'Again!' I ordered Jurgen, and he happily complied, clearing the way entirely to the doors and widening the gap created by the Chaos Marines.
'Having fun yet?' Magot asked Mahat, hosing down a group of cultists with a burst of las-fire as they turned and began to raise their weapons.
'Doing the work of the Emperor is its own reward,' the Tallarn admonished.
'But this is quite satisfying.'
Inevitably, though, the heretics began to get their act together and return our fire, although with a gratifying lack of accuracy; if we'd tried the same tactic against even a moderately organised foe, even one of the calibre of an underhive gang, it would undoubtedly have been a different story, but most of their fire went as wild as it had done against the World Eaters. Some, however, hit; Revik went down, blood leaking from a jagged rent in his torso armour, and Vorhees and Drere picked him up by an arm each, barely breaking stride as they did so. They even kept firing, although aiming their lasguns one-handed didn't do a hell of a lot for their accuracy. A couple of the Tallarns went down too, being retrieved by their squad mates with similar dispatch and efficiency.
Abruptly I made it to the haven of the brazen doors, scuttling inside with a sense of relief I didn't even bother trying to hide, las bolts and slug rounds pinging off the metal behind me. A thick, cloying scent, like the one I'd noticed in the hab dome on the coldside, invaded my nostrils, and I was obscurely grateful for a full-strength whiff of Jurgen as he fell into place at my shoulder.
'Cover the others,' I said unnecessarily, as he was already turning to do so and they were only a couple of paces behind me.
I glanced around the antechamber we found ourselves in, looking for something we could use to our advantage. The bronze doors would afford us little protection now, having been forced by the World Eaters and thoroughly scorched by Jurgen's melta, but to my immense relief a polished steel side table stood nearby, covered in devotional candles and brightly coloured machine parts no doubt of great significance to the tech-priests who normally worshipped here.
I hurried over to it and tried to push it into the gap, my muscles cracking with the strain.
'Help me with this!' I called, beckoning to Beije and Mahat. They stood where they were, looking indecisive, while most of the troopers from both squads found what cover they could and poured fire through the gap. The only other exceptions were Magot, who was ripping Revik's body armour away in an attempt to find his wound and stem the bleeding, and a couple of Tallarns doing the same for their colleagues. Jurgen's melta belched its cleansing plume of white-hot air again, disrupting the incoming fire for a moment or two.
'That would profane these holy symbols,' Mahat said doubtfully, and Beije nodded smugly, like the most pedantic of schola tutors. (And until I became one myself I wouldn't have believed quite how petty some of them could be. But I digress…)
'We can hardly profane them any more than the heretics already have,' I pointed out, somewhat forcefully, and with a few extraneous adjectives which I needn't record at the moment. 'And in case you haven't noticed, this place isn't even dedicated to the frakking Emperor, it's a cogboy chapel to their clockwork one.'
'Well that's an interesting theological point,' Beije began. 'Some would argue that the omnissiah is simply another aspect of His Divine Majesty, which would mean—'
'Well you can ask him about it in person if you don't shift your arses and help me move this bloody thing,' I snapped, 'because the heretics outside will be all over us in another couple of minutes if you don't.' I'd be the first to admit I'm not the most likely man in the galaxy to win a theological debate, but I took this one hands down. After an uneasy look passed between them, Beije and the Tallarn sergeant hurried over to join me and between us we manhandled the cumbersome slab of metal into the gap, turning it over onto its side for good measure. (Which of course sent the candles and the ironmongery flying, to their evident consternation, but that couldn't be helped.) After that I set Drere and Vorhees to reinforcing the makeshift barrier with anything else readily portable they could lay their hands on, and took stock of our position.
'How's Revik?' I asked Magot, wondering if he was going to be in any fit state to hold a lasgun.
'Pretty bad. Seen worse,' she said, not bothering to lift her head and applying a pressure bandage. 'Lucky it was a las bolt.' As I've had occasion to be grateful for myself more than once, they tend to cauterise the wounds they make, cutting down the amount of bleeding considerably. A solid round will leave a hole you can bleed to death from frighteningly fast. Neither of the Tallarn wounded was getting up any time soon either.
