BLOODLINES
An Agusto Zidarov novel by Chris Wraight

NO GOOD MEN
A Warhammer Crime anthology by various authors

BROKEN CITY
A Warhammer Crime anthology by various authors

FLESH AND STEEL
A Noctis and Lux novel by Guy Haley

DREDGE RUNNERS
A Baggit and Clodde audio drama by Alec Worley

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer Crime

BLEEDOUT

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

THE VERDANT SUN

SANCTIONER

OLD INSTINCTS

RITES OF BINDING

NO THIRD CHANCE

EXTENDED FAMILY

About the Authors

An Extract from ‘Bloodlines’

A Black Library Imprint

eBook license

It is the 41st millennium, and far from the battlefields of distant stars there is a city. A sprawling and rotting metropolis of ancient hives, where corruption is rife and murder a way of life.

This is Varangantua, a decaying urban hellscape, full of fading grandeur and ripe with squalor. Countless districts run like warrens throughout its cancerous expanse, from greasy dockyards and factorums to gaudy spires, decrepit slums and slaughterhouses. And looming over all, the ironclad bastions of the Enforcers, the upholders of the Lex and all that stands between the city and lawless oblivion.

To be a citizen in this grim place is to know privation and fear, where most can only eke out a meagre existence, their efforts bent to feeding an endless war in the void they know nothing about. A few, the gilded and the merchant-barons, know wealth, but they are hollow and heartless creatures who profit from suffering.

Violence is inescapable on these benighted streets, where you are either a victim or a perpetrator. Whatever justice exists can only be found through brutality, and the weak do not survive for long. For this is Varangantua, where only the ruthless prosper.

BLEEDOUT

ROBERT RATH

Prologue

Her fist bangs on the door, leaving a bloody mark with each strike.

No answer.

She casts a shaky, over-the-shoulder glance at the wet alley, then hitches over in pain at the twisting movement. The blood is coming fast now.

She raises her fist again.

One

At first it’s just two knocks. Bang-bang. Then a pause Statim interprets as hesitancy.

Then:

Bang-bang. Bang-bang-bang. Bang. Bang.

Staccato. Like the tap-codes she was taught in the Astra Militarum – in case she got taken prisoner and had to communicate cell to cell by knocking on bars and pipes.

Statim already has the Rakov auto-snub in her hand, one finger lying alongside the trigger, not on it.

She’s been robbed before. Mostly by twitchy screech-heads who can’t find their regular connection and are desperate for pharms. They’re sick, and Statim’s sympathetic, but let one twitcher knock you over and you get a reputation as an easy score. She doesn’t want that, hence the pistol.

The banging has stopped when Statim puts a hand on the armoured door’s vision slit and brings the pistol up to the eye-height gap. Usually, just seeing the barrel is enough to scare off anyone dumb enough to arrive with bad intentions.

Slam. Statim slides open the vision slit and sees… no one.

Apart from the bloody fingers, clinging to the bottom of the slit’s ledge.

She works the two deadbolts. Turns the wheel that pulls the slide-pins out of the ceiling and floor. Shoves the hydraulic plasteel bar out of its cradle and opens the clinic door.

The girl falls inside, spilling blood on Statim’s white tile floor.

The kid turns her head, brown hair falling across her face like a funeral veil.

Brown eyes, so big, looking at Statim with dilated pupils.

‘Help me,’ the kid whispers.

Then she’s out.

Two

Most people would stand there for a second or two if a bleeding girl fell through their front door. But Statim isn’t most people. She doesn’t even think about it, just grabs the kid by the shoulders of her bloodstained bodyglove and pulls her inside, careful to lift her trunk so the abdominal wound doesn’t drag on the floor.

Then Statim closes and relocks the armoured door, not even pausing to stick her head out and see if someone’s around. Local gangers have declared Statim’s clinic safe ground – a place free from the gang wars that periodically ravage the habclave – but this girl isn’t from the district. If someone’s chasing her they might not be briefed on what is and isn’t allowed. And if the kid has been mugged by screech-heads, well, they don’t follow gang rules.

She does see the bloody handprints, though. Heel and palm impressions left by the kid’s knocking, bright red on the plasteel like some Administratum servitor went haywire with its ‘REJECTION’ stamp.

The scene secure, Statim slaps on her rubberine gloves. Goes into field-medicae mode. Turns the patient over, slow and gentle, using her whole forearms so she doesn’t bend the kid’s torso. Scans with her eyes, crown to boot. Triage diagnosis.

‘Hello there,’ Statim breathes, unsure whether the kid can even hear her. ‘I’m Statim. I’m going to help you.’

It’s an abdominal wound. A bad one. Catastrophic haemorrhage. Statim pushes that aside for now.

With abdominal wounds, it’s important not to get sucked into treating just the trauma site. Do that, and an undiagnosed secondary trauma can kill the patient – especially if the bullet has rattled around or broken up in their chest cavity, ploughing through organs and glancing off bone.

She slips a pair of angled scissors under the bodyglove’s neck and slits the garment down to the girl’s waist. The tough fabric growls as it parts under the sharpened blades, forcing Statim to work the shears a few times to keep the blades moving.

The girl’s brown midriff is smeared with blood. It seeps from a fingertip-sized hole just above and to the left of the navel. Venous bleeding. A steady stream of dark red oozing out like an overflowing drain.

This is good. No spurting or spraying. This means the bullet – and now Statim is sure it’s a bullet – hasn’t clipped an artery.

Statim tears open a sterile bandage and compresses the wound, satisfied that she doesn’t feel any suck or bubbling that might indicate a damaged lung.

The girl moans, head rolling to one side, eyelids twitching as the pain registers through the haze of shock and blood loss.

‘I’m going to move you,’ Statim says, ‘and it’s going to hurt like a bastard. Can you hear me?’

No response. Statim keeps the pressure on, checking the girl’s airway, breathing and circulation. The first two are good, but the pulse is weak. She feels for an exit wound in the back and doesn’t find one, meaning it’s a piercing injury, not penetrating.

‘Bad news – slug’s still in there,’ she says. ‘Good news? I don’t think it hit your spine.’ She straps down the bandage with compression tape. ‘I’m going to leave you for seven seconds while I get my spine board. Understand? Seven…’

Statim continues counting as she grabs the board. In the Guard, she’d learned that it helps the patient if you keep talking. It keeps them present. Makes them less likely to give up and stop breathing.

‘…three, two…’ She comes back, rolls up one side of the girl’s body and tucks the board underneath her.

No reaction from the patient. Not good.

She jacks up the spine board, wheels it to the centre of the room and rolls the kid gently onto the cold porcelain surface of her trauma table. The glossy ceramic, shiny under the surgical lumen array, is stained pink from the quantity of blood that’s passed over it in the past four years.

So much blood. A river’s worth, dribbling out of warm bodies and rolling down the table’s surface, into a pipe that channels it to a drain in the floor. Through that copper pipe had passed the vital fluid of half the district. Brothers, sisters, gang rivals, the homeless – whatever their hatreds and tragedies, their blood ended up commingled in the underground tank buried beneath Statim’s hab-clinic.

They came here; they always came here. Bodies mangled in street fights and skulls crushed from blunt-force trauma. Shot. Stabbed. Shattered by the groundcars that tear through the narrow streets way too fast, heedless of pedestrians and the kids that play in them.

And when someone gets messed up, they come to Doc Statim, and her fortified clinic. The only medical practitioner in the Low Dredge, apart from the folk doctors, missionaries and cunning women. Because while Statim is just as unlicensed as those that prescribe chewing herbs and prayer cycles, she has framed papers on the wall, carrying official seals of the Astra Militarum. Anyone who bothered to read them would find that Akeso Statim had been honourably discharged for Special Services to General Symphonie Ravellen, and Conspicuous Gallantry in the Face of the Enemy.

Whether the papers are fake or not is a subject of speculation on the hab-block. After all, Doc Statim doesn’t look like a war hero – but war hero or not, word of mouth brings them here.

They knew that if they made it to the doc, they were safe. On neutral ground. They knew she’d treat them before asking for money, might even let them pay in instalments or not at all. Every flux season, the doc would give free vaccines to the district’s kids. It’s always expired stock that had gone unused uphive – but better than anyone in Low Dredge could get.

So it isn’t entirely a surprise for Statim to find a gut-shot ganger on her doorstep.

Red begins seeping through the gauze, and Statim piles on another pad before securing a plastek strap to the table and belting it over the wound. With a button press, the strap inflates – a clear balloon belly band – to keep pressure on the wound.

Hands free, she fetches a bag of plasma and hangs it from a hook in the ceiling. Carefully plays out the tube so the clear fluid forces the air out of the needle. She pushes up the girl’s sleeve to spike her.

That’s when she sees the tattoo.

And stops.

On the kid’s forearm, an Imperial aquila spreads its wings, claws gripping a pair of crossed lasguns. A scroll above the double heads reads ‘ANTICUS AD MORTEM’. Below it sits a serial number and blood type.

It isn’t a gang tag. That kind of ink is only seen in the Astra Militarum.

Statim plunges the needle right into the eagle’s heart.

Three

Two bags of plasma. One of precious real blood.

The vitals monitor is singing along to its high peaks and long valleys: Beep. Beep. Beep.

Statim fought fifteen minutes to get the bleeding under control. Couldn’t stop thinking about the ganger’s ink.

No, not the ganger – the soldier.

But that isn’t possible. She’s what, fourteen? Fifteen? Well below enlistment age. Still working, Statim looks sidelong at the kid’s face.

The kid is slight and wide-mouthed, a small constellation of pox-scars decorating one side of her face and a scar on the chin. Dark brown hair pulled back in a bun, the preferred style for soldiers and factory workers. Her features are not yet adult, and like all adolescents she seems like an awkward caricature of the woman she will become – still might become, if Statim works fast.

Still, a teenager or not, she’s Militarum, and Statim feels a surge of retroactive guilt over thinking of her as a kid. She’s not a child, she’s a child soldier. Which isn’t much like a child at all.

‘How did you end up here?’ she asks. ‘Shore leave? New recruit? That ink looks fresh, judging by the inflammation. You steal your gear, sell it and desert?’

The kid doesn’t answer.

Statim searches the lower abdomen, fingers pressing the bruised flesh to diagnose internal injuries. Whatever bullet she’d taken was probably an autopistol or stub-round, at long range. A higher-speed bullet or a closer range would’ve meant a greater degree of cavitation, the shockwave of impact rolling through her abdominal flesh and causing its own secondary injuries. There is some distention, giving the skinny soldier a swollen little pot belly.

‘Looks like a stomach hit,’ Statim says. She reaches above herself and pulls down a battered vibro-sound scanner. Snaps on the power, then whacks it against her palm a few times when the pulse refuses to start. Feeling the buzz, she plays it over the kid’s distended belly. Looking at the screen above her, she whispers, ‘Come on, come on.’

There. A slug. Hard black amongst swirls of fuzzy grey. Fragmented only slightly, with two shards lying deeper in the gut.

‘Sorry, soldier, we’ve got about five minutes to treat this. It’s going to hurt like the hells and I can’t have you waking up to fight me mid-probe.’

She sends the scanner back into the ceiling array and grabs an obscurine syrette from the shelf below the trauma table. Cracks the cap, gives it a shake, spears it into the kid’s jugular.

Muscles knotted tight from pain start to relax.

Statim comes around the table to get a better angle, picks up a pair of probe extractors in her left hand, brings down the vibro-sound scanner in her right. She finds the bullet, the image juking and juddering with the involuntary shakes of her right hand.

There’s a regimental tattoo on Statim’s own forearm – a crusader’s sword, point down, with an aquila for its hilt. Two vipers curl around the blade in a helix, facing each other on either side of the hilt, the name ‘Markus’ on a scroll beneath.

Sirenian Grenadiers, Fourth Battalion, Medicae Company.

The tattoo twists oddly as Statim moves the scanner, the big burn scar she’d hidden underneath it pinching and pulling the image out of shape.

With her good left hand, she slips the angled extractor probe under the inflated band and over the rim of the entry wound, eyes glued to the vibro-sound monitor.

She wouldn’t do this unless it was medically necessary. She isn’t up to it.

Ever since the wound, she’s been working with her left hand. The right one has a mind of its own, dancing and fluttering from nerve damage. Keeping it still enough even to hold the scanner takes supreme concentration, and its grip strength will never fully return. Not bad enough to necessitate an augmetic – not that Statim could afford one – but definitely not coordinated enough for her to pass the Inspectorate of Medicae Practitioner boards and join any of the licensed uphive clinics.

On the monitor, the black probe slides into the gory tunnel of the slug’s passage.

‘Slow. Slow.’ Statim murmurs it to herself. Half direction and half prayer.

The bullet had passed by blood vessels, possibly nicked one. Jabbing or abrading the wrong thing might lead to irrecoverable blood loss. In fact, she shouldn’t even be doing this with her clumsy left hand. She should be taking this soldier uphive, or perhaps to the nearest barracks. Get her worked on by someone with access to surgical servitors or at least an assistant and two functioning hands.

But the kid hasn’t got that long. The distended belly suggests there’s a hole in her stomach that’s dribbling digestive acids into her abdomen. If she’s unlucky, it also clipped her intestine, spilling faecal matter into the body. Instant infection. Take off now, and she won’t make it ten blocks.

The bullet needs to come out.

On screen, the black shaft of the probe slides towards the slug. Slow as a viper, low in the grass, coming up on its prey. Sweat trickles off Statim’s brow, stinging her eyes.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Another knock at the door.

The sound startles Statim and her right hand begins to wobble. The image slews back and forth. She growls and refocuses, pressing the scanner in hard to anchor it.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

‘Operating!’ she shouts, sending the image spinning as tension cramps the half-dead nerves of her hand.

The probe gets closer. Closer. Kisses the slug with a little tic of metal on metal.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

‘One lost soul at a time,’ she mutters.

Statim takes a deep breath, readies herself for the speed and precision that must come next. She squeezes the trigger on the probe, watching its little serrated jaw unhinge. Eases back on the pressure so the jaws clamp down on a shard of the slug that’s torn slightly, creating a good grip point. Prays the bullet won’t tear or fragment.

She eases the shell sideways. It had tumbled when it hit the soldier, and now sits almost perpendicular to the gory tunnel of its passage. She gets it aligned, can see fresh internal bleeding flowing in to fill the vacuum in the flesh.

Statim breathes in and out, runs a visual check to make sure she knows exactly where the can of flesh sealant sits on the table.

‘One,’ she counts.

Wham. Wham. A shoulder against the door. Shouting voices.

‘Two.’

A rattle at the view slit, someone trying to force it with their fingers.

Statim’s fatigued right hand shakes, rattling her view of the bullet’s path like an earth tremor.

‘Three.’

Four

Statim pulls the probe back, smooth and fast. Watches on the grainy screen as the slug passes back through the flesh, bulging it, the ragged edges nicking and tearing as it goes. Gauzy grey blood wells into the space where it passes.

Cracking at the door now. Not a fist this time, but an object. Something hard. Maybe a hammer or augmetic hand.

Statim turns her wrist, popping the angled probe out of the wound, its upwelling of blood burbling and running like a promethium well.

With a wet sucking sound, the slug comes free.

She drops the probe, bullet and all, onto the soldier’s heaving belly. Grabs the sealant foam and pushes the pointed nozzle into the open wound. Hits the activator button.

A long hiss of discharge. Blood flows out, staining her knuckles, then stops. She keeps the can’s button depressed even as the metal frosts in her hand.

On the screen, flesh sealant – pinging back white in the sensor’s vision – floods the abdominal wound, filling the damaged tissue, staunching the internal bleed, sealing the stomach wound, catalysing digestive acid to inert biomaterial.

The soldier’s belly distends further as the pressurised foam stuffs it.

Statim doesn’t stop until the cold foam rises out of the wound. Then she withdraws the nozzle, tears open an occlusive dressing and gingerly lays the sticky plastek border down to create a seal.

Then she exhales.

The kid needs to see a real medicae. A chirurgeon. And she needs it within the next twenty-four hours before her body metabolises the sealant foam. Soon, Statim will have to carry the kid out to the groundcar port and load her into the trauma vehicle she’d improvised out of a Tauros.

Statim hasn’t fixed her, but the kid’s numbers are climbing. She’s stable.

The door again. That hammering of a thing that’s not a fist.

But this time, Statim knows exactly what it is.

It’s a pistol butt.

Five

Statim’s grip on the Rakov auto-snub feels loose despite the corded tension of her hands.

It’s the blood. She’s removed the rubberine gloves surgical style, tucking one inside the other. But she’s up to her elbows in red, and in the careful, lowered pistol stance, trickles of the kid’s blood trace paths down her clean hands and into the knot of her fingers.

BANG BANG BANG BANG.

Voices. Harsh.

She puts her back against the door and throws the slit open. Speaks to the side of it so her voice can be heard but no one can blind her by jamming a knife through the opening.

‘Clinic,’ she says. ‘Who’s out there?’

Hush.

A whisper.

Then:

‘You’ve got a girl in there.’ The voice comes through the slit with a waft of lho-stick smoke, as if the smoker has pressed their lips against the opening. ‘It’ll be easier if you let us come in.’

‘That’s not happening.’

‘Fine. Then bring her out. Makes no difference to us.’

The man’s voice has an easiness, a lack of tension, that puts frost on Statim’s veins. Most gangers that came here and insisted to be let in had an edge on their voice. Even when they threatened, fear and stress hid behind the hard words.

This man is casual. In control. Unconcerned with Statim’s resistance.

It reminds Statim of certain commissars she’d seen in the Guard. The worst ones. The scary ones. Men who’d order a man’s back flayed to the spine, then stand watching while sipping a mug of recaff.

‘You’re not coming in. She’s not coming out,’ Statim says. ‘This clinic is safe ground. Mutual agreement by the ruling gangs. Bugger off and ask your boss – he’ll tell you.’

‘You misunderstand.’ A shuffling. The casual tone is still there, but now the voice is piercing. ‘I’m not a man who takes orders. I give orders. And I don’t care if some rat-fuck gang from Low Dredge has decided you’re sacrosanct because you set a few bones and give anti-rads to the kiddies. You tell me to go to my boss. I’m telling you that I am the boss. Of myself. Of these lads out here. And at this moment, of you.’

Statim says nothing. Blood congeals between her fingers, making the pistol grip tacky. She glances at the unmoving girl on the table.

‘Good luck getting in here,’ says Statim. ‘This place used to be a militia outpost. Settlement construction. Walls two feet thick, reinforced steel doors.’

‘Bet it’ll burn, though,’ says the voice, smoke once again drifting through the slit. ‘What if I got a couple of cans of promethium and poured them through this vision slit, eh? Fired it up. You’ve got two exits – one here, one in the groundcar port. And if you make it out, we’ll just shoot you.’

Oh, hell.

‘Unnecessary, I wager,’ he continues. ‘How about this, medicae? I’ll give you two minutes to make up your mind whether your little safe house is really all that safe. After that, we just let the flames decide.’

Statim moves fast, wanting to get a look at the smoker; better yet, wanting to get a shot at him while his lips are pressed against the slit. Her pistol comes up, barrel nearly jammed into the eye slot. She looks at the enemy.

A pair of eyes stare back at her. One is amber, so light it’s almost orange.

The other is a metal ring with a black, empty centre.

An augmetic, she thinks. Then it flashes.

The slug knocks her sideways, the right side of her face lit with pain and her right eye unable to see anything but neon blur. Only the sensation of cold floor tiles on Statim’s skin keeps her from passing out.

‘Two minutes,’ the smoker says.

Six

Statim blinks, relieved when the glowing auras in her vision recede.

She puts a hand to her right temple, feels the skin there crackle. Burned by the muzzle flash of a point-blank shot. The top of one ear has a nip taken out of it, as if a big rat had nibbled a semicircle out of her flesh.

A warning shot. It’d heal.

Two minutes.

She stands, keeping well away from the vision slot. Checks her Rakov to make sure it’s still functional.

Looks at the kid.

It would be so easy to turn her over. Just let the bastards have her. After all, she doesn’t even know this soldier, where she’s come from, or what she’s done. For all Statim knows, she’s wronged the crew outside. Maybe she’s earned whatever those men are planning to do to her.

And what about Statim? What was she supposed to do, suffer and die for this stranger? It would leave the district without any sort of medical practitioner, apart from the quacks and faith healers. Stay around, and she could save far more lives than this one.

‘You’ll probably die anyway, you know,’ she says to the mute child.

No response.

The kid lies on the table, head to one side, lips slightly open. Vital signs weak but steady. One arm, smeared with blood from the emergency foam procedure, dangles half off the trauma table.

And Statim looks at the tattoo.

Remembers the thin, frightened faces of the conscript troops on Dovaas. How the commissars would drive the teenagers into the shrieking plasma bolts of the t’au fire warriors. How Statim would have to patch them up, and send what was left of them out to do it again. How, every time she saved one of them, she felt like she’d failed.

ANTICUS AD MORTEM.

Forward to Death.

‘Shit,’ she breathes.

Life would be so easy if she didn’t have a conscience.

Seven

The smoker said two minutes.

She has six seconds left.

Statim gets behind the wheel of the groundcar. It’s high, the Tauros. She has to step on the mounting board to get behind the wheel. It’s a Militarum model, bought after her discharge.

Five.

She checks the medical rig in the rear-view mirror. Sees the soldier lying on the back bench, belted down to the stretcher she’s secured to the rear bulkhead. IV bags dangle from the D-rings Statim welded to the ceiling, feeding the kid drips of plasma and anti-infective.

Four.

She rolls down the passenger view-pane, hits the carport door button on her dash.

Three.

The big blast door hinges out and up. Boots appear below the rising metal. Two men, one bending to duck inside.

Two.

Forward lumens paint the inside of the small port with blazing sterile light. The man ducking under the garage door shields his eyes with a hand. His other fist holds a boxy autopistol. He’s wearing black synthleather.

One.

Statim punches the engine live. Stomps the velocity pedal. Roars forward into the ducking man and hears a hollow crunch of metal on bone.

Keeps her foot depressed as the man’s body snaps forward, his head leaving a bloody dent in the hood of the Tauros and his body folding over the grille as the vehicle surges into the alley. The man’s companion dives aside, barely avoiding getting clipped.

Statim clears the rising door with a scrape of paint. Stands on the brakes so the man plastered across the grille rolls clear.

To her right, a few yards away at the front door, is a group of gangers in black synthleather, matt-yellow spikes and studs gridded along the jackets to absorb impact. Their hair is cut short like some of the industrial gangs. They’re already coming towards her, drawing weapons. One stands by the front door, a spouted can of promethium in his hand.

Statim brings up the Rakov auto-snub and fires wildly through the window, each report from the pistol echoing artillery-loud inside the groundcar’s interior, ejected shells bouncing off the inside of the windscreen and landing, white-hot, on her lap.

It’s bad shooting. Wild shooting. With her injured hand. But it does what she hoped it would: the gangers scatter for cover.

Because there’s only one outlet to this alley, and they have it covered.

She drops the smoking pistol on the passenger’s seat and throws the Tauros into reverse. Screeches a backward semicircle on the wet alley pavement, forward lumens dancing crazily as she jumps the kerb and crunches one tail light against a wall.

Another ganger, the one who’d dived aside of the Tauros, comes at her, limping, from out of the groundcar port. Probably twisted his ankle during the headlong dodge.

He racks a shotgun, half in, half out of the port.

Statim hits the port door button on the dash, crashing the big plasteel door down again fast enough that the shotgunner has to roll away or be crushed.

Hand slick with sweat, Statim slams the activation and surges forward, madly spinning the wheel to straighten out in the narrow space of the alley. A bullet sparks off the hood and flattens against the brick wall to her left. She ignores it.

The vehicle’s a semi-armoured staff groundcar. Factory reject due to an improperly milled deflection angle on the armoured panels. Decent protection against small-arms, though anything bigger than a mortar would turn the whole vehicle into a shrapnel bomb.

Statim roars down the alley, picking up speed, shots rattling off her chassis.

Walking speed.

Jogging speed.

Running speed.

Then, a face at her window, a man sprinting alongside with his hand on the passenger-side door handle. She sees a gun, big and metallic, pinwheeling in his other hand as he tries to keep up with the accelerating vehicle.

Statim knows it’s the smoker the second she sees the amber eyes. They’re set in a face that looks like it’s moulded from cool candle wax. Slick black hair sweeps back over the skull. A scar runs from cheek to chin, splitting the lips.

Statim sees the pinwheeling gun come under Amber Eyes’ control, sees the huge pistol slowly, deliberately cross his body and find her open view-pane. No wild firing. Making the single shot count.

She jukes the wheel to the left, breaking his grip, and burns past him into the street.

And loses herself in the lumen-washed darkness of the city night.

Eight

Myra Salk won’t quit. That’s the silent pact she’s made with herself.

Won’t quit asking questions. Won’t quit pushing. Won’t quit going where she isn’t supposed to. Not even if it costs her.

And she knows it might cost her. Because in this district people who become a nuisance end up getting found by the enforcers with a jacketed hard round in the base of their skull. Classic pop and drop. Asking too many questions is a leading cause of death in the Dredge.

Myra, she knows that.

But Myra also knows she has a couple of things working in her favour.

First of all, she’s inked up with the Yarrick Street Rippers. And when anyone spies those chainsword tats on her back, the ones that feather out like angel wings, they know Myra isn’t to be messed with. Drop one Ripper and a swarm of others come for you; they’re famous for it.

Even though Myra’s been semi-disowned by the gang, the ink still works its magic. Rippers play things close to the vest, and word of her exile hasn’t hit the street yet.

So that’s one thing working for her. The second is the look in her eyes. The hasn’t-slept-hasn’t-eaten-and-doesn’t-give-a-fuck gleam. Scary desperation shot through with fury. A look that says she’s willing to go through anyone, or anything, to get her sister back.

And maybe it’s that gleam that gets her an audience with Reagan Sabbeth. It’s definitely what makes the door guys search her twice when she arrives at his club.

Sabbeth sits in a booth at the back, alone, a whole table to himself. Emerald light shining off his nut-dark skin and diffusing through his untouched glass of amasec.

Myra sits across from him, no invitation, just strides in and takes a chair. Sabbeth’s lieutenant, a ganger roughly the size of a Mars-class battle cruiser, unbuttons his jacket and casually rests a hand on his bulging hip.

The ganger’s a Skullcap. Rival of the Rippers. The skin of his shaven head bulges over his steel-reinforced cranium.

‘My sister,’ Myra says.

Sabbeth says nothing.

‘My sister,’ Myra repeats, and adds, ‘or I burn this fucking place down.’

‘I heard you the first time,’ says Sabbeth.

‘Then tell me where she is.’

‘I heard you.’ Sabbeth inclines his head. ‘But hearing is different from understanding. I don’t know you, and I sure as Sanguinius don’t know your sister.’

Now it’s Myra’s turn to be quiet. To turn those drill-bit eyes on the crime lord and let them bore their way into his.

The big Skullcap clears his throat, leans in. ‘Myra Salk. Yarrick Street Rippers.’

Sabbeth doesn’t break Myra’s gaze. ‘She thinks I’m deaf, now you think I’m blind. I can see the tats, Carrow. Now tell me what she’s doing in my club.’

‘I’m looking–’

‘I didn’t ask you. You speak when you’re spoken to. Carrow?’

‘She’s a marksman for the Rippers. Street sniper. Has been asking a lot of questions.’

‘About the sister?’ he says, eyes swivelling to Carrow.

‘Sola. Also a Ripper. A juve. Pockmarks on face. Scar on her chin.’

‘You kill her?’

‘No.’

‘Any of your boys kill her?’

‘If they have, I haven’t heard about it.’

‘And the Rippers pay me their street tithes, so not much motivation to snatch one off the street, is there?’

‘No,’ says Carrow.

‘Well, that wraps it up neat, doesn’t it? Trust me, Ripper girl, I’ve killed a lot of sisters, but I didn’t kill yours. Now, you want a drink or something? I guarantee it’s better than–’

‘It was you,’ says Myra. It’s boiling her insides, the thought of heading to the source and being shrugged off. ‘You control street traffic on the Dredge. Us Rippers and the Skullcaps are at war. Yeah, we may both tithe to you, but everyone knows the Skullcaps are your favoured gang.’

‘So what? Everyone has a favourite. I’m not the benevolent Emperor, loving all mankind. Doesn’t mean I kill Rippers for no reason.’

Myra’s done. She stands up, jolting the table so hard the untouched amasec overturns, cracking the glass and spilling over the edge onto Sabbeth’s tailored white tunic.

‘Listen, bastard,’ she snarls. ‘For the last three months we’ve been at war with the Skullcaps, and for the last three months our juves have been disappearing. And you hav–’

She doesn’t even see the two Skullcaps that seize her by the shoulders and slam her back into the chair. A meaty hand grabs a handful of her blue hair and forces her head back, baring her throat for the cold, sharp metal spike that presses on her jugular.

Gently at first.

But then the tip starts to sink.

Nine

It’s a punch-dagger. T-shaped. Its handle held in the fist with the four-inch bayonet-spike emerging from between the middle and ring fingers. Meant to be driven in with a meaty blow.

So it takes a bit of work before it starts pressing point first into the corded muscle of Myra’s neck.

The Skullcap knows what he’s doing. He’s done it before. Plans to drive it hard through her jugular and into the windpipe, choking her on a tide of blood.

Emerald ceiling lights dance in Myra’s eyes, and she curses herself.

That’s it. She’s pushed too hard. Let desperation get the better of her. And now her blood will spill on the floor of the club, and it will be her last bleed. The big bleed.

And Sola, if she’s even still alive, will most certainly die.

‘Wait,’ says Sabbeth.

The piercing blade stops just short of breaking the skin, held there, a spike in her neck. She can feel her pulse throb against it.

Sabbeth stands, beating drops of amber off his flared tunic and tight-cut trousers. He takes a proffered handkerchief from Carrow and dabs at the stains.

‘Clumsiness may be a cardinal sin, but I can’t fault you for spirit.’ He hands the handkerchief back to Carrow and kneels next to Myra, his lips not far from her right ear, speaking right to the skull tattooed on her earlobe. ‘You’re smart, aren’t you? Ordinarily, I mean. You’ve been quite stupid today. But I bet that’s an aberration, hmm?’

Myra chokes an assent.

‘But it doesn’t matter what’s going on in here…’ He taps her forehead, as if testing a vox-mic. ‘If you lack perspective. And perspective is indeed what you lack.’

He stands, accepts a fresh amasec and sets it on the table, in the exact same spot, without drinking it.

‘See, you’re an alley ganger,’ he says, sliding back into his booth. ‘For you, killing is personal. They scrag one of yours, you scrag one of theirs. Now, you’re not some godless ork savage, killing for the sake of it, you have your reasons, and they’re good ones. Let them disrespect you, and they’ll come for you. Simple. I came from that world, I understand it.’

He lifts the glass of amasec, considering the liquid. Puts it down untouched.

‘But I no longer live in that world. And in the world I live in, violence is not personal. It’s instructive. A type of communication. Say I, due to your violation here, ordered Carrow to cut out your eyes and slice off your ears. Throw you out to sniff your way around the habclave like one of those blind albino rats that live in the under-docks. True, the mutilation is punishment in itself, but without a stated reason it does no good. No, when I order a man killed – or a woman, for that matter – I want everyone to know that it was me who ordered it, and why. I want people to point at you in the street and say, “See? That’s what happens when you walk into Reagan’s place, cause a scene and threaten to burn it down.” It draws the boundaries. Helps everyone understand the system. Sets an example. You know how it works.’

She does. Everyone knows the stories.

Don’t steal from Sabbeth or they’ll find you in Reaver Park, having choked to death on your own severed fingers. Don’t miss your tithe, or Sabbeth’s guys will break your long bones so bad you can only walk like a crab. Shootings. Stabbings. Mutilations.

If Low Dredge has one rule, it’s this: You Do Not Mess With Reagan Sabbeth.

Not ever.

‘So listen, Ripper girl. I’m not saying I wouldn’t kill your sister. I’m saying that if I had, you’d know about it and the reason. Otherwise, what’s the point? Discipline without a lesson is just savagery.’ He pauses. ‘Take the knife away.’

A relieved rush of air escapes Myra’s throat. The knife vanishes.

Sabbeth drains the amasec and stands, slipping out of the booth. He pats Myra on the shoulder twice as he passes, says to her, ‘If you find your sister, I would be interested to know what happened. Consider that recompense for your life.’

Then he points at Carrow and says, ‘Let her go. But work her over first. No broken bones, just a reminder that actions have consequences. Rules are what separate us from the damn greenskins.’

Ten

Carrow knows his business.

He’s methodical. Experienced. You can tell that from the way he picks up the hymnal with his right hand. The way the thick hardback book has been reinforced with strips of silver tape where it’s started to split.

He hits her thrice from top to bottom as the two others hold her down. Chopping into her with the book’s spine.

Jaw shot. Rib shot. Thigh shot.

He passes the hymnal from his right hand to his left. Slow, letting her watch as he settles the weight in his fist.

Jaw shot. Rib shot. Thigh shot.

It hurts. Particularly the jaw. That one feels like an Earthshaker round detonating in her skull.

Pain’s own light show. She pops a nosebleed on both sides.

‘Carrow,’ she mumbles through the taste of blood. ‘Wait. I know you.’

He grunts, disinterested. As if to say, do you now? Tosses the hymnal on the backroom table.

‘Your family’s from my hab-block, yeah?’ she says, fighting nausea from the head blows. ‘Heard of you. You were such a little monster, your family shipped you to the Ecclesiarchy workhouse. Is that where you learned to use the hymnal?’

He doesn’t answer, and Myra hurts too much to say anything more.

But when he dumps her out the back door, into an alley, she can still walk. She’s sore, that’s for damn sure; every step radiates from her shin to her temple. It’s like he split her along a seam. Nerve bundles scream from the targeted pounding.

She doesn’t want to move. Really, she wants to collapse in the back of the club and let the pain wash over her. But the injuries can’t wait. The bruising is bad enough, but the nosebleed, that’s worse.

Myra can already taste blood. Flowing. Gagging her.

Good thing the alley’s empty, she thinks. No one can see what she’s about to do. If they do, she’s a dead woman.

Her hand falls to her belt, finds nothing there.

No.

They’d taken it. When they’d searched her before coming into the club. Even Myra wasn’t mad enough to bring a gun to that meeting, but they’d taken her stimm kit in case one of the phials had been some kind of poison.

And they hadn’t given it back.

Nononono!

‘Forget something?’

She spins and sees Carrow, leaning in the doorway. He brandishes her zip-kit in one hand, her coat draped over his other arm.

She makes a grab for the kit, and at first he pulls it back as if he’s playing with a feline. Then slowly, sincerely, he holds it out for her.

She takes it. Opens it up and fumbles out one of the three remaining phials. Opens the chamber of the stimm-slug kit embedded in her chest like a war medal and feeds one inside.

Screw it, she can’t wait for privacy.

Carrow watches her, sucking a cotin-injector as if he’s at some dirty back-hab cabaret. ‘Filthy habit… stimms.’

He puts just enough pause on it to show that he knows. And that he’ll remember.

Myra slaps the engager on the stimm-slug kit and feels the coagulant hit her bloodstream. The nosebleed goes gummy, starts to peter out. Not instantly clotting, not like it used to, but she won’t bleed to death in this alley, at least.

Myra puts her hands on her knees, riding the wave of sickness that always comes after a hit.

Carrow sucks his injector, then stows it in his jacket, letting smoke from the last hit jet out of his nose. ‘Sabbeth has a hard time figuring you, I think. That’s why he let you live. That was pretty stupid.’

‘Stupid is my speciality these days.’

‘…and brave, too. I wouldn’t have done it. Maybe ’cause I’m smart. Probably ’cause Sabbeth’s a scary guy. And what’s in that kit…’ He nods at the kit in her hand. ‘If that’s what I think it is, you’ve got balls bigger than a Baneblade.’

Carrow holds out her coat, ready to help her into it.

She snatches it from him instead. ‘What a gentlesire you turned out to be. Maybe next time, save the speech and just don’t hit me.’

‘I was ordered to hit you.’ He shrugs. ‘That beating came from Sabbeth, not me. That’s how it goes. He aims and pulls the trigger – I’m just the gun.’

‘That’s not right.’

‘No, it just is.’ He pauses. ‘You’re right about the workhouse. That was me. I got out. Learned a lot.’

Myra snorts. ‘Yeah, I feel real sorry for you. You were our bloody horror story, you know that? Behave, or you’ll go to the workhouse with that Carrow kid.’

‘Wasn’t like that at all – I was a good kid.’ He pauses, fishes out the cotin-injector and just looks at it before taking a puff. ‘I had to be good, y’know? Couldn’t make trouble for my sister. She was older, used to take care of me when my folks split. Thought she always would, then one day she left. Went to live her own life. Used to pretend in the workhouse that she’d come back to get me, that somewhere she was out searching, frantic. Doing anything to find me.’

Myra stares at him, thrown by the intimacy of the conversation. ‘You know where she is now?’

‘Nah.’ He waves. ‘Common story. Can’t fault her for it. Back then she seemed so grown-up, but she was barely more than a kid herself. Besides, I turned out all right, didn’t I?’

There’s a gleam of humour in his half-smile, a hint of self-knowledge and sadness that Myra doesn’t know how to answer.

So she doesn’t. Just pulls on her coat, gingerly placing the zip in one pocket.

‘I didn’t tell you this, but a bounty broadcast went out an hour ago. A juve, maybe fifteen to sixteen, brown hair and a scar on the chin. Last sighting in the Dredge.’

‘Sounds like Sola.’ Myra’s heart rises. A lead.

‘Go fast – the bounty is fifty thousand slates, dead or alive.’

Eleven

Fifty. Thousand. Slates.

Throne.

No. Really.

What. The. Fuck.

Sola isn’t worth fifty thousand slates. Nobody Myra knows is worth fifty thousand slates. It’s an unimaginable number.

People from Outflow Alley make maybe a few thousand a year, and that’s assuming injuries from a hand-biting assembly machine or a tusk-loader don’t take them off the factorum floor for a few months. Generations back, in her grandfather’s day, a guy from two blocks down had made it big in the illegal rejuve trade and bought an entire hab-tower. Became a slumlord whose progeny now owns nearly a whole block. And that had only cost twenty thousand.

Fifty. Thousand. Slates.

Myra tries to imagine that much money.

It could buy her… how many doses? Two hundred? Three? Good lab-chilled stuff too, not the expired doses she settles for. With that, she might live into her forties or even fifties, if she doesn’t dose herself too often.

Each spike, and the coagulant works a little less. Recently she can feel it, the doses taking longer to kick in, particularly on the big injuries. A few months back she’d taken a stab wound during a skirmish with the Skullcaps. Right in the shoulder, knife stopped when it hit bone. Not usually fatal, but bad news for someone with her condition.

The first spike seemed to work, but the next morning the wound was dribbling like a leaking tap. It took another hit to fully stop the bleeding, and she’d vomited afterwards – whether that was out of side effects or nerves, she didn’t know.

All she knows is that she’s never supposed to take doses that close together. Medicaes she’s seen over the years have all told her the same thing – take it too often, or too much at once, and she’ll become immune.

Each injector plunge pushes her another step closer to the big bleed.

She jogs to Yarrick Street Station, keeping out of the irregular islands of light cast by the overhead lumens. Despite the station’s name, this is Skullcap territory. The Rippers control Lower Yarrick Street, while the Skulls run the more ritzy Upper Yarrick.

Ritzy, at least, as far as this district is concerned. Most of the businesses are smoke shops, ink parlours and dingy one-room cabarets with grainy nude pictures pinned out front. A clutch of restaurants run by off-worlders that serve some of the best paraja and spicy boil-pot in the city. Respectable, by Dredge standards. Most of the businesses even have licences, or at least pieces of paper they claim to be licences.

Myra legs it up the ironwork stairs and scans her wrist-chip at the corroded barrier.

ENTRY: 0.5 SLATES

VALUE REMAINING: 12.7 SLATES

Way too low. Enough for a few L-rail rides and maybe two cart meals. She’d blown everything from her last score on the three phials of coagulant.

Two, she corrects herself. Now she has two phials. Reagan Sabbeth had forced her to use one.

She opens a station safe-locker to retrieve the stubber hidden inside, knowing she’d never get it into Sabbeth’s. Darts up the grimy metal stairs to the train platform, ears full of the howling shriek of an incoming train. Magnet-brakes snap and sizzle as they slow the speeding cars, sparks lighting the dangling wires of the undercarriage blue.

It sets her teeth on edge, that sound. So much like the piercing howl of a plasma weapon.

The handful of passengers on the deserted platform – it’s between second and third shift at the factorums, a lull between rush hours – have already cupped hands over their ears. The sign of an experienced commuter.

Myra jumps into an open hatch and finds a place in the corner. Back to the wall, eyes down the car, looking out for trouble.

She can’t afford to blow another phial of coagulant on a random encounter with a mugger or a punch-up with a drunk. Already, she feels naked without her lascarbine, the stub pistol in her pocket a last resort. Her auto-carbine, her favoured weapon with the Rippers, had stayed gang property when they’d ejected her.

Despite her behaviour over the last thirty hours, Myra doesn’t like getting in people’s faces. Usually, she only looks an enemy in the eyes through the sights of her scope. After all, that was the safest way to fight. The lowest chance of kicking off the big bleed.

Myra doesn’t remember a time before the malady. That came when she was three or four, she’d been told. A skinned knee dripped for two days before her mother loaded her onto the elevated rail and whisked her to the Obsidian Order down in Saltstone. It had taken them half a day to get there, and by that time she’d already passed out. Sola was a babe in arms, their father still alive and providing for the family.

The medicae told them Myra had thin blood, but not the kind that happened naturally in family lines. This version was worse. Aggressive. Nasty. Could bleed you out if the coagulant didn’t hit your bloodstream fast enough. And it would get worse as she aged. The doc asked if Myra’s mother had worked with chem-solvents while pregnant.

Of course she had. Who could afford to stop working for nine months?

She’d been back on the line three days after Myra was born.

Richer parents might have been overprotective. And Myra’s had been, when they were around. But it’s a rare family who can afford for both parents to work only one shift each. Her father pulled two shifts a day and her mother one. After the factorum accident – an acid condenser backfired, filling two work floors with superfine droplets that melted lungs in seconds – their mother had to pick up two shifts.

The transfer to the factorum location in the wastes, when it came, was treated like the Emperor’s Gift. There were no families allowed in the wastes location but the money was good and Myra was by then old enough to take care of Sola.

And for a while it was good. Then the letters stopped coming through the pneumatic tube, and along with them the remittance cheques.

If it weren’t for the thin blood, Myra could’ve gone to the factorum herself. But hand injuries are constant in that line of work, and they couldn’t afford both her coagulant and to eat.

That left the brothels and the Yarrick Street Rippers. Both of them selling her body, after a fashion. Both with their own potential for injury.

She went with the Rippers. Never let them know about the thin blood. Distinguished herself as a juve with a talent for long-range work. Killed her first rival ganger at sixteen.

She didn’t feel good about it, but it won her the wings on her back. She’d shot herself with a double coagulant dose before they inked them onto her.

Dangerous. Necessary.

And yeah, she gets the irony. Just because a girl comes from Outflow Alley doesn’t mean she’s stupid. To keep herself from bleeding to death, she’d had to enter a life that guaranteed she’d get cut sooner or later. The money came in, got spent on coagulant, which got injected as she fought for more money. A perpetual cycle of blood and money flowing out, and pharms flowing in. There was no way to get ahead of it, no way to get out.

But no one born in Myra’s hab-block thinks about things long-term. It’s a waste of time.

And it worked, for a while.

Then the street price of coagulant doubled. Who knows why. Probably something to do with the new regiment passing through – Militarum port visits always send prices through the Emperor-damn roof. Especially for medicae supplies. The military can pay top-slate, and they buy in bulk. Whatever stock is left for locals skyrockets in value. And at the time, some whispered that there were problems with the shipping lanes.

That was when Sola became a Ripper.

Little Sola. Smart and quick. The girl who’d take in any street animal she’d find sick or injured and care for it until it was well enough to leave – or it died. Usually the latter. Sola, suppressing that gentleness to convince the Rippers she was vicious enough to make it as a ganger.

And she pulled it off. Always good at play-acting, her sister.

With two of them, they could just about afford her doses.

Does Myra feel guilty? Of course she does. Sitting there on the elevated rail, coat covering her stub pistol, hood up and swaying with the motion of the train. Trying to find Sola, Sola who’d risked her own life to keep Myra alive.

Sola, who’s now worth fifty thousand slates.

To Myra, she’s worth twice that.

Which is why Myra is going to see Wires.

Her hand tenses around the grip of the stubber.

Twelve

Statim drives around the city for an hour before satisfying herself that she isn’t being followed. Out of the Dredge, onto the skyway, her whole vision blurring with red tail lights fuzzing and scattering through the raindrops on her windscreen.

She takes the lonely loop roads, the ones that get out of the sprawl and soar into the wastes on pillars twenty storeys high, where she has the option to go almost anywhere.

‘Lucky I had the groundcar, huh?’ she says to the unconscious kid stretched across her back seat. She pats the dashboard. ‘Last of the discharge bonus. Thought I could transport patients with it. Work inter-district. You’re only the second one.’

No answer.

She isn’t looking for one. Just soothing her nerves.

Really, she’d bought the groundcar because she couldn’t take the elevated rail. The first time she’d ridden the L-rail, the stop sent her to the floor, belly down and plastered next to a row of plasteel bench-seats. She’d pulled a man over with her, and was covering him with her body. Broken the poor sod’s nose against the decking when she’d thrown him down. He’d rolled and fought, thinking she was mugging him.

She’d tried to explain. Tried telling him that the shriek of the mag-brakes sounded so much like a t’au plasma carbine. When he pushed her away she’d stumbled out of the car, shaking, hearing the passengers behind her murmuring that she was psychotic.

T’au, the word itself, meant nothing to them.

Statim didn’t sleep for three days afterwards. Never went back.

‘Guess it was lucky for both of us I picked this up, huh?’

The soldier, she notices, is drooling. Sweat dews on the kid’s forehead and cheeks, shining in the overhead lumens that sprout from the main arterial’s barrier.

Is the kid’s face paler than it had been? Or is it her imagination?

Better figure out where to go, and fast.

Not back to the clinic. They’ll be there, or at least have left someone to watch it.

Not home. The clinic is home. She rents it specifically for the purpose. Statim lives in the shabby bedroom in the back, and keeps the parlour as her examination room-slash-surgery. The icebox has leftover cartons of takeaway carb-strands next to plasma bags and medicine phials.

All probably smashed now. Leaving, she’d grabbed her trauma bag and a cold case full of only the most necessary pharms.

It might be all she has to her name, now. A satchel of medicae tools in the back seat, a shotgun and autopistol, and a groundcar.

There is an outpost for the Alecto Third Urban Regiment one district away; that’s an option. Or at least, it’s an option if she wants to get the kid shot. Conscripts don’t get shore leave – they skip if given half a chance – meaning the girl is away without leave at best, a deserter at worst. Given that Statim has just abandoned her home and put herself inside a gang’s gunsights to save the kid’s life, she doesn’t relish the thought of throwing her to the defence force provosts – almost as sadistic as the commissars, even worse sometimes.

That left the local enforcers, and she doesn’t like those odds either. They generally assume ganger trash kill other ganger trash, and that if a young woman’s been shot there’s a good reason.

Even if she gets her story straight, she’d need to admit running an unlicensed medicae clinic. That means fines. Fines Statim can’t afford.

Pray to the Emperor an enforcer patrol doesn’t pull her over. She’ll have a hard time explaining what the hell is going on here. Especially if–

Then it hits her.

She knows where to go.

She pulls onto the next exit chute.

Thirteen

‘Remember that favour you owe me?’ Statim says, as she gets out of the driver’s seat.

They’ve stopped her at the checkpoint outside the precinct fortress, to check her trunk and sweep under the armoured groundcar, looking for bombs.

‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’ responds Farro. Her mouth turns down but one eyebrow rises, an invitation to continue.

Statim just opens the rear door.

‘Well, Throne,’ Farro says. ‘Bring her inside.’

Lazulaye Farro had limped into Statim’s life with a bullet in her shoulder and a tibia fracture so bad the end of the bone bulged through her skin. Her patrol had raided a narcotics factory in the Barrier District, and when the op went bad and the perps scattered across the district boundary, Farro’s team unwisely pursued up a hab staircase.

Classic ambush.

Farro, first in line as always, took half an autogun magazine to the chestplate and got blown over the staircase railing. Fell three storeys down an air shaft. She’d been wild lucky that there was only one vest penetration and the bottom of the shaft was cushioned with ten feet of rotting garbage, but the hammer blows of the hard rounds had cracked four ribs and the fall snapped her leg.

Her patrol withdrew, leaving her for dead.

She’d found Statim, much as the kid had. The neon sign brought business.

That was when Farro had been a patrol sergeant in the sanctioners. After she’d turned up again, she’d led a raid back into the same building – top-down this time, inserting onto the roof with a Zurov gunship despite the fact she did it with a cane and leg cast. Busted three grow operations and resolved over a hundred outstanding warrants.

That bit of bravado won her promotion to master-sergeant of Precinct Eight-Seven-Eight, in charge of the platoon.

As far as Statim’s concerned, there are no good enforcers – but Farro isn’t all bad.

‘I have to stop owing people favours,’ Farro growls good-naturedly, then gestures into a small office with her mug of caffeine. The mug, it seems to Statim, is as much part of Farro’s uniform as the rank bars and command braid. It seems permanently sutured to her finger. ‘Bring her in here. My office. Lets the knee-breakers know you aren’t a suspect.’

‘Lay her on the couch?’ Statim asks.

‘Yes. Careful.’ Farro shoots a look at one of the two enforcers present. ‘She’s wounded.’

‘Might get blood on your couch,’ warns Statim, checking the soldier’s stitches.

‘There’ve been worse things on it,’ she says. ‘Trust me. Now, why don’t you tell me why there’s a member of the noble defenders of mankind, hammer of the Emperor, in my office?’

Statim runs a head-to-toe check for injuries, puts a finger on the soldier’s pulse and consults her chrono. ‘I hoped you’d tell me. See the tattoo?’ She nods towards the ink.

Farro takes a slurp of caffeine before bending over to inspect the mark. Strands of her black hair fall forward as she leans over. ‘It’s fresh. Only a day or two old.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Some doctor,’ she snorts. ‘There’s still bruising. Here along the scroll, see? Induction inker must’ve been heavy-handed. Surprised you didn’t catch it.’

‘I was mostly concerned with the thumbnail-sized slug in her gut, Lazzie.’

It comes out harsher than she means. And silence descends.

‘You sound tired,’ Farro responds, then hoists her mug. ‘Want some caffeine?’

Fourteen

‘It’s not a local regiment, I can tell you that. I’d know it otherwise.’ Farro leans back in her high-backed desk chair, idly looking out of the window onto the fortress parade ground. Holding cells ring the courtyard. ‘Could be one of the units that passed recently, did resupply runs. You know they always dump some trash down here shoreside. All the useless ones they don’t want any more.’

She shoots a mock-cruel grin to show that she means Statim.

Statim shoots her back a Really? expression. ‘But if she’s been given regimental ink within the past few days, she hasn’t been discharged. And her age…’

‘Could be deceiving,’ says Farro.

‘Sixteen at most, probably fifteen. But she’s seen some kind of fighting. There are scars. The kind you get from crawling on rubble.’

‘Could be a ganger, part of some new outfit. Maybe her gang boss was Militarum and they’re all getting the same ink as a form of hero-worship. That would explain why some other gang was–’

‘She was shot in my district, though,’ Statim replies, shaking her head. ‘If there was a new group, I’d have heard of them. Throne, I’d have had a few on my trauma table before now.’

‘Could’ve been shot elsewhere and dumped? Gangers do that sometimes. Get the wounded out of the combat area.’ Farro takes a sip from her caffeine mug. ‘Or she could be one of the juves that have gone missing.’

‘Not exactly missing – there were gangers chasing her. Threatened to burn down my clinic.’ Statim reaches for her own mug of caffeine, stops. ‘Missing how?’

‘No how. Just missing. We’re lucky to know that much. Gangers don’t exactly file a missing citizen report when one of them disappears. They’re too afraid of us. But there are rumours that gang juves are disappearing.’ She steps forward and puts a finger on the tattoo, stretching it straight. ‘Think a Militarum recruiter from some passing regiment sold her a line, maybe thumb-smudged her birth year in order to make quota?’

‘That’s illegal.’

‘Oh, well then.’ Farro rolls her eyes and takes a pull of caffeine. ‘No one in Varangantua would do anything illegal. That’s why I have such a rich home life. Get so much reading done.’

‘I mean it’s against Militarum regs. “Call in the commissar” stuff.’

Farro purses her lips. ‘Few years back we had a trail on a syndicate in Urgeyena who were scooping up kids. Never got to the bottom of it, but we found…’

Her chest-vox squawks.

‘Master-sergeant.’

‘Go ahead.’ She taps the broadcast to her comm-bead, hears the rest of the message in private. ‘Very good. Show them in.’

‘You found…?’ Statim says, expecting Farro to continue.

‘We’ll finish up later. Duty calls. I’ll bring in our station medicae officer for her. Maybe if she wakes up I can take a statement.’

‘I… don’t love the idea of being left with her.’ Statim leaves off the words without a gun.

‘These are my people – you can trust them. But if it will make you feel better…’ Farro opens the sheet-metal drawer of her desk and digs out an extra chest-vox. ‘This is tuned to my signal. Let me know if she wakes up.’

Statim takes the vox, gives its transmitter button a squeeze so Farro’s unit burbles twice.

‘Send me two blips if she wakes, or if you think of anything else.’ Farro sees her expression. ‘No gangers are getting in here, Akeso.’

Statim almost believes her.

Fifteen

Statim checks the girl’s pulse. Weak, but steady.

Weak but steady – that’s about how she feels herself.

She sips her caffeine. Wishes Farro had given her some water and maybe a paraja roll instead. Downers, not uppers. In her current state, even the mild narcotic stimulant of the caffeine sends her heart pounding like she’s been shooting stimms.

She puts the mug aside. Had only taken it to satisfy Farro that she was being a good host.

Statim traces her fingers across her arm tattoo as she thinks, feeling the undulations of the burn scar obscured beneath the Sirenian crusader sword.

Back in the war, she’d gone long stretches without sleep. The wounded and dying always came in waves, washing into her medicae station with the same regularity that surf pounded and retreated on the shores of her long-ago home world.

City authorities like to broadcast propaganda vids, particularly around the planetary defence force’s recruitment season, and in those every battle looks like two great tides of men and monsters crashing into each other. One big fight.

In reality, a battle is a series of small fights. An attack here, a holding action there. One position might be knee-deep in blood, with so many las-bolts filling the air that it’s unsafe to even throw a grenade. A mile to the left or right, another company might be getting bored.

Statim had often heard people talk about the drums of war. The great heartbeat of battle.

If that was true, the heart had arrhythmia.

Back then, she would go days without sleep, her station receiving so many casualties they had to throw down sterile drop-tarps to accommodate new arrivals. Then there might be a break of six, twelve, even twenty-four hours where they wouldn’t receive more than a broken foot.

Those were the times when she would, in an ideal world, have slept. There had been a few campaigns – domestic counter-insurgencies, nothing special – where that had happened. A medicae eventually becomes used to the butchery of combat. What it does to the body. It still made Statim tired, annoyed, made her wish a difficult casualty had come to someone else’s tent rather than hers, but she rarely lost sleep over it.

That is, until she deployed against the t’au. Sleep had not been possible.

Plasma weapons.

A curse upon humanity. It would be heresy to toss away such a useful weapon to mankind, but Statim privately wishes they’d all be destroyed. Every last one. And most of all those of the t’au fire warriors.

Horrific burns. All day, every day.

Even a minor shot ruins a body. Grab a soldier’s arms to try and move them, and their wrinkled, crisped outer layers of muscle would slough off like the skin of a soft, rotten apple.

And the smell. Statim could never get used to that charred, sweet smell. Even now, she never eats meat unless it’s sufficiently spiced to cover the aroma of its cooking. When she’d been looking for clinics, she’d automatically turned down anything within scent-distance of a jejen shop with its spools of frying grox.

Those hard days, the ones where her medicae gown smelled like half-cooked human flesh and she’d vomited into the inside of her filter mask, she’d developed something that wasn’t sleep, but wasn’t full awakening either.

And that’s what she does now. Staring at the wall, she takes stock of every sign of physical distress in her body, acknowledging and dismissing each. Fatigue. Alarm. Disgust. Paranoia. Confusion. The ache in her back. The steel cable tendons of her right hand that, wound tight by the stress, have pulled her fingers into a fist.

As she lets each go, the tension settles. Amping her down, step by step.

And she reviews the day, quietly. A knock at the door. A bloody girl. The bullet extraction. Wild escape in her Tauros. The amber eyes of the gang leader. Farro’s good-natured but incisive questions, which opened the options rather than narrowed them.

Farro had seemed so dismissive of Amber Eyes. Why had he wanted the girl so badly that he was willing to burn down a clinic in a strange district to get her? That’s the kind of extreme thing smart gangers didn’t do because it called down too much heat from the enforcers and district cartels.

What does this kid have that they want? Not money. Not position. None of it smelled like inter-gang politics.

Unless all they want is her. As if her very existence is an existential threat.

As if she is evidence.

‘Oh Throne,’ says Statim. She stands, snatches up the vox. Hits two blips. Hears a pickup. ‘Farro, I think I’ve got something.’

A return signal. ‘Not now, Statim. I’ll be right there.’

‘But…’

‘Not. Now.’ She clicks off, closing the line.

What in the hells? Statim stands, puts two fingers through the grille-blinds on the office window and pulls down the cheap plastek louvres.

In the centre of the drill ground stands a parked Bastion groundcar, enforcer issue, painted dull silver to blend with civilian models and failing spectacularly. Around it cluster eight enginebikes of various makes, all of them fast and predatory. They look like the packs of rad-dogs that hunt out in the Scarlands, the hulking alphas followed by a snapping horde of stunted betas that swarm on whatever the lead dog brings down.

The riders wear black leather, studs, pistols in shoulder and thigh holsters.

Their leader speaks to Farro. Not like a member of the public, like a colleague. He opens a folding wallet to reveal the thin gleam of an enforcer’s holo-seal.

Despite the distance, Statim makes him immediately.

It’s Amber Eyes.

Sixteen

‘Myra!’ says Wires, his wide face framed by the cracked-open door, a security chain looping across his breast like some military honour.

And he tries to close the door on her.

But she isn’t having that shit. Not today.

Punching someone is hazardous for a girl in Myra’s condition. Mashing her fist into some bastard’s face is an invitation to break a finger or slice open her knuckles on a shattered tooth.

Which is why she carries the sap gloves. Padded, comfortable, with a rectangular bag of buckshot sewn over each fist.

WHAM.

She throws her shoulder into the door first, stretching the security chain so tight she hears the screws securing it to the door squeak. Then her fist slams right through the open gap, hitting the taut chain once, twice.

Splinter-pop.

The door falls inwards, Myra staggering into a dim world of screens and glowing digital displays. A vid-projector on one wall broadcasts static, occasionally juddering to show a rolling picture of an up-district newsreader from one of the channels the gilded subscribe to, her skin blue in the scrambled negative image.

So many flashing lights, the room would be a death chamber for epileptics.

Wires backs away, hands up and palms out, unthreatening. ‘Myra. I… I… was planning to send a message.’

‘Were you, now?’ she snarls. ‘Good thing plans are as good as actions, eh?’

‘What?’

‘I mean, I vouched for you with the Rippers, didn’t I? Told all my ink-sisters you had the inside line on the enforcer patrols. Knew when the reinforcements would come in. That we’d have warning and be out of the storehouse long before the sirens showed up…’

‘Listen, I–’

‘And is that what happened?’

‘Well, no.’

‘No, what happened is I knew the sirens were coming when I heard the thrice-damned sirens. Was lucky I found an open sewer lock.’ Myra lays a hand on one of his broad shoulders, raising a fist as if setting up for a very well-targeted jab. ‘And when I come to your hab to ask what the Throne happened, I find it empty. Isn’t that right?’

‘I got raided! Was going to get raided. Some probator traced a hand-vox scam I was running. I had to scramble.’

‘Without taking the time to warn me?’

She stops advancing when Wires stumbles over his chair and goes down on his arse, back against a stack of data-compressors.

‘No time for that,’ Wires whimpers.

‘Had the time to take your rig, though,’ Myra says, bending down and slapping him open-handed across one jowly cheek. The gloves make the hit less a stinging blow and more a bruising thud.

‘Ouch! That hurts!’

‘It’s supposed to hurt, you little weasel. You scraped off with our good faith money. Got me ejected from the Rippers. The least you could’ve done is wire it back.’

‘I tried.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’ Her fist smashes down, not into his head – she’ll need that – but into whatever half-built device lies on the table.

‘Please, no,’ he begs.

‘You could’ve included a note with the wire. “Sorry I screwed you over! Love, Wires.”’

‘Don’t kill me.’

‘I’m not going to kill you, Wiry. Because you owe me now. A debt. To the tune of six hundred slates, yeah? So either you can do me a few little favours to pay it off, or I can smash everything in here that beeps and glows.’

‘Not that, anything but–’

‘Fine, I’ll start cutting bits off you and selling them at the transplant market. I hear there’s a rising trade in balls, but sadly you don’t have any, so I’ll have to start with a toe or two.’

Wires sobs, but then interrupts it with a laugh. ‘You always had the best threats, M.’

‘So, favours it is?’

He nods. ‘What do you need?’

She lets him go, backs up, gloved hands on her hips. ‘Sola’s missing. I have a tip that there’s a bounty out matching her description, but I don’t have access to that network. Pull it up for me and do a scan for anyone that might be her.’

‘No problem. No problem. Sola missing? Terrible. That’s all you had to say, really. No need for threats. Of course. Absolutely. Anything for someone from the old habclave. Absolutely.’ Wires straightens, runs a hand through his oily, pomaded hair. Despite his general sallow colouring and lack of physical fitness, he’s anything but slovenly. Even as kids, he’d been the cleanest person Myra knew.

She wonders, suddenly, if part of Wires’ fascination with technology stems from his hatred of being dirty – an escape from the grimy careers of their factorum-worker parents.

‘In case you were confused,’ says Myra, ‘I wanted it done now.’

Wires scuttles by, mumbling ‘absolutely’ and ‘of course’ several more times, like a ward against being punched.

He plops into a rotary chair and taps at a key-panel, emerald light splashing his face. Wheels to what Myra recognises as a decryption rig and begins setting dials. Consults a code-book.

‘I can find her, that’s not the question,’ he says. ‘But promise you won’t hit me if she’s already dead.’

Seventeen

Statim looks back at the woman on the couch.

How had they known?

District medicae. Of course. Farro had voxed for a district medicae. And she’d probably put out a bulletin on a shot girl, trying to find out if anyone knew where she might’ve come from.

A sensible option. Standard procedure.

Only the people chasing her are enforcers. And the message has brought them like Scarland scavenger clans to a Zurov gunship crash.

That makes sense. Perfect sense.

Then, her eye falls on the black, synthleather jacket hanging on the back of Farro’s desk chair. Lots of people wear black synthleather. Especially a lot of enforcers.

Then again…

If Farro is one of them, she might have called them in. Delayed Statim while they showed up. But if that was true, Farro could’ve just thrown them in a cell, or at least posted a guard outside the office. She hadn’t.

The vox feels heavy in her hand.

Call Farro, or not?

Calling means trust. Means assuming Farro isn’t in on this thing. But Statim didn’t read that from the solid enforcer. Statim isn’t dumb enough to think there is such a thing as a good enforcer, but there are also enforcers who remember, on occasion, to be human beings. And Farro is one of those.

It’s the black squad’s behaviour that makes the decision for her. The way they’re fanning out, sauntering casually around the parade ground. Encircling Farro. Drifting to the outdoor cell block along one wall, where inmates gather at the bars, looking at the new arrivals.

She blips twice.

Sees Farro apologise, step aside and turn away to take the vox-hail.

‘What’s up?’ There’s tension under her voice. She can read something wrong.

‘That’s him, Farro. The ganger from my clinic. He’s the one who’s after her.’

Pause.

‘I see,’ Farro says. Far below, one hand moves to her Tzarina autopistol, the action hidden from Amber Eyes by the barrier of Farro’s body.

She turns back towards the officer.

The shock maul hits her mid-turn. An eye-searing flash hides the moment of impact. Electrodes bang, the report of their discharge echoing around the parade ground.

Farro goes down at Amber Eyes’ feet, one temple mashed and oozing blood like a sewer grate overflowing in wet season.

Statim’s gaze tears away from Farro’s body, drawn by the strange hollow sound of gunshots echoing off thick walls. Another synthleather-clad ganger – a woman with data-jacks in her left temple – has her stubber out in a two-handed triangle grip. She’s put three slugs into the enforcer that, at last glance, she’d been chatting up.

An enforcer in a bulky flak vest staggers back from Data-Jack, shocked at the sudden violence. Fumbles with his holstered sidearm, drops the armoured face mask he’d removed to greet her.

