam,” he bowed towards Aquinas and Godwyn, “Please excuse this necessary intrusion. I shall not be long.”

With that, Duroi turned on his heel and followed the tall stranger from the garden room at a steady clip, leaving the Inquisitor and the space marine alone amidst the greenery.

A few moments passed, after which Aquinas stood up quickly and folded his coat around his person. “Get back to the car,” he told her as she rose from her seat as well, “I shall be along shortly.”

“What are you going to do?” Godwyn asked.

“I am going to find out who that man is and what they are talking about,” he replied. “I find him suspicious.”

“You’ll be spotted,” the Inquisitor warned him, but Aquinas did not seem concerned:

“I’ll manage,” he said, walking silently to the door both Duroi and mysterious guest had disappeared through. “You cannot help me though. Please, go and wait at the vehicle.” The space marine opened the door and slipped through without a sound, closing it gently behind him.

Godwyn did not linger, and, letting a servant guide her out, excused herself from Jaquobime’s estate while explaining that her partner was merely looking for the lavatories and wouldn’t be long. Back in the streets, she walked at a gentle, inconspicuous pace to where they’d parked the black speedster on a curb not a great distance away and waited for the librarian to return.

She did not wait long, and she saw Aquinas striding towards her not a few minutes later.

“What happened?” she asked as he stepped down into the car and closed the door behind him. Wedging himself into his seat, the space marine fastened his restraining harness and gave her an unreadable look.

“Please drive,” he said, “I will tell you en rout.”

The Inquisitor didn’t argue, threw the car into gear, and eased out onto the road. In minutes, they had already put several decks between them and the trader.

“That man was a representative for a black-market auction house,” Aquinas began without prelude. “He was advising your source about several changes to the catalogue in an upcoming auction.”

“What kind of changes?”

The librarian frowned. “He did not say, though he passed on the data electronically, and, whatever it may be, your source grew quite anxious.”

Godwyn momentarily took her eyes off the road to give a quick glance in the librarian’s direction. “What do you make of it?”

Aquinas took some time in answering. “It is difficult for me to be certain. I have reason to believe that this auction is to be very selective in its choice of admissions, and I do not doubt that whatever items purchased therein are likely to be both rare and prohibited by Imperial Law, though whether or not the mirror is one of them is beyond my ability to tell… for that, as well as a time and location, we will need to acquire whatever data was passed on to your source…”

The Inquisitor nodded thoughtfully: “I left unannounced,” she said, “I can go back there to apologize.”

“Indeed. Yet I do not think that you will be able to acquire this data through persuasion.”

“I’ll get Mercy to retrieve it then,” she added; “I can act as a diversion while she slips in unnoticed.”

Aquinas passed a curious look in her direction. “You are aware that his guard is likely to be heavy? You will need to lower it a great deal if your infiltrator is to have any chance of success.”

Godwyn had known this already, but it didn’t stop a knot of disquiet from rolling over in her gut. “I’ll think of something…”

Aquinas likely knew what she was thinking, but if he did he said nothing.

“Take the long way back to our base,” he advised, “I would hate it if we were followed…”

Instinctively, Godwyn checked her mirrors, and, though she didn’t see any headlights behind them, she took a cut down a side-street that would add another half-hour onto their return trip.

 

* *

 

Leto.

Turning the knife over and over in her hands, Spider stared at the name she’d carved into the wooden door of the stall. Why couldn’t she forget that name?

Sitting on the toilet with her shoulders pressed against the cold porcelain, the girl folded her arms and tucked the knife away. She gritted her teeth – grinding them back and forth as her eyes momentarily flicked around the three walls of the stall.

Outside, water dripped from a leaking spigot into a sink basin and echoed around the room. Drip, drip, drip…

Her stare climbed back to the name.

Leto.

She didn’t want to think about Leto – she didn’t want to know Leto – Leto meant nothing to her.

Leaning forwards, she tried again; working with her fingers and thinking of something else. She closed her eyes, tried to breathe harder, and tried to force her body into feeling.

Leto.

Heart slamming in her chest, Spider gave up, and with a snarl of anger at her own inabilities stabbed the knife into the wood beside her. Why was it so hard!?

She tried again; now mad at herself as she tried to think of something – anything! – but Leto. She tried until it hurt, but still she failed. Now Leto was mocking her: she could think of Leto, but she couldn’t think of him…

Sweating, she leaned far forward until her chest touched her knees and her eyes were staring at the grimy floor between her feet.

She had to see it, to find out who Leto was, and then maybe – maybe she could forget about it. Maybe she could think of someone else for a change…

Flustered, she pulled up her trousers and opened the stall door just a crack: the lavatories were empty.

Orion and the Inquisitor had gone somewhere, and the giant woman was almost never around, but Nerf? She had no idea where he was now, and that was relief.

Pulling the knife out of the wall, she left the stall with sniff to clear her runny nose and walked over to sink – leaning her hands against it and staring into the mirror with nothing but contempt for the person she saw in it.

Pathetic. She felt like hitting the reflection.

How could she be anything important when she couldn’t even get a stupid name of her head?

Spider – that was what she called herself. It was stupid.

This time she did hit her reflection, and shattered the mirror with a scream before stomping back and forth across the room.

Orion talked about controlling emotions like it was second nature, but how did that make any sense!?! It was like asking her to control her heartbeat! She’d tried entering a trance on her own and had even bled herself, yet it never worked – she could never hear the voice with out his help.

A fleeting glimpse of someone entering the room passed through her mind – a shadow in the warp of something that had happened or would soon come to happen – but she was too mad at herself to pay it any attention. She’d always seen things like that; things without sense or meaning. Orion had told her that one day she would understand what she saw. He told her that she was making progress, but she didn’t see any of it. The only progress she ever made was when he was there to guide her along.

Eyes watering in frustration, she sat down cross-legged in the middle of the lavatory floor and held the knife to the scar on her wrist. The name – Leto – was haunting her still. What was it?

Orion knew, but he didn’t know that she heard it, so she never asked. Besides, it was more important now that she learned to do this on her own.

Bowing her head, Spider blinked the tears from her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. Empty the mind, focus on the balance, feel the cold knife’s edge on the skin… ignore the stomping sounds around you… Focus… focus…

Consciousness suddenly flooded back into her mind as a hand closed around her wrist in vice-like grip and she heard the knife clattered away against the floor. She tried to struggle, to scream, but not so much as a noise could escape her before she was pinned violently to wall and her eyes opened to see the snarling face of the Catachan mere inches from her own. She tried to speak, but his massive forearm was pressed over her throat so tightly that her head was driven upwards against the wall to the point where she could hardly breathe.

A meek, pathetic sputter escaped from through her lips. Nerf, however, was breathing hard, and his square jaw and rough chin was so close that she could smell the stale cigar smoke on his breath.

Spider couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to think about what he going to do.

“So,” Nerf said, his voice dangerously low, “you want to die, do you?”

The girl’s eyes popped open and looked at him in terror.

His own eyes narrowed. “No problem,” he said, “I’ve helped loads of people die.”

In an instant she was on her knees with her arms locked against the Catachan’s as he knelt behind her. She choked and squirmed to kick free but Nerf was too strong.

A twelve inch serrated Catachan fighting knife floated into view.

“You wanna die?” he said, “Then you do it proper!”

He put the knife in her hand and closed his fist tightly around hers before slowly forcing the pointed tip closer towards her body until it angled upwards under her heaving chin.

The girl tried to drop the knife – to let go – but the Catachan’s grip robbed her strength to the point where it counter for nothing. She was sputtering, gasping, doing anything she could so that he would not kill her:

“…Nerf…! Ner…!” she wheezed, but then the point pricked against her skin and she knew it was over as the blade drew blood.

She’d never stood a chance.

The girl started to cry, and Nerf threw her across the floor so that the knife went skidding away and banged against the wall.

“Is that what you want!?!” he shouted at her as she coughed face down on the ground between sobs. “Do you really want to die!?! Do you want to kill yourself!?!”

Spider didn’t answer, and the ex-commando stalked by her shivering form as he retrieved his weapon with a low curse.

The next instant, his hands were on her again as he propped her up against the wall and, with a long sigh, squatted down beside her.

“Kid,” he said, turning her cheek when she wouldn’t look at him, “what the hell do you think you are doing?”

His words were softer now, the anger of his words having evaporated in an instant, and with a pained feeling Spider opened her reddened, swollen eyes.

“You don’t understand…” she breathed in a sob, “you don’t understand…”

“Kid, I’ve seen a lot of people keep on going with more sh*t than you, so save the bullsh*t.”

“I don’t want to die!” she cried, “I just want to be able to forget! To think! I… you… just can’t!”

Crumpling, the girl buried her face in her hands as she wept, but Nerf wasn’t about to leave her a shoulder to cry on.

“Come on,” he said gruffly, picking Spider up and holding onto her until she could stand. “Eat something, you’ll feel better.” He walked with her out of the lavatory, “and don’t let me catch you doing this again. Understand?”

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was just that simple.

[Lady_Canoness]

*Part 8*

 

Day and night, as they are known planet-side, are non-existent on Erebus Station. Instead a system of cycles was developed by which to measure a standard of time. Similar to space-faring vessels, space stations required regular cool-down periods during which non-essential systems could be powered down or shut off completely for routine maintenance. Cool-down periods differed from ship to ship and from station to station, but often these periods of time (which could last for hours) were worked to coincide with a ship’s ‘night-cycle’, during which crew could rest while their equipment was powered down and the ship’s power cores were given a chance to recuperate. Larger vessels, however – and especially space stations – operated on far too complex systems to enact a system-wide cool-down without inviting disastrous results, and as such would usually implement localized cool-down periods on a system of rotations so that some parts of the station were always alert and at full power.

Erebus Station, being bigger than most, had thirty-eight such districts operating on different cycles that received (or didn’t receive) power based on some construed sense of priority; which, on Erebus, meant that those with money decided how and when the station’s energy would be divided. The factory districts, which were now mostly empty and only home to thugs and squatters, received next to no power and was almost perpetually dark with minimal life-support systems, while the richest parts of the station made off with a comfortable sixteen hours of light and eight hours of darkness on a very regular time-table. Everywhere else on the station was more or less in between, though some times the cycles would be poorly organized and random depending on the disposition of the operators. Occasionally a day cycle would last for thirty-six hours, and occasionally it would last for two: adaptation to one’s surroundings was therefore a necessary skill for anyone wishing to stay on the station. A schedule of timed cycles was supposed to be observed, but like most rules on Erebus is more-or-less ignored or otherwise ‘open to interpretation’. This proved extremely disorienting to newer arrivals, while permanent residents knew to prepare for the unexpected lest they be forced to try and find their way home in the dark. Sometimes people got inventive by leaving markers to themselves so that they could navigate in the near total darkness without using a heavy lamp-pack, while many street vendors mastered the art of packing and unpacking their wares blindfolded whilst simultaneous throwing pointed objects at the street urchins who would be trying to rob them the moment the lights dimmed. For all its faults, ingenuity was not in short supply aboard Erebus.

Most districts would be effectively shutdown without their power as local hegemonies would enforce strict curfews to curtail the efforts of rival infiltrators, yet when Godwyn arrived at the wealthy district where Duroi kept his estate she was waved through without pause. The un-uniformed mercenaries guarding the accesses knew well enough that she was there to see the wealthy art-dealer, and it became apparent that he had enough influence to purchase their cooperation. Normally she came alone and parked on an easily recognizable curb under a low-voltage streetlight, though this time when her stolen speedster came to a stop anyone who was watching would have seen two women exit the vehicle instead of one: the easily recognizable blond who attended Duroi’s hospitality every cycle, and an impossibly tall redhead wearing a long street coat who stepped out from the passenger’s side. To some, it would likely have been a cause for attention – two striking women together on a station dominated by men would draw many pairs of interested eyes – but in the cool darkness of the night with no-one watching the streets the two women walked away from the car entirely unnoticed.

 

*

 

“So how is this going down?” Nerf asked, taking his place around the table in the overseer’s office and looking half-expectantly at the Inquisitor who sat opposite from him, though not at the space marine that was at the table’s head.

Leaning forward onto her elbows, Godwyn glanced over to where Mercy had once again perched herself atop an old filing cabinet before turning back towards the Catachan and explaining her plan of action.

“Mercy and I will go in alone after the cool-down cycle has started,” she said, mapping an imaginary course on the tabletop with a metal finger, “after which point we’ll split up…”

 

*

 

“Alright… are you ready?”

Having discarded her street coat and fastened a sheathed sword over her shoulder in its place, Mercy was all but invisible in her formfitting shadow-suit, and, standing in a shaded culvert, Godwyn couldn’t see the killer’s response, but as she waited an affectionate hand touched her cheek. She was always ready.

“Take these.”

The clink of metal touching against metal rustled inside the canvas satchel that the Inquisitor passed to her agent, and the weight lifted as a hand hidden by darkness took that which she offered.

“Good luck.”

Drawing her coat around her, Godwyn stepped out from the culvert and looked up and down the street. Seeing no-one, she walked quickly away from her companion with her hands tucked into her pockets.

Unarmed and unarmoured, the Inquisitor passed under high ceilings and doused chandeliers, while flaming torchieres provided the only light and illuminated the deserted boulevards under the grim eyes of gargoyles and the golden statues of saints long-forgotten and heroes long dead. It was colder in the streets, and for that reason she kept a brisk pace until she reached the door of Duroi’s estate and depressed the bell stud to announce her presence.

The servant who answered the door was surprised to see her, but welcomed her in regardless and promised to summon his master. Thanking him, Godwyn removed her hands from her pockets and slapped a small metal disk to the outside of the door before entering and having the way closed behind her.

 

*

 

“An impressive device,” Aquinas noted, turning the small steel disk over in his fingers before setting it back down on the surface of the table, “though I can see why it would be of limited use.”

Spider picked up the device next and, fascinated by all things technological, studied it closely under her bright blue eyes.

“It’s a beacon, right?” she asked, looking around the shabby interior of the overseer’s office for confirmation. “Won’t someone find it?”

“Not this one,” Godwyn plucked the beacon from the girl’s hands between a metal thumb and forefinger. “One of my old friends made it, and he made it very well.” She tossed it back onto the table beside a worn-looking and heavily modified auspex.

 

*

 

The display had been dark for several minutes when suddenly it pinged, and a large red dot appeared for a second to the right of center on the screen. Adjusting the dials now that it had activated, Mercy slipped the device into the webbing around her abdomen and set off at a sprint down the pitch-black culvert. Moving fast like lightning and quieter than a mouse, the assassin placed each step on the cold metal deck with expert precision as she ran between bulkheads in the pitch darkness. Lack of light meant nothing to her, and behind her violet eyes she saw everything clear as if it were day as she scanned the deck looking for one thing in particular.

Her way in was through the flush system that ran underneath every deck of the station. Different than a sewer, the flush systems installed aboard starships and space stations siphoned excess water in liquid and vapour form the decks and channelled it back to the purification and redistribution tanks. Every compartment on every deck was connected to the flush system, and though it could be locked down for security reasons, the flush system was considered vital to deep-space survival and was often operating at full capacity, meaning that any infiltrator would have to contest with flash floods of water that could very easily be fatal. The system did consume a lot of power, however, and for that reason it was shutdown during the cool-down cycle. There would be no water, no bulkheads, and no obstacles in her way: all she needed to do now was find a way in.

Fortunately, the flush system required regular attention from maintenance servitors as well as access hatches that were both frequent and clearly marked, and it took the assassin little time to find to find one on the floor of the culvert. Four pops from a mango-clamp and she was in – tucking the tool back into the satchel the Inquisitor had given her and hiding it out of sight before dropping into the gaping hole as a chill draught billowed up from the tunnel below.