'Grifen,' I said. 'You're in charge.' I glanced at Beije and Mahat, expecting some objection, but there was none from either of them; which, as you'll readily appreciate, I found all the more unnerving. 'Hold them off at all costs. If they manage to get in now and prevent us from stopping the ritual…' I had no need to complete the sentence.
'We'll keep 'em off your back,' the Valhallan sergeant assured me. 'You can count on us.'
I turned to Jurgen. 'Come on,' I said, overwhelmed by the sense of fatalistic detachment which often descends in those moments when you know your chances of survival are minimal, but still a damn sight better than if you do nothing at all.
'Let's get this over with.'
'Mahat.' Beije beckoned. 'You're with me. Bring Karim and Stoch.' The two troopers he'd indicated left their posts at the firing line at once, leaving Vorhees and Drere to plug the gap as best they could, and all the Valhallans to look collective murder at the overweight commissar.
'They're all needed here,' Isaid tightly.
Beije smiled without humour. 'I thought you had complete confidence in your people. After all, they're one of the finest regiments in the galaxy, aren't they?'
'We'll manage,' Grifen said, picking off a couple of heretics who were incautious enough to raise their heads as she spoke.
'We haven't got time to argue,' I said, turning on my heel and leading the way out of the antechamber. The route was obvious, the World Eaters having been as subtle as ever in their approach, a pair of ornately engraved brass doors buckled from their hinges in one corner. The chanting was louder in here too, the direction unmistakable, and as I listened it became overlaid with the unmistakable whine of chain-blades and the gleeful roar of the Khornate Marines piling into more victims.
'Sounds like the big red buggers are saving us a job,' Jurgen said at my elbow as we ran towards the sound. I'd expected the chanting to falter as the acolytes died, but if anything it seemed to swell, resonating in my very bones. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I'd bet a year's tarot winnings that it was nothing good.
'Golden Throne!' Beije bleated as we burst through a ripped curtain into the main chapel. For once I could sympathise with him. I'd had some idea of what to expect, having seen the ruins of the ritual chambers in the hab dome and the bordello, but the full sanity-blasting horror of the intact symbols on the walls surrounding us completely was new to me, and sent my senses reeling. I'm sure it was only the presence of Jurgen and his peculiar talent, which insulated my mind from the worst of it.
'Don't look at them,' I cautioned, trying to focus on the carnelian giants wading through the congregation of degenerates with single-minded determination, slicing and hacking with their chainblade pole arms. 'Stay focussed.'
My warning came too late for one of the Tallarn troopers, though, Stoch I think - he curled up into a foetal position, bleeding from the eyes and whimpering something which sounded like the first line of the Emperor's benediction over and over again. Beije paled and threw up, but rallied, to my surprise, reciting one of the catechisms of command in a faltering voice.
'What should we do, sir?' Jurgen asked, as phlegmatic as ever, his voice as unconcerned as though he was asking if I wanted another cup of tanna. 'Take them all out?'
In truth it looked as though that would be the only way. I nodded.
'Concentrate on the cultists,' I shouted, trying
to make myself heard over that hellish chanting. 'Leave the Chaos Marines for last.' There must have been at least as many acolytes in the chamber as had been defending it from the outside, and we were going to need all the help we could get to be sure of killing the lot before their ritual reached its climax.
But we never got the chance. Almost as soon as the words left my lips, the chanting ended, a sudden silence pervading the chamber, broken only by the sounds of slaughter as the World Eaters went about their grisly work, and Stoch's ravings.
'She comes! She comes!' Five score throats abruptly yelled, a few of them breaking off with a gurgle as the Khornate chain axes ripped through them. Then even these suddenly ceased, their owners stopping abruptly, like servitors with their power supplies cut. A sickly glow began to suffuse the air, spreading through the crowd, and wherever I looked, expressions of imbecilic ecstasy slithered across faces, distorting them in ways beyond the physically possible.