She pivots towards him, swinging her braced stubber around.

Wham.

The sound makes Statim jump as a slug explodes the back of the man’s head.

Data-Jack’s shooting stance is so professional, so drilled, it banishes any thought Statim had that these might be gangers, some hive scum recruited to do a few jobs for a rogue officer.

These are enforcers.

The fact dazes Statim. A voice in her brain tells her to run, but her feet feel soldered to the battered tile as if a force, magnetic and irresistible, insists that she witness this.

To Statim’s right, she hears the pump-blast of a riot gun. Screams of alarm and pain.

She’s never seen enforcers kill enforcers before. Didn’t even know such things occurred. Especially not with this type of execution-style precision. No messiness or hesitation.

This has been their plan.

Amber Eyes doesn’t give the murders a second look, just points the bloodied, studded head of the shock maul at the cell block on the inside of the wall.

‘Unit Alpha, open them,’ Amber Eyes says in his cool voice. It carries through the chest-vox in Statim’s hand, surprising her so much she nearly drops the unit. ‘Then toast the pict-capture system.’

Farro’s hand, either through post-mortem spasm or a last act of defiance, is still depressing the broadcast button.

‘Unit Beta, search the precinct offices. Start with the infirmary. After you’ve killed her, tag everything with dumbshit gang signs.’

On his left, Data-Jack is at the cell-block controls, an encrypt-key slotted into a port. She flips a few switches and a klaxon wails, cycling dome-lights making patches of red glow chase each other around the inside walls of the fortress.

Data-Jack grabs a foot-long switch and hauls it down.

Cell doors grind open. Inmates step, tentatively, into the courtyard.

That breaks the spell holding Statim. She’s at Farro’s desk, tearing open drawers. Looking for anything to defend herself with. Rifles through the pockets of the black synthleather jacket on the back of Farro’s chair.

No weapon.

Of course not; what idiot would leave civilians in an office with a gun in it? Especially if you didn’t know one of them, unconscious or not.

Statim’s autopistol and shotgun are still on the Tauros’ passenger seat, parked downstairs in the secure underground depot.

Once again, Statim realises that she could leave. Slip out the back while she still has the Emperor’s own blessing – time. They know where the clinic is, but she can resettle. Get out. Start over.

She owes nothing to this soldier, or ganger, or whatever the kid had been before a thumb-sized bullet had torn a hole in her gut and put her into twilight.

That would be the smart thing. No one would blame her.

She’s still thinking it as she threads her arms into the too-big black jacket. As she pulls the girl off the couch and ducks under her arm, hoisting the kid on her shoulders in a casualty carry. Knows she doesn’t have to do it as she passes her left arm between the kid’s dangling legs and grabs the girl’s left wrist, so she can keep the kid secure while leaving one hand free. Breathes a thankful prayer to the Emperor that the kid can’t be more than a hundred pounds.

Shots and banging doors, one floor below.

To get out, they’re going to have to sneak by a squad of armed enforcers.

With no weapon.

Eighteen

They’d called him Wires in the old habclave. A childhood nickname that stuck far longer than anyone intended. Back then, he always had some technology shoved into his back pocket – broken transistor voxes repaired with strip-tape and freeze-quik glue, small motors from Throne-knows where. Every time you saw him, there was a waterfall of cabling falling from his pocket or a whip-antennae bouncing against his back as he ran.

No one messed with him, because Wires was the only one in the habclave who had a consistently working vox to hear the weekly propaganda dramas. He also picked up hot stations, illegal vox-broadcasts that played the unsanctioned songs the official broadcasters wouldn’t touch.

Wires had brought sound to Myra’s childhood. She still remembers dancing with Sola to the wailing croon of a Fallow ballad, swinging and spinning in an abandoned warehouse along with forty other urchins – Wires fretting over his cobbled-together vox, the sound quality not quite good enough for him.

‘All right,’ says Wires. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’

He slides his rotor-chair to the centre of the C-shaped desk, opens a hatch in some kind of machine that looks to Myra like a countertop cold-unit, the kind where she stores her perishable meal bars back at her hab. An old countertop meal bar reheater sits next to it, completing the image.

But then she looks inside, and Myra hisses. ‘Holy Throne, is that what I think it is?’

Wires chuckles low. ‘Indeed. Work with me, sis, and you get what you pay for.’

‘Sometimes,’ she replies with a drip of acid, and leans in to look at the object within. ‘It’s real?’

‘Oh yeah,’ says Wires. ‘Genuine dataveil implant, full access. Cost a stack of slates so high I could’ve used them as a pillow.’

‘I’ve never seen one before.’ Myra reaches out a finger. ‘Is the implant in the front of the eye, right h–’

‘Don’t touch,’ Wires says, slapping the back of her hand. ‘Hard enough keeping the thing chilled so it won’t decay. If you touch it, you’ll put a bunch of bacteria on the surface and necrosis will take hold, cause the chip to realise it’s attached to a dead thing and shut down.’

Myra drops her hand and instead gets on one knee to meet the bloodshot orb eye to eye. The shelled-out eyeball stares back at her, the blue iris dulled and faded from its time under the winter cold of the frigidation coils. Red, lightning-bolt veins crawl from its lower-right quadrant, evidence of either its inexpert removal or a headshot that sent a shockwave through the jelly. A comet tail of red nerves trail behind, each fibre spliced into wires that travel up and out of an insulated port cut in the back of the cold-unit.

‘Does it–’

Before Myra can finish, a square patch the size of a fingernail flickers under the eyeball’s cornea, obscuring the pupil.

‘You look good in close-up, Myra,’ Wires quips with a smug half-smile.

Myra tears her gaze away from the disembodied eye and sees herself on Wires’ screen, the eye looking directly into her turned-away face.

Data spools over the image, dropping down like a curtain.

>>SearchNet Cranial Scan [Municipal Records/Criminal Complaints/Judicium Documents]

>>Identifying…

>>Identifying…

>>Identifying…

>> Match [68% certainty]: Myra Salk // Misdemeanour Convictions: 4 [see file] // Felony Convictions: 0 // Gang Affiliations: Rippers [Yarrick Street Faction] // Outstanding Warrants: 1 [Armed Robbery, Kulkan’s Paraja Stop]

‘Throne!’ she curses. ‘Thought they’d forgotten about that.’

‘People forget,’ says Wires. ‘The dataveil isn’t people. Which is why it’s so useful to have one.’ He clicks on his button slate, drafting his own lines of runes that spool down the screen, across the dataveil’s hijacked vision. ‘Usually this is controlled via mind-link. But we’ve got to be a bit more crude.’

‘Are you scanning city records, seeing if Sola’s been brought into an enforcer Bastion?’

‘No, I’m looking into channels that aren’t so… official. You said there was a bounty.’

The lines of runes mean nothing to Myra, but Wires traces them with his finger as if he’s a scholam-boy reviewing his catechism. ‘Girl, fifteen to sixteen, brown hair. Pox scars left side of face.’

‘That’s her.’

‘Probably. Not a lot of women that young on the bounty system. Last sighted in Low Dredge.’

Myra turns to go. Low Dredge is one district over; she has to move fast.

‘It also says she’s wounded.’

Myra stops. Her heart drops into her belly, turns it sour. ‘Wounded?’

‘Abdominal gunshot? Did you not know that?’

‘No.’

‘It says the injury is… recent. Six hours old. Six hours… You said she’s been missing how long?’

‘Two days, give or take. First half-day, I thought she might be at a friend’s place. We… had a fight. About the botched score. About exile from the Rippers.’

Wires doesn’t look sorry; he’s off in data-land. He rolls backwards on his rotary chair, drifts to a vox-rig that takes up an entire wall. Stacks of spool-slugs stand around it in tower racks, like columns in a ruined temple. ‘Thirty-two hours ago… Gaspipe District…’

He works fast, all memory of Myra’s threats gone, fully engrossed in his task.

‘What?’ Myra asks.

Wires shakes his head, less dismissing her than dismissing the concept of speech. ‘Thirty-two hours. Low Dredge. What channel was it… an official one…’

Myra lets him work. Has seen hyperfocus before in sangraal users. But in Wires it comes naturally. His head reeling information back and forth like one of the spool-slugs he shuffles and replaces in the rack.

‘Hit!’ he barks, pulling a plastek-shelled slug from the centre of one of the towers, waving it in the air like a ration-lotto ticket. ‘Knew it. Knew exactly where it was.’

He pops the shell cover and inserts the spool-slug into one of the open hatches in the vox-array. Mashes a big switch-button and holds it down. Chirps and squeals sound as the slug runs forward in quad-time, as if a couple of fighting rodents are caught in the emitter boxes that sit either side of the big rig.

Wires holds a headset to one ear, face set in concentration. ‘Almost there – it was nearly dawn, when people walk home from the drink-cellars and container clubs. I’ve got about an hour to… got it.’

‘Got what?’

In answer, he slams down the ‘RUN’ button and yanks the headset cord.

‘–at’d you think about those two?’

A woman’s voice. Speculative. Hard, but eager to please.

A hard click of a handheld vox.

‘Negative.’ A man. Calm and cold. ‘Too messy if there’s two of them.’

Click. Fuzz of static.

‘Take them, we make our quota.’

Click.

‘Foul it and we go the way of Sikku. You want that? Look at their ink. They’re ’caps.’

Myra shoots Wires a questioning look. Sikku? What in the hells is this?

He raises a finger.

‘So?’

Click.

‘The ’caps are Sabbeth’s boys, idiot. And Sabbeth actually cares if they drop off the grid. Too high up the food chain. I’m not ending up in a refuse compactor for this.’

Pause. Vox blips. In the background, the sound of a rumbling engine.

Blip-blip. Click.

‘What about her?’

Click.

‘Who?’

Wires points to the emitter, mouths, ‘Here we go.’

‘Little drink,’ says the woman. ‘Back in the alley, where she thinks no one can see her.’ Pause. ‘Medium height. Pinched face. Maybe fifteen standard.’

Click.

‘Scar on the chin? Bodyglove rolled down to the waist?’

Myra shoots a hand out and grabs Wires’ arm. Squeezes it so hard he’ll find a bruise after she leaves.

Click. The woman now.

‘Yeah, you’ve made her. Looks like she’s waiting for someone.’

Click.

‘She fits the profile. Don’t think she’s eaten in a while.’

Click.

Long pause.

‘Your choice,’ says the woman.

Pause.

Click.

‘Well, it has to be somebody. Swing the cruiser around to the back of the alley. Get the restraints ready. I’ll badge her and drive her towards you.’

Click.

‘Copy.’ Growl of an engine. A pause. ‘In position.’

Click.

‘Executing.’

‘And then,’ says Wires, running the slug forward. ‘Here.’

‘Syriol, we have another volunteer.’

‘That’s a bounty hunter net?’ Myra asks.

‘No,’ says Wires. ‘That’s an enforcer channel. The one given over to specialist outfits. Subjugators. Probators. Special security.’

Myra goes white. ‘Syriol,’ she says. ‘Syriol Zhago. Oh, Throne.’

Enforcer-Captain Syriol Zhago. Head of the Dredge’s anti-gang task force. The exact person no ganger wants to be arrested by.

Because when you get taken by Zhago, you don’t come back.

Nineteen

‘It’s not about staying hidden, it’s about not standing out. You’re more likely to go undetected in a scene of disorder than one of calm. Especially if you look like the enemy.’

The words of Statim’s escape and evasion instructor. A remedial crash course to prepare her for the transition from field medicae duty to Extractor Alpha.

The words float back as she lead-foots it out of the office, stopping to let an enforcer with a drawn stubber dash by on his way to the open stairwell.

It’s why she’d grabbed the jacket. Though it’s short and big on her, at least she looks like the rogue enforcers. Hopefully enough to pass as one from a distance. It might even stop a blade in a pinch.

Because she will have to get that close. Her free right hand grips the long handle of a scalpel fished from her trauma bag, its medical-grade, mono-molecular blade gleaming in the fluorescent light where it emerges an inch between her thumb and knuckle.

At the time, she’d hated the Tempestus Scion who’d run the evasion course. Hated the beatings and gruelling endurance training. Fantasised about tearing the maroon beret off the bastard’s head and throwing it in a latrine.

But she’d learned. And been glad of it. Because while she’d imagined the extractor team to be an escape from the grind of the medicae tents – a chance to save fellow servants of the Emperor – she hadn’t appreciated what it would be like. Dropping into xenos territory, five Scions and a medicae officer among millions of t’au. Searching for downed pilots. Locating the distress beacons of high-value officers. Patching up atrocious wounds so the Valkyrie airlift wouldn’t kill the officers they tried to save. Doing all of it under fire. Carrying a laspistol for the first time since the transport-training ship. Fighting the t’au, really fighting them, rather than the wounds they inflicted.

She was a replacement. Extractor Alpha’s last medicae officer – a Scion – got incinerated on their twenty-second mission.

It’s that sense for combat that tells her to duck behind a plasteel desk. It’s the only good cover in the open, bullpen-style office. Each workstation a stamped-metal island in the middle of a scuffed-tile sea.

The enforcer running towards the stairwell drops to one knee, points his stubber down. It barks, painting the dark stairway hot yellow. But an answering chatter of auto-fire flashes back white like a strobe light and he crumples, sliding face first down the metal steps.

Quiet.

The shooter in the stairway is waiting. Listening for a shot or footstep.

Smart.

Statim waits too, waits for the guy downstairs to make the first move.

And then, he does. Statim hears the sound of metal on tile. An object tumbles, rolls, comes to rest against the other side of the desk.

Grenade.

Twenty

Statim throws the girl down and dives down on her, back to the desk. Buries her own face in the crook of her arm to stop her eyes and ears.

The desk kicks against her spine like someone has just walloped it with a sledgehammer. Her insides quake, pummelled by shockwaves bouncing off the ceiling and walls, the desk shielding her from a full assault.

Chemical light flares through the space between her eyes and the crook of her arm, leaving a blue haze on her vision.

Photon flash grenade. Lucky.

If it had been a frag, secondary shrapnel from the desk might’ve flayed both of them to the bone. She’s been photon-flashed before.

And it gives her an idea.

‘Emperor’s blood!’ she yells. ‘What on Holy Terra is wrong with you? Blue! Blue! Blue!’

Blue. Enforcer-code for friendly fire.

No response.

‘We went up the back stairs, arseholes!’ she adds, her voice low and barking. An imitation of that old evasion instructor. ‘We’ve already got her secured here.’

Tentative shuffling. Boots crunching the dusted glass from a shattered office window. A creak as the bullpen’s low pulp-wood gate – an old-fashioned touch in an otherwise featureless station office – opens.

‘Salvator?’ A voice, questioning. Blind grenades are powerful things, especially indoors. Usually even the thrower sustains some temporary hearing loss. Ringing.

A difficulty telling voices apart, for instance.

‘No, it’s fucking Sanguinius. Get over here.’

She shifts, getting up to a kneeling position, giving a peek of her leather jacket over the edge of the desk.

Then there are boots in her vision. Buffed synthleather with rubberine soles. The shooter had been much closer than Statim suspected, her judgement of sound distance fouled by the grenade.

‘Holy Throne, you did get h–’

Statim acts before the man sees his mistake, stands up fast and throws her head back.

Her skull whacks the enforcer’s chin, the solid knock echoing in her cranium, sending the blue flash-motes in her vision into a dance.

The enforcer staggers, a hand to his chin, tries to raise a boxy autopistol with an extended magazine.

Statim grabs the gun with her stronger left hand and forces it away, the hot metal searing her palm. With her right, she punches the scalpel at the enforcer’s throat, the blade instead getting caught in the tangle of fingers the enforcer has thrown up to his injured chin. The scalpel shreds skin and sticks deep in the back of the enforcer’s hand, lodging somewhere in the cluster of his carpal bones.

She scrabbles at the pistol’s mechanisms, covering the trigger housing and pinning the man’s index finger to the side of the grip so he can’t fire. Her clumsy grab hits the magazine ejector. The big extended mag clatters to the floor.

The enforcer – it’s one she’d seen at her clinic, she realises, the one who’d jumped away from the Tauros – grunts and slams his head forward, mashing Statim’s nose.

Knocking her on her back.

It’s her legs that betray her. She trips over the girl as she staggers. Goes over.

But pulls the big enforcer with her.

The enforcer waves wildly as he falls, ripping the scalpel out of Statim’s weak right-hand grip and flinging it away. It lands somewhere with a tink-tink.

They hit the floor with brutal force, limbs tangling, kicking. A bloody palm smothers Statim’s mouth, the taste of the man’s hot blood cutting through the chemical stink of the photon flash.

The enforcer’s yelling now, not a call for help – just a howl of rage and alarm. His muscular arm forces the autopistol in towards Statim’s face. One thick finger worms against Statim’s grip, questing for the trigger.

With the magazine gone, there’s only one bullet in the chamber. But that’s all he needs. Put one bullet into Statim and all the strength will go out of her.

Statim slams her right hand into the gun, grips it, turning it sideways so she can see the man’s thick index finger forcing its way between Statim’s surgeons’ hands. The big digit begins to curl around the trigger.

Statim hooks a finger under his and drags it backwards, out of the trigger housing. Gets a grip with her stronger third and fourth fingers and levers it back further.

Cartilage pops between the proximal and metacarpal, tendons tearing as the man’s index finger goes perpendicular.

Blood in Statim’s mouth. Pained howl in her ears.

The enforcer’s grip doesn’t loosen. Instead he yanks the wounded hand towards his chest, shielding it out of instinct, the pistol still in his grip as he drags her entangled hands with it.

Barrel pointing to the soft meat below his jaw.

Statim mashes the trigger, eyes closed against the blood spatter.

Lets the heavy body roll to the side.

Scrambles to her knees, mopping her face with the slick synthleather sleeve of the jacket. The boxy autopistol, slide back, smokes in her right hand. She grabs for the big, curved magazine. Slams it home and racks a slug into the chamber. Starts searching the enforcer’s jacket when she hears…

Bing.

She looks up, autopistol raised.

Bing.

The grav-lift. Ancient and slow. Its dim numeral display reads ‘2’.

This is the third floor.

She moves fast. Yanks at the enforcer’s under-jacket webbing. Turns him face down.

Bing.

Grabs the girl and begins to drag her.

The doors grind open.

Twenty-One

‘What would someone high up like Zhago want with Sola?’ Myra asks. ‘Did she have warrants?’

‘Not according to the eye.’ Wires taps at his button slate. ‘At least nothing that would draw the attention of a captain.’

‘Could they want her for leverage? Inform on the rest of the… No, that doesn’t shuffle. They were talking like they didn’t know her. It has to be somebody. And quotas. They said they had to meet their quota. What does that mean?’

‘A quota is a number you’re required to hi–’

‘I know what a quota is, mutie-face. I’m trying to figure out what kind of quota they’re meeting.’

‘Could be an arrest quota,’ Wires says, scrolling data curtains on the screen. ‘Says here the anti-ganger unit has fallen behind this week. They’re supposed to book at least fifty for the judgement court each week, but they’ve only got twenty-two. Arrest rate fell off in the past two days. It’s like…’

‘It’s like they aren’t doing their jobs,’ Myra finishes. ‘Like they’re freelancing. Getting caught up in their own thing.’

‘Looks like. In fact, half the task force is marked out as ill. Gripus Strain B.’

Myra walks to the vox-thief set. Taps a broken nail against her front tooth. ‘You’ve got their channel dialled in, right? We could just tune in and listen to them.’

‘I mean… yes, but I have to re-crack the signal, and if they get feedback interference they might realise their signal’s being boosted and…’

Myra hefts a weighted glove.

‘Then again,’ Wires says, wheeling to the vox-set. ‘They’re probably too busy to notice.’

Twenty-Two

The grav-lift doors open. Four enforcers in synthleather stand inside, weapons braced.

‘Kalkut?’ The woman. Data-Jack. Then back to the men in the lift. ‘Makkan, stay here. Hold the doors. I want somewhere to retreat to.’

Statim can see them in a cracked office window, the deep-night darkness outside reflecting them in dim transparency, like ghosts. She huddles behind a duty desk, jaw clenched tight. Pistol in one fist, a handful of the girl’s bodyglove in the other. Ready to bolt.

‘Kalkut?’ Data-Jack repeats, stepping forward, skirting a patch of ceiling tile shaken loose by the photon detonation, pistol sweeping back and forth. Two others follow. One has a shotgun. An automatic, if Statim makes it out right in the cracked glass.

‘Jallac,’ whispers Data-Jack to one of them. He’s a jowly older enforcer with a shaved scalp and Tzarina service automatic. ‘Sweep left. Clear those workstations.’

Jallac splits off, goes slow, careful. Peers over a desk, gun barrel first.

Statim doesn’t even dare to breathe. Worries, against all medical knowledge, that they can hear the piston hammer of her heartbeat.

Data-Jack and the shotgunner pass her, still sweeping the room, expecting ambush.

Jallac moves a desk closer, slow. Careful. In five seconds he’ll be right on top of Statim. He steps up to the other side of the desk.

‘Kal?’ Data-Jack says, alarmed. She sweeps a hand at the dead enforcer. ‘Check him. I’ve got you covered.’

The shotgunner moves with the practised ease of a veteran room-clearer. Movements quick and fluid, economical. He gets to the dead enforcer and kneels.

‘It’s Kal,’ he says. ‘Bastard always had to get ahead, didn’t he?’

‘Wanted the bonus,’ says Jallac. His broad face is huge in the window reflection. It seems impossible to Statim that the big man hasn’t seen her. She can see jewels of sweat on the man’s fleshy face. Can smell his odour of slatov and cheap cotin. ‘Sure it’s him? His face…’

One of Jallac’s meaty hands curls over her side of the desk. Statim hears the plasteel creak as the man leans over…

‘Pretty sure. Let me turn him over,’ says the shotgunner.

Statim raises the autopistol, slams her eyes shut.

Chi-chunk. The spring-loaded spoon of a…

‘Grenade!’ yells the shotgunner.

Shouting, diving. Rubberine soles squeaking on tile.

BANG.

The world goes star-bright as the photon flash detonates. Glass windows burst. More ceiling squares fall.

Statim moves. Leaps to her feet, left hand clamped around the kid’s collar, right hand jamming the shaking autogun into Jallac point-blank and pulling the trigger.

Flare leaps from the autopistol in a cross formation, bullets pulverising Jallac’s chest.

But the sound is strangely distant. Not like gunfire at all, but like the thump of a sewing machine in another room. Muted. Swallowed.

The world moves slow, colours drained by the bright light. Sounds echoing as if she’s underwater. She’d been less sheltered from the blast this time, the waves pummelling her inner ear and lancing through her screwed-shut eyelids.

Jallac isn’t as big as Statim thought. He’s wearing a bulky flak vest under his jacket but it hardly matters at this range. Carbon-weave fibre puffs the air as he falls backwards, bleating with surprise. Statim keeps the trigger depressed, hosing the room so Data-Jack rolls behind cover.

The shotgunner is on his back, holding his eyes. Blood leaking from his ears. Teeth bared in a grimace. Took the blast full in the face. Not a threat.

Everything’s so white, as if bleached. Even the dimmest bulb seems like it’s flaring straight into the back of her retina.

Statim drags the girl through a blizzard of ground glass and light debris. Sees Data-Jack pop up and turns her shaking pistol to hose the enforcer’s position. Diced paper flies. Data-Jack goes back down.

To her right Statim hears the huff of a pistol, a sound like sizzling grox strips – bullets passing. She twists and fires a burst at the open lift doors as she moves towards them, then follows it up with two more to keep the man pinned.

The bullets go everywhere. Hitting him isn’t the point. Not yet.

Statim’s whole body aches by the time she throws her back against the wall beside the lift doors. Before the man inside the lift can jump her, Statim hooks an arm inside and fires blind. Holds down the trigger.

Right to left.

Blat-blat-blat-blat-blat-blat.

Then left to right.

She only stops there because she hears a few hit flesh rather than steel. That, and Data-Jack is up again, winging shots across the room with not much more accuracy than Statim’s blind fire. Statim sprays back, amazed the magazine isn’t dry.

As soon as she thinks that, the slide goes back.

Statim drags the girl into the elevator, throws herself against the wall and slams the DOOR CLOSED button. Hits B for Basement. Yanks the NO STOPS knob that all lifts in enforcer stations and medicae facilities have.

The doors eke shut, extra slow in this world of shell shock and adrenaline.

A bullet whips between her and the girl. Flattens itself against the back of the lift like the sound of a far-off cathedral bell and tears through the skin of Statim’s shin in a ricochet. A second bounces high, and bursts one of the two lumen-bars in the ceiling.

And the lift doors slide closed to the sound of hammering. Far away. Muffled.

Like a bloody fist on a door.

Twenty-Three

‘Have you jacked the signal yet?’ Myra, impatient.

‘No, I haven’t jacked the signal yet,’ sneers Wires. ‘And jacking a signal isn’t what we say. But no, I haven’t tapped the signal.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s wild amounts of cross-traffic. Something big is happening at Barrier Bastion. A breakout or riot, not sure which – all the signals are layered on each other.’

Myra’s eyes dart from screen to screen.

‘Bring it up.’

‘Bring what up?’

‘The station broadcast. Not the special channel. The local one. Let’s hear what’s going on.’

‘Should be easy enough.’ Wires pops a lozenge in his mouth and chews. Exhales a stressed breath that smells of artificial mynt.

‘How long will it–’

‘I’m speaking to the one with the girl,’ says the voice of Enforcer-Captain Syriol Zhago.

Twenty-Four

Statim looks at the vox-speaker nestled in one of the lift’s ceiling corners. Wondering if she’d imagined it. Hoping.

‘You can’t get away. Deep down, you know that. Things have progressed too far.’

Bing. Second floor.

‘Bet I can get further than you think,’ she mutters, checking the girl’s pulse. Steady.

She shakes her head, trying to clear the ringing from her ears, banish the feeling of cotton-wrapped unreality caused by the photon flash. It feels almost foolish, being the sole standing person in between one dead body and an unconscious one.

The dead enforcer’s blood drips down the wall.

‘We will find you. Even if you make it out of this fortress, it’s only a matter of time. We will call a blanket bulletin on you. Bring the full weight of the city’s enforcers on your head. Shoot on sight.’

Bing. First floor.

‘If you knew where we were, you wouldn’t be doing this,’ she says.

She turns and picks the dead enforcer’s stub pistol off the deck. Pops and checks the magazine. Slides it back in.

‘My offer stands. Drop the girl and walk away. You have nothing to gain from continuing this. Save yourself. One death is better than two. Drop her where she is, go, and we will not chase you.’

Statim rifles through the dead man’s jacket for spare magazines. Finds one, but it’s been sitting against the man’s ruined chest wall and is so tacky with blood that it’ll jam the stubber. She ditches it.

‘Decide quickly. We are coming for you.’

Bing. Basement.

Statim huddles behind the lip of one door. Kneeling, shooting-stance braced.

It’s all coming back to her.

The doors open to reveal no one. Her staff car sits as she left it, high cab riding above the low blue-black painted Bastions that surround it.

She picks up the kid. Hopes she can get the gate open before they come downstairs. Begins thinking in checklists, taking it action by action like she’s performing complicated surgery fast.

Hoof it across the rockcrete. Check.

Open the back door. Check.

Girl in the back seat. IV in her arm port. Check, check.

In the driver’s seat. Check.

Shouts sound behind her.

Key in ignition. Engine roars on the first crank.

Now GO.

She swings the staff car out wide, scraping a forward lumen on the cruiser parked in the next stall. A bullet bounces off the roof. Another pings off the bumper.

She roars towards the gate, frantically cranking down the window. Punches the big red ‘EXIT’ button with a closed fist. Waits. Watches as the gate servitor turns a crank, ratcheting the big portcullis upwards. Pistol slugs skip behind her like rocks thrown across a pond. Still at far enough range that they’re wasting ammunition – unless they hit a tyre.

‘C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.’

Five feet. Seven feet.

Revving enginebikes.

Eight feet.

Good enough.

Gear-shift forward. Pedal on the floor.

The Tauros rockets up the ramp, hopping in the air briefly as it overshoots the ramp and slams down with bone-jarring force, despite the suspension.

Statim slews around on the wet street, heading towards the ascending ribbon of lights that marks the skyway arterial.

Twenty-Five

‘Someone’s got her,’ says Myra. ‘Not Zhago. Not an enforcer. Who?’

‘Bounty hunter?’ guesses Wires. ‘He seems to want her pretty badly. Enough to die for.’

‘A lot of people in this city would die for fifty thousand slates,’ says Myra. ‘I’m going down there.’

She pulls off the weighted gloves, stows them in a pocket. ‘Thanks, Wires. If I don’t see you, consider the debt clear.’

‘What’re you going to do? That place is full of enforcers and… and Emperor knows who this guy is. How will you know what’s going on?’

Myra drops a hand into her coat, feels the weight of the stubber there. The clumsy engraved plates on the grip that she’d fashioned from a discarded tin.

‘I’m going to find the guy who has Sola, and kill him. No questions. I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t care. All that matters is getting her back.’

She turns and puts her hand on the knob. ‘See you around.’

‘Wait!’ He waves a hand. Flips a switch. Sound blurts from the emitter boxes of the capture-vox. ‘Encryption just went through. Tap’s complete.’

‘–oming up on Mile One-Nine-Seven of the Chenkov Memorial Skyway.’ A woman’s voice, the one from before. ‘Spotted–’

‘I see it, Riz. Boxy vehicle. Looks Militarum cast-off.’

‘Taking off-ramp to Zanthus Loop.’

Wires looks at her, and Myra can see his eyes are wet. Stress or nostalgia for lost childhood, she’s not sure. There’s a hand-vox in his right palm.

‘Is the girl in the back?’

‘I can pull up alongside to confirm.’

‘Take the vox,’ says Wires. ‘I’ve patched it in. You can follow them. Emperor guide you.’

‘Didn’t get a look. It’s accelerating.’ A note of panic in the woman’s voice. ‘I think we’ve been made.’

‘Thanks. But I’ll need more than that,’ says Myra. ‘If they’re on the skyway, I can’t exactly take the rail there. That groundcar out front yours?’

He pauses.

‘Aw, no. Myra…’

‘Either I’m borrowing it, or I’m stealing it,’ she says. ‘If I borrow it, you’ll get it back.’

Twenty-Six

Statim sees the enginebike’s single lumen burning in her rear-view mirror. Sees it begin pulling up alongside, the helmeted, leather-clad rider leaning to peer into the back seat.

‘Throne damn it,’ she swears. Punches the velocity control to pull the Tauros up ahead. Changes lanes to cut the biker off, jagging hard to the left so the biker has to brake to avoid being clipped.

The biker is a she. Not Data-Jack. Another enforcer with a more streamlined jacket that goes with her sleek racing machine. Matt-black, with green serpents spiralling in a helix on each side. Passing overhead, lumens and city lights stream in reflections off her helmet.

Statim’s going fast enough that this might be a normal enforcer. Plain-clothes skyway patrol. The speed-gauge reads ‘87’, a full twenty miles beyond the limit.

Statim can only go that fast because it’s mid-shift. In another hour, noctis-shift will begin and this skyway will flood with traffic. Now, it’s only a few lone groundcars and cargo haulers, easy to weave through.

She could brake. Let them crash into her rear. But if it’s a standard enforcer or just some speed jockey biker, killing her will only heighten Statim’s problems.

The biker slews right, pulls up alongside, the buzzsaw whine of her engine cutting through the glass as she revs to Statim’s passenger-side view-pane. She extends her arm blade-straight, the bike leaning far to the right to give her the best angle, making a little triangle with her body.

At first Statim thinks she’s holding a badge, officially ordering her to slow down. Instead, she sees a matt-black autopistol. Small and manageable at speed.

Muzzle flash illuminates the Tauros’ passenger view-pane. Blink-blink. Sound stolen by the rush of wind.

The small-calibre rounds ricochet into the night, leaving thumbprint-sized divots in the armoured glass. Statim peels right, trying to ram her, but the biker’s too nimble for that and converts her lean into a turn.

She steadies herself for another shot, this time at the Tauros’ tyre.

Statim uses the biker’s speed to her advantage. Brakes, so the biker leaps out ahead, shots peppering the rockcrete in front of the Tauros’ wheels. Then Statim punches it as the biker tries to compensate, surging ahead to leapfrog the smaller machine.

She slides right to slip between two cargo haulers. The sound briefly cuts off, the slipstream passing between the two giant container vehicles stealing the noise as Statim plunges down the moving hallway.

Statim breaks through the other side and into a wall of sound. Tears under a broadcast sign reading ‘PURSUIT IN PROGRESS – MOVE TO SIDE’.

So it’s official, she thinks, as she feels the staff groundcar’s engine cycle higher. Howling pistons send a pleasant vibration through the cab, steering wheel feeling alive in her grip.

In her rear-view, she sees the strobe of the enforcer’s single lumen lighting up the gap between the two cargo haulers, throwing the looping graffiti on their containers into neon brightness. The biker’s front wheel wobbles this way and that as she navigates the forces of the wind tunnel.

Statim slams the wheel right, cutting as hard as she dares in front of the big cargo haulers, dashing almost perpendicular across the space between them.

Out of her passenger view-pane, Statim sees the biker swerve as the big staff car blocks the wind tunnel – the resistance to her bike suddenly cut off.

The biker oversteers. She’d been weaving to compensate for the buffeting winds. Removing them sends her bike sidelong into one of the cargo haulers.

There’s a ratchet sound as the biker’s helmet bounces off the corrugated surface of the container. Sparks fly as a line of the helmet’s gloss strips away to chrome metal. Her faceplate spiderwebs.

She flings an arm out to push away – jams it straight into the well of one of the oversized tyres with their road spikes.

Statim doesn’t watch. She’s too busy straightening out so she doesn’t plough into the skyway wall. But she sees enough in the passing glimpse she gets from her rear-view. The rider’s arm snared by the tyre spikes. The biker lifted from her seat, dragged into the well. Spun into the rockcrete over and over like a rag doll. The bike continuing on its own for a second before it slides sideways and grinds into nothing under the wheels.

And as the pulverised wreck spins behind, Statim sees more monocular head-lumens zooming around it. A flock of birds parting and re-forming.

More of them.

Twenty-Seven

It’s a Dymaxion Falchion with a candy-blue body. Yellow stripe down the side. Double head-lumens.

Myra hits the transmit button on the hand-vox. ‘This is a sweet ride, Wires.’

‘Please be careful,’ he whimpers. ‘Have you even driven a groundcar bef–’

Her front bumper clips a rubbish bin and sends it flying.

‘I’m doing fine,’ she says. All her driving has been on low-cylinder enginebikes, scooters really, and she isn’t yet accustomed to the battle cruiser turns of the muscular vehicle.

She swings a right turn against the light, rear tyres drifting and screeching. Horns blare and head-lumens white out one side of her vision before the treads bite and hurtle her forward again.

‘It took half a year of jobs to buy that Falchion.’

‘Good, because you owe me half a year of jobs.’ Myra downshifts, notes the alarming grinding sound this makes, and upshifts again. ‘Where are they now?’

‘Victory Skyway, Mile Two-Two-Three.’

‘Good,’ she says. ‘I’m at Ramp Two-One-Seven.’

She swings left. Sees the dome lamps spinning. Enforcers in hardened flak, helmets locked, blocking the ramp. Skyway patrol, by their light blue uniforms and reflector strips.

Checkpoint. Bottling off the scene of the chase. Two blocking squad vehicles and press-wood sawhorses in between. The enforcers wave for her to stop, raising weapons.

Myra downshifts. Only one gear this time. Feels the vehicle kick forward eagerly, and shifts down again. Her head-lumens reflect in the enforcers’ eyepieces like they’re a bunch of vent-rats caught in a stablight. Reflector strips glow bright.

They dive aside as she blasts through the sawhorse, fracturing the wood in the centre and bashing out one of the Falchion’s four head-lumens.

‘What was that? What happened?’

‘I’m on the skyway,’ Myra says. ‘Tell me where to go.’

Twenty-Eight

Rap. Rap-tap.

The sound of shots hitting her rear window. Every impact knocks a little crater in the reinforced glass, as if it’s been struck by a ballpeen hammer.

They’re hanging back, testing. Seeing if they can crack it. Statim sees a spark near her rear tyre and weaves, making herself a hard target.

Rap-tap.

More hits on the rear window. She can barely see out of it now, its thick glass and durable clear plastek liners riddled with impact blisters. Wire-thin cracks reach out to join other cracks.

It can’t last. With a citywide alert they’ll get units ahead of her. And though speed is her friend – the bikers can barely aim and steer their bikes – a few good hits on her tyres and she’ll have to decelerate. Anti-flat countermeasures or not, at Statim’s current speed she’ll shred a punctured tyre and roll the car. She could ram the next one that gets close, but that would risk bending an axle or denting her chassis into the tyre well, slowing her down.

Slowing down would mean them swarming.

Statim decides on a plan. Rolls her driver-side window halfway down. Puts a hand on her Rakov auto-snub.

One begins creeping up on her eight o’clock, Tzarina autopistol pointed at her left rear wheel.

‘No you don’t.’

She jukes right and pumps the brake, jolting the chassis on its suspension and throwing the girl against her restraints. The kid yelps in her sleep.

The biker shoots forward on Statim’s left. Ends up alongside the back seat view-pane, where he sees his moment and extends the Tzarina. Statim hears the clunk of its barrel hitting the window glass. Pointed right at the kid.

Statim sticks her arm out of the window, swept directly back, Rakov held sideways.

Tzarina and Rakov fire simultaneously.

The Tzarina’s shot sends a blast of glass into the back seat, crushed bits of crystal scattering over the girl’s body like diamonds, catching in the folds of her bodyglove.

The Rakov doesn’t fire once. Statim blazes shot after shot. Four or five, she isn’t sure. Wild. As fast as she can pull the trigger.

The first shot drills backwards, whipping past the biker as the Rakov kicks out of true. The next shot catches the enforcer’s left arm, crumpling it, causing the bike to swerve away from the staff car and into the line of the rest of the barrage.

With a last rev, the bike loses control and goes sideways, man and machine sliding on the street.

Statim checks on the girl. Sees the Tzarina’s flattened slug stuck in the window, the centre of a great radial crack, lodged in the plastek membrane between the two armoured glass panels.

The window won’t take another shot.

Horns blaring.

‘Shit!’

Statim looks ahead just in time to avoid the cargo hauler parked in the lane, pulled over as far as it can go. She veers right, close enough that her driver’s side mirror cracks into the big hauler’s bumper and tears away, left swinging by wires.

More lights on her right-hand side.

Statim rolls down her passenger window and prepares to empty the rest of the Rakov’s clip.

Twenty-Nine

‘Emperor’s blood!’ yells Myra.

The object goes under her tyres with a bump, and she hears scraping on the undercarriage.

‘What? What happened?’

‘I think… I think I just ran over a piece of enginebike. And a piece of enforcer.’ She swerves to avoid another big piece of debris.

‘Did you say “bike” or “enforcer”? I thought I heard one then the other.’

‘To be honest I think it was a bit of both.’

She slides past two cargo haulers pulled over to the side. Hears, in the distance, the snap-pop of gunfire.

‘Sola.’

Her foot presses the velocity pedal hard, as if she’s choking the life out of it with her boot. She whips up the skyway arterial. Past the bodies and wrecks. Under the warning display boards telling her to pull to the side.

To the place her sister lies in the vehicle of a stranger for reasons that could not – in any world – be good.

‘Sola,’ she says, and lays a hand on the stubber she’s placed on the centre console. ‘You better be alive when I get there.’

Thirty

Now this, thinks Statim, this is going to be a problem.

It’s not a standard enginebike this time. This one’s an up-armoured model with a sidecar. Curved side-panels shield the rider’s hands and lower body, his upper torso bulked with heavy sanctioner armour. The other enginebikes have backed off to give it room to operate, fearful of its heavy fire-power.

In the sidecar – its sides sloped in deflection angles like a Chimera hull – is a sanctioner with a pintle-mounted grenade launcher. Lights gleam off the blued steel of the launcher’s barrel as the bike pulls up alongside Statim. The big drum-fed weapon points at the rear right corner of the Tauros.

At the tyre.

Statim thinks it can’t be flak grenades. Not even these bastards would fire full-on military ordnance in the middle of a skyway full of civilian vehicles. And they wouldn’t be getting so close, would they?

That means… Oh, Throne.

Statim knows what’s coming. Braces for the deceptively hollow, almost friendly sound of the launcher.

Pook.

Flechette round.

Rubberine punctures. Torn metal screams. Reminds Statim of a particularly bad warp translation during the crusade, when unseen horrors tore strips out of the ship’s hull.

The steering wheel comes alive in Statim’s hands, pulling hard right towards the blown tyre before she wrestles it left. Heavy compensation causes her to fishtail.

‘No, no. Shit.’

The Tauros’ rear slews for fifteen feet before she gets it under control and feels the tyres bite again, the whole frame tilted to one side like she’s driving on a ten per cent grade.

Statim does a mirror check. Sees the right rear panel of the Tauros shredded, winking chrome metal beneath the paint. The outer tyre is ripped open and riding on the solid inner safety tyre.

She checks the interior. The rear passenger window is a jigsaw of damage. Needle darts, four inches long and tipped with stabiliser fins, stick through it in a scatter pattern.

She’d been right. Flechettes.

Ugly damn things. Can strip a person to their skeleton at close range.

None made it inside. None hit the girl.

As she looks back, she sees the predatory black shape of the dual-cycle back off the Tauros’ right side, slide behind her, come up on her left.

Statim decelerates so she doesn’t roll. Run-flat tyres can’t go above fifty without upending the big groundcar. She hopes it will bring the bike alongside. It does. The man in the sidecar can’t get a shot around the driver.

Ramming it risks damaging the Tauros, but at this point she’ll be dead on the street within a minute. Her Rakov is empty. The captured enforcer pistol had bounced to the passenger footwell. Her shotgun is far too big to be of use.

‘Get closer, arsehole. Closer.’

The sidecar rider pumps his grenade launcher, cycles the big drum magazine. He lays the barrel crosswise over the handlebars, aiming at Statim’s left front tyre.

Statim can see street lumens winking off the copper tips of the fat canisters in the cylinder, each as big as a ration tin. Bars of light roll in lines over the enforcers’ armour.

‘G’night, bastard.’

She spins the protesting steering wheel hard left, the textured plastek slick under her sweating palms. Sends the bulk of her armoured vehicle into the rider like a moving wall. Feels the satisfying crunch of metal on metal, the shiver of the chassis skeleton as it bashes panelling and flesh flat, and punches against the bike’s hard engine.

Pook.

Her driver-side window explodes inwards, the half-rolled-down glass unable to take the force of the blast. It scatters the dashboard like a handful of thrown ice cubes, and chews her face. In the corner of her eye, beyond the hazy cloud of red spreading across her vision, she sees the outer layer of her tyre come away like a ploin peel, sees the steel rim of the wheel contact the road and drag, fountaining yellow sparks.

‘Oh, shi–’

Thirty-One

The Tauros rolls. Goes over sideways at a diagonal. The first tilt goes so slow that Statim has the time to hope that gravity will take over, to notice the Saint Galenia charm dangling from her rear-view hang impossibly to the side, to see the sidecar-cycle do its own forward tumble, bending its riders’ spines unnaturally backwards as it mashes them against the ground.

BANG. First hit, on the Tauros’ side.

The road surface is inches from Statim’s face, then retreating.

BANG. On the roof. Gravity pulling wrong. World upside down.

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG.

No visual. Only noise.

Statim gasps. Realises she’s blacked out. Blood and promethium scent the air.

Hears the purr of enginecycles approaching.

She’s inverted, head three inches above the roof, held in place by her shoulder restraints. Pain lances her head, stinging in her left arm.

Statim tries to look at the kid. Can’t see her. Slaps the quick-release on her shoulder belts and swears as her rattled cranium hits the ceiling, jamming her neck.

Not a pretty dismount. The door handle doesn’t turn, so she pulls herself out of the broken window, flopping like a sump-fish.

She keeps moving. Medicae training, and bitter experience, tells her she shouldn’t stop. Keep the adrenal glands pumping; don’t feel the pain. Take a moment to collect herself and she’ll crash. Get the shakes. Not be able to think.

Through her tunnel vision she sees the girl hanging in the back seat, the restraints pinning her to the ceiling. The floor? The seat?

The seat. That’s the word.

The kid hangs in the straps, limp like a carcass. Blood drips in ropey strands from her midsection, soaking the belts. Pooling on the ceiling.

‘It’s all right,’ Statim says. ‘It’s all right, you’re all right. I’m coming in.’

She’s still shaken. Cloudy.

Statim smashes out what’s left of the window and crawls inside. Gets her shoulder under the kid and hits the harness release. Takes her weight. Pulls her out of the wreck and props her back against the skyway barrier that stopped the big Tauros from rolling right off the road and into the oblivion below.

Does the kid have a spinal injury? Doesn’t matter now. She’ll be dead in a few minutes, just like Statim. Better to keep her wound elevated just in case they make it.

Statim lives in the Emperor’s hope.

Enginebike motors. Closer now. She peeks through the shattered, upturned Tauros to see thin tyres weaving carefully through the debris field spread across the road. She counts four in a quick glance, but doesn’t risk longer.

Not much time now.

Her trauma bag is on the ceiling of the cab, its sling tangled up with the shotgun. She’d been damn lucky that thing hadn’t gone off during the roll and cut her in half.

No sign of the stolen autopistol. Her Rakov, still empty, sits on the road, thrown against the barrier.

Statim unwinds her trauma bag’s strap from the stock of the shotgun. Places it beside the girl. Confirming there’s already a shell in the chamber, she flicks off the safety.

‘Enforcers.’ The voice is a man’s. Low and gruff.

Statim flattens up against the side of the upturned Tauros, using its thick back half and high wheel to shield her body and head.

‘Emerge slowly,’ the enforcer continues. ‘No weapon. Hands above your head. The penalty for non-compliance is summary execution.’

Yeah, thinks Statim. A summary execution is what you’re planning with that hands up nonsense. In the last thirty minutes she’s killed at least four enforcers…

Wait.

Two in the precinct.

One biker between the cargo-8s.

One shot out of her window.

Two in the sidecar bike.

Six. At least six enforcers. And she feels like she’s forgetting one.

But it doesn’t matter. Kill one enforcer and you don’t make it to the holding cell. She’s way out on the Eastern Fringe, here.

So she responds by firing the shotgun blind around the Tauros. Pellets rattle against rockcrete and enginebike bodies. She hears one enforcer shout in pain.

A fusillade of hard rounds answers. They ping off the Tauros’ body. Whip through the windows. Bounce up off the street to chip the rockcrete side barrier. Well clear of the girl, nestled in the safe corner between wreck and wall.

Statim realises that from up here on the skyway, twenty-five storeys in the air, she can see the whole city. Its glowing habclaves, each point of light a person with their own struggles. The rockcrete ribbon of the arterial, glowing yellow at its lighting intervals like some weird bioluminescent worm, weaving between buildings.

To her left, she sees a young boy – full face, clear – peeking out of his bedroom window at the gunfight before his father pulls him away.

You forget that people live within throwing distance of this skyway. Breathe the toxic fumes of its vehicles day in and day out. Hear every siren and car chase. Every cartel battle.

Stray shots could kill them anytime. Statim’s seen it happen.

The autogun rounds are trailing off now. From hail on a roof to a strike every two to three seconds.

On the road in front of her is her groundcar’s detached side mirror, the one that had dangled by wires since it’d been knocked off in the close call with the cargo hauler.

She picks it up, uses it to look at the enforcers besieging her.

There are five of them, not four. Huddled behind their enginebikes for cover, pistols braced. One has liberated the big grenade launcher from the wrecked sidecar. Statim can see its stubby barrel poking up from behind the mangled barrier of machine and armoured man.

He’s checking it, making sure there’s no bend in the barrel that’ll make it explode if fired.

Smart.

Then Statim sees a hand come up from behind one of the enginecycles. Holding not a weapon, but a broadcast vox.

‘Akeso Statim.’

Thirty-Two

It’s Amber Eyes.

‘Yes, we know who you are.’ A blip as the transmission hiccups. ‘–address is a matter of record. You’ve gone pretty far off the path on this one, Statim. Endangered a lot of people. Innocent people.’

Statim racks another shell into the shotgun.

‘You want to know why we’re after her. Very well. She’s a spree-killer. Innocent little gang juve by day, cult murderer by night. Didn’t know that, did you?’

‘I bet,’ yells Statim. ‘That’s why you slew an entire precinct full of your own to get to her. That makes sense.’

The shotgun has four shells left. Nowhere near enough. But enough to make this messy.

‘We have the law on our side. We are executing what’s in the best interest of the city.’

‘I don’t hear any Zurov gunships!’ she yells. Her voice comes out ragged, tired. ‘If everyone knows what’s going on here, where’s your air cover? Where’s the sanctioner teams and cyber-mastiffs, huh? None of them are here, because you don’t want anyone else to ask questions about what led to this.’

Silence.

A blip. ‘What is she saying? I can’t make it out.’

The vox disappears, the enforcer bringing it to his mouth to repeat Statim’s argument. Behind the enginebike barricade, the others exchange glances, look to the vox.

And Statim makes her move. Her bold, final statement.

If she’s going to die, she’s going to die big. Make a lot of noise. Ensure that someone in these adjoining towers sees it and asks the questions these bloody-minded men are so afraid of.

She whirls around the bent chassis of the staff car, bangs a shot into the enforcer who looks the most alert. Plasteel chips fly from the bike’s body.

Racks the slide.

Sends another cloud of pellets at a guy in the centre, who rises up to return fire. Sends him backwards, squealing, with a face dotted with scattershot.

The broadcast vox makes an ear-splitting squeal. Some interference is setting it into robotic paroxysms of agony. Perhaps she’s hit it. No time to think about it.

Statim whirls, sees the grenadier rising. The huge barrel of the weapon is dark, empty, yawning like a transit tunnel. Ready to unleash a horde of flechette darts that’ll strip her like the piece of meat that she – from years of training and practice – knows that she is.

Then a rising light bathes the barricade from behind, and Statim wonders if this is the choir of angels that soldiers envisioned when they were on her table, torn to pieces, their hearts giving out.

Then, she hears the engine.

Thirty-Three

Myra drives right into the barricade of enginecycles. Ploughs down crouching enforcers that, too late, look over their shoulders to see the wide grille and double-lights bearing down on them. Faces twist in alarm and almost comic surprise before the mauling impact.

Bikes skid and roll like ten-pins. Howls and screams are cut off. She strikes them at an angle, hitting the bikes in a line, giving some of the enforcers a moment to run before they’re rolled over her windscreen or mashed under the wheels.

She hates to do it. It physically hurts her. She’d kill, literally kill, for a ride as hot as one of these matt-black prowlers with their six pistons and racing guards. Too bad – under the wheels they go.

She hits the brakes, skids sideways to a stop, left hand extended to sight her autopistol on a leather-clad enforcer holding some big stubber-thing that looks like it fires cans of sup-broth.

Her auto puts five shots into his torso. Dum-dum rounds, meant to fragment on impact. But he’s wearing a vest under all that synthleather, so instead of tearing him apart the shots thump him backwards one after the other in a drunken stagger.

His back hits the skyway barrier and he goes over, the weight of the huge weapon making him top-heavy.

Twenty-five storeys down. His scream goes on a long time.

Before it’s even ended, she’s out of the groundcar, sheltering behind the open door, pistol pointed at the bloody middle-aged woman who’s standing in the road, shotgun in hand, gawking at the carnage.

‘Who the hell are you? And where the fuck is my sister?’

Thirty-Four

She’s small and lean, turquoise-dyed hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Moves with a careful deliberateness that fascinates Statim. The way older people move, when they’re unsure of their bones.

‘Are you part of her gang?’ Statim asks. She remembers the shotgun in her hands. Lets it fall and hang by the strap. Puts her hands up.

‘My sister,’ the woman says.

Then Statim sees the family resemblance. Wants to ask questions but thinks better of it.

‘She’s behind the groundcar. I got her out after the crash. She’s bleeding, but I can help with that.’

Sirens in the distance.

‘Walk me there,’ the woman says.

Statim turns, hands up. ‘I’m gonna keep my shotgun if that washes with you. More will be coming.’

‘What are you, some kind of bounty hunter?’

‘Medicae, first class.’

‘A doctor?’ she snorts. ‘Right. No one would go out this far on the rim for one of us.’

‘No one with sense,’ Statim says. ‘Too bad I don’t have any.’

Statim turns when she hears the scream. Sees the enforcer – his face a mask of blood, bones pulped by the car – clawing his way up from the street, a springblade in his hand.

Statim scrambles for the shotgun too late. The gleaming double-edged blade flashes up, carving a bloody slash across the blue-haired woman’s shin. She’s lucky. If she hadn’t jumped back, it might’ve hit a tendon or artery.

The woman’s stubber comes down.

BANG.

The blood-masked enforcer falls to the street.

The woman looks up at Statim, sees the shotgun she’s holding, pointed at the dead enforcer.

‘I guess you’re on my side, then,’ the woman says. She limps forward, reaching out to Statim’s arm for support.

Thirty-Five

‘Sola. Sola, it’s me, Myra.’ Myra drops to one knee, doesn’t heed the sirens closing in. Puts a hand to her sister’s pale cheek. ‘She’s cold.’

‘She’s alive.’ Statim does a pulse-check just to be sure. ‘But the sealant foam in her wound broke open during the crash. I need to reapply it.’

‘Then do it.’

‘We don’t have time,’ Statim says, one bloody hand gesturing at the air, as if indicating the dirge-wail. ‘They’ll be on us.’

‘I’ve tapped their vox,’ she says. ‘The others are well back. We maybe have two minutes.’

‘Not enough–’

‘Do it in the car.’

Statim gets her arms under the girl – Sola, she has a name now – and carries her to the fine vehicle with its racing stripe and mashed grille. The ganger limps along behind her, pistol held in a non-threatening-but-still-there stance.

‘They’ll see her,’ Statim reasons. ‘They must have checkpoints.’

‘That’s why you aren’t riding in the cab,’ the ganger says, and pops the generous trunk.

Thirty-Six

Myra’s lucky Wires bought the groundcar not just for style, but trunk space. It’s wide and deep, enough for the medicae to almost get on her hands and knees over her sister, already working, bag zipped all the way open next to her, splayed like a pinned insect.

Sola’s face is so white her pox-scars stand out like freckles. Shadows pool inside them. Myra hates the idea of closing the trunk on her, separating herself from Sola after so long searching.

It feels like closing a coffin.

‘If she’s not alive when I open this,’ Myra says, ‘I’m going to work on you with a hex-wrench.’

She slams the trunk, slides into the driver’s seat, and peels off through the debris.

Not driving fast. Steady, but not fast.

The first haze of blue-and-red appears over the upward curve of the road thirty seconds later. She pulls to the side like a good citizen, keeps both hands on the wheel to show she has no weapon. Lets them pass.

She hears the sound of blood dribbling off her wounded calf and into the footwell.

Pat-pat. Pat-pat. Pat-pat.

Life draining away with every drip. But she dares not take her hands off the wheel. That’s how you get shot.

When the convoy whips by, she gives herself a moment. Opens her zip-kit to get a phial of coagulant. Slips it into the stimm-slug port on her chest and hits the activator.

Chunk-hiss.

Her next breath comes ragged. As if her lungs are having a hard time inflating. She coughs. Vision swims. The urge to vomit comes and she rides it, comes out the other side less through willpower and more because she hasn’t eaten in over a day.

Stimm-sick. She hasn’t double-dosed coagulant in years – not this close together. Two doses in back-to-back days is dangerous, two in a few hours?

Myra can feel her heart beating slow and hard. Painful each time, like it’s pushing sludge through her system rather than blood. For thirty seconds, each beat feels like it’s a downhive bare-knuckle fighter pounding one-two combos into her chest.

She takes a deep breath.

‘For Sola,’ she tells herself. ‘Tough it out for Sola.’

And she pulls her vehicle into the empty road and continues into the night, trying to separate the thud of enforcer gunship engines from the laboured slam of her own overtaxed heart.

Thirty-Seven

Statim’s worked under worse conditions, but she can’t think of many. She’s lying propped on her elbows, with a stablight clenched between her molars like a cigar. Breath rips out of her open mouth as she tries not to drool on Sola.

Sola. Good name. She wonders what the sister is–

The groundcar hits a bump and her head cracks the trunk ceiling. The metal stablight clacks against her teeth. She feels a sharp pebble on her tongue along with a chalky taste. Realises she’s just chipped a tooth.

She curses unintelligible profanity, then inserts the synthskin trauma foam into Sola’s reopened wound. Presses down, hears the wet hiss. The scent of aerosol chemicals fills the trunk, and she briefly worries that the fumes might knock them out if they stay in here too long.

Then she realises that the car is slowing. Hears the bleat of a siren.

Sola shifts in her unconsciousness. Frowns, whimpers.

‘Shhhhh,’ Statim says, and covers the girl’s mouth.

Thirty-Eight

‘Order is to pull to the side,’ says the skyway patrol officer. She’d been directing traffic when she saw Myra cruising down towards her, mounted her enginebike – a bulky Graviteer model in blue-and-white heraldry – and sirened her down.

She has her gun pointed right at Myra’s face, taking no chances.

And Myra, she’s taking all the chances. Taking the chance that this enforcer with her short, bob-cut hair – a little bit older than the standard skyway patrol – is on skyway duty because she isn’t smart enough for the probators or mean enough for the sanctioners. That she, like a lot of enforcers, is just your average working lug that wants to draw pay, wear the sigil, and not be overly bothered.

One who won’t walk around to the front of the groundcar and see the gore caught in the grille.

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ says Myra, putting on her best scared-kid face. ‘That bastard they’re chasing clipped my ride. I got out to check the damage and the enforcers tore by, kicked up a piece of debris with a tyre and…’

She keeps both hands on the wheel, raises her leg so the officer can see the nasty gash in her shin.

The enforcer peers over, makes a face. ‘You’re supposed to stay put.’

‘I need a medicae,’ Myra begs. ‘My great-uncle was a field corpsman in the defence forces. He can fix me up. Please, I got a condition. I can’t stop bleeding when I start. Only had one phial of coagulant with me and–’

She holds out the empty phial, has it ready between her fingers so she doesn’t have to reach for it, in case the patrolwoman gets jumpy.

‘All right, calm down.’ The officer lowers her gun. ‘You picked a hell of a time to ask for an exception.’ She blips her chest-vox. ‘Block Unit Epsilon?’

Blip.

‘Copy.’

‘I got a civilian vehicle coming through. Designation DVZ-7887. Medical necessity. Clear to pass.’

‘Thank you, thank you.’

‘Get off this road before you get hurt, girl.’

Myra pulls away, thanking the God-Emperor for lucky breaks and gullible authorities.

Thirty-Nine

A side alley. Some commercia district Statim’s never been to.

‘I stopped the bleeding,’ she says. Her arms are looped under Sola’s, closing in a double fist over her breastbone. ‘Lift her feet, keep her as straight as possible.’

There’s an alarming amount of blood in the trunk. A little trail of it spills over the back of the bumper and vehicle identification plate as they take Sola out.

‘Is she going to be all right?’ the ganger woman asks.

‘If I tell you the truth, will you shoot me?’

‘I’ll shoot you if you don’t.’

Statim carefully slides Sola into the back seat, goes around the other side to guide her body through the safety restraints that she uses to strap the kid down. Talks as she does it.

‘Look, I’m a field medicae. Not a chirurgeon. The wound is deep and she’s lost a lot of blood. When she showed up at my clinic, I did the best I could. Got the slug out. Temporarily packed the wound with foam. But if she’s going to make it then she needs a trained professional who can do the internal repairs I can’t.’

‘You could try.’ The woman raises the pistol. ‘Given the right motivation.’

‘No, I can’t.’ Statim raises her right hand, shows the ganger how it shakes with palsy, the ugly burn scar under the regimental tattoo. ‘But I know a guy.’

‘Mmmm,’ the ganger woman says. Gestures to the driver’s seat. ‘Lucky you. Why don’t you drive us there?’

‘You don’t need the gun.’

‘I’ll decide when I need the gun and when I don’t. You ain’t with the enforcers, right enough. You’ve got medicae training. But for all I know, you’re a bounty scalper looking for a score. But don’t call me ungrateful. You’ve kept her alive, which is why you’re still alive. I say we continue that simple deal, yeah? You live, she lives.’

‘Sounds fair.’

‘Splendid,’ the woman says, flinging open the driver’s side door. ‘So drive, Doc.’

So that’s how it happens. Statim up front like a stretch-car driver, the ganger in the back, Sola’s head in her lap. One of the woman’s hands keeps the pistol on Statim; with the other, she strokes her sister’s hair.

Statim keys up the ignition. Pulls out into the street. Midnight has come, along with a rain. It bangs the windscreen, cleans the bloodstains and meat off the groundcar’s grille. Shields them from notice.

It’s when Statim makes the first turn that she sees the phial in the recaff-holder.

‘That yours?’ she says, nodding.

‘None of your racket. Keep your eyes on the rockcrete and tyres between the white lines.’

Statim nods. ‘I’m…’ Then she thinks better of it. But what the hells, Statim figures – if this teenager’s going to shoot her, she’ll shoot her.

‘I’m just saying, whoever that belongs to… they’d better be careful with that stuff. Haemocoaguline is dangerous long-term. Not recreational. Y’know?’

Statim’s eyes find the woman’s in the rear-view mirror. And with a single look she reads the situation. Sees the stimm-slug port over her heart, peeking out from the armless yellow top below the coat.

Statim says, ‘But I see that person knows that already. Sorry for intruding.’

The ganger woman holds the gun on her, brushes the hair away from Sola’s forehead. Then says, ‘How did you find her?’

Statim takes a deep breath.

‘You have it backwards. She found me…’

Forty

It’s a good story.

A damn good story. Believable. Incredible, but it fits.

It’s how the doc tells it that gives it authenticity. The sheer fatigue Myra can read in the reflection of the older woman’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

Myra thinks it happened.

If it didn’t, this lady should be in the picts. She has the looks – not beauty, exactly, or at least not the kind that gets cast in romantic roles – but a kind of dense strength. Like a pistol that’s heavier than it looks. Myra can imagine her playing a villain’s henchman, or a put-upon aunt.

‘What’s your name?’ Myra asks.

‘Akeso,’ she says. ‘Akeso Statim.’

‘Myra Salk.’

‘Charmed,’ she answers, not without irony.

‘Better be,’ she says. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To a clinic.’

‘Yours?’

‘I wish,’ she snorted. ‘Medicae-Chirurgeon Raffinio Artella. Old Militarum friend. He runs a clinic in the mid-levels for the gilded. Bespoke augmetic surgery, that kind of thing.’

‘A fancy friend.’

‘Well, he sells me expired pharms for the clinic. Mostly pain-dampeners. Not exactly legal, but it balances his books and gives me enough to take the edge off a patient when I need to do a bad patch-up. He lives a little outside the lines, like a lot of gilded do. Excites him, I think. Takes away the guilt over the fact that he’s up mid-levels while I’m in the Low Dredge.’

A pause.

‘I also want to ask him about that tattoo on Sola.’ Statim makes a slow turn right. ‘He’s more familiar with military tattooing than I am. During the crusade, I was down in the mud extracting high-value personnel, stabilising them so they could get airlifted out. He was up orbital, doing the actual surgeries that put them back together.’

‘Sola wasn’t in the Guard,’ says Myra. ‘She’s a Ripper ganger, like me. Just a juve, not inked into the association yet. But on the way. Or at least, she was when I needed money for…’ She trailed off. ‘I don’t know how she got that ink, but I have a suspicion.’

‘If you want to share–’

‘The pale bastard you call Amber Eyes. He’s Captain Zhago. Grade-Alpha arsehole who runs the anti-gang squad. Friend of mine, the one who tapped the vox, he had a spool-slug recording of them picking Sola up. Talking about quotas, that they have to get someone. That Sola doesn’t look like she’ll be missed.’

‘So it’s a crackdown?’

‘She ain’t some mind-fucked spree-killer, if that’s what you’re saying,’ Myra snarls. ‘Heard that groxshit over the vox-tap.’

‘Not what I meant,’ Statim says.

‘So you think it’s customary to give arrested gangers Militarum tattoos? That sound like standard practice?’

‘Farro told me juves are disappearing. What you’re saying is they’re running an operation on the side?’

‘Selling them to orbit maybe. To the ships.’

‘Risky.’ Statim shakes her head. ‘That’s illegal. Not regular illegal either. Call-the-commissar illegal. It isn’t that they don’t do it, but press-ganging is only allowed if an official call-up falls short. It’s a punishment for not making tithe. And it’s Naval personnel that do it, not enforcers. The official side of it is important, because informal inductions have been known to trigger rebellion, especially when they’re taking the underaged. Usually the Militarum doesn’t use conscripts unless they’re from a world with a tradition of it, like Cadia. Doing it is way outside regulations. People that get caught usually get an explosive-tipped reprimand right in the back of the skull. And it would take a lot of falsified paperwork.’

‘Well, by the time the officers figure out that these juves didn’t volunteer, they’d be half a sector away, wouldn’t they? Maybe they’re short-handed, need to fill holes in the ranks.’