If it was dark outside, then what she found in the flush system could only have been described as infinite blackness, and even her enhanced eyesight was having difficulty seeing anything more than a few feet in front of her face. The air that blew around her was frigidly cold and stung her eyeballs while it moaned like the dying as it rushed passed her ears.

Impervious to the frightened imaginings that would have plagued a lesser being, Mercy stooped low enough to fit inside the tunnel and fished the auspex from where it clung against the bodice of her suit. The dot had moved further still to the right; she tucked it away and got moving – retracing the steps she had taken on the deck above as she moved closer to the marker.

Three minutes later she paused and checked it again: she was getting closer.

The heat of her breath turned to vapour in the air as she licked the warmth back into her lips with her tongue.

She kept going.

Another minute and thirty seconds and she stopped: the dot was almost on top of her.

Stowing the auspex once again, the mute assassin took to her knees and ran her covered fingers up and down along the slippery sides of the pipe. Somewhere, she knew, would be a capillary flush duct which would branch outwards from the main line into individual flush valves inside the target’s estate. Groping in the darkness, it didn’t take her long to find an opening that was darker than the metal around it, and, wasting nary a second, Godwyn’s agent pushed herself inside arms first until the entirety of her body had slipped into the duct like some sinuous serpent.

Unlike the main pipe which was elliptical in shape, the capillary duct was rectangular and much, much smaller – so much so that the infiltrator had to slide along her belly while wriggling forward with her elbows and hips. This was the kind of place were the unskilled would get stuck, go mad from claustrophobia, and eventually drown when the flush system reactivated – their bloated corpses dragged out like rats when the servitors came to unblock the way – yet Mercy remained unwaveringly calm. She’d been through worse and was so single-minded in her purpose that the painfully slow progress through the utter darkness and biting cold inside the pipe made no more difference to her than if she’d been walking through a viridian valley with the sun on her face.

Inch by inch, the relentless assassin pulled herself onward…

 

*

 

Grimacing, Nerf shook his head unfavourably. “That could take a long time,” he said. “You sure you want Mers going in that way?”

Sitting atop the filing cabinets, Mercy made no objections and continued to let the Inquisitor speak on her behalf.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Godwyn replied, leaving no room for rebuttal. “That is how we are going to do this.”

Even though unsatisfied, the Catachan knew when to hold his tongue, and, folding his arms across his chest, said nothing further.

“Given the time that it will take for your agent to enter the estate,” Brother Aquinas spoke up from the head of the table, lifting the momentary silence that had settled over the overseer’s office and peering around at the assembled people with his piercing blue eyes, “will you be adequately prepared to complete the task at hand?”

“Yes,” the Inquisitor met his gaze; “I will be ready regardless of how long this takes.”

 

*

 

“My dearest lady Cassandra!” Jaquobime Duroi welcomed her with open arms as he entered the foyer to meet her, “What a great pleasure it is to see you again! I had almost thought that after today the arguments of old men would have driven you off for good!”

Smiling broadly as they embraced, the Inquisitor assured him that that was not the case and gratefully accepted the drink that was offered as well as the invitation to sit somewhere that was more comfortable.

The lights were dim as they walked through the various rooms of the estate, leaving them subdued and colourless in comparison to her previous visits, and, as it was after the usual hours of entertainment, the majority of the trader’s servants had retired for the night, leaving the apartments with an unusual empty feeling.

“Are we alone?” Godwyn asked innocently, “I don’t see any of your usual people around.”

The trader chuckled lightly. “Not completely, my dear,” he said, “should you wish anything, or perhaps would feel more comfortable with the presence of a chaperone, then some additional company could be easily arranged.”

“Oh – no!” she did her best to flush as she swatted the notion away. “We’re both adults. I think we can manage to look after ourselves.”

Jaquobime smiled in agreement but said nothing as he tapped his fingers against the glass in his hand and let the silence grow between them.

Like most men, Duroi was undoubtedly of the opinion that women only ever visited men unannounced for one thing and one thing only, and he was also most certainly of the opinion that his young friend thought the same thing. A pleasant fantasy and no more, but a fantasy Godwyn would let him keep if it meant obtaining whatever data had been passed onto him during the previous cycle. She wouldn’t be able to get it herself, but if she got everything out of Mercy’s way then she would count whatever she did in the meantime as a success.

Still walking in silence, she glanced up into the corner of the room reading-room they had entered where a red-eyed servo-skull was watching them from where it was hard-wired into the bulkhead.

“Are we always going to be spied on?” she asked, pointing out the skull to the art-dealer and drawing another patronizing chuckle in reply.

“My dear Cassandra, those are just a part of my security system,” he said, touching her gently on the arm. “Only I ever watch those feeds anyway, so I would hardly concern myself with someone spying on us were I you.”

“I see,” she said, trying to sound almost anxious. “So they are… everywhere?”

She already knew that they were from her previous visits, but it was important that Duroi thought that they made her uncomfortable.

“Well,” he suggested genially, “I could shut them off just this once if that is your wish.”

Pretending to show some relief, she said that it was, and thanked him greatly as he momentarily left her company to turn the system off. When he returned, Godwyn had removed her coat and draped it over an armchair, and stood waiting for him with her back to a crackling fireplace. She smiled at him warmly and he grinned back, sitting down on one side of a comfortable sofa and looking up at her fondly. Taking her chance, Godwyn sat down next to him – much closer than she ever had before.

The trader continued to smile.

“Pray tell me, beautiful Cassandra,” he began in little more than a whisper; “why did you come see me tonight?”

His hand was on her thigh and she made sure to give a little gasp as the pressure increased and he started to rub it inwards. Stroking his ego was easier than she’d expected.

The rest was so easy that it required almost no thought at all as Duroi conducted himself as if he was finally getting what he’d wanted all along.

 

*

 

“Crude but likely effective,” the space marine agreed with a cringe of distaste, and he wasn’t the only one. “The man is enough of a boor that he is unlikely to question or think twice.”

Leaning back from the table, Nerf shook his head with a loud sigh.

“You could just kill him and get it over with,” he said gruffly, but Godwyn wasn’t about to kill someone just because she didn’t like them. Taking a life had to mean something; because once a resource was burned there was no getting it back. She told him as much, though Nerf had more than enough reasons to dislike her plan already.

 

*

 

First light came from a kitchen. She could tell because she could smell the residue of oil and the savoury scent of meats. They weren’t cooking now, but Mercy’s superior sense of smell could determine that it had not been long since the kitchen had been in use.

Struggling onto her back, she squeezed herself the last few feet in less than a minute until her eyes suddenly caught the pricks of light through the grate overhead – it was dim, but after a half-hour of knowing only darkness the light caught her like the glare of a sun and she had to blink the stars from her eyes in discomfort.

Positioning herself so that her arms could reach up to the grate overhead, the assassin rested her fingers on the cold and slippery metal and pushed.

Nothing.

She pushed again. Still nothing.

Evidently, this wasn’t going to be as simple as she had fancied it being…

 

There were a few more moments of silence in the dimly lit kitchen before the grate popped upwards and clattered loudly across the floor, allowing a long, slippery shadow to squeeze out of the hole, like some black paste being pushed out of a tube, before rolling head-over-heels and standing upright without so much as a sound. The sound of the grate being forced open was heard, however, and it wasn’t long until there were footsteps outside the door and a face appeared at the circular window peering in.

From outside, the servant saw nothing unusual.

With a click, the latch was released and the door swung open; a tentative foot following it inside. The servant had a lamp-pack and shone it around the room looking for the source of the noise. The pots and pans were in place, the knives were carefully stored, and the cutlery hadn’t been touched. Even the flush grate was where it should be. The servant didn’t think twice about the shadow under the counter as he turned and walked from the room, nor did he notice the hand that gently stopped the door from closing behind him as he flicked off his lamp and left the kitchen.

Muttering to himself about hearing things, the man walked off to resume whatever had been interrupted in the first place and thought no more of strange noises during the night-cycle.

It was only after he was out of sight that the kitchen door opened again and the dark shape of the assassin glided into the hall.

Her suit being designed to expel light from its wearer, Mercy blended into the darkness with contemptuous ease while the suit’s fibre-wear interweave reduced friction to the point of almost eliminating the sounds of movement. Combining the suit with the killer’s enhanced agility made for an almost unstoppable infiltrator. Twice the trader’s servants passed within an arm’s reach of the assassin and both times walked past without noticing the shadow that clung to the walls, or how the shadow would continue to move once they had passed.

Not knowing the exact location of her target, however, Mercy could not make good time through the estate as she listened at every door and checked every room in a methodical search for what had only been described to her as the trader’s personal cogitator. In an estate the size of Duroi’s the search could take hours – and it did, until she happened upon a locked door deep within what had to be (judging by the elaborate decor) the trader’s personal suites.

Not being one for locks, Mercy drew the whistling blade from its sheath and drove it with a loud snakelike hiss through the latch on the door. Instantly the door came free, and she kicked her way through with no trouble.

Inside was what looked like a study, but, from the amount of parchment piled on every square inch of the desk and floors, there was no way she could be sure, though she could be sure of one things: there was a cogitator interface built into the back wall. Single-minded and not caring about pointless details, the assassin made a beeline around the desk – knocking askew several papers as she went – until she was face to face with the blank screen of the interface.

For all her skill and expertise, Mercy did not understand the complexities of the Machine, and decrypting the trader’s information at the source would be impossible for her. Instead she pried off the protective panelling around the cogitator’s physical memory and ripped the banks out of their sockets one at a time until all ten were bare and she had stack of tome-sized metal casings around her feet. Looking for something to transport her prizes, she then pulled a painting off the wall and proceeded to cut the canvas from its frame with single, inelegant strokes from her sword before bundling the clunking casings together in the canvas and stealing away through the estate in the direction she had come.

 

The crime would not go unnoticed for long, but, six hours after she had arrived, Godwyn slipped out of the estate unseen before there was a chance for the alarm to be raised and hurried down the black streets in the dwindling hour of the cool-down cycle.

With her hair untied and about half of her clothing bundled in her arms there was no mistaking what she had come from, and when the Inquisitor arrived at the parked speedster Mercy was already there waiting for her with a less than thrilled look on her face.

“You’ve got what we came for?” Godwyn asked, opening the car and throwing her excess clothing in the back while purposefully avoiding the giant woman’s eyes.

Mercy hoisted the canvas – the telltale clatter confirming what was inside – and Godwyn nodded. It was enough. They had succeeded.

She got in the car and closed the door behind her – Mercy doing likewise on the passenger side – and was just about to start the engine when a long-fingered hand pushed her back in her seat and she turned to see the killer’s violet eyes staring deeply into her own.

“What do you want from me!?” she snapped irritably, but the assassin let her go: that had been enough.

Flustered, the Inquisitor started the car, revved the engine, and pulled onto the street. All the while Mercy sat quietly by her side, still watching. Eyes had never spoken so loudly.

 

*

 

That was it – that was the plan.

Nerf, having left his seat while Godwyn went over the final details of their withdrawal, was now standing at the office window and still shaking his head. Spider was watching him, wondering what he’d say next, but he surprised her by staying silent: the Inquisitor knew what he thought, and since he had not been included in it his attitude was unlikely to change.

“A cunning ploy,” Aquinas agreed, rising to his feet once the Inquisitor had finished and prompting the others around the table to do likewise. “Not without risk, though I think it able to succeed. Once the data is retrieved, Spider will be able to assess it further.”

The girl nodded eagerly and said that she could, but the words had hardly left her mouth when Nerf cut her off with a question for the Inquisitor and librarian both:

“So what do I do?” he asked. “How do I fit into this?”

Godwyn shot him a sour look. “You stay here until you receive further instructions,” she said.

The Catachan shrugged in poorly feigned nonchalance. “So I wait,” he deduced.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “You wait.”

 

And wait is exactly what he did.

His rifle resting across his lap, Nerf sat down on his bunk, got out is stained cleaning kit, and waited. He’d gotten very good at it since they’d arrived on Erebus Station: all he ever did was wait.

Coming from the Guard, he was used to waiting on things. Hurry up and wait for the Emperor – that was the motto so far as he was concerned – and though the wait was sometimes worth it when the action got good, there were lots of times when it wasn’t. And he’d been one of the lucky ones. Catachan special operations regiments were in high demand by many warmasters, so he’d gotten to see a lot of action on a lot of different worlds before the Inquisition had shown up. He didn’t regret any of it, even here on Erebus he still didn’t, but it was really starting to get to him, and the sour feeling in his gut only ever got stronger.

Waiting was all fine and dandy, but when you don’t know what you’re waiting for, well, that is when good people start dying in bad ways.

He’d been waiting for a while now, and he still didn’t know what for.

He’d lost track of time, but all he ever did was clean his gun, waste time, and steal sh*t when people asked him to. He was a common thief now, gutter scum, with a big-damn-gun.

He’d been waiting for what felt like hours when the seven-foot tall cause of all his problems ducked into his bunkroom and blocked whatever light came through the doorway.

“A moment, guardsman?” the space marine asked.

Nerf responded with a shrug and a grunt. He had lots of moments; why should he care if the space marine used one of them?

Looking around the small storeroom in which Nerf had made his home, Aquinas found an overturned metal pail to sit on and gently cleared his throat while the Catachan redoubled his efforts to clean an already spotless rifle.

“Do you know why you are here, on this station, guardsman?” the librarian began without an introduction.

Pausing, Nerf set his rifle aside and wiped his hands on a relatively clean rag. He didn’t answer, but whereas most people would offer a clarification at this point to follow the question, the space marine did not. He just sat there, said nothing, and stared down the muscular human with ice-like eyes.

“Probably the same reason you are,” Nerf said in way of an answer, but Aquinas was not impressed:

“No,” he said, “that is not the case. You are here because you were ordered, and you obeyed. I am here because I order, and I am obeyed.”

“So?”

“You are a tool, guardsman, and like a tool you must be functional to be used.”

Nerf scowled; he didn’t like the analogy, but he’d heard it all before: people as pieces – a typical view for officers, Inquisitors, and other people with too much authority.

“A dysfunctional tool is dangerous and should be disposed of,” Aquinas continued, his voice coming in a low, slow hiss like wind over water, “and I wish to know that you are functional before I put you to use.”

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

Oooo, scary Aquinas...please don't kill Nerf, hes cool.

 

of packing and unpacking their wears blindfolded

Wears should read wares

 

Mercy slipped the device into the webbing around her abdomen and set off at a sprint down the pitch-black culvert. Moving fast like lightning and quieter than a mouse, the assassin placed each step on the cold metal deck with expert precision as she ran between bulkheads

 

Two odd images here.

 

1) fast like lightening, maybe should read as fast as lightening? Its smoother, I think.

2) expert precision and ran....I get the picture, but, the images seem to jar against each other. One signals care and slowness, steady pace and ran is...well....running and fast and imprecision and not steady. I know what you are getting at, but the images clash in my mind.

 

Thats all I could pick up, dang, but Duroi is a CREEP!!! I really do not like him. Very nice work again, as usual. Black Library should recruit you to write these as proper books. Definitly BL quality. You ever thought of posting them over at the Black Library Bolthole as well?

 

Keep up the good work!

[Ice warrior]

Oh god, another amazing part. I gotta admire the fact that there is no parts/stories with poor quality.

It is quite rare to find a writer who can keep up, and exceed the amount of awesomeness of the last part.

Great job!

I am truly interested to see how you display and show aliens/Xenos from the team's point of view. Something like a conversation with Eldar and Cassandra would be quite cool!

 

-Ice-

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks guys!

