by William King
A nightbiter landed on his hand and began to suck blood. He could not feel the sting yet, and would not until minutes after the insect had flown away. He knew it was draining his blood, though, by the way its translucent wings slowly took on a reddish tinge.
The stallholder returned and placed disposable paper plates of food in front of him, along with cutlery made from recycled bone. He scooped a warm spoonful towards his mouth and then froze as he noticed the arriving newcomers.
At first he took them for slumming nobles. They had the look: their clothes were old but too stylish by far for this neighbourhood, and their flesh had that sleek, well-tended look that only the rich of Medusa wore. Their weapons were all new and well maintained. Some of the men moved with the hard competence of professionals. Bodyguards was the instant assumption Janus made, hired muscle to protect their masters. He kept eating, head down to avoid notice. If the drunken sons and daughters of the local nobility chose to frequent a hellhole like this, it was none of his business.
Then he noticed a shadow had fallen on him. He looked up and saw a brawny young man standing in front of him. A faint whiff of very expensive cologne reached Janus's nostrils, confirming the youth's status as one of the local nobs. He wondered why the man had chosen to come over here? There were plenty of empty tables available for him and his friends. Without asking, the youth slid down onto one of the chairs next to the table.
'Take a seat,' said Janus, around a mouthful of food. 'It's free.'
'You're coming with me, Janus Darke,' said the youth pleasantly. Janus stopped chewing for a moment and pondered the noble's words. How had he known his name? What did he want? Janus wondered for a moment whether the boy might be looking for a fight. Not a few of the spoiled sons and daughters of the nobility liked to come down and bully the industrial thralls. This would not explain how he knew Janus's name, though.
'You've mistaken me for someone else,' said Janus and gave the boy a second look. A half-face mask, fashionable among some of the more artistic cliques, covered the bridge of his nose and his eyes. Clear plastic inserts protected his sight from the muck in Medusa's air. The boy's hair was long and rippled in the tainted breeze. There was something about him that Janus really did not like. Though he could not quite put a finger on why, he trusted his instincts enough to heed their warning.
The youth reached out and strong fingers stopped the spoon en route to Janus's mouth. 'I don't think so.'
Janus shrugged off the youth's grip and resumed eating. 'It's flattering to be mistaken for a merchant prince,' said Janus, 'but if I were Darke, would I really be eating here?'
'We followed you from Fat Roj's,' said the youth. 'We know who you are.'
There was a cruel glint in the boy's eye now. He seemed to be enjoying this. Obviously Janus's discomfiture pleased him, and he enjoyed wielding whatever small power he had.
'Fat who?' Janus asked. He was trying to work out who could have sent this fop. He did not have the look of a Syndicate enforcer, nor did his friends. He was not one of the deadly quiet men the Inquisition would have sent. Where else could he be from?
'There are two ways we can do this,' said the youth. 'You can come with me quiet and friendly like, or I can have Anjor and his friends carry you out.'
'The Arbites might object to that,' said Janus mildly, knowing that there was no way he wanted to fall into the hands of the judiciary.
'By the time the judges get here, we'll be long gone,' said the youth.
Time for the direct approach, Janus thought. 'Who are you? Who sent you? What do you want?'
The boy considered this, and Janus thought for a moment he was going to refuse to answer. Reluctantly, he answered. 'I am Eruk. I am a friend of a friend. And I want to take you to see her.'
'And who would this friend be?'
'Justina.'
'Fair enough,' said Janus and kept eating to give him time to gather his thoughts. Why would Justina have sent this young blade to get him? And was he really from her? If not, why was he lying? Janus could see no point to it. Currents swirled around him here, and he felt momentarily out of his depth. Too much was going on that he did not understand.
'Get up,' said Eruk. Janus really did not like his tone, but he could see that now he was going to need all of the allies he could get. He pushed one more morsel of food into his mouth and lurched to his feet. By the Emperor, he was tired.
A hand sign passed between Eruk and the others and they began to withdraw out of the square. As they did so, Janus could see the stallholder looking at him nervously. Did she think Janus was being kidnapped? Janus shook his head slightly to let her know not to do anything foolish. He was not so sure that he was not doing something foolish himself.
'Where are you taking me?' Janus asked. Ahead of him he could see three phaetons. The aircars bobbed just above the ground, their drivers waiting patiently in the external seats for their noble charges to return.
'To a place where you will be safe,' said Eruk. The smirking youth could not resist adding, 'where you will learn the ways of the Lord of Pleasure.'
What did he mean by that, Janus wondered? He studied the vehicles ahead. The drivers were waiting a little too patiently; they seemed to be asleep in their seats. He glanced back, more than a dozen of the youths and their bodyguards followed. He got the impression that there might be even more people hanging back. Once more his instincts screamed that this was a trap, and he fought down the urge to run. Not that there was anywhere for him to go now, surrounded as he was by this mass of young bloods.
