Tollian walked out of the Magistratum station feeling deeply frustrated.
As a lowly scribe with barely any status, getting involved with the Magistratum was the last thing Tollian wanted to do, but for Mercy he had gone all out. Not only had he entered a Magistratum station to file a report, he even argued with a Magistratum officer, both for the first time in his life.
In a way, Tollian knew this outcome was almost inevitable. Armed with nothing but a false victim name and an accusation of potential wrongdoing, all he could do was to report it for attention, and the officers responded with cold indifference. It was so infuriating Tollian simply walked out of the station as he became aware of losing control of his temper and was on the verge of doing something stupid again.
Walking down the street, Tollian could not help but lament at the unfairness of the world. If he was of high birth, surely the Magistratum would take him more seriously, but then he wouldn't be here in the first place; but then again, if he was one of the privileged class of people… maybe, just maybe, he would have met her on that parallel world of the rich and powerful, to be a true peer by her side.
'Mister Tollian Caulven?'
A stern voice woke Tollian from his daydreaming. He looked up and saw two Magistratum officers in front of him, both were considerably stern-looking men.
'Yes, I am Tollian. How can I assist you, officers?'
'You are to come with us.'
'Is this regarding my reporting of a kidnapping case just now?' For a moment, Tollian's hope was reignited but their familiar indifference doused that flame.
'Just come with us.'
Tollian gulped as he recalled who he was going up against. Corrupt Magistratum officers were common enough open secrets, there were known cases of powerful gangsters and criminals with co-conspirators working within the law enforcement agency.
Were these Draeg's contacts?
For the first time in his life, Tollian found himself questioning an authority figure. 'For what reason, may I ask?'
Apparently one of the officers had decided he had heard enough, the man suddenly stepped forward and took Tollian down with a swift, practiced motion. Tollian fell to the ground screaming in surprise, but the officer simply rolled the still protesting scribe over and snapped a pair of cuffs around his wrists.
As Tollian struggled with his face on the ground, he suddenly heard a fast approaching siren. He craned his neck upward and was met with an unbelievable sight: a speeder, one of those deployed by the mysterious Administratum special task force, raced overhead, striking him and the two officers with a fierce downward draft as it passed.
The speeder then arced expertly before quickly touching down a short distance away on the walkway pavement, scattering nearby civilians. Its door flipped open, and three imposing figures stepped out from the still-growling vehicle.
Leading the group was a bald man who looked to be in his thirties, his face set in a hardened expression and a patch covering his right eye. He wore a charcoal-grey greatcoat with a high, militaristic collar, the fabric subtly bulked by armour plating beneath. As he approached, his gaze swept the area with the unblinking calm of someone already calculating firing angles.
To his left walked a woman in her late twenties with braided blonde hair tucked neatly back. Her fluid and athletic silhouette was broken by carapace plates over her chest and shoulders, worn atop a form-fitting tactical suit that gave her a wasp-waisted, agile profile. At the woman's hips hung a pair of matte-black autopistols resting in holsters.
The third member was a short-haired man who moved with the grounded weight of a seasoned shock trooper. He wore a tan tactical jacket over a dark, tight-fitting undershirt. A collapsible riot shield was strapped along his left forearm, and his right hand rested near the trigger of a well-used shotgun hanging low from a shoulder strap, the massive weapon closely resembling the ones used exclusively by the Arbites.
While none of them looked like officers, each carried themselves with an unmistakable aura of lethal professionalism.
Shocked, Tollian found himself staring at the newcomers while being pulled up to stand. He flicked a glance at the two officers who had apprehended him and found that while their faces were still masks of indifference, a flicker of unmistakable nervousness betrayed their true feelings.
The bald man stopped right in front of Tollian and looked him over—an act that sent cold shivers down his spine—before he turned to face one of the officers. Flipping over a coat panel, he revealed a simple red coloured emblem shaped into a stylised "I" pinned inside his great coat and announced in a low voice, 'we will take over from here.'
Tollian too saw the small metallic emblem and his blood ran cold. Ever since the end of the civil war, he had heard about the mysterious Order of the God-Emperor's Holy Inquisition. Rumours said they were limitless in power, unstoppable, unquestionable, nowhere but everywhere at once. They were the phantom authority whispered in alleyways and behind closed doors, said to appear without warning, able to read souls like parchment, could erase anyone on suspicious grounds of heresy and they are here.
The two Magistratum officers, who mere moments ago were looking like tyrannical figures themselves, simply nodded with a hint of relief before turning around and leaving like obedient children, leaving the handcuffed scribe to the new group. No questions asked.