'Frak this,' I said, my eyes darting around the chamber for a target, any target, skittering away from the symbols daubed on the walls and ceiling before they had a chance to register on my forebrain. 'Let's kill something.'
'Oh, Ciaphas.' Mellifluous laughter rippled through the room. 'You haven't changed at all, I see.'
Several of the cultists close to us began to shiver, ululating in ecstasy, the flesh of their bodies flowing together like melting wax. The sight was more hideous than I can describe, and all I can say is if you think that's disappointing count yourself lucky you can't picture it.
'Emperor preserve us,' Beije gibbered, grabbing my elbow. 'This is sorcery, sorcery most foul…'
'It's worse than that,' I told him, a chill of pure dread rippling through me. The mound of flesh in front of us was changing by the second, smoothing out, taking on a clearly defined outline. Fully twice the height of a man, with limbs inhumanly lithe, a body curved and rounded in a manner indisputably feminine, yet for all that both hideous and attractive in a manner utterly inhuman. The face too was completely different from anything remotely familiar, but for a pair of eyes, emerald green, cool and disdainful, which regarded me with detached amusement.
'It's been quite a while,' the apparition said, addressing me directly. 'I hope you're well.' It reached down, picked up the stupefied Stoch, and bit his head off, chewing thoughtfully for a moment before discarding the body.
Mahat and Karim twitched, trying to raise their lasguns, but they seemed as paralysed as the World Eaters. 'That's better. So impolite to run off at the mouth while somebody's talking, don't you think?'
My nightmare came flooding back to me then, and with it a sense of recognition I couldn't ignore. It was impossible, I knew, but I couldn't prevent myself from blurting the name out.
'Emeli,' I said.
The daemon nodded. 'I told you I was coming back,' it said.
TWENTY
'Then the prophet spoke: saying 'Frak this, for my faith is a shield proof against your blandishments!'
- Alem Mahat, The Book of Cain, Chapter IV, Verse XXI[107]
WELL I MIGHT not be the biggest bang in the armoury, but I can put two and two together as well as the next man.
'Those dreams,' I said slowly. 'They weren't just dreams, were they?'
'What dreams?' Beije asked, gazing at the apparition in awestruck horror, as unable to tear his gaze from its repulsively fascinating visage as the rest of the congregation. The daemon and I ignored him, continuing our conversation as though we were completely alone. Only Jurgen showed any sign of animation, although his habitual expression of vague bafflement concealed it nicely, and I tried to keep the thing's attention focussed on me. Once it realised what he was, and that there was still a chance of us derailing whatever plans it had, we'd have seconds at best to react before we became an unpleasant stain on the decking, or another impromptu snack.
'We have a connection,' the daemon said, its voice as low and seductive as I remembered from my encounter with the human it used to be. 'When the warp currents were favourable, or I was physically present on this drab little world, I was able to caress your mind from time to time.' It laughed again, a long, sinuous tongue moving about its lips like a grotesque parody of a flirting courtesan.
'I don't understand,' I said, playing for time. If Jurgen could edge a little closer and nullify whatever power the thing had to hold our companions in thrall, there was just a chance we could take it by surprise. I didn't expect a couple of lasguns to make much difference, to be honest, but Jurgen's melta might just be enough to hurt it, and if we could do enough damage to disrupt its physical presence here it would be drawn back into the warp. It wouldn't exactly be harmless there, but at least it would be out of our hair.
The daemon laughed again, and despite myself I felt a shiver of delight running through me, like the sensation you get on a crisp autumn morning when the sun is bright and the world seems full of simple pleasures. 'When we met before, I took you for human.'
'I was, silly.' The daemon glided away from us, just as I was about to signal Jurgen to act, and I stilled the gesture, biding my time. Emeli, and Emperor help me I still couldn't help thinking of the thing as the woman who had almost cost me my soul on Slawkenberg, moved between her acolytes, slinking around them, bestowing tender caresses with fingers, tongue and lithely twitching tail. And wherever she touched bodies fell, leeched of their souls, with cries of terminal ecstasy. 'But I served our prince well in life, and he received my soul gladly. I grew strong in the warp, and after a time I became able to affect things in the physical world too.'