Eruk led him towards the leading phaeton, guiding him with a surprisingly strong grip. His bodyguards flanked him on either side. The rest were making for their own coaches. They seemed somehow disappointed, as if they had expected more excitement and had been let down. Janus glanced at the driver again, noticing that the man really was asleep. No, more than that. There was something wrong here. The angle of the man's neck was strange and his face looked very purple under his cowl. Suddenly Janus realised that his neck had been broken. His hand reached for the butt of his pistol. As he did so a familiar figure loomed into view, a woman in a long black cloak, trimmed with white fur, moving with an eerie alien grace.
Without pausing, she aimed one of the long barrelled eldar pistols at Eruk and pulled the trigger. The youth's face disintegrated in a spray of blood. Janus sensed rather than saw the hail of razor-sharp projectiles whirl past him. Athenys continued to fire and the chest of the bodyguard beside Janus exploded outwards in long shredded strips of flesh.
'If you value your soul, Janus Darke,' said the eldar woman, 'get inside this vehicle and close the door.'
Something in her voice commanded Janus to obey. Resent her tone though he might, his instincts agreed with her. He aimed an elbow at the solar plexus of the surviving bodyguard and felt the man double up, then dived forward into the padded interior of the phaeton. Moments later he felt himself pushed back into the plush seat by a surge of acceleration. Bolter shells hurtled impotently off the sides of the vehicle. One of them impacted on the window. It cracked but did not break. Armourglass, he realised, and the whole body of the phaeton was reinforced too. Truly a noble's vehicle.
As he watched the spire receded below him, expanding in his vision as they moved skywards. He could see the dwindling figures of the young bloods firing at him, then as they realised he was getting away, they clambered into their own vehicles.
A few seconds later they realised that their coachmen were dead. One or two leapt into the external cockpits and the vehicles lurched into the air in pursuit. Once again Janus felt as if events were moving too fast for him. Why had Athenys showed up, and where was she taking him now? Why had she killed those youths? Did she not realise what was likely to happen when they caught up with them?
Like two enormous insects the phaetons buzzed after them, their running lights brilliant in the darkness. Bolter shells pinged off their own vehicle's sides. Janus could see that some of the youths and their bodyg
uards leaned out the windows and shot upwards at him. Sparks sprang up where they impacted. Armoured or no, Janus thought, the aircar could not take much more of this.
The phaeton veered evasively and they swept round the side of the hive. Below him Janus had a splendid view of the balcony gardens of the rich, roofed over with translucent crystal, illuminated by great jets of gas vented from the side of the hive. Seconds later, the other two phaetons swept into view. Janus was thrown forward as his own vehicle decelerated and then climbed. What was that eldar bitch up to? This was not a simple evasive action. A moment later he had his answer.
The first of the pursuing phaetons exploded. A blast erupted underneath it, and it leapt upwards for a second, propelled skywards on a cloud of superheated plasma. A couple of the figures inside it toppled out through the open door and fell to their doom. A moment later their vehicle plunged forward and followed them to destruction.
Within a heartbeat the second phaeton exploded. This time the blast came from within the passenger compartment. Janus could see the hellish flames within. For a few seconds it looked like the bodywork of the aircar might resist the force of the blast but then it ballooned outward and burst into a million pieces of shrapnel. Chunks of the chassis fell to earth like meteorites.
Slowly it percolated into Janus's mind what had happened. Explosive charges, he thought, detonated by remote control by a comm-signal, and I bet if I looked in Athenys's fist right now, I would find the detonator there. Even through the fog of tiredness and gathering sickness, he was impressed. The eldar woman had destroyed a force of more than a dozen nobles and their servants single-handed and with a precision that Stiel might have envied. What was she, he wondered—some sort of professional assassin?
He guessed he would find out soon enough and wondered how long it would take the Arbites to get on her trail. The aircar banked and he could see that they were sweeping towards the spaceport. I might have guessed, he thought. She and her companion seemed pretty determined to get me into their service. I wonder why?
He dismissed the thought. It had been a long night full of death, and he would begin to find answers soon enough. Right now, he had other things to worry about. A daemon lurked inside his head, and this alien madwoman was carrying it and him directly towards his friends and his ship, the very thing he had sought to avoid. He was not sure whether to laugh or to cry.
He huddled back in the seat and wondered how long it would be until dawn.
Justina stared into the mirror and watched the clouds of chaotic images swirl and coalesce. She swallowed uncomfortably. It was not pleasant to report word of her failure to her master, and she knew she was going to have to pay a heavy price for it, one way or another.
Kym, the only survivor of that fool Eruk's attempt to abduct Janus Darke had told her what had happened. Sifting through her excuses and evasions, Justina had worked out that somehow the eldar woman had either directly or indirectly killed all of the nobles or their retainers and abducted Darke. Kym had only survived by sheer incompetence, failing to board the aircars before they took off and exploded.
Her agents at the spaceport reported that two people very like Darke and the eldar woman had been sighted at the spaceport, taking a high orbit shuttle along with Darke's crew.
Another tantalising report had reached her ears too: the informer Weezel had begun to put about a tale of how Darke had invoked daemonic powers and used sorcery to kill Fat Roj. Given what Justina herself had seen in the meat plant, that tale was uncomfortably close to the truth.