Hey, come back—Tollian almost called out loud before the woman pulled something out and pointed it directly at his head. For a split second Tollian thought he was done for, before realising it wasn't a gun, just a scanner-like device.
'Are you Tollian Caulven?' the bald man asked, his voice was slow, deliberate, measured and slightly rasping.
'Erm… yes, that… would be me,' Tollian stuttered, beads of sweat already rolling down his forehead.
'I am Malchus, we are throne agents,' the bald man introduced himself. That vague title meant nothing to Tollian, but it sounded serious enough. Before he could organise his thoughts the man produced a small data-slate and showed it to him.
'Tell me, have you met this lady before?'
Shockingly, Tollian saw the girl of his dreams, Mercy, on the small display screen.
'Yes.' Tollian started shaking and confessed despite himself.
Malchus turned to the woman who was looking at the device in her hand. She simply nodded, as if indicating Tollian wasn't lying.
'Very good. I understand you tried to make a report. Do you know who kidnapped her?' Malchus asked flatly.
Tollian hesitated for a moment before realising this might be the saviours he had been asking for. Suddenly, these intimidating people didn't look that scary anymore.
'Yes! I will tell you everything! Please, you must save her!' Tollian exclaimed to the agents, his abrupt transformation from a timid civilian to eager collaborator drew a faint glimmer of amusement across the agents' stern faces.
* * *
Situated on the outskirts of the capital, site 47 was located at one of the countless infrastructure projects left in ruins with the cancellation of the hive city, looking like a ghost town with a few large buildings.
It was time to call for backup, I checked on my Inquisitorial earpiece and confirmed it was able to connect to the broad wireless communication network available in the area, much like how cellphones work back at home. The signal was quite weak since this place was a distance from the main city centre and far from relay towers.
'How far away is the place?' I asked Draeg who was still shaky.
'Just… just another few blocks over that direction.'
'Park over there.' I pointed at a random corner around a building, needing some space to scout out the place before deciding on my action.
Draeg complied and parked the vehicle, he was by this point sweating profusely despite the excellent air conditioning of the car, wondering about his fate now that we reached the place.
'Listen, I am not going to kill you,' I told Draeg as he stared at me, his mind still working frantically on finding a way out, thinking about the laspistol stored inside a small compartment right in front of my seat.
Quietly I took another assessment of Draeg's mental fortitude before putting my will into words again, attempting even more complex instructions this time. 'For the next day you can't lie and will always confess your sins to uniformed and authority figures. When I next snap my fingers, you will fall asleep.'
Draeg looked dumbfounded, like he just heard the stupidest joke ever. I then snapped my finger and he instantly dropped over, falling fast asleep. I checked to make sure Draeg was indeed napping before deploying my double stealth and leaving the limousine.
During our journey here Draeg had involuntarily spilled the beans on members of the Menacing Four by thinking about them. The only female member of the four was a skilled sniper who acted as the de facto long-range eliminator for the group, and would usually provide operational overwatch from high ground. If present tonight, she should be stationed on top of one of the taller buildings.
Apex transhuman or not, I was not about to put myself in the crosshairs of a high caliber sniper rifle. I recalled that during the Horus Heresy, assassination attempts with snipers were made against Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children. The traitor primarch turned his head at the last moment to avoid critical injuries and survived, but it sure didn't sound like fun.
My decision made, I sped towards the nearest tall building while shrouded. With possible hostile psykers around, I avoided my usual tactics of using auspex and projection. The plan was to physically locate the sniper and take her out of the picture first.
I soon reached the building, an abandoned prefabricated hab-block, and with a jump landed on a balcony on the third floor. For a moment I was tempted to spread my wings and fly all the way to the top, but opted to be more stealthy. Moving like a super hero who refused the inefficiency of stairs, I rapidly worked my way up along the walls and soon reached the very top. The derelict state of the forsaken building also meant my hands picked up dust, dirt, rust and grease on pipes and railings along the way. The minor inconvenience was fixed the same way I kept my feet pristine—with the cleansing minor psykana.
Moving forward, I stalked the rooftop and soon had a clear view to the entrance of site 47, a transit station with a staircase that went underground, leading to the tunnels. Being this close to the site, the psychic resonance was stronger now and I could definitely tell it originated from underground.