‘Maybe,’ says Statim, her stomach flipping over. Not because it’s impossible, but because her experience of the Astra Militarum suggests it’s more than possible. That it had probably happened to a few of the mangled conscripts that came across her trauma table in the field hospital. The Emperor’s armies needed bodies, and provided those bodies showed up regularly and in a condition to fight, you learned not to ask too many questions.

To be part of the great overlooking. The wilful ignorance that allows so much monstrosity to happen in the name of keeping the crusade rolling towards victory.

She decides to be honest. Adds, ‘…probably. Yeah, I can see that.’

‘You have a unit tattoo,’ she says. ‘How’d you get it? Induction?’

Statim laughs. ‘Not exactly. Got wounded – it covers a skin graft.’

Myra leans forward to get a better spec angle.

‘Who’s Markus?’ she asks.

Statim blinks. Looks at her in the rear-view. Rolls her shoulders in a shrug.

‘I was in a field hospital on Decletion. Weird planet. Mostly jungle, with these old pre-crusade temples coming up through the canopy. None of our tech worked. The humidity got into it. Couldn’t stand the grind of the hospital tent, patching children your age up, sending them back against the t’au.’

‘I’m not a child.’

‘Next to me, you’re brand new. Enjoy it while it lasts. Anyway, I requested a transfer to special tasks. Wanted to be out in it, y’know? Felt bad I wasn’t. Extractor Alpha was a Tempestus Scion team…’

‘You were a Scion?’

‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘I served with the Scions. Big difference. We inserted into xenos-held ground to find high-value personnel. Downed pilots. Wounded officers. Intelligence operatives coming back with information. And we extracted them via Valkyrie.’

‘Pilots?’ says Myra. Forever interested in fast vehicles and the people that control them. ‘You find any?’

‘We found some pieces of a Thunderbolt once,’ she says. ‘That was about it. War isn’t like the pict-flickers.’

‘I’d give anything to fly in a Valkyrie. Be off the ground. Nothing between you and the sky. No buildings, no skyways, no smokestacks.’

Statim chuckles. ‘Think I prefer the groundcar. Was in three Valkyrie crashes.’

‘What was it like? To crash.’

‘I… prefer not to think about it.’

Myra raises the pistol, and an eyebrow.

Statim’s not sure if the girl is serious or if it’s a friendly joke. Either way, she starts talking. It feels like a night for purging old bile. And if this is the end of the line, it might be good to get it off her chest.

‘If you want to be that way about it,’ Statim says. ‘There were three crashes. Only one of them bad. First was what we called an Administratum crash, meaning we technically went down – engines cut at ten feet – but it was just a hard landing, noted as a crash on the paperwork. Another I was on the ladder. Knocked half my molars out against a tree on that one.’

‘And the third, was that the one with Markus?’

‘That was the worst one. The last one…’

Forty-One

Three years ago. Decletion. Mission Twenty-Nine. Thirty miles past the main battle line. Two point five miles from where their Valk took a hit to the right vector engine and went spinning down through the canopy like a top. Centrifugal force flung the door gunners out; passing rainforest branches popped the canopy and flayed the pilot and co-pilot in their seats.

But they’d made it to the target. Not intact. Extractor Alpha had six men this morning. Now there are only three.

Statim’s never seen a general before, much less been up to her forearms in one.

The general’s intestines are going all over the place. The rail-gun hit had filled her command Chimera with shrapnel, slicing her open like a ration tin.

‘Don’t let me die,’ says General Symphonie Ravellen. ‘Don’t. I’ll give you anything if I live. Anything.’

She looks so different from the posters and propaganda vids. Statim can barely hear the general’s voice over the plasma screaming overhead.

‘You’re going to make it, sir,’ Statim says. ‘No problem at all. You’re going to pull through.’

She’s good at lying. All medicae are. A medicae has to look straight into the face of a soldier who’s bleeding out and tell them they’ll survive – because if you don’t, they’ll give up. Succumb to the fatigue and blood loss. Heart loses the will to beat. Lungs stop fighting for breath. To give them a chance at life, you have to tell them they’re going to live.

After all, if you tell them they’ll live, and they don’t – well, those ones don’t tend to lodge an official complaint.

So Statim lies.

‘This might hurt a little,’ she says as she slides the general’s stomach into the bloody cavity torn in her midsection. Rolls up a braided sleeve and hits her with a pain-dampening curette. ‘Time!’

‘Thirty seconds!’ Markus says. He wheels from behind the ruined, bell-shaped stupa they’ve taken cover behind and unleashes a screaming fusillade from his hotshot volley gun. Markus. A scholam-boy like all the Scions. But he isn’t high-born. He’d been a child-ganger in the underworld of his home planet. Developed a rough edge and a wicked smile that showed off his gold-inlaid teeth. The Ministorum plucked him out of a gaol cell when they were a few orphans short of minimum class size.

His barrage catches a pair of t’au fire warriors trying to turn their flank. The rotating cycle of red beams dices them into pieces. The smell of their cooking blood, so different from the iron-rich vitae of humans, stinks in Statim’s nostrils.

‘See?’ Statim says to the general. ‘Thirty seconds.’ She uses her suture gun to clamp the woman’s torso together. Blood of Sanguinius. The fact that Ravellen’s alive at all is a miracle. At some point in the past, she’d got an abdominal augmetic to regularise her digestion, and it was the only reason she hadn’t been cut in half.

Statim’s fingers fly, dexterous and steady. Suturing with her right, the aerosol can of wound-foam in her left. Plugging holes in organs, immobilising and coating pieces of shrapnel so they don’t cause more damage when she seals up the abdominal cavity – problems for the orbital chirurgeon to deal with. She unrolls a big patch of sterile synthskin and compresses it over the abdominal wound, sealing it.

Downwash from a vector engine presses her flat, fills her ears. The Valkyrie. Grit stings Statim’s eyes and she grabs a scratched pair of goggles from around her neck, pulls them up.

Plasma fire slackens, redirects. Engine scream fills the air. Leaves and small twigs torn loose from the canopy whip by Statim, clicking off her helmet. Wind tears at her combat fatigues. It’s like working inside a cyclone.

Pounding impacts shake the earth – Thunderbolt strike fighters, pulverising the t’au attackers with heavy ordnance. The air cover they’d asked for half an Emperor-damned hour ago.

‘Receiving extraction board!’ yells Sergeant Ravl. He stands, grabs the casualty board dropped on a line from the hovering Valkyrie that’s stamped them all flat with its vector thrust. He guides it down beside Statim, nearly gets it there before a plasma bolt hits him where his carapace breastplate meets his helmet.

It melts him from the neck up. Fuses ceramic armour plates and bone. Statim knows he’s gone the second he hits dirt. The drumming of his arms and legs on the ground is merely a nerve reaction.

Statim focuses on getting the general on the casualty board, securing her neck in the brace rip-taped to the board. Smacks the stud that activates the refractor field.

Statim throws a thumbs-to-heaven gesture and the board rises, plasma shots flashing against the blue of the encircling shield. Aboard the Valkyrie, twenty feet above, other trauma medicaes grab the board’s handholds and swing it into the main cabin.

Then the Valkyrie’s gone – towards the horizon as fast as it can burn. Off to evacuation, one step towards the surgical suites in the orbiting hospital ships.

‘Stat!’ yells Markus. He grabs Statim by the collar of her flak vest and drags her towards a second Valkyrie. ‘Let’s get out, Doc! No one left to save.’

This Valkyrie has set down – risky, but necessary. It would’ve been their backup if the xenos had downed the planned extraction vehicle.

Markus wields the hotshot volley gun one-handed, spraying las-fire towards the t’au as they try to advance. The point isn’t to hit anyone, just keep their heads down.

They’re the last two. Two of six.

Statim runs, fires behind her with her laspistol. Red darts flash through the smoke and dirt, the miniature tornadoes of the Valkyrie’s cycling-up engines.

She can feel Markus’ hand on the small of her back, incongruously protective and gentle amid the violence, ushering her to step into the aircraft first.

Markus turns, plants his feet and shoots his backpack cell dry to give them cover. A full powercell on a Valkyrie is a bad idea. They’ve been known to cause cabin fires if struck by small-arms fire.

Statim jumps into the open side door of the Valkyrie. A door gunner gives her a nod and fires a chatter of heavy bolter ammunition towards the silhouettes approaching through the dust. The ammo feed halts, jerking back and forth.

Markus mounts up, turns around.

They see the fire warrior coming out of the dust. His flawless white armour is too perfect for the terrain. Too clean.

The alien raises its pulse rifle.

Statim can’t be sure what happens. Markus might have been turning to clear the heavy bolter jam, or to fire the very last of his backpack cell.

But to Statim, from her view, it looks like he’s shielding her with his body.

The plasma takes him in the chestplate. Reflects up to Markus’ face. Leaves it a featureless mass, a barren asteroid with craters for eye sockets. All the things that made Markus recognisable, flash-fried.

Apart from the gleam of his gold-inlaid teeth.

Statim catches him as he falls, only realises as she does it, as the big Scion’s weight presses back on her, that the inside of her right arm is charred from wrist to elbow from the same shot.

She doesn’t even feel the pain. It’s cooked her nerves. But Markus, Markus is feeling it. Even on his eggshell face Statim can read the agony.

Statim lies. Tells Markus he will pull through. That they’re going home. That the chirurgeons in orbit will fix him.

Markus, thank the God-Emperor, is already dead.

Forty-Two

The white reflective stripe of the road spools past them in silence. Broken lines shoot by like the read-out on a primitive dash-transmitter.

Statim clears her throat. ‘I haven’t told many people that story. Learned it’s better not to. Almost no one can understand it unless they’re Militarum, and if so, they don’t want to be reminded.’

Quiet. She searches Myra in the rear-view. Realises the pistol is resting on the ganger’s knee, no longer at her back. Myra looks out of the rain-beaded window, neon light scattering on her features.

‘So, the t’au are xenos? You saw xenos?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were they green, like the orks?’

‘Blue. Well, blue-ish.’

Myra nods, her eyes a little wide as she processes this information. ‘And the Guard let you go, because of the injury?’ she asks.

‘Yes, in a way. Retirement’s for the nobility, usually. But General Ravellen was good to her word. Everyone who’d saved her life got the option of fast-track promotions or, if their wounds were too grievous, medical discharge with lump pension.’ She raises her right arm, shows off the palsied shake. ‘I couldn’t pass the coordination tests for my medicae certification, not even at the lowest field grade. Couldn’t be anything but a stretcher-bearer. Also, I froze up every time I heard a xenos plasma shot.’ She shrugs. ‘Usually that would get you shot, but the campaign was over, and no one wants to go prosecuting the general’s favourite. Not when the next warzone awaits. What no one understands about commissars is that they’re political officers. And that’s what it was, political.’

‘And you picked Varangantua because it’s so nice here, I guess?’

Statim smiles, painfully, but not without humour. ‘The fleet stopped here for resupply. Disembarked me at Alecto port then moved on. Not a lot of choice. The Ninth Pacificus didn’t seem to want to swing back to Sirenia to drop me off at home.’

Besides, she thinks, not much left for her on Sirenia. Halfway through her second campaign Statim got word her father had passed. Old man had been proud of his daughter, in the end. When she was growing up, he would come home from his day of driving a conveyor full of sheaf-bundles around the agri-dome and force Statim to watch propaganda vids one after another, telling her glorious stories about his time as a soldier.

Statim knew they were groxshit even then. He had been a logistics driver in the Sirenian Defence Forces – same job, different uniform – and the closest to action he’d been was hearing las-fire as the militia put down an uprising of migrant field hands. Not exactly the kind of campaign anyone felt good about, even if you were just carting meal bars and powdered caffeine between bases. He’d been over the dome when Statim got selected for the Grenadiers, hoped his girl would go to the infantry. Got over it fast when Statim got funnelled into the medicae company. Sirenians were about as known for field medicine as Valhallans were for winter operations.

Or that’s what they said on Sirenia. In Statim’s experience, no one had even heard of her planet, much less their legendary skill as medicaes.

‘Statim?’ Myra asks.

‘What? Sorry. Got lost there a second. It’s been a long day.’

‘Markus, the one from the tattoo. He took a shot for you?’

‘Well, eight-tenths of a shot.’ She raises the arm again. ‘But yes, I think so.’

‘You were close?’

She thinks about it. ‘That’s hard to say. Combat is strange. You’re thrown together with people, get to know them fast. Live with them at close quarters. Someone could be your best friend for six months, then you transfer and never even send them a letter. Who knows? If Markus lived and got discharged here at the same time I was, we might’ve moved into totally different districts and barely kept in touch.’

Myra’s eyes bore into the rear-view mirror. Knowing. As if to say, Girl, you’ve got his name on your arm.

‘But yeah, we were close for a while,’ she admits. ‘It was bad, him going like that. But at least we got the general out, at least we won the war. And if he meant to step in front of the shot, I’m grateful for it. Hell, grateful if he didn’t mean to, but I like to think he chose it. That it was for something.’

Myra looks down at her sister’s head, stroking her brown hair.

‘Lots of people die for no reason,’ says Statim. ‘In all sorts of ways. Artillery. Mines. Hell, their heart popping like my father’s. At least Markus made it count. Died for something he thought was worth it.’

Myra opens her mouth, but the big vox in the console cuts her off.

‘Myra,’ says Wires. They can hear the quaver in his voice. ‘Myra, they found me.’

Forty-Three

‘Who’s that?’ asks Statim. ‘We shouldn’t be–’

‘Shhh! Shut the hell up, Doc.’

‘–must’ve isolated the feedback squeal when your groundcar, my groundcar, got close. Realised there was a tapper and ran a scan for an antenna frequency duping their signal. I knew I should’ve got out, but you have my wheels and I wanted to keep you… Never mind. I’m sorry, Myra. I–’

Struggle, the sound of Wires’ rotary chair dragging back. A strangled cry.

‘Welcome to your late-night broadcast,’ says a new voice.

It makes Myra’s stomach clench to hear it: Amber Eyes, Captain Zhago. She and Statim lock eyes in the mirror.

‘We’re here for a little night music. Light entertainment to end a looooong day. And this next one goes out to Myra Salk and Akeso Statim. Driving a blue Dymaxion Falchion, plate DVZ-7887. I think you’ll recognise the tune – hum along, if you wish.’

The muffled scrape-thump of a vox-mic being fumbled, moved. Wires whimpering. Buzz-snap of something electric.

‘Myra. Myra, please. Do what he says. He’s–’

Screams, so loud that the vox-microphone can’t handle it, overloads and fuzzes out to static for a moment. Crying. Not quite crying, but blubbering. Statim turns down the volume, leans over the steering wheel to peer into the rain. Myra can see the woman’s jaw tightening.

Myra realises that she’s holding Sola’s hand so tight she’s leaving marks. Eases up. Takes a breath.

‘These old countertop ration bar heaters are soooo dangerous,’ says Zhago. ‘That’s why they stopped making them, you know. Kiddies kept sticking their hands into the heating coils, losing fingers.’

‘Bastard,’ says Myra.

Statim nods.

‘So here’s what we’re going to do, Akeso Statim and Myra Salk. The two of you are in the same groundcar. You both have guns. If one of you kills the other, and voxes me your location, you and this little thief get a one-way ticket off-world. Myra, you can even take that sister of yours. I can do that, I have connections. Just go away, and never come back. How about that?’

‘Divide and conquer,’ says Statim.

‘Until then…’

Pop. Buzz.

Screams.

Forty-Four

Myra pops the springblade, jams it into the seam between the big vox and the dashboard. Levers it free, pulling it out so far the bundles of cable at its rear yank out. Ditches it in the alley, in the deepest puddle she can find.

Gets in the passenger door, slams it. Wipes the rain off her coat as they drive away.

‘I’m not sure they could’ve tracked us by that vox,’ says Statim.

‘Better safe than slaughtered,’ Myra says. ‘They found Wires.’

They’re silent for a long time. Myra keeps looking over her shoulder, reaching back to touch Sola’s chest. Like a new mother checking if her babe is still breathing.

‘You’ve been taking coagulant for a long time?’ Statim says.

‘Since I was a girl.’

‘You know that you’ll become immune to it.’

‘I know.’

‘Ganger’s an odd choice of profession for someone with a clotting problem.’

‘Not my choice. Not with the price they charge for each hit.’

Statim nods. ‘Understandable. I don’t even stock it at the clinic, usually. Speciality stuff. Off-world. You have another dose, in case you need it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good, because we might.’ She slows, cruises by a low, detached hab-bungalow. A tasteful sign on the front walk reads, ‘DR. RAFFINIO ARTELLA: MASTER CHIRURGEON, AUGMETICS’.

The windows are dark, no one outside.

Like every dwelling in the mid-levels, the clinic-house is white rockcrete. Sculpted in curves and turrets, with porthole windows to hide its boxy, made-to-plan feeling. But even that stab at individuality falls short, since every bungalow along the curving street is done up in the same style.

But the view out of the back, looking out on the Dredge from its perch halfway up the foothills of the steep hive-mountain, makes up for its pretensions.

‘Seems clear,’ Myra says. She stares into the shadows of the front pavement, its path a red-tile ribbon cutting through the gravel of the yard. Exotic succulents open their night blooms. ‘I don’t like this. We leave the groundcar here, it’s too exposed.’

‘No one knows we came here,’ Statim says, pulling into a side driveway half hidden by a spiked bush. ‘But I’ll park around the back. Just in case.’

‘And I’ll bring the guns,’ says Myra. Sees Statim’s look. ‘Just in case.’

She expects the doc to argue, but she doesn’t.

‘I saw an empty sling-bag in the trunk,’ says Statim. ‘Put them in that. Don’t want Artella to get rattled and call the enforcers. He can be jumpy.’

The side drive pulls them around to a hidden roundabout in the rear, bordered by two garages. From the circle, they can see the lights of the city below, stretching to the horizon in a star field that, were it not for the light pollution, would rival the sky above. To their right sits an open deck with a pool, glowing a warm teal blue with underwater lighting.

‘Sacred Throne,’ Myra breathes. ‘How many people live here?’

‘One.’ Statim undoes her safety restraints.

‘Oh, come on. One. Living in all that?’

‘Well,’ says Statim. ‘There’s a day nurse. A live-out maid. And sometimes a patient stays in the overnight recovery room, but at night it’s mostly just Artella unless he has a girl over.’

‘Sanguinius wept,’ she blasphemes. ‘They’re lucky we don’t rise up and kill them all.’

‘Keep it nice,’ says Statim. ‘Sola needs surgery, fast. Within an hour, probably. And Artella’s going to help us, you’ll see.’

Forty-Five

‘No. Hell no. Absolutely not.’

Raffinio Artella looks terrified in his silk nightrobe, his long silver hair brushed back, one side of it crushed where it had been on a pillow moments before.

The second he’d sighted Statim’s bloody face and the wounded ganger girl, he’d tried to shoo them out. Statim had needed to barge into the closing door and, with Myra’s help, carry Sola through the reception area and lay her on the surgery table.

‘Raffinio, she needs help.’

‘Get it from somewhere else! Expired pharms for your charity clinic is one thing, Akeso. I’ll risk paying a fine to some enforcer’s breast pocket for that, because you’re a Militarum comrade and you’re discreet. But pushing your way in here looking like you’ve been in a gunfight, carting some ganger girl–’

‘Her sister,’ Statim corrects him.

‘–demanding treatment, it’s insane. I could lose my certifi-cation.’

Statim pulls Sola’s sleeve up, displays the tattoo. ‘You ever seen this?’

Artella blanches. Reluctantly takes a finger and stretches the inked skin, pulls a pair of gold-wired spectacles from a robe pocket and perches them on his nose to get a better look. ‘What, is that a ganger tattoo?’

Myra hangs back, watching, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, failing badly. She’s never seen a place this clean in her life.

‘It’s obviously a regimental symbol,’ says Statim. ‘And a woman this young shouldn’t have one. Calm down – the adrenaline’s affecting your judgement. You recognise it?’

‘No. Why should I? It’s not my business to know that any more. And I’m not running some Low Dredge charity clinic where I treat gang juves for free. That’s your business. And I’m happy to help, but don’t bring Dredger trash up here. I have a mid-morning ocular implantation tomorrow and I should be sleeping…’

‘It’ll be the last time,’ Statim says. ‘I promise. The one and only time. Do this for me, Raff. She’s a child. Look. Look at her.’ Gently, she turns Sola’s ash-dull face towards Artella. Sola’s lips have a tinge of blue. Statim’s brow furrows. ‘I can’t do the surgery. My hand isn’t steady enough. Send her away and she dies.’

Artella wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looking at Sola, conscience working on him.

‘Throne! Fine.’ Artella grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes. ‘Fine, you monster. Saints preserve us, I’ll do it. But it’s still a bad idea. You remember how to be a surgical assistant?’

‘Yes,’ says Statim. ‘And thank you.’

‘Thanks,’ says Myra, glad she doesn’t have to open her sling bag and make a harder argument.

‘Give me a moment to prep in my office, maybe take a capsule of calm-zac.’ He nods at a pile of surgical gowns and masks. ‘Get yourself scrubbed up, maybe bandage some of your own wounds while you’re at it, so you don’t bleed on her mid-incision. But here’s the deal – she waits in the lobby. I need this environment clean and I won’t have civilians rubbernecking. And if the girl dies, you two take her and leave immediately. Immediately. No calling the medicae mortis to pick her up – she was never here. Got it? I don’t need that kind of reputation.’

‘Deal,’ says Statim.

Myra doesn’t say anything, just smokes Artella with a glare and touches Sola’s forehead, like it’s the last time.

Forty-Six

The door between the reception room and the surgery has a glass porthole about the size of a card deck. Myra stands at it, peering through at Artella and Statim, looking like xenos horrors bent over in their blue plastek gowns, masks and wide goggles. Just beyond Statim’s left elbow she can see the white of Sola’s forehead, her hair restrained by a mesh cap.

After a few minutes, Artella sees her and jerks his head sideways. Says something to Statim. Statim looks back at her, the lines around her eyes crinkling with sympathy. Picks up a wand and turns a dial.

The glass tints, like night falling, until Myra can see no more.

After so long looking for Sola. After turning the habclave inside out and burning her last bridges with the Rippers, she’s shut out at the critical moment. Powerless to save the one she loves.

There’s a lounge bench made from real grox-leather. She sits down on it, just to see how it feels. Sinks so deep it’s almost uncomfortable. All at once she’s hyper-aware of her sweat and grease. Her smell. The sticky blood on her bandaged calf and the stink of fyceline from weapons discharge.

She stands. Artella is an arsehole, a space-hoarder in this giant house, but it would be ungrateful to ruin his lounger as he goes out of his way to save Sola.

Unable to sit, she instead looks at the row of military citations and medals hanging on the wall. Papers for an honourable discharge, for ‘Special Services to General Ravellen and Conspicuous Gallantry in the Face of the Enemy’.

Myra snorts. In the orbit of the enemy, more like.

Artella’s eyes are not the eyes of a man who’s seen combat. Perhaps other horrors, but not combat. That surgical theatre of his – only slightly smaller than the hab Myra grew up in – is sealed off, soundproofed and separated from the house. Not just sterilised, but compartmentalised. Like he could wipe away the trauma and heartbreak at the end of the day, scrub it with counterseptic, and start over fresh with the dawn.

And those eyes. The way they’d looked when he saw the Militarum tattoo. Statim missed it but there was…

Myra doesn’t know.

But whatever it was, it causes her hands to move on their own, trying the lock to Artella’s back office, where he’d gone to change and get his procedure book.

It’s locked. But that’s no obstacle to a girl from Outflow Alley.

Her springblade barely makes a scrape as it worms between the jamb and the latch-bolt, her left hand jiggling the knob, nursing a bit of give out of the lock until the tip of her knife finds the diagonal face of the bolt and slides it back.

The door comes open.

Rich people. Such scorch-brains. One deadbolt and she might’ve been kept out, unable to force it without the telltale crash of shouldering the door.

Artella feels too safe here. Major amateur hour.

Myra’s never been in a fancy chirurgeon’s office. Assumes this is how they all look. The big dark-wood desk. Shelves of medical tomes with gold-chased titles on the spines. A credenza decorated with human skulls, showing six different kinds of cranial augmetics. Beside them, in a corner, is a cradle containing some kind of needled stylus.

On the desk sits a fixed comm-unit with a rotary dial. Next to it is a framed pict of Artella on a pleasure-yacht, blue water stretching behind him and his arm wound around a blonde woman with unnaturally symmetrical features. Lucky Artella.

Myra’s never seen the ocean.

There’s a document cabinet. Secured. One of the old Keller locks.

Forget amateur hour; this is amateur year. Hells, at least make her work for it.

This one she can’t pop. She’ll have to push the springblade into the top of the drawer and lever the metal lip upwards until it clears the lock’s bolt. Not hard, and not loud, but Artella will know it’s been forced.

But that tingle in the back of her brain isn’t going away. So she works the springblade into the jamb and pushes upwards with both hands. It bends the blade almost into an L-shape, but it does the job.

She slides the file cabinet open. Looks over the file tabs.

Sees the one marked ‘INDUCTIONS’.

Opens it.

Turns a page.

Turns another page.

It’s then that her eye falls back to the metal stylus on the credenza. The one sitting on a cradle with the wires connecting it to its base. A screw port for a phial.

That’s when she recognises what it is. She’s never seen a powered one before. The Rippers do it the old-fashioned way with spikes and tap-needles.

Almost in a dream, she picks the comm-unit handset off the cradle.

‘Operator?’

Myra’s never used a line-vox before, but she’s seen them in pict-flickers. ‘Last dial, please.’

‘Hold.’

The clatter-click of connecting lines. Sounds of invisible people in switching stations removing and inserting plugs to route the call. A burr of the hailing bell.

Once.

Twice.

‘Are they still there?’ says Captain Zhago.

Forty-Seven

As much as Statim hates to admit it, Artella is worth the slates. Set aside the privilege of being born nobility, set aside the big house and fancy clothes. Forget the way the large windows in the back of the surgical theatre overlook the pool deck and sweeping view of the city.

He’s a damn fine chirurgeon. You can teach technique and theory. Train reflexes and instil knowledge, but the dexterity of his hands comes naturally. The spindly wires of the augmetics on the back of each finger simply preserving his talent in advanced age rather than boosting it. They also augment his speed, hands moving with the quickness of a weaving arachnid.

It’s the first time Statim has seen the man at work, and it almost makes her ashamed of her clumsy craftsmanship. Even at her best, Statim had been a butcher compared to Artella.

‘Holy Throne, Statim,’ Artella had said, tut-tutting when they opened Sola up for the first time. ‘Look at all this secondary trauma. What happened to this girl?’

‘Gunshot, messy slug extraction. Vehicle crash.’

Artella went to work.

He stitched wounds with the sure confidence of a grandmam mending a garment tear. Applied synthskin patches – internal-grade, far better than any Statim had seen since the crusade – to the lining of Sola’s stomach with such gentleness it looked as if he were hanging a fine piece of art. He inserted injectors with unbelievable precision, a telescopic pair of micro-oculars flipped down over his eyes.

During the thirty-minute surgery, a full bag of blood-plasma goes into Sola, her veins almost seeming to suck at it she’s so deficient.

‘There,’ says Artella. ‘Tie off that stitch and we’re done.’

He steps back, strips off his rubberine gloves via the sterile procedure, pulling one inside out over the other so they form a ball, with any possibly contaminated blood inside. Drops them in a biowaste can and begins to wash his hands.

That’s when…

BANG.

Myra kicks the surgery door open, smashing the lock tumbler straight through the splintered door frame.

‘What the fuck, Myra?’ Statim says. ‘She’s all right, Sola’s fine. It went great. He saved her. I was just about to come tell…’

Myra throws a file in Artella’s face. It flies open and slaps him, throwing his spectacles askew and causing him to stagger backwards into a table.

It falls open on the floor at his feet.

Artella looks down and sees a photo clipped to the inside – a photo of Sola Salk.

When he looks up, Myra has the shotgun pointed at his face.

Forty-Eight

‘He’s the one who inked her,’ says Myra.

Silence. Only the sound of the vitals monitor recording Sola’s heartbeat. A spiking green line tracing the peaks and valleys of her continued existence.

Blip-Blip. Blip-Blip. Blip-Blip.

‘What?’ Statim says. She picks up the file folder with gloved fingers, smearing blood on it. ‘That’s not possi… God-Emperor on His Throne…’

Myra takes a step forward, points the riot gun low, at Artella’s balls. ‘I told you that I thought Zhago and his goons have been kidnapping juves and selling them off-world to Guard recruiters. You said it would be too hard to forge the paperwork, remember? But that’s the thing. They didn’t. Zhago just got a real medicae with Guard connections to do the intake paperwork. Medical screenings. Certifications. Regimental intake tattoo if necessary. Used dataveil information to fill in the missing information. Isn’t that right, doctor?’

Blip-blip. Blip-blip. Blip.

‘Blood of the Angel,’ Statim swears, looking at the file. Turns a page. ‘Hells, Artella. This girl is fifteen years old. Fifteen. You have her listed as eighteen.’

‘Don’t let her shoot me, Akeso,’ Artella begs. ‘Zhago made me do it. It’s what he does. He found out about a little organ-buying I was doing on the side and the pharm offloads to your clinic. He threatened my licence unless I helped him. Don’t let her–’

Statim’s fist catches him sideways. Cracks his cheekbone. Snaps his gold spectacles, pops one of the lenses out. Artella grabs at his face, stunned, trying to collect all the falling pieces.

‘It’s not her you have to worry about, Raffinio,’ says Statim. ‘You saw what happens in a Militarum warzone – you saw the injuries first-hand, and you knowingly sent kids into that hellhole.’

‘Ganger kids!’ he says. ‘Juves. The Militarum gives them a better life. Three squares a day and a little discipline. Zhago said it would be good for them, that we were doing them a favour and serving the Emperor. Nobody cared about them.’

Myra slams a kick between Artella’s legs and he buckles, bows before her.

Blip. Blip. Blip.

‘We don’t have time for this,’ Myra says. ‘He called Zhago. Probably did it before he started operating. They’re on their way. Can we move Sola?’

‘Risky,’ says Statim. ‘But we should be able to if–’

Blip-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

Statim lunges to the trauma table.

Flatline.

Forty-Nine

‘Oh God-Emperor, Throne.’

A profane prayer.

Statim reads the vitals monitor. Pulls up Sola’s eyelids and shines a stablight. Feels for a pulse.

‘You said she was fine!’ Myra growls.

‘She was!’

…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…

On the floor, Artella starts to slide himself towards the reception room, blood leaking from his right nostril, leaving brown smears as he drags his face on the tile floor.

Myra grabs him by his collar, hauls him to his feet. ‘You piece of shit, you gave her something. During the surgery. You acted like you were saving her and you dosed her instead. A pharm that wouldn’t take hold until we left. So I wouldn’t kill you.’

‘No! No!’

‘Yes. Yes.’ Myra bounces him against the back window so hard the big glass panel bows outwards. Thumps him in the stomach with the shotgun’s stock and puts the barrel under his chin. ‘What’s in her?’

Statim starts chest compressions. Blows air into Sola’s cooling lips. Smacks the charge stud on the crash cart so the cardiac paddles power up with a pweeeeeeeee.

‘She was just too hurt,’ whimpers Artella. ‘Nothing I could do. She’s been through hell. It was nearly six hours ago she got away from Zhago and his team. Six hours is a long time to have a bullet–’

Myra’s lucky she pushed him against the window. At the time, she was terrified it might shatter and slice his throat, sending him to the grave with his secret. But it’s only because she has him pinned against the glass, shotgun held to his throat, that she sees the two shapes moving in the shadows of the deck. Sees the glint of ambient light pollution on a blue steel autogun barrel.

Statim taps the crackling cardiac paddles against each other. Yells, ‘Clear!’

Just as Myra screams, ‘Get down!’

Fifty

It’s Decletion all over again.

Except instead of t’au plasma fire, it’s autogun hard rounds.

They smash through the big window with a pulse of glass shards, striking just to one side of Myra and sweeping across the room, shattering equipment and drumming walls.

Statim sees the stream of fire cut across Myra and Artella, her thin frame shielded by the old doctor. Puffs of the old man’s blood mist the cracked glass before the whole frame gives way and crashes down like a guillotine blade.

…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…

She throws herself down on Sola, shielding the girl and dragging her onto the floor so the trauma table can protect them. The wailing vitals monitor explodes, tube blowing out and plastek housing spinning away in pieces. It was annoying Statim anyway.

The stream of hard rounds pass one way, then the other, covering the whole room twice. Double sweep. Catches all the hanging lumens and plunges the surgical theatre into darkness.

Someone’s done this before.

And as rapidly as it began, the fire stops. Statim hears the click of an ejected magazine, peers around the side of the trauma table.

Another enforcer’s rushing the window at a crouch, heading right for where Myra hit the deck. He’s got a two-day stubble and holds his service Tzarina sideways so when he pops over the window ledge he can get a better downwards angle.

He doesn’t realise Myra has moved. Wriggled ten feet through the glass to one side, pushing off Artella’s body with her feet.

She lies on her back, shotgun pointed up, listening.

The enforcer crests the window, makes a quick lunge over and puts two shots into Artella. Whether he’d planned to kill the chirurgeon, or mistook the body for Myra in the darkness, Statim doesn’t know.

And she never gets to find out.

BOOM.

Myra’s shotgun – Statim’s shotgun, really, but she’ll let the ganger have this one – throws the plainclothes enforcer sideways five feet. His head connects with the jagged, sawtooth remains of glass still sticking up from the windowsill, crunching them down.

Not that there’s much left of his head, by then.

Myra racks the slide, rolls to her feet. Bangs a second shot towards the autogunner that sends the woman diving for a marble pool decoration. It’s hard to see in the aquamarine under-lighting of the pool, but Statim thinks she sees a burst of bloody mist from the enforcer’s leg.

Too much looking. Sola’s still flatlining. Statim grabs the dangling cardiac paddles and presses them to her chest.

Sola arches upwards. Statim feels her throat.

Weak pulse. Better than no pulse.

A pounding behind her, melding with splintering wood. Statim turns to look into the reception room. The wood around the front door’s lock is ragged and damaged. A battering ram.

‘Coming through the front!’ she yells. Statim twists and slams the surgery door, then remembers Myra kicked it in, and rolls a table of pulmonary support equipment in front of it as a barricade.

Myra’s there, shotgun in hand, squat-walking so low she looks like a Scion veteran. ‘Is Sola alive?’

‘For now,’ says Statim, smashing chemical tests aside on the trauma table’s lower shelves until she finds the one she needs. ‘If I don’t find what Artella spiked her with, she might not have long.’

The door behind them budges and Myra bolts up, presses the shotgun against the tiny black-tinted window and pulls the trigger.

From the other side, stumbling and screams.

Myra drops before three rounds come through the door the other way, light beaming from the holes.

‘You focus on her,’ says Myra. ‘Let me handle this.’ She slides the open sling-bag off her shoulder. Statim sees her Rakov auto-snub inside. ‘If they get by me,’ Myra says.

Then the ganger lunges above the trauma table, using it as cover. Fires two more shells at the female enforcer sheltering on the pool deck.

‘That should keep her bastard head down,’ Myra growls.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Statim says. ‘Glass cuts…’

‘Deal with it later – just save Sola.’

Fifty-One

Myra’s a woman possessed.

Her whole life in the gang, she’s been careful. Deliberate. Steady. She hung back, a marksman with a carbine.

Never wanting to get hurt. To get hurt is to invite the big bleed. She even avoids the things she wants – fast cars, enginebikes, the temptation to just haul off and hit the competition without her gloves – but now she doesn’t care.

She’s hurt already. And if they live – big if right there – she’s already going to need a coagulant dose. The last one in her kit.

So why not go all out?

Smash.

An enforcer batters through the surgery door, his shock maul bashing holes in the wood as if it were an axe. The equipment cart barricading the door – some kind of heart monitor – holds, entangling his maul in its damaged, twisted metal.

Through the hole torn in the door, she can see the man’s snarling features, see the live photon flash grenade he’s planning to shove through the gap.

Myra puts him down with a shotgun blast, the grenade dropping from his hand as he falls backwards. Through the ruined door, she sees the concussive lightning of the photon flash strobe the front room, accompanied by a wail.

Myra uses the moment of distraction to turn her attention to the pool deck. Sees a bullpup autopistol with a foregrip and stock swing up from the right side of the shattered window and into the room.

Flanked. While she’d been focused on suppressing the one on the pool deck, another had crept up along the back of the house.

She throws herself down, bullets rattling off the steel sink behind her. Fires with the riot gun and gets only a click.

The autopistol shots are walking down towards her, chipping floor tile and bursting a water pipe in the wall, soaking Myra with fantails of water.

Statim leans out from behind the trauma table and fires twice. One shot goes wide and sparks off the wall; the second hits the foregrip of the autopistol and the enforcer screams, drawing back.

The bastard leaves two fingers on the floor.

Myra ditches the riot gun and scrambles to her feet, hauls the stubber from the back of her waistband and throws herself flat against the right wall, using the lip of the window frame as cover. She leans outside to turn the tables on the bullpup autogunner and sees two enforcers scrambling backwards, like kids who’ve just been found while playing hide-and-go-hunt.

Stubber shots are throaty and loud. The one in front, holding his wounded hand, falls backwards with a slug in his vest and one in his neck. The one behind, a woman with data-jacks on her temples, drops to one knee and fires around her stumbling compatriot, using him for cover.

But Myra’s already gone.

Data-Jack won’t be pushing forward anytime soon.

Myra sees a dark object on the floor. Realises it’s the Tzarina dropped by her first shotgun victim. Scoops it up, wipes off the shards of glass, glad for the protection of her weighted gloves. Uses it as a left-hand suppressive gun. Fires more wild shots at the pool deck to keep the autogunner pinned and slinks to check the main door.

She passes Statim, struggling to smear some kind of chemical paper with the blood pooling on Sola’s abdomen. Stitches must’ve broken open when Statim pulled her to the floor.

Myra leaps over the equipment cart, sighting both pistols through the chopped-up door.

Sees no one.

‘Parlay,’ she hears.

That voice.

Captain Zhago. Yelling. Somewhere back on the pool deck. Out in the darkness by the upside-down star field of the endless city.

‘I’m speaking to Akeso Statim,’ he says.

Fifty-Two

‘You don’t have to die,’ says Zhago. ‘We’re here for the gangers.’

‘A little late for negotiating,’ Statim yells back. Her mind isn’t in it. Just buying time.

She’s trying to figure out what’s killing Sola Salk.

Chemical swabs came back negative. It’s a depressant, she knows that much, but nothing more.

Yet that makes things tough. Because with a depressant, the wrong counteracting stimulant could blow the girl’s heart like a bad fuse. Instant cardiac case.

‘Due to an unfortunate circumstance, I seem to be out a doctor,’ Zhago says. No voice amplifier. No broadcast vox. It’s strange hearing his natural voice.

‘I’m listening,’ says Statim. Really she’s hunting phials on the floor, trying to see if any of the pharm-containers Artella used during the operation are still here.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Myra lurking below the windowsill, trying to triangulate the captain’s voice.

‘The Imperium needs young people, Sergeant Statim. You know that personally. I read your service record. Very impressive. I should’ve saluted you when first we met. It is unsavoury, what we are doing. And true, we are profiting from it – but, sergeant, it has to be done.’

‘Does he really think,’ Myra whispers, ‘you’re going to give up after he made us listen to him torture Wires?’

Statim shakes her head, doesn’t want to be thinking about this. Wants to be thinking about how to keep Sola’s heart beating.

‘He’s stalling,’ she says. ‘Repositioning his force. Must have only a few enforcers left. If it draws me out to be shot, so much the better. Or he’s just a psychopath.’

‘Here’s what I propose,’ says Zhago. ‘You take over this clinic. The deed is in my name – Artella signed it over to me after a little persuasion. From your files, I see you failed your board certifications here for physical reasons. Well…’

‘They’re moving out there,’ Myra says, peering over the ledge. ‘Maybe stacking for a push on the window. Wish I had a grenade.’

‘…I happen to have connections to Almgara Augmetics Limited. They have a model that’s board certified. We could replace your whole arm if you wish.’

Statim stops. A hell of an offer. ‘You’d do that?’

‘I would.’ The catlike voice. Purring, confident. ‘It’s a fine model, sized like the real thing. Nothing bulky or hard-edged. Changeable synthskin layer. You slip the skin on, just like a glove.’

A glove.

Statim sees it in her mind’s eye. Knows where the phial is.

She sees Artella, doing the standard clean-removal procedure for his rubberine gloves. Stripping one, balling it up in the palm of the other. Turning that second glove inside out so the blood all stays inside.

Along with anything you don’t want your surgical assistant to see.

‘You have ten seconds to come out and take that deal. After that, we come in. One.’

Artella had dropped it in the biowaste bin, the one for contaminated materials.

Statim slides across the floor, opens the lid. Thanks the merciful God-Emperor that it’s just the gloves inside, no needles or blood packets.

‘Two.’

It’s there, in the gloves, she can feel it. She rips the thin rubberine open, reads the phial label.

‘Three.’

Dextrapharamine.

That son of a bitch. Statim never would’ve detected it.

‘They’re going to hit us,’ says Myra, tensing.

‘Four.’

Statim’s searching the trauma table shelves, one hand on Sola’s chest, feeling her shallow breathing. A whistle rather than a rise and fall.

She needs Magnaprox. Fast-acting. Statim pushes aside a glass bottle of medical alcohol, thinks better of it, rolls it across the glass-scattered floor to Myra.

‘Got an igniter?’ she says.

‘Five.’

Myra grins. It comes through a mask of blood. She’s cut everywhere. Pulls the bottle cork with her teeth and tears a strip from her coat sleeve, packing the bottle’s neck. Fishes an igniter from her pocket and sparks it.

Statim keeps digging – hits a rack of phials. Sees the telltale yellow label with the seal of the Vizizan Pharm Combine on the side.

‘Six.’

Statim cracks the cap with her teeth, extracts the needle.

To Statim’s left, the wall blows in, knocking her across Sola. Lights dance as her head cracks the table.

And the enforcers come.

Fifty-Three

A diversion. That’s what the offer had been. Zhago talking out back, getting them thinking that’s where the forces would be concentrated. Making them think they had more time than they did.

Meanwhile, the remaining thugs withdrew to the circle driveway on the side, set a breaching charge on the exterior wall of the surgical theatre, and blew a new doorway on the count of seven.

Good plan, bad timing.

Because Myra has had just about enough of Zhago’s talk. And even if she can’t drop the firebomb right on his head, she can light up the back deck, reveal his hiding place, and maybe drive a few out into the open for her stubber.

But then the wall to her left blows inwards and the whole situation changes.

Data-Jack’s the first one through, Tzarina barking. Myra hears a shot sing by her left ear. Feels the kick of a bullet striking her shoulder, breaking the bone.

And in her shock, she acts on pure startled instinct. She throws the firebomb right at Data-Jack.

The woman’s eyes go big. She reaches out a gloved hand to try to catch the incoming bottle. Gets a hand on it.

Bats it right down to the ground at her feet. The spilled alcohol catches.

FWUMP-whoooosh. The flames climb Data-Jack’s boots.

And Data-Jack does the human thing, which is also the worst thing, tactically, to do when storming a room full of hostiles. She stops dead. Leaves the entire fire team stacked up behind her in a line.

Myra snatches up her stubber and blazes. Gun slide racking back over and over, shot after shot. She does it one-handed because her left arm’s responding weak and slow, but at this range it hardly matters.

Data-Jack and the two enforcers behind her go down, twitching and spasming as they fall. One lets off a burst of autogun fire in the air.

Statim doesn’t even watch. She finds the dropped phial, checks it isn’t cracked or the needle bent.

Slams it into Sola’s heart and punches the injector stud.

Then she hears Myra scream a warning.

Fifty-Four

Zhago’s on Myra before she knows he’s there. Vaults the broken window. Lands at her feet, shock maul in hand.

She rolls away, the first swing passing so close to her nose she can smell the power field. Scrambles backwards, pulls the trigger on her stubber, finds the slide is already back.

His next swing strikes the gun, clipping the sturdy pistol’s barrel so hard that the weapon shatters as if it’s made of ice, cracking it into half a dozen pieces.

‘My men,’ Zhago roars. ‘I’ve been through hell with those men. Gang fights. Stings. They were the best this city had to offer.’

His amber eyes blaze. Candle-wax skin contorts in fury and sorrow.

Myra gets to her feet, makes a lunge for Statim’s Rakov. It’s lying on the floor and–

FZZ-WHAM.

The power field discharge throws her to the side, crushing ribs at the impact point and sending her crashing to the floor, rolling towards the flames on the far side of the room. She tries to rise, can’t. She’s completely winded from the blow, spasms from the shock-field making voluntary muscle control almost impossible.

Statim sees what’s happening. She goes for her Rakov on the floor, but the shock maul sweeps down and whacks her forearm, sending the gun dropping from nerveless fingers.

Zhago is there, hunched, coming around the side of the trauma table like some hate of old, a fae-daemon from the field folklore of Sirenia’s farm country. Statim tries to stand and get distance but her right arm, still numb from the blow, goes out from under her when she tries to rise. She realises that, if the arm had bones in it rather than steel pipes, it would’ve snapped in half.

So instead she slides backwards in the debris, towards the dead enforcers, towards the fire. She retreats as Zhago advances on her, maul sweeping back and forth, slowly, like a pendulum, power field sizzling through the air with each advancing swing.

FFFFZZZZ-wooooomp.

FFFFZZZZ-wooooomp.

‘That’s right, Statim. Back your way in. Don’t stop if it gets too hot. Just keep going. You’ll be taking the blame for this, after all. Organising such a terrible thing, selling children to the Militarum.’

Zhago smiles, tosses his shock maul in the air, catches it on the spin.

Statim stops, can feel the alcohol fire licking at her back. Her arm hair starting to singe. Myra, on Statim’s left, can barely raise her head.

‘Fuck… you…’ Myra croaks.

Zhago grins.

‘No, my dear. Fuck you. Fuck you, and your little sister. You just volunteered for a skull-crushing.’

He raises his shock maul, keys the stud to get a good head of power field going.

BANG.

Zhago hesitates. Opens his mouth to say something. Instead, blood dribbles out. He slides to his knees, head and arms getting heavy, then topples sideways.

Revealing Sola Salk, hair plastered to her sweaty forehead, a syringe in her heart.

Her whole body shakes.

But she holds Statim’s Rakov in a steady hand.

Fifty-Five

‘I’m sorry,’ Sola murmurs. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ says Myra. ‘You disappeared. I found you. Wasn’t going to rest until I did.’

They’re on the pool deck, watching the house go up. Sirens in the distance.

Statim’s working on Sola again, trying to close her wound with her trauma bag. Nowhere near the tools she needs. ‘Easy,’ she counsels Sola. ‘Easy, easy. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’re losing more too fast. You’re on the Emperor’s threshold.’

‘Myra,’ says Sola. ‘Not worth it. You didn’t need to…’

‘Of course I did.’ Myra squeezes her hand. ‘Doc, you need her to stop bleeding?’

‘I need everyone to stop bleeding,’ Statim says. ‘Her, you, me.’

‘If she doesn’t stop bleeding, she’ll die?’ says Myra. It’s not a question, it’s asking for clarification. ‘That’s where we’re at.’

‘Yes,’ Statim exhales. ‘Wish we had more than one dose of that…’

Then Statim realises what Myra’s talking about.

‘Would it work?’ Myra asks.

‘It would. But you know what that means.’

Myra isn’t even thinking about it. Her zip-kit flies open, the coagulant phial in her hand. She finds a vein on Sola’s wrist, licks the injection site to clean off the ash.

‘Myra, you need that,’ Sola pleads. ‘It’s why we did everything. Because you need it.’

Needle hits vein. Gas-injector hisses.

‘Forget it,’ says Myra. ‘It’s done.’

‘No, I don’t want to lose you. Not after everything you’ve been through.’

‘Sola,’ Myra breathes. She can already feel the blood loss taking effect. Felt it for the last half an hour, if she’s honest. As she sits on the deck, there’s already a pool of red developing around her. ‘You’ll be free now. No more expensive pharms. No Rippers and Skullcaps. Get out. Do something with your life. Anything. If this didn’t happen today, if I let you die and saved myself, this would’ve been the ending anyway. Maybe next month, or in two years, I get wounded enough times the coagulant stops working. The big bleed’s coming no matter what I want. This way, at least you get to live.’

Statim stands, not wanting to intrude in this private moment.

Myra catches Statim’s eye as she backs away. ‘There are a lot of worse ways to go,’ Myra says. ‘Lots of people die for no reason. At least I chose to die for someone that’s worth it. Worth everything.’

Sola pushes herself up on an elbow, reaches across to gather her older sister up. Her older sister who’s so tired. Who’s shivering cold, despite the warmth of the house fire.

And Sola hums the lullaby their mother sang to them each night. Hums it because in her blood loss and trauma, she can’t remember the words.

And Myra Salk, feeling safe and loved, closes her eyes as the big bleed takes her.

Fifty-Six

Bang. Bang. Bang.

A fist on a front door, leaving bloody stamps on the plasteel.

The juve it belongs to leans his forehead against the cool metal of the armoured door, hopes the dizziness will pass. He’s soaked to the skin from the rain, with a springknife stab wound just below the nipple. It hurts on one side when he breathes.

But he’s made it.

Everyone knows this is a safe place. You don’t mess with the street doc. Not with her, not with her clinic and not with her assistants.

That’s the word that goes out in the Dredge. The message comes down from Ironbrow Farro, that probator with a steel plate on one side of her skull, who seems to owe the doc.

It comes from Reagan Sabbeth, who likes the way the doc looks after the habclave kids. Rumour is, a year ago his Skullcaps went on a vengeance tear – hunted down a bunch of gangers that attacked the doc’s clinic and disappeared some juves. Went to work on them with power tools. There are even rumours of a house burned in the mid-levels and dirty enforcers, but no one believes that except the most paranoid of the screech-heads.

Hit too much screech and you’ll believe anything.

The door opens, and the juve feels the cool, sterile air on his face. Sees the doc, hair pulled back in a tight bun.

‘What’s your trouble?’ Akeso Statim asks.

‘Stabbed.’

‘Can you walk?’

He nods, limps inside. Lies down on the table the doc indicates as she puts on her gauze mask.

‘All right,’ Statim says. ‘We’ve got a piercing stab wound to the right lung. So what do we do?’

She looks across the table, expectantly, at her assistant.

‘Assess wound site, clean wound site, anaesthesia, clear any fluid in the lung, then start closing procedures,’ the assistant responds, gloved hands already reaching for the gleaming set of surgical tools.

‘Good,’ Statim says. ‘This is a delicate one, so I think it’s your operation.’ She turns to the patient, sees the expression of perplexed anxiety. Raises her palsied arm. ‘War wound. Needed an assistant with steady hands. What’s your name?’

‘Benjee.’

‘Don’t worry, Benjee,’ says Sola Salk, picking up her wound probe. ‘Trust me, you’ve come to the right place.’

THE VERDANT SUN

GARY KLOSTER

Grubbers was a hole, built in the throat of an ancient mine. Its booths were cut into the stone, connected by a ramp that spun a tight spiral down the shaft. That’s what made the bar useful; those booths were private, but you had a good line of sight on everyone that came in. Plus there was always an escape route, right over the ramp’s guard rail. Just as long as you didn’t mind the thousand-yard drop.

Some escapes were more final than others, but life had taught me to keep my options open.

‘Volka Gethik?’

The man walking up to my booth was dressed like a labourer, but I could see the rebreather lines that marked his face. Few could afford those, which meant my contact was probably a merchant-combine vassal playing dress-up so he could wander the slums.

‘Orant. You found me.’ Not that it was hard. My face was half-pretty, but the other half was distinctive, broken and scarred, the ruined socket of my right eye covered with a leather patch. ‘Voc?’ I tapped the full bottle sitting next to mine.

‘No.’

I shrugged. ‘At least sit then.’ I didn’t like Orant already, and something about this job bothered me. But I had a hunch that it was important, and my hunches… I frowned and drained the last of my drink, then pitched the bottle out into the open shaft. I hated my hunches, but they were almost always right.

‘Nice place,’ Orant said, watching the bottle disappear.

‘Part of the flavour.’ I cracked open the other voc and took a sip, the raw grain alcohol burning a line down my throat. ‘You have work?’

‘Maybe.’ Orant’s eyes studied me. ‘But before we talk, I need to know that this stays shut in you. No leaks – not before the job, not after, not ever. I came to you because you were recommended as someone who was good. I need to know you can be trusted.’ His eyes slid a little to the side, to my patch. ‘Despite what happened when you were a probator.’

‘What happened when I was a probator’ – my hand touched my eyepatch, and I jerked it away, putting it back on the bottle – ‘happened because someone else broke trust. Not because I did. Spill your information, pay your slate, and I’ll put together a crew that’ll get your job done. My word on it.’

The sun staggered over Varangantua like a gut-shot ganger, dripping light like clotted blood. That dim red glow ran down the walls of the narrow alley, oozing across layers of graffiti and black mould, but it gave up before it reached the bottom. Down here the shadows were thick, and the only thing that kept me from stomping through a scab-snail-covered pile of garbage was the yellow beam of my stablight. At least, I hoped it was garbage. The mound was too covered in the violet, fist-sized snails to really identify it, but its shape was entirely too corpse-like.

‘Why are we in this shithole, Gethik?’ Cort asked, jumping the stinking pile after me. The breaker was a short man, but broad, his wide shoulders brushing the alley’s filthy walls.

‘We’re meeting the last member of our crew,’ I said, flashing the light ahead. The alley ended at a battered door, marked with the glistening lines of snail tracks.

‘Who’s that?’ The woman behind Cort was tall and angular, and beneath the worn leather of her clothes her body was a patchwork of pale skin, dull metal and scratched resin. Novya had been a dancer once, pulling heavy slate in the revelries and joy houses until she’d caught the red rot. Now she pulled slate as hired muscle, spilling blood to buy augmetics, desperately trying to replace the parts of her body that the disease was slowly eating away.

‘Niras Sho,’ I said.

Both Cort and Novya swore. ‘Mad Niras?’ Cort looked back down the alley, clearly thinking about walking.

‘You know somebody better at infiltration?’ I asked, hammering on the door.

‘I know a few that won’t blow us to hell,’ Novya said, the ancient servitor parts in her throat making the words buzz.

The door jerked open under my fist, and I stepped back, hand dropping to the stub gun strapped beneath my jacket. In the door frame stood a woman, short and skinny, with a shock of ragged black curls. ‘Why would I waste a bomb on you, Novya?’ Niras’ voice was sweet and high, and combined with her smallness it made her seem childlike, but the dark skin of her face was lined with stress and years. ‘You’re not damned. Yet.’

Niras disappeared back inside, leaving the door open. Novya glared at me, but I ignored her and went in. The room beyond the door stank of mould and ozone, and was filled with huge electrical motors, crackling and hissing as they spun great metal wheels attached to thick steel cables. The motor room for whatever lifters still worked in the huge hab. Not a place meant for living, but Niras had carved a space out for herself, with a few stolen chairs and broken pallets for tables. Almost every flat space was covered in rat’s nests of wires, broken circuits, clockworks and chems.

‘Damn,’ Cort muttered, looking at the glass jars and sealed metal containers. ‘Most of this shit’s Militarum grade.’

‘Yes,’ Niras said. ‘So don’t touch anything.’ She stopped by a table made out of a stolen gunship hatch and swept her arm across it, clearing it with a crash. We all cringed, but it was just rubbish, clinking bottles of booze and slab wrappers. ‘What’s the job, Volka?’ Niras perched herself on an empty crate, staring at me intently. Novya and Cort frowned at her, but then they looked at me too.

‘Solar Verdant.’ I pulled a holo-projector out of my pocket and tossed it on the hatch-table. It lit up, throwing an image in the air in front of me. Solar Verdant’s glyph, a hand bearing seeds, before a stylised sun. Beneath it was their name, and the image of their guild leader, the heavy-jowled face of Avix Verdant. I wiped them away with my hand and brought up an orange wireform map of a corner of Genovska, Varangantua’s ag district. Tapping the controls, I zoomed in on a sprawling compound in its centre. ‘A small ag merchant-combine, with barely enough land out on the Swathe to compete. They make up for it by growing things underground. Got big vaults full of tanks of sewage and water where they grow nutri-slime for food slab.’ I reached over and picked up a brown square that had escaped the table clearing. It was brittle, and smelled like spiced vomit. ‘Like this. But better quality.’

‘Stealing slab isn’t profitable,’ Novya said.

‘We’re not after slab,’ I said. ‘We’re going after a secret. Solar Verdant has discovered something, some new method, new tech, a new strain of nutri-slime. Something that lets them churn out huge amounts of high-quality slab, enough that they’re taking a bite out of the off-world trade, which is the most profitable. The big ag merchant-combines aren’t happy about that. So one of them hired us to find out what’s going on.’

‘We’re spying?’ asked Novya, ‘or is this a smash and grab?’

‘Whatever works,’ I said. ‘If it’s data, we take it and go. If it’s a thing we can carry, we steal it.’

‘That’s it? That’s all the info you have?’ Cort shook his head. ‘They need an informant, not a team of raiders.’

‘They had one.’ I magnified the map, focusing on the compound. ‘That’s where they got these schematics. But he went silent, right after he told them that something was going on down here, in the Incremento Aetherum.’ I tapped the outline of a cavernous vault, buried deep beneath Solar Verdant’s main building.

‘Went silent.’ Novya snorted. ‘The combines don’t play. They caught him, and ground him up to grow nutri-slime.’

‘Probably.’

‘Before he could fill this in,’ Cort said, staring at the projection. ‘There’s alarm terroms marked all through it, but there’s also some big blank areas.’ He shook his head again. ‘I don’t like this. Too many unknowns.’

‘We’ll do it,’ Niras said, and I frowned at her. I’d told her to keep quiet when I set this up.

‘It’s risky, I know,’ I said, ‘but I’m meeting another informant who can fill in those holes.’

‘Still–’ Cort started, but I kept going.

‘And we’re being offered heavy slate.’

‘How heavy?’ Novya asked. I named the figure and she leaned back, augmetics clicking as she folded her arms. ‘Damn. Guess we will do it.’

‘We will.’ Niras’ voice was soft, but it still cut through the hum of the motors. ‘I dreamt of an eye last night, over a hand full of blood, and of a crowd of people, staring up at it, all of them damned.’

I gritted my teeth. This is why I’d told Niras to keep quiet.

Novya frowned at her. ‘How about without that shit, though?’

‘She’s wyrd,’ Cort muttered. ‘Mad. She blew up the White Knuckles’ safe house.’

‘Yeah, got in and out without getting caught,’ I said. ‘Look, Niras is… different. But she’s the best infiltrator in Varangantua.’

‘I don’t care–’ Novya started, but Niras broke in.

‘I’ll do it for free. Split the slate three ways.’ Niras looked at me, brown eyes glowing orange in the holo-light. ‘You’re going to need me. You said you had a hunch about it, Volka.’

‘Definitely mad,’ Novya said. ‘But…’ She flexed her fingers, badly fitted metal popping against scarred flesh. ‘I need the slate. You just better control her, or somebody else will.’

‘Save the attitude for tomorrow night,’ I said. ‘That’s when we’re going in.’ Niras Sho wasn’t the only one who wanted to move fast. Orant and his owners did too, and after this evening I’d be ready to go. But looking through the bright lines of the map, I could see Niras watching me, a little smile on her face, like a child sharing a secret.

I did have a hunch about needing her, and I didn’t like it. But I’d learned through bitter experience that what I liked didn’t matter, and ignoring my hunches was something I just couldn’t do.

No matter what scars they left behind.

A little while later the blood-red sun was setting, its murky light half-blocked by clouds of dust blowing in off the Swathe. The fields were a mile away, but I could hear the thunder of the harvesters grinding crops out of the ground, the howl of the Munitorum ships taking off with holds stuffed full of their Imperial tithe. The cheap filter mask sealed over my nose and mouth had gone from white to grey already, and would be black soon, but at least I had one. Most of the people moving through the streets around me had nothing but cloths tied below their dirty goggles, and the dust was settling into their lungs. They’d drown in it before they were fifty-standard.

I swiped at my goggles and tried to ignore their suffering. It wasn’t my business any more. My business was with the building that reared up in front of me, a brutal rectangle of rockcrete set with narrow windows, topped with a great spire of glass that punched up through the veil of dust. They’d put a light inside it, but the dust had changed its golden glow to red and the spire looked like a glass spear smeared with blood.

Solar Verdant.

Far below the spire, down near the street where I stood, the merchant-combine’s glyph was carved over their massive front door. Gold covered the sun, dulled by the dust.

‘Bastards.’

The speaker appeared beside me as if they’d blown in with the dust. Their hair and skin were caked with it, and it clung in layers to the coveralls they were wearing. They looked like one of the field hands that waited each dawn at the edge of the Swathe, to see if the merchant-combines would hire them for the day. Except that hidden under this one’s filthy face cloth was a rebreather.

‘They get some slate and what do they do?’ Verin Thale cleared their throat, shifted their rebreather and spat. The globule turned to mud before it hit the ground. ‘Gild their doors, instead of supplying filter masks to the people who live downwind of their fields.’

‘Business before blood.’

‘Bastards,’ they said again. ‘Come on.’

They took me to a recaff vendor down the street, a tiny counter partially shielded by a dirty curtain of filter cloth, but Thale led me past the lines of agri-labourers waiting for their cup.

‘Recaff, Gethik?’

I nodded, and Thale snagged two cups from one of the workers, who meekly let them when they saw who was taking it.

‘I earned a favour from the owner,’ Thale said, leading me into a tiny room behind the counter and shutting the door, cutting out the dust.

‘Of course,’ I said, pulling off my goggles and filter. ‘Probators earn many favours.’

‘Some do.’ Thale’s eyes, one brown, one silver, rested on me. ‘You certainly did, when you were one of us.’

I looked away. So many favours. The official stipend of a probator was modest, but we did better than most, because we accumulated so many favours from citizens grateful either for our help or for our non-interference. We kept things orderly, and we earned favours.

No. I touched my eyepatch. Not we. I wasn’t a probator, not any more. No one owed me any favours, except maybe Thale.

‘I have a different occupation now,’ I said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I want you to tell me everything you know about Solar Verdant.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t need to know.’

‘Nor do I want to,’ Thale said. ‘But what I meant was, why should I tell you?’

I tapped my dusty eyepatch.

‘You bought that yourself, Volka Gethik. You murdered one of your own.’

‘Murdered?’ I snapped. ‘Lowe wasn’t taking too much slate or doing too much stimm – he was cutting people up for the organ trade. Killing him was right. We earn our favours, Thale. By dispensing justice to everyone. Even other probators.’

‘Lowe’s fate should have been left to those above us,’ Thale said.

I just looked back, with my one eye and broken face, until they threw up their hands. ‘I spoke for you!’

‘And shut up fast when they stripped my rank and smashed me out of the dataveil.’ They hadn’t done it easy, either. A lot of my fellows had wanted me dead for what I’d done, but Lowe had crossed too many lines. So they’d contented themselves with making an example of me. A line of probators had taken turns hitting the side of my face with a hammer, until they destroyed the silver ocular implant that gave me access to the probator network. The ache of losing that knowledge, that connection with every other probator, was more acute than the pain of my shattered face.

‘I never picked up the hammer,’ Thale muttered, and maybe they were telling the truth. I don’t remember them hitting me, but I didn’t remember much after the first few blows. ‘I don’t owe you anything. But… Solar Verdant. I’ve got people missing, and I think they’re involved. If you’ve got some job involving them, maybe we can work a trade. Information for information. Deal?’

I drank a slug of recaff, ignoring the dust. ‘Deal. Tell me about these missing people.’

Thale shrugged. ‘Here’s what I know. Solar Verdant started producing massive amounts of slab a few months ago. So much, they took their labourers from their habs and moved them onto their compound so they could work more. Then they brought in more, offering good slate. Many were happy to go in, at first, but now no one wants to go near the place.’

‘Why?’

‘Because nobody comes back out.’ Thale sighed. When they’d joined the probators, I thought they’d looked too innocent, too pretty, for the job. Even with the grime on their face now they were still pretty, but they didn’t look innocent any more. They looked tired and jaded. ‘Not the workers, not the guilders, not even Avix Verdant. I’ve got people screaming at me to pound down those doors and find out what’s going on, but Solar Verdant… Avix Verdant’s not coming out but his slate is, and he’s sharing it with the vladar who runs this district. I’ve been ordered, very clearly, to leave Solar Verdant alone.’ They took a long drink from their cup, and set it down empty. ‘Something happened to those workers, Gethik. And now that no one else is signing up to go in, people are disappearing. Going missing, more and more every night. All through the district.’

‘You think it’s them,’ I said.

‘Thale looked up from their empty cup. ‘You were a damn good probator, Volka. You and your hunches, always finding things everybody else missed. What do you think?’

‘I think you’re not an idiot,’ I said. ‘And neither am I. Solar Verdant is taking people.’

‘Looks that way,’ Thale said. ‘And I should do something about that, because I’m a probator. But I can’t, because I’m a probator who’s been ordered not to.’