The place had reeked of psychic power and the bodies looked as if they had been shredded by some demented daemon. The only question now was whether to have Weezel scooped up by her people or silenced for good before his tale attracted the attention of the authorities. The former would probably be for the best, she thought. He might possess other useful information that interrogation would reveal and, if keeping him alive was a mistake, it was one that could soon be rectified.
She had pieced together the events of the evening to the best of her ability, and try as she might she could not see what she could have done differently. Of course, her master almost certainly would not see it that way. At least she had managed to infiltrate her agents into Darke's crew, which meant that all was not yet lost, and there was always the talisman provided of course, they did not simply throw it away.
Even as that thought struck her, Shaha Gaathon's presence chamber leapt into sharper focus and her master's visage leered out at her. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth and splashed his cheeks in irregular patterns. Justina did not even want to begin to imagine what the great one had been up to, although the possibilities were interesting to contemplate. The Dark Feast was one of the rites of pleasure she had never taken part in, even though she was a woman who believed in plumbing the depths of every human experience.
'Speak, slave, and I will answer,' said Shaha Gaathon.
'As you desire, master.' Swiftly Justina told her tale, leaving out nothing, knowing how well Shaha Gaathon sensed evasion, and how subtly he punished it. At the conclusion of her speech, she saw that her fears were amply justified. Shaha Gaathon was angry.
'What do you suggest we do now, slave?' he asked.
'I have agents on board the Star of Venam who possess the means to contact us.'
'Best hope they do not try, little mortal, for doubtless the eldar possess the means to detect such a thing.'
'These are my best people, great one. They are cautious and discreet.'
'They will need to be, for the eldar are subtle and swift to slay our kind.'
Justina suppressed a shrug. Even if such were the case, there was nothing much she could do about it. She had done everything she could. A reflective look passed over Shaha Gaathon's disturbingly beautiful features. Justina noted the interesting patterns of blood that now dappled his cheeks. Did the crimson belong to the Great One or someone else, she wondered with a stab of something like jealousy?
Shaha Gaathon looked up, his eyes glowing with baleful red fire. 'The matter is out of your hands now, slave. I must find other tools to ensure that Darke is present for the ritual. Now all that remains is the matter of punishment for your failure. Don't worry, I shall make sure it is interesting.'
Justina shivered in anticipation.
TEN
OUTWARD BOUND
Janus Darke stood on the observation deck of the shuttle and watched the Star of Venam hove into view. Despite his weakness, despite the concerned gazes of his troops, and the predatory alien watchfulness of the eldar, he felt pride swell in his heart. The Star was an awesome sight against the velvet blackness of space. A massive engine of commerce or destruction at her commander's whim, a mobile fortress, a vehicle capable of making the great leap between worlds, in short everything an Imperial starship should be.
His eyes drank in the great crenellated turrets with their massive bristling weapons and the projectile tubes in her bows. He looked hungrily at the enormous superstructure where his own cabin and the ship's command deck lay. As he did so, he became aware that someone else looked on the mighty vessel with eyes as avid as his own.
'The repairs have gone well,' said Simon Belisarius, pride and contentment evident in every word. Janus nodded his head in agreement. The twisted plate and broken armour of their last voyage had been cleared away and replaced. The ship was spaceworthy again. Janus wondered where Simon had found the money to pay off the debt and reclaim their vessel from the shipwrights. A glance at the eldar told him the most likely source. It seemed that he had not been the only partner they had chosen to contact and, right at this moment, looking at his ship he was glad.
He was glad that he would not have to hide in a stinking slum on Medusa waiting for the hunters to come. He was glad that he had somehow, for a while, evaded the clutches of the Inquisition. He was glad that he was free of Fat Roj and his killers. The gladness lasted only a moment: he had merely delayed a reckoning he knew, not settled a score. And there
was too much going on that he did not understand.
The men Athenys had killed, and who had claimed to come from Justina, were just one example. He had no idea what that was about, but he sensed deep and sinister undercurrents, and from the few words he had exchanged with the eldar woman, he knew that she agreed.
Indeed, the xenogens seemed to know more about what was going on than he did, and had apparently orchestrated much to their own ends in his absence. He wondered how they had got Simon to agree to their chosen destination. There was much he was going to have to talk about with his business partner once they were aboard ship and underway.
And that could not happen too soon. With every passing moment, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders. Soon they would be plotting a course out-system and every speck of distance between himself and the world below was fine by him. He could not wait to put a long starjump between himself and Medusa, and the events that had occurred there.
But what then? The eldar still wanted to go to their dark goal, and he was not sure that he could deny them. Even if they were privy to his darkest secret, they had saved his life. Something within him whispered caution. If the xenogens had saved him, it was surely for their own reasons and might mean no good at all. Indeed, it seemed all too possible that they might be preserving him for a darker fate.
Even sick and weak as he felt, he knew that soon he was going to have to solve the mystery they represented, and find out what it was they truly wanted. His instincts told him that doing so was essential for preserving both his life and his sanity, and he had lived too long by his instincts to deny them now.
The shuttle began to decelerate and rotate inwards as it made its final approach to the great starship's docking bay. In a matter of moments, it was swallowed like a minnow gulped down by a whale shark.