The place was surrounded by a group of around twenty people which I was sure were members of the Syndicate, for none of them looked like civilians. With my shroud active, I stood at the edge of the parapet without any fear of being seen. The wind at this height was substantial, sending my cloak fluttering dramatically as I observed the gathered criminals below. For a brief moment, I almost felt like a member of the caped crusader group who watched over Gotham City. No apparent psykers were seen amongst the syndicate members.
With the available information from Draeg's memories and what was observed, my mind put two and two together: The Syndicate had a problem with their main underground slave-holding site, the power resonance seemed to come from the same place. Since the crime group never had anything to do with psychic stuff, the awakened psyker was probably a rebelling slave, causing this stand-off. That also explained the sense of sadness emanating from the runoff power.
While I was quite confident with the logical conclusion, it would be safer still to ask one of the upper rank Syndicate members. I started looking around, superhuman eyesight cutting into the gloom, taking in every detail from my surroundings and soon got lucky locating my target. On the rooftop of the adjacent building lay one of the Menacing Four, Lyssa "Long Silence", her silhouette stretched out beside a long rifle in the shadows too dark for human eyes.
So far, I only spotted one sniper. Thinking quickly, and judging the odds of a hostile psyker being present to be unlikely now, I settled on a straightforward plan to reach her.
I moved while keeping watch on the lady, noting her facing. I went further back along the rooftop, making sure there were no people below on the street between our buildings before proceeding with my plan. It was a move that was half madness, half heroic fantasy actualisation. I dashed towards the edge of the building and jumped, leaping into the air. My geneforged body carried me far, but not far enough to reach across with a single leap.
Halfway in the air before losing to the gravity, I went psychically active and summoned my wings. As my ethereal wings sprouted, instantly I gained speed and levitation but my shroud dissipated.
Shit. This imba combo of stealthy flight doesn't work.
Luckily the building was close enough, and I was exposed in the air for just a few seconds before reaching the other side. If anyone saw me during that fleeting moment, they would most probably think an eye check was needed.
Upon landing I immediately reverted my psychic stance to passive, felt the wings on my back evaporating and the shroud settled over me once more as the shadow walk ability quietly reawakened. I crouched, held still and listened. A moment passed and to my relief, detected no significant movement from the direction of the lady sniper.
I moved again, vivid pink slippers silently crossing another rooftop towards my quarry. Before long I found myself mere paces behind the sniper, and from the calmness of her mind and the stillness of her body, I knew she was unaware of my presence.
Lyssa was fit and lean, with a body posture of feline-like quality. She kept her brown hair short, efficiently trimmed, skin pale with a faint bluish undertone under dim light that reminded me about the infamous Widowmaker from a famous hero shooter game.
Some tiny neural plugs could be seen behind her right ear—an innate understanding informed me these to be ballistic-prediction cogitator implants, probably illegal. She wore a form-fitting tactical suit of dark urban-camo pattern, showing off her toned body.
The whole approach felt too easy. For a moment I thought something was amiss, before remembering how absurdly overkill this was. Sending a Raven Guard Space Marine alone would have been more than enough, let alone unleashing a top-grade living weapon of a galactic empire like me on an unsuspecting, mostly baseline human.
A living weapon.
I heaved an internal sigh on the unsettling notion of slowly accepting that fact. I then organised my thoughts before creeping forward until I was just beside the sniper, close enough to reach her with my hand. Crouching down beside her prone form like some high school delinquent, I dismissed my shroud and greeted the lady.
'Hello.'
Lyssa flinched and turned to look at me, shock and surprise written plainly over her delicate but unremarkable facial features. Her right eye was an augmetic with irises of brushed steel and amber glass, glowing faintly in the gloom as it focused on me.
While she fared much better than Draeg on mental barrier, being this close I could still read her mind easily with little effort. What went through Lyssa's mind surprised me; her mental landscape shifted from total panic to jealousy, then a bit of pride before settling on deeply concerned and confused in just a few heartbeats.
Total panic because she totally didn't feel my approach. Jealousy due to my looks, then a brief feeling of comparison pride because she was much more curvy than my petite frame—seriously lady, even in a time like this?—before falling back to being concerned, not knowing what to make of a plainly-dressed pretty girl with a pair of cheap pink shoes suddenly appearing beside her.
'Good evening, are you alone up here?' I asked casually.
Lyssa winced, her mind already answering my question. It was akin to the trick of asking someone not to imagine something and the opposite inevitably happened. She was alone, the syndicate never had much use for a sniper than the occasional gang war and the need for assassination. She also liked it that way, having no competitors in her field of expertise inside the criminal organisation.