‘And I’m not,’ I said. Not any more. ‘Give me everything the dataveil has on Solar Verdant’s compound, and when my job’s done I’ll tell you what you need to know.’

Thale’s eyes, brown and silver, narrowed. ‘You’ll tell me everything.’

‘Everything you need,’ I repeated.

Thale frowned, but then they pulled out a data-slug. ‘You’re right. I’m not an idiot. I knew what you wanted, when you set this meeting up. That’s all the information the probators have about that compound. All of it. Don’t make me regret giving it to you.’

‘You won’t.’

‘I better not.’ Thale stood. ‘I have to go back to work. Remember our bargain.’

‘Everything you need,’ I said, putting on my filter and goggles. I slapped their shoulder and walked out of the door, ignoring the spire glowing behind me as I moved into the dusty, noisy twilight of the city.

The darkness shifted in front of me, and I snapped up my stub gun.

‘Don’t.’ Niras caught my wrist, moving my aim away from her.

‘What is it?’ I asked. Niras had hung back, muttering to herself when we travelled through the crowded streets of Genovska, but as soon as we’d entered the dark tunnels below she’d slipped ahead, returning only to warn us of sudden drops, barriers, or the oozy remains of a gigantic scab-snail that had made the mistake of going for her.

‘Terrom gate. Send Cort,’ she breathed.

‘Right.’ I dialled up my stablight, brightening the narrow tunnel of the storm sewer to lead the breaker forward. Niras turned away from the light – she’d pulled a mask over her head when we’d dropped into the tunnels, made of the same deep black material as her bodyglove, and I suspected there was some sort of light intensifier built into the dark plate that covered her eyes, since she used no stablight. Or maybe she just negotiated the tunnels by feel. I had no idea how Niras did what she did, just that she did it well.

The gate was a cage of bars, similar to two others we’d already cut through, but this one had a thin wire running across it. A terrom. If broken, lights and sirens would alert Solar Verdant’s guards somewhere overhead.

Cort examined the wire. ‘Just as the data you got from your mystery informant said.’ Tools flashed, then he stepped back, nodding, and I waved Novya forward. We all looked away as the cyborg’s plasma cutter lit up, cutting through the bars. In its reflected glow I could see something painted on the wall beyond the gate, like the glyph I’d seen carved into Solar Verdant’s headquarters. A hand and a circle, but the hand was empty of stalks, its palm coloured red. When Novya was done, Niras stepped through the broken gate. She nodded towards the graffiti.

‘Eye. Hand.’

‘It’s the merchant-combine’s mark,’ I muttered. ‘But different.’

The blank mask of Niras’ head tilted. ‘Like my dream.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, just wanting her to keep quiet before the others heard. ‘But it’s good. We’re where we want to be.’

‘Where we need to be,’ she whispered, then moved ahead, vanishing into the dark.

The passage narrowed into a damp conduit carrying water pipes, slimy and full of scab-snails. Their shells crunched underfoot and their blind heads reached for us with rasping tongues, but we were making good time. Until I saw Niras stop up ahead, staring at the floor.

‘Something’s here,’ she whispered. I looked at the floor, damp and mouldy, but saw nothing.

‘Cort?’

The breaker cursed the scab-snails as he came up, then stared at the floor for a long time. ‘Damn, she’s right. Terrom in the floor.’ Cort looked at me. ‘That wasn’t in your data.’

‘Take care of it,’ I said. Cort grumbled but he waved me and Niras back.

‘Let Novya up here. I might need her.’

We shifted in the narrow passage, slapping snails out of the way, and backed down the tunnel, leaving the breaker to his work.

‘How’d you find that?’ I whispered.

‘With my eyes.’ Niras peeled off her mask and looked at me. ‘I can’t see anything but reality when I’m awake, Volka. I’m only wyrd when I dream. Not like you.’

‘I’m not wyrd at all.’ I looked towards the others, engrossed in their work. I should have kept my mouth shut.

‘Why’d you pick me for this job?’ Niras asked.

‘Because you were available, and good.’ She kept staring at me, and I sighed. ‘I had a hunch. A feeling that I needed a short, mad bomber to pull this shitshow off.’

‘Not wyrd at all.’ She tilted her head, curls sliding across her face. ‘There’s something wrong here, Volka. There’s something bad happening in this place. I dreamed about it, and my dreams are always about terrible things. That’s why I destroy the things I dream about. Are all your hunches about terrible things too?’

A memory flashed through my head, of a room drenched in blood, a man standing over a table with a knife. Probator Lowe, right before I shot him in the face. I’d gone to that place, found him, because… something had told me to.

A hunch.

‘We’re not psykers,’ I said.

‘We’re not psyker enough to be hauled away to die. Just enough to stay here. Fighting the damned.’

‘With bombs?’

Niras smiled. ‘Never met a problem that couldn’t be solved with high explosives.’

‘You are mad.’ I looked at the belts and pouches hanging around her bodyglove, bulging with… whatever. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, Niras, but promise me something – you won’t blow anything up until I say you can.’

‘Should I say “please”?’ she said.

‘Sure.’

‘Right.’

I blinked at her, suspicious. But ahead of us, Cort was swearing. ‘What?’ I said. ‘Did you–’

‘Shut up,’ the breaker snarled. He was on the floor, working on hair-thin wires tangled in the mould. ‘Novya. Pull your knife. Put it on that wire. No, that wire. Cut it when I say.’

‘Cort,’ I asked. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ The breaker’s face was running with sweat, his teeth locked together. We were deep enough in that if he set off an alarm–

‘Now!’ he said, pulling at a set of wires while Novya slammed her blade down. We all crouched, waiting, but…

‘Did it work?’

‘I think so,’ Cort said, wiping the sweat from his face.

‘You think. How would we know if it didn’t?’ I said.

‘Guards will show up and shoot us,’ Cort said.

‘Good. It’ll be obvious then,’ Niras said, pulling on her mask. ‘Let’s go.’ She slipped past us and disappeared into the shadows.

The narrow tunnel dumped us into a tiny room of pipes and valves buried deep in the bowels of Solar Verdant’s headquarters. ‘All right,’ I breathed. ‘No more back roads. Everything from here on could be populated. Keep it quiet.’ I opened the door and light flooded in. We were standing at the top of a cavernous space and a catwalk stretched out ahead, crossing through the nest of heavy girders that supported a grid of lumens arranged below us. The air was hot and stinking. I followed Niras as she crept out, careful, quiet, trying not to retch at the stench.

Inside the room, my eyes adjusting to the light, I saw the cause of the heat and the smell. There were creatures below, huge, with horned heads and scaled hides. They looked vicious, but they stood dumbly in their tiny metal pens, each feeding out of a trough of viscous slurry.

‘Grox,’ I whispered to Niras. ‘Meat animals.’ I’d eaten grox, but wasn’t sure I’d want to again after smelling this room. The animals stank, the slurry stank, their shit was everywhere and it stank too.

‘Meat’s good slate,’ she said. ‘Where are the keepers?’

‘Maybe–’ I started, but was cut off. From the back wall, a machine glided out, a steel claw running on a track. It moved over one of the pens, then dropped and grabbed a grox. The animal barely reacted as it was hoisted up, and I remembered that they lobotomised the dangerous creatures before farming them. The claw carried the grox to a steel box in the centre of the room and let go, dropping the animal in. There was the sudden sound of saws and grinding, and through dirty glass pipes blood was pumped out of the box, while a conveyor belt rattled to life, carrying chunks of steaming meat out of the room.

‘They’re still farming them,’ I said.

She tilted her masked head, and moved silently down the catwalk. The smell got worse as we went, and she pointed down to a group of pens where the slurry trough was broken, empty. The grox in those pens were dead and rotting. Clouds of flies buzzed around the corpses, and their scaly hides seethed with maggots.

‘Not exactly,’ I said, staring at the corpses. When I looked up, Niras was gone. But there was someone else on the platform, just ahead, stepping out from behind a tangle of equipment. A man dressed in ragged coveralls, marked with the sun and hand of Solar Verdant.

‘Damn,’ I said. ‘Novya!’

She was already moving. Novya flew by me, augmetics whining as the man began to run. He headed for the door at the other end of the catwalk, outpacing Novya, until a black hand flashed up from under the catwalk and caught his ankle. He went down with a grunt, and then Novya was on him, hoisting him into the air.

I was there, Cort right behind me, staring at the man. His red face was twisted into a snarl. ‘Not here. Not here. The Bright Lord is in the centre. That is where you must serve him.’

‘The bright who?’ I asked.

‘The Bright Lord.’ There was something wrong with him. His body was twisted beneath the coverall, lumpy, and the red of his face was too bright. ‘Found in darkness, he brings the light. He brings growth, and wealth. He brings the light of life.’

‘He’s raving,’ Novya said.

‘He’s damned,’ Niras said, pulling herself back up onto the catwalk. She stared into his eyes, clouded and mad.

‘He brings life. But he needs life. He needs blood!’

Novya swore and dropped the man. ‘Knife,’ she shouted, clutching at her wrist. The man rushed Cort, swinging his blade. The breaker dodged, and I stepped forward and kicked, hitting the labourer in the back of the knee. He spun towards me, knife raised. ‘Blood!’ he shouted again, driving forward.

‘Get your own,’ Novya snapped. She caught his knife hand and pulled, jerking him forward into her other fist. He screamed as his teeth broke on her metal knuckles, and then he staggered back, into the rail of the catwalk and over. He fell into the metal butcher box. There was the whine of saws again, the grinding of bone, and blood and meat flowed out of the machine, a much smaller amount this time.

‘Damn,’ I said, nauseated by the flesh passing below. ‘What was wrong with him?’

‘Damned,’ Niras said, her voice barely heard above the whine of the meat saws.

‘Crazy,’ Novya said, looking from the cut on her wrist to Niras. ‘Like everything about this job.’

‘You good?’ I asked, before she could continue that, and Novya waved me away. I looked over at Cort, sprawled on the metal mesh of the catwalk. ‘How about you?’

‘He grabbed me,’ he said, rubbing his neck. ‘His hand… it was hot. Too hot. What was he talking about? The Bright Lord? What does that mean?’

Cort’s voice wavered, on the edge of breaking. He looked ready to give up, to head back for the tunnels and the scab-snails, and I understood the impulse. Something was wrong, in a way I didn’t understand, and that was dangerous. But we were in too far, and I had another hunch building in me. That no matter how bad going forward was, going back would be even worse.

‘Come on,’ I said, ignoring his questions as I helped him up. ‘We need to go.’

‘Damn right,’ said Novya. ‘We’re not being quiet. Somebody might be coming.’

Cort nodded, but he was standing still, rubbing his neck where the man had touched him. I could see a red spot, like blood, and chunks of skin left there by the man’s hand.

‘Do you hear it?’ Cort said, wiping it away. ‘It’s…’ The breaker shook his head. ‘I thought it was the flies buzzing, but it’s more than that. There’s data lost in the static.’ His voice was slowly rising. ‘Do you hear–’ Novya caught his shoulder with a hand half mechanical and shook him, silencing him.

‘I don’t hear anything, Cort,’ I said. ‘Are you good?’

The breaker blinked at me, then slowly dropped his hands. ‘Yeah. I just… I’m good.’

I didn’t believe him, but I nodded, and we walked towards the door where Niras waited.

We slipped into a stairwell, dirty rockcrete steps that spiralled down around a column of gurgling and dripping pipes, Niras flitting ahead of us like a shadow. We were getting close to the centre, the Incremento Aetherum. This stairway opened into another room, and then beyond that was the place where hopefully we would find… whatever it was we’d been sent to find. But as we neared the bottom of the stairs, Niras came back.

‘Next room,’ she breathed. ‘Something to see.’

‘Guards?’ I whispered, but she shook her head and led us down, and with every step my unease grew. This job had already slipped hard sideways. I might not be able to keep my crew moving forward if there was much else.

Except Niras, who seemed ready to sneak through hell’s back door.

We followed her through the door at the base of the stairs into a large, square room. Piles of things lay heaped around its edges, old equipment muddy, crushed, broken. In the centre was a hole, a shaft that dropped down into darkness, and the cage of a cable-lift hung over it.

‘What were they doing here?’ Novya asked. ‘Mining?’

‘Scavenging,’ I said, looking at the piles of junk lying around. ‘Looking for archeotech in the deep ruins.’ A lot of the merchant-combines funded that kind of treasure hunting. Mostly it came up with nothing but toxic junk, but sometimes…

‘Found in darkness,’ Niras said, and I looked at her. ‘That’s what that man said. Found in darkness, he brings the light.’ She leaned out over the hole, staring down into the black.

‘Archeotech?’ Novya said. ‘Is that how these arseholes are growing their slate?’ She grinned, vicious. ‘That’s fantastic!’

‘Is it?’ Niras said, stepping back from the shaft.

‘Archeotech is worth a fortune. If it’s something we can steal…’ Novya looked at me. ‘All that slate your contact offered. Maybe they’ll offer more. Or maybe we’ll find someone else to offer more.’

‘I don’t like this.’ Cort was rubbing his neck. The breaker looked pale, and he kept staring around, as if trying to see something in the shadows. ‘There’s something here. Something wrong. I don’t like all these whispers. I think we should go.’

‘Go?’ Novya snarled. ‘We’re almost to the score, and we might make heavy, heavy slate. I could finally buy all the augmetics I need, good ones. Stop dying every day by inches. We’re not going back.’

Niras’ black-masked face turned to me. ‘We need to see what’s going on. We need to meet this Bright Lord.’

‘I want to go,’ Cort moaned, and Novya raised her hand and I stepped between them, but as I moved I heard something. A low hiss of sound, like static. I looked at the lumens that lit this room, but they were steady, bright. It wasn’t coming from them, wasn’t coming from anything. It was in my head, low and insistent, a buzz of sound that was almost but not quite words.

‘What’s wrong, Volka?’ Niras asked, watching me stand there, motionless.

‘I think we’re in trouble,’ I said. ‘But I think it’s too late. We have to go on. If we try to run from this, it’s going to be worse. So much worse.’ I shook my head, but the buzzing didn’t stop. ‘Call it a hunch.’

‘Great. You’re all going crazy,’ Novya said. ‘Just hold it together until we find this thing, right? I need that slate.’

‘All right,’ Niras said, the shiny blank of the plate over her eyes on me. ‘Ready?’

‘Ready,’ I said, trying to ignore the buzz as I followed after her, pushing Cort before me, heading for the vault that was the heart of Solar Verdant.

Deep below the bloody spire of Solar Verdant was the Incremento Aetherum, a shadowy, massive vault filled with thick support columns and gigantic spherical tanks of glass. The tanks hung between the columns like vast bubbles, bottoms filled with black sludge, the rest with water, dull and dirty. A complicated nest of pipes ran over and around each tank, like some mad god’s chemistry experiment, and narrow catwalks threaded through it all, their metal paths lit by dim lumens.

‘Nutri-slime tanks,’ I muttered. ‘But the growth lumens are all off.’

‘How are we supposed to find the archeotech in all this?’ Novya whispered, staring around at the forest of pipes and columns and glass.

‘Go to the centre, and work out,’ Niras said. ‘We’ll find… something.’ She was staring at something as she spoke, her masked face shifting. A huge red pipe ran through the others, painted with combustion warnings. Promethium. Looking around, I saw a lot of those red pipes, running off the top of the round glass tanks, heading upwards. I frowned at Niras, but she just turned away and started in.

We followed her, gantry to gantry, using ladders and narrow stairs, always moving inwards through the dark, industrial maze, and as we moved towards the middle of the vault that static sound in my head grew. Not loud, just… encompassing. It was hard to think, as I kept catching myself listening to it, trying to hear the words that seemed to be buried in the noise. Had this same sound echoed in the head of the madman we’d butchered? Had this static resolved into the name of the Bright Lord? I set my teeth and shoved the thought away.

The columns, the tanks, the pipes, all the great machinery wrapped around us ended. The centre of the vault was a hollow sphere, a space empty of everything except a circular platform. In the middle of that platform was… something. In the semi-dark, I couldn’t see it, but the sound in my head was coming from there, and the data embedded in that static seemed so close to resolving into words… I started looking for a catwalk that would take us closer, but Niras caught my arm in a hard grip, turning me away to see a line of people marching towards that darkness.

They were dressed in hooded robes crudely sewn from green or gold cloth. Each robe bore a patch on the breast: a circle, a hand.

‘Vassals,’ I whispered, ‘maybe guilders.’ They weren’t labourers, dressed like that. Not that the people who controlled merchant-combines usually wore robes either. The whole silent procession was weird and wrong. We clung to the shadows, watching in silence as they moved up the walkway to the circular platform.

As they reached the platform’s edge, they pulled off their robes and dropped them to the side. Beneath they were naked, and every bit of their skin was burned. It hung from them in great peeling sheets, falling in patches as they walked. Their bodies were raw and oozing, weeping bloodstained liquid like tears; it ran around the bumps and ridges of tumours that grew beneath their broken skin. They should have been screaming with pain, but their expressions were exultant as they walked on ravaged feet, moving with sure steps even though their eyes were milky with cataracts. Everyone the same: damaged, burned, like the butchered man but so much worse, but all with that look of rapture on their peeling faces.

Crouched with the others in horrified silence, I realised that whatever had happened here, it had changed Solar Verdant from merchant-combine into some kind of nightmare cult.

The cultists positioned themselves in a ring around the platform. As they shifted, I recognised one of them. It was Avix Verdant, the guild leader that controlled Solar Verdant. His face had lost its paunchy superiority, become wasted and peeling, but his cloudy eyes still gleamed with avarice and malice. Those greedy eyes were fixed on the next group walking out onto the platform. Combine guards, their faces and hands as burned and peeling as the others, their bodies lumpy and misshapen. Each carried a laspistol and a knife, except for the two holding a rope that ran through the bindings of eight people they were leading onto the platform. Men and women dressed in street clothes, their skin whole, their eyes wide with fear. Thale’s missing persons, and I didn’t need a hunch to tell me that.

The guards dragged the prisoners to the centre of the platform, while the others positioned themselves around the edge. A bank of lumens snapped on, lighting them up. I blinked in the sudden glare, and for the first time I noticed the people clustered in the catwalks over the centre. Men and women with scraps of clothes and burned skin – Solar Verdant’s labourers, I assumed, though there weren’t nearly enough of them. I wondered if they would see us in the light, but all their eyes were focused on what was happening below.

The new light flooded across the platform, showing what rested on the corroded metal stand at its centre. Misshapen but roughly spherical, it was an eye, an eye larger than my head, made of something like stained glass. Thousands of green glassy facets were shaped into rough circles of iris and pupil by the lines of gold that ran between them. The eye stared blind into the light, seeming to slowly flex in and out, as if it were breathing.

In my head, the static grew, tearing through my brain, and I ground my teeth together to keep from screaming. Archeotech or xenos horror, whatever this thing was it was terrifying and hungry, and in the part of my mind that could still think I wondered if my hunch had killed or damned me.

The guards were forcing their prisoners to their knees around the grotesque eye, while the naked and burned stood in their ring around them. Avix Verdant raised his hands and they all shouted in unison, ‘My Lord! The Bright Lord! My Lord! The Bright–’ The chant echoed through the vault, taken up by the guards and the labourers, harmonising with the roar of the static in my skull, and I was paralysed, staring as the guards drew sharp blades across the throats of every prisoner at once.

Blood spurted into the air, pumped from still-living hearts, but it was caught, held like red ropes and pulled towards the great green eye. When it reached the eye it became liquid again, splattering across the facets, spreading until the bodies of the sacrifices were drained. Then, beneath its coating of gore, the eye began to shift. To flex, and open.

The golden lines between the facets split, and from them spilled light. Golden light, so bright but somehow not blinding. In its glow I could see the inside of the eye, gold struts and gears so intricate and delicate, moving with perfect precision as the rough sphere of the eye reshaped itself. The oval facets moved, shaping themselves into something that looked like hands, vivid emerald in the golden light, each one brimming with stolen blood. They turned the rough iris of the eye into a spiral of bloody hands, ringing a pupil of blazing golden light.

That light turned brighter, and then it suddenly shot out, a beam of gold spearing from the eye like a lascannon. The light hit one of the great glass tanks, but the tank didn’t shatter into flames and ruin. Instead, it turned green, the traces of nutri-slime in it exploding with growth, consuming every bit of black sludge and water until the sphere was packed with life, brimming with the slime that would become slab. The beam stopped, and the eye shifted, targeting another tank. It fired again, and the blood in one of the palms dissolved away to nothing, used up like fuel.

The terrible eye shifted and moved, burning blood to make life, and I could feel its power sheeting through my eyes and skin, warming me, burning me, filling me as the static in my head finally became words, that chant, ‘My Lord, The Bright Lord,’ over and over–

And then it was gone. The light fell from the air, pulled back into the eye as it closed up again, and there was only darkness, absolute and everlasting, and I howled at its loss. Howled until my vision slowly returned, and I realised that I was kneeling on the catwalk, Cort still howling beside me, Novya mumbling beyond him. And standing around us, laspistols drawn, were the guards who had brought the sacrifices.

A hunch shivered through me, but I ignored it. I already knew that we were fucked.

They brought us to the platform, made us kneel before the monstrous eye, now blind and dim, and bound our hands. Cort was barely cognisant, his eyes blinking but not seeing. He’d torn away most of his clothes sometime during the sacrifice, and his skin was as red as blood, red as the cultists. So were my hands and face, and the few places where Novya still had skin. That light had burned us too.

‘Three more blessings.’ The woman speaking had ulcerated eyes, but somehow she knew. ‘That is good, but we need more. Always more. There’s never enough blood for the lord.’

‘We have one more,’ Avix answered her. The guild leader was looking at us with his ruined, greedy eyes, like an addict eyeing a vial of stimm. ‘Bring them. Four will do.’

Novya knelt beside me, and I caught her eye, but she whispered to me before I could even ask. ‘No holdouts. I spent my slate on organs to live.’

‘Lot of good those are going to do you now,’ I muttered.

‘What about–’

I silenced her with a glare. Niras had slipped away, somehow, and I didn’t want a whisper said about her. If I had any hope now, it was that she was doing something to help us.

Instead of planting explosives.

‘I can’t take this,’ Novya whispered. ‘Do you hear that?’

Of course I did. The static was louder here, a hiss of sound mixed with words now, Bright Lord, Bright– I shook my head, and kept my gaze down. Looking at that misshapen eye made it worse. It had filled my head with its light, burned my skin, and part of me wanted it again. Wanted to feel that golden heat wash across me, to be filled again with stolen life…

This was supposed to have been just a job. A little spying, some smash and grab. Not… this. There were always rumours of dark, hidden things in the city. Of monsters and xenos, of horrors that could rip flesh and soul alike, but those were just stories. Varangantua’s monsters were supposed to be human, crude, stupid, vicious, but comprehensible. This terrible thing, which had turned Solar Verdant into a death cult… it was the sort of thing that was supposed to stay a story.

Instead it sat before me, the gleaming glass facets that formed it slowly flexing, like the misshapen eye of a daemon returning to life.

‘Volka Gethik.’ My name, rasped out by the person slammed down beside me.

‘Probator Verin Thale.’ I looked over at them, bruised and battered. ‘Looks like you solved your missing persons case without me.’

‘Unfortunately.’ They looked away from me, towards the flexing eye. ‘Found what you were looking for too?’

‘You all did.’ Avix stepped in front of us, smiling through peeling lips. ‘The Bright Lord is the end of all searches. He is our saviour, a power greater even than the Emperor. Blessed are you to kneel. Blessed are you to bleed.’

‘What if we don’t want to bleed, blasphemer?’ Thale asked.

‘Fears vanish in the light.’ Avix turned to the glassy eye. ‘When your life joins his, so will your thoughts, your memories, your mind. All that is you will be in him, everlasting, as light is everlasting.’

‘Right,’ I said. Avix’s back still to us, I chanced a whisper to Thale, ‘Does the dataveil work here?’

They didn’t bother to whisper back. ‘There’s just static.’

Of course. Hands grabbed me, the guards bringing me closer to the eye. They started to tie me down, ignoring my efforts to pull away. And then beyond them I saw something, a shadow against one of the shining glass tanks, there and then gone. I stopped fighting, and looked at Avix.

Maybe Niras was mad enough to help us after all.

‘You call us blessed,’ I said, trying to keep Avix and his cult focused on me. ‘But you’re damned.’

‘Really?’ Avix said. He seemed amused, but he was talking, not ordering the knives to fall.

‘It was clever to sacrifice your own workers first. But you’ve run out of everyone you can spare, so you’re grabbing people off the street. Probator Thale noticed that, and their disappearance will be noticed too. The enforcers will find this place and end this.’

Avix rubbed a hand across his face, peeling a swathe of skin away. ‘The Bright Lord cannot be ended. Every sacrifice makes him stronger. Soon, he will rise from this place, and his light will shine out over all Varangantua, and all will be blessed.’

‘That’s heresy,’ I said. ‘The Inquisition–’

‘Has no power over him,’ Avix said.

‘Your faith in that thing seems terribly misplaced,’ I answered, still trying to draw him out. ‘Do you even know what it is?’

Avix just shook his head and smiled. ‘You have only one eye, but you will still see the light. Soon you will know.’ The ruined man stepped back, joining the circle of other cultists. ‘Our Lord! Bright Lord!’ they began to chant, and the guards raised their knives.

But over the chant, over the growling static buzz of the stained-glass skull, I heard Niras shout, ‘Please!’

The word she’d promised to use before she blew anything up.

I threw myself down as her dark figure dropped onto the platform. Niras swung something from her hands, a loop of cord that she threw over the thing they called the Bright Lord. It settled on the steel deck around the base of the stand that supported the gleaming eye, and began to smoke. Fire, bright and angry, leapt up from the loop, and Avix and the other cultists were screaming. The guard who’d been about to cut my throat dropped his knife and ran towards the flames, screaming, burning, as he tried to put them out.

Over the chaos, there was the pop of an autopistol. I looked away from the fire and saw Niras, crouched on the platform, shooting at any cultist foolish enough to charge her. Then a bright laspistol bolt scorched the metal deck near her and she dived, rolling forward to me.

‘Here!’ She threw me the gun, then pulled another from her belt. She dived again, dodging another laspistol bolt, and snapped a shot at the guard firing at her, hitting him in the chest.

I picked up the knife the guard had dropped and cut the rope around my wrists, then slid the blade towards Thale. I reached for the autopistol, but something slammed into me, bowling me over.

‘No! You cannot stop his rise! Nothing can stop it!’

I rolled and twisted, facing the man who had tackled me. Avix. I pushed at him, hands sliding sickeningly over his wet, weeping flesh, fingers catching on the gristly tumours that bulged from his skin, but he fought me hard, hands tearing, fists hitting. I put one hand on his throat and squeezed until he sputtered and choked, but his soft flesh tore beneath my grip and left me holding nothing but a mass of dead skin. I dropped it, trying to shove him away, and my head hit something hard.

I grabbed the autopistol, jammed it under Avix’s jaw and pulled the trigger. Blood exploded out – then caught in the air, rolling away in a thickening thread.

Towards the green-gold eye that hung unsupported over the hole that Niras had burned into the platform’s deck. It floated there serenely, pulling blood from Avix and a pair of dead guards lying close by, coating its surface in the fluid.

‘Time to go,’ I shouted, shooting a naked cultist who was running screaming at me, the slug’s impact sending them staggering over the edge of the platform.

‘Damn right,’ Novya shouted, her mechanical voice squealing with stress. She kicked a laspistol out of the hand of a burned guard who was trying to rise and shot a bolt of light through the back of his head.

‘Where’s Cort?’ I shouted, but I caught sight of Thale cutting the breaker free. ‘Come on,’ I said, but the minute Cort’s bonds fell away he shoved past the probator and ran straight at the gore-coated eye. He didn’t seem to notice the hole melted in the platform, and he fell straight through it, disappearing into the darkness below without a sound.

‘Damn it,’ I swore, but it was too late. I took a shot at another guard, blowing a hole through his peeling chest. ‘We’re going, now! Niras?’

She melted out of the shadows, a pipe bomb clenched in her hand.

‘Go?’ Novya shouted. ‘We’ve got to figure out how to move that thing!’ The cyborg pointed at the blood-coated eye hovering in the air.

‘We’re not touching it!’ I shouted.

‘Then how do we get paid?’ Novya asked.

‘Paid?’ A slug pinged off the deck beside me, and I dodged to the side. ‘We’re getting out, before this thing kills us all, and maybe the city besides.’

‘I need that slate to live!’ Novya shot a charging labourer, then turned, walking towards the Bright Lord. But she didn’t get two steps before a slug ripped through the metal and flesh of her throat. With a guttural cry Novya fell to her knees, hands scrambling at her neck. From her throat the blood rose, a thick rope of it, and it flowed to the eye hanging in the air above her.

I stared at her dying body, but Thale grabbed me and pulled me towards the walkway that led off the platform. ‘Run,’ they said, but I ignored them. Niras was lighting her bomb, and a slug whizzed by her, ripping a slit in her bodyglove. I raised my gun, shooting, picking off the man hanging from a pipe above. Niras ignored me, ignored the slug that almost killed her, and threw the sputtering pipe bomb at the Bright Lord, then started running.

The bomb hit the bloody eye and exploded.

I staggered. The concussion blasted Novya’s body away and knocked Niras over. I got my balance back and went for Niras, dragging her with me as I followed Thale.

I ran, but Niras fought in my arms. ‘Stop, Volka! This isn’t over!’

I looked down at her. Niras had pulled off her hood, and her eyes were burning. ‘Look!’ She pointed back to where the gory eye hung, seemingly untouched by the bomb. It was moving, shifting, light pouring from it as it unfolded. ‘We have to destroy it!’

‘Niras, if we don’t run we’re going to die down here!’

‘If we run, we’ll burn up there,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know that?’

I didn’t know anything but terror. But the static in my head was shouting the Bright Lord’s name, and some part of me wanted to go back and glory in that golden light, and it had to stop. ‘What do we do?’

‘Carry me to one of the promethium pipes. I busted my leg when I fell.’

‘Right.’ I picked her up, looking for red in the golden light that was pouring down the passage.

‘Gethik, come on!’ I could see Thale ahead, waving at me.

‘Just go, you idiot! Run!’ To one side I saw a flash of red and took off that way, Niras bouncing on my shoulder. Thank the Emperor she was small. I ran past glass tanks, up narrow metal stairs, heading for one of the promethium pipes as the light grew behind me. Brighter and brighter, and the noise in my head was swelling. When that light flashed, again, it would take me apart, take me over, like it had Cort.

I risked a glance back and I saw it, distorted through a glass tank, a swirling iris of green hands filled with blood. No more time. I ran to the pipe and set Niras beside it. She slapped a charge against the red metal, tapping at the runes on its timer. Numbers appeared, spinning down towards zero, fast.

‘Now we can run,’ she said, and when I picked her up she clung tight. ‘It was good working with you, probator,’ she said, her words cutting through the static, the light – and then there was nothing but the roar of heat and flame.

‘Idiot.’ Across the table from me, Thale held their bottle of voc in bandaged hands. ‘I should have left you in that pit.’

I shrugged, then winced. My body was covered with bruises and burns. The charge had blown the pipe and all the others connected to it, tearing down the vault. But not instantly, luckily for me and Niras. Thale had time to find us.

‘Did it finally go out?’ The resulting fire had torn through Solar Verdant and the habclaves around it, threatening the whole district for the past few weeks.

‘Some of the vaults below are still burning, but they’ll just bury them in rubble and pour rockcrete over it all.’

I thought of that glassy eye, glowing and turning. Thought of it surrounded by fire, buried deep. The static in my head had quieted, but I still heard it in my dreams. ‘That won’t destroy it.’

‘But it’ll keep it hidden.’ Thale shrugged. ‘What more can we do?’

Nothing that didn’t risk bringing the Inquisition down on us all. ‘Nothing,’ I said, then groaned. Everything hurt. ‘Thanks.’

‘Thank you.’ Thale frowned. ‘That thing…’

They went quiet, and I had nothing to break their silence. What happened beneath Solar Verdant had hurt more than just our bodies.

Eventually, Thale gave up and stood, tossing their empty bottle into the pit behind them. ‘I’ve talked to the other probators. Told them… told them that you helped me out with something big. Told them you saved my life. You have a few more favours, now.’ They nodded and walked away, leaving me alone with my bottle.

For a little while, until a shadow slid into the booth with me.

‘Volka.’

I twitched and stared across the table at Niras. Her leg was wrapped in a crude augmetic brace, but she was still too quiet.

‘Niras,’ I said. ‘Glad you’re moving.’

‘Because of your friend.’ She lifted my bottle and took a swallow of voc. ‘Tell them thanks, sometime.’

‘You could have, when they were still here,’ I said, taking the bottle back.

‘I’m good with bombs. Bad with people.’ She cocked her head. ‘Did you talk to the contact who hired you?’

‘Yeah.’ I frowned and took a drink. ‘They’re giving me ten per cent. For removing competition. Probably lucky to get that. I think they were a little scared of me.’

‘You did wipe Solar Verdant off the map,’ she said.

‘You did.’

‘We did.’ She took the bottle again, had another long drink. ‘What do you think it was?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I just know it’s better buried.’

She nodded, solemn. Then she got up, augmetic brace slowly flexing. ‘It was good working with you, Volka. We should do it again.’

‘I’m sure we will,’ I said.

‘A hunch?’ she asked.

‘No. I just know how shitty my luck is.’

She grinned. ‘See you around, Volka.’ Niras swung away, disappearing into the evening crowd, and I finished the bottle and flipped it into the mineshaft. It vanished into the hole, dropping, its gleam lost forever in the darkness.

SANCTIONER

CHRIS WRAIGHT

She heard her own breathing echoing in her earpiece – elevated, but under control. The underground environment was hot, confined; a maze of tunnels and walkways, stained from the raw sewage that bubbled past her. You had to go carefully on the narrow ledges, stay pressed to the curved brickwork, watch the algal smears underfoot that made every surface as slippery as glass.

But then, Sanctioner Sergeant Marta Onorova had always been careful. She checked her equipment before every assignment. She kept her weapons cleaned and stowed, logged her ammo boxes with the armoury. She murmured the right benedictions to the machine-spirits when she needed to use a gunship or assault groundcar, all vehicles that she piloted through the city’s spires with precision and care. Her armour was in peak condition, responding to her movements silently and without lag.

It paid off, all that work, once you were on-mission. She hunkered down in the dark now, clad in her heavy, overlapping black flak-plates. Her noctis-gear kept her invisible in the deep shadow. Her helm’s visor showed her the route ahead – a grey-green overlay of false colour, flickering as her head moved. In her right gauntlet she clutched a slender service laspistol – quiet, but punchy. Her left hand was free, but stayed close to the cluster of blind grenades at her belt.

Not all of her colleagues were so conscientious. Some let the power go to their heads. Some were drunks or narc users. A few were no better, temperamentally, than the thugs they should have been keeping in check. She avoided those ones. She kept Varangantua’s coiled-serpent sigil polished on her breastplate, clean and visible. She knew the Lex-Alecto, what it was for, what it could do, what it could not. She kept her eye in, she kept her mind sharp, she kept her body honed.

Out of habit, she activated her augmetic iris’ translexer function.

> Targets located.

She half-rose, edging forward, keeping her sidearm held in front of her. A circular access tunnel ran straight ahead, pitch-black save for some dull, old maintenance lumens blinking away in recesses. Had she not activated her helm’s filters, the stench would have made her retch. As it was, all she could smell was her own sweat and the latex of her helm’s tox-seals.

Being an enforcer was all about these moments – alone in the dark, free from the nagging interference of the command Bastion, just a single weapon, just a single target. So much of the rest of her work was done in squads – crowd-culls, rabble-cleansing, cult-breaking in grimy habs full of grimy people. This, here, was what she’d joined for. The quiet hunt. Though the detection cadres – the probators, the analysers – thought of sanctioners as dispensable gristleheads to be wheeled in when the need for a little violence became pressing, Onorova had never thought of herself like that. She was a professional. Everything was in its place, all tools out and ready. It had to be clean, in and out, job well done. Take some pride. Take some care.

She reached an intersection. A larger sewer ran left to right, its roof soaring into a gothic arch, its floor lost under the foaming effluent. She was a long way down, far under the tangle of transitways, hab-blocks and landing stages that made up Varangantua’s titanic sprawl.

From the right came the faintest blush of light, picked up by her helm, isolated and analysed as hand-lumens moving jerkily. They were carried by her targets, and there was no reason for them to suspect she was coming for them. This was their kingdom, after all – a world of buried tunnels that smelled so bad and carried so many contagions that only the insane or the very well protected ventured down into them.

> First visual.

Onorova paused for a moment, letting the light fade again before slipping around the corner. She picked up her pace, half-jogging, relying on her thick-tread boots to keep her footing. Her helm-display started to pick up fragments of other things – heat signatures, echoing noises – and she noted the results.

She blinked up a cartographic overlay and saw where the targets were headed: a chamber, part of a large pumping station, a place with lockable hatches and access up towards the surface and the mag-train railheads. If they were moving there, they were aiming to get out and reach a transport. Once out onto the rail lattice, they could get to anywhere in the huge labyrinth of the Vostoka habclave.

> Engaging now.

She dismissed her helm’s spidery overlay map and started to run. The sewer squirmed ahead, writhing around like a brickwork serpent, before she caught sight of the targets’ destination – a high rust-streaked metal wall, riveted and double-braced, sunk into ancient filth. The sewer’s contents gurgled onward, sloughing down into a barred culvert. The only other mark on the wall’s blank surface was an access hatch – a heavy circle of burnished steel, thick-rimmed and crusted with corrosion – reached from the sewer walkway by a shaky-looking ladder.

The last member of the gang was still making his way through the gap. She saw a pair of boot-soles disappear into darkness just as she reached the ladder’s base, followed by a gloved hand emerging to pull the heavy door closed. She could hear the echoing clang of footfalls, moving faster now, from up ahead inside the chamber.

She took aim and snapped off a single las-bolt, angled up through the narrowing hatchway. She heard a grunt of surprise as she raced up the ladder, hand over hand, before pushing her way through the gap.

She saw a man wearing cheap armour – big, muscled, grey skin and a scraggly mohican over a shaved scalp – clutching at his bleeding stomach. Silently, she shot him through the throat, shoved the body aside and pressed on after the rest of the gangers. She could smell the topaz now – the narcotic had a potent odour in its uncut form. They carried it this way in sachets and capsules, ready to process for the users in the hab-blocks. It stuck to the clothes like pollen on an insect – hard to shake off.

> One elimination.

None of the others had noticed her coming after them, or the loss of their comrade. It was dark and they were pressing on, running through a tangle of pipes in the pumping station, their progress now masked by the roar of the processors in action. It was a steamy, close interior, hazy with condensation, shuddering from piston thrusts and valve discharge.

Her helm-display gave her four targets. Three of those would be gangers, indentured muscle like the one she’d just wasted. The last one was her target, Ero Zerkoj – narc-runner, thief, sadist, all-round undesirable.

Onorova ran faster, weaving through the huge pipes, picking up the distant growl of a mag-train engine starting up. Just past the chamber, out in a larger space beyond, it sounded like they had their transport waiting. She saw two shadows ahead of her, lumbering, hampered by cumbersome, ill-fitting armour.

She shot four times, two for each target, hitting them just where she wanted. They tumbled forwards, skidding on the slick deck before crashing down, head first.

> Two eliminations.

The third ganger found something to hide behind – some kind of wheezing regulator housing – and fired off some wild projectiles. By then she’d already dropped low and scampered into cover, the bullets smacking into a bunch of overhead pipes. One of them burst open, showering her with scalding steam, and the temperature sensors on her armour went crazy.

She surged out of the thundering spray, relying on her helm’s machine-spirit to get a target. Her las-bolt hit the crouching ganger in the head, searing through a low-grade helmet and sending a puff of red out the other side.

> One elimination.

That only left Zerkoj. She’d lost sight of him in the steam but could still hear the transport’s engine going just up ahead, out across an open rockcrete deck. She could sprint straight for that, catching him before he could make a break for it.

But that would leave her out in the open, if only briefly. Zerkoj was a sneaky breed of gutter-rat and she guessed he’d have hunkered down somewhere in the machinery, waiting for her to break for the transport, knowing it would give him a shot.

She went carefully, keeping her body low, edging towards the regulator housing, then moved along a brace of pipes the width of her waist.

Once out of the worst of the steam, she picked up his heat signature again. He was crouched down over to her right, lodged deep within the metallic entrails of a pair of exchangers. The waiting mag-transport stood at the railhead, out in the open, twenty yards straight ahead, driverless, power plant idling.

‘Show yourself, citizen!’ she shouted, her voice rasping through her helm-vox. ‘Running won’t help you now.’

She heard him swear. ‘Yeah. Tell that to my entourage.’

‘Entourage. Big word for a small crew.’

‘What’s this about? You want to tell me that?’

She sidled a little closer to his position, keeping plenty of cover between them. Silently, carefully, she slipped a fully charged power pack into her laspistol. ‘It should be obvious. There’s too much filth on my patch. Filth that comes from you.’

‘Hells. You know all about it. Your master sergeant – Mhurov. Ask him how it works. He knows.’

‘I already did. You think we don’t talk?’

Zerkoj swore again. This time he sounded jumpier, like he was thinking about making another break for it. ‘This is zone aleph, Vostoka, grade-sevens,’ he said. ‘The hovels, the shit-heaps. My kind of concession.’

She sidled a little closer, trying to gauge which way he’d bolt. Go left, he’d only have a few yards to cover, but he’d be exposed. Go right, and he’d have to get through a nasty mess of hissing engine workings before getting out, slowing him down. She only needed one shot – his clothing didn’t look like it hid any decent armour underneath.

‘Then you’ll have permits,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘Permits? For this stuff?’

‘Exactly. I get bored of carting the bodies away, Ero. I feel the need to clean things up.’

‘You… know my name?’

‘I know plenty about you.’

Then he bolted, bursting from cover, heading left, racing for the transport and freedom. She’d guessed he’d go the other way, so had to compensate, shifting her weight to one side and taking aim. She loosed two las-bolts – one missed, the other sliced through his thigh, and he hit the floor with a thin wail.

She emerged from cover herself, walking up to him as he lay on the deck, writhing. She shot him in the other leg, just to be sure, kicked away the combat knife he’d drawn, then lowered herself, kneeling into the small of his back.

She sniffed.

‘I can smell it on you,’ she said softly. ‘It never gets less disgusting.’

Zerkoj stopped squealing, teeth gritted. He tried to lift his head, only giving up once the laspistol muzzle landed against his temple, pressing down. ‘I’ve got friends down here,’ he grunted.

‘You don’t have any friends, Ero.’

He rolled his eyeballs to look up at her. ‘I had an under-standing.’

‘Not from me.’

‘So, what now? You’ll go back to Mhurov? Tell him he’s a liar. Tell him I spit on his face.’

‘He’ll like that.’

She turned her head away as she fired, so that his blood didn’t splatter over her face mask. She felt Zerkoj’s body go limp under her knee.

> Target elimination.

Then she holstered her pistol and rummaged through his clothes. He was carrying a few capsules of lime-green powder – probably samples. High-grade, worth some slate. She peeled back the collar of his jacket and felt around the collarbone. The telltale bulge of a subdermal augmetic caught her finger. She reached for a knife and cut it out – it would be a comms node, something that, once cracked, would give up more contact details, exposing his network of suppliers and buyers. Then she worked her way down, going methodically, looking for more. She didn’t find much – a data-slug, another knife, some physical slate credits wrapped up in a greasy paper sleeve.

She sat back on her haunches. It was all rather pathetic. No one made a fortune dealing topaz in the habclave underwarrens – the ones turning slate were a long way away, protected by private armies and fortified spires. For all the misery Zerkoj had caused, for all the lives wasted and the violence inflicted, he was still a scruffy urchin, able to count on only a few gangers in poorly fitting armour, vulnerable to elimination from anyone in the grade-sevens with a decent crew. No doubt he’d dreamed of rising up the ladder quickly. That was why he’d been throwing his weight around, getting people killed, making enemies. Left alone, he might have become a bigger problem. So she hadn’t left him alone.

Onorova got up, brushed herself down, pulled out a sealed bag for the evidence and stowed it at her belt. Then she walked over to the mag-transport, still pumping out fumes. She clambered up into the cab, disengaged the drive controls and shut down the power plant.

When she got out again she headed back the way she’d come, through the pumping station, through the acrid stench of the sewers, tracing the winding path underground before climbing back up the slippery access shaft again to street level.

She emerged feeling grubby. The space around her was busy, crammed with workers shuffling between habs. The transitway was dark, noisy, the air a fug of human smells. Groundcars juddered their way slowly through the crowds, alert-horns blaring. Viaducts soared overhead, black against a blood-red night sky, and chameleon screens flashed and scattered their commercia bulletins. The serpent sigil of Varangantua jostled up against the Imperial aquila on the lintels of the great towers, and the mag-trains on the elevated tracks clattered between the boles of the dark hab-towers. It was all massive, rising up and up, spreading out like a plague of rockcrete and asphalt, burgeoning, churning, alive with the stink of danger and energy.

She took a deep breath. The air was acrid with promethium, wet, too hot for comfort, but still better than the sewer’s had been. She had accomplished what she had set out to accomplish, had the evidence of the kill, and now all that remained was to return to the Bastion to file a report for the analysers.

Every face on the street was averted. She walked through the crowds like a cutter scything through the waves, bodies shuffling out of her path. To meet the gaze of a sanctioner was dangerous, and the chief survival strategy of the average citizen was to remain nondescript, invisible, just a part of the great mass of undifferentiated humanity. That suited Onorova. She didn’t much like looking at them either.

She reached her groundcar – a heavily armoured Mukha squad-vehicle. The security bars slipped back and the gullwing doors hissed open. She got in, roused the machine-spirit, ignited the engines. Then she was pulling out, threading her way through the masses, inching her way out of the crowds and up onto the transit viaducts.

Before long, she could see the huge profile of the command Bastion on the horizon – a lumpen mass of dark granite, floodlit, as imposing as it was impenetrable. Zhurov gunships hovered over it, keeping station amid throngs of whirling servo-skulls. The next intersection would take her there, sweeping up the access ramps, under the gaze of the gun towers and the augur-screens.

But she wasn’t headed there, not yet. Another appointment beckoned, still deep in the Vostoka habclave, that ruinous conglomeration split between mouldering industrial units and run-down hab tenements. She steered the groundcar off the main route, plunging back into the twilight of the undercity. Lumens blinked above her, watery and pallid against the seamy night. She went deeper, winding under a series of low rockcrete arches before pulling up in front of a brick facade. Suspensor lumens blundered around high above her, casting very little illumination on the glinting asphalt below. She got out, secured the groundcar, then walked up to a steel door covered in flaking red paint. It smelled of refuse, with a lacing of hard-to-place chems.

She banged on the door. After a while, a slide-panel was jerked back, and a metal ident-reader was thrust out. Onorova took off her left gauntlet and let the machine take a pinprick of blood. After that, the ident-reader withdrew, and the panel slammed closed.

It didn’t take long before she heard the heavy clunk of bolts being pulled. The door swung inward, revealing a dark hallway and a steep set of stairs. The smell of raw topaz spilled out onto the street. At least three guards hung back in the shadows, not hindering her, just there to look threatening. They were well armed – las-carbines, shock mauls – and wore decent body-protection.

Onorova ignored them and went up the stairs. Across the landing at the top was another metal door, which she pushed open. On the far side of that was a large room with sodium lumens and walls that looked like they were made of synthleather panels. Low couches were placed against the walls, and a vial of cotin smoke gently hissed atop a plastek table. The blinds were down, and the air was tangy with topaz.

A woman lounged on one of the couches. She was large, running to fat, with jowly cheeks and lank hair. She wore a crimson gown, cut high at the neck. Ganger tattoos ran down one exposed arm. She had a needle gun strapped to her left boot.

‘Hello, Livia,’ Onorova said, sitting down opposite her.

The woman looked at her through a haze of cotin. ‘Wasn’t expecting to see you here,’ she said. ‘You took a risk coming.’

Onorova reached for the evidence bag, and placed it on the table between them. ‘You don’t have to worry about Zerkoj any more. He decided to exit the business.’

Livia sniffed. ‘Wise man. Why come here to tell me?’

‘Because he had friends. Four of them. I’m getting bored of dropping gangers, Livia. Very bored.’

‘You don’t look bored.’

‘It’s not as easy as it used to be. I’ve got real work to do, as well as cleaning out your rivals for you.’

Livia gave her a sour look. ‘I see. More slate, that it?’

‘It would help. Keeping all of this quiet, keeping Mhurov out of the loop, it takes effort.’

For a moment, it looked like the woman might refuse. Eventually, though, she nodded. Onorova felt a twinge under her eyeball as her iris processed the payment. Fifteen per cent – that would do.

‘Thanks,’ she said, getting up, leaving the evidence bag on the table. ‘There are things in there you’ll want to read.’

Livia didn’t look up. ‘You should be careful, enforcer,’ she said. ‘Don’t get too many ideas about how this works. That’s the route to trouble.’

Onorova was already walking out. ‘I never get too many ideas. I’m just the muscle, see.’

Then she was heading back down the stairway. She kept tabs on the gangers in the hallway, but they did nothing but glower at her. She got out, headed to her groundcar, got in, locked it.

For a moment, she sat in the pilot seat, looking out at the forests of hab-towers ahead, half-lit by scatters of lumen-points, piled atop one another, buzzed by clouds of atmospheric flyers and servo-skulls. Under every one of those towers was a basement level, and then an underwarren, going deeper, getting darker. She knew too many of them. After a while, it felt like you lived in those places. Maybe they left a stain, after a while. Maybe that would be hard to rub off, when the time came.

She started the engines. Once the groundcar was moving, she activated her tracker-scrubbers, removing all trace of her activities from her mission-cogitator and translexer. Once back at the Bastion, she’d file the usual reports – crowd-culls, rabble-cleansing, cult-breaking in grimy habs full of grimy people. She’d do it carefully, covering her tracks, not making it look too clean, just enough to keep Mhurov’s eye elsewhere.

It was what you needed to do. It was how it was, how it had always been. Livia knew it. Zerkoj, for all his protestations, had known it. A sergeant’s stipend barely covered basic food rations. This was how you made a living.

It was dangerous, of course. Everything was dangerous. But Onorova did things properly. She was careful. The model of a sanctioner sergeant. It had to be clean, in and out, job well done. Take some pride. Take some care.

She drove hard then, out into the night, back up into the heart of the city. Overhead, where a transit overpass crossed the heavy arch of a mag-train route, the serpent sigil of Varangantua glinted in the dark, just like the one she wore proudly on her chest. She passed under its gaze, smiling, already thinking about how she’d spend the slate.

OLD INSTINCTS

JONATHAN D BEER

Nesc didn’t cry when she saw her husband’s body.

She moved closer, pushing through the crowd that had gathered beneath him. Ren was hanging from a lumen-post, suspended by bloody cables that had been punched through the hollows between his shoulders. He swayed gently in the grey morning light, head slumped against his chest. Looking up at him, Nesc felt something inside her tighten, hardening against the pain. Suppressing any part of herself that was not useful in this moment.

Plasma burns criss-crossed his exposed limbs. His chest was a scorched ruin. There was a gleeful fury evident in the hand that had tortured her husband to death.

The crowd ignored her, absorbed by this unexpected spectacle. They were used to hearing about this kind of thing happening in other districts, outside the staid civility of Korodilsk. They might occasionally step over the slumped form of a sense-blind obscura addict in the stairwells of their hab-blocks, but this sort of deliberate violence was unusual, and therefore interesting. A novelty that broke up the monotony of the diurnus-shift change.

Nesc slipped away as the enforcers arrived to disperse the crowd and cut down Ren’s corpse. She kept a low profile in the habclave, but in that moment she couldn’t risk anyone recognising her and connecting her with the body. She needed time to think, to come up with the lies that would deflect the enforcers’ investigation away from her and her family. She needed to consider what Ren’s death meant, and what would come next.

She needed to find her children.

They sat together in the living area of their domicile.

They hadn’t been at their scholam, which wasn’t a surprise. Nesc had found them killing time in the habclave’s communal zone, entirely ignorant of the fearful images flashing through their mother’s mind. She had dragged them back to their hab-block, nerves firing at every noise and glance from the pedestrians that crossed their path.

Nesc didn’t cry as she told them their father was dead. Neither did they.

Joshin was silent for a long time, doing nothing but opening and closing the folding knife Ren had given him on his eighth name-day. Karan’s expression hardened, and Zem, always the softest, reached out and squeezed her hand.

But that was it. They had as little love for their father as she did. As she sent them to their room, Nesc felt another piece of herself crack. She knew her resentment of Ren had bled over to them, poisoning any possibility of filial affection between her husband and his children.

She kept herself together for the enforcers’ visit, as brief as it was. The probator had already seen Ren’s body. She’d barely had to lie, his questions were so perfunctory. She had shoved him out the door as soon as she could, and he had been happy to leave.

Nesc cried afterwards, though, once she was alone. Short, harsh sobs that ached in the pit of her chest.

The tears surprised her. What love she and Ren had shared had long since curdled into apathy and neglect. They had been together for so long, yet her memories of his failures far outweighed his few moments of strength. Their years of hiding had only widened the rift between them, and that had driven him further into the grip of narcotic oblivion.

But now he was dead. Or, more accurately, he had been killed.

Nesc looked over at the storage locker beside the hab’s entrance. There was an Atreus-pattern laspistol and five synthweave bags inside. Each bag contained clothes, carb-bars and whatever hard slate Ren had left the last time he’d ransacked them to pay for a fix. She and the children could grab them, break into one of the groundcars in the hab-block’s depot and be gone in minutes.

She felt her breathing quicken, her sadness suddenly giving way to rage. A fierce flash of white-hot fury surged across her thoughts, searing through her unexpected heartache and bitter regret.

Her husband was dead. Something of hers had been taken. Hurt. Dragged through the street and hung from a lumen-post to die, blood draining into the gutter beneath him.

She knew what this was. Nesc had done it herself, more than once. Knowing that someone could reach into your life and kill what you cared for, take what you had, that was the essence of fear. Someone wanted her to be afraid, to sense the blade at her back before it struck.

Nesc stood up sharply and walked over to the locker. She wrenched open the door, shoved the bags aside, and grabbed the laspistol. The familiar weight felt good in her hand. She reached back inside the locker for a charge pack and slammed it home with practised ease.

No more hiding.

She kept to the shadows, which was a challenge.

The lurid glare of the Hate and Mercy joy house punched light and sound at Nesc from every angle. Shafts of light cut through the greasy, smoke-stained air, roving in intersecting patterns across the walls, the floor, the bodies of dancers. Flickering holofields above bars and private side rooms promised an array of sins in every shade of the spectrum.

The clientele themselves were swirls of colour. Most wore skin-hugging bodygloves that merely reflected the pulsing light in florescent shades, but here and there clusters of richer patrons, down from the hive spires to slum it with the common folk for the night, practically burned with garish brilliance. Some wore diodes in their hair and clothes that slowly shifted hues, and others had electoos printed on their hands, arms and faces that throbbed in time with the wearer’s pulse, the latest fashion amongst the young and the gilded.

Nesc moved through it all, entirely apart from the manic gaiety that echoed from every surface. She avoided the entwined couples and kept her distance from clusters of dancers, skirting the edges of the joy house’s many spheres of entertainment. In each room she felt as though the lights were tracking her, leaving her exposed and vulnerable amid the blurs of shapes and overlapping sounds.

She was not the only one set apart from the crowds. Predators circled, or stood watching from half-shadowed alcoves and corners. They would descend on lone figures, promising more exclusive entertainment or illicit substances not available from the licensed vendors at the bars. Anything that would lure the rich and foolish away from their fellows.

Nesc saw these dark figures, and they, no doubt, saw her. She left them to their business, and they left Nesc to hers.

She reached her target after enduring twenty minutes of ear-splitting music and stray sweat-spray. Two women stood on either side of a recessed doorway, clad in slim suits of half-armour that dully reflected the joy house’s roaming lights back at Nesc.

One of the guards gestured vaguely at her as she approached. Her armour’s collar jutted up and out, concealing the lower half of her face. ‘Bar’s over there, ablutional’s back the way you came.’

‘I’m here to see Jiska Kalchek.’

The woman stopped looking around and gave Nesc her full attention. ‘Why would she want to see you?’

‘Because, years ago, I let her live.’

The bouncer’s partner unsubtly put her hand on the snub-nosed autopistol holstered at her hip. The woman’s stare hardened. ‘You got a name?’

‘Roksana Klima,’ said Nesc. She hated that name. She hated the necessity of a fake identity. It warped her sense of self. Each day she told herself she was still Nescata Rachen, even buried under all her falsehoods.

The woman spoke quietly into a vox-unit built into the gorget of her armour. While she waited for a response, Nesc glanced over her shoulder at the crowds of young revellers, lost in the frantic pursuit of oblivion. She didn’t like having her back to anyone, particularly in a place like this.

The guard evidently received a response through her vox, and she made a sound to get Nesc’s attention. ‘You armed?’

Nesc looked back. ‘Yes.’ She had been frisked at the Hate and Mercy’s entrance, but not carefully enough.

The guard nodded, unfazed. ‘Go inside and wait there.’ She spoke into her armour again as her partner punched a series of runes into a panel beside the door. It swung open, and Nesc stepped through with a nod to each bouncer. She found it paid to recognise professionalism when she saw it.

Darkness enveloped Nesc as the door slammed shut. She heard the buzz of electromagnetic locks click on, and the rhythmic thunder of music was softened to a low thud. Nesc breathed out, forcing some of the tension from her shoulders.

She was in an underlit atrium, enclosed in front and behind by locked doors. After a minute’s pointed delay, the door ahead of her clicked open. Another woman was waiting for her. This one wore the same cuirass of dark metal as the guards outside, but augmented by thick greaves covering her thighs. The woman wore the heavy plate easily, and hefted a wide-mouthed shot cannon with comfortable familiarity. Nesc would have bet hard slate that this woman, and the guards outside, were discharged veterans of the Alecto planetary defence corps.

The woman tried to put a hand on her shoulder as Nesc came through. ‘This way.’

Nesc shrugged her off. ‘I know where I’m going.’ She set off down the corridor, not waiting for her escort.

The corridor branched at intervals. Nesc took each turn by memory, finally reaching a tight spiral staircase that clattered noisily as she and the guard climbed. After several turns it opened onto a small antechamber, richly carpeted and leading to a pair of doors that were faced, at least, with real wood. The sudden display of wealth was at odds with the utilitarian hallways and the gaudy veneer of the joy house’s main rooms; Jiska had always been a spendthrift, but evidently it was worth making a statement where it mattered. As Nesc approached, one of the doors swung open silently.

The office was large, and as expensively decorated as the anteroom. One wall was made entirely of glass, looking out over a dance pit. The air was thick with lho-smoke, and the rhythmic thump of music was barely audible. Two desks faced each other from either side of the room.

Standing with her back to the window was a tall, muscular woman wearing a well-cut indigo suit. She had the grim, determined set to her features that Nesc remembered from a thousand dark nights and bloody fights. Jiska’s eyes met Nesc’s, and her expression didn’t change.

She gestured to the guard. ‘Get lost, Lori.’ The woman glanced between Jiska and Nesc, then stalked away, shutting the office door firmly behind her. Both women waited until she was gone, the silence stretching out between them.

There had been a time when Nesc and Jiska had been inseparable. Her earliest memories were of running through rain-slick streets, Jiska, Marini and Wynn beside her. They had always been running, into and out of trouble, never still for a moment. Everyone born in the Spoil was either hustling or already halfway to the crematoria-fields, but Nesc and her friends had fought, stolen and grifted for every scrap they had ever had.

Nesc looked at Jiska and saw the span of their lives together. The miles run. The blood spilled. The mistakes made.

Jiska finally broke the tension by walking over to the left-hand desk and plucking a lho-stick from an ornate wooden case. ‘I let her live. Three years, and that’s the best you can come up with?’ She waved the unlit stick at Nesc.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d let me in.’

‘I nearly didn’t.’ She picked up a chromed igniter from her desk and lit the stick.

‘Ren’s dead,’ said Nesc. She blurted it out; the crushing weight of the fact and her relief at seeing her friend had washed away the stiff reserve that had carried her this far.

‘We heard.’ Jiska left that hanging in the air. It was evidently all the condolence Nesc would get, but she wasn’t surprised. Jiska had never liked Ren; they had been too similar in too many ways, and he had entered their shared life too late to be truly accepted by any of Nesc’s crew. Jiska strode round to the far side of her desk and slid into a well-padded chair.

‘Did you hear how?’ Nesc asked.

Jiska nodded tightly, and blew out a plume of smoke. ‘Yes.’

Nesc frowned, her sense of relief fading as quickly as it had come. ‘It was him, Jisk. It was Varec.’

Saying his name opened a door in her mind, throwing her back a decade and more. Nesc and her small crew had been pulled into Varec’s orbit when they were young, barely out of childhood. The Spoil was built on patronage, iron-hard webs of fealty that connected the merest hustler like Nesc with the mightiest cartel lords, the equal of the merchant barons and burgraves in more civilised regions of Varangantua. Roman Varec had been on the up then, with the muscle and the benefactors to give four young women the chance to make some real slate. To not go to sleep with aching stomachs, taking turns watching for predators in the dark.

But with that chance had come terror, and pain, and the obligation to do things that haunted Nesc’s dreams even now.

The office door opened behind Nesc and she whirled, one hand reaching for the knife concealed at the small of her back.

A woman wearing a high-collared tunic and loose breeches slipped inside. Nesc straightened, feeling foolish. Marini, as loyal a friend as Nesc would ever have, frowned at her look of alarm, then wrapped her in a sudden hug. The top of her head barely came up to Nesc’s chin.

‘We heard about Ren,’ she said as she pulled away. Marini looked up sadly at her, sympathy softening the scars that creased the left side of her face.

Nesc stepped back, away from Marini and the door. ‘Nesc thinks it was Varec,’ Jiska said, with a twist in her voice. Nesc stiffened, the banked fires of her anger stoked by Jiska’s scornful dismissal.

‘Nesc…’ Marini said, as sceptical as Jiska.

Nesc looked between the two of them. ‘Ren was tortured to death with a plasma torch and hung out on display. Who else would do that to me?’

‘Everyone, Nesc,’ said Jiska.

‘A lot of people in this city have the capacity for that kind of violence,’ said Marini, more gently. ‘You know that. Cross the wrong people, even in Korodilsk, and there are consequences.’

‘This wasn’t narco-pushers.’ Nesc had considered that possibility and instinctively discarded it. Ren’s somna addiction had taken him to the worst parts of the district, but it was bad business to kill your customers, and though they had fought about it constantly she had always ensured he had enough slate to keep him from doing something stupid in pursuit of a fix.

‘But why Varec?’ Marini asked. Her hand strayed to her face as she spoke his name, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the ridges of scar tissue. The muscles in Jiska’s jaw tightened as she saw the gesture, and Nesc felt an old shard of guilt stab her heart. ‘Why now?’

It had been ten years since their sudden flight from the Spoil, after Nesc had freed them from Varec’s yoke. In that time, they had learned to live under the oppressive weight of the Lex. They had built new lives. Jiska and Marini had established the Hate and Mercy early on, funded by the wealth they had stolen from Varec’s vaults. Nesc had been more circumspect, and had bribed her way into a post in the Officio Praescribere of Korodilsk’s local Administratum. But despite the protection of time and distance and well-forged ident-papers, Nesc had never stopped looking over her shoulder. She had never shed her regret that she hadn’t put a bullet in Varec and been free of him for good.

‘Because we hurt him,’ she said. ‘He’ll never let go of that grudge.’

There was a stilted silence as Jiska and Marini digested that.

‘Why are you here, Nesc?’ Jiska asked. Nesc noticed she had crushed her lho-stick between her clenched fingers.

‘I’m going back. I want you to help me kill him.’

‘No.’ The flat, immediate refusal hit her like the blow of an iron bar. Nesc had seen it coming – the long-held resentment simmering in Jiska’s eyes had made it obvious – but it still hurt. She looked at Marini, and saw that Jiska had spoken for the both of them.

‘You used to trust me.’ Nesc despised the weakness she heard in her voice.

‘I’ve learned from my mistakes,’ spat Jiska. Marini took a hesitant step towards her partner to stand beside her, but Jiska’s anger made her falter.

There was nothing more to be gained from this conversation.

‘I’m going back, with or without you.’ Nesc drew herself up to leave, then paused. Though they would not help her return to the Spoil, she still had to ask something of them. ‘I need you to look after Karan and the boys for me.’

Marini nodded immediately, ignoring Jiska’s expression. ‘Of course.’ Nesc gave her a tight smile of thanks.

‘I know you want retribution for Ren, Nesc,’ Marini said, trying one last time. She reached out to grip Nesc’s arm. ‘Let us look into it. We know people.’

Nesc gently pulled away from her touch. ‘It was Varec, Rini,’ she said.

Nesc looked at her friends. There was so much she should say, and nothing that she could say now. She nodded to them both and turned to leave.