 

It's pretty hard cranking out material that stays more or less consistent, so I'm glad it is working out!

 

I took this week off from writing to let my brain cool down and just got back to it today, so hopefully it will stay up to snuff!

[Lady_Canoness]

Boy, it feels like it has been some time since last I added to my story - but it is that time again!

 

Part 9 comes around, and means that we'll soon be near the mid-way point of the story! That being said, the Inquisition III is looking like it will be longer than the usual 18 parts of the other two - probably closer to 20 or 22.

 

Here we go then! Hope you enjoy it!

 

___________________________________

 

*Part 9*

 

Growing up in the darkness of an underhive meant that you could jury-rig just about anything and make it work. It also meant that you were good with your hands, fast on your feet, and a quick learner. You were a survivor – you had to be – otherwise you were dead. You got better, or you got killed. Luck would only get you so far, and someone who was lucky and alive on one day would be unlucky and dead on the next.

Spider didn’t trust luck, Spider didn’t need luck; so far as she was concerned, she only really needed herself.

Tapping her fingertips together in a ponderous rhythm, the teenage girl sat cross-legged on the worn metal of the factory floor as she stared into the flickering white light of a cogitator screen. Behind her, the giant form of Aquinas waited silent and unmoving in the shadows. Everything was still, save for the hushed chugging noises that puffed like a miniature steam engine from within the cogitator’s panels as the machine struggled to digest the databanks that the girl had so crudely installed. Sometimes it would click, sometimes it would whine, sometimes it would whir, but ultimately the machine took its time while both onlookers stayed rooted to the spot.

Echoing footsteps from outside in the hallway preceded the Inquisitor as Godwyn came to join them – the only sound to interrupt the gently grumbling machine until she stopped and stood in the doorway.

“Any luck?”

Ghostly white in the light, the girl’s face turned to look over her shoulder until the black mark of the spider tattoo appeared outlined by her pale flesh in the dark.

“Nope,” she said.

 

Mercy’s less-than-careful handiwork in recovering the databanks from Duroi’s estate had placed the outcome of the operation in the teenager’s hands to see if any of the information therein was of use. It would take a stroke of luck for the files to be decipherable, after all, and it would take even more for the banks from the trader’s lavish estate to be integrated into the crotchety old cogitator they’d discovered in the factory depths.

Spider got to work right away and started picking at solder and crossing wires under the space marine’s supervision. A few failed attempts, cut fingers, and select curse words later and it was not long until she had worked the salvaged banks into the cogitator and powered up the machine. For the longest time there was nothing – just white light as the cogitator took its time repowering its systems – but, just as the Inquisitor set foot into the room, the screen started to change, and a host of information flooded the display. Most of it was numerical, hard-coded, and utterly unintelligible to the people gathered around the display, though with work they were able to navigate through the uncharted depths of Duroi’s files and find something close to what they wanted.

“Transfer payments,” Godwyn noted from over Spider’s shoulder, “and he’s got them listed as being from assets on the station.”

Beside her, Aquinas frowned. “Curious,” he said, “he appears to be offering influence and material goods instead of credit, yet it says very little of what he intended to purchase…”

“You can guess that it won’t be good,” Godwyn added, drawing a look of appraisal from the space marine; “most people who transfer hardware instead of money don’t want to be directly associated with the person they are dealing with.”

“An interesting observation,” Aquinas noted. “Let us see what else your source has been hiding.”

It so happened that Jaquobime Duroi was hiding quite a lot, and that his rise in wealth and status aboard Erebus Station was not as idyllic as some would have imagined. Perhaps power and corruption did not always walk hand in hand, but Columbo’s former partner could be found resting at the end of a trail of blood. Intimidation and extortion had got him out of the gutter when trade went sour, financing criminal elements had lifted him above the rabble, willingness to cut blood-soaked deals with black marketers gave him some clout amongst the elite, and high-risk high-reward investment in privateer trade cartels let him finally claw his way into the folds of the top where he rested like a carrion bird amongst eagles. There was enough in his files to indict a man ten-times over for the rest of his days; enough to have a score or more back-alley bounties on one’s head; and enough for Godwyn to consider signing his death warrant.

All of this became apparent in a matter of hours, but it was not until they finally found the transcript for the upcoming auction that the Inquisitor finally made up her mind.

 

“I assume you are aware of what this implies?” Aquinas took her aside once they had thoroughly reviewed all the data concerning the auction.

Her face darkening, Godwyn nodded that she did: as well as being a criminal of the most repugnant sort, Duroi was now about to commit heresy, thereby damning himself beyond any wish for forgiveness. In his greed, he was attempting barter Imperial-made assets alien archeotech – an act that was forbidden alongside communion with xenos and other unforgivable crimes. Whether or not he was trying to obtain one of the Mirrors of Isha was unclear, however the space marine was convinced that they were not far from the mark.

“He, nor anyone else, can be allowed to interfere with our goal,” Aquinas reminded her, his voice so low of a hiss that it sounded like air being slowly crushed from a dying man’s lungs. “He is to be removed, do you not agree?”

Godwyn met his eye. “He will be.”

“Your agents can complete this task?”

“Oh yes,” the Inquisitor nodded slowly, “he will be dealt with.”

“Good,” the librarian replied somewhat louder, “see that it is done quickly. In the meantime, I will ascertain the exact location and time where this auction will take place. Be ready to move once that is done.”

 

*

 

Mercy was waiting for her on the catwalks above the factory floor where she balanced on a railing with a single foot dangling dreamily over the edge. The killer looked up and smiled as the Inquisitor approached.

“There is something I would like you to do,” Godwyn said in way of a preface as she leaned against the opposite railing from where the giant was crouched.

The violet in the killer’s eyes flashed in the dim light. She was listening intently now.

“Duroi,” Godwyn explained – the killer’s smile parted reveal the white of her teeth – “I want you to return to his estate and find him…”

Mercy continued to watch her with an almost dreamy expression: easy enough.

“…and take him alive.”

She arched an eyebrow and her smile grew: it was getting interesting.

“When you have him,” Godwyn extracted a folded piece of parchment from one of her coat pockets, “take him here and wait for my arrival.”

Mercy took the scribbled address and slipped into the bodice of her shadow suit without looking at it: she waited only for her master’s word to begin.

“Good hunting,” Godwyn said, but Mercy had already vanished into the shadows.

 

* *

 

 

Sputtering, Jaquobime Duroi spat a mouthful of tea all over the painting room floor.

“Castor!” he shouted, slamming the half-empty tea cup onto the table and slopping more of the liquid onto the white table cloth, “Castor, attend me at once!”

Hearing the tone of fury in his mater’s voice, Castor Montrice hurried to the trader’s side and bowed deeply. “You c-called m’lord?” he bubbled between weathered lips as he straightened his spectacles and glance in revulsion at the tea that was rapidly sinking into the carpet.

“I certainly did, Castor!” Duroi stated hotly, pointing at the tea cup in his hand. “Who in the blazes prepared my tea this morning?”

“Your t-tea, sire?”

“Yes my tea! Why else would I have said ‘my tea’ if I meant someone else’s blasted tea!?”

Spectacles sliding part-way back down his nose, the servant Castor thumbed them back into position. “I’m f-frightfully sorry, m’lord, b-but I t-think your tea was prepared by the kitchen staff. I k-know not who.”

The trader scowled darkly. “Brilliant! Emperor-bloody-brilliant! My tea is cold! Why should I wish to drink it when it is cold!?”

“I-I do not know, sire,” Castor bobbled awkwardly by his side.

Seething, Duroi rolled his eyes to the ceiling and angrily gnashed his teeth. “So go and find the nit-wit who did this and personally instruct him on how it is I wish my tea to be served from now on!”

“Y-yes sire.”

The servant bowed and quickly exited the painting room, leaving the trader alone long enough to dump the rest of his tea on the floor in disgust as he finished eating the rest of his breakfast.

The door opened again, but this time it was not Castor as a brightly made-up middle-aged woman entered and immediately started clearing away the old man’s empty dishes.

“Good morning, m’lord,” she said in a voice that was girlishly sweet, “I see you are eating late again this morning?”

“I am indeed, Meryl,” Jaquobime replied in an equally sweetened voice, thanking her profusely as she cleaned up after him.

“Another lady-friend over late again?” she said, then asked with a wink: “How was she?”

The old man chuckled. “She didn’t have as much meat on her as you,” he said, grabbing a generous handful of her buttocks as she bent over the table and drawing a giggle from the servant, “but she presented very well on her back.”

This time Meryl laughed. “All that hard work must have left you *very* dirty…”

Blushing somewhat, Jaquobime cocked his head and made an absent minded reach for a glass that was no longer on the table, instead propping his head on his hand while he casually stroked the back of his servant’s thigh.

“Shall I draw you a bath then?” she asked, deftly slipping away so that he groaned in feigned disappointed, “With the usual amenities?”

He chuckled with a sly grin and rubbed his chin. “I think that is called for, yes,” he said, “with the usual amenities of course…”

A girlish wink and she backed up out the door; Duroi taking an appreciative look at her as she went – he wasn’t paying her for nothing, after all. Alone, he waited for a few more moments at the table, then stood up, tightened his belt, and proceeded out into the hallway. It was unusually quiet, likely because he had woken late, and he didn’t meet another soul as he walked along the corridor to his bathing chambers. The lighting seemed to be somewhat odd as well, strangely enough – there were more shadows that usual. He’d need to have someone fix that.

The door to his bathing chambers was ajar when he arrived, though oddly there was no one inside the dressing room and his bath was not yet ready. Grumbling about what he’d do to punish Meryl when he found her, Duroi stuck his head back into the hallway but saw no-one outside.

Where was the little sl*t?

Put off, the old man sat down on a sofa adjacent to the door waited. She’d often run his baths, then they’d fool around a little bit after. It happened so often that he fully came to expect it and found himself both anxious and annoyed about her not being here.

When Meryl did arrive snuck inside and closed the door behind her with a scandalous smile.

“Forgive me for being late, m’lord,” she said coming to kneel before him and unfastening his belt with nimble fingers, “but there is a new girl in the kitchens. I wished to bring her to you.”

Impatient, the trader waved for her to get on with it already – there would be time to talk once she was finished.

The servant smiled again – looking for his approval – but when none was forthcoming she silently tucked her head over his lap so that all he could see was her hair as he rested both hands on the back of her head.

Meryl lacked the brains to be of any real use to Jaquobime Duroi, though she had a large bosom and a nice ass and was easily duped into thinking that the cheap thrills she provided for the old trader were actually worth something. He’d use her, make her feel good by praising her, and then get her to spread her legs and suck him off. Maybe she did have talent after all…

When she was done, she drew him a bath as she said and helped him undress. The water was warm and smooth like silk, and from the moment he stepped into it Jaquobime Duroi knew that he would be here for hours. Lying back as his servant rested a warm cloth over his eyes, he could happily melt into it and feel all the worries of the years wash away in the sweet smelling perfume of the water.

There was gentle knock on the door, and Meryl slipped from the side of the bathing pool and wrapped herself in a gown before going to answer it. “That will be the new girl,” she said with a giggle, disappearing around the corner as the trader started sightlessly up at the ceiling from behind the moist cloth, “I think she will benefit from you giving her an ‘inspection’.”

Jaquobime didn’t really care. One way or another he always sampled the fresh meats; he didn’t need someone arranging it for him.

There was a second knock on the door.

“Com-ming!” Meryl said sweetly, and placed a hand on the lever, though she didn’t open it: the sword-blade protruding from the back of her skull killed her where she stood.

In the next room, Jaquobime Duroi let out a long groan of utter relaxation.

The door to the dressing room opened quietly – pushing Meryl’s deadweight before it from where she still hung on the sword’s edge – and a long leg stepped inside.

Blood was leaking onto the tile floor.

Slowly, Mercy drew the whistling sword out from the woman’s head and back through the door, letting the corpse crumple to the ground as she carefully shut the door behind her and sealed herself into the bathing chamber with her prey.

It was sickeningly warm inside, and a pile of men’s clothing was folded neatly on the couch. From the floor, Meryl’s corpse stared upwards towards its killer with glassy eyes. Mercy spared her a brief glance; she could smell the semen on the dead woman’s lips – disgusting. She hated him all the more now.

Cleaning her sword on the plush arm of the sofa, Mercy sheathed the weapon just as she heard a man clear his throat in the other room:

“Are you bringing her in or not?” he asked in an indifferent tone.

The killer curled her lips: that was the grunting sound of the animal that had fouled her lover. Mercy slid the talons of her neuro-gauntlets into place overtop her fingers – she would enjoy this.

Moving like a spectre through air, the willow giant slunk around the side of the bathing pool until she right above her victim’s unsuspecting head and her fingers were poised ready to strike.

She paused – no, she wanted more satisfaction than this.

A breeze prickled across the trader’s face as someone blew gently upon his brow.

Eager to see what awaited him, Duroi lifted a soaking hand from the water and removed the cloth from over his eyes just in time for five clawed fingers to plunge into the water and impale his guts.

The last thing he saw were a pair of shining eyes and a cruel smile before his world slipped into darkness.

 

* *

 

Jaquobime Duroi did not remember waking up. He did not remember opening his eyes. He did not remember feeling the cold sweat on his face or the pain in his guts. All of it just suddenly… appeared.

Just like the hand that slapped him hard across the face.

A sharp gasp accompanied the sudden realization that he was alive as the side of his head stung from the blow and he reeled in the chair – his tightly bound wrists being the only thing that kept him in it.

“Wha!? Where!?”

The same hand bashed his face going the other way and his head spun painfully to the right as his feet flailed in response.

“Gaaah!” he screamed, “W-who are you!?! What have you d-done to me!?!”

A long, powerful hand grabbed him under the chin and squeezed his head back until he felt like his skull was about to burst. Eyes rolling in his head, he looked up to see the pale, heart-shaped face of a ginger-haired woman outlined against the blackness of the ceiling overhead. Violet eyes glared back at him.

A second woman’s face then appeared – one he recognized; blonde with blue eyes, high cheekbones, and the distinguished features associated with nobility.

“Jaquobime,” she said coolly as if talking to petulant worm, “allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Inquisitor Cassandra Godwyn.”

The trader sputtered something in response and his eyes grew wider. The red-haired woman tightened her grip.

“You are in a lot of trouble,” Godwyn replied to the question had not asked, “and what you say now will determine if you will return to your art collections today, or if the maintenance servitors will find you in a week when you start to smell…”

The Inquisitor turned away, and, reluctantly, Mercy let go of the trader’s neck – allow him to cough and gasp for air.

“I… I didn’t do anything…” he wheezed, sobbing and falling forward in his chair. “I’m – I’m an innocent man…!”

Mercy’s foot connected with the base of the chair and flipped the man and his metal seat backwards onto the deck with a resounding crash followed quickly by a yelp of pain as Duroi’s head banged against the floor. The Inquisitor took no notice of the noise:

“I’m going to ask you some very simple questions, to which I want very simple answers. Do you understand?”

Lying on his back with his feet in the air, the old man whimpered like an animal. Rolling her eyes, Godwyn lacked the patience to reason with the blubbering trader.

“You will tell me what I want to know,” she reassured him coldly, “though it is up to you how much you suffer before you do.”

Snivelling, he looked up in her direction. “You – you wouldn’t!” he protested, though the tone of his voice betrayed his own doubts as to the truth of his words. “You and I… we are friends! You wouldn’t hurt a friend!?!”

Helpless and without dignity, the old slime was grasping at straws, though to his failing he did not realize how little there was within reach. He was still looking desperately at Godwyn when Mercy dropped down beside him and bit the little finger clean off his right hand.