'Who are you?' Lyssa hissed her question, she raised her prone body slightly, left hand slowly retracting to reach for something, thinking I wouldn't notice it. It was almost cute. Sticking to my no-lie-if-possible policy, I decided to indulge her.
'My name is Syrine. It's a pleasure meeting you.'
'Syrine…?' Lyssa took a second to digest that vaguely familiar name before recalling, to her shock, about what she read constantly on the recent news story about the upcoming living saint.
I reached out and grabbed hold of Lyssa's neck before she could do anything and mentally interrogated her. She choked, twitched and struggled, but my slim hand around her neck might as well be a plasteel vise. Lyssa's mental strength was tougher than Draeg, but still very civilian. Her eyes bulged from the ordeal before eventually losing consciousness. The woman's messy life flashed before my eyes—which I skipped to recent memories—and saw some of the Syndicate's past appalling activities and the reasons for their current operation.
Two days earlier, one of the slave girls at the site suddenly manifested psychic abilities. She went from a quiet child to a rampaging monster, tearing through the slavers guarding the site. The few Syndicate members who escaped spoke of witnessing unimaginable horrors.
After some reconnaissance, the Syndicate confirmed that the girl hadn't killed any of the other slaves. Their "stocks" were intact, and they wanted them back urgently. This incident could not have come at a worse time as a major delivery was due for high-value clients. Kill teams were dispatched to eliminate the child psyker, but she proved far too powerful for anything they could field. None survived.
Caught between mounting losses, a looming deadline, and an unstoppable force, the Syndicate resorted to desperate measures by working with anyone who could help, even potential heretics. They spread word through the darkest corners of the underworld, offering hefty rewards for anyone who could solve their problem.
Someone answered.
Tonight was the arranged meet up, the moment their mysterious expert was supposed to appear. If this failed, the Syndicate would be left with only brutal options: storm the site with human-wave assaults in the hopes of taking out the girl, or destroy everything by leveling the site. Currently, they most likely would carry out the latter plan.
You cold-blooded bastards—my eyes twitched at the incredible cruelty displayed by the Syndicate as I turned and looked at the unconscious lady. I picked Lyssa up like a weightless doll, and disarmed her by taking away a pistol and two knives. With some effort I bent her sniper rifle into a make-shift lock around her waist, tying her to a steel pole.
That done, I found myself another corner, turned on my shroud and sat down. It was time to see this psyker girl. A familiar detaching sensation took over and my consciousness escaped from my body. Like before I flew one circle around myself, double checking for potential dangers before moving swiftly to the underground.
My projection went through layers and layers of solid material, homing towards the psychic resonance. Before long, I reached an opening in the form of a small hall, and found the source of that aching sorrow. In the dim light provided by barely working glow globes, a young girl could be seen hugging her knees in a corner, emanating an aura of despair. She was a tiny, skinny child with messy long hair and dressed in an oversized shirt, the only living person in this hall.
Disturbingly, the whole place looked like a scene taken straight out of a horror movie. Messy splotches of dark red—the exact type of red that reminded me of dried blood—were scattered over the whole hall. The floor was almost completely covered, with massive patches on the wall, and even the ceiling wasn't spared. More shockingly were the multiple piles of organic-looking matter that took me a moment to process what I was seeing.
Holy fuck—These were human remains, flipped inside out by unimaginable force that resulted in a massive burst and spillage of blood, with innards scattering all over the place. An almost exact fit of the story told by Fulton some time ago: People were literally turned inside out.
The smell of this place must be unbelievable. Though the place looked like a charnel house, I sensed more people around the place, they were situated further after this area, and none of them were psykers. As I floated and surveyed the carnage, the girl looked up and stared straight at me with her pair of large, hollow eyes.
She can see me.
I descended to ground level and her gaze followed, confirming my observation. I approached the girl slowly, and she simply stared at me until we came face to face.
Up close, her tiny face revealed sharp angles and a haunting gauntness that should never be found on a child. Her eyes, far too large for that tiny, narrow face, held a dull and exhausted glaze. That's a look of having witnessed many, many terrible things, some of it probably of her own doing.
+Hello.+
I gingerly greeted her via telepathy, not knowing what to expect. Those large eyes widened further and became larger still as a hint of life returned in her gaze.
'Wait… are you real?' she whispered.
Good. She can converse and did not attack me right away. I imagined a person with a lesser mental fortitude could easily go insane from what she had experienced.
+I am real. What is your name?+
She blinked a few times and then held her gaze, only after confirming I wasn't disappearing did she reply.
'...Xalma.'
Xalma.