‘And what do we tell your children when it’s you we find hanging from a lumen-post?’ Jiska asked at Nesc’s back.

She paused at the door. ‘I’ll be dead. Tell them whatever you like.’

She delivered her children to Jiska and Marini’s domicile in the Hate and Mercy the following morning. She bade them brief, perfunctory goodbyes, and said nothing to the old friends who were taking her family into their care.

Nesc walked away from the joy house feeling strangely free. She knew she should be ashamed of that. Men were coming to kill her. She was abandoning her children, in pursuit of a reckless vendetta that she could have hidden or run from. But Nesc could sense the change in her since she had seen Ren’s broken body. Old instincts were unfolding, strangling the regret and guilt that had dominated the last ten years of her life. To have a purpose, even a bloody and quite possibly suicidal one, was like a shot of topaz in her veins.

Nesc set off from an inter-sector maglev station not far from Korodilsk’s pleasure-quarter. The maglev line cut through the city on vaulted viaducts, giving Nesc the opportunity to stare out at the immense sprawl beneath her. Commercia precincts, hab-blocks, manufactoria complexes, Administratum courts, Ecclesiarchy chapels, defence-corps barracks. Each building, and a thousand others, emerged and disappeared from view as the train flew through the smog-banks that cloaked Korodilsk’s northern border.

Varangantua was vast – an unbroken expanse of rusting iron and rockcrete that stretched from horizon to horizon and far beyond, an entire continent patched together into a single impossibly large city.

Nesc, like most citizens of Varangantua, rarely stopped to consider the enormity of it. Few ever saw the city limits, and, aside from the regular Astra Militarum foundlings, even fewer left it. For the billions of people who were born, lived and died upon Alecto, the city simply was. There was only Varangantua and the Eternal Imperium, wheeling through the heavens on the infrequent nights when the clouds and smog cleared to reveal the stars and orbital stations overhead.

Nesc let herself be carried away by these abstract thoughts, escaping the churn of memories that boiled up whenever she closed her eyes. Ren’s mutilated body swinging from the lumen-post. The blank faces of her children when she told them their father was dead. The echo of Varec’s laughter.

At several points sanctioners and Administratum officials passed through the maglev, checking travel permits and unsubtly reminding passengers of the chastisement that awaited those who unlawfully crossed the district lines.

Unlike Korodilsk, the Spoil was not a formal district of Varangantua. It was a crossroads, of sorts. The borders of each administrative division of the city, though strictly delineated, collided at their edges in a welter of illegal construction and jurisdictional overlap. The Spoil was the locus of three such intersections of authority, between Korodilsk, Dragosyl and Setomir. Which district had originally held jurisdiction over the expanse of rusting ferrosteel, polluted canals and wretched poverty that made up the Spoil had long been forgotten – or, as the joke went, purposefully lost. The city had long ago decided that the Spoil was nowhere, a blank space in the map best ignored and its people confined to their slums, and so it was.

Nesc alighted from the maglev at a run-down station near the border with Dragosyl, and hailed one of the unlicensed moto-cab drivers that thronged the streets to take her the rest of the way into the Spoil. When she gave the driver the loc-ref, he refused point-blank. After five wasted minutes of negotiation, Nesc finally tossed him another handful of slate and ordered him to drive.

After two hours of discomfort and awkward silence, the driver dropped her at an intersection barely inside the Spoil’s ill-defined boundaries, far short of her stated loc-ref.

A wave of sense-memory hit Nesc as she clambered out of the moto-cab’s rear access, strong enough to make her stumble. The hot, dry reek of the foundries to the east, and the wet stench of unwashed humanity, refuse and puddles of chemical-rich rainwater. The tramp of thousands of people walking in hostile silence. The outlines of half-remembered buildings, familiar patterns of grime and rust and flaking paint on their crumbling walls. It all merged into an overwhelming blow to her senses, and for a moment she felt like she was five years old, lost again among the towering trunks of legs stomping past, no one even glancing down at her tiny cries for help.

As the moto-cab driver turned his little vehicle in the road and sped away, Nesc lurched through the crowd to reach the reassuring solidity of a wall and waited for the moment to pass. The crowds ignored her. It was safer, in the Spoil, to ignore almost everything – everyone had enough troubles of their own.

The crossroads was busy. The journey had taken most of the day, and she’d arrived during the post-meridiem shift change. People trudged in all directions, spilling off the pavement into the road. The occasional groundcar sent bow-waves rolling through the crowds as figures shuffled aside and then flowed back in the vehicle’s wake.

An Adeptus Ministorum cleric was standing in a mobile pulpit on one corner of the interchange, encircled by a mob of maul-wielding Ecclesiarchy serfs. His sermon blared at an ear-splitting volume from vox-horns in the shape of penitent faces mounted on the pulpit’s flanks. Like every other aspect of Alecto’s civil society, the Ministorum had all but abandoned the Spoil to its fate years before Nesc’s birth, much like the Dredge and the ruined wasteland of Dazava. The sermons of the missionary, and those like him, were probably the only way the Emperor’s Voice would ever reach the unfortunate dregs of humanity that called these places home.

Nesc finally got her bearings and, head aching, set off from the crossroads. She walked until long after the cleric’s words had ceased to echo from the rockcrete walls, and she had disappeared into the Spoil.

A rusted panel of sheet metal bent, buckled and finally collapsed under Nesc’s boot. She stopped, listening for signs of any investigation of the tortured creak of metal. None was apparent. Nesc kicked the remnants of the panel away from its frame, then awkwardly climbed inside.

She had walked for miles as the sun sank lower. She had kept to the main streets; Nesc feared being recognised, but there was a degree of safety in the anonymity of the crowds. She had finally given in to hunger just as night was falling, and handed over a shocking amount of hard slate to a street vendor in exchange for a bland jejen wrap. Throughout the transaction, Nesc had fought the urge to stare at his two cartel minders.

Darkness came quickly in the Spoil; there were few working street-lumens, except in those places where the controlling mob wanted to show off their wealth and power. Fortunately, darkness suited Nesc’s purposes.

She had dredged the place up from her memory: an ancient mixed-use commercia precinct, still abandoned by all but the homeless and those that preyed on them. Nesc clambered through the broken door of a derelict shop front, and looked around thoughtfully.

She was surprised to find the crate intact. She and her crew had hidden it in a storeroom the God-Emperor alone knew how long ago. They had even gone to the effort of erecting a false partition across the back of the space. Nesc gave a silent prayer of thanks to her former self’s industrious nature, and pulled the waist-high crate out into the shop front.

There were caches like it all across the Spoil. They were the relics of gangs whose prudence had been matched only by their optimism that they might one day come back for their stores of weapons, equipment and slate, put away as insurance against whatever trials the future held. There was good coin to be made exploring the dank and forgotten parts of the Spoil for such hoards. She and Marini had ransacked dozens of abandoned warehouses, merchant quarters and precincts like this one looking for them, while Jiska and Wynn, and later Ren, stood on the lookout for bigger and older children who would happily rob them of their claim.

Nesc was about to start unpacking the crate when the edge of a memory scratched at her thoughts. She walked round to the far side, knelt down, and spent several minutes levering off part of the crate’s reinforced edge. Finally, it came free. Secreted beneath it was a tiny circuit board, with wires trailing up into the box’s interior.

Nesc smiled. Wynn had fitted the miniature alarms to all their caches. The simple device sent out a constant low-frequency vox-pulse that Wynn had faithfully monitored. The intention had been to ensure that they knew whether any scavengers, like their younger selves, had got lucky.

Her smile faded. She reached inside and prised out the thumb-sized lithium charge-cell from the circuit board, then set to work unpacking the crate.

There was a pane of dark glass at the back of the room that served as a passable mirror, and Nesc occasionally glanced at her reflection as she retrieved the tools of her old life. It was a strange sensation, to see her older self clad in what had, in essence, been the uniform of her youth. A drab green jacket was tight as she buckled it over the slight swell of her stomach, the consequence of a decade of soft living and cheap carb-bars, but with a gun holstered at her thigh she was, unmistakably, Nescata Rachen once more.

After selecting what gear she would take and what, being realistic, she couldn’t carry through the streets of the Spoil, Nesc took another look at her reflection. There was more than a touch of grey at her temples, in amongst the fading brown. Nesc frowned. She wasn’t quite herself. In the old days, she and the others had dyed their hair a deep, vibrant crimson, their one concession to any kind of gang signifier. She lacked the dye, but on an impulse Nesc pulled a knife from her boot sheath and tested its edge. She found it suitably sharp, and, very carefully, started shaving away locks of hair.

Nesc had finished shaving her old undercut back into the left side of her head and was indulgently admiring her reflection when she froze.

There was nothing that gave the intruder away. They hadn’t scuffed the dirt, or let the fabric of their clothes rustle. No hint of movement in the glass. It was just a feeling, the sudden hair-raising knowledge that she was not alone.

Nesc slowly tightened her grip on the knife, but she knew she had already lost. Her moment’s hesitation was as good as screaming to her killer that she was aware of their presence. Nesc tensed, bracing for the hot fire of a las-shot in her back.

‘Not many people would have thought to look for that alarm,’ said a familiar voice, echoing out of the dark.

Relief washed through Nesc like a cold wind. She turned. A slim figure stood just inside the room’s entrance, a long-barrelled pistol held at their side.

‘Hello, Nescata,’ said the figure.

‘Hi, Wynn.’

‘You know there’s still a death-mark on your name.’

‘I know.’

Nesc looked out of the hostel’s window, finding it easier to stare at the Spoil’s squalor than face an old friend.

For as long as Nesc could remember, the square beneath her had been a shanty town. It was at least half a mile on each side, an astonishing extravagance in a city where land rights were highly valued and fiercely exploited. It had once been paved with mosaic images of the Emperor in His various aspects, but they had long since been removed or vandalised, the broken ground a testimony to the Spoil’s physical and spiritual ruin.

Thousands of people huddled together inside plastek tents, sharing communal cooking fires fed by stolen promethium run-off. A lucky few lived inside repurposed industrial storage units that were regularly fought over by grim, desperate men and women. The blood they shed was more than worth it for the security of metal walls to enclose their families.

They were here because they could not afford the rents in the cartel-run tenements, and so they sought shelter beneath the Angel’s wings.

A statue of the primarch Sanguinius dominated the square, rising to twice the height of the surrounding buildings. It was a relic of more prosperous times for the Spoil, and stark evidence of its fall. In the evening twilight the Emperor’s angelic son was just a huge shape outlined against the mottled grey of the clouded sky, but Nesc knew that its features were worn smooth, eroded by years of corrosive rainfall. Both wings and the primarch’s right arm were held aloft in benediction, but the left arm ended in a stump at the elbow. No one Nesc had ever spoken to had seen the statue when it was whole, nor knew what had become of the severed arm.

After she had found Nesc at the cache, Wynn had led her to her groundcar and driven, in silence, to a squat cartel-run hostel on the south-east corner of the square. Nesc had felt her hand straying towards her gun as they’d walked through the building’s entrance past an idling collection of street toughs, but Wynn had paid them no mind.

‘You said you were never coming back,’ Wynn said.

‘I didn’t plan to.’ Nesc finally turned.

Zarah Wynn both was and was not how Nesc remembered her. She was tall, taller even than Nesc, with a deceptive strength in her willowy frame. Her hair was inky black, her gaze still sharp and unwavering to the point of discomfort. Nesc recognised the pistol at her hip, endlessly modified to suit its owner’s tastes.

Wynn had modified herself as well in the intervening decade. The unsubtle ridge of scar tissue that curved from her right cheekbone up to her temple was evidence of an implanted micro-cogitator, a rare and heavily restricted augmentation throughout Varangantua. Her eyes were the crystal-sharp blue of augmetics, rather than the deep green Nesc remembered. Wynn held herself differently too. More rigid. She looked like a killer, hardened by time and shaped by necessity.

‘Why are you here, Nescata?’

‘Ren’s dead.’ She told Wynn about finding him, about the way he had died. Wynn looked at Nesc while she spoke, saying nothing.

‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ she said when Nesc had finished.

Nesc was silent for a moment, remembering Jiska’s and Marini’s scepticism. ‘What have you heard about him?’ she asked carefully. Who she referred to did not need to be spoken between them.

Wynn pursed her lips, looking hard into Nesc’s eyes. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

Ren’s body, swinging in the breeze. Varec’s stare in her dreams. ‘Yes.’

Wynn nodded slowly. ‘I’ve heard some things.’ Nesc sat down on the corner of the hostel’s only bed, and listened.

Roman Varec had not been seen in the Spoil for almost nine years. Where he had gone was a mystery, though why was not – his organisation had been broken by Nesc’s betrayal. Everyone in the Spoil knew it. Most of his lieutenants had been killed, and his lines of patronage severed. Most had assumed he was dead as well, until fourteen months ago when the killings began. Public deaths, targeting the few street captains and mob bosses still around who had been tied to Varec back in the day. They had been beaten past the point of killing, bones turned to splintered fragments inside pulped flesh. Many had been half eaten by some kind of animal. All of them had been left for their families to find, broken bodies dumped outside their habs or pushed from moving groundcars in front of them.

Some assumed that this was an old rival of Varec’s, engaged in a spiteful and long-held vendetta. But to all who had known him, it was clear that Roman Varec had returned to punish those who had abandoned him.

Throughout Wynn’s telling, Nesc felt her pulse quicken, stabs of guilt and regret and anger coming in quick succession. ‘And now he’s coming for me,’ she said finally. She thought of her children with Jiska and Marini, on the top floor of their joy house. She thought of the number of guards that surrounded them, and whether they would be enough.

‘Is that what brought you back?’ Wynn asked, a thoughtful lilt to her voice.

When Nesc, Ren, Jiska and Marini had run from the Spoil, Wynn had not. That had been the deepest wound of all: driving away from Wynn had felt like losing a limb.

Nesc frowned. ‘I’m tired of hiding, Wynn. I’ve felt his breath on my neck for ten years. And now he’s finally found me. I’m going to kill him. For Ren, for all of us.’ She paused. ‘Will you help me?’

Wynn did not answer immediately. ‘What?’ Nesc asked.

‘I was thinking how exactly like you it is to wander back to the Spoil after ten years and demand something of me,’ Wynn said bitterly.

Nesc scowled. ‘It was your decision to stay,’ she said.

‘And it was yours to go,’ Wynn shot back.

‘I was marked for death by every cartel in the Spoil!’

‘So was I!’ Nesc was sure it was fierce anger, not sadness, that blazed in Wynn’s ice-blue eyes. ‘Do you know what I had to do to get free of that? But I did it. And you could have too. But instead you ran.’

Nesc didn’t reply. She wouldn’t defend the choices she had made – she’d spent ten years regretting them.

Wynn stared at her. Nesc knew that she could not go after Varec alone, and Wynn knew that she would do it anyway. It was an impossible position to put a friend in, and she felt another weight settle on the layers of guilt riding her mind.

‘You’ll follow my lead,’ Wynn said, after a long moment. ‘I don’t usually work with a partner, and you’ve been out of this life for a long time.’

‘All right.’ Nesc felt the pricking of offended pride, but she forced a thin smile of gratitude. Wynn was right – Nesc was now an outsider, unused to the rules of the Spoil. She hadn’t drawn her gun on anything except a target range in a long time.

Though she now had Wynn as an ally, Nesc suddenly felt daunted, as though she were setting out on a long trek up the side of a hive spire. That weight must have showed, as Wynn’s expression softened fractionally. ‘When was the last time you got any sleep?’ she asked.

‘I’m fine,’ said Nesc. She was not: her body ached from pent-up tension and the after-burn of wasted adrenaline.

‘You’re not, and you’ll be a liability if you’re too tired to shoot straight. Stay here for a few hours. I’ll see what I can find out about Varec.’

Nesc looked sceptical. ‘You trust that lock?’ She glanced at the hostel’s door.

‘I pay a lot for this room.’

The mention of slate made Nesc start. She hadn’t considered the question of money, but Wynn was a bounty hunter and a blade for hire. She should not have expected her to work for free.

‘How much does your time cost these days?’ she asked hesitantly.

Wynn’s face darkened, and Nesc cursed inwardly. Evidently Wynn had also thought she was offering her help to a friend, not a client.

‘Stay here.’ She picked up her jacket from the end of the bed and stalked out of the room.

Nesc was awake when Wynn returned. She had managed a kind of sleep for a few hours, her body and mind shut down if not truly resting. She had been sitting on the bed’s edge staring out of the hostel’s window at the darkness when Wynn unlocked the door.

‘I have a lead. An info-broker over in Rustbridge has a girl who talks too much.’

‘How do we find them?’

‘I already have.’ Wynn paused. ‘You really want to do this?’

Nesc stood up. She checked her laspistol was loaded, even though she had checked it a dozen times in the last hour, and headed for the door.

Nesc pressed her back against the flaking wall and glanced up and down the corridor. A few weak glow-bulbs cast everything in shades of grey. Light escaped from beneath the occasional door, revealing a threadbare carpet whose pattern was entirely scuffed away. The dom was on the ninth floor of a hab-block that in any other sector of the city would have been demolished long ago, even by Varangantua’s lax edifice regulations.

Wynn was looking intently at their target door – evidently the augmetics in her skull included a miniature augur that was scanning the room beyond. She looked over at Nesc and held up two fingers.

Nesc nodded. Her hands were sweating, and she wiped them on her jacket. Her pulse was pounding. She took out her laspistol, stepped away from the wall, and counted down in her head.

On one, she stepped forward and slammed the heel of her boot into the door’s edge. The lock tore out of the cheap flakboard with a crack and the door flew inwards. Nesc charged in, pistol thrust out in front of her.

The domicile was a cheap one-room job, barely five yards on each side. A sodium lamp inset into the ceiling cast a dim yellow light, illuminating pale walls speckled with damp. A hygiene chamber was set back in an alcove in the far wall, and piles of cogitator components were strewn across a scratched and faded plastek counter that ran the length of the room on one side.

A girl in baggy overalls was lying on the bed, staring towards an inactive vid-unit on the countertop with unfocused eyes. An injector lay beside her in the folds of the stained sheets.

She flinched as Nesc burst in. ‘Run, Jass!’ the girl screamed, as she tried to roll across the bed, reaching for an autopistol that lay on top of a cabinet. Nesc put a las-round into the wall, just above her outstretched hand. She froze.

Wynn raced past Nesc, disappearing into the hygiene chamber. Nesc and the girl stayed completely still, staring at one another, listening to the sounds that echoed out of the chamber. Meat hit meat, pipework clattered, and a man’s voice shouted something. Nesc felt her attention straying towards the alcove. The girl made another move towards the gun and Nesc jerked back, firing another shot into the wall.

Something tore in the hygiene unit, followed by a man’s cry of pain. A moment later a heavyset figure flew backwards out of the alcove, naked torso dripping with water and blood. The back of his legs connected with the corner of the bed and he fell badly, head colliding with the counter on his way down. Wynn emerged, one hand covered with blood. She crossed the room casually, glancing briefly at Nesc and the girl on the bed.

The man tried to rise but stumbled as though he were drunk. He got his legs under him and leapt up, bellowing incoherently. Wynn’s hand shot forward, fingers curled into talons around the info-broker’s throat. His cry turned into a strangled cough and he stumbled away. Wynn followed. His back thumped against the wall and Wynn leaned close, her fingers poised above the veins and arteries in his neck.

The man snorted like a bull-grox, but he raised his hands slowly in surrender. Through the gore coating Wynn’s hand, Nesc could see dagger-sharp points of metal extending from beneath each of her fingernails, just pricking the soft skin of the info-broker’s throat. Wynn smiled, the white of her teeth flashing in the hab’s cheap lighting.

‘Bind them,’ she said to Nesc. ‘Her first.’

Nesc walked around the bed, pistol held low by her hip but still aimed towards the girl.

‘Face down.’ The girl glared at her and did not move. Nesc stepped closer. The girl’s eyes flicked between her and the pistol’s muzzle. She flopped over and smothered her face into a pillow like a petulant child.

‘Hands.’ She didn’t move. Nesc shoved the barrel of her gun hard against the base of her skull. ‘Hands.’ The girl slowly put both hands behind her back.

Nesc reached behind her and pulled a set of immobiliser cuffs from her belt. She snapped the restraints shut around the girl’s skinny wrists and activated them. She stiffened, arms and legs locking tight as the cuffs pushed a mild electrical current through her body, making every muscle snap taut. Nesc shoved her shoulder to roll her onto her back – she didn’t want her suffocating on the pillow. The girl tried to say something as Nesc stepped away, but it came out as a ragged hiss.

The thug was easier, but with Wynn’s hand coiled around his throat he had as much choice in the matter as the girl. Once the cuffs were on him Wynn stepped away, gesturing at the bed. Nesc passed her the cuff’s moderator stave, and she held her thumb over the activator. For half a second, he looked like he would make a fight of it, but then he lowered himself onto the corner of the bed, eyes never leaving Wynn’s.

Nesc let out a deep breath. The whole thing had lasted maybe a minute, and most of that had been spent cuffing them both. She could hear her heart hammering in her chest. She felt… good. Giddy.

The rush struck her all at once. She grinned fiercely at Wynn and let herself lean back against the hab’s back wall, revelling in an old, familiar sensation. Wynn looked back at her, her face blank. Nesc had no idea whether Wynn felt any of the same manic energy that gripped her.

Wynn stood in front of the info-broker, looming over him. ‘Jass Koblinski?’

He took a moment to consider his options. He evidently didn’t see many. ‘Yes.’

Wynn glanced over at the other side of the bed, and her eyes narrowed. The girl’s face was mottled by a bruise that spread from her left eye across her cheek. ‘And who’s she?’

‘Yel. Yeleni.’

‘How’d Yeleni get that shiner, Jass?’ He said nothing. ‘I see.’

Wynn paced in front of him. The moderator for the cuffs dangled between her thumb and forefinger, almost daring him to try for it. He was a big man, thick in the chest and neck. He didn’t look like a typical info-broker, who tended to be sallow creatures, pale from a life indoors hooked up to cogitators. This man’s face and hands were speckled with scars, putting Nesc in mind of the workers at the smelting plants. He looked, in short, like any one of ten thousand men out on the streets of the Spoil, working as knee-breakers and cheap muscle for anyone who would pay.

‘Nice place you have,’ said Wynn, looking around the decrepit hab.

‘It’s hers,’ Jass said sullenly.

Wynn leant back against the counter and crossed her arms. ‘Jass, you know how this goes,’ she said. ‘You have information that we want. You don’t give us what we want…’ She held up her bloody hand, letting the light catch her fingers’ metal tips.

Jass shrugged his shoulders. He did know how this would go. Blood trickled from the set of cuts gouged into the meat of his chest.

‘How do we find Roman Varec?’

His face screwed up into a porcine glare. ‘Not a chance.’

Wynn kicked him savagely in the chest, throwing him back against the thin mattress. She pressed the moderator’s activator and Jass grunted as his body seized up. She bent over him, her face barely a hand’s span from his. ‘There can be a long stretch of pain between now and when you tell us, you stupid bastard.’ She thumbed the moderator again as she stood up, and Jass gasped.

He pushed himself upright and glared at Wynn. ‘You think you frighten me? With your fancy augs?’

‘I should.’

‘Then you don’t know the kind of man you’re going after. If I give Varec up, I’m worse than dead. I’ve seen what he does to people – you don’t compare.’

‘I think you’re underestimating me, Jass,’ said Wynn smoothly.

Nesc felt her frenzied high slip away as she listened to him. She remembered the fear. Remembered the hate that had felt all-consuming, and which had only bound her closer to Varec.

‘Ncch.’ The sound came from Yeleni, trying to force out words through her clenched teeth. ‘Hurh.’

Wynn aimed the moderator at her, and she slumped into the bed. Nesc realised the girl was not as young as she had thought. Her thin frame and wasted face gave her a slightness that she had mistaken for youth.

‘We can’t!’ She dragged in a breath, and another. ‘You don’t know what he’s like!’

‘We do.’ Nesc surprised herself by speaking. ‘We know exactly what he’s like.’

Nesc pushed off from the wall and walked around the end of the bed. Wynn stepped back to give her room, watching her impassively.

‘We used to be like you. We worked for Varec.’ She did not say ‘we served him’, although that would have been closer to the truth. Jass looked at her, trying to figure out where this was going. ‘We know how you feel. Terrified every moment that you will say something, do something, that will set him off. Seeing what he’s done to others, and doing anything to deflect that attention away from you.’ Behind her, Wynn shifted her weight, fists opening and closing slowly.

‘But we got away. We got free.’ She knelt down beside Jass, and placed her laspistol against his temple. Nesc felt her body moving without her direction, a cocktail of adrenal euphoria and old, awoken instincts leaving her a passenger in her own skin. ‘You have one chance to tell us where we can find Varec, or I will kill you. Either way, you’ll be free of him as well.’ He looked between Nesc and Wynn, snorting like a cornered animal. ‘One chance,’ Nesc said calmly.

The stubbornness had fled from his eyes, replaced with something like desperation. ‘I can’t.’

‘Fine.’

Nesc hadn’t seen someone die in a long time.

There was a sharp crack and a burst of light, both muted by the proximity of the pistol’s muzzle to Jass’ head. A small sound of bone giving way under immense pressure. A sudden jet of blood flashing from the far side of his skull, a thick mist of droplets that painted the domicile’s wall arterial red. The info-broker toppled back, blood pumping from the void in his skull into the soiled sheets.

Wynn jerked back, avoiding the arc of blood and brain matter. Yeleni screamed. Nesc heard it dully, as though she were several floors down and the shot and the scream belonged in someone else’s life.

Yeleni’s cries were choked off as Wynn stabbed the cuff’s moderator at her. Nesc stood up, feeling the world rush back in. The coppery tang of blood seemed to fill the room. She snorted, trying to clear her senses.

Wynn was looking at her in silent judgement. ‘He wasn’t going to talk,’ said Nesc, after a moment.

‘No,’ said Wynn carefully. ‘What about her?’

Nesc was suddenly aware of the weight of the pistol in her hand. She looked at the girl on the bed, unable to move, eyes rolling with fear.

She reached over and took the moderator from Wynn, and gestured with it at Yeleni. ‘Be quiet, or this goes back on.’ She deactivated the cuffs. Yeleni let out a small sob, but didn’t scream.

‘Did Jass have any slate put away?’

She nodded.

‘Do you know where it is?’

A pause, and then another nod.

‘Take it and get out of here. Get out of the Spoil, if you can. It’s no kind of life here.’

Yeleni remained quiet, evidently calculating how much sleeper and cotin Jass’ hoarded money could buy her.

Wynn and Nesc looked at one another, removed the cuffs from the girl and from the info-broker’s body, and then slipped out of the domicile’s ruined door. They left Jass’ bulky corpse for someone else to deal with.

Out in the corridor, Nesc saw no sign of anyone coming to investigate the sounds of violence, but that was to be expected. Wynn wiped her hands on a dirty towel she had picked up on her way out, and looked at her. ‘Not everyone can run, Nesc,’ she said at length.

Nesc ignored her. ‘Who else was on your list?’

‘He was the list. All I could get from anyone else were the same rumours we already know.’

Nesc thought for a minute. Then she swore. ‘I know someone.’

Wynn frowned. ‘And you didn’t want to go to them first, before we murdered that man?’

‘No,’ said Nesc. ‘I didn’t.’

‘This is a bad idea.’

Nesc agreed, but said nothing.

She stood beneath one of the arches of a groundcar overpass. Rainwater fell in thick sheets on either side, reducing Nesc’s world to a twenty-yard span of stained paving, graffitied walls, and heaped refuse. A single stablight mounted far above her in the underside of the rockcrete provided the only illumination. It was well past the night’s zenith, with dawn still hours away.

‘If a mob of sanctioners come storming out of the dark, I’m not going to help you.’ Wynn spoke to her through a vox-bead that Nesc had concealed behind the sweep of her hair.

‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’ Though the prospect was unlikely; like every other branch of Imperial society, the enforcers treated the Spoil like an aberration, something to ignore unless it became particularly offensive to the senses. This attitude was well rewarded – all of the cartels and merchant-combines with interests in the Spoil parted with monstrous quantities of slate to ensure that the Ghaan code, not the Lex Alecto, governed the region. As a result, it was a rare and foolish sanctioner who strayed past the borders of the Rustwater, Creveld Basin and the Chimneys.

The vox-bead gave the slightest crackle as Wynn opened the connection. ‘He’s here.’

Nesc turned as a groundcar pulled through the curtain of water behind her. It was an expensive vehicle, a Regena Tove, a model favoured by Varangantua’s political class, affluent public servants and criminals who had transcended the grubby squalor of their beginnings. The owner of this one was, in a way, a member of all three groups.

The groundcar purred to a stop a few yards from Nesc. The tinted windows prevented her from seeing inside, and her hand fell to the grip of her pistol.

‘Anyone in there with him?’ she asked Wynn under her breath.

‘No idea. He has a sensor-baffle mounted somewhere. But if anyone’s following him, they’ve stopped outside my scanner’s range.’

After a long, tense moment, the driver’s door opened. Probator Senioris Thaddeus Mattix stepped out.

He had aged well. Mattix had never been what Nesc would call handsome; his nose had been broken one too many times, and the nicks and scars earned in a lifetime of enforcing a particular brand of the Lex had left their marks on him. But despite being fifteen years Nesc’s senior he was unbent by age, and his frame was still lean beneath his dark grey stormcoat. Intelligent, calculating eyes were undimmed, set in a dark-skinned face that was lined but not wrinkled.

He looked like the same untrustworthy bastard Nesc remem-bered.

He didn’t come any closer, regarding Nesc in silence while standing beside the open door.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ Nesc said. She had to raise her voice over the pouring rain striking the asphalt.

‘It was a calculated risk,’ he shouted back. ‘But I didn’t think you’d contact me after all these years just to kill me.’

‘I’ve thought about it.’ She had, often.

He nodded wryly. Mattix stepped onto the pavement, and shut the groundcar’s door.

‘I was surprised to get your message, to say the least.’ His voice was a deep burr. ‘I’d assumed you were dead.’

‘Really?’

He shrugged. Nesc had no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. Mattix had been one of the few people who’d known where she had escaped to after the Spoil cartels marked her for death.

It had been Mattix who had set in motion the events that had reshaped her life. A decade ago, back when he had still been a probator-novus, he had hunted Nesc for two days through a warren of alleys, abandoned commercia blocks and slums. But when she finally turned to fight he had approached her with open hands, even after she’d put a las-bolt into his armoured jacket.

‘So, you’ve returned from the grave and summoned me in the dead of night to an overpass in the heart of the Spoil. I’m almost disappointed it isn’t to kill me.’

‘Like I said, I’ve thought about it.’

‘I’d have thought there were others more deserving of your ire than I.’

Nesc frowned, but wasn’t surprised. Mattix knew her; or, at least, he knew who she had been.

‘I want to know where I can find him.’

‘Who?’ he asked innocently.

‘Fuck you, Mattix.’ Nesc felt her anger rising, her half-remembered frustration and resentment of his high-handed superiority flooding back after exchanging a handful of words.

He held up his hands in a patronising gesture of placation. ‘All right. But why now? You’ve had ten years to resurrect your particular grudge against Roman Varec.’

‘Because it’s long past the time it should have been done,’ she said darkly.

Mattix nodded slowly, making a show of considering her words. ‘Only a fool would go after a man like Varec alone.’

‘Maybe.’ Mattix’s statement was a blunt attempt at finding out who Nesc had watching her back, but she would not give away Wynn until she was sure that Mattix didn’t have a brace of sanctioners concealed behind the tinted plex of his groundcar. ‘But what about you? Did a probator-senioris come alone into the Spoil in the dead of night?’

He held out a hand. ‘You’re welcome to check.’

Mattix placed his hand on a featureless section of the groundcar’s chassis and all four of its doors swung open soundlessly. Nesc, one hand on the butt of her laspistol, walked cautiously past him and glanced inside. The vehicle was empty. The expensive synthleather upholstery was an absurdly impractical shade of white.

‘Perhaps you’re the fool,’ she said.

Wynn rose from within a heaped bundle of refuse sacks on the far side of the street, a Mons-pattern long-las held unwavering in her hands. Mattix turned sharply at the movement, but concealed his alarm behind a broad smile when he saw her.

‘Ah. Zarah Wynn,’ he called across the street. ‘You know, there’s a standing order at Bastion-J that compels all enforcers to shoot you on sight.’

‘I wouldn’t recommend that.’ Wynn’s right eye did not move from behind the long-las’ scope.

He shrugged again. It was an annoying habit, designed to disarm, and Nesc felt herself bridle in response.

‘Nor would I,’ said Mattix calmly. ‘I suppose I mustn’t have seen you.’ He turned back to Nesc, deliberately putting Wynn outside his eyeline. Nesc, however, was well placed to see her expression as he did so.

‘So, the two of you against Varec.’ His tone gave away nothing as to his judgement of those odds. ‘But why should I get involved?’

‘Because you owe me, you bastard!’ Nesc stepped closer, barely a pace from him. She took a fierce pleasure in seeing Mattix’s cocksure expression flicker. The sudden release of anger was unintentional, but it felt good. ‘You fucked up the ambush.’

When Mattix had finally cornered Nesc, he had made her a simple but ludicrous offer – give him Varec, and he would get her out of the Spoil. Nesc had laughed in his face, and had almost shot him again. But something in his manner had stopped her. As he talked, she had seen his ironclad self-confidence, a swaggering arrogance that matched her own. A man with that kind of ambition and the resources of the enforcers could be a useful ally, and a plan had begun to form in her mind.

Over the course of several months, Nesc had fed Mattix information about Varec’s operation. Which cartels were his primary patrons. The names of his contacts, where they met, and how often. Which slate-scrubbers, info-brokers and legitimate interests he used outside the Spoil to launder his assets. In return Mattix had funnelled clean slate into an anonymous account, secured permanent residency permits in the comparative peace of Korodilsk for Nesc and her crew, and prosecuted a low-key but ruthless war against the tendrils of Varec’s organisation.

Finally, the time came to strike for the heart. After enduring weeks of Varec’s mounting rage and paranoia, Nesc, bluffing through her fear, arranged for him and his coterie of key allies to move from one safe house to another, and ensured that their route included a particular street near the Spoil’s periphery.

Nesc had not been present for what had followed, but she could see it clearly in her mind. She had imagined it a thousand times in the days and weeks that followed.

Three squads of sanctioners had been waiting for them. They had made a token effort to conceal their status as officers of the Lex, but, unforgivably, they had wielded their Bastion-issued autoguns and shock mauls. Though they had cut down the greater part of Varec’s bodyguards and lieutenants, the calamity of enforcer egotism and stupidity had let Varec himself escape, in possession of the certain knowledge of who had betrayed him.

‘You fucked up the ambush, and you fucked up my life.’

‘Some would say I gave you a life, Nescata,’ Mattix said mildly.

‘I was never going to leave the Spoil, and you knew it.’ Nesc spat the words. They came out in a torrent, as though she had taken a bitter purgative and now had no choice but to vomit up the truth she had concealed for so long.

‘We were using each other. You made some decent arrests to pad out your record, to stand out to your bluejacket bosses. And what was I supposed to get?’ Mattix didn’t answer. ‘You were meant to kill Varec for me! It was my time. His operation would have been mine.’ From the corner of her eye, she saw a slight shift in Wynn’s posture.

‘But you fucked that up, and so I had to take your way out. And for ten years I’ve been… nothing. Killing time. Watching my life tick past.’ She leaned in close to him. ‘You gave me nothing. You owe me,’ Nesc said again.

Mattix absorbed her vitriol in silence. When Nesc finally stopped, he spoke calmly.

‘Varec has his lair in an old groundcar manufactorum a few miles west of the Antelli foundries.’ He said it carelessly, as though it were nothing. He held out a small rectangle of pasteboard, on which was written a loc-ref in a neat, tight hand. ‘Honestly, I’m surprised it took you this long to decide to come after him.’

Nesc froze.

Mattix stared back at her, his expression blank. He knew the pattern of her thoughts. Knew she would suspect him. He was certainly capable of killing, and of the most devious manipulation. She looked into his eyes, searching for a sign that Mattix had been complicit in her husband’s murder.

‘You saw the verispex report on Ren. You knew I’d come back.’

He shrugged again. There was no amusement, no hint of subterfuge. Nesc felt a fraction of her tension drain away.

‘You didn’t think I was dead, did you?’

‘No,’ he said with a thin smile. ‘I’ve kept an open search on the dataveil for you for ten years. I knew you’d surface at some point.’ His smile faded. ‘I’m sorry it took Ren’s death to do it.’

He gestured with the card. Nesc reached forward and took it. ‘You’re a survivor, Nescata. Nothing’s going to kill you unless you let it.’

He turned and patted the groundcar’s frame again, and the driver’s door swung open. ‘Roman Varec is a murdering psychopath, and the city will be better off without him. I wish you the best of luck.‘ He looked across the street and gave a brief nod. ‘Good to see you, Wynn.’ He climbed into the groundcar before she could muster a reply.

Nesc watched the groundcar pull away with a purr of accelerating engines. Mattix slipped through the curtain of pouring water and disappeared into the darkness, as quickly and with as little notice as he’d arrived.

She heard Wynn’s footsteps as she crossed the street, and felt her stare. Nesc said nothing. She was looking down at the little pasteboard card.

Ten years of regret. A lifetime of pain and haunted dreams. The end of all of it was at this innocuous set of alphanumerics, a few miles west of the Antelli foundries.

She looked up at Wynn. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Were you going to tell me?’

‘No.’

They had left Wynn’s groundcar half a mile back from the entrance to the ruined manufactory complex. Having found a break in the rusting chain-link fence, now they were picking their way between mounds of cracked rockcrete and shattered brickwork that had been pushed to the boundaries of the site sometime after its collapse.

‘Do Jiska and Marini know?’

‘No.’

Nesc stifled a curse, kicking a flaking protrusion of rebar as she clambered over a pile of masonry. It was still dark, although the smog-bank in the east was starting to lighten as morning approached.

‘Why not?’

She hadn’t told any of them about her plot with Mattix, not even Ren, keeping the secret for months as the plan unfolded. Only when it had all fallen apart had she revealed the siphoned funds, the sets of faked ident-papers and transit documents.

She had presented her conspiracy with Mattix as her way of buying their freedom from the horrors of the Spoil, a devil’s bargain made only for them. They had talked about it their whole lives, since they had been children sharing a single blanket to ward off the night’s threats. Could it really be a betrayal if she was giving them what they had said they’d wanted for so many years?

Nesc knew why she hadn’t told any of them the truth. She remembered the sudden swell of dread when Mattix’s terse vox-recording had reached her. She had been too pragmatic not to plan for failure, but Nesc had allowed herself to trust Mattix’s assurances. She had imagined herself wielding the power Varec had commanded, finally having a measure of security and respect after a lifetime of cringing terror. When Varec escaped the firing squad he deserved, Nesc had seen that future evaporate like burning ethanol, and she had felt ashamed of wanting it in the first place.

‘What difference would it have made?’

Wynn did not reply, but Nesc sensed her anger. Wynn was like an overfull promethium silo. All it would take was for a valve or seal to give way and a flood of bitterness would pour out.

Nesc scrambled up a heap of compacted rock and rubble twice as tall as she was and lowered herself onto her hands and knees. She raised her head enough to look over the summit as Wynn lay down silently beside her.

A compact maintenance shed and a short stack of office units were a hundred yards ahead, illuminated by flood-lumens mounted on stands around the yard. White light spilled out of the open entry port, but Nesc could not see anyone inside. A strip of asphalt, cracked by neglect and age, ran from the yard to the perimeter and connected with the road that skirted the factorum.

Nesc looked at Wynn, who was carefully dividing their cache of demolition charges into two synthweave holdalls. ‘What do you think?’

Wynn glanced up, then went back to the charges. ‘Good thing we brought these.’

The explosives had been Wynn’s idea. Mattix had given no indication of the size of Varec’s operation these days, but it was certain that the two of them would be outnumbered and outgunned in any kind of pitched fight. Their plan was to get in close, ensure Varec was inside, and bring the building down on top of him and his crew.

Wynn passed one of the bags to Nesc and slung her own over her shoulder. She checked the safety on the detonator, then slid it inside her jacket. She looked up again, letting her augmetics work. ‘I’m not seeing any trip-lasers or motion sensors.’

‘You won’t.’ Nesc recalled that Varec placed little trust in more sophisticated forms of counter-intrusion, preferring to rely on guards stimmed into alertness and packs of canids left to roam free around a compound’s interior.

Silence stretched out between them again. Nesc felt herself start to speak before she knew what she was going to say. ‘Wynn… Thank you. You didn’t have to do this with me.’

Wynn didn’t look at her. ‘I did.’ She rose smoothly, a shadow against the grey of the rubble. ‘You’re not the only one with regrets.’

She set off down the slope towards the maintenance shed. Nesc picked up the second bag of explosives and followed her.

The approach to the shed was clear and level, and they loped quickly over the scrub. As they drew closer the sound of men’s voices echoed from the shed’s open entrance, and they slowed. Wynn gestured to Nesc and headed right, deeper into the darkness, crossing the approach road and heading for the far side of the shed. Nesc went left, keeping clear of the pools of light cast by the hissing flood-lumens.

She stopped beside the bottom level of the office units, alert for any signs of movement inside. The shed was less than twenty yards away, and she could see into its interior. Four men in mismatched overalls were clustered around a glowing heater-unit. Each of them had a pistol tucked into his belt, and one had an autogun slung over a shoulder. Nesc was too far away to hear what they were saying, but she caught the occasional snatch of laughter.

She had lost sight of Wynn, but in that moment Nesc trusted her more than she did herself. Her entire body seemed to tremble in the grip of nervous energy. She cinched her holdall tight across her back, and crept closer.

Nesc didn’t see Varec as she edged past the entry port, but she placed her first charge against the shed’s wall in readiness. The explosive was the size of her two balled fists held together, with a simple blasting cap connected to a short-wave vox-receiver. Nesc tucked it into the shadow of a rusting drainage gutter and headed further along the wall.

She had placed two further charges when she reached the rear corner of the building, and she had one final explosive in her bag. She bent to arm it, wondering how she would figure out whether Varec was inside.

An unseen door behind her swung open, and one of Varec’s men strolled out, a lho-stick cupped in his hands.

His boot clipped Nesc’s. They both froze, each staring in surprise at the other.

Nesc leapt to her feet, but the thug was fast. He rammed his knee at her face, and she had to twist away to catch it on her shoulder. Her back hit the shed wall. The thug yelled for help, and she jabbed the knuckles of her hand at his throat. She felt cartilage crunch, and she followed up with a punch with all her weight behind it. He thumped to the ground.

She started running, straight into the darkness. She made it five steps before something crashed against the back of her head.

Her vision swam, and then she hit the ground. She tasted grit in her mouth. More blows rained down on her, and she tried to curl into a ball.

Hands grabbed at her, heaved her up by her collar. She was only half-aware that she was being dragged through the dirt, still seeing stars. She dimly heard the sound of shots, and she thought of Wynn.

The hands at her collar and belt let go. The shed’s floor rose up to meet her.

Nesc had no idea how long she lay there.

She didn’t know where ‘there’ was. Her thoughts moved slowly, more a stream of sensations than actual consciousness. The surface beneath her was slick and cool. The stink of promethium was thick in her throat. As Nesc tried to move, she realised her hands were pinned behind her back. That made her start, and the jolt of fear was enough to cut through the fog of concussion.

She was on her side under the roof of the maintenance shed, her face resting against the rockcrete floor. She tried to lever herself up, and heard voices – Varec’s men – speaking in quiet, mocking tones. They were behind her, standing out of sight. She couldn’t see Wynn.

Something huffed warm, rotten air onto the back of her head, and Nesc stiffened involuntarily. Then the thing barked. The sound was as deep and unnerving as the grinding of tectonic plates, and it reached into the primordial channels of Nesc’s brain to trigger terror that she felt at the genetic level. She jerked away awkwardly, her trapped hands scraping at the ground.

A massive canid was inches from her face, restrained by two big men holding a chain as thick as her wrist. It barked again. Her entire head would have fitted inside its massive, reeking maw. Nesc recoiled at the sight of bulging musculature beneath taut black fur. The beast was misshapen, hulking in ways that no animal should be.

‘Apollix, heel.’ A voice, deep as the canid’s growl, called the beast back. The voice bored into Nesc’s being, eclipsing all else, a sonorous bass that she had spent a decade trying to repress.

The canid gave a final growl that rolled like thunder, and turned away. As it moved its mass aside, Nesc felt her stomach lurch. She choked on fear so thick and palpable she could taste the bile on her tongue.

Roman Varec had always been a monster. When Nesc had been in his thrall he had been a steady user of growth hormones and muscle-stimms – his violent outbursts had been, in part, a symptom of their effect on his body. But the thing that towered over Nesc was quite literally monstrous: a swollen grotesque that stood a full seven feet tall. Slabs of implanted muscle bulged in his neck, his shoulders, all through Varec’s horrifying frame.

A wolfish grin split features that were drawn tight against his skull. ‘Nescata Rachen…’ He drew out her name, relishing each moment. ‘Holy Throne, how I have longed for this.’

Nesc said nothing, too busy fighting the fear. She focused on details. The cold smoothness of the rockcrete beneath her. The harsh, metallic edge of whatever bound her wrists. Anything that pulled her attention away from the man who had, in one way or another, dominated her entire life.

The sound of boots echoed behind Nesc. She wanted to turn to look, but couldn’t. Varec also did not look away, the two of them locked together by mutual hatred.

Something thumped to the floor beside Nesc, and she finally glanced away. Two of Varec’s men had dropped Wynn beside her. She was doubled up in pain, eyes clenched shut. Her hands were clasped in front of her, pressing hard against her stomach. Nesc’s own cuffs, which they had used to contain Jass and Yeleni, were fastened around Wynn’s wrists, and presumably Nesc’s too.

‘And Zarah Wynn!’ bellowed Varec. The glee that twisted his face was hideous. ‘The Emperor really gives with both hands tonight.’

‘They had these with them.’ A thug hefted one of their holdalls, weighed down with the explosive charges. He held out the detonator, evidently taken from Wynn.

Varec rounded on him. ‘I. Don’t. Care,’ he growled. He snatched the detonator from the man, who retreated into the huddle of men at their boss’ back, still holding the bag of explosives.

Varec loomed over Nesc. Barely restrained violence bled from him, tainting the air like a sour smell. ‘Do you know how long I have dreamed of this moment?’

‘About as long as I have.’ Nesc was shocked that any sound came out at all. She had failed, utterly failed, but the stubborn ember of her pride refused to let her show her fear.

‘Ha!’ Varec loosed a bark of amusement that made Apollix snarl in response. ‘I missed your absurd belligerence, Rachen. You were always my favourite.’

He gestured at one of the men behind him, who stepped forward. Mares, Nesc recalled, a wretched creature that had followed in Varec’s wake through all of the years she had served him. Mares pulled a slim stave from his belt with an evil smile, and Nesc braced herself as he thumbed the cuffs’ moderator.

Nesc jerked, arms and legs and chest and jaw all clamped tight by the electrical current. The pain was almost bearable, a kind of whole-body cramp that squeezed the breath from her lungs. Worse was the helplessness: her mind cried out to move, but her body would not obey. She saw Varec’s eyes watching her, sadistic joy written on his face.

She looked at Wynn, whose mouth was contorted by a silent scream. The cuffs had made her jackknife, tearing open the wound in her stomach.

The current suddenly cut out, and they both slumped into the floor. Wynn caught her eyes as she gasped for breath, her expression unreadable.

‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ said Varec, as much to his men as to Nesc and Wynn.

But then something happened to his face as he turned back to face Nesc. The violence seemed to melt away, and an expression akin to concern twisted his gruesome features. He bent down, and Nesc fought the urge to flinch back. ‘Why did you come back? You ran away. You had to know what would happen if I found you.’

Nesc fixed her eyes on his. The last of her fear melted away, consumed by the flaming torch of her rage. ‘You killed Ren.’

There was a moment’s pause, and then Varec burst out laughing. Full-throated, hands braced against his knees. His gang followed his lead. Gales of coarse, raucous howls echoed around her. Nesc felt something in her gut tighten.

‘I didn’t kill him, Rachen!’ Varec cried once he subsided. ‘Until you delivered yourself to me, I had no idea any of you were still alive.’ His voice dropped suddenly. ‘But I always hoped. I am owed the pleasure of your deaths.’

Nesc saw he spoke the truth. He hadn’t killed her husband.

Abject horror, as cold as ice, slid into her heart. She had abandoned her children, had placed herself and Wynn at the mercy of a monster, because her instincts had refused to allow the possibility that anyone other than Varec could have murdered Ren. She slumped, energy draining from her like water from a burst reservoir.

Varec saw her face fall, and he laughed again. ‘I am enjoying our reunion! You and Zarah are here, and evidently that runt Ren is dead. I find myself missing the rest of your miserable little crew.’ Varec paused. ‘Where did you take them?’ he asked, drawing out the threat like the slow unsheathing of a blade.

Nesc looked up and spat a string of curses at him.

‘I hoped you would say that.’

His eyes locked on her as he savoured the moment. Nesc shifted her weight, trying to get up.

‘Apollix. Feed.’

The men holding the canid dropped the chains and stepped hurriedly back. The canid loosed a growl that resonated in the pit of Nesc’s stomach, and padded forward.

Wynn let out a small sigh. Nesc looked over to her. Wynn’s eyes were huge, her augmetic irises almost lost in dilated pupils. Her body seemed to shiver, caught in a spasm that lasted for two beats of Nesc’s heart.

Then she leapt, so fast that it was impossible to follow. One moment Wynn was lying full length on the rockcrete floor and the next she was in full flight, body stretching out, blade-tipped hands reaching for the mastiff’s throat. It yelped as she struck, and woman and canid fell into a knot of thrashing limbs and bestial snarls.

‘Kill her!’ Varec roared. His men raised their guns.

Nesc jumped to her feet. She closed the gap to Mares in two strides and awkwardly brought her elbow up into his face. His hands flew to his broken nose.

By sheer chance, she caught the falling moderator stave. Her fumbling fingers found the deactivation rune, and the cuffs fell away in the same instant that Varec’s fist hit her face.

He threw himself at her in a bestial rage, each punch jarring the teeth in her head and casting her senses further and further into darkness. Varec’s men didn’t fire; his body was between Nesc and them. Evidently they wouldn’t risk shooting their boss’ hideous canid either.

‘I’ll flay the skin from your bones!’ Varec screamed threats as he rained blows down on her. ‘I’ll cut the heart from your chest!’ Punch. ‘I’ll eat the eyes out of your skull!’ Punch.

Through the wavering tube of tunnelling vision, Nesc dimly saw the flat grey shape of their explosives’ detonator fastened to the outside of Varec’s coat. With the last of her strength and awareness, Nesc reached out and pulled it free.

Varec punched her once more, then grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her close. ‘I’ll set fire to your very soul,’ he breathed, with murder in his eyes.

Nesc looked up at him and smiled with bloodstained teeth. ‘Let’s burn together.’ She depressed the detonator’s trigger.

The charges exploded, belching a gout of flame that rolled up into the maintenance shed’s roof. The blast immolated Varec’s men, but his body shielded Nesc from the blaze that engulfed them both. Nesc was hurled to the ground, and she choked on a breath of superheated air that lanced pain down her throat.

She didn’t know how long she lay on the floor. The pain brought her back, and Nesc looked around through watering eyes. She had no idea whether the blast had caught Wynn. One of Varec’s men was still up, but the rest had been hurled prone or else caught in the detonation. The flames reached some half-filled barrels of promethium, setting them off with another explosion that shook Nesc’s senses.

She clambered to her feet. ‘Wynn!’ she tried to shout, but the name came out as a rasped whisper. Her throat was a column of agony, and she tasted the sticky wetness of blood in her mouth. Her foot knocked against something. An autogun had been thrown from someone’s grasp and had slid across the floor towards her. She looked down at it blearily, trying to remember what to do with it.

Varec emerged from the flames, a bellowing wreckage of ruined skin and bleeding muscle. His hair and clothes had been scorched away, and scraps of charred material fell from his chest as he limped out of the inferno.

‘Rachen!’ He shrieked her name like a curse, pain and rage expelled in a single tortured roar. He stumbled towards Nesc, lumbering like a drunk.

She bent down and grabbed the autogun. She got off one shot that punched into the meat of Varec’s shoulder before he batted the weapon away. He lunged for her. Nesc jerked back, but her heel slipped on something and she fell hard, landing on a splinter of metal that dug into her thigh. She grimaced, and kicked out at Varec. Her boot connected with his knee. He roared as he fell, collapsing onto his other knee. Nesc rolled away, barely thinking, seeing everything in a flicker of half-understood images.

She felt something clank as she rolled over it and reached out blindly. It was some kind of lever, a smooth ferrosteel bar as thick as her thumb and as long as her forearm. She grabbed it as she pushed herself to her feet.

Varec was still down, but Mares, blood streaming from his nose, charged at Nesc from her right. The steel seemed to move on its own, arcing up to connect beneath his chin. In the split second before the bar struck, through the haze of pain and concussion Nesc registered his expression of animal rage twisting into shock. His face collapsed with a sickening crunch of splintering bone, and he crashed to the ground at her feet.

Varec was back up. Nesc turned the bar and back-swung for his head. Varec caught it in one hand. The impact broke something in his palm, and he grunted as he ripped the lever from her grip. Something hit her face, and everything went black. He punched her again. The blow landed with the force of a piston-hammer, and she sagged back, crashing against the sharp edge of an equipment rack.

A crushing force gripped Nesc by the shoulder, pinning her in place. She scrabbled around on the rack, grasping at anything in reach. Her hand closed on the edge of something sharp, but it cut into her fingers and she flinched away.

Varec loomed over her, oily blood dripping into her face. He drew back a massive fist.

Something threw itself at his side, a blur of black synthleather and fury. Wynn struck Varec with the full weight of her body and buried her claws deep into the exposed flesh of his torso. Varec stumbled but did not fall, howling in pain. Nesc snatched up the sharp tool and thrust.

The wicked edge bit into the muscles and sinews and veins in Varec’s neck, and through blurred vision Nesc saw red well up. Varec released her, his hands flying to his throat to grip at the terrible wound. Blood poured through his fingers in a torrent.

He dropped to his knees. He looked up at Nesc, pale eyes filled with rage. Nesc stared back, thoughts misfiring. He slumped to one side, his life pulsing into a spreading pool of crimson.

The tool’s edge was cutting into her hand. Nesc dropped it, suddenly noticing the searing cuts in her fingers. A sob slipped out, and she cradled her hand against her chest.

‘Nesc,’ said a voice filled with pain.

Wynn was sprawled on the floor, her own wounds spilling blood at an alarming rate. A las-burn had cauterised a wound above her hip, though it had torn open. The mastiff had almost bitten through her left arm and had gored her flank. Nesc could see the white of broken bone, and strips of skin and bone and synthleather hung in tatters from her side. Nesc had no idea how she was alive, much less conscious. She looked around, but could not see the canid.

There were unsteady shouts from the few of Varec’s men who were still alive. Nesc bent to grab the autogun Varec had knocked from her hands, and instead fell onto all fours. Her body screamed at her to stop, to give in to the hot agonies in her hand, her throat, her face.

She pulled the autogun towards her and fumbled at the trigger with a blood-slick finger. The weapon clattered, loosing a burst of shots. Nesc had no idea if she had hit anything, and didn’t care. She fired again, then shoved the gun away.

Nesc forced herself over to Wynn. She pulled Wynn’s good arm up and draped it over her shoulder. Wynn gave a muffled grunt and somehow found her feet. She moved weakly; the combat stimms she had evidently glanded had let her move like nothing Nesc had ever seen, and endure more than any normal human could, but they were clearly wearing off.

Nesc and Wynn leant against each other as they stumbled out into the chill night air. Behind them, the fire inside the maintenance shed raged, consuming Roman Varec and the remains of his followers.

Wynn’s chest rose and fell steadily beneath the bandages. Despite the cocktail of pain suppressors and contrafection drugs swimming through her bloodstream, her gaze did not move from Nesc’s face.

‘If you’re going to go, go. Don’t draw it out.’

Nesc was carrying Wynn by the time they reached her groundcar. As she faded from consciousness, Nesc bundled her into the passenger seat and then limped round to climb in behind the steering column.

‘Where do we go, Wynn?’ Nesc asked desperately. She barely made a sound; her fire-ravaged throat was utter agony, every breath like a knife cutting through her core.

‘Wynn? Wynn?’ She shook her friend’s shoulder, grabbed her head, and then finally slapped her hard enough to bring her back. ‘Come on, Wynn. I don’t know where I can take you to fix this.’

Wynn stretched out a shaking hand towards a compartment in front of her. Nesc reached over, flipped it open, and retrieved a slim injector. She had no idea what was in it, but she pressed it hard against the top of Wynn’s thigh. Wynn sighed almost immediately, and slumped further into the seat.

‘Wynn, if you don’t tell me where to go, you’re going to die.’

The bleeding, broken assassin looked up at her with heavily lidded eyes. ‘Loc-ref…’ she whispered.

Nesc stabbed the groundcar’s activator and willed its sluggish machine-spirit into waking. Her hand hovered over the control console.

‘Eight… eight-two-four…’ Wynn read out the string of alphanumerics softly. By the time the groundcar’s engine cycled up, she had lapsed into unconsciousness.

The vehicle’s simple auto-senses had driven them through the dawning light to a backstreet chirurgeon, though by the time they had reached their destination Nesc had also been barely conscious. A white-haired man in his early fifties had opened the rear door of his practice at the sound of the groundcar pulling up. He had taken one look inside, taken in Nesc and Wynn’s condition, and had given Nesc an exhausted glare. ‘What did she do this time?’

That had been three days ago.

Hennig, the chirurgeon, bustled about his small recovery room, checking on the tubes and apparatus connected to his patient. He was a difficult and argumentative man who had tolerated Nesc’s presence with poor grace, but he had stabilised Wynn through six long hours of surgery, and he kept a remarkably well-ordered operating room.

‘I have to go back,’ said Nesc in a whisper. Hennig had treated her as well, and had said that she had done permanent damage to her vocal cords. She had used the last dregs of her slate to pay for a regime of cortical injectors to help her throat heal, and to defray his exorbitant fees for Wynn’s care.

‘I need to check in with my senior at the Officio.’ That was a poor excuse, and they both knew it. ‘And my children…’

‘What did I just say? Don’t draw this out.’

She couldn’t blame Wynn for her anger. Nesc was abandoning her, again, after heaping needless pain and danger upon her. Again.

The truth was, Nesc didn’t want to go back to Korodilsk. Ren was dead. She had her children, but did they deserve a mother like her? The past week had been filled with violence and pain and fear, and it was the first time in years that she had felt truly alive. Was that a person capable of raising children?

And then there was Wynn. By the Throne’s grace, she had suffered no harm to her major organs, but the trauma of her struggle with Varec’s hell-spawned canid would take months to heal, and she had enemies who would come for her if the word got out that she was in this state. Wynn had said that Hennig would not let that happen – ‘I bring him too much business’ – but the thought of abandoning her friend again cut as deep as the wounds in her body.

But Nesc was going back. She knew it, as did Wynn. It was a kind of cowardice. She wasn’t brave enough to escape who she had become, who she had needed to be through the wasted years of hiding. Her children were the excuse Nesc would use to retreat back into the falsehood she had created to hide from her true nature.

‘I could get you out of the Spoil,’ Nesc offered weakly. ‘You’d be safer in Korodilsk while you recover.’

‘Ha!’ barked Hennig, but he turned it into a hacking cough when he saw Wynn’s face. He shuffled out of the room.

‘You can run, Nesc. I won’t.’ The contempt in Wynn’s voice was drawn from a deep, bitter well. ‘It’s time for you to go home.’

Nesc nodded, dismissed. She lifted a small synthweave bag containing the injectors and turned to leave.

‘Give my best to Jisk and Marini,’ Wynn said suddenly to her back. ‘Tell them I miss them.’

Nesc turned to her friend. ‘Did you miss me?’

Wynn’s crystal-blue eyes stared back at Nesc. ‘Just go.’

Nesc limped into the Hate and Mercy with the midday sun pouring between its pillars. She walked slowly, every part of her aching from the cramp of hours sat in the maglev’s passenger car. A woman in a server’s bodyglove directed her towards a freight elevator that took her to the penultimate floor.

Marini was waiting for her. ‘Holy Throne,’ she breathed as the door rattled open. Even after several days, Nesc’s face was still a mass of yellow and purple bruises.

‘Are the children safe?’ Nesc asked, voice barely rising above a whisper.

‘They’re fine. But you should come with me first.’

Confused, she let Marini lead her down a flight of stairs and along a corridor to a storage room. Marini put one hand on Nesc’s arm and knocked on the door with the other.

Jiska opened it. The interior was bare metal lit by a single glow-globe. Blood was spattered on the floor. Nesc stiffened.

Two men sat on metal chairs in the centre of the room, bound and gagged. No, not men, boys, still caught on the final hooks of adolescence. Lori, the guard who had escorted her to Jiska and Marini’s office just a week before, stood behind them, an autopistol gripped tightly in one fist.

‘What is this?’ she asked. She was finding it hard to focus, her thoughts moving like a sump-barge through fog. Marini stepped into the room behind her, her hand still on Nesc’s arm. ‘These are the narco-pushers that killed Ren,’ she said.

From somewhere far away, Nesc heard Jiska explain what had happened. Ren, in a fit of somna-induced idiocy, had seized an opportunity to steal a sizeable stash of their supply. The two juves had caught him and, lost in their own drug-haze, had decided to make an example of him. For Jiska and Marini, with their connections to Korodilsk’s underground, the juves had not been hard to find.

But Nesc wasn’t listening. She was lost, her mind unravelling into somewhere hot and dark. Shame burned in every cell of her body.

She didn’t cry. There was nothing left of her to cry, only an empty void that yawned wide to consume her pride, her arrogance, her idiotic, utterly flawed instincts, leaving only a jagged mote of self-loathing.

She felt something cold against her palm, and realised she had drawn her pistol. She looked down at it. Up at the two young men. Back at it. It took all the strength left in her to lift the gun and push it back into her holster.

Marini gently turned Nesc around and steered her out into the corridor. Jiska followed a moment later, firmly closing the door on the drug dealers and their warden.

Nesc looked at them both. After all they had shared, everything she had put them through, she still had to ask something of them.

‘I need you to look after Karan and the boys for me,’ she croaked. It was the pain in her flame-damaged throat that made it hard to speak.

They both nodded in understanding. ‘Do you want to see them?’ Marini asked. Nesc shook her head. That would be too much, the final blow that would break her completely.

She looked at her friends, and saw pity in their faces. That was more than she deserved. She gave them a small, broken smile of thanks, turned, and limped back to the elevator.

Outside, in the harsh light of day, Nesc stood in silence.

She didn’t know what to do. There was nothing left to do. She slumped slowly to the ground, her back resting against the rough ridges of a rockcrete pillar. She had failed, in every way it was possible to fail.

In the void of her mind, Nesc’s reeling thoughts latched onto something. A tenuous, insubstantial thing, but one that grew in strength as she drew closer. It was the sense of righteous fury she had felt as the jagged tool in her hand opened Roman Varec’s throat in a spray of vital fluid.

A sudden, unquenchable anger – at herself, at Varec, at Ren, at the world – roared up within her, a burning need to fight and fight and fight until the city itself was rubble beneath her boots, or she was buried beneath it.

There was a place she could go to slake her anger.

Nesc climbed to her feet, and headed back to the Spoil.

RITES OF BINDING

GARETH HANRAHAN

They found the first victim inside an air duct, but not until the stench of decay had forever permeated the building. The second, sealed inside a barrel in a storage yard. The third walled up in a cellar – no, that was the fourth. The third… the third…

Varo couldn’t recall offhand where they found the third. Or the fifth, or sixth, or seventh. It didn’t matter.

At last, Varo had found him.

The rabble, with their febrile imaginings, had given the killer a host of absurd, almost mystical nicknames – the Cager, the Gravedigger, Lord Snuff – but to Probator Varo, he was Case AL-41492/MA/A3/1935312, and warranted no other title.

‘Stand ready,’ he whispered into his vox-bead. Two dozen sanctioners tensed themselves at his command, slavering beasts tugging at the leash. The hab-unit was surrounded. All routes of escape blocked. 1935312 would soon be in custody. Another case solved, another mystery unveiled to reveal the sordid truth within. No doubt 1935312 would turn out to be just another broken madman, hiding his victims like some animals bury their droppings.

‘Wait for my signal.’ Varo peered through his magnoculars. Rain on the groundcar window warped the outside world, making the street-lumens bloom like novas. He watched an old man push through the crowds on the street, back bent under the burden of a heavy knapsack, acid rain dripping from the wide brim of his hat. ‘Secondary target approaching the hab.’

It was one of the gutter-scum who gave the vital tip-off. The wretches climbing on each other in feral desperation, selling out their neighbours. The informant thought he was reporting a shelter-thief, a vagrant squatting in a hab, not giving away the location of the infamous 1935312. Typical, reflected Varo, run down every lead, every tiresome dead-end lead – endless labour, and all to no avail – until some idiot happenstance drops the solution in your lap.