Duroi’s scream rattled their ears. He cursed, shouted, begged, but all for naught – no-one could hear him.

Removing the finger from between her teeth, Mercy wiped the blood from her chin and flung the severed digit across the room so that it landed somewhere on the floor with a small *thwack*.

“Doubt me at your peril,” the Inquisitor continued, warning the man over the sound of his own screams. “I have no reservations about killing you very, very slowly if that is what it takes.”

“Oh please! Emperor, please!” he pleaded.

Bending low, Mercy took the next finger on his right hand between her teeth. Duroi screamed like a stuck animal and blubbered for mercy, though the assassin did not take his ring finger, and, waiting on the Inquisitor’s signal, slowly let him go.

“I’m not unreasonable,” Godwyn informed him, “though each delay will cost you.”

“I’ll tell you anything!” Duroi screamed as whatever resistance he may have possessed disappeared. “Anything you want! I will tell you! Just please don’t kill me!”

Her face partially hidden in the shadows of the sparsely lit room, Godwyn scowled: the man was a despicable worm, but he had his uses. She nodded to Mercy, and, grabbing the trader by a fist-full of hair, the assassin pulled him upright once again.

“Tell me who comes to visit you almost every cycle, what business they have, and who finds these alien artefacts that are to be auctioned and where?” Godwyn demanded, getting close enough so that she could see the fear in his eyes. “Tell me everything, and I *might* consider letting you live.”

The old man cowered before her. “I don’t know everything!” he pleaded.

Mercy looked to her master with an ice-cold gaze – she wanted him dead.

Godwyn grabbed the trader by the chin with her metal hand and forced him to meet her eyes. “Then tell me what you do know,” she commanded.

 

Many men will falter and fail for fear of death, and Jaquobime Duroi was no exception. He told the Inquisitor everything that he could which, though not all-inclusive, turned out to be quite a lot, and quite helpful.

The macabre man in the black coat, the one she had seen with Aquinas when they had attended Duroi’s estate, was one of the men involved with the recovery of artefacts that were to be auctioned. A black market dealer, no-one asked where he got the artefacts, and Duroi had no knowledge to the contrary, yet the trader did know that the men who recovered the artefacts were directly involved in their sale, and would therefore be present at the auction house. The man’s name, he said, was Slate.

The auction house itself was located in a sublevel of the freight docks, Duroi explained – better for the cargo to be loaded and unloaded with fewer prying eyes – and was only accessible to those who already knew where it was hidden. The trader wasted no time in sharing everything he knew, however, for he had attended several times previously.

“And the artefacts?” Godwyn asked.

The artefacts themselves were genuine, the trader assured her – there would be no way Slate or his fellows could slip in a forgery and expect for it to escape unnoticed – but he did not know much more than that. Xeno tech was rare, he said, and due to the difficulty of obtaining such items it was likely that Slate had a contact in the nearby worlds that acted as his source. In return, the auctioneers expected tangible goods – sometimes mass provisions of foodstuffs, raw materials, construction templates, and many other sorts of things – though this time it was different, Duroi explained. This time they wanted heavy weapons.

“Do you know why?”

Duroi shook his head; he could only guess, though even a fool would know that Slate and his ilk were likely financing a private war, and, given the nature of the artefacts on auction, it didn’t require too much thought as to where the weapons were headed.

“What were you planning to offer as payment?” Godwyn asked, now curious as to just how much death xeno artefacts were worth on the black market.

Duroi did not meet the Inquisitor’s eyes as he shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. “I was offering four valkyrie gunships in serviceable condition,” he confessed in little more than a mumble, “though I planned to sell the weapon mounts separately.”

Not surprised, the Inquisitor folded her arms. “So the art dealer is now an arms dealer when it suits him?”

“I’m no different than anyone else on this station,” he protested weakly in his defence, and Godwyn did not for a second doubt him. “Even your friend Columbo would have done the same were he in my position…”

“No,” she countered, “he would not. Do you know why?”

Beaten, the trader shook his head.

“Because men can be made to change.”

 

*

 

+“The space marine got the time and place of the auction,”+ Nerf’s voice crackled through the portable comm. device that Godwyn held in her hand, +“It’s going down on a storage sublevel of the docks near where we landed in about two-and-half hours time.”+

“Yes, I know that.”

+“You know that?”+ he paused, sounding surprised. +“How?”+

“We took the source alive,” Godwyn replied, making sure to keep to the shadows now that she was outside of the storeroom, and keeping a wary eye on the light vehicle traffic that was passing by further down the alleyway.

The gravelly sound of Nerf’s rattling laughter echoed up from the handset. +“Nicely done,”+ he said. +“I’m sure the a**hole had it coming.”+

He did at that, and it was most fitting that it went that way Godwyn thought.

+“So what’s the next step?”+

The Inquisitor paused for a moment before answering. She knew what the next step had to be, but she wasn’t so sure how she felt about it. “I’m about to send you an address,” she said eventually. “Meet me there with the vehicle. Bring Aquinas with you.”

+“You got it, boss,”+ Nerf confirmed, and after her location had been transferred the feed went dead.

Behind her, the heavy metal door to the store-room clunked open in and in the dull light Godwyn caught only the smallest glimpse of the assassin as she emerged.

“Stay here,” she told the giant, “make sure that no-one sees him until after we’ve entered the auction-house.”

Waiting in the darkness, Mercy made no reply. She’d wanted to kill the trader, and kill him slowly, but the Inquisitor would have none of that. It was not out of kindness or pity she had decided to spare his life, but because a man like Duroi could still have his uses if kept under her thumb. Worms wriggled through muck after all.

Mercy didn’t like it – she didn’t have to – and Godwyn did not realize that she was alone again until the door closed behind her with a drawn out clunk. She would follow her orders to the letter, and that was enough.

Leaving the dark confines of the alleyway, Godwyn made her way carefully onto the street.

They had not been followed when they brought him here and the odds of her being recognized this many decks away from the trader’s estate was slim, but the Inquisitor kept her wits tightly about her until the recognizable black speedster pulled up beside her and stopped at the roadside.

Leaning across the passenger seat, Nerf popped open the side door and waved for her to get in before he quickly put the car back into gear and pulled away from the curb.

“Where’s Aquinas?” she asked, instantly noticing the absence of the space marine’s bulk inside the speedster as she belted herself in.

“He said he wasn’t coming,” Nerf replied sharply, keeping his eyes on the road as he increased his speed. “He sent the kid instead.”

“I’m not a kid!” Spider shot back from where Godwyn hadn’t noticed her lean frame hidden in the back seat, “I can help you!”

“Yeah,” the former commando scoffed facetiously, “no offence, but I’d rather have a space marine watching my back if this goes bad!”

Keeping herself collected, Godwyn craned her neck over her shoulder to look at the tattooed girl in back. “Why did he say you should come in his stead?” she asked.

“Because I can help!” Spider repeated herself as if no-one had heard her the first time.

“What did he instruct you to do?”

The girl’s expression soured. “Orion told me that he’d get noticed, so he asked me to go instead,” she explained, getting defensive; “I can help, trust me!”

Trust had to be earned, but Godwyn didn’t see the use in antagonizing the girl further and instead turned to Nerf.

“You armed?” she asked.

Not taking his eyes off the road, the Catachan reached behind him under the seat and retrieved his cherished bullpup autocarbine: of course he was armed – he was always armed.

“What about you?” she glanced back at the girl. Spider lifted a beaten-up looking compact submachine gun with a long sickle mag. – likely one of the weapons Nerf had picked up during his forays into the neighbouring warehouses. It was worn and showing its age, but Nerf didn’t pick weapons for nothing, so it had to work.

Godwyn nodded: it was enough.

“You thinking it will get that bad?” Nerf asked with a casual glance like talking about life and death was as interesting to him as the weather.

“They shouldn’t ask us any questions once we are there,” Godwyn replied, drawing her own ornate heavy pistol from its holster inside her coat and checking that it was loaded, “but one of the auctioneers might recognize me. Maybe more. If that happens, I want to be able to fight my way out.”

The Catachan chuckled softly to himself. Things felt simpler when the bullets started to fly.

[Lady_Canoness]

*part 10*

 

They’d been driving through the sub-levels of the docks for a half-hour when Godwyn raised a hand and signalled for Nerf to pull over.

“This is the place?” he asked, easing the vehicle to the side of a deserted junction where two dark roads met. It didn’t look like the kind of place where black marketers would frequent seeing as there was nothing here aside from oil-stained decks, blackened bulkheads, and the lingering smell of cheap crude. If money could buy influence, then couldn’t it also find somewhere better to change hands?

Peering through the glass of the passenger-side window, the Inquisitor traced her eyes up and down the corner stanchion. Five numbers rested near the top in peeling, white paint: 5567 – 1. She looked back the way they came – the road behind them was still and quiet.

Godwyn clicked open the door and put a booted foot onto the rough deck plating. “Yes,” she said, getting out of the gently idling vehicle and looking in all directions, “it’s just around here somewhere. Keep a low profile and keep moving. I’ll call you when I need you.”

To her left, the passenger door clicked open.

“What are you doing?” she asked as the girl stepped out of the car after her.

“I’m helping you,” the teenager replied, citing what she thought was the obvious answer. At this point, Godwyn didn’t know if Spider knew what helping meant, but so long as she didn’t draw attention to herself the girl might be of some use.

“Then you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do,” Godwyn instructed her, “including leaving that behind,” she pointed to the submachine gun Spider had tucked under her arm. The girl didn’t argue and tossed the weapon back into the car and turning towards the Inquisitor once she was done.

“Boss,” Nerf leaned across the passenger seat, a sobering look in his eye, “is this mirror even here?”

“I don’t know,” Godwyn answered after a pause, her hand resting on the door frame in preparation to close it, “but there is someone here who will.”

She could see the doubt lining his features, but the Inquisitor gave it no second thought.

“Do as I ask,” she said, closing the door.

 

Nerf slowly pulled away as he had been instructed and soon rounded a bend in the darkness, leaving Godwyn and Spider standing alone at the junction labelled 5567 – 1 as the echoes of the speedster’s engine grew more distant. They waited until it was quiet again before moving, and, when they did, the Inquisitor gave one last look over their shoulders before leading the way down an adjacent side tunnel with the teenager following closely in her wake.

The auction house was only accessible through a repurposed maintenance subsection, and when they arrived they were met by featureless metal door with a large eye-like peephole waiting for them at the end of a narrow corridor lit only by a single, naked bulb hanging on a twisted wire from the ceiling.

“Wait here,” the Inquisitor cautioned the girl beside her as she stepped forward and rapped on the door with her metal hand. She heard nothing on the other side of the door, but an answer was almost instantaneous, and with a well-oiled hiss the door swung inwards as a gnarled looking man with a weather-beaten face and bald head opened the door. A head shorter than she was, the man gave her a scrutinizing look with his stained yellow eyes before nodding with grunt.

“Yur late,” he said gruffly as he stepped out of the way and admitted both women through the door before shutting it behind them. “The auction’s ‘bout to begin.” He closed the door behind them – cutting off the meagre light of the single bulb that hung in the hallway – and slunk back to the same spot he had been waiting prior to their arrival without saying another word.

Godwyn and Spider stood in silence. There were two corridors leading in opposite directions, and while the Inquisitor had learned all she could about finding the auction house, she had neglected to find out where to go once she was inside. Both ways looked equally uninviting.

She was just about to go one way when Spider nudged her elbow and tilted her head in other direction:

Its this way, the teenager said without speaking.

The corridor went to the right down a narrow set of stairs into a large chamber with a low ceiling. Folding chairs were arranged in rows facing away from the door, most of which were occupied by obviously wealthy patrons, and a low murmur of conversation hung in the air. Not everyone was seated, however, and there were several groups of men clustered about the room in what appeared to be deep conversation.

At a glance, Godwyn did not recognize any of them, and she guided Spider to a pair of chairs closer to the back of the room where they could see the rest of the occupants.

At the head of the chamber was a small podium flanked by two tables, both of which were bare, though behind the podium a banner emblazoned with an unusual crest had been hung from the rafters. Her eyes narrowing, Godwyn studied it closely.

The fabric itself was a deep shade of crimson, but on the banner’s surface had been sewn the image of a hand in white thread with four fingers minus the thumb, while in the palm rested the single letter ‘L’. Above the hand, as if sprouting from the outstretched fingers, was a wreath of fire counting five flames, and beneath the hand, around where the wrist should be, was a thick horizontal line also sewn in white thread. It could be a cartel’s marking or something similar, though Godwyn had not seen anything quite like it while aboard the station.

She quickly scanned the rest of the room: twenty-one people all counted and three possible entrance points on three different walls, though otherwise there was little that caught her attention. No bodyguards, no-one concealing their identity – every person here must have felt in that they were among friends with no threat of danger.

“Someone is coming,” Spider whispered from beside her, and sure enough the door to their left opened with a slight clunk as a four men dressed in sedate black suites entered the chamber and exchanged a few short pleasantries with the patrons nearest to them before making their way to the head of the room. Almost immediately Godwyn spotted Slate amongst them:

“That is our man,” Godwyn whispered to the girl, discretely drawing her attention to the tallest of the group, though Spider instinctively recoiled at the man’s unsightly appearance. Thin to the point of being emaciated and with pale skin stretched over a bald skull, the man Duroi had called Slate looked both unnervingly sinister as well as atrociously unhealthy. The only people Godwyn had ever seen like that were either starving or addicted to debilitating chems, but in Slate’s case it might be something else entirely – she’d heard of exposure to alien artefacts that could do worse.

“Is he going to recognize you?” Spider asked cautiously now that the rest of the patrons were starting to take their seats in anticipation of the auction getting under way.

“He may,” the Inquisitor admitted, “just stay alert.”

The girl nodded and kept her eyes forward. Godwyn, for her part, kept her left hand resting on the handle of her heavy pistol under her coat.

The auction started several minutes later with the auctioneers displaying small artefacts of obvious alien origin. Slate did most of the talking in his deep, rumbling voice as he looked over the heads of his audience. Twice his black eyes rested on Godwyn, though he made no sign of recognition and the auctioned continued at a leisurely pace with patrons making generous bids that did not seem at all surprising to anyone involved. The first ten minutes saw bids of gun emplacements, light artillery, and anti-vehicle armaments – all of which were politely accepted by the auctioneers. After half an hour, when some of more exotic artefacts were being paraded before their eyes, bids of long-range missile batteries, personnel carriers, and heavy ordnance were heard. Still, however, there was no sign of a mirror.

After forty minutes, it was announced that there would be a short intermission, and servitors carrying trays of light refreshments were ushered in through the back door. As both the patrons and the volume in the chamber started to rise, however, Godwyn caught a glimpse of Slate’s tall form stalking to one of the exits in an effort to have his absence go unnoticed.

Standing along with the rest of the patrons, Godwyn exchanged pleasantries with those nearest to her before excusing herself and edging closer to the door through which Slate had disappeared. The rest of the room converging on the refreshments, no-one appeared to notice as both women slipped away from the auction.

Closing the door gently behind them, Godwyn took a moment to assess the situation. Slate was on the move but the alarm had not yet been raised, so far as she could tell. Had he recognized her, or perhaps noticed Duroi’s absence?

“He’s warned someone,” Spider said dreamily from beside her as the teenager swayed on her feet and blinkingly opened her eyes, “there is an assassin the room we just left… looking for us.”

Godwyn nodded that she understood.

Standing on the other side of the metal door, they’d stepped into a small, poorly-lit side-chamber with two doors on either wall, one of which was open.

“He went that way,” Spider pointed to the closed door, “he’s trying to make it so we can’t follow him.”