'But not for long, thank the Emperor,' I said, and the daemon bristled, a naked and terrible anger marring the sensuous perfection of its hideous features for a moment.
'You dare to invoke the name of your corpse god in this holy place?' It tore one of the World Eaters in half in a fit of pique, which still seemed somehow coquettish and grotesquely endearing, his ceramite armour crumpling like paper. The other she picked up and threw against the wall, which deformed into a dent the depth of my forearm under the impact, leaving the corpse to bounce randomly and fall to the metal floor beneath with a sound like somebody dropping an armful of buckets (crushing a couple of her own cultists in the process, but I don't suppose she was too bothered about that).
'It was his first,' I pointed out. Well, technically I suppose it was the Omnissiah's first, but I'd had enough of that argument from Beije.
Emeli giggled, a grotesque echo of the flirt she used to be, and began moving back towards us, a smile on her face again. Provoking her was a risky gambit, but if I could only keep her mind focussed on me for long enough to lure her into range of Jurgen's strange abilities we might just be able to get out of this alive.
'Finders keepers,' she said, slithering around another group of deliriously expiring cultists. 'Now it's mine, and soon I'll be the queen of the whole world.' An expression of distaste flickered across her face. 'Dreary little place at the moment I know, but I can soon fix that. What do you think of violet for the sky? Or maybe pink.' A beatific smile spread across that terrible face. 'I love decorating.'
'Are you sure you'll have the time?' I asked, still trying to lure her in. 'As I recall, your kind doesn't stick around in the physical world for too long.'
A tidal wave of mellifluous laughter washed over me, leaving me tingling with joy, and despite the terrible danger we were in I felt a smile begin to play over my face at the sound.
'Poor Ciaphas. You really don't understand, do you?' Gleeful mischief danced in her eyes, as captivating as they'd been all those years before when she'd been the preternaturally seductive woman who'd almost lured me to my doom. 'I'm not going back to the warp this time. I'm staying, and my friends are coming out to play too. The energy I've absorbed from these playthings will be enough to break the barrier between the realms for good.'
The thrill of horror which shot through me at those words was enough to dispel the unnatural glamour the daemon had been able to exert on me, and I found the air
curdling in my lungs. It was closer now than it had ever been, and the scent of her body washed over me, compelling and enticing, threatening to enthral me once again.
'You're opening a warp portal,' I choked out, and behind me I heard Beije moan in terror at the thought. Emeli's smile spread, that inhuman tongue flexing against her lips again.
'No, silly. I'm making the whole planet into a portal. I lalf in and half out of the warp, where my friends can come and go as they please and we can shape reality as we see fit. Won't that be fun?'
'For you, maybe,' I said, my head growing fuzzy with the nearness of her physical presence.
Despite the fear and revulsion still consuming me, the desire I'd once felt for her human form was stirring too, and the inhuman sensuality of her daemon body was somehow amplifying that. I fought against the impulse to open my arms to her, my skin tingling in anticipation of her touch. But still my survival instinct clung on, as it had in her bedroom the first time she tried to seduce me and claim my soul. To yield, I knew, meant extinction. 'Not so much for the rest of us.'
'You have no idea,' the daemon breathed, warm musk washing over my face and clouding my senses. 'The pleasures I can show you, the bliss we can share. I told you before, you could be one of us. Have powers no mortal can conceive, experience an eternity of rapture. All you have to do is take it. Take me…'
'Frak this!' I said, a sudden familiar smell displacing the one which had so bewitched me, and I thanked the Emperor for Jurgen's presence. He'd edged a little closer while Emeli was concentrating on seducing me, although why she should have been so concerned over claiming my little soul while there was a whole world stuffed with them up for grabs I've no idea. Perhaps she was just a sore loser and wanted to make some kind of point after our last ill-fated encounter. 'My soul's my own, and I'm keeping it!' Reflexively I brought up my laspistol and fired.
[Caiphas Cain 03] The Traitor's hand Page 27