‘Make sure to detain the primary target,’ ordered Varo. He glanced at the sanctioner master-sergeant in the seat next to him. ‘They do understand what ‘detain’ means, yes? He may be responsible for other disappearances, master-sergeant. Even I cannot interrogate a corpse, so – detain.’

‘They know,’ grunted Hult, but there was a pistol in his hand, not a stun-stick.

‘Remind them.’

Hult scowled and activated his vox. ‘All units, suspects are to be detained. By order of Probator Varo.’

‘That grox-hole,’ responded one of the enforcers, not realising it was an open line. ‘Thinks he’s the Emperor’s gift to–’ Hult quickly silenced the vox.

‘See that your officer is disciplined for that insolence,’ ordered Varo. Hult grunted, but did not acknowledge the order.

On the street outside, the old man struggled to unlock the front door, juggling his bags awkwardly as he tried to reach the lock. He opened the door, held it open with one foot and–

‘Now,’ ordered Varo, and the street erupted. A Bulwark rolled around the corner, disgorging one squad of sanctioners, while a second squad poured out of smaller Rampart-cars and from alleyways. More approached from the far side of the hab-complex, covering every exit. Sanctioners rushed past the old man and stormed through the open door into the hab.

Varo followed Sergeant Hult out of the groundcar. The old man lay sprawled on the ground, two more sanctioners standing over him. His groceries had spilled out across the pavement. Varo stepped over a burst packet of soylens, although a dozen sanctioner boots had already stamped their prints into the sludge.

‘Please,’ begged the old man, ‘what’s going on? I don’t–’

‘You are Hieronymous Buell, rail-wright third class with the Officio Travectura. You are accused of giving shelter to a wanted criminal, Suspect 193–’

‘No, no, no. There’s no one there, just my son, my beloved Bethus. He’s a sensitive boy, don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt Bethus!’

‘The records say you have no son,’ snapped Varo. ‘Lying to an enforcer is a crime. By authority of the Lex, I arrest you and–’

Then, from upstairs – gunfire, and screaming. Screaming unlike any Varo had heard before. Both Varo and Hult rushed upstairs, Hult’s broad back filling the narrow stairwell, blocking the probator’s line of sight. All he could hear was that tortured screaming, and a high-pitched tearing noise like ripping metal. The stench of burning flesh, flashes of light that oddly seemed brighter when he closed his eyes.

‘Emperor’s wounds,’ swore Hult, and they burst into the upper room.

A tableau of horror, like a scene out of the Great Heresy painted above an altar. Two sanctioners lay dead, another two wrestling for the gun that had shot their comrades. Standing off to the side, surrounded by a nimbus of warp-light, an expression of malign ecstasy on his face – 1935312. Bethus.

In that moment, he seemed to Varo to possess an inhuman beauty, his face illuminated from within. He was a spirit of fire within a shell of flesh, glorious and transcendent. Little tongues of flame licked from his blazing core, dancing on the brows of the sanctioners.

Almost languidly, Bethus gestured, and the sanctioner holding the gun pulled the trigger, killing for a third time.

‘Witch!’ roared Hult, fumbling for his pistol. ‘Witch!’

He must be taken alive, thought Varo. Surprising himself with his courage, the probator grabbed the stun-stick from Hult’s belt and stepped forward to strike Bethus.

Bethus crumpled, and the light withdrew – not fading, not stopping abruptly, but rolling back, slithering away in directions Varo could not know or name. A heartbeat later, the prisoner at his feet was just a man, an ugly, ungainly fellow with the purple welt of the stun-stick across his face. The lights in the hab-unit flickered, then came back with full intensity.

‘He… he was inside my head!’ wept one of the sanctioners. ‘He made me shoot!’

‘Suffer not a witch to live,’ breathed Hult. He aimed his pistol at Bethus’ head.

‘Master-sergeant,’ said Varo, ‘lower your weapon.’

‘He’s a psyker. A witch. He killed my men.’

‘He committed a crime,’ snapped Varo, scowling at Hult. Varo spoke slowly, to explain his reasoning to the brute, and as he spoke, he stepped forward to stand between Bethus and Hult’s pistol. ‘He will face retribution. But he may have committed other crimes, ones we don’t yet know about. So, he must be questioned, yes? This is my investigation, and the psyker is my prisoner.’ Varo gestured around the room. ‘This is a crime scene. All of it. Mark it for the verispex. Bring the prisoners for chastening, unharmed. A crime scene, understand.’

Hult stared at Varo for a long moment. ‘This is an abomination,’ he said finally.

But he holstered his sidearm.

In a metal case under a bed, they found a collection of a dozen printed picts. All virtually identical: each image showed a face – frightened, bruised, some with the tracks of tears through the grime on their cheeks – in a dark, cramped space. On the back of some of the picts were smears of blood or other bodily fluids, or a few hairs taped together. A fingernail, on one. Some picts were marked with strange sigils, but no writing, and no names. Still, Varo recognised most of the faces.

AL-41492/MA/A3/1935312, Victim #1. Reported missing four years ago; remains discovered three years ago.

AL-41492/MA/A3/1935312, Victim #2. Reported missing six years ago; remains discovered two years ago.

AL-41492/MA/A3/1935312, Victim #3. Reported missing two years ago; remains discovered six weeks after that, when custodians in a scholam reported strange knocking noises from the heating pipes. They found #3 sealed in a disused boiler tank in the basement.

#4. #5. #6. They all had names, buried somewhere in the case files.

Three of the picts, though, were unfamiliar faces.

Victims they hadn’t identified yet, #10, #11, #12. The clerks were already going through the missing-person reports. How many thousands of Varangantua’s teeming billions went missing every day? Were these three like the rest of Bethus’ victims, sealed away in some air duct or sewer pipe? Or were they still alive?

Varo picked up the three picts and looked through them. A woman, middle-aged, face creased and scarred, pallor suggesting a life spent in the Dredge or some other lowclave. Staring back defiantly, as if daring anyone to call her a victim.

The second, another woman, young and beautiful. Smudges of make-up around her terrified eyes. The third, a man. Bedraggled, scared, but the evenness of his teeth suggested expensive dental work. Varo shuffled them like cards, then pinned the three unknowns up above his desk. Were they three corpses to be found or three prisoners to be rescued?

Three loose ends, either way.

‘Am I interrupting, probator?’ came a voice from the door. ‘Might I take a moment of your time?’

Castellan Frammel always gave the impression of being faintly embarrassed by his authority, as if he’d been promoted through some Administratum error. Varo knew that was all an act. Frammel’s promotion was the result of a decade of carefully calculated politicking. Varo despised the man, and rather wished the loathing was mutual. Better honest hate than Frammel’s feigned camaraderie.

‘I have nothing to report yet, commander,’ said Varo. Frammel was a head taller than Varo, and always stood too close to him, emphasising the difference in their stature. Varo’s nostrils were assailed by Frammel’s expensive perfume.

‘Such modesty, Varo! The Gravedigger, caught at last! I shall report your work to the lexmarshal personally.’ Was that a lie? Varo wondered. If so, why bother with such transparent deceit? Or was it some other scheme to further Frammel’s standing? The politicking and backstabbing of the upper ranks was something Varo detested. He knew he should play the game, vomit up some equally hollow platitude, pretend to be grateful, but the words caught in his throat.

‘The case is far from closed, castellan.’

‘So I see.’ Frammell’s fat fingers brushed against one of the picts. ‘Anything from the rail-wright? Buell, was it?’

‘He’s being chastened. The verispex are still working on the evidence collected from the hab. And Bethus remains unconscious in the infirmary.’

‘I see. Well, I can, ah, shed light on one of these unfortunates, at least.’ He tapped the image of the young male. ‘This is Mardo Venarus. Twenty-two years old, Alecto-standard. He’s a student at Varangantua Schola Tertius XIV. Reading Primus-economics, I believe. His parents reported him missing six days ago.’ Frammel sat back and sighed heavily. ‘I rather wish you hadn’t found this, Varo. Now, if the boy isn’t found alive, it’s specifically our Bastion’s fault, as opposed to opprobrium falling on the entire force. Seeing as you’re waiting on the clerks and the verispex and the medicae, you can visit the family. Assure them you’re doing everything you can to find their son.’

Alica Venarus clutched at Varo’s arm. ‘You’ve found him? You’ve found my boy?’

‘We have arrested the man who kidnapped your son. We have yet to locate Mardo.’ Varo shuffled away from Alica, across the wide expanse of the golden couch. Everything in the room was laden with gilt and gold and gemstones, especially Alica Venarus. Her slight husband was almost crushed beneath the teetering grandeur of his ceremonial headpiece, decorated with sigils of his illustrious family and their long service to the Imperium.

‘You must! You must! My uncle – he’s the first adjutor to the burgrave, you know, and he has no children, and Mardo’s so clever…’ It was like a sluice gate opening, a flood of babble, as if permitting a moment’s silence would allow some strange new horror to enter their mansion. She repeated the name of her influential uncle over and over, doubtless hinting that he would look favourably on the probator who recovered his grand-nephew safely. Varo could already imagine Frammel rushing in to take credit. The gratitude of a burgrave was no small thing. Varo wondered why Frammel had sent him, instead of showing his own face.

The father sat there staring at a small statue of some Imperial saint frozen in the moment of thrusting a spear through a xenos monster.

‘Is Mardo alive?’ he asked finally, when Alica paused for breath.

‘I believe so,’ Varo said. ‘Your son. Had he spoken of anything strange? Someone following him, perhaps?’ Varo took an image of Bethus from his file. ‘Have you seen this man before?’

‘No,’ said Alica. The father carefully shook his head.

‘Did Mardo ever use the maglev?’

‘Of course not,’ snapped Alica. ‘My uncle is adjutor to the burgrave.’

‘Mardo had a groundcar, then?’

‘Of course.’

‘May I speak to the driver?’

Alica glanced at her husband, then said, ‘He’s no longer employed by us. He wasn’t suitable.’

‘What do you mean?’

The father coughed and his hat wobbled, threatening to come crashing down on Varo. ‘He wasn’t suitable,’ repeated Alica. ‘He wasn’t satisfactory, so we dismissed him.’

‘I should still talk to him,’ said Varo. ‘Do you have–’

‘He’s dead,’ intoned the father. ‘Took his own life. Shame.’

‘But that was after Mardo went missing,’ added Alica.

Varo blinked, trying to integrate that oddity into his conception of the case. He couldn’t yet see how, or if, the driver’s death connected to Mardo’s disappearance, but it was clear the parents were unwilling to discuss the matter. He moved on. ‘Mardo was last seen where?’

‘The Librarium Kostos. He went there to study. He’s studying Primus-economics, you know, for my uncle–’

‘You…’ The father seemed to surprise himself by speaking. ‘You have the kidnapper, so why ask us more questions?’

‘There are two other victims, as yet unidentified. Perhaps if I understand why Bethus took Mardo, I can learn something about the others, too. Is there anything distinctive about your son that you can think of – any friends or interests that might have brought him down into the lower city?’

‘He–’ began the father, but Alica shushed him.

‘No. Nothing at all. Mardo’s a good boy, focused on his studies.’

‘Primus-economics.’

‘Yes.’ Alica stood, suddenly cold. ‘Find our son, Probator Varo. My uncle – we’re all very worried.’

This time, the mention of the uncle struck Varo as a threat.

The sullen red sun rose above the horizon, its light flooding Varo’s office. It reminded him unpleasantly of the unnatural light conjured by the psyker. He stood, intending to go down to the commissary for a cup of recaff in lieu of sleep, but suddenly Frammel was at the door again.

‘Good morning, probator. How goes the hunt?’

‘Bethus is still unconscious. His associate Buell has been processed. The chastener tells me the mechanic’s mind was corrupted by the psyker. His memories scraped clean and rewritten. He’s convinced that Bethus is his long-lost son.’ Varo scowled. ‘He’s useless as a witness. Absolutely useless.’ Buell’s ignorance felt almost like a deliberate offence, an insult to Varo.

‘Physical evidence?’

‘So far, nothing. We did find an extra rail-wright’s uniform, and a welding kit, both stolen from the Officio Travectura. I suspect Bethus accompanied Buell to work on occasion, perhaps using the train lines as cover when moving around the city.’ Varo tapped his data-slate, conjuring a holo of the local subway network. It reminded him of worms burrowing through a human brain. ‘I have teams questioning Buell’s associates and searching the lines. Verispex are checking for traces of biomatter or fibres on the overalls.’

‘Very good, very good. You spoke with the Venarus parents?’

‘As you ordered, commander.’

Frammel clapped his pudgy hands. ‘Good. What about the other two unidentified victims?’

‘The clerks are still working through the records. I suspect they were taken from other districts, so we’ve expanded our search – but that will take time, and we do not have time. Bethus is the key. I must interrogate him as soon as he awakens.’

‘Ah.’ Frammel gave Varo a sheepish smile. ‘There’s a little wrinkle there.’

‘What?’

‘They heard Bethus was a psyker, you see…’

Varo descended the steps to the Bastion’s dungeon three at a time, rushing past guards and prisoners, his long coat billowing behind him like the wings of an avenging angel. A servo-skull at the entrance scanned his badge of office, and the secure door hissed open.

He stepped into the loading dock. There was a black groundcar, like a hearse, out of place amid the sanctioner wagons. Two robed acolytes were loading Bethus inside. The psyker lay on a stretcher, still unconscious, another servo-skull floating above him with a bag of sedative held between its teeth. Between Varo and his prisoner stood a little figure, features hidden by a cowled robe. She slowly shuffled a deck of cards as she watched the acolytes slide Bethus into the back of the hearse.

‘That’s my prisoner!’ shouted Varo.

The woman ignored him.

‘I have yet to interrogate him! You can’t take him!’

‘Better I take him,’ said the old woman, ‘than another.’ She made a strange gesture with one hand, a sign to ward off evil.

‘I need to talk to him! He has vital information! Three lives may be at stake!’

The woman looked at Varo for the first time, then with a quick movement she flashed one of her cards in his face. It depicted the Emperor, seated in the Golden Throne, His face lit from within and full of suffering. The sight struck Varo like a blow, breaking his stride.

‘What are three lives, compared to trillions?’

With that, the old woman hobbled over to the black groundcar to affix a wax hexagrammatic seal to the rear door. Varo tried to follow her, but Frammel caught up with him and restrained him. ‘Don’t be a fool, dear fellow.’

The groundcar glided silently out of the garage, taking Bethus and any hope of finding the victims alive with it.

Varo rounded on Frammel. ‘Who is she? A black hood?’

‘Oh my, no. No.’ Frammel took a delicate handkerchief from a pocket and mopped his brow. ‘Although doubtless I shall receive an enquiry from the Ordo Hereticus in due course, an ordeal for which I must prepare myself presently. I shall try, Varo, to shield you as much as… well. I rather wish you had let the sanctioners shoot Bethus. Much less trouble in the end, I think.’

‘Who took my prisoner?’ snarled Varo.

‘It would be better if you let this go, probator. Better for all of us. Pursue other lines of enquiry.’

‘Who is she, Frammel?’

‘Her name is Sister Sera, I’m told. Her authority comes from the Arbites, from the Astra Telepathica. I don’t pretend to understand, and I have no desire to question…’

‘I do. Where are they taking Bethus?’

‘Ilachive. Somewhere in Ilachive District. I don’t know where.’

The journey to Ilachive was long, the train overfull. Varo hated the stench of the crowd around him, and pressed himself into a corner near the door. The smell of burning oil from the engine didn’t quite block out the rank odours of the other passengers, but it helped. The window was open a crack, and he could watch the endless blocks of the city race by, feel the cold wind on his face. Every power distribution node, every air duct, every street-shrine – a trillion hiding places. A trillion tombs for Bethus’ victims. Somewhere out there was Mardo Venarus. Venarus of the wealthy family, the well-connected family, who could ruin Varo’s career with a whisper. No wonder Frammel had sent Varo to speak with the family instead of going himself – now Varo was the lightning rod, Varo the name they’d say to the burgrave. His only hope of saving himself was finding Mardo Venarus in time, and alive.

And there was no way Varo could find him in time without interrogating the psyker.

At Ilachive station, he asked for directions. The station staff could not guide him, and the official maps of the area held no clues, but a coin bought rumour aplenty. The locals knew the black hearse-cars, and knew they went to an ancient compound north of the station. A monastery, some called it. A prison, said others. A tomb.

Varo found it, and knew it was none of these things. He sensed some change as soon as he stepped across the outer threshold. Vibrations from titanic engines buried deep underground filled the air with static. Cowled statues stared down at him, and he noted with discomfort a Tarantula sentry gun facing inwards, towards the main door. The gun was immensely old, overgrown with a thorny rose bush, but it still clicked and tracked him with laser-light as he crossed the courtyard.

Sister Sera stood in the doorway, barring his path. Still shuffling her damn cards.

‘Probator. There is nothing for you here.’

‘I need to talk to Bethus.’ Varo swallowed his anger. He stiffly deployed what little diplomacy he could muster. It was as rusty and old as that sentry gun, but maybe it too could still function. ‘I acknowledge your superior claim on him, but I only need a few minutes with him. As I said, lives are at stake.’

Sera shook her head. ‘A few minutes with him? A few seconds, probator, was enough for Bethus to take control of your sanctioners. He can plant pestilent seeds in the minds of those he touches. You do not know what you ask.’

‘If he is so dangerous, why keep him alive? Why bring him here?’

‘Bethus is still human, and that is a holy thing. The Emperor loves all humanity, even wayward souls. Even mutants and genetic deviants. Even those driven irredeemably mad by their powers. There may yet be a way for one such as Bethus to serve.’

Varo scowled. ‘You think he can be redeemed?’

‘Some can.’ Sera shuffled her cards, turned one over. A blazing star, the Astronomican. ‘But there are other ways to serve.’

Diplomacy, Varo reminded himself. ‘That is a beautiful tarot set, sister.’

She smiled – the first sign of emotion she’d shown him. It made her look like a child cursed with some genetic mutation of premature ageing. ‘Some of the cards were painted for me by a Navigator. He visits this world every few decades, and brings me another card each time. Seventeen of the cards are his. I hope to add an eighteenth before I die.’

‘There’s another way Bethus can serve. Three of the innocents he kidnapped may still be alive. Let me talk to him, and maybe he’ll let slip some clue. Please.’

She shuffled the cards again, drew one. Frowned. Drew another. Varo tried to spy which cards she’d read, but Sera kept them hidden from him. The third card she drew seemed decisive. She clucked her tongue in irritation, then stepped aside.

‘Come in,’ she said, ‘if that is truly your will.’

‘It is.’

She led Varo down a corridor, shuffling her cards as she walked. The hallway was dimly lit, and Varo could make out few details from the carvings on the walls.

‘What is this place?’ he asked.

‘A holding facility of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. A Sanctum Psykana. Those with psychic talents are kept here until a ship comes for them to take them to Holy Terra. Most of us, probator, are judged after we die. The souls of psykers are special, so they must be judged while they still live.’

Varo’s skin tingled as they passed a power cable as thick as his arm, which he had mistaken in the dim light for an ornamental pillar.

‘You’re drawing a lot of power,’ he muttered.

‘There are Geller field generators protecting this sanctuary,’ said Sera, ‘of ancient design. Over the centuries, we have added more wards. Every door is marked with a blessed sigil. The blocks were mortared with the blood of martyrs, and their skulls watch over this place. It is as secure as we can make it – but we must be forever vigilant.’

‘Five minutes with Bethus is all I ask. You may take whatever precautions you see fit.’

They entered into a larger chamber with an arched ceiling. Four exits, all heavy blast doors. In the middle of the room stood a wooden table flanked by two chairs. Sera did not sit, but instead laid out a spread of tarot cards. Varo stifled his natural inclination to scoff; in his experience, most practitioners of the tarot deluded themselves, and used the cards to justify their own shameful or cowardly choices.

Whatever the cards revealed troubled Sera, for she scooped them up, shuffled them and laid them out again. This time, Varo dared to peer over her shoulder. He saw the Pilgrim Reversed, the Inquisitor, the Emperor again, and the Eye.

‘Five minutes,’ said Sera reluctantly. ‘Remain seated throughout.’

She closed the blast door they had entered by, then opened the one in the far wall by means of an ident-key, and left.

Varo sat down in one of the chairs and waited, expecting Sera’s acolytes to bring Bethus to him promptly. He tried to pass the time by consulting the dataveil, but the machine-spirit was unresponsive. Perhaps the thick walls of the monastery rendered it comatose.

Minutes passed. The room remained empty and deathly silent. Varo stood and paced back and forth. Every minute he lingered here brought Bethus’ remaining prisoners closer to death. Had the psyker visited them? he wondered. Did he bring them food and water, like a pilgrim bringing offerings to an anchorite? Was that where Bethus went, disguised in Buell’s spare overalls? Where had he hidden them? Somewhere like this, maybe? This room which had seemed so large when he’d entered it now struck Varo as uncomfortably small, a prison cell with four locked doors.

‘I have no time to waste!’ he called out. ‘Be swift!’

He forced himself to sit down again.

The blast door opened, and the two acolytes entered, escorting a bizarre reliquary. The thing was eight feet tall, an upright coffin of thick plasteel, adorned with the likeness of some tortured saint, all wrapped in heavy chains and hexagrammatic wards. There were suspensor-modules along the base, but they no longer functioned, so the coffin was mounted on wooden wheels and pushed along by the acolytes. They wheeled it up to the table, pushing the other chair aside.

One of the acolytes set a sandglass on the table; the other reached up and opened a small hatch in the face of the saint, revealing what Varo assumed to be a feeding-hatch. He could see nothing in the darkness beyond. The acolytes stepped to the side and drew weapons – one a gun, the other a long, thin blade.

‘Bethus?’

‘Why not?’ The voice that came from the feeding-hatch was frail, a broken whisper. Varo wondered if Sera had tortured the psyker, or if the sanctioners had laid into him before he was transferred from Enforcement. ‘Names are so fleeting.’

‘I am Probator Varo.’

‘I don’t care.’ A note of petulance.

‘Tell me the location of Mardo Venarus.’

‘Why, he’s with me. They all are. I speak to them – or did, before I was brought here.’

‘They all are… what are the names of the other two?’

Bethus hissed. ‘Names are so fleeting,’ he said again.

‘What are their names?’

‘Salia Nymarsh. Sweet Salia. And Viveka Borne.’

‘Are they alive?’

‘Oh yes. So very alive.’

‘You speak to them – with your witchcraft? With your mind?’

‘I am their teacher. I care for them.’

‘What are you teaching them?’

No reply.

‘Where are they? Where have you hidden them?’

‘Why,’ asked Bethus, ‘should I tell you? What can you offer me?’

The question brought Varo up short. In a regular interrogation, there were many small favours he could offer, or threats he could deploy. He could give a lho-stick, or a better meal. Proffer a reduced sentence. Or he could bring in the brute squad, beat the suspect into compliance. None of those were options here. What threat could he make that would be half as painful as the psyker’s present circumstances? What boon could he offer? Anger flashed through him – if that hag Sera had waited a day, if that idiot jelly-brained Frammel had stalled a little, then Varo could have broken Bethus easily. Now, they’d ruined everything! He was surrounded by idiots and defectives!

The lights in the room flickered.

‘Such anger, probator!’ The tip of Bethus’ tongue emerged into the light, licking the air obscenely. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you. I thought you enforcers were dull brutes, but you! You shine! I suppose I should have seen it at Buell’s, when you struck me. You know…’ Bethus dropped his voice to a whisper, forcing Varo to rise from his chair and approach the sarcophagus to hear, ‘…one of the four cardinal directions on the other side! Lust and dread, too, but I don’t think you’ll walk those roads. Too old, the blood too chill. No, it’s the way of secrets for you…’

The blast door slid open, and Sister Sera entered. ‘Enough. You are too close to him, probator!’ Immediately, one of the acolytes darted forward and closed the mouth-hatch.

Varo whirled to face her. ‘I haven’t had five minutes,’ he snarled.

‘He will tell you nothing.’

‘I want my prisoner,’ insisted Varo.

‘He belongs to the Emperor now,’ said Sera, and her voice was harder than the blast door. ‘Do not return here.’

Salia Nymarsh. Viveka Borne.

Varo voxed the names into the Bastion even before he was out of the courtyard. He took the train from Ilachive station, and warned the clerks that if they didn’t have the missing-persons files on his desk by the time he arrived, he would have them all flayed.

The files were waiting in his office.

Salia Nymarsh, vanished three weeks ago from a revel house in Tareza. She stepped away from her sister in the crowd and never came back. The local sanctioners assumed she’d been snatched by a skin-gang, and had closed the case without even a cursory investigation. He plucked the pict of Salia from the wall and put it atop her slim file.

Viveka Borne’s file was thicker. A criminal record, mostly juvenile scrapes, with a missing-person report stapled on top. A former salvage-ganger who’d carved out a fearsome reputation. Oddly, she now worked as a medicae in a lower-city clinic, and her colleagues had reported her missing. A scalpel in one hand, and a stub gun in the other, defending her little clinic the same way she defended gang turf in her youth. She stared defiantly out of her pict, which gave Varo some hope that he’d find her alive at least.

And Mardo Venarus, the student with the influential great-uncle. His file overflowed – not with criminal records, but with scholam reports, official correspondence. A copy, for reasons beyond understanding, of some economics treatises, tucked into his file like an offering. Varo could almost imagine the mother, saying, ‘Look! He’s a clever boy! You have to find him! His great-uncle is adjutor to the burgrave, you know.’

A week since Venarus was kidnapped; three weeks for the two women. And thirty hours since they’d arrested Bethus.

A human could survive for three weeks without food, three days without water.

I’m their teacher. I care for them. If Bethus was tending to them, then there was a chance they were still alive, wherever he’d hidden them. But why hide them like that? Why imprison them in living tombs? And where?

Varo brought up a map of the city. A holographic approximation – no complete map of the city could exist. This hologram was centuries out of date, but he did his best. Those shining red dots were the previously discovered tombs of the Gravedigger’s victims. He added Buell’s hab, Borne’s clinic. The librarium where Mardo Venarus disappeared. The nightclub where Salia Nymarsh was last seen. A constellation of red stars. A sigil of the undercity.

He spun the map around, looked at it from every angle. He fed in a few unsolved missing-persons cases. Rumours of psychic activity. He tried adding train lines, to account for the Buell connection. Nothing.

A meaningless spray of dots. All useless.

‘Any progress, probator?’ asked Frammel from the doorway.

‘I have the names of the other two victims.’

‘Anyone of note?’

Varo slid the data-slate across the desk. Frammel paged through it. ‘No, then. Well, perhaps it’s good that you have other, ah, quarries to find. Prioritise them.’

‘Over Venarus? You sent me to his family to assure them I’d find him.’

‘Yes, well…’ Frammel’s lip quivered. ‘I had a meeting about this matter.’

‘With the black hoods?’

‘Oh, no. I haven’t had the pleasure of an encounter with the Holy Ordos yet. No, a little chat with the lexmaster. They were, ah…’ He trailed off, then said, ‘You’re a thorough investigator, Varo. Not the most imaginative, but you leave no seal unchecked, and I’ve always liked that about you. So, apply your talents to these other two first.’ He glanced down at the slate. ‘Borne and Salia, yes? Look for them, Varo.’

‘You ordered me to prioritise Mardo Venarus.’

‘But there are, ah, complexities here you’re not aware of. I’m trying to protect you, you know.’ Frammel swept out of the door, his shoes squeaking as he marched down the corridor. The stench of his perfume hung in the air. Varo stared after him, wishing his gaze could set Frammel afire. Was the castellan’s warning a genuine one, telling him that there was some embarrassing secret connected to Mardo, and finding him alive would be damaging? Or was it a trap – a way for Frammel to sabotage Varo? Make Varo the face of the investigation to the Venarus family, and then stop him from finding Mardo in time?

He browsed through their picts like Sister Sera had shuffled her cards. He wondered how long she shuffled the deck before the right portent came up. Something twisted in Varo’s brain, and he found he couldn’t stay in the office any longer. He had to move.

Hit the streets. Run down every lead. Earn that lucky break, that benediction.

Borne’s file was the thickest, so he started there. At the med-clinic, her colleagues spoke of her with something approaching religious awe. She was their warrior saint, their inspiration. What they described was not kindness, not exactly – more a sort of fierce, desperate empathy. Viveka Borne was incapable of standing by when another soul was suffering.

He admired that about her. Anyone, he reflected, can take care of their friends and kinfolk. It’s a higher calling to serve all humanity, even when you despise your fellow man. Varo considered himself devoted to Truth, as if through dogged investigation he could burn away the dross of the world to reach something glorious and pure. This city around him, all the people with their petty lives and lusts, was a swarm of insects writhing and crawling on the earth, hiding a precious jewel…

Varo shook his head to clear it of daydreams and stray thoughts.

‘Any associates?’ he asked.

None. No friends. No family.

One of the other medicaes approached Varo privately and confided that Borne was especially devoted in her faith. So much so that, several times, he’d treated her self-inflicted flagellation wounds. Varo swallowed an insult and thanked the man – but what was he supposed to do with that datum? Give him a name, a place, anything that might explain her connection to Bethus. Anything that might help Varo find her.

He made a circuit of the nearby churches, a sore-footed pilgrimage. Nothing. None of the priests recognised the pict of Borne, nor one of Bethus. No new leads.

He dug deep. Borne was a former salvage-thief, and Varo had arrested dozens of the scum. Most of Borne’s former associates were dead or incarcerated, but he tracked down a few. Prematurely aged, their gang tattoos and scars distorted by wrinkled skin. They remembered a Viveka Borne, but their descriptions of the savage warrior girl bore virtually no resemblance to the medicae. Something had changed Borne – some trauma, some revelation – but what it was, none of them could tell him. One day, Borne was a callous, violent delinquent; the next, a committed healer.

What force could redirect the course of a life like that?

He circled the area around the clinic again, feeling like he was missing something. An incipient headache prowled around the circumference of his skull, brushing its claws against the raw surface of his brain, but perversely refused to settle on a nerve cluster to torment. He wondered if he should head back to his own hab to rest, or if he should eat. There was no way to tell if it was night or day down here in the lightless warrens. He stared at his chronometer for several minutes, trying to recall how to read the display.

You’re losing it, said a voice in his head, and somehow, it didn’t seem like his own thought.

Nymarsh. Maybe he’d find something there.

A long train ride through the darkness to a part of the city he didn’t know well. The train rocked back and forth, the lights flickering, and it made him feel ill.

He checked the revel house first. At this hour, the place was deserted apart from a cleaner listlessly mopping dried vomit off the dance floor. The cleaner recalled Nymarsh, though – such a beautiful girl, but troubled. Beauty wasn’t her only curse, he muttered. Varo showed him a pict of Bethus’ face, but the cleaner shrugged. He saw thousands of people every night. It was a miracle he even remembered Nymarsh.

The Nymarsh family’s address was on file, but the corridors of the undercity looped back on each other in a confusing tangle. He spent hours traipsing through an endless landscape of almost identical habs, distinguishable only by each unit’s particular coating of graffiti, by the different ways they rotted. The people were the same, a parade of scowls, slack faces fit only for rendering into corpse-starch. None of them knew the Nymarshes. None of them offered any leads.

Backtracking for the third time, he found a burnt-out hab-unit. Firebombed, he guessed. The unit was cold, but the damage was recent, within the last three weeks.

He hammered on the doors of the adjoining habs, shouted until his throat was raw. Only the threat of calling down a sanctioner unit compelled any response. One by one, neighbours shuffled out to claim they hadn’t seen anything, to say they had no idea who burned down the hab. A dozen levels, a hundred hab-units on each level, and no one saw anything.

So, the Nymarshes’ radiant daughter is kidnapped by Bethus – and then, rather than respond with charity or sympathy, the neighbours turn on her family, drive them out with fire. Did they fear, maybe, that the Gravedigger would return for more victims? Or had Bethus revealed something about the Nymarsh family, something unclean?

Scrawled on the wall was a jagged sigil of some undercity cult. He took a pict with his ocular implant and appended it to Salia Nymarsh’s pitifully thin file. But it was just another mystery, not a fresh lead. Everything pointed back to Bethus, and Bethus was locked away, waiting only for a Black Ship to bear him to Terra.

His implant chimed. A summons from Frammel, calling Varo back to the station to report on progress.

On the upper-city train, Varo settled into a seat, glaring at the handful of other passengers. Mostly scum from the undercity, walking corpse-starch. The flickering lights turned their faces into gaunt death masks. Did they know what Varo had done for them, all the criminals and murderers he’d caught over the years? Of course not – lumpen idiots, the lot of them.

A few salvagers sat in a corner, laughing and joking, knapsacks clanking with stolen scrap machinery. More scum, scum with knives. Scavenger gangs in the underhive. Two-legged vermin, their rags adorned with makeshift armour and trophies. They should send the sanctioners in with flamers, not batons. Clear out the lower sectors.

In a seat opposite, a mid-level bureaucrat shot nervous glances over at the salvage-gang. She was the sort that Varo was supposed to protect, the typical faithful, upstanding, honest every-citizen of the Imperium. He despised her too, with a volcanic fury that was new to him, instead of his usual simple disdain. Upstanding? Head bowed, shoulders hunched, obviously scared. Hiding behind her briefcase, hiding behind the steel walls of the hive. Faithful? He spotted a skull-sigil brooch – but he guessed hers was a hollow, rote sort of faith, mumbling the same dull litany all her life. No fire in her soul, no fervour. And honest? Maybe, but he doubted it. He knew her sort. Honest as long as she was being watched, honest until she thought she could get away with it. Above all, she was forgettable. There are a billion billion billion people like you, thought Varo, and if Bethus had taken you, would it have made any difference at all?

She looked up at him, confused. Varo hastily dropped his gaze, accessed the dataveil and pretended to check for updates from the verispex. His frustrating encounter with Bethus and Sera had shaken him more than he’d realised. When was the last time he’d slept? The night before the tip-off about Buell, or the night before that?

The lights flickered again, provoking a low chuckle from the gang. One of them pretended to make a grab for the bureaucrat’s briefcase, snatching his hand away at the last minute.

Varo ignored them. He found himself scrolling through copies of the picts of the three missing victims. Salia Nymarsh, Viveka Borne and Mardo Venarus. Before and after picts – images before they were kidnapped, images of their ordinary lives, all so different. And the after picts, the ones taken by Bethus – all the same. Three faces in darkness, three prisoners entombed in coffin-like cells.

Salia’s face was beautiful. He felt more in common with these three victims than he did with any of the people around him. With their lives laid bare in his files – even Salia’s thin little dossier – it felt like he knew them. He could reach into their histories, trace the course of their lives. They were imprisoned, but they were also here with him. He could almost see Salia, calling to him…

The train ran over a damaged section of track, swaying and rattling violently. The bureaucrat yelped in alarm as the lights cut out, came back, then flickered again. One of the salvagers made an off-colour joke.

Varo ignored them all.

Four cardinal directions on the other side! Lust and fear, the way of secrets… There was something there. He scrolled back to Salia’s beautiful face. Lust. Viveka Borne. Fear of violence? Of disease, in her clinic? Of death? Dread. And Mardo, in the library. Secrets.

A train engineer in a soiled uniform made his way through the carriage, apologising for the delays and the state of the railway. The lights flickered again, and the engine groaned.

Varo sprang up, shoved his holo-seal in the face of the engineer. ‘Stop this train, immediately.’

It was like the autopsy of a Titan.

The entrails of the train and its first two carriages spread out across the maintenance yard. Actinic light flared from cutting torches as engineers began the dissection of the third carriage. Varo watched them work from an overlooking balcony.

Frammel came up behind Varo, and let out a low whistle. ‘My word. You had best be right about this, my friend.’

‘I’m right. At least one of the victims is here.’

Frammel sighed. ‘It’s not that I doubt you, probator, but, ah, run me through your reasoning.’

‘We know Buell supplied Bethus with a train engineer’s uniform, and Buell worked on the Ilachive line. He had access.’

‘How do you know it was this train in particular? Why not somewhere along the line?’

‘Call it a hunch.’ It wasn’t a hunch. Varo despised investigators who relied on hunches. It was sloppy, emotive nonsense. People remembered the wild guesses that paid off, not the million times they were wrong. This wasn’t a hunch – he felt a blinding, steel-hard certainty that one of the victims was here.

‘Did Bethus tell you anything?’ asked Frammel.

‘Nothing useful.’

‘When was the last time you slept, probator? You look tired.’

From the yard below came shouts. Workers clustered around the underside of the third carriage. There was a waste water tank there, a storage pod for filth from the ablution cubicles. They cut it open, lancing it like an infected boil. Even from the balcony, Varo could smell the shit as it poured out. Brown filth cascaded across the ground, staining the ferrocrete platform – and then they lifted a limp body from the tank, laid it gently on a sheet of plastek.

Varo and Frammell ran down; again, Varo easily outdistanced the commander. ‘Let me see! Let me see!’ The mechanics stepped aside to let him through. He knelt by the corpse, cradling her, and wiped away the filth until he could make out her features.

Salia Nymarsh. Dead, caked in slime, but still beautiful.

‘How did you know?’ gasped Frammel.

Varo ignored him. He couldn’t answer that question. He couldn’t explain the flash of complete certainty he’d experienced on the train, as though Salia had reached out to him and told him where to find her. He felt the strange urge to climb into the tank and lie down amid the slime. He concealed it by pretending to examine the inside of the tank, shining his light around inside it.

There, at the back, floating in the sewage, was a large container of drinkable water and two packets of solyens.

‘He was caring for them,’ said Varo. His heart leapt. The others could still be alive!

‘Caring,’ echoed Frammel. ‘I wouldn’t put it that way. He welded the girl into a sewage tank.’

Only her body, thought Varo, but he didn’t give voice to that thought.

‘Varo,’ asked Frammel quietly, pointing up, ‘what’s that?’

Varo adjusted the light. The roof of the tank was partially melted, the metal scorched and scored as if struck by plasma fire. ‘Some sort of energy discharge?’ guessed Varo.

‘From what?’ Frammel looked around, as if expecting to find a meltagun or plasma torch lying nearby.

The answer to that, Varo realised, was the same thing that changed Viveka Borne’s life. The same thing that made Salia’s neighbours fear her. The same thing that he’d seen in Buell’s hab.

The same answer that he couldn’t give, not even to himself.

Not yet.

Frammel insisted that Varo get some rest, insisted on driving them back to Varo’s hab-unit. They were both filthy from clambering around the sewage tank, and while Frammel put down plastek sheeting on the groundcar’s seats, Varo took perverse glee in smearing a brown stain all across the pale upholstery of the door.

‘The verispex will have an analysis of the tank damage in a few days. And a haruspicy of Nymarsh’s remains. There’s nothing to be done until then.’

‘Viveka Borne. Mardo Venarus.’

Frammel rapped his knuckles on the dashboard in irritation. ‘You have no leads. Get some sleep, probator.’

He pulled up outside Varo’s hab.

As a probator, Varo rated a relatively large and secure unit, and he didn’t use half of it. Buell’s cramped apartment could have fitted into Varo’s spare space eight times over. Other probators had families. Hobbies. Trophies. At least a pet. Varo had blank walls and empty rooms. He was never sure what to fill them with. All his life, he’d waited for some impulse, some desire that never came. Working as a probator at least occupied his mind, but it wasn’t what he was meant to be.

He shed his soiled coat. Stepped into the pulse-shower, still clothed, to hose off his boots and outer garments, then stripped off his clothing to stand naked in the rushing water. This ablutions cubicle, he reflected, was about the same size as Salia Nymarsh’s tomb. He tried to imagine being trapped in this cramped space, in total darkness, floating in raw sewage. Trapped there for weeks, or longer. Months. Years.

He brushed his hand against the tempered glass. Nymarsh must have done the same, clawing at the inside of her prison tank. Scratching against the metal until her fingers bled, trying to get out.

Plasma scoring – but no visible source.

The showerhead spluttered and gurgled, the flow of water stopping for a moment, then coming back icy cold and a foetid shade of brown. Varo yelped as the cold water struck him, and he hopped out of the shower. A fanciful image danced through his mind – that the whole hab-unit had suddenly taken off like a spaceship from the surface of Varangantua, and was now hurtling through the void, the shower water cooled to the temperature of interstellar space. Varo, in his little cell, a prisoner on an endless voyage – or a pilot, leaping free of the filth and confines of this city, reaching out to the stars… A strange notion, but unsettling enough that he had to look out of the window to confirm that the city was still there.

There was an unfamiliar black groundcar parked nearby. He stared at it for a moment, trying to recall if he’d seen it before. It reminded him of Sera’s hearse, but it was a different vehicle. Newer, more expensive. Nothing to do with Sera’s crumbling, dusty sanctum.

Emperor’s tears, he did need sleep. He cast himself down on the bed and closed his eyes, but his mind was filled with images of Viveka Borne and Mardo Venarus. The static picts came alive in his mind’s eye. Venarus, the scholar, held up a nearly empty container of water and mimed that he was dying of thirst. Borne shouted silently at him, urging him to act. In his imagining, she was dressed as a priest, a chain of relics in her hands – syringes and stub pistols hanging next to silver skulls and purity seals.

Sleep could wait. He had work to do.

The Librarium Kostos, first. He flashed his holo-seal at the desk clerk. ‘I have some questions about Mardo Venarus. Show me his library record.’

The clerk produced a heavy cloth-bound ledger. Generations of economics students, all borrowing the same mandatory texts from the library. Ten thousand times ten thousand students struggling through Discourse on the Happy Burden of Tithing and the Commentary on the Protocols of the Administratum. A few minor variations, reflecting particular interests or research topics. He leafed through the pages until he came to the most recent class, and the record of Mardo Venarus. A black wax seal.

‘What does this signify?’

‘Certain books,’ whispered the clerk, ‘are restricted. They may be accessed by students only in rare circumstances. In this case, I believe the student obtained permission from a senior adjutor.’

‘What restricted books did Mardo Venarus read?’

Although he was already speaking in a whisper, the clerk still lowered his voice, as if speaking of such powers aloud could draw their attention.

‘The Lesser Mysteries of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Theological texts, treatises on the peril of…’ The clerk glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘Of witchcraft.’

He returned to the Sanctum Psykana.

‘I need to speak to Bethus again,’ he demanded. Behind him, the Tarantula auto-sentry clicked disapprovingly, the red line of its laser-sight sweeping over the crumbling walls of the temple.

Sera shook her head. ‘No. The risk is too great. You are not prepared, probator – every moment of exposure to a creature like Bethus endangers your soul.’

‘I found one of his victims. There are still two more to be found. They’re still alive.’

Sera remained unmoving. ‘My concern is with souls, not life or death.’

‘This place is a prison for psykers, yes?’

‘A holding facility, until a Black Ship comes for them. Then they will be taken to Holy Terra, to serve the Emperor in whatever fashion is deemed most suitable.’

‘The victim I found – Salia Nymarsh – I suspect she was a psyker, too. Maybe they all were, all of Bethus’ victims. I can’t be sure, but I think Salia was able to generate some sort of energy discharge, and tried to blast her way out. She called me, too, I think – how else could I have known? I need to find the others! Let me in!’

‘Calm yourself, probator,’ ordered Sera. ‘A disordered mind is vulnerable.’ She shuffled her cards over and over. ‘Some rare psykers,’ she admitted quietly, ‘have a talent for detecting others of their kind. The deviant is drawn to the deviant. Bethus may be one of this breed.’

‘Then let me talk to him. If he has found others of his kind, then let me convince him to tell me where they are, so I can turn them over to you!’

Sera frowned. ‘It is still too perilous – and the word of a witch is poison, no matter if it speaks truth or lies. I will contact my superiors, ask them to intercede. This matter is best handled by the Ordo Hereticus.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘I cannot say.’

‘There’s no time!’ insisted Varo. ‘Borne and Venarus may have only days left. Five minutes to save two souls.’

Sera shuffled her cards, as if in prayer. ‘If you find them,’ she said without looking at Varo, ‘you will bring them here first. I shall test them, and if they are what you say, they shall remain here. Do you understand?’

Again, they sealed the blast doors. Again, they rolled the sarcophagus out.

‘My friend,’ said Bethus.

‘I am no friend of yours.’ Varo carefully kept any emotion out of his voice.

‘No? Then what is our relationship?’

‘Prisoner and gaoler.’

‘Some say,’ drawled Bethus, as if they were conversing idly over a few glasses of jeneza, ‘that imprisonment is a state of mind. One’s body can be caged, but is that a prison, if the mind roams free? The inner universe is as large as the outer one, and far more full of life.’

‘I did not come here for philosophical nonsense. I found where you imprisoned Salia Nymarsh. I want the locations of–’

‘I did not imprison Salia Nymarsh. I liberated her. I taught her what she was.’

‘A psyker.’

‘And what is a psyker, Varo? More than human. Greater than human. We are the future. We step into the light of the empyrean without fear, for our destiny lies beyond. This whole planet, and all the other teeming worlds just like it – they mean nothing to the future, contribute nothing to the future, except in the crop of psykers they bear. Old humanity is moribund. A new species is rising.’

‘Heresy.’

‘Oh no. Truth. They know it, Sera and her superiors. They sift the common dross of humanity, looking for precious minds like ours. They hunger for us. Some, they exalt, call them sanctioned. Others, they destroy. But they all fear us. They all know they are obsolete.’

‘Where are Viveka Borne and Mardo Venarus?’

Bethus hissed in irritation. ‘Beyond your reach.’

‘You imprisoned Salia Nymarsh in a sewage tank.’

‘I was teaching her. Pay attention, Varo.’

Varo gripped the edge of his chair, determined to stay seated this time. ‘What were you teaching her?’

‘What she needed to learn. It differs from student to student. Some, the lesson is simple survival. I prepare them for the trials of the Black Ships, and for what awaits them on Terra. Others need to learn to look inwards, so I free them from the distractions and clamour of the world, so they may hear the voice within. Others… others need to admit what they are to themselves. There are doors in the mind, Varo, that only we can step through.’

‘Salia Nymarsh is dead.’

‘Oh.’ Bethus sounded only mildly surprised, and not at all concerned. ‘Only her body is dead, Varo. Only her prison. I’ll see her soon, Varo, dancing in the pink light of the warp. A shorter road than most.’ He sighed. ‘My lessons are demanding, I admit.’

He’s insane. Indulge his delusions. ‘Where, then,’ Varo asked, ‘are the physical bodies of Viveka Borne and Mardo Venarus?’

‘Why should I tell you, Varo?’

Varo swallowed. He stood and leaned close to Bethus’ coffin, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘If you tell me, I’ll hide them from Sera. I’ll ensure they don’t go on the Black Ships.’ It was a lie, he told himself. A way to elicit co-operation from a prisoner. A probator’s tool, nothing more.

‘Why would you do such a thing?’

‘Finding Mardo Venarus alive would benefit my career. His great-uncle is–’

‘Adjutor to the burgrave, I know,’ said Bethus, wryly. ‘He mentioned it. What about Borne. Why spare her?’

‘She…’ Varo paused. ‘She seems harmless.’ So was Salia. She hurt no one, and they turned on her. And Mardo – he’s just a boy. He hasn’t harmed anyone either.

‘Harmless, Varo? She was a violent criminal.’

‘She’s changed.’ Her powers made her better.

‘Viveka,’ whispered Bethus, ‘is gifted with empathy. She can feel the suffering of others. A liability, in this fallen millennium.’

‘Let me help her, then. Let me help both of them. Tell me where they are.’

‘Why should I tell you, Varo?’ whispered the psyker, then he raised his voice and shrieked. ‘Bargaining with a witch, probator? Sinful! Sinful! Go and beg for absolution!’ Unearthly light blazed from within the casket. Varo threw himself backwards, holding up a hand to shield his face from the brilliant eruption. He closed his eyes tightly, but he could still see the light.

Hands clutched at him and dragged him away. He could hear Sera’s voice, chanting a rite of exorcism. The mounting roar of the Geller fields.

Bethus, screaming in pain.

Varo stumbled out of the sanctum, still half-blinded by the light of Bethus. The auto-turret tracked him as he limped across the courtyard and out the main gate. Outside, the streets were crowded, a slow-moving river of flesh. All those faces, scowling or leering. A great herd of animals.

He walked slowly back towards the maglev station, so deep in thought he didn’t spot the black groundcar until it pulled up beside him. The door opened. Inside was a woman he didn’t recognise, and a gun he did. A needle pistol.

‘Probator Varo. Please get in.’

He complied. The groundcar was an expensive model, the interior furnished in some greyish substance that moulded itself to his body as he sat down opposite the woman.

‘I work for Adjutor Venarus,’ said the woman. Her face was ageless; she could have been twenty or two hundred. ‘The adjutor’s office has taken an interest in the outcome of your case. Please answer my questions promptly. Why were you visiting the Sanctum Psykana?’

‘Bethus – the man who kidnapped the adjutor’s grand-nephew – is a psyker. He has been given into the care of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.’

‘Why did you consult the sealed library records?’

‘In my experience,’ said Varo, slowly, ‘it’s best to be thorough with an investigation. To follow every possible lead. Some crimes are simple. Others open unexpected doors.’

The woman’s face was expressionless. ‘The adjutor,’ she said, ‘would prefer that this case remain simple. Are you close to finding Mardo?’

‘No.’

‘It would be simplest,’ she said, ‘if Mardo was not found in time. The adjutor is close to the burgrave – there can be no suggestion of deviancy in his household. It would be complicated if Mardo were to survive.’ The needler vanished into her pocket. ‘You are only tangentially involved, probator. You need do nothing more.’

‘What about…’ Varo licked his lips. ‘What about Viveka Borne?’

The woman did not answer. ‘You look exhausted, probator. We shall return you to your hab, so you can rest.’ Suddenly, with complete certainty, Varo knew that Frammel had sat in this very seat before him, and had a virtually identical conversation. He could imagine Frammel folding, yielding, promising to bend the rules to avoid embarrassing the burgrave. He knew, too, that Mardo Venarus’ driver had been here before he died.

Varo was not Frammel. ‘I… I want to pray,’ he said, ‘to seek the Emperor’s absolution. Drop me off at a church.’

‘As you wish.’

The church he chose was down in the undercity, near Viveka Borne’s med-clinic. An old church, built thousands of years ago. Acid rain dripping through the grates and cracks in the hive-dome had eroded the carved images of saints and heroes above the grand doors, but the interior was well maintained. Generations of shuffling feet had worn smooth the steps leading up to the altar. Hands reaching for blessings had polished the foot of a huge metal statue of Malcador the Hero. The figure of the saint bestrode the doorway, staring up the nave of the church towards the altar beneath a painting of the Emperor judging the souls of the unworthy.

Viveka Borne had come here. She’d prayed here many times.

Varo took a seat in a crowded pew and listened to the monotone mumblings of the faithful. Acolytes walked slowly through the church, carrying incense-burners, but the fragrant smoke could not block out the odours of the crowd. The prayers seemed to be a hollow litany to Varo.

The pews reminded him of the seats on the train. The crowd around him was the same. A strange thought – this ancient church travelling in time the way the train travelled in space, both carrying a cargo of mute, witless wretches on a futile journey. None of you will ever amount to anything. None of you mean anything. None of you are special.

A gifted psyker, Varo supposed, could twist space and time with a thought.

What impulse brought Viveka Borne here? Did she scourge herself, praying that her psychic curse would vanish as abruptly as it appeared? Did she come here to hide, concealing herself in the crowd from people like Sister Sera? Did she seek absolution?

He twisted around in his seat, and looked up at the statue of Malcador. The great Malcador, one of the heroes of the Imperium. The Emperor’s right hand, High Lord, founder of the Adeptus Terra – and psyker. A metal halo of spikes surmounted the head of the huge effigy, symbolising Malcador’s sanctioned gift. Saints and heroes were permitted to wield such powers. In his right hand was a holy book, adorned with a crowned skull and the blazing star of the Astronomican.

And there, upon Malcador’s breast, nearly hidden by a fold of the statue’s cloak – a fresh welding scar.

Sanctioner Hult and his men cleared the church with admirable efficiency, driving priests and laity alike out the door. Verispex with welding torches clambered over the holy statue, cutting it open as respectfully as they could under the circumstances. Varo supervised them from the shoulder of the statue, holding onto Malcador’s halo of spikes for balance.

‘The statue’s hollow, sir,’ called one of the verispex, a sonic probe in hand. ‘I think you’re right. There’s someone… someone in here.’

‘Alive?’

‘Can’t say yet, sir.’

The doors below burst open, and Frammel marched in, escorted by a team of bodyguards. ‘Probator Varo!’ yelled Frammel from the floor of the church. ‘A word.’

Frammel was beneath him now. It seemed fitting. Still, he climbed down.

‘Yes, commander?’

‘I told you to let this go, probator,’ said Frammel, all his false charm discarded. He ran his hand across his bald pate. ‘If Mardo Venarus is found alive, and the brat’s truly a witch, then… Emperor’s blood, man, have you no conception of how these things play out? His parents, their whole branch of the family – they’ll be seen as tainted too. It’ll be civil war in that house, Varo. Accusations flying, purges. There’ll be inquisitors everywhere. It’ll be shit raining down on us, one way or the other.’ Frammel shook his head. ‘I thought I could safely navigate this, but you raised too many alarms with your investigation. You’d better pray–’

He was interrupted by a shout from the verispex. ‘We’re in! Sirs! We’re in! By Holy Terra, there’s someone alive in here!’

This time, it was Frammel who outdistanced Varo, Frammel who scaled the statue first.

Frammel who breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Oh, thank the Emperor,’ said the castellan. ‘It’s the other one.’

The sanctioners loaded the unconscious form of Viveka Borne into the back of a transport. The woman was barely alive – three weeks of confinement within the statue, a space only marginally large enough to contain her, a few bottles of water and a packet of soylens. She moaned and muttered to herself until Hult sedated her.

‘Back to the Bastion with her, sir?’ asked Hult.

‘No. Terra.’

‘Sir?’

‘Ilachive. Drive us to Ilachive.’

They drove in silence for a time, the lights of the city racing past them like stars. Varo imagined the transport taking off and leaping into the warp, carrying him and Viveka across the galaxy. He leaned back in his seat, imagining that the headrest was a halo of spikes. A precious jewel, embedded in his skull.

Hult shot suspicious, even fearful, glances at Varo.

‘Something on your mind, sanctioner?’

‘How did you know, sir? That Borne was imprisoned in the statue, and Nymarsh in the train tank?’

‘You wouldn’t understand, Hult. Men like you never will.’

The transport came to a halt outside the sanctum. Hult peered out of the window. ‘What sort of place is this, sir? It’s not on the map.’

‘No questions, sanctioner. Remain here.’ The sanctioner squad helped Varo lift Borne’s semi-conscious body out of the vehicle. None of them dared meet his gaze. Call me arrogant now! I am beyond all of you!

Varo carried Borne across the courtyard to the massive front door of the sanctum, the sentry gun still standing vigil. Viveka Borne stirred in his arms, and suddenly seemed to realise where she was. ‘No,’ she slurred, ‘not here.’

‘Probator!’ Sera’s voice sounded from some concealed speaker. ‘Step away from the door.’

He did so, dragging Viveka back across the cobbles. The door opened, and Sera stepped out, flanked by her guards. They trained their weapons on Borne.

‘She’s barely alive,’ insisted Varo. ‘She can’t even stand.’

‘No psyker is safe.’ Sera tossed a heavy collar to Varo. ‘This is a hex-ward. Put it around her neck, then step away from her.’

Varo complied. The spikes of the collar drew blood from Borne’s throat. Two of Sera’s acolytes darted forward, muttering prayers, and grabbed Borne. They carried her away inside the sanctum with great care, as though carrying an unexploded warhead.

‘You spoke of two psykers, probator,’ said Sera. ‘Where is the other?’

‘I have yet to locate Mardo Venarus,’ admitted Varo, ‘but I have brought you two psykers. Viveka Borne…’ He leaned forward and whispered in Sera’s ear. ‘And myself. I accept the burden. Send me to Terra, so that I may be sanctioned.’

He knew he should be terrified and ashamed, but images of glory raced through his mind. He’d stand before the Emperor unafraid. They would place a crown of fire on his brow, and he’d scream as it burned away all sin and weakness. He would return to Varangantua as a scourge. With a thought, he would winnow the innocent from the guilty. All of Frammel’s pathetic intrigues would be laid bare to him. Why, burgraves would kneel before Varo. With his power, he’d burn away all lies and find that pure truth.

He knew the path would be immensely difficult – but it was a path. A way forward, a way out of Varangantua with its crowds, with its endless grinding misery. He would ride the Black Ship to arduous rebirth. It all made sense to him now, his misery, his alienation from all those around him. He’d been in the wrong place all his life, unable to see the truth about himself. He’d denied something vital and glorious about himself. Bethus was a monster, of course, but he was also a great teacher. A master of revelations, setting Varo on that shining path. Self-sacrificing, too – Bethus could have just told Varo where to find the prisoners, but instead he’d forced Varo to listen with his mind, to hear the psychic call of Salia and Viveka. With each visit to the sanctum, Bethus had taught Varo to open his soul a little more, until now he could see the light.

Sera shuffled her deck. She drew the top card and held it up, the back of the card towards Varo. ‘What card am I holding?’

‘The Harlequin,’ he answered confidently, the image blazing in his mind.

She shuffled again.

‘Now?’

‘The Magus.’ He could see the card, as surely as if he were looking through Sera’s eyes. The hooded magus reminded him of the statue of Malcador – but also, somehow, of Bethus.

Again.

‘The Emperor.’ This image was clearest of all. In Varo’s mind’s eye, the card came to life, the Emperor reaching out a shining hand towards him.

Sera sighed. ‘Go home and rest, Probator Varo. Your soul is not twisted, nor your gene-line cursed. Go home.’

Varo reeled. ‘I saw… I heard them calling me… How else could I have known?’

‘The Emperor’s Tarot does not lie. You are not a psyker, Varo.’ She turned the cards around so he could see. None of them matched his answers.

The stars receded from him. Sera threw him back into the mire of ordinary humanity. The mob seemed to close around Varo, filling him with their stench, their crude lumpen bodies pressing on him, their dull minds like soot, occluding the sky.

‘You’re lying! I have the gift,’ he insisted. ‘Bethus knows! That’s why he wouldn’t tell me where the others were! He knew I’d be able to sense them when I got close enough!’

‘Go home, probator,’ Sera said again. ‘Rest, and pray, and clear your mind. Rejoice that you are human.’

She closed the door. The sound echoed through Varo’s mind like the closing of a coffin lid.

Varo wanted to scream. He hammered on the door, shouted that he wanted to see Bethus again. Bethus would explain everything. Bethus would prove him right. Sera would come crawling back and cry that she was wrong, that her cards were wrong, that she’d lied. Varo would see that beautiful light again. He’d walk in the light of the Emperor, and be exalted forever.

Instead, Varo walked back across the courtyard, gravel crunching under his feet.

He drew his sidearm, pressed it to the cogitator-module of the sentry gun, and fired point-blank, disabling the Tarantula.

He climbed back into the Rampart and sat in the passenger seat, shaking. He knew the truth, he knew it with the same fierce certainty he’d known that Salia was in the train, that Viveka was in the statue. Viveka was alive now because of that certainty. Varo knew he was a psyker.

Bethus, he thought. Bethus can smell psykers. Bethus saw the power in me.

He had the curse – it was the only explanation. It made sense. Why would Sera deny him the chance to redeem himself? Why would she lie to him, and try to keep him from the martyrdom he deserved?

Sera… Sera was a traitor. A heretic herself. He saw the truth so clearly, he realised he must have unconsciously scanned her thoughts. He saw Sera’s life laid out before him, as though he’d been handed a file detailing all her sorry history. She envied the psykers she gathered, envied their departure on the Black Ships to Holy Terra, while she was left to rot here on Varangantua. They soared away to meet the Emperor, while she was left with nothing but a few scraps of painted cardboard. Consumed by jealousy, she betrayed her oaths. She turned on the psykers, started killing them instead. Hiding the bodies across the city. She was the Gravedigger, he understood that now. Bethus was another innocent victim, just like Salia.

‘Hult?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir?’ Sanctioner Hult was a brute. An unthinking beast. A tool.

‘The building I just left… it’s a den of traitors and heretics. Assemble your squad. We must strike immediately. Don’t use the vox,’ Varo ordered, taking an assault shotgun from a rack inside the door. ‘They’re monitoring us. We must move quickly.’

Hult stared at him in confusion. ‘Don’t question my orders!’ snapped Varo. ‘Move!’

The Tarantula silenced. A breaching charge on the front door. The advantage of surprise. Yet, even with all those boons, Hult’s squad barely made it through the outer defences before they perished under the guns of the sanctum guards.

But they didn’t need to get far. The power cables exploded in a shower of sparks, and the Geller generators failed. Static electricity crawled over the skin of the Rampart, and hot winds howled, whirling about as if the sanctum were the hub of a great wheel. He watched the mortar between the blocks of the sanctum glow with an unearthly light, watched the hexagrammatic sigils blaze and then burn out, one by one.

The light of the flames reflected off the smog that hung above Ilachive. Blazing red and gold, fires leapt to heaven. Varo looked up, and it seemed to him it was like a great eye opening to gaze upon him.

Varo. He heard the voice in his mind so clearly now. I call you. In his mind’s eye he saw the metal shell of the sarcophagus, surrounded by flames. Without hesitating, Varo reached into the Rampart’s toolkit. His hand closed around a crowbar.

Come to me. Save me.

Varo plunged into the inferno.

The medicae shook her head. ‘He is conscious, but only barely. The damage from the fires… We must excise the damaged tissue, amputate the ruined limbs. We were about to move him to an isolation cell, to reduce the risk of infection.’

‘I’m afraid I must insist on speaking with him first,’ said Frammel, pushing his way into Varo’s room. He didn’t bother to hide his disgust at the sight of Varo’s burned body.

Speech. I must use my mouth. ‘Castellan,’ he croaked through blistered lips. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t get up to greet you.’

Frammel dismissed the medicae. ‘No matter, no matter. Listen, Varo, there will be questions asked about this. Soon. I must speak to you first. Just so we’re all singing from the same hymnal, so to speak.’ He sat down heavily on the end of the bed, sending a jolt of pain through Varo’s body, so intense it made it through the haze of opiates. ‘I need to quickly go over what happened with Hult and his men after you left the church.’

‘We found Viveka Borne,’ said Varo, slowly. ‘Put her into the Rampart. I went with them.’

‘You handed Borne over?’

‘Yes. She entered the sanctum. We were walking back to the transport when there was an explosion from within. We had to stop them from escaping. I ordered Hult to secure…’ Varo pretended to choke with the effort of speaking. ‘Hult… Hult was a good man.’

‘What happened then?’

Varo shook his head. ‘I remember… I ran back to get the Rampart. Everything was on fire. I tried to rescue… Hult. I went to rescue Hult. I got caught in the flames.’ The memory of pain. His clothes catching fire, his skin scorching – and his cry of triumph as the sarcophagus opened.

Frammel sat back and folded his hands over his belly. He stared at the ceiling as if the answers were written there, instead of looking Varo in his remaining eye. ‘We believe that Borne escaped after the handover and unleashed her, ah, abilities rather than submit. The verispex are still sifting the bones, but it appears that everyone in the building died. I was amazed, to be frank, when they found you alive.’

‘All dead… even Bethus?’

‘Nothing but ash,’ said Frammel. ‘That case is closed, by the way.’

‘What about… Mardo Venarus?’ asked Varo.

‘Ah.’ Frammel sat forward. ‘We found him, finally. He was sealed up in a sewer access junction down the street from Buell’s. We were a little late, unfortunately. The poor boy died of thirst.’

‘His family… will be angry.’

‘Some of them, yes. Others will be relieved. Honestly, this is the best outcome for us all. It’s better for the boy to be dead and untainted than alive and…’ Frammel shrugged. ‘We don’t even know if the boy was a psyker, of course. His interest in the occult predated his contact with Bethus. It’s possible that Bethus targeted him to get close to the burgrave. We’ll never know.’

Of course he was gifted, whispered Bethus in Varo’s mind. I only choose the worthy. I chose you, Varo. Keep my secret.

Frammel was still rambling on. ‘…would have been nice to have the burgrave’s favour, but I’ll take avoiding the burgrave’s disfavour any day. Now, obviously, questions will be asked about the delay in finding young Venarus. I’m afraid I’ll have to mention your name, Varo. I’ll shelter you as best I can, but blame’s like rainwater – it has to wash down through the lower levels. Still, hardly the greatest of your problems at this moment, so don’t let it concern you.’ He gestured at the web of tubes and cables keeping Varo alive.

‘As you say, castellan,’ whispered Varo. He was already tired of the conversation. Frammel, with his obsession with political scheming and avoiding blame, was far beneath him.

‘Good man, good man,’ said Frammel as he stood. ‘I’ve always liked you, Varo. I’ll have to castigate you in my official reports, but don’t worry – I’ll make your sacrifice clear to the lexmarshal. You won’t be forgotten.’

Frammel left, the lingering scent of his perfume mingling with the chemical disinfectants and the stench of burnt flesh.

Varo lay in the darkness of the isolation cell and waited for the light. Machines clicked and wheezed around him, tending to the ruin of his body.