“Can you see him?” Godwyn asked, quickly walking to the door the teenager had pointed out and pulling it open. Following her through, the girl with the spider tattoo nodded;

“Yes,” she said, her voice once again sounding distant and obscured as if it were coming from another room. “He doesn’t know who you are… but he thinks you’re dangerous to him…”

Godwyn nodded again, and at the girl’s direction they went down two sets of narrow stairs and –

“Wait.”

The Inquisitor spun to a halt as Spider caught up with her.

“He’s stopped,” she said, her eyes partially closed, “waiting for something… I think…”

Godwyn was looking at the black spider on the girl’s face: its mandibles were drawn opening around the corner of her eye between outstretched forelegs that reached across her nose and forehead.

“The assassin is behind us…”

In one fluid motion, the Inquisitor drew her pistol in her right hand and aimed it up the stairs. She could hear footsteps.

“Almost…”

A dark shape rounded the corner – the roar of the heavy pistol rang in their ears as Godwyn shot it through the chest so that blood painted the wall behind it. Whoever had been following them slumped to one side and fell to the floor – the ringing clatter of metal hitting metal as its weapon slipped from dead hands.

Spider’s eyes snapped open. “He’s running!” she said between quickening breaths. “He heard us!”

Pistol still drawn, Godwyn dashed onwards through narrow corridors and around tight turns as Spider sprinted to keep pace.

“Where is he going?!” Godwyn demanded over the sound of their thundering feet.

“He got onto the street!” Spider called back from behind her; “He’s going to escape!”

“Stay on him!”

“I can’t! There are too many people down there! Too many places he can go!”

Skidding down another flight of stairs, Godwyn landed hard and slammed into a wall before she could redirect her momentum. She’d be damned if she let that cretin go!

“Nerf, where are you?” she called into her comm. unit, slowing down to a very brisk walk as they came to a door that was opened onto a refuse strewn alleyway. She looked through – there was no sign of Slate.

+“I’m keepin’ mobile a deck down from the site,”+ his answer came back, crackling into the air as Spider came to stand beside Godwyn at the doorway and looked warily into the alley.

“Can you get a fix on my signal?” the Inquisitor asked.

There was a pause.

+“Uh, yeah, I can. Want a pick up?”+

“Yes,” she replied, “and quickly”

+“Got it. See you in two.”+

Godwyn cut the feed and motioned to Spider that it was time to move.

There was a lot of commotion on this level of the docks, and, whereas the auction-house had been almost isolated from the rest of the station, work crews and heavy machinery traversed back and forth across the wide-open streets as shipping containers were dragged this way and that between storage depots. Seeing this, Godwyn stopped, quickly holstered her weapon out of sight, and looked every which way for sign of her quarry. There was movement everywhere, and men as well as servitors were moving at feverish paces to complete numerous back-breaking tasks as brutish-looking overseers stalked through their midst. Everyone was so focused on the task at hand that no-one was likely to have noticed a single man running through their midst.

Godwyn swore – even if Nerf got there soon, what help could he be in finding someone in all this?

“Do you see anything?” Godwyn asked over her shoulder.

The girl was mumbling under her breath and cringed as she closed her eyes. She was shaking her head, and in a darkening mood Godwyn looked away.

“Look out!”

The screech of tires alerted the Inquisitor that something was wrong mere moments after Spider’s warning as a speeding vehicle swerved towards them at a terrific rate just as Godwyn twisted on her feet and threw herself clear. Screeching again, the car peeled past with no more than a foot of distance to spare.

“Sonuvab*tch! That was him!” Spider exclaimed, picking herself from where she too had thrown herself to the deck.

Rolling onto her back, Godwyn pulled her pistol and fired – sending a shot screaming wide of the racing vehicle. All hell then broke loose and pandemonium reigned as workers ran this way and that at the sound of gunfire. Godwyn stood up and fired again – seeing a spark off glance from the vehicle where the bullet rang off the roof – before the car was lost in the crowd.

“Sh*t!” Godwyn screamed, picking up her comm. as frantic workers started to duck and run past where she was standing in fear of more bullets.

“Nerf, how soon can you be here?” she demanded, and, as if in response, she heard an engine roar as the black speedster pulled to a stop in front of her.

“You guys okay!?” Nerf asked, shouting to make himself heard as the noise of panicked workers followed Godwyn into the car as she and Spider opened the doors.

“We’re fine,” Godwyn stated bluntly, dropping into the seat beside him and slamming the door, “but our mark is escaping.”

Behind her, Spider’s face was flushed with adrenaline and sweat prickled her brow. She wiped a hand over her forehead and through her streaked, messy hair: “He’s going to try and get off this level!” she said, her breath coming in tight gasps. She lowered her head. “I can see him so clearly,” she added with an exhausted shiver.

The girl was beat, but Nerf wasn’t paying her any attention, instead he was looking at Godwyn:

“Cass?”

Her eyes flicked in his direction. “What are you waiting for!? Drive!”

Tires screamed and the speedster leapt forward as Nerf threw it into gear and tore away from the curb – accelerating rapidly as people threw themselves clear of the speeding car.

“You’ve done this before?” Godwyn suddenly asked for assurance as she was pressed back into her seat. The Catachan glanced at her.

“Once or twice,” he said, swinging into a turn with squealing tires while Spider swore in the backseat as she was thrown from side-to-side. “Put your seat belt on!” he warned her once before another rapid deceleration as he manoeuvred between abandoned freight containers in a nerve-bending zigzag prior to throwing the throttle back into high gear and pounding down a narrow straightaway.

There weren’t many roads on their level and soon Godwyn could see distinctive red tail-lights growing closer in the distance.

“Is that him?” Godwyn asked, pointing ahead to the vehicle that was still at least a hundred yards distant.

The girl didn’t answer right away.

“Is that him!?!”

“Yes!” Spider squawked back, diligently trying to fasten her seatbelt with trembling hands. Her nose was starting to bleed.

“He’s nearing the up-ramp,” Nerf grumbled, throwing more speed onto the vehicle as the engine roared behind them. “This is gonna be tough…”

They hit the ramp at one-eighty and were up it in mere seconds before the speedster shot through to the next deck and caught air – suspending all three occupants for a split second of weightlessness before hitting the metal with a resounding crash that sent sparks flying from the undercarriage. The car threatened to spin out, but Nerf never lost it for a second and he brought it back in line while the tires screamed and Godwyn braced herself against the dash.

It was busier on this level, lots of foot traffic, but the pace of their pursuit didn’t diminish as both vehicles barrelled ahead with engines roaring and horns blaring. Nerf was gaining on him, and, just up ahead, no more than fifty yards away, Slate’s getaway vehicle – a drab, grey, light framed two-seater – was struggling to navigate through increasingly narrow streets with significantly more people in way.

“Left! He’s going left!” Spider shouted scant seconds before the grey car ahead of them veered to a hard left and narrowly missed slamming into two bystanders. Pulling up on the brake, Nerf screeched around the corner after him – throwing everyone inside hard against the cab interior – before gearing down and gunning the engine back into stride. Slate’s car was slower and smaller, making it more manoeuvrable in tight spaces. Nerf’s driving was good, but it took some effort for Godwyn to notice that both of her hands were clamped to her seat.

“Now right!”

They got the jump on Slate this time – turning in tandem and riding so close that their bumpers collided and sent both vehicles reeling on the edges of control until a burst of speed from their quarry pushed them apart. The Catachan gunned after him, but Slate took a mad turn and flung his car down a narrow side-street just as the pursuing speedster blazed by – all three necks snapping back to follow the mark they’d just missed. Nerf braked and swerved after him down the next left – throwing everyone around like dolls in a box. They were now barrelling down a one-way street that emptied onto a busy thoroughfare filled with people. Godwyn’s metal hand planted itself firmly onto the dashboard as the far-away people grew suddenly closer and expressions of alarm started to appear on faces turning their way.

“Wait! WAIT!”

It was Godwyn who pulled up on the brake, but Spider who was shouting from behind them.

“He’s going the other way!” she screamed.

Nerf spun around. “What!?”

The girl looked lost for words and her mouth seemed to move on its own accord: “He’s trying to lose us!” she said eventually, just as Godwyn’s stomach was starting to come back down from where it was nestled somewhere near her throat. “He went backwards, like in reverse!”

This Nerf understood and with a curse he threw the car back into gear, planted his hand firmly on the back of Godwyn’s head rest, and tires squealed as he backed them up at a dizzying speed – throwing the speedster back onto whence it had come just in time to see Slate’s car pull away around another bend a hundred yards distant. Wasting no time, they were back on him in an instant and sped after the fleeing merchant as the people in the streets got quickly out of their way.

“Watch the turn!!”

Nerf pulled wide as the speedster slid around a wide corner and just barely missed an oncoming vehicle – the other-driver swerving wide and crunching into a bulkhead before the force of impact sent him spinning out into the street. Spider looked back over her shoulder at the crash, people were screaming in the streets, but Nerf kept up the pursuit. Slate had the advantage in that he knew where he was going, however, and after a few more turns they were peeling past the same crash scene headed in the other direction.

Godwyn caught a glimpse of it as they went by – the vehicle had started smouldering. The street passed by in a blur and the Inquisitor thought nothing of it until a single detail caught her attention:

Where were all the people? The streets had emptied.

She looked at Spider in the back seat; the girl was dabbing at her bleeding nose and her inked skin was starting to look pale. Her attention was on the blood that was dripping down her front.

A knot turned in the Inquisitor’s gut.

“Nerf, where is your gun?” she asked.

“In the back on the floor,” he answered without looking, easing on the accelerator before swinging into another turn.

The tires rumbled and skipped over the uneven decking and something pinged loudly off the chassis. It took three more in rapid succession and one going through the glass before they realized they were bullets.

“Down! Down!” Nerf quickly swerved to evade more fire as three more bullets thumped off the roof of the car.

Spider flattened herself across the back seat and covered her head, while Godwyn instantly dropped so low that she could barely see over the dash. Nerf kept the car in gear and continued to swerve erratically.

“They’re f***ing behind us!” he swore, glancing over his shoulder as round shattered the passenger window and showered Godwyn with flecks of glass.

Slate had drawn them into a trap, and now just had to keep them going long enough with nowhere to run to until his helpers finished them off.

Another round tore the head-rest off of Godwyn’s seat.

“Make us harder to hit, Nerf!” she commanded the Catachan. Nerf gave her a wild look and set something nonsensical back, but started to jerk the speedster back and forth while keeping his speed as high as possible.

Risking a look, Godwyn peered out the shattered window and glimpsed their enemy: a single, solid-looking flat-top with a gunner’s nest a good hundred-and-fifty-or-so yards back.

“Here comes a turn!”

The car jerked hard to the right, flinging Godwyn away from the window and into Nerf’s shoulder.

“We’re faster than them!” she said, pulling herself upright before groping her bionic hand across the floor of the car in search for Nerf’s carbine and fumbling it through her fingers before she finally got purchase on the grip and brought it up to the front seat. “Keep us turning, and we should get out of this okay!”

Nerf glanced in her direction. The Inquisitor had his treasured bullpup carbine firmly in her hands and had primed the chamber.

“This assh*le is holding us on a straightaway!” he said loudly. Godwyn nodded, and shifted over until she was poised to lean out the window, but Nerf placed a large hand on her shoulder – holding her back. “Cass,” he said, “just don’t drop my gun!”

Leaning her upper body perilously out the passenger-window, Godwyn was braced and ready just as their pursuer appeared around the corner and started to spray bullets madly in their direction. Nerf was already evading, and was banking hard to both left and right as Godwyn did her best to draw a bead on the enemy and fire back.

Bullets screamed every which way until the speedster dug into another sharp turn and Godwyn struggled back inside to reload.

“Clip!” she commanded, and Spider fed more ammo forward from the back of the car.

“Get ready!” Nerf shouted from beside her, still banking too hard for to get out as she locked a fresh mag into place and primed the chamber. “Going straight… Now! Now! Now!”

Godwyn was back out the window and firing in what felt like a heartbeat – more bullets whizzing murderously through the air as the three vehicles held a recklessly fast pursuit through the streets of Erebus Station.

Four rounds thudded off the roof beside her and another cut through the fabric of her billowing coat, but as she returned fire in a long burst on target she saw the pursuer’s windshield smash and fire rip up and pluck the gunner out of his nest – a burst of red blood pluming out of his chest as he fell limp and disappeared back inside the car. First blood. She emptied the rest of the clip as well, but missed, though their pursuers quickly disengaged and dropped their speed to turn down an adjacent street. Before they were gone, however, the Inquisitor spied a maroon jacket on the driver.

“We’re clear!” she shouted climbing back inside the car, and Spider cheered triumphantly, though Nerf’s attention was still on the road.

They were passing into what looked like a mercantile district with more lights and more people where the roads were short and packed. Slate went in first, but even from a distance they could see impacts as people were mowed down like wheat before the scythe as the frantic merchant ploughed into their midst.

“Slow us down,” Godwyn cautioned her agent, and Nerf dropped speed significantly as more people made sure to get out of their way. They lost sight of their target amidst the swell of people, but Godwyn insisted that they drive slowly. They wouldn’t lose Slate, even if that meant they were following a trail of broken bodies. As they got closer in their bullet mauled car, they could hear the wails of the dead and dying, and the equally chilling shouts of men shaken from routine business by sights of carnage and murder.

“We can’t do anything for these people,” Nerf reminded her softly as they paused to give time for a bleeding body to be dragged clear from the road, but in truth Godwyn was not thinking about that. People died in scores every single day. It was not her concern, and, ultimately, people were replaceable. Information, however, was not, and she feared that for what an enraged mob could do to Slate if she lost him. When next they found the grey two-seater, however, the mob was the least of her concerns.

Resting upside-down with a crushed hood and the left side of the chassis wrecked beyond repair, Slate’s getaway car had likely lost traction on a turn before it slammed into the bulkhead and rolled. Bits of metal and plastic were scattered all over the deck along with thousands of glass shards that crunched beneath her boots as Godwyn told Nerf to stop at the mouth of the road and stepped out of the car. Closing the door behind her, she drew her pistol and started walking slowly towards the wreck in a wide angle.

Slate was upside down when she found him still belted in with blood dripping from a cracked skull, and very, very dead. Her gun in one hand, she checked him quickly: he was unarmed, but had a datalslate and two crumpled notes in his inner pockets, as well as singular gold chain bearing the four-fingered emblem dangling from around his neck. Godwyn took all of these and stuffed them inside her coat, all the while being watched by Slate’s dead, lifeless eyes.

A couple car doors slammed behind her as Nerf and Spider came over to take a look at what was the final resting place of their quarry, though the teenager held back a bit as the former commando squatted down beside Godwyn, resting his carbine across his knees, and peered in at corpse. He whistled once in appreciation for what a high speed collision could do before feeling dead man’s neck: just as thought, it was limp.

“Do you want him out of there?” the Catachan asked, but Godwyn shook her head. The body would be useless with the limited resources she had available to her, and while other Inquisitors would insist on performing a dissection of the corpse just to be certain, Godwyn was fairly confident that there was not much more than what met the eye.

“Inquisitor… Nerf – ”

They both turned as Spider tried to get their attention. Bloodied and pale, the girl had a haunted look about her, yet the look did not come to her naturally – something was very wrong for her to look like that.

“… we should go…” the teenager mumbled and her body swayed where she stood, though she quickly steadied her balance and touched a shivering hand to her head.

Nerf got to his feet. “Boss?” he looked to her for instruction.

Getting to her feet as well, Godwyn knew what was on the Catachan’s mind. The girl wasn’t right, Slate was dead, and they were standing still with no escape rout: they had waited too long already.