That name brought back memories about an unpleasant story. It closely matched the name of another girl, Xalmagundi, who lived during the Horus Heresy.
A powerful rogue psyker, Xalmagundi got caught up with the Alpha Legion, the Space Marine Legion covert operations experts. She was coerced into participating in a back-stabbing, suicide mission. That young psyker was used like a discarded pawn, and ended in horrible death. I remembered she died, blinded and wasted, on a piece of space rock that was slowly drifting into the local sun.
The little kid in front of me felt like a carbon copy of the same tragic trope, being a young girl who was handed too much powers for her own good, looking fated for a tragic ending.
+Xalmagundi?+ I asked, half expecting the poor girl to have the exact name as the forgotten psyker.
She appeared surprised and replied with a protesting tone. 'No, just… Xalma.'
So, not the same, but the close resemblance was still unsettling.
+Nice to meet you, Xalma. I am Syrine.+ I introduced myself.
Upon hearing my name, Xalma's huge eyes went bigger still and she retreated further into her corner.
'You are not real,' she declared and started weeping.
Huh? +Why?+
'That's the name of the living saint. Why would she be here?'
Just like that she started bawling, and the space around seemed to weep with her. A dreaded sensation slowly filled the hall and my sense of alarm went through the roof with a sudden precognition: If this continued, a daemonic possession might be just around the corner. In the lore, daemons were said to be attracted by strong emotions.
+Don't cry, I am real, and I can prove it,+ I assured Xalma.
Luckily that seemed to work as her crying waned, but between sniffling she demanded proof.
'How? Show Xalma, show you are real.'
+What you see is a projection,+ I explained, doing all I could to appease the clearly traumatised kid. +My real self is close by, out there. I will return to my body and immediately send you a signal, to prove to you I am real, and this is no imagination.+
She looked at me, a flicker of hope seemed to be ignited in those oversized eyes. For further appeasement, I followed up with more promises.
+After that I will come straight down here to get you, then everyone out of this place. So please, don't cry.+
'What… what about all the bad people outside?'
That got me curious, I looked at the literal bloody mess around us and asked the question in my mind. +It looks like you can handle them, what is stopping you from going outside?+
Xalma took a long look at me before answering. 'Every time Xalma used powers, Xalma heard voices and started seeing things that weren't there. The more Xalma used powers, the more real these… things become. Xalma is scared.'
Clever girl.
+Listen, you did very well. From now on stop using your powers unless it is absolutely necessary.+
'So, you will take care of the bad people for Xalma?' she asked.
I thought about the brutal crimes committed by the Syndicate revealed from Lyssa's memories, and slowly nodded. Sanctioned violence happened to be one of the few things I could promise her.
Some people don't deserve to live.
+Do you think they stand a chance against a living saint who has backings from the Sororitas, the Mechanicus and the Inquisition?+ I asked Xalma. She did not reply but had a dumbfounded look on her face.
+I will be back,+ I said with the intention of immediately carrying out the mentioned plan.
'No, wait!' Xalma cried out, reaching out for the first time with her tiny hand.
+Yes?+
'Promise Xalma you will keep your promise.' She exclaimed, there was an undertone of desperation in her tearing up voice.
Xalma was clearly afraid, afraid that I would just be gone like a figment of her imagination. I reached out and clasped her little hand with both my palms, physical and ethereal hands merged into one.
+I promise.+
Despite my assurances she still looked quite worried.
+If you like, we can pinky swear it.+
'What is a pinky swear?'
I retrieved my hands before extending out the little finger of my right hand.
+It is an ancient Terran ritual to seal promises, done by hooking your little finger to mine.+
'Never heard of it.'
+So you just proved I can't be your imagination, right?+
Something clicked in those large eyes of her as she slowly extended her little finger and completed the hook.
'Pinky swear.'
I smiled.
With a mental cue I instantly snapped back into my body. Right away I stood up and ran to the edge of the roof. Just as I was about to go full psychically-active to deliver the promised signal, a familiar but somewhat weird sensation made me grind to a halt.
It was another psychic resonance, muted but definitely potent, and mixed within that power was something sickening. I knew this feeling and had met it before, that much I was sure of it. Digging into my memories, I soon found my answer. This was so diluted compared to what I had experienced on that rainy battlefield, it took a moment for me to make the connection.
Warp taint.
For some reason, this time it triggered a phantom metallic-sweet and corroded after taste on my tongue that I could not help but wanted to spit it out.
A cultist, probably a practitioner of Chaos sorcery, is here.