The body meant nothing. Bethus had taught him that.

Soon, he knew, the door in his mind would open.

He could afford to be patient. The healers had told him he would never leave this bed, that the damage to his body was too severe. Not without cybernetics he could not afford, and Frammel had made it clear that the Bastion would not provide for him either.

No one would disturb his meditation.

He was alone, but not forgotten.

‘Listen for my voice in your mind,’ Bethus had said, after Varo rescued him from the burning sanctum. Bethus had important work to do elsewhere. So many other disciples to find. He’d borrowed Varo’s groundcar, his gun. His probator’s sigil and uniform. His slate. All the mundane things that Varo would no longer need.

Varo lay there, listening to the machines whisper, and waited. He would be diligent, he told himself. Run down every thought. He would keep trying, until revelation struck.

Until the door in his mind opened.

Bethus had promised, and Bethus wouldn’t lie.

Varo closed his eye and settled down to wait.

Soon, soon, he’d see the light again.

NO THIRD CHANCE

NOAH VAN NGUYEN

A riddle. How do people become enforcers?

Take a boy. Or hells, take a girl, because a rodent’s gender doesn’t matter in the pipes. All that matters is the thing has teeth and nails. Because it’s going to use them.

Stick the rat into a cage with five thousand more. Make it hungry. Turn off the lumens. After a few years, if the rodent learns to dodge bullets and sling them back, or that amasec and malnutrition kill gut annelids, maybe it lives long enough to fly gang colours. A fine line to walk, gang life, but that’s Varangantua for you. Sink, or float.

When our juve gets caught, the law swings down like a hammer. A shock maul to the face to be precise. Another cage follows. Smaller this time. More people.

But if you survive the shock maul and the Judicio indoctrination and the cut-throats inching closer across bare cells, you get a choice. Strong louts in black plate drag you to a steel table in a tiled room. They kneel you before another enforcer, only he wears priest’s vestments over his sanctioner’s carapace. Fitting, because this is either your funeral or your baptism.

On the table, you choose your fortune:

A loaded burner, winking through its one eye at the socket of yours.

Or a copy of the Lex-Alecto bound in pilgrim leather, awaiting your oath.

Easy choice.

Thirteen weeks after taking the vow, I spilled out the far end of the pipeline. Bastion-A gave me an enforcer’s holo-seal and a uniform. I, Sanctioner Tal Noran, was the God-Emperor’s judgement made manifest. Where law and crime met, they said, castigation must occur.

New gang. Different colours.

The Run-Down is a minor ward within a district called the Argine. Hit its streets as early as I do, you’re a ghost in the pipes. Nobody’s up. Just you and the hoodlums haunting old tenements and a jungle of aquaductors. The slum’s box-houses lean and sag like they’re built from wet playing cards. Run-off’s everywhere. Pouring, pelting the ground. Washing us all away.

The run-off is used coolant from Generatorium Argine-Tertius above, which fills the sky like a docked voidship. Every morning our ward gets a glowing halo of moisture and fusion instead of a sunrise. Up-dam, the hazy silhouettes of more generatoria stand like Titans in mist, providing power for half the coastal districts.

Closer, looming over the ward, is the Argine Dam. A dirty ocean heaves on the other side under black skies. I’ve seen it. Only the dam holds it back. The water takes everything if you let it.

My squad operates from Blockhouse-R, a satellite station which answers to Bastion-A, up-dam. After a shivering walk to the blockhouse, I find a beat-up Shiiv parked in our uncovered lot. I place the groundcar’s ident-tags from Nearsteel District, then forget about it.

I open a pushdoor. Sentry guns swivel and scan my holo-seal’s ident-signature, then resume their ritual sweep across the vestibule.

‘Sergeant,’ the duty watchman says from behind a mile of armoured glass. ‘A probator’s in. She’s questioning the squad.’

That’s a shotgun blast to the face. Getting wrapped up in probators’ investigations is any sanctioner’s worst nightmare, but I have things worth hiding. Personally, I’d prefer nobody poking around my ward save the God-Emperor Himself – and I’d still have people following Him to be safe.

I straighten my collar and cuffs, my black armour, my wet hair. ‘Her name?’

The duty watchman’s voice is scratchy through the vox. ‘Boughdecar.’

‘She sign in?’ Probators, like sanctioners, are not always on the level. Parchment trails are useful if they play dirty.

‘No,’ the watchman answers. ‘She said this was nothing serious.’

Groxshit. Everything is serious to probators. They’re detectives, always dredging secrets better left at the bottom of canals. ‘How long’s she been in?’

The watchman checks his chrono. ‘Nine minutes.’

Good news to fluff the bad. Maybe she hasn’t started inter-views.

‘She’s with Umoto,’ the watchman adds.

I choke. Two minutes with that psycho, she’ll walk out thinking we’re all serial killers.

Inside, water drips on my face from the moisture-rotted ceiling. Faded prop posters peel from cracked walls. The mould in the station reeks. Old desks are bolted down in the main room, but nobody leaves anything important on them. Sanctioners in full kit murmur together in the briefing chamber behind a cleft wall.

They’re nervous. Of course they are. I beeline for the chastener’s cell and barge in.

Umoto’s sitting in the corner, tight-lipped, between a stowed anguish rack and a sleep narcolepter. Umoto’s a nightmare, but he’s one of my best. Loyal sanctioners are hard to find; good sanctioners are even harder. Umoto’s both, fire-and-forget. Sometimes his squadmates return in bags, but that’s not his fault. The Run-Down is lethal at the best of times.

Beside the torture devices meant for suspects and particularly unfortunate witnesses stands a tousle-haired woman in a slim waistcoat and high trousers, sleeves up. She looks like she swam here from across the Westering.

‘Out,’ I tell Umo. Before Boughdecar objects, I point at her. ‘Boughdecar?’

Her face tightens. She’s got an even look with bunched-up brows that mean business. The jewel-like dermal in her cheek running into her iris augmetic blinks with brassy light.

‘Probator, to you,’ Boughdecar says. ‘Sergeant Tal Noran, yes? You interrupted my interview.’

‘No one asked me to do any interviews.’

She nods. ‘That’s right.’ Spoken like the inquisitor she thinks she is.

‘Last I checked,’ I say, ‘sergeant still means something around here. And you didn’t log your arrival. Probator. I don’t know what they do in Nearsteel, but Castellan Savvage likes tight records.’

Boughdecar flinches. I don’t know what she expected. She has a reputation.

Boughdecar’s a rising star. Last year she busted a contraband racket spanning three districts. The crooks were selling murder-cogitators to info-dealers for hot slate. That’s cog-cutter gear, simple but proscribed, and with good reason. Murder-cogitators steal sacred data screed by slagging logic engines and steaming their machine-spirits. To the Adeptus Mechanicus, that’s worse than a crime. It’s heresy.

Her bust made the city’s evening vids and intra-departmental bulletins. I wouldn’t have paid attention, except those crooks were sanctioners, and the contraband was confiscated evidence.

Word is, Boughdecar has it out for sanctioners. Thinks we’re all dirty. I wonder what she’d do with Varangantua if she could hold it in her hands.

‘Nearsteel’s one cold drive from here, probator,’ I say. ‘Especially in that rolling coffin Shiiv of yours.’

Boughdecar’s on guard now. ‘I’ve got seat braziers. What do you drive? A Corvair? You look like a Corvair man.’

I laugh. ‘A sergeant’s stipend ain’t enough for no Corvair.’

She stares. ‘Yeah, well. Not by itself.’

‘What do you want?’

Boughdecar squares her shoulders, dialling me in. If she has something solid, she’ll pull the trigger. The question’s when.

‘The Run-Down’s been connected to some high-profile crimes back in Nearsteel,’ she says. ‘A heist from an auxilia depot. Before that, intrusions on the district’s information manifold. Including Mechanicus-linked directories.’

I fold my arms. ‘And that brought you here?’

Boughdecar observes me carefully. ‘Got wind of some coercions. Someone’s been muscling your locals, trying to scare them. The suspects’ descriptions match those from the depot heist.’

I chuckle and grin. ‘You’re investigations, probator. Leave the scum for us drainmen.’

Boughdecar nods. ‘That’s the thing. The rumours identify the suspects as sanctioners.’

My grin fades. A tank of promethium is lodged in my chest, leaking fuel, ready to blow. None of my people could be that sloppy. The ward’s been quiet. Even Lady Reanne and her Gutter Queens have been lying low. For weeks.

But nice to have Boughdecar’s threat in the open. She’s here to fry us. If she pokes in the wrong places, she could have my whole squad on the pyre by this evening.

I say nothing. Boughdecar sees. A haze passes through her eyes, smooth as smoke. She’s the type of person with a toolbox in her head. Takes one out whenever she needs to fix a problem, then puts it back for later.

She smiles. It’s a good smile. Touches her eyes, raises her face. ‘Look, Noran. I just need to follow up on loose ends. Let me have a word with your troopers. I’ll be out in no time.’

I raise my brow. She’s playing it too safe.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Log your case number with the duty watchman. Then we’ll get started.’

Her quick-draw smile wavers.

And that’s it. She’s here on a hunch, I bet. Nothing more.

‘Unless this matter doesn’t have a case number,’ I say. ‘Which means you lack jurisdiction here.’

Boughdecar’s face smooths. Bleeding-heart geniuses like her are all the same. A world to fix, no obstacle too big to stop them. The problem with do-gooders is once they know something’s wrong and fail to stop it, they’re as vulnerable as the people they want to protect. Boughdecar’s failure will eat her up inside.

She leans in, blinks. The movement’s deliberate enough that I suspect she’s snapped my pict-capture with her iris augmetic. That dermal on her cheek isn’t just for looks. With the right modules, she could see right through me.

She straightens. ‘Tal Noran and the Run-Down miracle. The Argine’s most violent slum, pacified by animals.’

My smile’s as wide as the dam. ‘Get out of my ward. Come back with a case number.’

I call two sanctioners over to show her out. Boughdecar shakes them off, buttons her sleeves down. She’ll at least leave with her dignity.

Probators all think they’re arbitrators, strutting through Varangantua like they’ve got a personal mandate from Fort Gunlysk. Some rise from the sanctioner ranks, but that doesn’t stop them from looking down on us. They’re detectives. Investigations. We’re just the knuckle-dragging ogryns who turn a blind eye for slate.

In the Run-Down, we only ignore small-timers. They pay their bills; we watch out for the real maggots who would chew them up. This is how a blockhouse with minimal Bastion support manages to pacify a ward as bloody as Armageddon. We play the game on Lady Reanne’s terms. We already know the rules. If Boughdecar or Savvage or the mighty lexmarshal herself were to know, it makes no difference what they would say. They have no idea what we’re up against. They would turn on us at the first sign of trouble.

This works. And the slate on the side sure doesn’t weigh my conscience down.

Still, there are some things you should take a probator’s word for. Their hunches are usually pretty sharp.

And if Boughdecar suspects someone’s making moves in my ward, I believe her.

This is my domain. I stomped the jag-teeth gangs running things before me into the kerb. I collect the taxes and keep my sanctioners fat, and their pockets full. I don’t often patrol, but today I’ve got no choice. When there’s a threat to the kingdom, the king’s the one who deals with it.

At the briefing, I order my troopers to report sightings of Boughdecar’s Shiiv in the ward. I task Umoto as my partner. He’s a psycho, sure. But every good gang needs a nightmare on the leash.

Our blockhouse fleet has a pair of heavily armoured shock-response Bulwarks we worship like goddesses. We also have three Ramparts: up-armoured groundcars with caged-off backs and plastek seating for arrests we never make. Detainment is too much paperwork, unless we’re recruiting. Busting heads is easier.

The Run-Down’s roads are tight. You could crawl through the ward faster. On foot it’s a straight cut from the upper valves which channel generatorium run-off into the ward to the lower sumps where they spill into the outer canalisations. I hate hikes, and I hate water, so Umoto and I don our stormcloaks and full-face helmets and take a Rampart.

Mazzo’s our first stop. He lives above an alley-side commercia which changes names every week. Strung up through the alley are thick bundles of electro-cord, strangling the tall box-houses. Water runs down in sheets. I ask some juves screaming in the rain if Mazzo’s in, and the creatures rat Mazzo out for a handful of slate. When they see Umoto they bolt, kicking run-off up behind them all the way from the alley.

Mazzo’s an aqua-hustler. Pays tribute to protect his illegal operation from the Gutter Queens. I say ‘illegal’ as a formality. No enforcer in Varangantua could point to the ordinance which forbids collecting and reselling the Argine’s heat-purified run-off as drinking water. Same goes for steam-peddling; half the Run-Down’s bottom feeders stay afloat with one of the two hustles.

Three crooked flights of stairs later and we’re at Mazzo’s door. The knucklehead won’t open up. Thinks we’re collecting. He’s a ganger wannabe whose mouth is the size of his ambitions, all shiny gats and shiny teeth and closed doors when the landlord comes knocking.

‘Count of five, Mazzo,’ I say. ‘Open up or I’ll shoot.’

‘Let me see your warrant,’ comes the answer through the door.

I count to nothing before Umoto boots the door. Inside is a single-chamber domicile with a round window high in the wall. The furniture slumps, the walls slump, Mazzo slumps. Distillation gear’s rigged up through a ragged hole in the stained brick. Rusty pipes with worn gaskets siphon generatoria run-off inside. The gaskets must be broken, because the air is steam.

Umoto shoves Mazzo into a damp armchair with mildewed fluff bursting from the seams. He draws a handheld reciprocator from his belt and locks Mazzo’s arm out, splaying his fingers open, preparing to saw them off.

‘What’s this about warrants?’ I ask.

Mazzo’s eyes are flood-lumens. ‘Throne, Noran, I’m short. Throne, I swear–’

‘I ain’t collecting,’ I say. ‘A new player’s in town. Making rounds, threatening locals. You heard something?’

‘C’mon, Noran. You own these streets. Only player is you.’

Umoto’s serrated reciprocator blade spins to life. No one issued that; he’s just a freak. Mazzo starts panting.

‘Not what I heard,’ I say. ‘Maybe you thought they were sanctioners. Maybe they even said so.’

‘This a test?’

The reciprocator buzzes again.

Mazzo’s eyes bulge across half his face. ‘I thought it was you! Making moves, down in the sumps.’

Umoto lifts his face shield, looks my way. His features are sharp, angular. His jaws are the kind better for digging into the carcasses of prey creatures than talking. ‘That’s Lady Reanne’s turf.’

Right. The sumps are hostile territory. We don’t patrol those claves unless we’re ready for battle.

‘Everyone’s heard the same things,’ Mazzo says. ‘But we ain’t talking, I swear.’

‘What’s there to say?’

‘They’re aces, Tal. Decked out, like you. Militarum burners. Augmetics. The works.’

‘What about the Gutter Queens?’

‘Throne, I don’t know. This ain’t the sumps. I heard Reanne ain’t showed her face in days. Nothing else.’

It’s not news, but I hadn’t made anything of it until now. Lady Reanne always likes long quiet between bursts of violence. But if the Gutter Queens are out for the count, these newcomers must be involved. Same goes for Boughdecar’s coercions.

Mazzo’s thin fingers tremble. ‘Enough with the toe-buzzer,’ I tell Umo. ‘Thanks, Mazzo. See you for rent.’

Umoto backs off. Mazzo flexes the colour back into his hand. ‘I don’t got enough for rent.’

Umoto stops. His hand wanders back to his belt, but I hold him back. Sometimes you unleash the cyberhounds, sometimes you let them bark. Most of the time, you keep them on ice. ‘You better.’

‘Ma’s sick. Lung rot. I gave everything for her stay up-dam.’

I frown. ‘You lying?’

‘We don’t like liars,’ Umoto says.

Mazzo’s eyes leak like valves. He shakes his head. ‘She’s real sick.’

I chew on it. ‘Fuck it. Forget the rent, genius. Take care of her. If you’re lying, one of us’ll come back and kill you. Clear?’

Mazzo doesn’t answer, but the stink of urine penetrates my helmet filters. We leave before he really embarrasses himself.

I’m not soft. Charity’s not my racket. Mazzo is just a slate-grox. If he doesn’t have the cash now, he will soon. Going easy on him is just good business.

Think like that long enough, sometimes you forget all of Varangantua’s scummers are the children of dying women.

We make a few more stops. Small-timers like Mazzo who think we’ve come to squeeze them for slate. Some sanctioners do this work for the overtime. Umoto does it for the beatdown. For me, I built this operation from the drains up; I don’t want to see it go. Spend your life in the gutters, you get tired of things floating away.

By the time we finish, everyone’s said the same things and pointed the same direction. The action’s in the sumps. The outsiders are serious. The chumps who knew they weren’t sanctioners thought they were skitarii, the Mechanicus’ tireless cyborg huntsmen who probably get powered down and stacked on shelves between missions.

Point is, nobody knows. Hells, maybe I won’t either.

So down we drive, stimms on standby, to claves where Gutter Queens once prowled freely. Where sanctioners walk with sweaty palms.

That’s where we’d find them.

The streets in the underworks might be better called rivers. I slow down around pedestrians. The water’s enough pissing down from overhead – no need to blast it from every other direction.

Not all of the ward’s run-off comes through the upper valves. Some of it just leaks down from Argine-Tertius. Massive umbilicals pipe coolant seawater into the generatorium through the Argine dam. When the mist clears at day and you really see the machine, you almost get it. Argine-Tertius is as big and audacious as a battle cruiser. Once a year tech-priests run it through its paces, muttering prayers in tonal static to their Omnissiah. On that day it’s like the sun. Bright light shines through the metal joints. The run-off stops, vaporised by mega-fusion. Then the stress test is finished and the Martian priests leave to count nails.

We stop outside a slum-bottom hab-block, a public dormitory for the ward’s poor. Tarps are strung out over the block’s courtyard as cover. You can’t even see Tertius through them. But they don’t help, and the run-off keeps running. Nobody looks up anyways. A lifetime in the sewage has that effect.

Stalls and ripped awnings line the courtyard. Workmen with heads hanging to their knees cram greasy wraps of jejen and paraja. Vendors at the stalls sell anything they get their hands on. Obscura dealers on the corners pretend to sell nothing at all.

Two seven-seater Regenas are parked opposite. Utility vehicles, multipurpose, with reinforced cabs and another district’s mud on their running boards. Muted colours, tinted glass. Expensive.

I nod to Umo. ‘Call it in.’

He keys the vox-caster, requesting backup. Through our armaglass I glimpse tight corridors in the block’s monotonous facade. They lead to tighter streets with more box-houses and waist-high water. This low, water can’t go further down, just out – into the paved wasteland between districts.

But the flooding’s not the problem. Rag-thin locals and naked children scream in the courtyard. Big men throw things from balconies above. Furniture, hanging laundry. Whatever they can lift.

They’re not gangers. Not sanctioners, neither. But they’re slick with matching carapace and autoguns and lasrifles that were stamped yesterday. These guys look like they met the Omnissiah, then mugged Him. They wear expensive augmetics the way Mazzo wears cheap tattoos.

Techno-mercenaries. Not your everyday thugs, but not skitarii either. Doesn’t mean they don’t know their way around a cogitator.

Umoto hangs up the vox-receiver. ‘Three minutes.’

We get out. The air smells like hot grease and lavatories and fear. I flick my holstered autogun’s safety off. The drenched residents berating the techno-mercs withdraw, making room for Umoto and me and the trouble we’ve brought. Some even look glad to see us.

The mercs on the balconies are gone, probably coming our way. I point to another merc standing in the yard, ignoring his shotgun glaring up at me. ‘You got permits for those heaters?’

‘Easy, trooper. We’re on the chrono.’

I turn. Another merc with a bleached half-knot and shaved temples sits under a tarp and a sodium lamp. I almost didn’t hear him through the mouthful of crap he’s chewing. ‘Who are you?’

‘Rutger.’ He swallows his last bite, brushes his hands off. ‘Former sanctioner myself. We’re just offering these fine citizens a way out of the water.’

I look around. Splintered furniture bobs in the courtyard wash. Miserable wretches gape with fear.

I get a better look at Rutger. His eyes are cloud white. Some dual-optical augmetic I’ve never seen. The gaze is empty, but not like Umoto’s. Umoto’s eyes are warp-filled vacuums which have never known the Emperor’s grace. You know what Umoto wants from the way he looks at you.

But Rutger, his eyes are graves. He loved something. Buried it. Now he’s just treading water.

‘I’m going to need some idents,’ I say.

‘I’ll do you one better.’ Rutger reaches beneath his armour vest. Umo starts, but I’m not worried. Rutger has two minutes and a dozen men on us. He doesn’t need a secret piece to blow us away.

Instead he retrieves documents sealed in water-repellent resin used for public missives. I snatch them, run my eyes over them. ‘Permits? For what?’

‘Our employer. Komozad. They’re funding generatorium construction down here.’

I glance at Umoto. ‘Komozad?’

‘A merchant-combine,’ Umoto says. ‘Up-dam. Deep pockets.’

If anyone could build a new generatorium, it’d be a merchant-combine. But I don’t think anyone could. ‘This smells like groxshit, Rutger.’

Rutger’s lips curl. It’s not a real smile. He probably doesn’t want anyone seeing the mouthful of fangs. ‘Nothing down here worth a lie.’

I push up my visor and look at the permits again, water drumming off my helmet. They look legit. High Gothic print, official red stamps. Exquisite vellum you can almost feel through the resin. But none of that would be hard for guys this slick to fake.

Yet… Rutger’s right. The people down here aren’t worth anything to anyone but me. Merchant-combines don’t sell protection. They don’t squeeze slate from slums. This generatorium could be real.

I toss the permits back. ‘Get lost.’

Rutger’s not-smile evaporates. ‘Those are good.’

‘Property permits ain’t a licence to raid domiciles. If you’re legit, clear your evictions through the vladar’s officium. I’ll handle them from there.’

Rutger rocks to his feet, hands clenched. Do this job long enough, you learn to tell tough guys from smart guys. Mazzo’s tough. Talks big, carries a nice piece. Cries for his sick mother.

But Rutger has white eyes and a poison smile that screams murder. He’s smart. Smart guys know when they can get away with smoking a sanctioner.

The other mercs are outside. Umoto snaps his tickler out; rain sizzles on the shock maul’s lug. My hand floats towards my autogun.

Rutger steps forward. He wants some, loud and clear. But before I can find out how smart he really is, a shotgun’s forestock slides back over the rain. Another sanctioner trickles from the nearest alley with her own weapon, with its own glare.

Clarions approach. More of my people in stormcloaks hover into the courtyard like revenants. That’s all most sanctioners are, really. Gangers, back from the dead.

Rutger sees where the water’s running. He glares at my holo-seal and nametape. ‘Sergeant… Noran. Know what I think?’

I shrug. ‘Bet you’re about to tell me, though.’

He smiles, for real this time. No fangs. Just white, white teeth. ‘See you never, sergeant.’

‘Sure you will, former-sanctioner-myself. You know the hustle.’

Rutger flinches. But it’s true. If he wore the badge, he knows its weight. I’ll find him again when I’m ready.

The techno-mercs march off through ankle-deep run-off. Umoto moves beside me, water steaming from his tickler’s lug. ‘Close call.’ He’s crestfallen.

I pat his shoulder. ‘Next time, nightmare.’

Umoto retasks the squad for me. He sends the sanctioners to canvass the ward, see what they can dig up about Rutger’s recent activities.

Meanwhile I take a closer look at the hab-block. Komozad’s mercs ransacked the place. Tore everything down, in every domicile. Tossed everything from the balconies but the primarchs’ icons and the Thorian texts. These were no evictions. If this has been going on for a while, no wonder Boughdecar caught wind of it.

Other wrinkles nag at me. Argine generatoria haven’t been built in millennia. They say they can’t even make them like ours any more. And if this project is real, wouldn’t the Run-Down be eminent domain? Komozad would go through the vladar’s officium – which would go through us. The paramilitary presence suggests Komozad’s operating on the down-low.

Soon I meet the drainman. Drainmen clear the Argine’s lower canalisations to keep the water flowing. They know the ward’s plumbing better than the cult catechisms. This one haunts the boilers in the hab’s basement, the first place Rutger visited. His neck’s as crooked as an elbow pipe and he drinks amasec like water.

Umoto enters without knocking. ‘Squad’s out. We’re good.’

I nod to him, then the drainman. ‘Finish what you were saying.’

The old boozer ignores Umoto and pours himself another finger of amasec. ‘Didn’t take anything, like I said. And we’s got nothing to take, anyhoo.’

‘They were just busting heads.’

‘Not mine. But the neighbours’? Yessir.’

Umoto’s dragging his finger through a slime mould spidering on the wall.

‘Umo, take a look at this.’ I glance at the drainman. ‘Show him what you showed me.’

The old drunk rocks his way from the nest of boilers. In the corridor, it’s cooler. The stablights have shorted out. I activate my helmet lumen.

The drainman bends down, slides a frayed rug aside, and–

A hatch, thick and metal, more like a vault door. Hard water and black mould cloud translucent panels on the brim. Runnels in the plasteel allow water flow into some arcane intake mechanism sealed behind the hatch’s face.

‘Floodlocks,’ the drainman says. ‘For ’mergency outflow.’

Umoto shrugs. ‘These are everywhere.’

‘But they don’t open.’ I’m repeating what I was told. ‘Not without water.’

‘It’s the Run-Down,’ Umoto points out.

‘A lot of water. An ocean’s worth.’

The old boozer points to chipped rockcrete at the hatch’s edges. More plasteel extends underneath. ‘They tried to get in. Knew they couldn’t, I think. They was just here to prove it. Started kicking down doors after.’

‘So it’s a dead end,’ Umoto says. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Me neither,’ I say.

The bent drainman tosses the rug back. ‘Them floodlocks, they’re everywhere. Not just here. Network’s older than Varangantua.’ He bolts his finger of amasec, which he apparently brought with him. ‘They don’t need this one. There’s a dozen in this habclave alone. They’re all the same.’

I think about it. Boughdecar made it sound like those coercions have been going on a while. Maybe this wasn’t Rutger’s only stop.

We’re done. I tell the drainman to call us if the techno-mercs return, and to pass the word to the other hab-blocks. With the Gutter Queens gone, someone has to protect them.

It’s not charity. I’m not a good guy. I’ll figure out the taxes later.

I watch the Rampart’s wipers sweep back and forth. ‘Komozad ain’t building a generatorium.’

‘Course not,’ Umoto says.

‘Any word from the squad?’

‘Give them an hour.’

Right. Until then, time to make moves. I punch the Rampart’s ignition code into the clave-board and whisper to the vehicle’s machine-spirit. There’s a prayer we say for this in High Gothic. I mumble the longer words. If the machine-spirit hears the difference, it doesn’t protest – soon the vehicle’s humming. I put it into drive, making slow turns out the way we came in.

I’ve missed something. And I can’t help but think of a sharper mind who might be able to make something of all this. I shouldn’t have told her to leave.

Good thing she’s a probator. She’s still here.

Easy to find people when you have a squad of enforcers tracking their movements. Boughdecar’s tucked away in the corner booth of a refectory-house beneath a mag-tram hub. The place smells like a waste bin. No street-eats here, only reprocessed proteins in the shape of mush. No cooks or service, neither, just servitors behind a waist-high slat in the wall. It’s all very efficient. You shout your order, pass your slate or ration card, then stuff your eat-hole in grimy quietude.

I doff my helmet, order a recaff, and sit opposite Boughdecar. It’s a tight fit with my gear on. I feel like a chambered round. Boughdecar looks up and buries her lho-stick in a collapsible ashtray. Smoking’s not allowed in refecs. I like her more already.

She leans back, a slim thing with a smug smile. ‘Didn’t expect to see you again.’

‘But you expected something.’

‘I don’t go into hostile territory without doing my research. This place has a reputation. So do you.’ She peers out of the window. Umoto leans on our marked groundcar, ogling passersby like an ambush predator. ‘Enforcers like him. Like you. You’re why I’m here.’

‘Your hunch is wrong.’

Boughdecar, quiet, lights up again. I lay everything out: Komozad, Rutger, the generatorium. Those floodlocks.

The probator’s halfway through her third lho-stick when I finish. She blows the smoke through her nose. ‘This changes nothing.’

‘Sure.’ I sip my recaff.

She shakes her head, snuffs her stub, and closes her ashtray into her coat. ‘Shit.’

I lean in, as much as I can. ‘Sharp women clear their corners. You know something. What’ve you got?’

Boughdecar pinches a migraine out through the bridge of her nose. ‘I don’t kiss before I dance. And I don’t dance with sanctioners who take dirty slate.’

‘I don’t trust you, neither. But we’ve all got something to gain here. Help me get Rutger gone.’ I recline. ‘The Run-Down will be safer for it.’

She fiddles with her igniter, weighing the prospect. Any other day, she would be the dozer blade looking to bury me. I’d sink her beside the dam. These are facts.

‘All right,’ she says. ‘Let’s do this.’

I nod. ‘The generatorium?’

‘You called it. Groxshit. Komozad doesn’t even deal in energy.’

‘You knew about Komozad?’

‘Merchant-combines that think they’re above the law are nothing new. Komozad’s been implicated in other cases. But the combines, they’re untouchable. Little empires in the Imperium. We’re enforcers, not inquisitors.’

‘What’s their racket?’

‘The Imperial tithe. Same as every combine. Lasguns, standard-issue spoons, who cares? But their pool’s dry. No more contracts. So if they want to outcompete their rivals, they’re failing.’

I straighten. The tithe’s serious business. The Imperium’s got to supply its colossal war machine somehow. Anyone who gets in the way of that gets flattened. ‘So Komozad’s on the way out.’

Boughdecar pauses. ‘Maybe.’

‘What about those floodlocks? Anything beneath them?’

‘Hypothetically speaking?’

‘Sure.’

Boughdecar shrugs. ‘No idea. Natural resources? But Alecto’s early settlers would’ve sucked those dry.’

I tap on my mug. ‘Water. Should be plenty.’

‘Not if the locks don’t open.’ Boughdecar’s distracted. Phantoms flash in her left pupil. She’s accessing the dataveil from her iris. I know she’s paying attention again when her gaze refocuses. ‘I mentioned some ongoing cases in Nearsteel back at Bastion-A. A heist from a Munitorum depot, some data-thefts.’

‘I remember.’ Old gangers always keep score.

Boughdecar digs through her trousers. She drops currency on the table and stands. ‘I sent the details. Check your blockhouse’s veil relay.’

I glare at the slate she’s left on the table. A tip? Maybe someone in the back is a citizen.

I swipe the currency and crane around. ‘I’ve got no iris.’

Boughdecar’s at the refectory slidedoor. ‘I don’t ask what corners you cut to get your leads. You’re resourceful, Noran. Reach out if you learn something. I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding me.’

I get up, throw my stormcloak on. ‘So we in this together or what?’

One last look. ‘Check your relay.’

Then she leaves.

Ramparts have data-slates slotted over the clave-board. I boot it up, then give the panel a few ritual slaps until the flickering image stabilises. Looking through evidence technically makes me an investigator, right? It’s not really a sanctioner’s racket; we prefer to slug perps. But desperate times and all that.

Umoto buffs troubling blemishes from the blade of his toe-buzzer while I do the diligence. Boughdecar wasn’t kidding. Those culprits in Nearsteel were heavyweights. They stole a bomb from a Munitorum depot – the kind of bomb that might get through unopenable floodlocks. But this one was for combat engineering, too big to fit in the lower habclaves.

Boughdecar’s datascripts also document linked intrusions on the city’s noosphere. She sent copies of Mechanicus records stolen during the intrusions, but they’re coded in binharic, and I can’t work the translexer. Boughdecar’s notes indicate the intrusions opened back doors into the Argine’s information manifold. There data-thieves stole dam schemata, maintenance logs. That was what probably brought her knocking to begin with.

There’s one thing I’m guessing Boughdecar doesn’t know. The dam overlays paint a good picture of the Argine’s run-off infrastructure. I find blueprints for the district’s floodlocks. Once my sanctioners report back, I cross-reference the schemata with the sites of Rutger’s activities in the Run-Down.

It’s a one-for-one match. And the sites are far-flung, nowhere near the coordinates on Komozad’s permits.

So Rutger’s lying. But I already knew that.

I pound the data-slate again, drawing Umoto’s leer. I imagine Rutger tramping through my ward, breaking noses, tossing indigents from their habs. Maybe he wants my turf, maybe not. Whatever he wants, he’ll take it from them.

This is what they pay me for. I need a new angle, before Rutger finds what he’s after.

I decide to see him myself.

My sanctioners report that one of Rutger’s groundcars left the ward. The other’s been sighted in the upper valves. Umoto and I drive up to the ward landings just below the Argine’s chief transit-spine. We park beside a Regena as a mag-train roars overhead. We dismount, then head towards a viaduct bricked into the foundations of the Argine Dam. Consecrated wards shielding the dam gallery interfere with our voxes. No backup this time.

Ahead, a ferrocrete cliff holds up the sky. Conduits and pipes as thick as mag-tracks criss-cross the dam’s buttresses. Colossal umbilicals feed water into Argine-Tertius, which glows with sacred animus. Behind that, short-range haulers blink as they drop into the district from the stars above, disappearing into the Argine’s monumental skyline.

The mercs probably entered the culvert at the base of the dam. Nowhere else to go, but it doesn’t make sense. The culvert runs right under the Westering Ocean. Inside, Valve Six controls the circulation of seawater into the district generatoria. It has nothing to do with the floodlocks.

We enter. Slab-lumens and pocked ferrocrete line two puddly paths leading to a fork in the culvert. The walls are smeared crimson with rust. I send Umoto the long way, then hike in the short way. The plan’s simple. He covers the egress; I flush Rutger’s thugs out. We take them, then pump them. Worst comes to worst, we sink them.

As I move deeper, voices carry from past a bend in the culvert ahead. I turn the bend, and dim light reveals a round reservoir enclosed by support colonnades. The reservoir’s so dark you can’t tell if it’s a black hole or a glorified slick. I click my tickler open, quiet-like. I can’t shoot if I want my questions answered. And twelve-year-old me took a shock maul to the chin before, so I figure the techno-mercenaries should do fine.

One problem. They’re dead. Lying on the reservoir’s rim, trickling blood from the flesh and sour-smelling lubricant from the augmetics.

Gutter Queens encircle them – in the colonnades, on gantries overhead, on the valve landing running out. They wear orange-black synthleather and drainmen overalls, hands overflowing with exotic weapons of forbidden manufacture.

The gangers turn. All thirty of them. I wasn’t quiet enough; sanctioners never are.

But sometimes we’re surprised. I draw my autogun, one-handing it. With my tickler in my other hand, I feel like a Space Marine from the propaganda reels. I’ll be lucky to get rounds on target.

The gangers sneer. Some are men, some are women, but they’re all Queens. Those sitting on the raised ledge running the chamber’s perimeter hop down to join their friends. Juves bat broken pipes in their hands, or push shells into creaky scatterguns. Saltier girls raise duelling pistols and street weapons which I often confiscate but can’t name.

‘You’re stupid as a sinner, cap’n.’

I’d recognise that voice all the way from the sumps. Lady Reanne strolls out from between her goons like a panther, dark and lethally graceful. Her hair’s pulled into a long plait. She’s relaxed, the way real killers always are. And a lot more comfortable in her skin since her chem-therapy. Reanne’s a self-made woman, through and through. The only thing that ever stopped her from taking the Run-Down was me. I broke every rule to do it, but that’s what the Lex is. A heavy book you keep on the shelf while you get the job done.

I freeze. ‘I’m no captain.’

‘No one cares what you are.’ Reanne drinks me up, spits me out. She can’t see my face behind my helmet, but she knows I’m an enforcer. Nothing else to know. ‘You’re nervy. Don’t be. You were meat as soon as you walked in.’

‘I thought you were meat, too. Or hoped. That’s the word.’

Reanne bares a mouthful of filed teeth. When she sees my nametape, venom fills her glare. ‘Noran. Sweet of you, coming all this way to check. Where’s your backup?’

‘Out there.’ I jerk my head back.

‘He don’t got backup,’ says a lump on the wall.

‘Put him down,’ says another.

Reanne toys with the needler in her hands, beaming. The Urgeyena cartels give those out to anyone who proves their commitment to the underworld Ghaan code. Reanne’s vicious.

‘I knew you were here,’ I lie. ‘Just came to talk.’ Before anyone calls me out, I nod to the dead mercs in the grit. ‘You do them in?’

Reanne swaggers closer. She lets me blather because I talk the talk. I can see her pouring caution and curiosity against her thirst for enforcers’ blood, seeing which is more. ‘Yeah, cap’n. We did them. The boys from the underworks.’

‘They ain’t mine. I want them gone, same as you.’

Reanne clicks her tongue. ‘Oh, I know. You’re stupid, not suicidal.’

Her eyes snip through her crew. Queens clear the way to Valve Six on the wall. It’s built with the same vault-look as the floodlock in the lower habclaves. Beside it is a matt-olive plastek container the size of a Bulwark. A cogitator with a panel screen blinks in the frame. A pump?

No. My gut turns. Judging from the warnings stencilled on it, it’s a bomb.

The bomb. A bunker-buster, a Bastion-breaker. Militarum grade, but nothing tactical or tight. It’s basically a heavy casket stamped with instructions on how to arm and disarm it. The two-switch cogitator triggers it, but the keys aren’t here.

I’ll bet heavy slate I know who has them.

As long as we’re all going to die, I belt my tickler and holster my autogun. I walk a lap around the blinking bomb, patting the top shelf in case there’s an off switch or something.

Nothing. This beast could scuttle a voidship.

I glance at Reanne. ‘You know what this is?’

She points to the Low-Gothic stencilling. ‘I can read. We ain’t all as stupid as you.’

I chew my bottom lip. The air in my helmet is foggy with sweat and stale breath. This bomb’s the only reason why Reanne hasn’t dropped me. Yet.

She steps closer. ‘Fix this. You’re the Lex. Arrest them.’

‘They look like the kind to go quietly?’

Reanne grimaces. She taps my helmet with her needler. ‘So that’s it?’

So that’s it. A question and an answer, all at once. Because if those techno-mercs brought this monster here – and if they really want to go through those overflow locks down in the sumps – then all of this points in one ugly direction.

Rutger wants to blow Valve Six. Let the ocean in, open those floodlocks. That much water won’t hurt the Argine, but it’s more than enough to sink our merry slum. To wash out the sin, and the crime. To drown every living soul in every sagging domicile and cheap commercia sprouting in our filthy, soaking streets.

Rutger wants to kill us all, and I’ll be damned if I know why.

I return to the mercs’ corpses. I wrench their augmetics out – eyes and all – from the cold sockets in their skulls. I tuck the implants into my belt, still dripping brain matter. They’re important, but I can’t work with them. Boughdecar must have tricks for this kind of thing – something like those murder-cogitators from that racket she busted. She’s the detective after all. I’m just the knuckle-dragging ogryn.

Reanne pushes her needler into my neck. ‘If you can’t stop them, you’re better off dead.’

Before I can answer, another lump hurtles down the culvert, shaking like he’s seen the primarch resurrected. ‘They’re here. Six groundcars. A tank. Moving up the main way.’

Reanne winks. ‘Lights out.’

‘Sign your own death warrant while you’re at it,’ I blurt. ‘Rutger’ll smoke you all.’

Reanne clucks her tongue. ‘But you’ll save us?’

I nod. ‘I pass word to Bastion-A, we get backup. Bulwarks. Sanctioners. We’ll take Rutger down.’

Reanne cackles. ‘You’ll get rid of us while you’re at it. You creatures been gunning for me for years.’

I chuckle. Nothing’s so honest as a dead man’s laugh. ‘I own the Run-Down, Queen. I gave you a nook in sump paradise so the others had something to pay protection for. You scummers were never a threat. And if you kill me, Bastion-A will just send someone else. He might not be as accommodating as I’ve been.’

Time’s short. ‘Lady–’ one of the Queens says.

Reanne glares at her. The look’s enough to cut skin. She turns it on me. ‘Think He’ll cry for you?’

‘What? Who?’

‘Don’t play. Heard you got a jag-line tattoo of Him on your chest when you was a Savage. You cretins, hoping enforcers wouldn’t shoot at bleeding-line tats of the Emperor on the Golden Throne. Bet you know better now.’

I do. ‘We shoot what needs shooting.’

‘So shoot yourself, Noran. He only weeps for the saints and martyrs. You just a dirty enforcer. Muddying the waters.’

I laugh.

She champs down, her trigger pulling her finger.

But I don’t know what it is. Maybe Lady Reanne’s sick of losing. Maybe she’s always known I was just a ganger in uniform. The sanctioners can take the juves off the street – but you know what they say.

She lowers her needler. ‘Come on.’

We’re nearly out the back way when a bullet ricochets from the wall. Everyone splashes for cover, but it’s only one shot. I recognise the report from years spent in Bastion-A’s sepulchre ranges.

‘Umo, that you?’

‘Noran,’ Umoto echoes back. ‘Queens, on your six.’

‘They’re with me, nightmare.’

Lady Reanne kneels in smut across the way, scowling like it’s her job. ‘Umoto? Murderface Umoto?’

I glance her way. ‘I was unaware of the nickname.’

Reanne’s gaze could blot out suns. ‘Emperor’s toes. I’m doing him in.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re staying still and shutting up.’

Reanne’s serious. ‘You don’t know him, stupid. I seen Murderface in the dark. He’ll cut your throat for a giggle.’

I ignore her, moving ahead. I explain everything to Umoto as fast as I can. Time isn’t with us, and Rutger’s mercs might already be at the reservoir, but Reanne’s killed ours before, and Umoto deserves to know why we’re together. He might see this as treachery. Under any other circumstances, so would I.

Umoto listens from cover behind a stanchion. The slab-lumens behind him make it hard to lock him down. ‘Gutter Queens.’ He’s ice cold. ‘We’re at war.’

‘We’re at war with everyone, nightmare. That’s why you’re here.’

Water trickles from the ceiling, cutting through the sterile light between us. I hear the wheels of Umoto’s mind turn, animated by a sadist’s desires.

‘I’m a reasonable man,’ he says. ‘With reasonable needs. If I was just busting heads, I’d have stayed a Rainrat. I don’t trust Queens. I don’t trust enforcers who break ranks.’

My trust in Umoto is fracturing, too. I could do him in if I had to. I’m a good shot with a shallow conscience.

But he’s not just any psycho. He’s my psycho. ‘You in or you out?’

Umoto says nothing. The silence bleeds.

‘You go first,’ I say. ‘You see any mercs, shine your lumen so I know. We’ll follow.’

After a pause, boots scrape over damp rockcrete. He’s left.

When the Gutter Queens catch up, Reanne whispers in my ear. ‘You’re dumber than you look. You won’t be the first holo-seal he’s turned on. I seen him do it. For fun.’

‘Shut up,’ I say.

But I don’t forget a word of it.

The score’s clear. Komozad doesn’t want to own the Run-Down. They want to sink it.

Since Rutger’s techno-mercs are at Valve Six in force, we still have time. They won’t blow that monster of theirs standing right next to it. If we call for backup and it’s quick, we can stop Rutger.

But the vox-lines are dead. It’s not the dam wards – someone’s jamming the net. I could send missives over the dataveil, but our Rampart’s at the culvert landing. Besides, mere sanctioners can’t flag those for the castellan. Bastion-A’s scriveners might not sort the message for hours.

I don’t play regicide, but I know the endgame when I see it. We have the right pieces on the board to win. The problem is getting them in place.

I send Umoto to link up with our other patrols at their beat checkpoints. I consider asking Reanne for help, but Rutger’s already smoked the Queens once. I send her back to the sumps.

Reanne’s not happy. ‘You fools are circling the drain. Your squad won’t be enough for them storm troopers.’

‘Good thing they’re not storm troopers. Make yourself useful. Knock on doors. Tell people to get somewhere safe.’

If she has any more ideas, I don’t wait to hear them. I have a pilgrimage to make. The vox is down, but Boughdecar has priority dataveil access. She can get messages to the kind of people who launch crusades, and quickly. Better yet, maybe she can analyse the dead mercs’ irises. Figure out what’s put Rutger in the mood for exterminatus.

Time to see what she’s worth.

I’m sitting in Boughdecar’s beat-up Shiiv. If she minds all the water I dragged in with me, she doesn’t show it. Just sits behind the wheel, staring through snake-dancing wipers and a diffuse cloud of second-hand smoke at the veriquary casket on her lap. Outside, through the downpour, Argine-Tertius is a nebulous aurora. I glimpse the vague silhouettes of gothic spires beyond. The lights from cathedrals up-dam twinkle like fires on far hills, as warm and dry as a good burn barrel.

Veriquaries are for evidence collection; this case is specialised with a sanctioned data-flensor for remote access. It clicks with functionality, and Boughdecar claps in the irises I ripped from the mercs’ skulls. She dials knobs on the textured lid and mutters prayers – every word of them – to the veriquary’s primitive machine-spirit. Iris augmetics are sanctified with back doors granting hard memory access to Varangantuan authorities. Useful in cases of suspected crime or heresy.

Boughdecar examines the augmetics’ bared contents on her own via the veriquary’s uplink. Her head’s heavy, aloof, like she’s sitting on the Golden Throne. The galaxy’s her problem, not one war in one place that no one remembers to begin with.

I check my chrono. ‘You done?’

‘Almost. These machine-spirits are stubborn. Probably not from Alecto.’ Her eyes flitter through data screed pouring before her and her alone. ‘Rutger wants something valuable, beneath the Run-Down. No details, but it seems powerful. And illegal.’

That explains why Komozad has been working in the shadows. Then again, so did the bomb.

Blurred headlights turn a corner ahead. Two vehicles trundle closer, water rushing in their wake.

‘Worth a try,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’

Boughdecar ignores me. ‘Alecto’s a world of the ancient landings, Noran. Cities were here. Before Varangantua. Some became Varangantua. Others were pulled into the foundations. If Komozad wants something precious and it’s below the Run-Down, it’s got to be archeotech.’

The rain pours. The wipers squeal.

‘No more riddles,’ I say. ‘We’re here for the ward.’

‘But I can’t figure out–’

I seize Boughdecar’s wrist. ‘Stop. This isn’t some head-twister for you to unravel over opalwine and music. Rutger’s up there. Right now. I already told you about your missing bomb. The Run-Down’s riding on this. Now we get to work.’

Boughdecar nods, back in the moment. Good. I don’t trust probators, but I trust her.

She blinks. ‘Done. I sent a missive. Bastion-A should get it soon.’

I frown. ‘Soon could be hours. We have to move.’

‘Yes. And there’s something else. We’ll need testimony if this goes to tribunal. If it comes from you, a lot of people in high places are going to ask how a sanctioner sergeant was cosy enough with scummers to find all this out. You could go down. And I think you know better than me, Noran – sinners and perps don’t get third chances.’

I exhale. The prospect doesn’t hit as hard as I expected. ‘You wanted to burn me.’

‘Any clean enforcer would.’

‘Then do it. Bastion-A press-ganged me from the streets. Fine. But I wear the same holo-seal as you, and I’ve kept it on for a reason. I’ll do what needs doing to give the people here a chance. No one else will. And the words in the Lex don’t bend enough for it.’

Boughdecar snuffs her stub. ‘You want to protect them.’

‘Sure.’ I sigh. ‘And maybe I just know when my number’s up.’

A knock on the window. Those headlights are now long beams bathing the via in light. They belong to two Bulwarks I’ve prayed to more often than to the Holy Emperor. If I go down, maybe they’ll add heresy to the list of my charges.

Boughdecar pushes a button. A slit opens in her window. An eerily still sanctioner shines a lumen into the cabin. Umoto.

Boughdecar glances at me, then shines her own lumen back out. ‘You had anything to drink tonight?’ she asks.

I grin. New resolve, like a boon from the Emperor, anchors my words, my thoughts, my actions. But that’s no blessing. It’s the two Bulwarks beside us, chock-full of sanctioners ready to deliver violence on my command.

Boughdecar wipes exhaustion from her eyes, tucks her ashtray into her coat. ‘All right. Let’s do this.’

She parks her banged-up Shiiv, as if that rolling heap is worth the effort of keeping it safe. We strap into the back of the lead Bulwark and in no time at all we’re rolling up to Valve Six to detain Rutger.

Only Boughdecar brought cuffs. The rest of us load our weapons.

Rutger’s so happy to see us he orders his men to give us a light show. Lasguns flash from behind Komozad’s groundcars up at the landing leading into the culvert. I wonder whether the parchment-pushers who signed off on those knew they would be used against their brothers in black. Probably. Slates speak loud.

Beam impacts raise the Bulwark’s internal temp a degree. The driver guns the engine and we’re flying. This, I imagine, must be how Guardsmen feel at war. Weapons, rattling over kit. Boots laced, helmets strapped. Counting down the seconds until the ramp opens and everyone gets a salvo of battlefield glory to the face.

My troopers hit their stimms, fitting on shock-response gear. Boughdecar rocks with the Bulwark, giving me a grave look. ‘Rutger knows you were here.’

I nod, watching her. There’s a killer behind that face. A tool for every problem. Boughdecar reaches for her shoulder holster and–

I frown. ‘What’s wrong?’

She brandishes her Tzarina, a stamped steel receiver over a rubberised grip, like it’s contaminated. ‘I’m a shit shot.’

‘But you passed quals. Right?’

She swallows. ‘I did. I knew the range coach.’

Our Bulwark shakes. The driver warns we’ve pushed through Rutger’s defensive perimeter. My troopers utter rote-memorised prayers or whisper less sanctioned invocations to their favourite smile-girls. Our squad’s a lean crew. We wiped out the Rainrats, the Savage-Seven, even cleared the Gutter Queens from the upclaves. This is just another day at the officium.

Through the viewport, the dam looms overhead. We’re gunning for the culvert. The driver doesn’t brake.

We crash in, scraping to a stop. The Bulwark’s ram-barricade extends, walling off the tunnel to provide cover against the mercs deeper in the culvert.

We dismount. A Bulwark’s interior is all hard-angled plasteel designed with bruised shins in mind. Still, a trained unit disembarks in seconds. We flow from the side hatch into the culvert as our second Bulwark’s complement dismounts, covering the rear.

A dizzying storm of long-las stabs out from deeper in the culvert. Feiter, hit, squeals like a throat-slit porcine and slams into a main, short a helmet and half his face. Tuyet takes a beam centre mass and thuds down, sliding like a tossed sandbag.

I underestimated Rutger. We aren’t rookie sanctioners, but these aren’t light-slate gangers, neither. We return fire. I roar for someone to outflank the mercs. In a tunnel, it’s wishful thinking.

Then Umoto dashes into the darkness in long, loping steps, a nightmare, a predator of men. He rips the long-las marksman from cover behind a protrusion in the wall. He saws the marksman’s optical implants out with his toe-buzzer, then hunkers down and waits for us, panting through the squad vox. Violence is a holy sacrament, I know. But I sincerely hope Umoto and I don’t pray to the same god.

Lasguns scream. Autoguns bark. Firepower saturates the tunnel. My rear element continues covering the culvert mouth from the mercenaries outside. The rest of us push towards Valve Six’s reservoir.

It’s tough. I thought I knew tough. But everyone’s playing their pieces precious. Rutger’s machines of men give ground in timed withdrawals. My sanctioners advance soberly, cover to cover, using stanchions and water mains to pad incoming fire. Boughdecar’s up front with the best of us, shooting. I’m not sure at what.

We lose steam at the reservoir where I met Lady Reanne’s cut-throats earlier. Rutger stands before the rippling pool, bodies steep in the water. He raises a detonator, and beacons in the bomb behind him flash. ‘That’s enough.’

I get the picture, stand my squad down. ‘This ends one way. You’re finished.’

Rutger’s bleached eyes meet mine. All this time I thought he was a hollow man, but now I see the cracks in the caisson. He’s tense. This close to getting what he wants – and here we are.

The other techno-mercs are behind cover, sights set on the culvert way. That tank they brought into the valve is parked across the reservoir, between the colonnades. A Militarum Chimera. Watertight. An escape vehicle.

I know a stand-off when I see one, so I change tack. Rutger used to be a sanctioner. Maybe he’s been where I’ve been. Maybe he’s decent somewhere, beneath the surface.

‘Rutger.’ I lower my weapon. ‘It isn’t too late.’ It is. ‘You don’t have a killer’s look.’ He does. ‘You wanted to get the locals out of slum-bottom. You don’t want to do this, do you?’

Rutger raises his detonator. ‘I do. I’ve got a fat payday riding on this.’

I wince. Boughdecar’s hissing something, but I ignore her. ‘So why bother pounding heads to begin with? If you’d played your cards a little quieter, we wouldn’t have known any better.’

‘To sell the generatorium story,’ Boughdecar hisses louder. ‘They needed to confirm the floodlocks’ locations before the flood. The coercions were just part of the cover story.’

My brow wrinkles. ‘Shit, Rutger. You were one of us.’

‘And you were a ganger,’ he snaps. ‘We all stay above water somehow. You know the hustle.’

A day ago, I would have agreed with him. But no matter what I’ve been telling myself, I didn’t come all this way for the racket.

The tendons in my jaw knot up like nooses. Inside me, a pyre kindles. Rutger’s eyes aren’t graves. They’re holes. All he wanted was to fill them with slate. ‘You’re just a triggerman.’

‘His Hand.’ Rutger spits. ‘Better than being a corpse.’

That smile. Those white-damn-teeth. He probably means to shoot now. So do I.

But before we can, a war cry ululates through the culvert, gunfire rattling at the far end of the reservoir. The Gutter Queens. I’ve battled Reanne and her animals for ages. I should’ve known better than to think they’d stay out of this.

The Queens haven’t survived the sumps all these years without learning how to squabble. They pour in from an access shaft in the valve landing, weapons locked and cocked, blasting techno-mercs who thought they were in cover. Lady Reanne nails one with her needler. He spasms with toxin-induced paralysis and tumbles into the reservoir. The Queens move fluidly, confidently. They’ve obviously scrapped with Rutger’s mercs before.

As they claw into the grove of support stanchions closer to the bomb, Rutger howls orders out. His mercs swivel towards the unanticipated threat. Their movements are oil-slick, trained. But now no one’s covering us.

Boughdecar rushes forward firing. Her shots are wild, but she has the right idea. We have to move. Rutger won’t hold off forever.

Sure enough, a klaxon blares. Red beacons flash in the bomb’s matt-olive sheath. Rutger’s armed the beast.

There’s still time. If the Queens secure the bomb and we keep Rutger from his getaway vehicle, he’ll call off the blast. Otherwise we all sink, here and now.

I take sanctioners towards the Chimera. Rutger and a handful of mercs split off from their melee and shoot their way towards us. The bomb alert wails again, counting down.

We reach the Chimera first. But the cyborg mercenaries are inhumanly resilient. Rutger out-positions us, wedging through our line.

We scatter. I take cover behind the Chimera. Boughdecar stacks behind me. Umoto’s across the way. This close, with this much firepower flying between us, everyone’s heads are down. Las-fire steams the moisture from the air. Shots ping off the Chimera’s hull and pock the ferrocrete floor.

Then Rutger’s voice trumpets over the gunfire through a laud hailer. ‘Sanctioners – I’ve got heavy slate and a job offer for whoever nails Noran. Komozad pays well.’

My eyes snap to Umoto. He’s fixed that sadist’s gaze on me from under his visor. He raises his autogun.

Boughdecar barrels past, shooting. Her first shot mulches Umoto’s good hand. Her second lands square in his chestplate. He staggers, reaches for his toe-buzzer. She closes and locks his ruined hand out, straining to hip toss him.

Rutger emerges and fires. I take aim and squeeze the trigger at the same time.

It’s over in a blink. When I glance down, Umoto’s stiff. Beneath his smashed visor, ruthless terminal ballistics have pulped his predatory features.

Boughdecar gushes from her hip. And Rutger’s down too, greasing the floor with whatever flows through him instead of blood. I drag them both behind a stanchion. The crossfire’s heavy, but I won’t risk Boughdecar taking another hit. And I want to torture Rutger proper.

His breaths are laboured gurgles. There’s a puncture in his breastplate, a sucking chest wound underneath. That needs an occlusive dressing. What it gets is my fingers.

I push. Rutger bawls. ‘Turn it off,’ I say, ‘or we all drown.’

His eyes flicker. Hypoxic shock, messing with his augmetics. ‘They’ll kill us. They’ll kill you.’ He gasps. ‘Help me.’

I scoff. ‘Help what? Flood slums for slate?’

‘The tithe. Komozad.’

‘Komozad’s on the way out. They’ve got no more contracts.’

‘They could.’ Rutger gurgles. ‘From other combines. Better schemata. Better bids.’

I narrow my eyes. Komozad’s modus operandi has never really changed, has it? They want secrets, and they want archeotech.

‘You’re after a murder-cogitator,’ I say. Those are proscribed. But they’re also everywhere.

Rutger swallows hard. ‘It’s close. Help.’

I push deeper. ‘A murder-cogitator won’t solve Komozad’s problems any more than you did.’

Rutger sobs, baring red, red teeth. ‘This one would.’

‘The datascripts, Noran.’ Boughdecar staunches her bleeding hip with one hand. ‘The files. In Lingua-technis.’

I connect the dots. ‘Komozad hacked Nearsteel’s information manifold, looking for an edge.’

‘And found it,’ Boughdecar says. ‘In the Mechanicus-linked directories.’

If there is archeotech under the Run-Down capable of working miracles for Komozad, the Mechanicus will know about it. The scheme is ambitious, even for a desperate merchant-combine. But it fits the bill.

Boughdecar’s breathing grows shorter. Shock onset. I drop Rutger.

He groans. With a round in his chest, it’s a morbid sound. ‘Just business,’ he says. ‘That’s all.’

‘It really ain’t.’ I holster my weapon. The intervals between the bomb’s alerts are short. Rutger’s not going to stop it, which means I have to. We’re cutting it close.

Across the reservoir, beside the valve, the techno-mercenaries have folded. The firefight’s burned down to coals, and the Queens have the bomb. Lady Reanne even does a jig on the warp-damned thing, waving, shouting. ‘Come to mama, sweetie!’

Shit. I’m almost proud. But there’s no time at all–

The beast blows.

Not outwards, but inwards, punching into Valve Six like a fist. Moisture in the air flexes with the shockwave. Gravity takes a hit of frenzon and everything within ten yards flattens. Mercs and gangers are crushed like cans. The blast vacuums this mess into the compaction zone, and Reanne slides into the breach like parchment under a door. The speed of it is sickening, but Varangantua holds no wakes for the dead. The water takes everything if you let it.

Overpressure yanks me forward. Bleach blazes from my belly through my fingers and toes. Ear-blistering sound smashes into me, and an acid sensation seethes behind my eyes, under my teeth, in my throat. Gutter Queens, you idiots. My ward’s always been full of them.

My ward. I shake it off. White water erupts from the fissure. Pulverised meat and rubble jet out with the stream, bouncing through the chamber like ricocheted bullets. The walls and the support colonnades leech some of the cascade’s force. Then it’s a wash, more like an avalanche, tumbling closer.

I drag Boughdecar, eyes pain-puckered shut, to the Chimera. I don’t even spare Rutger a glance. Let him drink what he poured.

My sanctioners rush up behind me and we close the ramp just as the torrent slams home. The water rocks the transport, threatening to toss us. But no – the Astra Militarum’s been in business for ten millennia, and there’s a reason they use Chimeras. We steer through the culvert, battling the current surging from the valve breach. Nobody’s driven one of these before, much less underwater. We ride on audacity and desperation and hope, eventually emerging from the jet and disembarking on the ward’s upper landings.

We’re dry. Intact.

It’s only everything else that’s drowned.

Ten hours.

Ten hours since whatever Rutger used to jam our vox-net sank with the Run-Down. Ten hours since Argine tech-priests on standby sealed the fracture in the dam, sparing the surrounding wards. Ten hours since backup arrived and we were pulled into separate Bulwarks for individual debrief.

I spend this time dreaming wistfully of pulse-showers and soft beds, answering questions from an up-dam probator with a punchable sneer about the disaster site that used to be my ward. Low-grade psykers are listening to my thoughts, he tells me. This isn’t a debrief; it’s an interrogation.

But I’ve used the same bluff with perps, and I answer as honestly as they do. Enough to not quite be lying. Not so much as to become a refectory-house servitor. Some secrets are worth keeping, and the probator doesn’t ask about the racket anyways.

After ten hours I’m released back to duty. I’m disoriented until I realise it’s night, and we’re at an operations camp on top of the Argine dam. Out over the Westering Ocean, lightning flashes, ivory-bright for half a breath like jagged bones in the sky. Then it goes dark, the ink of night spills back, and all that’s left is the ugly gloom and the sick whisper of a filthy ocean pawing at the Argine’s ferrocrete wall.

I find Boughdecar in the back of another Bulwark, so high on stimms you’d get a buzz sniffing her breath. Her hip looks better; she’s toying with her Tzarina.

‘You ain’t as bad a shot as you think,’ I say. ‘You nailed Umoto.’

Narcotic coolness lines Boughdecar’s eyes, the afterglow of whatever’s coursing through her veins. ‘Better not tell you I was aiming at Rutger. They give you the treatment?’

I frown. ‘They interrogated you too?’

‘Yes. But if you’re out, our stories must have corroborated. Any news?’

I share what I’ve seen since they let me out. The army of enforcers on standby. The planetary militia circling the district in Valkyries like flies over a carcass. That Arbites judge with the invulnerable frown who showed up an hour ago, then left unimpressed.

I tell her about the skitarii. How they clacked down into the deluge with irradiated weapons and lambent eyes, chittering in indecipherable Cant Mechanicus, respirating through rebreathers jacked straight into their lungs. They returned a few heads short. Filed onto their Transvectors with a sarcophagus which drifted a little too smoothly, a little too quiet. Then the Transvectors disappeared into the sweaty haze over the generatoria, rising like pterosaurs back to wherever it was they roosted.

‘And Komozad?’ Boughdecar asks.

‘The Justicius’ll open a case.’ I bite my lip. ‘Savvage says don’t expect too much.’

‘I don’t. I bet my pension there’s no data trail linking them to Rutger.’

I shrug. ‘Even if we had arrested him, I have a feeling he wouldn’t have stayed in custody long.’ Or alive.

Boughdecar blanks. ‘Think we were right?’

‘About what?’

‘Rutger. The murder-cogitator.’

I don’t answer, because I don’t know. I don’t know what the Mechanicus found beneath the Run-Down. I have ideas. A prodigious murder-cogitator from a distant past and reckless forebears. Or a profane xenotech variant which would have steamed every machine-spirit in the system trying to cut into a single cogitator. Or maybe we had it all wrong, and it was nothing of the sort. Maybe it was much, much worse.

Whatever it was, I can’t see why it was worth killing so many people for. If they were different people, perhaps it wouldn’t have been. Nobody will remember the likes of Mazzo or Lady Reanne. Nobody but me.

Boughdecar sees the look on my face. She pockets her autopistol, offers a lho-stick.

I shake my head. ‘You tell your interrogator anything about me?’

She lights up. ‘Tal, if you’re huffing promethium, that’s on you.’

‘I’m serious. You said if this goes to tribunal–’

‘I told them Rutger admitted to everything before he died.’ She winks. ‘Besides, I need someone to teach me to shoot.’

I can’t help but smile, warm despite the wet. I should be happy I’ve got off without a scratch.

But. Well. I haven’t.

The Run-Down’s gone. Earlier, staring down the drain from the top of the dam, I couldn’t even see it. Tertius’ pale light gleams down, but all I saw was a morass of dead claves. No lumens, no traffic, no sound. The ward’s power shorted out with the flood. So did the life.

A rescue operation’s already entered the ruins of my kingdom. There have to be survivors. Somewhere.

Time to do my part. I rise and say goodbye to Boughdecar.

‘You should know,’ she says, ‘I’m going after Komozad.’

I wince. ‘Merchant-combines are untouchable.’

Despite the stimm high, Boughdecar gives a pained frown. ‘Komozad’s a wounded beast. No contracts, no way to get more. We can take them.’

She wants justice. Bleeding hearts never know when to back off. Maybe I don’t, either. ‘You need me, you know where to find me.’

‘Yes. And, Noran.’

I look back.

‘His Hand.’

I wonder how to answer that. I come up dry. I nod again, leaving to round up my surviving sanctioners for the recovery effort. Time to earn our stipends. People might be waiting for us, after all. This is what they pay for.

EXTENDED FAMILY

J C STEARNS

‘In any event, it took us a few days of searching, but we ended up finding Remmond’s missing strong-arm guys…’ Dettringer Carlowe trailed off, seeing the child as he glanced around the table, and tried to think of a family-friendly word for ‘dismembered’.

‘I take it someone had impressed upon them the error of venturing outside their territory?’ Aximonde Jenii raised an eyebrow as he sipped at his mug of recaff. He gave a knowing glance at his daughter Lyda and smiled.

Carlowe was never sure just how much the girl knew. Aximonde’s wife, Thora, had come up through the Jenii syndicate with her husband, and was just as vicious, connected and cunning as he was. Davian, their eldest son, had been groomed for command for years. When it came to the shy, reserved figure of Lyda Jenii, barely into her teens, Carlowe didn’t even know if she wanted to be a part of her parents’ business. Decades of time spent serving the syndicate had taught him to always err on the side of caution, however.