“Get back to the car,” she told him, approaching the teenager who was still just barely standing, “we’ll be along shortly.”

Nerf nodded and set off at a jog back to the speedster, but Godwyn waited for a moment with Spider and laid her hands gently on the girl’s trembling shoulders.

“What is it?” she asked, “What’s wrong?”

The girl’s breathing started to sound laboured, and Godwyn had to hold onto her to keep her upright.

“What is happening, Spider!?” she demanded forcefully, trying to break through whatever was clouding the psyker’s mind.

The girl looked at her with reddened, exhausted eyes and swallowed hard. She flicked a lock of sweaty hair from her face with a bloodied finger before answering:

“I don’t know,” was all she said.

The words had scarcely left her mouth when the screeching wail of tires filled dead-end tunnel, and Nerf came to a startled stop just in time to see three large trucks pull up in the street to block off their escape. The truck doors were flung open on all sides, and a dozen or more men jumped clear onto the deck.

Nerf was already running for cover when he caught a glimpse of their maroon jackets, and heard the first barks of automatic gunfire as bullets sliced the air.

Throwing Spider flat to the deck, Godwyn retrieved her pistol and fired – a solid slug covering the thirty yards that separated them and spinning one of the coats to the ground as it blew a chunk out of his shoulder. Sprays of return fire sparked and whizzed around her, and the Inquisitor scrambled for shelter behind Slate’s overturned car.

Nerf spotted two and gunned both down, though a sweep of gunfire drove him back into the cover of a garbage compactor – bullets bouncing and whining across the solid metal surface. Head down, he kept his cool, remembered to breath, and waited for a break in the fire.

It would be a long wait.

Sheltering behind the vehicles at the mouth of the road, their attackers expended thousands of rounds in suppression fire with no sign of a reprieve, while Nerf and Godwyn hunkered down behind heavy cover and struggled to wait out the storm with their nerves intact. The lead rain lasted for minutes, though after what seemed like an eternity of shooting, the weapons-fire tapered off, and between the last few bursts Godwyn heard the welcome sound of car doors slamming and the scream of tires as multiple trucks took off down the road.

She waited for a few more moments of silence, then was rocked off her feet by a tremendous explosion: at the mouth of the street, the black speedster was engulfed in flames.

A little ways up, Nerf emerged from behind a badly mauled garbage compactor and wiped a grubby hand across his glistening brow. His face reflecting the orange glow of the inferno, he looked relieved, of all things.

“You alright, boss?” he said as he walked closer towards the Inquisitor as she stood up behind the ruin of Slate’s car. “Where’s the kid?”

Spider had found shelter behind a bulkhead stanchion and looked to be unhurt, though as Godwyn pulled her to her feet, she noticed that the teenager was shivering uncontrollably and that a fresh stream of blood was running from her nose and down her front.

“Blood of the Emperor,” Nerf cursed softly as removed his wrist from where he’d placed it against the girl’s forehead, “she’s running a bad fever.”

Crestfallen, Godwyn sat her back down on the deck and tried to prop her against the bulkhead. “Contact Aquinas,” she instructed Nerf as she tried to staunch the girl’s bleeding nose with a handkerchief from her coat pocket, “tell him what has happened.”

Nerf nodded and said that he’d get right on it, though feeling his pockets he remembered that he’d left his comm. unit inside the speedster.

“Use mine,” Godwyn offered, pulling it from inside her coat and handing it blindly back to the Catachan, “but do it fast. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, looking at the flaming car that had got them this far and was now billowing great clouds of black smoke up to the ceiling, “no kidding.”

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

that was fun to read, I must say. Car chases and shooting? Very nice indeed. For a minute there, I thought the warp was going to break out of spider, that would have made things very interesting for Godwyn!

[Lady_Canoness]

Car chases and Nerf have gone together for a couple years now ;) ;)

 

I'll be aiming to get chapters out every 2 weeks for some regularity as well.

[Azekai]

Alright, an update! That filthy alien-lover got what he deserved.

 

As an aside, where was all that military tech coming from? Was it simply stolen?

[Lady_Canoness]

Like much of the military hardware that floats around the world(s), it is either decomissioned, stolen, or simply 'reported missing' from the vast imperial stockpiles :D

 

Needless to say, feeding it into alien hands would be bad!

[Aqui]

I know I've been away for some time (long story :tu: ), but it took me 4 hours to read Inquisition 1,2 and 3 as it's been so long, I needed to recap everything!

 

As much as I've enjoyed it, next time I read an installment, I'll do it earlier on in the day so I won't have only 3 hours before I have to get ready to go to work, as I haven't been to sleep from the day before yet :)

 

:)

[Lady_Canoness]

I just about did a double-take when I saw your name there Aquilanus: I thought you might have fallen off the face of the earth!

 

Good to see that you're back and well! I'm also pleased to hear that you've gotten yourself up to speed - now I won't feel bad about obscure references to my other works! (well, not *as* bad) :P

[Aqui]

I just about did a double-take when I saw your name there Aquilanus: I thought you might have fallen off the face of the earth!

 

Good to see that you're back and well! I'm also pleased to hear that you've gotten yourself up to speed - now I won't feel bad about obscure references to my other works! (well, not *as* bad) :lol:

 

I've mainly been away as I've moved to a place of my own, but can't afford proper internet, so I have to use a mobile internet USB dongle for my laptop, but I had packed away and couldn't find it, and then it took nearly 2 weeks to get it running :P

 

 

The Machine Spirit is petulant in that device I swear.... :down:

[Lady_Canoness]

It's been about 3 weeks, so part 11 has been a long time coming. In this part, I hope to cement the dynamics between characters and give a real sense of where everyone stands so far.

 

Hot off the press, here it is!

 

*part 11*

 

Aquinas told them wait for him at a low-rate hotel called the Argyle, which was not more than a few blocks from their current position. He did not say how he knew of the place or why he chose it, or when they could expect him to arrive other than it would be ‘soon’, but only that it was important to find somewhere for Spider to rest that was free from distractions. Pushing through the door just as the claxons announcing the onset of the night cycle started to wail, however, the Argyle that met the eye did not look like the place the librarian had described.

Crowded with off-duty shift workers, the hotel parlour – little more than a scuzzy sitting room with tables and a bar to serve drinks – reeked of cheap smoke and beer breath, and a slew of profanities and boorish laughter beset their ears mere moments after the door had opened.

“Weird choice,” Nerf noted, closing the door behind them and wrinkling his nose as he took stock of their surroundings; “I didn’t think your friend rolled like this.”

Supporting the semi-conscious Spider on her shoulder, Godwyn didn’t rise to meet the Catachan’s cynicism. She wouldn’t have guessed that Aquinas would pick a local watering hole either, though she had more on her mind than the aesthetics of the space marine’s tastes, and not having an unsanctioned psyker unravelling around her was part of it. Fortunately, booking a room at the Argyle was easy and the man behind the counter asked no questions about the tattooed teenager they dragged along with them or about Nerf’s clearly visible weaponry; he simply gave them their room pass and pointed them up the stairs with little more than a nod.

Spider’s condition was to get worse, however, and as they got her to the room she was shivering so intensely that she could no longer stand and had become deadweight in Godwyn’s arms. With Nerf’s help, they laid her gently on one of the room’s two bunks before taking off her bulky boots and jacket and wrapping her tightly in the bed’s ratty blankets.

That’s when the white’s of her eyes started to turn red.

Nerf noticed the change first: swearing, he pointed at the girl’s face with another stream of expletives when Godwyn turned to find out what was wrong.

“What the hell is happening!?” he nearly shouted.

Godwyn didn’t know, but she did know that, whatever it was, it was bad.

“Get some towels from the bathroom,” she pointed to the door over her shoulder that she could only assume led to a latrine. “Soak them, and make sure they are cold!”

Nerf didn’t need to be told twice, and, though she kept her attention on Spider, Godwyn could hear the Catachan rummaging through the tiny washroom like a scavenging animal. The sound of running water soon followed as a faucet was turned on full blast.

Godwyn ran her left hand over her forehead to catch the sweat that was starting to accumulate there. Spider was capable of great things, but she was also a risk – a risk that Godwyn was becoming increasingly unwilling to tolerate.

She drew her gun.

Nerf burst back into the room, sopping towels in his hands, but stopped short as soon as he saw the Inquisitor’s weapon drawn.

“Boss,” he said slowly, “what is going on?”

“Put the towels around her head,” Godwyn instructed him.

Nerf did not disobey and lifted the girl’s lolling head as put the cool towels against her searing hot skin. Streams of drool flooded from between her lips as soon as her head was moved. When he was done, he took a few steps back.

Godwyn tilted her head towards the door behind him; “Leave.”

“Boss?” She could hear the breath rushing through his nostrils as he spoke. He wanted to know if she was about to do what he thought she was. He sounded concerned.

“Wait for Aquinas downstairs.”

“Right,” he said, and let himself out the door into the hall. Godwyn could hear his footsteps walking away. He didn’t stop.

After he was gone, however, the Inquisitor remained standing over the teenager for some time. Spider’s breathing was heavy and laboured, and her body twitched involuntarily as her eyes rolled in her head. Something was very wrong for her to be in such a state, but Godwyn didn’t know if she could afford to wait and find out what.

Her duty was clear: she would execute the girl rather than risk the alternative.

The ornate heavy pistol in hand – a gift from her late mentor, Imperial Inquisitor Isaac Strassen – Godwyn ejected the magazine and tossed it onto the bunk beside her before removing her long overcoat and setting it aside as well.

Tucked on the side of the Inquisitor’s shoulder holster was a case containing three bullets. She had acquired them after leaving Penumbra and had kept them with her ever since as each was extremely rare and to be used only as a last resort in battling the foes of humanity.

The first was a viral round injected with a virulently toxic metal alloy of alien origin that caused the blood of the target to corrupt and attack the host’s own organs – capable of felling the mightiest of beasts over a few excruciating heartbeats.

The second was a round made of an unknown organic composite that was both extremely durable and surprisingly light. Sharpened to a point, its penetration power was substantial, though stranger still were the extra-dimensional wardings engrained within the projectile, which, Godwyn had been told, allowed the bullet to pass through material objects unimpeded.

As fantastical as these two bullets were, the third and final round was the most potent, and it was this round that Godwyn removed from its case and inserted into the pistol’s breach. Moulded and inscribed with wards of destruction by master artificers, the third round was made of truesilver and was an anathema to all things spawned of the warp. Fired into a psyker or anything else of that nightmare realm, the bullet would ignite upon penetration and engulf the target in a conflagration of cleansing white flame.

Sliding the breach closed on the single round within, Godwyn sat back on the bunk opposite Spider, rested the pistol on her lap, and waited. Either Aquinas would be there shortly, or he wouldn’t.

It really did come down to that.

Some might question her methods, but between death and a rogue psyker there really was no alternative. What happened next depended on the space marine.

And so she waited.

The room they were in was quiet. Cut off from the parlour-room noise two levels below them, the only sound came from the electric hum of the lights and the girl’s irregular, heavy breathing. For a time, Godwyn counted these breathes, though eventually she stopped as each grew more awkward than the last.

It had been fifteen minutes, at least, when Spider started to speak.

At first it was nothing – just rumblings like phlegm caught in the throat – but eventually it became more animated; first with mere sounds, but then a conjunction of sounds that formed words. Most of it was babble and made no sense, though between mindless ramblings there were a few words that leapt out continuously until the Inquisitor knew that there could be no mistaking them:

Leto, Oberon, and Zero.

They sounded like names, but names to what Godwyn had no idea. The girl spoke of them repeatedly, though nothing became clearer as to what the words might mean.

Just as suddenly as it started, however, it stopped, and the girl’s words became less and less pronounced until they were once again no more than sounds, then grunts, then back to deep, troubled breathes. Then nothing at all.

Hesitantly, with pistol in hand, Godwyn rose to her feet and was about to take the one step necessary to cross to Spider’s bedside when the door of the room opened and the familiar form of the space marine ducked inside and gently shut the door him.

His head almost brushing the ceiling, the librarian’s ice-like eyes swept once around the room before catching the pistol in the Inquisitor’s hand. Saying nothing, Aquinas gave a curt nod in her direction before he brushed past her to the girl’s side and crouched by her head.

“You can holster your weapon,” he said, not looking at the Inquisitor as he laid his hand flat across the girl’s damp forehead for a brief moment before tracing some kind of sign in the air above her skin.

“Not until you tell me what is happening here.”

The librarian paused, and then slowly pivoted on the balls of his feet so that he was facing her directly. Even crouched, the space marine’s presence seemed to fill the room, and the Inquisitor took a voluntary step backwards to put more distance between them.

Now behind him, Spider’s breathing suddenly grew slower. Aquinas did not seem surprised.

“She is no threat, if that is your concern,” he replied coolly, his expressionless veneer entrenching every one of his words.

“Then what is happening to her?!” Godwyn demanded, keeping her weapon stubbornly by her side.

If he so desired, Aquinas could have forced her to drop her gun in more ways than one – they both knew it – but out of respect the space marine chose to indulge her need to know.

“What you have witnessed is what happens when a psyker’s focus erodes,” he explained calmly. “She is unable to control what she sees, or otherwise manipulate her abilities. It is much like a trance, though improperly induced.”

The Inquisitor swallowed. “How is that not dangerous?” she asked, still unwilling to relinquish her sidearm.

“For some it is,” the librarian agreed, “though not in this case.”

“How?”

“The nature of her abilities makes it so.”

She frowned: “What do you mean? If she can’t control herself, she is a danger!”

Aquinas shook his head. “You are mistaken,” he said, “but allow me to explain.” Raising himself slightly, he perched on the edge of Spider’s bunk, adjusted the wet towels around her head, and then motioned for Godwyn to sit opposite him on the second bunk.

“Do we have time for this?” she asked testily, remaining standing in spite of the librarian.

“Yes,” the librarian replied calmly, “we do. There is no risk. Please, sit.”

Irritated by his lack of urgency in dealing with the girl, Godwyn nevertheless sat as she was asked though kept her gun tightly in her metal fist.

Turning away, Aquinas touched his fingertips to the girl’s forehead and muttered a few words before turning back to Godwyn and letting the psyker be.

“She will be alright,” he said, “as will you. What ails her is not the darkness you rightly fear.”

“Well I do fear it,” Godwyn retorted. “So you had better tell me what is going on before I come to my own conclusions.”

The librarian motioned that he understood her unease: “What you see here is little more than what you would describe as mental exhaustion,” he explained matter-of-factly, as if he were illustrating a concept of which he was more than familiar. “Untrained as she is, she has not yet learned to temper her mind or develop the stamina needed to retain her focus. This shortcoming means that she has mistakenly drawn too much upon the tides of the warp and entered into a trance-like state purely by accident.”

“Does it happen often?” Godwyn asked; “Are there dangers to it?”

“There is danger to everything,” Aquinas told her, “but not in the way you know it. A trance such as this is how Spider realizes her true potential. So far she has only been able to attain this state of consciousness through my assistance, and, though she has often tried to do so on her own volition, she has only ever succeeded by accident thus far. Your Catachan has witnessed some of these attempts, I believe. You should ask him about it.”

He could tell by looking at her that the Inquisitor wanted to know more, but he chose to ignore her instead and cast a glance over the teenager like a master looking over his student. “If it were not so inconvenient, what happened here would be beneficial.”

Godwyn’s eyes narrowed, and at last she set her pistol down beside her on the bunk as she leaned forward for a better look at the girl with the spider tattoo before meeting the ice-like eyes of the space marine once more.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

The librarian took his time in responding.