‘Exactly that,’ said Zenyth. ‘The Bloodbrands did for them, but as near as my sources can tell, it was Remmond’s people who was out of bounds.’ Zenyth shifted in her seat, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

She was decidedly out of her element in the Jenii patriarch’s domicile. She had the thick, muscled frame of a briar-jack and the extensive, winding tattoos of a career criminal in Varangantua’s street gangs. She’d dressed her best, in synthwool slacks and a black novaplas vest, but there was no wardrobe that could make her blend in with the upclavers that the Jenii elite moved amongst.

‘Nonetheless, I’m assuming you didn’t just drop the matter there?’ Like Carlowe’s, Aximonde’s appearance was in sharp contrast to Zenyth’s. It had to be. Neither man fraternised with the common street elements; they had to present a refined and respectable veneer for the family. Although Aximonde was tall and broad where Carlowe was short and slender, both men dressed in the crisp white tunics and black longcoats favoured by the merchant wealthy in Decima Loci. ‘It wouldn’t do for the Bloodbrands to think there are no repercussions for harming our people.’

Carlowe sipped his recaff. This was the balancing act they had to maintain. The entire district of Decima Loci answered to the Jenii syndicate, from the lowest rek-head street ganger to the most well-to-do embezzler. Thanks to his network of informants and captains, Aximonde Jenii had his fingers in every dirty enterprise, and those employees made sure the old man always got his cut. The peril to such supremacy was that there was always going to be someone looking to chisel away at such a vast territory. Surely, they reasoned, one syndicate couldn’t be everywhere in an administrative district with nearly nine million people, and wouldn’t miss just a little piece of the action. Aximonde knew, as did his henchmen, that if you let the canids at the borders have a little bite today, they’d be back for a bigger piece tomorrow, with their whole flea-bitten pack behind them.

‘Hells, no.’ Zenyth snorted. Lyda looked up at her with a quizzical expression, and the gang leader dropped her head. ‘That is, uh, not at all.’ She glanced at Carlowe. ‘Detty here helped me track down a few of the Bloodbrands who were living just across from the arc-rails inside our territory. Once we knew where they was, I had some of the folks, ah…’ She trailed off, looking back and forth from Carlowe to the girl.

‘Evict them,’ Carlowe said, finishing for her. Zenyth nodded.

Aximonde nodded in approval. All was well in his kingdom, for another day at least. At some unseen signal, one of his servants came into the dining room to refresh their drinks.

Carlowe appreciated the hospitality of Aximonde meeting them in his house. When he’d first been coming up in the syndicate, under the reign of Aximonde’s father, the meetings of the syndicate’s captains had always been held in the back of gaming halls or rekanine dens, thick with lho-smoke and the sounds of distant violence. The Aximonde home was Imperial elegance at its finest: floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows in the dining terrace, marble floors inlaid with gold aquilas, and lush tapestries covering the interior walls. None of the furnishings were gaudy or ostentatious; Aximonde and Thora had carefully constructed the image of a couple who had wealth and knew the correct ways to spend it.

Carlowe smiled when Davian slipped into the room. That, at least, hadn’t changed. Carlowe had been little more than a juve at the time, but still remembered when Aximonde had been in the role of dutiful son, eagerly running his duties for the syndicate, spending every moment he could by his father’s side so that he might one day take command himself. Davian sketched a quick bow to the room.

‘Father, thought you should know there are enforcers at the door. They’re with a probator, and he has a writ of investi-gation.’

Aximonde sighed.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You might as well let them in. Let’s find out what sort of foolishness this is.’

‘Do we need to gear up?’ Zenyth asked as Davian left. Aximonde shook his head.

‘No need,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing contraband in the house, unless one of you was thick-headed enough to bring it in with you.’

Carlowe and Zenyth shook their heads. Neither of them were stupid enough to bring anything illegal to their employer’s domicile.

‘Well, they aren’t just here for no reason.’ Zenyth seemed on edge, and Carlowe couldn’t blame her. In the sort of environment she lived in, the enforcers always meant trouble, usually the kind that announced itself to the tune of shotgun blasts.

‘Someone’s probably just looking for a handout,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t be the first member of the ranks to find something he thought was valuable enough to hold over our heads.’

When he heard the gunshots, Carlowe thought at first he was imagining it, a particularly vivid sense-memory of the old meeting places. A look at the expression of confused concern on his dining companions’ faces told him that it was no figment of his imagination.

They were all up from the table in the next moment. There was no hesitation, but neither was there a sense of panic. They were, after all, in a fortified manse with enough gun-thugs to constitute a private army.

‘I’ll get to a vox and call for backup,’ said Zenyth.

‘No. By the time they get here everything will be over.’ Aximonde pulled his daughter’s chair out, and Lyda stood, looking about uncertainly. ‘Take Thora and Lyda out through the kitchens. There’s a bolthole – they’ll show you where.’

Before Carlowe could ask any questions the dining room door blasted open and two enforcers staggered through. He could hear gunfire still raging in the household, but these two had evidently fought their way clear to the centre of the house, intent on their quarry.

The one in the lead was a veteran. Carlowe didn’t recognise the man’s unhelmeted face, but he definitely registered the probator’s chevrons on the man’s shoulder plates. The enforcer’s armour, alternating between jet black and gunmetal grey, was a living testament to unkempt puissance. It bore the dirt and scars of a thousand nights trudging through muddy streets and trading bullets with rekked gangers.

The second officer was smaller, his armour older. His movements were too crisp in places, too hesitant in others. A rookie sanctioner called in as backup, thought Carlowe, and clearly uncertain about their position. Good.

There was no question about legality. No writs were produced, and no proclamations of arrest were made. The moment the door was open, the probator was firing. If they’d expected the syndicate leaders to sit quietly during their execution, however, they were sadly mistaken. Zenyth surged forward, her arms pumping furiously as she tried to make up the distance between the dining table and the attackers. Carlowe dropped to one knee and levelled his laspistol. Zenyth was already spoiling his shot at the probator, but the rookie was a big target, standing with his legs wide in a firing-range stance. The probator was ignoring Zenyth, firing around her at the crime lord behind them, but the rookie had seen the danger the charging ganger posed. He lifted his autopistol, but before he could get a shot off, Carlowe squeezed the trigger. The las-bolt hit the enforcer on the underside of his chin. The rookie dropped, his pistol firing wildly into the ceiling in his death throes.

Zenyth hit the probator like a runaway grav-truck. Even the added bulk of his enforcer armour wasn’t enough to blunt the force of her hit, and the probator bounced off the wall. Zenyth kept up her attack, striking him over and over again. Carlowe saw fans of blood hitting the floor and for a brief moment thought she was punching him hard enough to pulverise the man’s body through his armour, until his eyes caught up and he saw the knife in her left hand. She pounded it like a piston into the seam between the armour plates on the side of the torso. The probator tried to hit her with his autopistol, but she wrapped one beefy hand around his wrist and held the gun-hand out wide, bearing him to the ground and stabbing him relentlessly.

‘He’s down, Zenyth!’ Carlowe stood. ‘We need to go!’ He turned to see if Aximonde disagreed with his orders, but instead saw Lyda.

The girl stood like a statue, staring at the floor where her parents lay sprawled. Blood covered their bodies, and Carlowe didn’t have to check them to know there was no intervening on their behalf. Lyda’s eyes were narrow and puzzled, as though she couldn’t fully process what she was seeing.

‘Come on.’ Zenyth moved past Carlowe and cast a look back at him. ‘We need to get her down to the kitchens and see if we can find that bolthole.’

The Vladar’s Scrit was about as far from the Jenii manor as one could get. The décor was mostly cheap gilt images of Imperial saints, along with a large tarnished bronze plaque behind the bar inscribed with the names of the sons and daughters of Decima Loci who’d died off-world fighting the enemies of mankind. Or who’d been shot as deserters – Carlowe doubted the old man with the shoulder-length wisps of hair behind the bar was very passionate about checking service records.

The walls and thick steel furnishings were wiped down, but nothing short of a full-time staff could have kept the grime from Decima Loci’s streets off the floor. Dusty, sooty boot prints covered the ground everywhere. The bar had only a single, barely functional servitor, clanking along with an occasional whine from a misaligned gear, serving the chilled briar-rum and grox-rolls that The Vladar’s Scrit’s customers came for. A pair of waifish serving girls did the majority of the work, scurrying from table to table with their eyes downcast.

It was the sort of place Aximonde’s father would have held a meeting in. Carlowe had no desire to relive those days, but The Vladar’s Scrit was owned by Thora Jenii’s stepbrother, Machar Oxskeller, one of the few business proprietors Carlowe knew of who was not a member of the syndicate, but whose loyalty was above reproach. It didn’t hurt that the residents of Horne Street had an extremely antagonistic relationship with the ranks, so any enforcer approach would be signalled long before the net could be closed around the syndicate.

‘Nice place for a meet.’ Melandios smiled as he slid into the booth next to Carlowe.

‘Not a lot of other options.’ Carlowe would rather have shifted their regular meetings to somewhere more upclave, but that would have to wait until the finer details of succession had been hammered out. Fortunately, the lounge wasn’t nearly as packed as it would be after the workers got off shift at the mills. There were a dozen or so patrons, mostly line supervisors and lower-tiered adepts, the sort of people who had just enough money and power to be afraid of losing it. The sort of people who were very careful never to notice anything going on around them. Particularly where the Jenii syndicate was concerned.

In a crowd like that, the syndicate captains stuck out like razorbriars in a window box. They arrived in ones and twos, obvious from the moment they entered, dressed significantly better than the local clientele and each accompanied by at least one bodyguard. The hired muscle all wore variants of the same thing: tight-necked wool jackets, scrip trousers, all with a concealed pistol at the back or shoulder. They might as well have been in uniform.

‘Is this everyone, Detty?’ Berrilard asked. ‘I expected to see more of us here.’

‘It is,’ said Carlowe. He glanced around. The reservation dais at the back of the lounge was separated by a small rise and a low wall, but anyone seated there could still survey the entire room. A good place for a clandestine meeting, since it would be hard to eavesdrop.

‘Mulhavey and Wygard aren’t here,’ said Kalith. ‘Nor, conspicuously, is Zenyth. I expected Ms Calabash, at the very least.’ Kalith was a valuable member of the syndicate. Once a Naval import inspector, she’d caused the syndicate no end of consternation. Fortunately, she’d proven easier to bribe than circumvent.

Carlowe shrugged. ‘Mulhavey had second thoughts about the succession operating the way it should. Wygard figured with Aximonde and Davian dead he could get better terms working with the Ovarthan clan.’

‘Shame,’ said Melandios. ‘They were good earners.’ No one bothered to ask what had become of the two turncoats.

‘If anyone else has a problem with the succession working the way it’s supposed to, then now would be the time to mention it,’ said Carlowe.

‘As Aximonde’s consiliarus,’ Melandios said, ‘you would traditionally be the one to assume the role of head of the syndicate.’ He folded his hands in his lap and smiled at the assembled captains. Melandios Nasson, Prefect Polilogus (J-grade, as he was quick to add) had seen multiple such transitions in the crime families in Varangantua. He’d been serving the syndicate since the time of Aximonde’s grandfather, although his youthful appearance belied his great age and experience. His most recent juvenat treatment had restored his visage to that of a man in his twenties, trim of frame and plump of cheek.

‘Are we to be the Carlowe syndicate now?’ Guilla frowned at the table over a smoky cup of the house brew.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Remmond said. He tapped his manicured nails on the table. Even if there had been a host of probators in the room, none of them would have guessed that the plump, perfumed man drumming on the tabletop was the most accomplished thief in the district. ‘No one’s going to be changing anything.’

‘Why not?’ Berrilard said. ‘The Jenii are dead, aren’t they?’ He looked down his hawkish nose to glare at Carlowe.

‘Not all of them,’ Melandios said. ‘Lyda sends her gratitude to you all for your outpouring of respect at her family’s funerals, by the way.’ The other captains nodded and murmured politely. No one honestly expected Lyda Jenii to have anything to do with the syndicate going forward. Still, Carlowe knew she could potentially be used as a bargaining chip or figurehead, so he took comfort knowing that Melandios had taken the girl in, in accordance with the family’s wishes.

‘Speaking of, Detty, are we safe?’ Berrilard carried on, ignoring the respectful interlude. ‘Do we even have the full measure of what happened?’

‘It was a hit by the enforcers,’ said Nemecarthi. The wizened medicae had refused any offer of beverage, preferring the flask hidden in her sleeve. She brushed a steel-grey strand of hair behind her head and leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Possibly a pre-emptive strike against us.’

Kalith snorted. ‘You need to quit shooting what you’re cooking, old woman. The ranks aren’t going to come after us.’ She held up one gloved hand and counted on her fingers. ‘We pay them too well, for one. For another, they don’t have the resources to do it without a bloodbath – as long as Zenyth isn’t trying to split off and make her own way, we still have the street gangs. And three, we do their jobs for them.’

‘She’s correct,’ Melandios said. He gestured to the serving girl. ‘There’s no other district of Decima Loci’s size that’s as quiet. The district authorities might not like our presence, but we provide a stabilising element. Without that, an area of our population would look more like Neomine Road, or the Wickers.’

The captains grumbled, imagining the plazas of Decima Loci turning into filth-strewn hellholes like their distant neighbours.

‘Those are all reasonable thoughts,’ said the deep, thick voice of Dorgreve, ‘but people aren’t always reasonable and thoughtful. Especially where money and power are in play, and the syndicate has a lot of both.’ Carlowe was impressed. It was rare for Dorgreve to speak, and rarer still for him to have any insight to offer. The thick-necked Dorgreve was the Dialogian Secundus for the Fraternity of Mill-workers, whose support the syndicate depended on, and he was loyal to a fault, so Carlowe had every reason to keep the placid spokesman happy.

‘No,’ said Carlowe, speaking up. The captains fell silent. ‘But that’s not the case here. I’ve already made contact with our people inside the Bastion. The brass had no idea this was coming down.’

‘Are you kidding me? Twenty-three people dead and they didn’t have a clue?’ Guilla scowled, her already lined face wrinkling up like a puckered fruit.

‘Does seem a little hard to believe,’ Remmond added, ‘for no one to see this coming.’

‘Well, you’d all better come to grips with it.’ Carlowe curled his lip, his voice dropping dangerously low. ‘Because no one did. The probator was Linzano Dietago. He was a career shit-heel, cited by his own superiors for disproportionate force on half a dozen occasions.’ He took a breath to let them consider how far things had to go before the ranks would call force disproportionate. ‘He was a trip mine just waiting to detonate.’

‘What in the hells set him off?’ Kalith steepled her fingers, trying not to seem concerned.

‘It looks like he was sweet on some smile-girl, this rek-head who got clipped for skimming off her dealer boyfriend,’ Carlowe said. ‘When the ranks pulled her body out of Sabot Canal, it didn’t take him long to connect the cadaver dump with the syndicate. Stupid bastard put a strike team together made up of street-pounders and rookies too stupid to question his office, and came after Aximonde on some nonsense blood vendetta.’ He sighed and pointed to Dorgreve. ‘Like the man said, people aren’t reasonable or thoughtful sometimes.’

‘Oh, for the love of… Do you hear yourself?’ Berrilard waved one hand in the air, as if trying to elicit support from his fellow captains. ‘Give us a damned break, Detty – we aren’t all as stupid as Dorgreve.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Kalith asked. ‘Enlighten us with the products of your vast networks of informants, then.’ The captains laughed, and Berrilard scowled, his face reddening. Berrilard managed the syndicate’s gambling houses, and had risen far in the underworld by keeping his books straight and his games crooked. He was a bloodthirsty one, Carlowe had long ago realised, but the conciliator’s reputation as a dangerous criminal not to be trifled with was largely in his own imagination.

‘It does stand to reason,’ said Guilla, ‘that someone used Dietago to handle a task they didn’t want to sully their hands with. You have to admit, it doesn’t look good to have the syndicate take a hit like this without retaliation.’

The captains grew silent, the air chilly with dread. She’d stopped short of an actual accusation, but it hung in the air nonetheless.

‘Who said anything about there not being a retaliation?’ Carlowe sat back in his chair, his arms crossed. ‘Only three of the ranks survived the Jenii massacre. In the week since it happened, they’ve all suffered mysterious accidents.’

‘Dietago’s social circles have suffered even more,’ Melandios chimed in. ‘I’m to understand that he wasn’t well liked, but even his casual acquaintances have been turning up dead at an alarming rate. His half-brother, an aunt, the bartender at his favoured drinking spot – all of them the apparent victims of robberies gone wrong.’ He took an innocuous sip of his drink. ‘Gruesomely wrong, from what I’m told.’

‘I’ll wager by the end of the month you won’t be able to find a single person in Decima Loci left alive who knew Linzano Dietago on a first-name basis.’ Carlowe didn’t have to admit to anything. Anyone experienced enough to sit at the captains’ table could read between the lines. ‘That retribution enough for you, Guilla? Or you think we should go to war with the ranks wholesale? With the Bloodbrands nipping at our sides, with our outside suppliers weighing whether we’re stable enough to keep doing business with? Everything’s hanging on a thread, but you think we should take a briar-axe to a few more of the enforcers?’

‘Of course not.’ Guilla shook her head and smiled. ‘That seems like quite enough bloodshed. No need for us to be barbarians.’ Carlowe snorted. Guilla might act the part of the genteel merchant, but she had more than enough personal blood on her hands. Before she’d run the district’s joy houses, back when she’d started her career as a simple smile-girl, rumour was that she’d been no slouch with a springknife herself.

‘Let’s be very, very clear,’ said Carlowe. ‘Primary task is showing everyone that nothing’s changed. The Jenii built a damned legacy in this district, and we’re a part of it. Hells, we are it, now. So we make sure that the slate keeps coming, especially to the people outside who need to be paid.’

‘That’s going to be hard to do if Zenyth isn’t on board.’ Kalith tipped a finger to gesture out to the street. She took a delicate drag from her lho-stick. ‘We’ve got a lot of pull in trade offices and Officio Justicius, even a few agents in the Munitorum, but in the streets that doesn’t amount to much. If we don’t have the gangs onside, we can’t enforce anything. The Bloodbrands, the Ovarthan clan – there’s nothing stopping them and every other half-scrit briar-jack crossing our borders and setting up whatever kind of enterprise they like.’

‘Zenyth is smarter than that,’ Carlowe said. He tapped the table with one forefinger. ‘Who pays her people when the take slows down? Us. Who keeps her people’s gang hideouts from getting rezoned and demolished for new habs? Who makes sure her people’s neighbourhoods get passed up when the ranks roll up bodies for the tithe?’ He jerked a thumb at Melandios. ‘Us. Shit, Kalith, who gets her maniacs those ex-Militarum guns they like so much?’

Kalith spread her arms, grinning. ‘Fair point. But if you’re wrong, Detty, we’re looking at pandemonium in the streets. If the gangers turn on us, it’s back to the bloody days where every hab-block is its own personal fiefdom. The public plazas become warzones.’

‘Then we just have to make sure we don’t lose the gangs,’ Carlowe said. He made sure to look each of his captains in the eye. ‘In all likelihood, Zenyth is going to end up moving into Davian’s position and becoming my lieutenant. That means no trying to skim your bagmen. It means no breaking fingers if things get out of hand with a shakedown collector. You got a problem with the gun-thugs, you take it to Zenyth directly, or you bring it to me. The absolute last thing we need right now is–’ Carlowe’s proclamation was cut short by gunfire.

The first shots tore through the street-facing windows. From where the captains sat they could see the parallel lines of las-fire streaking in, cutting down bodyguards and patrons alike. The first of the attackers was already vaulting through the shattered frame of the front door before the opening volley had even finished. Carlowe caught a glimpse of gang tattoos and novaplas jackets, and laspistols being turned his way, but he was already diving for the floor. Melandios didn’t bother with a controlled dive, merely pitched himself backwards and kicked the rim of the table, throwing it up to provide added cover.

Las-bolts slammed into the table and the low wall shielding the captains. Remmond lurched behind the table with Melandios and Carlowe, propelled by his huge bodyguard, Trauger. Carlowe could see a scorch mark on the big man’s side and couldn’t begin to guess how long the bodyguard could stay up with a laspistol wound.

‘Were you going to say “a shooting war”?’ Melandios gave Carlowe a wry grin, and pulled his Quillion ’33 from his ankle holster. He popped his head over the table and fired the holdout stub, but if he hit anything, Carlowe couldn’t tell.

Carlowe pulled out his own laspistol, a bog-standard M38 with the ball-handle, and shook his head. He forced himself up to a kneeling position. The large decorative mirror that had spanned the wall behind them had broken in its frame; now it finally gave out, showering the captains sheltering behind the table with broken glass and shards of wood.

‘I was going to say “the wrong kind of attention”, but yours works too.’ He leaned up and opened fire with the laspistol. There was an entire gang, nearly a dozen attackers, crowded into the lounge. Carlowe saw the thick boots and jackets of the briar-jacks among them, the sure sign of a clave gang. More concerning were their sidearms, peppering the captains’ position with autopistol and lasgun fire. One of them stood on a table, yelling orders to his soldiers in gang patois that Carlowe couldn’t make out.

Trauger stood, making himself the largest target, and fired his own gun. The Mons Baalum was a monster of a stub-revolver, and the report nearly deafened them all. His aim was good, and the gang leader pitched off the table, which tumbled to the floor with him.

The other gang members began yelling, but the captains had rallied. Remmond and Dorgreve rose, firing matched Mons Hardcase autopistols in tight, controlled bursts. Guilla had produced a compact Quillion autopistol from Throne knew where, and rattled off a stream of solid shot into the mohawked assailants.

The attack became a rout almost as quickly as it had begun. Gangers leapt through the shattered windows, fleeing into the crowds and side alleys of Horne Street. The captains fired at them in their retreat, but by the time they’d cleared the building they were already out of the effective range of their close-quarters firearms.

Carlowe stood and assessed the damage. It was extensive. Most of the patrons lay on the ground, moaning or trying to crawl to safety. They hadn’t been the targets, but the assassins hadn’t been exactly surgical about their fire. Carlowe could see two or three who were never going to get up again. One of the serving girls lay sprawled across a table, her tray flipped next to her, the pale briar-rum pooling in an arc to frame the ruined mess of her head.

The syndicate had not come through unscathed. Trauger was still standing, having taken nothing more than a flesh wound after his heroic stand. Now that he could see clearly, Carlowe could make out some kind of mesh armour under his shirt. The rest of the bodyguards hadn’t been so lucky. There were one or two that might make it if they got to a medicae, but as far as Carlowe could see the rest had been executed before they’d had a chance to retaliate.

Guilla and Dorgreve had been hit, but their wounds looked to be superficial. Stray shots, if Carlowe was any judge. Kalith had taken the worst of it. One of the gangers had evidently been packing amputator rounds, and had caught the smuggler square in the face. It was like a giant hand had scooped out over a third of her head, exposing gelatinous brain matter and gaping sinus cavities. Dimly, Carlowe reckoned that at least some of the debris littering his back and shoulders was probably pieces of her skull. Her body lay half-leaning against the back wall, her lho-stick still smouldering between her slack fingers.

Carlowe ran one hand through his grey, thinning hair. He hated the thought of ruling like a warlord, but there was very little choice.

‘Remmy, you and Trauger get these people out of here.’ He kept his voice calm, but confident. ‘Dorgreve, call in some of your work crews. Down here on Horne Street we have maybe half an hour to an hour before the ranks get here, and there needs to be not so much as a single person, living or dead, by the time they stroll up.’ He fixed the labour-boss with a hard stare. ‘These are your people, so I’ll leave it to your discretion. Anyone you think you can trust to keep their mouth shut, get them to a medicae. Otherwise, they need to catch one more round and go into storage with the rest of the bodies, hear?’

Dorgreve nodded. Bloodshed wasn’t his forte, but he was a career underworld soldier at heart, and would do what his patriarch ordered.

‘Detty…’ Nemecarthi was bent over one of the fallen gangers. Carlowe pushed his way to where she knelt. ‘See, here? That’s a ganger tattoo, isn’t it? I’ve seen it around.’

Carlowe touched the gang sign: a stylised boot print in crimson, inked to look like blood. ‘It is,’ he confirmed. ‘The Locus Sabot Jacks, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘You see?!’ Berrilard thrust up an emphatic hand with an imperious glare. ‘That’s one of Zenyth Calabash’s gangs. You think she’s going to do all the heavy lifting and just be content to be your lieutenant?’

Guilla hissed through her teeth. ‘It does seem like she’s trying to finish what she started.’ She was just making an assumption, Carlowe knew, but the others would be connecting the same dots. An attempted hit from a clave gang could only mean one thing, when all the clave gangs answered to one woman.

Carlowe cursed as the accusation brought to mind another detail.

‘Melandios,’ he said, ‘get back to your habclave and check on Lyda. Regardless of whether this is Zenyth or not, whoever ordered this attack might be coming for her. Kidnapping or killing the girl might be part of their plan, either to lay claim or lay waste to the end of the Jenii bloodline.’ The adept nodded and hurried away.

‘What now?’ Nemecarthi said, rising to her feet. She was older than Carlowe, but the adrenaline seemed to have invigorated her more than her comrades. She looked ready to take to the streets with nothing but a springknife if necessary.

‘The most important thing right now is secrecy,’ said Carlowe. ‘If word gets out about this, we’re looking at a full-scale rebellion – marks deciding we’re too weak and they don’t have to pay their protection any more, wide-eyed enforcers with a hero complex who see an opportunity to end a syndicate while they’re off-balance, some cabal from a neighbouring district taking their chance to expand their territory just a little. We’re not having any of that.’ He nodded to Nemecarthi. ‘Nem, you’re the closest to Zenyth. Get a message to her and tell her I’m coming to talk out syndicate details now that the dust has settled. We’ll even meet at her place if that makes her more comfortable.’ He waved one finger in a circle. ‘The rest of you see to your own affairs. Raise some gun-thugs if you can. We’ll meet up at the Locus Auroc before we set out. Go hide in your boltholes if you can’t get any troops together.’ He shook his head. ‘Someone’s been dealing under the table, so I think it’s about time to flip the whole damn board over.’

The wreckyard was festooned with garbage: scrap metal in every shape and combination, from every conceivable machine, vehicle or appliance, each gutted for anything worth salvaging and now fit only for waste-scrap. Carlowe’s freight crawler ignored the rough terrain, the pneumatic suspension and solid tyres immune to punctures or imbalance from the uneven carpet of rusted detritus. He would have preferred the smooth lines and whisper-quiet engine of his groundcar, but the freight crawler was built like a tank, and for the time being he was willing to trade comfort for security.

‘I’ll never understand why people like her always choose the most… dramatic locations.’ Berrilard Soven checked the clip of his ’33 for the sixth or seventh time. He’d done nothing but complain the entire drive, and Carlowe was a little surprised the conciliator had come. He supposed the captain was eager for an opportunity to earn himself some street cred, and trading fire was a lot more attractive when you had a squad of mercenaries at your back. Which was, of course, the other reason they’d taken a freight crawler. He hadn’t wanted to bring more than a single vehicle, for fear of putting the gangers on edge. The crawler had been able to fit fifteen gun-thugs, crammed shoulder to shoulder in the cargo space, sitting on the wall-benches and the floor in packed rows. Dorgreve and Berrilard were both in the cab with Carlowe.

‘It’s a good spot,’ he said, pointing at the walls of junk. At some point, effort had been made by the scrapworkers to put like with like, and there were long piles with structural similarity: ramparts of crushed groundcars, bulwarks of corroded lav-piping and mounds of worn tyres. ‘There’s only one main road in or out, and the gangers are the only ones familiar enough with the layout to get through this maze on foot.’

‘And how do we know there aren’t a hundred or more of the street-scum waiting for us?’ Berrilard sneered out of the window, tapping his pistol against his seat.

‘We don’t,’ said Carlowe. ‘But even though she’s scary enough to keep all the gangs in line, it’s likely she can only trust a handful of them enough to bring them in on a plan like this. Anyone she’s told would need to be someone Zenyth knows won’t sell her out to make their come-up.’

They came around the last turn, exposing the clearing at the heart of the wreckyard. A single warehouse dominated the area, with six gangers spread out in front of it. The industrial machines for rendering down the scrap stood with blades and jaws gleaming, as easily able to render flesh and bone as steel and glass. Carlowe imagined the brutality of the wreckyard was what drew Zenyth to it. The heap was a towering monument to ruin. He had no doubt that inviting wealthy contacts to meet among the tattered pieces, where every wall, mound or pillar was a reminder that even the mightiest constructions could be dismantled to rubble, did a great deal to remind said contacts to keep a civil tongue in their head.

Zenyth was already there, waiting with arms crossed, leaning against a wrecker truck. She stood in sharp contrast to Carlowe. His manner of dress was meant to blend in, while hers was to intimidate. Like her gang members, she wore a pair of briar-sweeper chaps, and the matching jacket was covered in garish patches boasting of her prowess with blade and pistol. Together with cap-toed boots, it was the typical garb of the legions of street-brushers who worked by day cleaning the fangbriars from the canals, alleys and side streets of Decima Loci. In fact, many of her street toughs were brushers by day, or at least pretended to be, since such an occupation gave them the excuse to carry the yard-long briar-axe that served as the primary instrument of both trades.

In holo-novels, street captains like Zenyth were always femme fatales or pretty boys, graceful and picturesque, with a few cosmetic touches to signal their supposed violent nature. In reality, street captains were never beautiful, but in their world beauty had little to do with ability. Scars covered Zenyth’s knuckles, her neck, her arms. Winding tattoos threaded through them, advertising her various allegiances, victories and deceased enemies. The oldest, faded and monochrome, could barely be read. The newest were paragons of the inksmiths’ trade, a tangible display of her wealth and status. Her appearance was a testament to her achievements, to a life spent fighting and clawing her way up through the street gangs to sit at the captains’ table of the Jenii syndicate, commanding every street gang and lowlife in a district of millions.

The freight crawler came to a stop, and Berrilard grinned at Carlowe.

‘She didn’t even bring as many people as we did,’ the conciliator scoffed.

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Carlowe said. He nodded to the gangers creeping out from behind the junk piles to encircle the vehicle.

As frightening as Zenyth was, she didn’t concern him half as much as the two dozen gangers that now surrounded them. Gathered in fours and fives, the street crews that worked for Zenyth had only half her ferocity, but compensated by having none of her sophistication. Amid the throng of tattoos, piercings and dyed hair crests, Carlowe could make out an array of bared weapons. Most of the gangers carried a pistol or stubber. One of them had a tattoo of a winding, thorny fangbriar sprawling across the right half of his chest, neck and stomach, and cradled a Mons Gutterhog shotgun.

‘No point in being subtle,’ Carlowe said. He nodded to the gun-thugs in the back. ‘Everybody out.’

The suspicious gangers stepped back and clutched their weapons with readied hands as the hired guns exited the freight crawler. Carlowe and Berrilard both kept their own hands raised, Carlowe with a wide smile on his face. Trauger got out of the back last, his massive multi-barrelled Mons ‘Fatemaker’ held easily, the ammo belt dangling at his side. The other killers moved with disciplined ease, eyeing the gangers around them with contempt, cradling blackened M-36-pattern lasguns like trained soldiers.

‘Throne, Detty,’ Zenyth scoffed. ‘That’s a lot of muscle for a sit-down.’ She stepped away from the vehicle she was leaning against, approaching cautiously. She waved to a skinny ganger with a pink flat-top and the girl looked into the back of the van, then jerked her head in a curt nod, satisfied there were no surprises.

‘Well, Ms Calabash.’ Carlowe grinned, and with exaggerated caution drew a cigar from his jacket and lit it. ‘If I’d known you were hosting a party, I’d have brought some more guests.’

Zenyth chuckled. ‘I figured this was enough dance partners for one afternoon.’ She jerked a thumb at the ganger with the Gutterhog. ‘I think you know Urvik, my second.’

Carlowe nodded. ‘By reputation, at any rate.’ The savage ganger grinned, exposing a mouthful of bronze veneers through his shaggy red beard. If Carlowe’s contacts were right, Urvik was wanted by the enforcers on a Special Circumstances warrant. Very rare, Special Circumstances warrants were kill-on-sight orders only issued from sealed courtrooms on charges of illegal genetic modification, attempted bio-genocide, or class-two cannibalism.

‘What brings you down here, Detty? Come to inspect the goods we got off the Austerlen heist? They shoot real smooth, especially these amputator rounds, but I think they might be too hot for the local market.’ She laughed. ‘Might just have to unload them wherever’s convenient, if you read me.’ Several of her gangers laughed as well, brandishing stolen weapons. His own hit-jacks readied their lasguns, but Carlowe held up a hand to restrain them.

‘No,’ Carlowe said. He flicked the ash from his cigar. ‘That’s more Kalith’s area of expertise.’

‘Maybe we oughta get her eyes down here too,’ Zenyth said. ‘Round up all the captains, in fact. Bring you all to the wreckyard to show you what’s what.’

The gangers laughed. Several of them called out threats or encouragement in gang patois. Carlowe let them continue for a moment.

‘That’d be tough,’ Carlowe said. ‘What with her eyes, as well as most of her brains, spread over the wall of The Vladar’s Scrit.’

Zenyth’s eyes narrowed and a slow smile crossed her face. Carlowe knew that expression could mean a lot of things. Not enough to draw any conclusions.

‘Damn, old man. That’s cold. What’d she do?’ The other gangers guffawed at Zenyth’s cavalier attitude.

‘I was wondering the same thing,’ Carlowe said. He tapped more ash from his cigar. ‘I thought you two were friendly. Can’t imagine why you’d want to send those juves to give her a demonstration of that new merchandise of yours.’

Zenyth’s face creased, just for a moment, but it was what Carlowe had been looking for. Confusion.

‘Hells with you, old man!’ The pink-haired ganger screamed from the back. Several gangers yelled along with her. ‘You think you can come in here and shovel that shit after what you did?’

‘What kind of a game are you playing, Detty?’ Zenyth’s voice dropped low, the ganger slang suddenly gone. ‘You can’t send hit-jacks after me and then try to pretend it’s in self-defence.’

‘What the hells is she talking about?’ Berrilard’s voice from behind him was angry, but Carlowe didn’t shift his gaze from Zenyth’s face. If he looked away it could all go south, he knew. Carlowe needed Zenyth onside if he was to have any hope of a reasonable resolution.

‘A gang of brush-jacks, flying your colours, busts into our lounge and shoots everything up? One of my captains catches a bullet, and you weren’t involved?’ Carlowe frowned and shrugged. ‘What else am I supposed to think?’

Zenyth scowled. ‘If I was you, I’d be thinking, “This don’t sound like my old buddy, Zenyth. If she was gonna kill me she’d have sent a haulerful of maniacs with autoguns, and hit me and mine when we stepped outside,” which would be the smart thing to think.’

Carlowe didn’t have any reason to doubt her. She’d killed people that way before. He could see it in her eyes, though, that she was using the same line of thinking, and doubting her own conclusions.

‘No,’ he said, ‘doesn’t sound like you at all. I know you pretty well. And you know me, too. The hit-jacks tried for you this morning? Did that feel like something I’d pull?’

‘They damn sure looked like your boys,’ Urvik snarled. He jerked his chin at Carlowe’s backup. His hands wrung the grips of his shotgun, and the gangers at his back shifted their stances, eager to attack. Carlowe didn’t know the details behind Urvik’s kill order, but he was beginning to get the impression the ganger wasn’t a back-alley geneticist.

Zenyth held up a hand for silence.

‘I think if you wanted me dead, for real,’ Zenyth said, slowly, ‘you wouldn’t have sent a handful of morons with shotguns. You’d have put down a mountain of slates to hire a real fregging professional, and I’d have never even heard the shot.’

The two of them stared at one another for a moment. Carlowe weighed her sincerity, the years they’d worked together, against what was at stake: control of an entire district, millions of slates in black-market trade, an entire underworld empire. He could feel her doing the same.

Zenyth put one hand out and lowered Urvik’s shotgun. Confusion crossed the faces of her gangers, but they began lowering their own weapons as well. Carlowe gestured behind him for his gun-thugs to relax.

‘That begs the question,’ he said. ‘Who has the most to gain if we waste our time trying to kill each other?’

‘Do you ever shut the fuck up?!’

It wasn’t one of the gangers screaming obscenities at him. Carlowe spun around to see Berrilard with one hand balled into a fist, his face flushed a wrathful crimson.

‘Why,’ yelled Berrilard, ‘do you always have to be so Throne-damned reasonable?!’ Without waiting for an answer, he opened fire, shooting Trauger in the back of the head. The big man sagged to the ground, blood pumping furiously from the ruined mess of his skull. Berrilard levelled his pistol at Carlowe, but Carlowe was already throwing himself to the ground. Gunfire erupted around them as the meeting exploded into chaos. Bullets tore into the scrap beneath his feet, and Carlowe scrambled on hands and knees for something to hide behind.

‘It’s a double-cross!’ Urvik yelled, in case anyone had missed the subtle clues. His shotgun boomed out once, but when Carlowe risked a glance back, he saw the Gutterhog tumbling to the ground. Urvik was bent backwards, the pink-haired ganger’s arm around his neck, a springknife buried in his eye socket.

Everyone was falling back, looking for somewhere to take up a shooting position and trying to suss out friend from foe. Carlowe saw several hit-jacks and gangers already bleeding out on the ground, as many felled by their own supposed allies as by their enemies. He swore as a huge arm snaked under his chest, but in the next moment Zenyth was lifting him to his feet, pulling him along as she ran towards a low wall of derelict cryo-units, her briar-axe held loosely in her other hand, Urvik’s Gutterhog slung over her shoulder.

Carlowe beat her to the mound of scrap and hurled himself over it. He tried to slide over the top of one of the units, but his trousers snagged on a protruding bolt and spun him to the side, turning his slide into an ungainly fall. He looked up to see two foot-soldiers, a ganger in a red novaplas jacket and one of Berrilard’s gun-thugs, staring at him. The ganger recovered first, and raised her autopistol.

Zenyth slammed into her, sending the woman sprawling to the ground. The gun-thug turned on her, but before he could fire Zenyth shoved him against the wall of cryo-units. He bounced back, just in time to meet Zenyth’s briar-axe as it whirled around in a gleaming arc. The hit-jack stared at the stump of his arm where the axe had severed it cleanly. He kept staring for the half a second it took Zenyth to swing again and bury the axe in his chest.

Carlowe got his own laspistol free from his shoulder holster while the ganger on the ground was still scrambling for the weapon she’d dropped. He shot her in the back, then put another one in her head for good measure. A flurry of bullets and las-bolts whizzed past their heads, and he and Zenyth both dropped down behind the cryo-units.

‘Did you know it was him that was setting you up?’ Zenyth asked. ‘Or did you not even suspect him? Before you came, I mean?’

Carlowe ducked low, staining his scrip trousers with rusty water, to peer through a small gap in the cryo-units.

‘Berrilard?’ he scoffed. ‘That rotted arsehole? No, no clue. I didn’t think he had the spine for something like this.’ Beyond their makeshift barricade, the wreckyard was a killing field. He could see several pockets of fighters blazing away at one another, but it looked like over half the people on either side were already dead. Dorgreve was lying against the chassis of an old mining drill, a briar-axe lodged in his neck. Carlowe didn’t even know which side he’d been on. ‘How about that pink-haired traitor? You see her coming?’

‘You mean Spines?’ Zenyth knelt, patting down the body of the traitorous gun-thug. ‘Even if I’d suspected a traitor in our midst, I wouldn’t have thought of her. She don’t have the brains the Emperor gave a half-smoked lho-stick.’ She put her eye to a gap in their cover, but shook her head, apparently unsatisfied with her view. ‘You see anything?’

‘Yeah.’ Carlowe nodded. ‘Looks like Berrilard and the shit-heels with him are grouped up behind a pair of burnt-out groundcars. Looks like about a dozen of them split between my traitors and yours.’

‘Well, that’s useful.’ Zenyth held up a grenade the hit-jack had been concealing. ‘Any of our people still up?’

‘Not many,’ Carlowe said. He could feel the wastewater seeping into his suit. ‘Polorius Shaythe, he’s one of mine, and Althia, too. They’re holed up behind a mound of tyres, trading fire with Berrilard and his goons. They’ve got one of your gangers with them. Some girl with bullets braided into her hair. There’s another cluster of gangers, looks like they followed some hotshot with an augmetic hand, but I don’t think they’ve figured out what’s going on yet.’ He shook his head. ‘Everyone else is either down, or hiding.’

‘The girl is Oksana, from one of the downclave crews. Augmetic-hand is Little No-No. Not my best and brightest.’ She paused. ‘Hear that? There’s clarions in the distance.’ Carlowe put his head up and listened. He could hear them too. The ranks wouldn’t hurry, but they couldn’t ignore something like this forever.

‘If we don’t deal with this here,’ Carlowe said, ‘the whole district spirals into anarchy. We can’t run.’

Zenyth’s grin was a feral baring of teeth. ‘I spent seventeen years climbing to the top of the pile, Detty. I ain’t running back down now. Not from Berrilard, and not from Spines.’ She nodded at his viewing hole. ‘Can you get a pistol through that?’ Carlowe nodded. ‘Then play along.’

Zenyth cupped her hands around her mouth and waited for a lull. ‘Soven! Berrilard Soven! I got a deal for you!’

The pattering of gunshots slowed, then stopped.

‘What’s that?’

Carlowe peered out of the hole, wedging his laspistol in through the bottom. He could see the groundcars the traitors were sheltering behind, but the bastards weren’t taking any chances and had dropped behind the cars entirely.

‘I got Detty laid out back here. What say I put a load of grox-shot in his gut and then saunter on out of here?’ Zenyth checked her shotgun, racking a pair of additional shells from her pocket. Carlowe gave her a withering look, but she just shrugged.

‘Why the freg would I agree to that?’

‘Damn, Berrilard.’ Zenyth pumped a round into the shotgun. ‘I got a good thing going here. You think I give a shit whose hand I put the slates in?’

Berrilard stood. ‘Look, Zenyth, I’d love to take you up on that but how would–’

The moment he was in view, Carlowe pulled the trigger. The las-bolt took the bastard directly in the mouth. The shocked silence that followed was so profound Carlowe could almost swear he heard Berrilard’s teeth rattling off the hood of the groundcar.

‘Well, there goes the idea of talking our way out.’ Zenyth knelt down next to Carlowe as the gunfire began again in earnest, now focused on their wall of rubbish.

‘It looks like Little No-No’s figured out whose side he’s on, at least.’ Carlowe ducked his head back from his firing slit. ‘So it’s only, what? Eight against twelve?’

‘I’ve had worse odds.’ Zenyth shrugged and bounced the grenade in her hand. ‘You ready?’

Carlowe checked the cell on his laspistol and nodded. Zenyth tapped the primer on the grenade and threw it towards the traitors.

They were up before the shrapnel had finished rattling off the cryo-units. Carlowe felt a burning piece of metal slash across his knuckles as he vaulted over the barrier. The first ganger to rise up over the cars caught it twice over: a las-bolt from Carlowe’s pistol ventilating their chest and a shotgun blast ripping off the top of their head.

Then it was a tactical charge. He and Zenyth fell into their roles as though they’d planned it for weeks. She raked the firing position with wild, indiscriminate blasts, keeping the traitors’ heads down as he closed. His shots were surgical, picking off any hands, heads or weapons that dared poke above the vehicles.

The shotgun ran dry as they reached the barrier. Zenyth didn’t slow. She lowered her shoulder like a dozer blade and slammed into the side of the closest groundcar at full speed. The vehicle had been gutted, most of its engine removed for scrap, but the frame was still a massive piece of resilient engineering, meant to survive high-impact collisions and weather gunfire. Zenyth lifted the groundcar like it was no heavier than a sack of grain. With a heave, she hefted it to shoulder height, then threw her weight forward, rolling the groundcar onto the turncoats that had moments before been using it for shelter.

The soldiers still loyal to their captains had rushed in too. Carlowe saw Little No-No blasting away with his stubber, only to be stitched up the torso with a ragged line of autopistol fire steps away from him. Althia leapt on a fleeing ganger, bearing him to the ground and stabbing him over and over again with a combat knife.

A hit-jack rolled free of the carnage and tried to swing her lasgun around at Carlowe. He shot her, blowing a hole through her shoulder, but when he went to deliver the kill-shot, the laspistol beeped a dry-cell alarm instead. He screamed in rage and slammed the ball-handle into her face. He grabbed at her lasgun, but it was bound over her shoulders with a carry-strap that he couldn’t untangle. He felt another figure moving towards him, and grabbed a knife from the gun-thug’s boot just before he was bowled over.

Spines stood over Carlowe, blood running down her face. She had a piece of steel frame-bar in her hands, raised for the finishing blow. He tried to lurch to his feet, to stick her with the knife, but he knew it was far too late. The bar swung down, and he braced himself, only for the lethal swing to miss his face by inches. Spines gave an awkward squawk. Carlowe’s vision panned back and refocused, registering the ganger being pulled away from him.

Zenyth held the traitorous ganger aloft. One meaty hand clamped the girl’s jaw closed, the other gripped her head from behind. Spines swung the frame-bar wildly, but there was no way to bring it fully around behind her, and her grunts of exertion rapidly transitioned up the scale to the squeals of a trapped animal as Zenyth’s arms bulged. With a horrid, thready crunch the girl’s skull finally gave in, and her body went limp.

They were done. There was no one still fighting. Carlowe could see Trishina trying to force her way to her feet, seemingly unaware of the fist-sized gunshot wound that had severed her spine. A ganger he didn’t recognise was limping towards the border of the wreckyard, a pair of springknives buried in his back. He made it another three steps before he fell. Only Carlowe and Zenyth were still standing. Carlowe couldn’t tell which of the moaning wounded and dying were his loyal soldiers, and which had sided with Berrilard.

The clarions were louder now, and Carlowe could see the lights of the enforcers’ Bulwarks thundering into the wreckyard. Distorted voices on laud hailers ordered them to surrender. He sighed, and raised his hands over his head. The combat knife tumbled from his fingers. He thought about running, about snatching up a pistol and trying to intimidate whoever was in charge, but he knew it was fruitless. They’d run out of time. Next to him, Zenyth lowered herself to her knees, her fingers laced together atop her head.

‘It was a good run,’ she said.

‘Wish it could have lasted a bit longer, though,’ Carlowe said.

The sanctioners poured out of their Bulwarks. They screamed orders. They prodded the dead and wounded, determining who could listen and who couldn’t. There was a gun in every face, mag-shackles on every wrist. Rough hands patted Carlowe down, tearing through his pockets for additional weapons before throwing him to the scrap. He offered no resistance, and neither did Zenyth. They were veterans of the underworld; they’d each seen it before, and knew there was nothing to be gained from spitting in their oppressors’ eyes.

Only after they were restrained and searched did the groundcar pull in. It was void black, a mint-condition Sullaina. The solid tyres and grav-suspension rolled smoothly over the rough terrain, keeping the body of the groundcar from even the smallest of shifts.

‘So it’s a coup,’ Carlowe said.

‘Had to happen sooner or later.’ Zenyth rolled her head to look at him. ‘Who you bet it is?’

Carlowe chuckled. ‘Couldn’t begin to guess. Too fancy for the Bloodbrands. Maybe the Neomine Cartel?’

‘Shut it,’ yelled one of the sanctioners. He drove the butt of a shotgun into Carlowe’s side to emphasise his point. Carlowe made a note of the star-shaped scar on the man’s chin. If he made it out of this, the two of them would settle up. Someday.

One of the sanctioners, a sergeant’s chevrons on her shoulderpad, went over to open the door to the groundcar. The passengers stepped out and began walking towards the prisoners. It wasn’t until the probator stepped away that Carlowe got a good look at them.

‘Fregging hells,’ Zenyth whispered. Carlowe had to agree. There were a dozen competitors or hungry-eyed would-be overlords he’d thought might step out of the groundcar, but he’d never thought Melandios would have been one of them. His oldest friend. Aximonde’s oldest friend.

Even more shocking still was the dainty, white-clad figure of Lyda Jenii.

At a signal from the sergeant, the sanctioners lifted Carlowe and Zenyth to their feet.

‘What about the rest of them?’ The sergeant gestured to Polorius and half a dozen other survivors, manacled and lying on the ground. Melandios smiled and looked to Lyda.

The girl was the very picture of her mother. She walked slowly, gracefully, avoiding the puddles of industrial ooze without breaking pace. Her white dress seemed almost angelic in the squalor of the wreckyard. Her wide-brimmed white hat shielded her face from the sunlight, but from below, Carlowe could see the severe expression that reminded him of Aximonde when the old man had been at his most ruthless.

‘No witnesses.’ Lyda turned her gaze back to the kneeling captains, the sergeant forgotten as the woman hastened to comply. The gunshots rang out behind Carlowe’s back, and by the time the bodies of the manacled survivors had ceased their death throes the enforcers were already packing into their vehicles.

Lyda stepped forward, ignoring the enforcers. Melandios moved with her, staying a step behind the young lady.

‘You two seem to find yourselves in a rather precarious situation.’ Lyda’s tone was humorous, but she didn’t smile.

‘We do at that,’ said Zenyth. ‘It’s been an eventful day, to be honest with you.’

‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost say that someone was working against us,’ Carlowe added. He shot Zenyth a look, in case the ganger hadn’t picked up on all that had happened, but she just nodded to him.

‘It looks like Berrilard was working against you,’ said Melandios. ‘And vice versa.’

‘Really,’ said Lyda, with a shake of her head, ‘a shoot-out in a junkyard? If I hadn’t had the foresight to pay for my own people in the district Bastion, I might not have even heard about this.’

Well, of course she had, Carlowe thought. How else would she know when her little trap had been sprung? It made sense, in a warped sort of way.

‘I just wish we’d known you were intent on taking the reins earlier,’ Zenyth said. ‘Then this whole situation might have been avoided.’ There was a simmering anger there. Her murderous gaze was mostly aimed at Melandios, but Carlowe knew he needed to get her onside, and quickly.

‘Oh no, Zenyth. You need to understand her position.’ Carlowe grinned. ‘Ms Jenii might have known the ins and outs of the business. Heck, I’m sure Melandios could have filled her in on anything she was unclear about, at any rate. There wasn’t any need to let us know at first.’ He turned back and winked at his old friend. ‘The only thing Ms Jenii couldn’t know was how her captains were going to react. That about right?’

Lyda nodded. ‘Correct, Mr Carlowe. There was no telling which of you were dedicated to preserving my family’s legacy intact, and which of you were merely looking for an opportunity for a quick power-grab. So the prudent course of action seemed to be to stay patient and see who tried to seize power, and what they tried to do with it.’

‘Fortunately for us, we played it straight.’ Carlowe jangled his restraint in a gesture towards Zenyth. ‘We tried to keep the syndicate intact. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that’s why Ms Jenii finally stepped out of the shadows – to deliver our sorry heads from a firing squad.’

‘It’s a good thing Berrilard moved when he did,’ said Zenyth, slowly. The anger was fading from her eyes. Carlowe was glad. Zenyth was smart – she’d always been able to recognise a more dangerous predator. ‘If he’d waited, we might have gone years without knowing. No telling what kind of damage he’d have done to your family’s legacy in the meantime.’

‘Almost like someone coordinated his betrayal with the young lady with the pink hair,’ said Melandios. He smiled. ‘If that is the case, it would appear Ms Spines and Mr Berrilard Soven’s benefactor has abandoned them.’

Lyda cleared her throat pointedly, in case either of them had failed to guess who that benefactor might have been. The four of them stared at one another for a moment. Carlowe sighed. He was tired of verbal toe-dancing. His knees hurt, he was bruised all over, and he was exhausted.

‘Where do we go from here, Lady Jenii?’

Lyda glanced at Melandios, who nodded.

‘Melandios will assume leadership of the syndicate in public. Zenyth will be my lieutenant, and you will continue in your role as consiliarus.’ She waved one hand airily, as if discussing the floral arrangements for a social engagement. ‘In a decade or so Melandios will no doubt wish to retire, allowing us to make a smooth transition back to open Jenii leadership. Does that seem reasonable to you?’

She didn’t wait for them to agree. She didn’t have to. There was no doubt as to their loyalty; that had been the entire point of the exercise. Melandios waved, and the probator returned. She hauled Zenyth and Carlowe to their feet, and unshackled their wrists.

‘Thank you for the timely intervention, Ms Jenii.’ Carlowe bowed to the young lady. Zenyth echoed his sentiments.

Lyda Jenii turned and began gliding back towards the groundcar. She snapped her fingers and gestured to the enforcer as she left.

‘Sergeant, make sure that a detail is sent to drive Ms Calabash and Mr Carlowe to their domiciles,’ she said. She glanced back at her captains, a smile visible beneath the brim of her hat for the first time. ‘They are, after all, such good friends of the family.’

About the Authors

Robert Rath is a freelance writer from Honolulu who is currently based in Hong Kong. He is the author of the Black Library novel The Infinite and the Divine, and its companion short story ‘War in the Museum’. His other short stories include ‘The Freelancer’, ‘The Garden of Mortal Delights’ and the Assassinorum tales ‘Divine Sanction’, ‘Live Wire’ and ‘Iron Sight’.

Gary Kloster is a writer, a stay-at-home father, a librarian and a martial artist – sometimes all in the same day, seldom all at the same time. He lives among the corn in the American Midwest and his short fiction can be found in Analog, Apex, Clarkesworld and others. For Black Library, he was written the Necromunda novella Spark of Revolution, and a number of short stories.

Chris Wraight is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Scars and The Path of Heaven, the Primarchs novels Leman Russ: The Great Wolf and Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris, the novellas Brotherhood of the Storm, Wolf King and Valdor: Birth of the Imperium, and the audio drama The Sigillite. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written The Lords of Silence, Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne, Vaults of Terra: The Hollow Mountain, Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor’s Legion, Watchers of the Throne: The Regent’s Shadow and many more. Additionally, he has many Warhammer novels to his name, and has recently written the Warhammer Crime novel Bloodlines. Chris lives and works in Bradford-on-Avon, in south-west England.

Jonathan D Beer is a science fiction and alternative history writer. Equally obsessed with the 19th century and the 41st millennium, he lives with his wife and assorted cats in the untamed wilderness of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Gareth Hanrahan’s three-month break from computer programming to concentrate on writing has now lasted fifteen years and counting. He lives in Ireland and has written more gaming books than he can readily recall by virtue of the alchemical transmutation of guilt and tea into words. For Black Library he has written the short stories ‘Castle of the Exile, ‘The View from Olympus’ and ‘Rites of Binding’.

Noah Van Nguyen is a writer of speculative fiction who lives and works in Vietnam. After a stint in the military, he tried his hand at translating, copywriting and teaching English. He intends to keep writing fiction as long as the coffee keeps flowing, which his wife has promised is never-ending. This has so far turned out to be true and the matter is now pending Inquisitorial investigation. His work for Black Library includes the short stories ‘Vova’s Climb’ and ‘No Third Chance’.

J C Stearns is a writer who lives in a swamp in Illinois with his wife and son, as well as more animals than is reasonable. He started writing for Black Library in 2016 and is the author of the Warhammer Horror novel The Oubliette. He has also written the short stories ‘Turn of the Adder’ and ‘Blackout’ which have featured in various volumes of the anthology Inferno!, and ‘The Marauder Lives’ in the Horror anthology Maledictions. He plays Salamanders, Dark Eldar, Sylvaneth, and as soon as he figures out how to paint lightning bolts, Night Lords.

An extract from Bloodlines.

Down, down below, down under the flyovers and the transit arches, down to where the lumens floated on wheezing suspensors and the windows were steamed with condensation. People packed in on all sides, some high on topaz, some exhausted, all smelling of euphoria.

She breathed it in. She let her fingers graze along the rockcrete of the close wall, feeling its coldness against the wet heat of the night. She looked up, and saw the smear-glow of private club entrances, vivid in neon. She heard the rumble of turbine traffic overhead, and the hiss of groundcars on damp asphalt.

She’d taken it. Topaz. It was as good as she’d hoped – she was giddy, enjoying the freedom. Every face she looked at was one of a friend, smiling back at her, rouged, whitened, darkened, flared with photoreactive pigments, glittering with augmetic baubles. Music thumped away, spilling from the open doorways of the sanctioned haze dens, threatening to drag her in, smother her in the heat and the noise.

She could have walked along that street forever, just drinking it in. She liked the smells, overlapping one another, competing like jostling suitors for her attention. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her overcoat, pushed her shoulders back, slipped through the crowds.

She didn’t know what time it was. The deep of the night, for sure, a few hours before dawn. It didn’t matter. Not any more. That was the point of freedom – make your decisions, stupid ones, good ones, get out, do your own thing.

A man lurched into her way, grinning and drunk. He shoved up against her, and she smelled his breath.

‘Hello, young fish,’ he slurred at her, swaying. ‘Come to swim with me?’

He had plastek-looking hair, too clean, too sculpted. She kept on going, sliding past him, out into the middle of the street. The press of people swept him away, giving her more faces to gawp at. Fireworks went off in the sky, dazzling, smelling of chems, picking out high arches overhead engraved with skull-clusters and fleur-de-lys finials. Commercia chameleon-screens flashed and whirled, spinning pixelated images one after the other – a woman smiling, a man gazing at an altar, a Navy drop-ship wheeling across a starfield, troops in uniform marching under a crimson sky on another world.

For the first time, she felt a spike of danger. She had walked a long way, away from the friends she had come with. She had almost forgotten about them entirely, and had very little idea where she was.

She looked back and saw the plastek-hair man following her. He was with others, and they had latched on to her.

Damn.

She picked up the pace, skipping on her heels, darting to the street’s edge, to where the grand avenue, scarred with twin steel ground-tracks, met another one, cobbled and glinting, that ran steeply downwards.

If she hadn’t taken topaz, she’d have stayed, by instinct, with the crowds, where the press of bodies provided its mute kind of safety. But it got darker quickly, and the lumens faded to red, and the old cobblestones underfoot got slippery. The beat of the music felt harder – dull, like the military dirges they transmitted every evening over the communal prop-sets.

Down, down, down.

She felt a bit sick. She shot a glance back and saw that they were still coming, only jogging now, four of them, all drunk on jeneza or rezi or slatov. They all had those sharp, fake haircuts, smart dress, clean boots. Defence-corps trainees, maybe – officer-class, full of entitlement, untouchable. She’d come across the type so many times before. Hadn’t expected to find them down here – perhaps they liked to slum it from time to time as well, to skirt against the grime for fun, see whether it stuck to their uniforms.

Just as she began to worry, someone grabbed her by the arm. She pulled back, only to see a girl smiling at her, a girl her age, pale emerald skin, orange hair, a metal serpent-head stud in her cheek.

‘Come on,’ the girl said, her irises glittering. ‘I saw them too.’

She followed her. She went down a narrow passageway between two big hab-blocks built of dark, crumbling prefab slabs. It soon smelled of urine and old sweat, of drains and discarded carb-bars. As she wound further down the alley, the noise of the men’s footfalls, their laughter, faded. Perhaps they’d gone straight on past. Perhaps they’d never really been that close.

It got hotter. She felt the boom of the music well up from under her, around her, as if the walls themselves were vox-emitters. She needed a drink. For some reason she was very thirsty.

The girl brought her to a door – a heavyset door in a blockwork wall, one with a slide panel in the centre. She activated a summon-chime, and the slide opened, throwing out greenish light from within.

‘Elev in?’ the girl asked.

‘He is,’ came a man’s voice.

The door clunked open. Warm air billowed out, and music came after it, heavy, thumping music. She felt it move through her body, make her want to get going, to get back to that place she’d managed to reach a while back, where everything was forgotten save for the movement, the heat, the heartbeat of escape.

The girl pushed her inside. They were at the head of a long flight of plastek-topped stairs. The walls were bare cinder blocks, the floor sticky with spilled drinks. It was hard to hear anything at all over the music, which seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

‘Down,’ said the girl, smiling at her again, encouragingly.

They went together. Soon they were in a bigger chamber, one full of bodies moving, throwing shadows against lumen-scatter walls. What had this place once been? An assembly chamber? A chapel, even? Not now. The light was lurid, vivid, pulsing in time to the heavy smack of the music. She smelled sweat fighting with commercial fragrances. She smelled the acrid tang of rezi. There was a high stage with murals half-hidden in a haze of coloured smoke, men and women dancing on platforms surrounded by kaleidoscopic lumen flares. The floor was jammed, crushed with damp bodies in motion. It was hard to breathe.

‘Just keep moving,’ said the girl, taking her by the hand.

They somehow threaded through the crowds. A drink was passed to her and she took it. That made her feel better. She started to look for the source of the music. Faces swelled up out of the dark, flustered and glowing, all grinning at her. They were nice, those faces, and interesting, with their slim metal exo-frames and their holo-halos that waved and flashed like prisms. Where had they all come from? Did they work in the manufactories she had heard about, during the drab day? Or were they all the sons and daughters of the gilded, writhing down here until they collapsed into narc-induced sleep? They were like exotic beasts, feathered, horned, wrapped in silks and sequins, coming in and out of the flickering shadows, fragments of strange bedtime stories, moving in unison under old gothic arches.

She danced for a while. The girl seemed to have gone, but that was fine. She thought back to the past, to the rules that had kept her in her chamber every hour, all the hours, at her studies, learning the catechisms and the rotes, and wanted to scream out loud for the joy of being free of it. Her limbs moved, clumsily, because she had never been able to do this before, but she learned fast, and the topaz made it easier.

They pressed around her, the others – reaching out for her hair, her arms. She lost track of time. More drinks appeared, and she took them again.

And then, much later, the girl came back. She led her from the chamber of lights and heat, and down some more narrow, slippery stairs. That was a relief, for she was getting tired. It would be good to rest, just for a moment. Away from the music, it was cooler, and she felt the sweat patches on her shirt stick to her skin.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, and was surprised to hear how the words slurred.

‘Time out,’ said the girl. ‘I think you need it.’

It was hard to follow where they went. Some stairs went down, some went up. At one point she thought they’d gone outside, and then in again, but she was getting very tired and her head had started to hurt.

‘Do you have any water?’ she asked.

‘That’s where we’re going,’ came the reply. ‘To get some.’

And then they were through another heavy door. She had the impression of more people around her, though it was very dark, and increasingly cold. They went down yet more stairs, a well so tight that it scraped against her bare arms, even though she wanted to stop now, just sit on the floor, clear her head.

Eventually they ended up in a narrow, empty room with bright overhead lumens that hurt her eyes. She really wanted a drink.

A man was there, one with sallow skin, a tight black bodysuit and collarless shirt, a knotwork tattoo just visible at the base of his neck.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked, pleasantly enough.

‘Ianne,’ she replied.

‘Ianne. That’s unusual. I like it. Are you having a good time?’

‘I could use a drink.’

‘Fine. Come with me, then. We’ll get you something.’

By then, the girl seemed to have gone. She felt hands on her arms, and she was heading down again. The lumens were turned down low, and she struggled to make anything out.

She had the vague sense of being surrounded by people again. She heard a noise like breathing, in and out. She shook her head to clear it, and saw metal shelves, many of them, all with glass canisters on them. She saw tubes, and she saw machines that had bellows and ampoules and loops of cabling. She saw the padded couches, in rows, running back into the dark, and it looked like people were sitting on them.

She felt a lurch of worry. There was no music. It was quiet, and cold, and she didn’t know the way back out.

‘Where am I?’ she asked.

They found a chair for her. It was a recliner, but it was hard and uncomfortable. She thought she should struggle then, but it became hard to think about anything clearly. She felt something wrap around her wrists.

‘Where am I?’ she asked again, more urgently, suddenly thinking of all those catechisms, and the rules, and home, and its certainties.

A face loomed up out of the shadows. She didn’t recognise this one. It was a hard face, with hollow cheeks, and the smile it gave her made her feel suddenly panicky.

‘You’re Ianne? Just relax. You’re in the right place.’

She tried to kick out, but something had tied her ankles down. She looked up, and saw a collection of needles hanging over her, glinting in the cold light. Fear welled up fast, as if she would drown in it.

‘Get me out.’

‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ said the man soothingly, reaching up for one of the needles. It was connected to a slender tube, which looped down from a bag of clear fluid. ‘It’ll all be fine.’

‘I want to get out!’ she cried, starting to struggle.

‘Why would you want that?’ the man asked, tapping the needle and preparing to insert it. He looked up and down the rows on either side of her. Her eyes had adjusted. She could see that the other couches were all occupied. No one lying on them was moving. ‘You’ll do so much good here.’

He set one of the machines running. The device beside her started to whirr, with a thud-tick-thud that sounded like some monstrous heartbeat.

‘Wh– what are you doing?’ she asked, her throat choking up with a thick sense of horror.

‘Just relax,’ he said, reaching over her. ‘I say the same thing every time. This is a place of dreams. So I’m going to give you something now. Something good. And after that – believe me when I say this – you’re going to live forever.’

Click here to buy Bloodlines.

Warhammer crime

A Black Library Imprint

‘Sanctioner’ first published in White Dwarf #456 in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited - Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Rachel Williams.

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ISBN: 978-1-80026-582-0

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