“Try as I might,” he said, “there is only so much influence I can exert over her mind, for when I manipulate her consciousness only a fraction of her potential can be met.” He sighed, and for the first time Godwyn saw something akin to resignation appear on his statue-like features. “It is as if one watches the dreams of another through a mirror. The task is not so simple as one might perceive.”

He stopped at that point, but Godwyn thought that she understood: she’d never be able to appreciate a psyker’s burden, but through Aquinas’ words she began grasp the sheer impossibility of the task set before him. This girl had the gift of farsight, something he had equated to the Eldar seers, and even in those long-lived xenos it was said to be the practice of a lifetime, yet Aquinas was struggling to unlock the secrets of an ancient alien race in a single human lifespan. He would have a century, if he were lucky, but the psychic mutation was not one without peril and was exceptionally short lived. Perhaps that is why he needed the Mirror of Isha – the boon of a millennia retrieved in a year. With it, he might not need a century or a single human lifetime to bring the gift of farsight to the Imperium, and, if the Inquisition could help, it would alter the course of history.

“She spoke in her dreams,” she said, halting the silence that had grown between her and the librarian.

Aquinas sat up straighter than before and the look on his face changed, though Godwyn could not tell if it was for better or for worse.

“What did she say?” he asked, his voice a low, immediate hiss.

Godwyn shifted where she sat and arched her fingers so that metal and flesh touched by their tips. “Three things,” she answered; “Leto, Oberon, and Zero. Do those mean anything to you?”

What looked like recognition seemed to pass over the space marine’s face, but, in the instant it took for her to notice, it had already vanished, leading her to doubt whether or not she had seen it at all.

“No,” he said, “they mean nothing to me.”

For a moment she was disappointed, thinking that the girl’s mumblings could have been a lead, but then she remembered that the psyker’s talents had not been entirely wasted, and that their pursuit of Slate had bore results.

“The auction,” Aquinas caught on to her thoughts faster than she could hide them, “what occurred there?”

“I found our man, but he is dead,” the Inquisitor admitted, “though I may yet get something out of him.”

The space marine nodded gravely, but did not ask for more. “I must take Spider from here,” he said at once, standing up and towering over the Inquisitor in the tiny room. “Follow me when the night cycle is over.”

Though dwarfed, Godwyn stood up as well. “I think we should leave together,” she said, but Aquinas was quick to shake his head.

“No,” he said, “it will be safer for Spider if it is only me.”

He would not say why, but Godwyn did not argue. Showing that she understood, she sat back down on the bunk as the space marine gathered the bundled teenager in his arms – like an ordinary man might carry an infant – and swept from the room without a backwards glance. Unlike Nerf, Aquinas made no noise as he disappeared down the hall.

 

*

 

Godwyn was on her own for about ten minutes before there was a knock on the metal door and Nerf let himself inside.

“I saw the space marine leaving,” he said once the door was closed and he’d sat down across from where Godwyn was slouched on the second bunk, “funning thing that I didn’t see him when he got here though.”

Resting with her back against the bare metal wall, Godwyn shrugged. She’d unfolded the paper scraps she’d taken from Slate’s body but reading them hadn’t revealed much other than what looked like a personal correspondence between the merchant and a potential buyer. The dataslate was sure to reveal more, but unfortunately it bore a high level of encryption, and it would take her some time to work around it.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

Godwyn glanced up at her agent at the same time as she placed the crumpled pieces of paper down beside her. He sounded confrontational, and his posture made it clear that he wasn’t making idle conversation.

“Keep in mind what he is,” she reminded him, but Nerf was already nodding emphatically.

“I know what he is,” he said.

“Do you?” Godwyn challenged him.

The Catachan held her gaze: “Yeah, I think I do.”

Nerf didn’t hide his distrust of the space marine from her, but she wasn’t about to hear him out about his reasons. She trusted Aquinas and that was enough; Nerf was likely only responding to the pressure of having to contend with a bigger man.

“Enough of this,” Godwyn stood up abruptly, gathered her things, and threw on her coat. “I’m famished for something to eat. Is there anything worth having in this place?”

Nerf’s expression seemed to sink and his shoulders sagged. “Yeah,” he said, standing up as well but not looking at the Inquisitor as he straightened his jacket, “they serve some grub downstairs. Greasy stuff.”

They left the room in silence and stayed like that all the way down into the noisy parlour where they took a small table near the back of the room. It was still busy and the number of loud-mouthed drunks milling around the bar seemed to be climbing at a steady rate, but at least the service was quick as two plates of barely recognizable stewed meat swimming in grease and synthesized vegetables cooked to mush were slapped down before them along with a pair crude implements. It was edible enough, sort of, but to Godwyn it was a far stretch better than most of what she’d been eating lately. The meat was chewy and had a slimy texture to it that made it stick to the gums, but at least it was warm when it slid down her throat and went a long way towards temporarily curing the hunger that seemed so persistent since they’d arrived on the station.

Nerf didn’t say anything while they ate – instead keeping his shoulders hunched and his eyes circling the room around them at a constant rate that it was like they were back in the jungle. This suited Godwyn just fine as it allowed her a chance to engage her own thoughts uninterrupted and wonder about the location of the Mirror. Chances were that whoever was in possession of the mirror would not understand its significance or be able to use it properly, though in truth that made no difference unless they could find it. Could be that it was lurking in a collector’s vault somewhere, or was otherwise collecting dust elsewhere. Could be that Slate had never even come close to the mirror, and that his hunt for alien artefacts had been completely unrelated. Could be that the mirror no longer existed, and that Aquinas’ convictions to the contrary was the result of misplaced faith in Spider’s abilities.

“Your friend is going to get us into trouble.”

Godwyn was just scraping up the last morsels of meat from the pools of grease on her plate when Nerf decided to start talking. His elbows were leaned on the table to either side of his empty plate, and he was looking across at Godwyn with his rough hewn brown eyes. Speckles of grease dotted the stubble beneath his lips.

Finishing up the rest of her food, the Inquisitor placed her knife and fork down on the tin plate. “You know what I have to say about that,” she told him, folding her arms and leaning forward so that they were about as level as level could get.

“I know,” he said with a grumble of contention in his voice as he stuck out his chin to clean the inside of his teeth with his tongue, “but you don’t know what I have to say about it.”

“I don’t care to hear what you have to say about it.”

“So what? I’m going to say it anyway.”

She rinsed the spit around inside her mouth and swallowed it. “Okay Nerf, it’s just you and me here: talk.”

The Catachan looked once more around the room as if keeping tabs on who was inside, then gave her a hard look. “He came to check up on me a little while back,” he started, “said that I was tool he wanted to make sure was useful.”

“I thought you would have been used to hearing that by now,” Godwyn interjected.

Nerf gave a dry snort. “I’m not saying I’m not,” he said, “and I told him that I’m a soldier and would kill whatever I’m pointed at, but I think he wants more than that.”

“That surprises you?”

“No, not really,” Nerf leaned far forward and dropped his voice as low as he could go while still being heard over the racket in the room, “but I could feel him walking around inside my head, and I have hunch that he wasn’t there just looking at me. You follow?”

Godwyn narrowed her eyes. “You’re imagining things,” she said.

“No,” he gave his head a low shake and frowned, “I’m not. You say I gotta trust you, you trust me on this; I’ve seen this kinda thing before, and it doesn’t lead somewhere I want to go.”

He stayed silent for a time, staring into her eyes, but Godwyn didn’t budge. Aquinas was a space marine, had over a century of experience, and was more learned than any man she had ever met. Nerf was a soldier, a commando: he followed orders, and he followed them well. That was it. She would trust him with her life, with the safety of her squad, and that his expertise was well and truly measured. But to pass judgement on someone like Aquinas? She didn’t even trust herself to be capable of appropriately judging the librarian.

“Aquinas is solely concerned with the mission,” she told him, leaning forward as Nerf backed off and reclined in his seat. “He’ll do everything to make sure that it is accomplished. He knows how to manage his resources because he’s done it many, many times before!”

“You believe that?”

“I’ve already told you that I do!” Godwyn hissed back.

The Catachan looked rebellious – mutinous – utterly unwilling to accept the truth.

“Nerf,” she stopped him before he could start again, “if you’re not going to listen to me, then why are you here? Why did you follow me?”

Nerf had an answer on the tip of his tongue, but, just as he was about to spit it out, he stopped dumbly as if he’d been struck in the face. He blinked once, and then seemed to relax – his eyes straying around the room before returning to Godwyn. They were just two people, a man and a woman, sitting at a small table in a crowded hotel parlour.

“I’m here for you,” he seemed to swallow the words. “Maybe that mirror is out there, and maybe it isn’t – either way it wasn’t meant for me. I’m just here for you.”

Godwyn gave him a curious look that was not entirely unsympathetic; “Nerf, what – ”

He waved her down. “I’m a killer, boss,” he said in a voice that was remorselessly flat, “always have been, and always will be. I’ve killed for the Emperor ever since I’ve been old enough to shoulder a gun. I’ve killed a lot of things and seen a lot of sh*t to know my place in life, and along the way I’ve learned a thing or two. I’ve learned what I’m not.”

The Catachan’s voice was starting to waver and buckle, and the more he talked the more anger seeped into his voice until he spoke in a furiously low growl that seemed to tear at the drunken voices around it.

“I don’t believe in heroes or martyrs. I’m not killing for a cause. I kill because that’s all I can do, and because I know I can’t stop. You wanna know why I’m here? It’s because I’ve killed for a lot of people who gave me a lot of bullsh*t reasons for doing what I do, but all of them are the same. You know why? Because they don’t give a damn why I do it so long as I do it. They’re too busy thinking about how great they are and how noble their cause is to realize what it does for the rest of us. I worked for another one of your kind once, another Inquisitor, and he was just like that. But you’re not: you’re not gonna throw it all away for something someone else wants.

“So why am I here? I’m here because of you. I’m here because there is nothing more for me out there. I’m here because you, me, and Mercy aren’t all that different. I can’t stop doing what I’m doing, and neither can you. You’d die if they made you stop, and so would I, but as long as you’re alive you’ll keep doing your duty, and as long as I’m alive I’ll keep doing mine. You’re the Inquisitor, and I’m the killer. I follow you because maybe, just maybe, I can help you make a difference somehow.

“But that space marine? Your friend? He’s not like you and me – he’s not so drowned in blood that he can’t think of anything else. No, he’s above it all – above us. He’s not even human. He does what he does because he can sit back and ‘think’ about it. He doesn’t have to help us – he doesn’t have to even trust us – all he has to do is move us around like little pieces until he’s got what he wants and we can burn for all our hard work… He’s just like the rest of them; not seeing what he’s got because it’s not what he wants…”

The Catachan stopped and the anger in his voice seemed to subside, letting the sounds of the parlour flow back around their table. Godwyn didn’t say anything, and for a time they sat with an awkward silence between them as neither one looked at the other.

“I need a drink,” he said in way of a sortie, and got up to go to the bar. Godwyn didn’t stop him and remained seated after he left.

He’d been with her for just over three years now, but had he ever changed? Probably not, was her answer when she thought about it; he was just more acceptant of his fate than most.

The silence between them continued when he came back, and while she thought about him he kept his attention anywhere but on her.

“There’s always a way forward,” she said after a while, and the Catachan nodded into his glass:

“Yup,” he said.

His eyes swung back towards the door, and then, as Godwyn watched, his expression suddenly changed:

“Aw sh*t,” he grumbled, quickly dropping his profile in an effort to sink into the room around them. “Here comes trouble.”

Godwyn risked a glance towards what he was talking about, and from the corner of her eye counted six maroon jackets entering the hotel parlour from the street. She turned back to Nerf who was doing his best to look inconspicuous as he drank the rest of his beverage.

“Do you think we’ll be recognized?” she asked in a whisper.

His eyes flashed over. “I will be,” he said with false enthusiasm behind a wicked grin.

The Inquisitor kept her head down, but it wasn’t enough.

“You said your name was… Nerf, right?” said a female voice that was accompanied by self-assured footsteps across the floor and the clink of metal rattling against metal.

Nerf looked up from his chair into the scowling face of the woman from whom he’d stolen the speedster and grinned like it was the first time he’d seen her all over again.

“Nice when a woman remembers my name, for once,” he said, leaning back in his seat and propping his head on his hand while the other rest on his hip.

“Shut the f*ck up!” A second woman was close behind the first and held a shotgun loosely in her hands as the two coats stood over the table glaring down at the muscular commando. Both had their attention fixed on Nerf, and from where she was sitting, Godwyn could see the other four maroon-jacket gangsters hanging out near the bar to watch what went down. They weren’t the only ones either: most of the parlour was now suddenly quiet as everyone either slipped out the front door or sat rooted in their seats like anxious spectators watching a promising blood sport.

“You wrecked my baby – my f*cking car! – Nerf, so I think you owe me now. Big time!”

Godwyn glanced back at Nerf, who didn’t look the least bit put out, and then back at the glowering ganger. She wasn’t very tall and her face was riddled with piercings, but with five of her friends backing her up she obviously felt ready to take on one man and his girl. Standing to the Inquisitor’s right, the woman with the shotgun seemed antsy, and shifted her weight between her feet. The colour had sunk from both of their features.

Nerf shrugged. “Guess I do,” he said nonchalantly, drawing the gangers in with a lazy smile. “What’ll it be? New car?”

The one with the piercings leaned hard on the table – knocking his empty plate and glass onto the floor with a crash – and glared into his passively amused eyes.

“Yeah,” she said, her face mere inches from his own and both hands planted firmly on the table so that she was leaning over it towards him, “that and I’m going to f*cking kill you!”

Nerf looked thoroughly nonplussed, and with a quick glance he caught Godwyn’s eye. He dropped his hand from his face and stared directly into the ganger’s eyes.

“Oh,” was all he said.

What happened next was over so quickly that Godwyn hardly had enough time to take it all in, but at one point the Catachan’s knife was out like a flash and buried through the woman’s hand and into the table halfway to the hilt. She howled in pain and the room exploded around them as both Godwyn and Nerf burst to their feet and people flew this way and that in a frenzy to get out now that the action had started.

Nerf buried his fist into the face of the first ganger while Godwyn smashed her metal hand into the throat of the second – the firing stud of her shotgun depressing and blowing the back off of her wounded companion in an explosion of gore.

Shots started coming from the direction of the bar, and the patron nearest to Godwyn dropped as a bullet thwacked into his skull. Nerf was down on the ground and covered in blood, but was firing with his carbine in one hand through the chaos towards their assailants.

People were scattering all over the place and diving for cover as tables were upended and bullets bounced murderously off walls.

Godwyn’s pistol roared – pitching a bystander to the floor as two gangers vaulted behind the bar for cover while a third broke for the exit that was now swarming with people. Nerf got to his knees and dropped the fourth ganger who had been too stupid to seek cover – six ragged, bloody holes opening themselves in his jacket as he was flung backwards off his feet.

Some people were running up the stairs to escape the violence, while others had drawn sidearms of their own and were now firing wildly into the melee.

Godwyn spun and shot one of them as they got too close before throwing herself flat to the floor as bullets spanked off table-tops and rattled around the room. Nerf was crawling on his belly across the floor to get an angle on the bar while the two remaining gangers were wildly spitting fire at anything that moved from behind cover with a pair of machine pistols.

Bullets snapped and whizzed through the air in long bursts as Godwyn crawled on hands and knees through the mess of overturned tables and pools of spilt blood mingling with spilt beer. A sudden pain in her knee made her gasp, and, fearing she’d been shot, the Inquisitor spun onto her back only to see the second ganger – the one she’d struck in the throat – hanging on to something that she’d stabbed into the Inquisitor’s leg. Foaming blood and spittle were dribbling from her gasping mouth as she tried to say scream something, but the words disappeared as the Inquisitor split her skull and pulped her brains with a point-blank shot through the face. The corpse flopped clear, but a syringe large enough to stick an ork had been imbedded behind her knee. Gritting her teeth, Godwyn pulled it free – a spurt of her blood going with it – and flung the needle away across the floor. Her leg hurt to move, but she managed to keep going until she found cover behind a large overturned table and propped herself against it. A bullet blew through her cover and she flinched, but then turned and hammered two shots back in the direction of the bar.

Nerf had cut himself on a piece of broken glass and dark stains of blood were now soaking through his jacket sleeve as he gathered himself behind two toppled tables to the side of the bar. Most of the shooting had stopped and a lot of people were dead, but the Catachan didn’t count on being lucky enough break cover just yet. Prying one hand off his carbine, he rolled back the sleeve of his jacket and checked his wound. Most of the blood wasn’t his, but it was messy and deep – he’d need to get a medic to fix him up this time. Cursing under his breath, he kept his head down and waited. Bursts of suppression fire were still ringing around the room. He held his breath and counted. Spying a fallen plate within arm’s reach, he fished over the metal dish with one hand and flung it over the counter where it landed with a loud clatter. Swear words followed by more bursts of fire ripped out from behind the bar – he could be fairly certain that there were still two of them back there.

From somewhere across the room, Godwyn’s pistol roared. Good, he thought, she’s still in it.

Rising to a low crouch from his knees, the Catachan raced to the bar and vaulted the counter – landing almost on top of the two remaining gangers. They’d scarcely caught a glance of the blood streaked commando when he was onto them – shooting down the first with the last few bullets in his mag, before slamming the butt of the carbine into the startled jaw of the second – toppling him over amidst the mess of shattered glass and split booze. The man scrambled and screamed, lacerating his palms as they skidded over the razor edged glass fragments that littered the floor, but the bulky Catachan was on him in a flash – the first punch shattering his nose, the second his jaw, before the third, fourth, and fifth blow finished him off with a sickening crack of bone and spurts of blood.

Painted with murder and his breath coming in sharp gasps, Nerf dropped the corpse and wiped his forehead, looking around before getting off his knees and retrieving his discarded carbine.

The bar was still and eerily quiet.

“Cass?” he said, looking for movement through the carnage and the gunsmoke.

“I’m over here!” he heard her call, and the sound of clinking shell-casings drew his eyes to where the Inquisitor was crawling out from behind a table.

The Catachan went back to their table: the girl who had threatened him was still there, drooped to one side with her back blown open while her hand was pinned to the table with the commando’s knife. He paused beside her and peered into her colourless, dead face. She’d been hit by a few stray bullets and her guts were spilling onto the floor from the close-range shotgun blast she’d taken to the back. She smelled bad.

“Was it worth it?” he whispered to her face, and pulled the knife from her hand – letting the body at last fall to the floor. He guessed that she would have said ‘no’.

“Come on Cass, let’s go!”

“Nerf, I need your help!”

Crunching through the scattered debris and over bullet riddled bodies, Nerf found the Inquisitor desperately trying to stand.

“Oh sh*t,” he dropped to a knee and steadied her shoulders, “where are you hit?”

“I’m not!” she groaned back, but one of her legs was shaking like jelly as she tried to physically pull it forward with her metal hand. Nerf quickly looked over his shoulders to make sure the room was still clear. It was, but he could hear commotion outside now – it wouldn’t stay like that for long.

“Come on,” he helped her to her feet – a whine of pain escaped her lips as her leg twisted awkwardly underneath her weight.

“Call Aquinas!” she told him, quickly crumpling into his arms as he tried to walk her across the room away from the door. “Tell him what happened!”

Nerf reached into her coat and retrieved the comm. unit there. He tried speaking into it, but after flicking several dials with no result he tossed it aside.

“You’re hurt…” Godwyn noticed, but the Catachan grunted in reply.

He helped her to the counter, where she could finally support herself, and went into the kitchen as Godwyn stayed behind and covered the door. There was no way they would make it leaving from the front as the gunfight would have most likely drawn the attention of the other gangers like flies to grox-dung. Likewise, a backdoor would probably be just as dangerous, and that left Nerf with very little in the way of options.

Hauling tables out of the way and tossing aside the meal preparations abandoned by the fleeing kitchen staff, Nerf dropped to his hands and knees on the grimy kitchen floor and fished his combat knife out of its sheath as he started to pry around the edges of the flush grate. Eventually it popped up and he cast it aside, opening a small, dark hole in the floor just large enough that it could represent their only real means of escape. He stuck his arm down just in case: damp, cold, and slimey – exactly what he’d expected – but at least it didn’t feel blocked.

Getting back to his feet, he brought the Inquisitor into the kitchen.

“The flush system?” Godwyn asked through gritted teeth as Nerf helped her lean against one of the tables he pushed to the side, “It’s really come to that?”

The thought of entering the flush system didn’t thrill him either as the Catachan had a much larger body he needed to squeeze through, but between that and dead he’d pick the former.

“Gimme your leg,” he said, and took it into his arms when he saw that she was having trouble moving it. Godwyn winced as he yanked her boot off and cast it aside, before resting her Achilles tendon in the palm of his left hand and pushing the leg of her trousers up and over her knee.

“Urgh, blood of the Throne!” she spat, looking elsewhere as a dark puncture-hole about the breadth of a stylus was revealed in the side of her knee. Blood was still oozing from the wound, and the skin around it had turned a ghastly shade of green such that her veins could be seen pulsing around the wound.

“Don’t look at it,” Nerf told her as she stared at the ceiling and bit into the knuckles of her left hand to dull the pain; looking at it only ever seemed to make it worse. Removing his jacket with one hand and slashing the sleeves into ribbons, Nerf quickly bound the wound and tied it off in a tight knot.

“To prevent infection,” he told her, pulling her pant-leg back down and retrieving her boot.

Godwyn nodded her thanks and then did her best to stand as she fastened her coat while Nerf quickly bandaged the laceration on his arm.

“Ready to go?” he asked once he was done. She nodded, and, getting slowly to her hands and knees, lowered herself headfirst into the flush duct.

 

* *

 

The girl slept now that the darkness had passed and her chest rose and fell softly as quiet breaths passed through the crack in her slightly parted lips. She did not dream now, nor did she stir, and the mark of the spider on her flesh stayed perfectly still as if it too were at rest. The ordeal was over, and her mind was her own again – never would she know just how close she had strayed to the edge, and how far down she would have plunged had she fallen.

Never would she know, for Aquinas would not tell her.

Standing over the girl’s bedside, the space marine watched her sleep with a critical look in his eye. She wasn’t supposed to be able to see that much on her own – that had not been part of the arrangement – but if she could, then what did that mean? Could this be used to his advantage?

For once, the librarian felt as if the answer was unclear.

If the Inquisitor was not mistaken, then the girl had also seen something he had not. An inconsistency with her other dreams, perhaps, something that was just an imagining, but what if it was not? Could it be some new variable that would need to be considered?

Zero.

That word sounded strangely familiar…

A noise on the edge of hearing caught the space marine’s attention and he turned. Behind him the bunk room was empty. It had been a noise outside, down the hall on the factory floor.

Aquinas left Spider’s side and walked towards it.

In spite of his size the space marine moved quietly, almost gliding across the corroded metal floor as his feet slid soundlessly forward. Stepping onto the factory floor, he looked around; his enhanced eyesight piercing the shadows clearly as if it were day. He saw nothing.

Around him, the depths of Erebus Station were as dark, cold, and lifeless as ever.

The librarian frowned. It was no trick of the mind; he hard heard movement where there was none – something had moved where it had not moved before – which meant that someone had moved it.

Taking a step back against the wall, Aquinas closed his eyes, stood perfectly still, and waited – waited until it moved again.

“Assassin – ” a shadow froze in dark, “ – a word?”

Slinking out of the darkness towards him, Mercy and Aquinas met eye to eye. She was tall, equal to the height of the space marine, but kept her distance and lingered around the shadows from which she had emerged.

“You are heard.”

Voice came from the killer’s mouth like honeyed velvet, a sweet, lustrous sound like a song carried on air, yet though he hadn’t heard her speak before Aquinas was not surprised: he had always suspected that she was mute by choice.

“Why do you speak now?”

The assassin did not answer in voice or thought, and simply waited opposite from him, lithe and lethal, with her shadowsuit merging seamlessly into the darkness around her. She felt different in someway – diminished even – and as the space marine psychic reached out with his mind he felt a presence in her that was scarred, broken to the point of being less than human. Mentally she recoiled, though physically she remained quite still, almost defiant, and as Aquinas withdrew he did so with respect: she had encountered psykers before, though in what way he could not be certain. Her mind was a fortress the likes of which men could train for years and never attain, but it was a fortress that still bore the marks of where it had been broken. The lines were familiar, however, and, whoever the psyker had been, he had not been gentle.

“Do you hate me?” he asked, knowing that scars often covered wounds too deep to be healed.

The look she gave him was peaceful, practically serene, as if the shadows and cold of Erebus Station were to her the gardens of paradise.

“Death knows not hate,” she said with a simple smile, and slipped back into darkness.

 

* *

 

She was shivering when she pulled herself out of the flush system onto the cold, tile floor, but at least it was over and they were still alive. She didn’t know where they were and for a few seconds she didn’t care – all she could think about was the pain in her leg, the cold in her bones, and the sore ache that had spread throughout her entire body from crawling through a cold, hard tunnel for so long. Flopped on her back, Godwyn just lay there looking up at the lights on the ceiling.

Emerging from the hole in the floor after her, Nerf pulled himself clear of the pipe and picked himself up. Like her, Nerf was covered head to foot in the dark, brackish slime that had coated the interior of the flush system. It was in his boots, soaked his pants, stained his shirt, and covered his hair, face, and arms like a thick, black oil. When he walked the sound of it squelching in his boots walked with him.

With difficulty, Godwyn sat up. Her soaked clothing clung to her flesh and the pain in her leg was almost unbearable, and when she tried to turn her self over onto her front it was all she could do to stop herself crying out in pain.

“Here,” Nerf’s boots squished over in her direction as he came to her aid, “let me help you.”

Looking around as the Catachan helped her to her feet, Godwyn saw that they’d emerged in a latrine with pearly white walls, porcelain sinks, and wonderfully clear mirrors – all of which was getting black and filthy the more they moved around.

“How’s your arm?” she asked in a deflective as Nerf rinsed the filth from his hands in the sink and lifted the Inquisitor’s leg to check on her wound. The big man shrugged, looking almost comical in how little attention the filth blackened man paid to the beautifully white surrounding that he was quickly befouling.

“I’ll make it,” he said, pulling the dirty bandage from Godwyn’s leg and splashing cold, clear water over the open wound as she bit her tongue and braced herself on Nerf’s shoulder against the pain. “Hopefully you’ll make it too.”

He grinned – his teeth white against his black-streaked face – but Godwyn didn’t feel much like joking.

“You ever wonder why Lee didn’t come with us?” he asked, putting her leg back down to the floor and running the water again so that she could wash her hands in the now thoroughly dirty sink.

“Why Nerf?”

“‘Cause he is not killer,” he said flatly, hopping up and down on one foot as he wrenched his slime covered boots off his feet and dropped them one by one on the floor.

“Let’s not start this again,” Godwyn warned him, splashing her face clean and looking at him through the water droplets that clung to her face.

“Whatever boss, I’m here and he’s not,” he replied with a noncommittal shrug before pulling off his shirt and flinging onto the floor beside his boots with a wet flop.

“Nerf, what are you doing?” she asked him as he started to unfasten his belt buckle. He looked at her as if to say that the answer should be pretty obvious.

“You’ve seen me undress before,” he said, dropping his sodden trousers onto the floor and stepping out of them.

“We’re hurt, covered in filth, and have no idea where we are,” Godwyn reminded him, averting her eyes by running more water over her face, “why the hell would you choose now to take your clothes off!?”

“Because out of those three things,” the muscular Catahcan began, not the least bit self-conscious as he neatly gathered up his discarded belongings, “getting clean is the easiest thing to do right now, not to mention that getting the other two will be a lot easier if we’re not covered in sh*t.”

Godwyn shook her head in disbelief.

“This is a latrine, ain’t it?” he said, looking around as if for emphasis. “I’m gonna find a shower – maybe even a hot one.”

He was right in that regard: they had emerged from the flush system in a fairly convenient location, and though the room they were standing in now had a row of sink basins on one side and stalls on the other, there were white walled corridors leading off to the side that could well have the showers Nerf spoke of.

The sound of a door opening behind Nerf’s back caught both of their attention. A smartly dressed man with a royal blue cravat and a neatly trimmed moustache was half-way into stepping through the lavatory door when he spotted the naked Catachan and froze with a dimwitted expression on his face. Godwyn could hear the sounds of delicate music and conversation coming from behind him. The man quickly tried to chuckle, looked away from the big man in the middle of the room, and excused himself with a quick apology before bowing out the door and closing it behind him with a click.

Nerf looked back at the Inquisitor as if he’d somehow proved his point. “And now we know where we are,” he said.

Leaning against the sink so that dark slime oozed out of her coat, Godwyn rolled her eyes as the stark Catachan marched off to find his showers. Nothing had gone as she’d planned and she felt like a fool because of it. An unsanctioned psyker, companions that didn’t trust each other, a dead lead, and now a painfully deep wound in her leg that had been caused by Emperor knows what. She felt around the wound with her metal fingers but practically doubled-up from the stabbing pain. Tears started to form in her eyes, but she furiously blinked them away.

There was nothing she could do for it now, but at least they appeared to be safe for the time being. Using the wall for support, Godwyn took a deep breath and hobbled after Nerf just as she heard the inviting sound of running water.

Caked in filth and limping badly, it was the least she could do to hope that the water was hot.

[Taranis]

Excellent chapter. The best so far :)

I'll try commenting better when not using the "smart"phone.

[Papewaio]

Godwyn's changed quite a lot. She seems a lot more callous, more willing to have innocents die to have her mission achieved. Plus there's the whole puppy-thing with Aquinas... She's developing a lot more. Very good, cos I like it.

 

I also like Spider a lot, and am really looking forward to what she turns out like!

Keep it up!

[Aqui]

So, "Death" does have a voice! ^_^

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks Gents :) After three weeks of working on it, it's pretty easy to lose one's focus so I'm glad it worked out.

 

Godwyn grows with the telling, and hopefully the other characters are doing likewise - especially the often distant Mercy ;) On a side note, it was difficult to come up with the assassin's lines of dialogue largely because she has to remain elusive, but also how do you make a mute talk? :P

[Aqui]

but also how do you make a mute talk? <_<

 

You're writing about an Inquisitor and you have to ask that? <_<

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

but also how do you make a mute talk? :P

 

You're writing about an Inquisitor and you have to ask that? ;)

 

This, sir, is awesome, mind if I sig it?

[Lady_Canoness]

but also how do you make a mute talk? ;)

 

You're writing about an Inquisitor and you have to ask that? ;)

 

This, sir, is awesome, mind if I sig it?

 

Oh you guys and your picking on a wee poor lass :P

[Aqui]

but also how do you make a mute talk? ;)

 

You're writing about an Inquisitor and you have to ask that? ;)

 

This, sir, is awesome, mind if I sig it?

 

As long as Lady C is okay with it :P

[Aqui]

Oh you guys and your picking on a wee pour lass :P

 

We only pick because we care! ;)

 

The Liber on any day of the week are far rougher ;)