It was raining when I pulled the curtain aside to look at the grey daybreak city. Street lights had gone off, and only a few shop signs were flashing through the fog. Strings of yellow and red headlights moved along the crowded highway under our windows and disappeared in the living blocks underneath.

A muffled clatter of bowls and pots came from the next room where Uncle was busy with the breakfast. My retinue, curled up on their sleeping cots, were still watching their morning dreams. I walked on tiptoes past Fluffster snoring over the cogitator and headed to the kitchen to help Uncle and have the first cup of fresh recaff or even coffee.

I pushed the door, and a stripe of light fell on Angel's corner. The blanket had slipped off the empty cot. His armour stacked at the headboard was gone. With a sudden sick feeling in my stomach, I reached for my pistol.

'Morning, lassie!' Uncle called out from the next room. 'We've got an unopened package of coffee in the lower drawer.'

He turned his head from the bacon he was slicing and pressed the side button of the coffee machine.

I shook my head. 'Snacks can wait a bit, Uncle. Have you seen Angel?'

'Poor boy.' Uncle sighed and leaned over to pull a bunch of green onions from the portable fridge. 'I bet he saw another nightmare. He leapt up like crazy an hour ago. Didn't tell me anything. Just carried his armour parts to the outer hall. Everything is going bonkers now. A good munch might cheer him up.'

I breathed in and closed my eyes. My psychic glance slipped through the rooms, to the corridor. Angel's soulfire was out of my reach. Only a fading trace behind the compartment door.

I shoved the pistol back, drank a full cup of coffee in a single gulp. 'A few minutes, Uncle. Don't tell the others anything right now.'

My heart sank at the image that popped up against my will. Feathers, white and red, scattered over the bridge. The Grim had been sure we were powerless to struggle against the bad blood all brothers of the Ninth share. One way or another, the Red Thirst or the Black Rage found their way to turn a noble man into a beast or a vengeful loon. But still, the former seemed scarier, a random thought struck me. A call of hunger that had been singing in Angel's ears as we were flying to the Casbah. It came alive where the trace of the Great Devourer was found. Fluffster knew the reason but refused to tell it. Maybe Angel did as well. Was it too scary even for a full-fledged Inquisitor?

Step by step, I walked out of the compartment, concentrating on the trail. A bit of bad luck, and Angel would rip me to pieces before my friends heard my cries. I walked a few meters further into the corridor until a reddish glint of his fierce aura flashed from the balconies in the end. The worst of the two. Smouldering wrath ready to break out.

He was standing, still as a stone idol, behind the dusty glass of the balcony door, a dark shape against the grey skies. Hand on the doorknob, I lingered for a few seconds. Bluish sparks were running over his activated power blades. Claw marks crossed the smoked fencing.

I pulled at the knob. 'Hey, brother.'

He turned to me with a grace of a jammed automaton. Green helmet lenses stared at my face as if I was a warp ghost. Good they aren't scarlet as the Panther's, I thought suddenly.

'You were strong enough to reject the temptations of the place. Screw the sorcerer's ramblings. You're tense as hell since we kicked the chitinous asses of the Pirate King's beloved pets.'

He slashed across the fencing plates. Four thin strips of clean metal shone under the lamplight from the corridor. Then the sparks died out. He pulled off the gauntlet with the deactivated weapon, then took off his helmet. A hectic flush glowed on his pallid face, his upper lip moved revealing his sharp fangs in red froth. I gave him my hand, and he squeezed my fingers so hard I bit my cheek so as not to cry out.

'It's in the blood. My sire's blood in the veins of his sons,' he whispered wistfully. 'That place has awakened the call of blood. My brethren come from a stock of goners but strive to become angels. Some fail. Actually, many do.' He gritted his teeth, and a grimace of fury distorted his comely face into a beast snout. 'The accursed stench of musk prevails throughout. Do you feel it?'

'Their presence.' I touched my pistol.

'I thought I'd better take wing, like my sire. Down there. Before the Thirst could overtake me. But it's utterly dishonorable, to give up without a proper battle. Without and within. While there are abominations to rip to pieces.' He licked his fangs.

I clapped him on the shoulder. 'I like this better than your previous whining.'

'Life is His gift. Too precious to waste it.'

We both turned to a sound of steps from the corridor. Sister, sad and pale, reached for Angel with both hands.

'Kiddos, the breakfast is ready. Fooling around is the last thing we need. Fill your bellies with fine food and let's set off. The boy's already munching his share,' Uncle said from behind her back.

'Uncle, did you tell Fluffster?' I asked.

'The rodent just shrugged his shoulders, as always. Maybe he's still cross with you for leaving the old Terran buddy's ship.'

'He has chosen the task himself, so I doubt that.' I squinted at Sister who was consoling Angel with her signature mixture of kind words and preaching.

'Maybe it will really help her, if she meets her friends from the Order,' said Uncle. 'So that her self-loathing and guilt could be healed at last.'

During the meal, I opened the latest files and added a few newer coordinates to the list in my map application. All confirmed sightings had happened before the arrival of the Biruang, in the lower district around a flood gate at the entrance to the underhive. Startled by the bombings and, likely, by the presence of their kind on the Panther's ship, the genestealers had retreated to the depths to wait for the nearest Hive Fleet. Still, scared citizens kept on reporting spiral graffiti on fences and walls, peculiar rumours brought by their neighbours and acquaintances. Some blamed the mutants for robbing their shops and flats.

I sent a heads-on to the Arbites Proctor of the district, exchanged a few brief notes with Tamias who'd left the Stumblebum to have a stroll along a remaining pub street in the middle levels. The owl would have been the safest way to travel down but it would draw even more attention than the genestealer car from the picts. After a few calls the Prefectus finally found us an Enforcer van designed for special operations in the underhive. A shabby bolt bucket with chipped paint and a delivery company logo on the cab, it had bulletproof windows and armoured sides. The cargo body let us avoid questions about Angel and Fluffster.

Uncle took the driver seat, I sat next to him with the pistol in the pocket and the chainsword under my feet, covered with a floor rug. His own gun and a few frag and smoke grenades were hidden in a weapon locker between the seats.

Panaque pulled a sad face before going to the body. 'Why isn't there a third seat? Just boring to sit in a closed box instead of staring at the city fun.'

'There'll be fun only after we arrive,' I said. 'Refresh your knowledge about the genestealers or just have a hearty chat with the others. We'll buy you something to chew on the way.'

We rolled through a poorly lit tunnel that joined the Administratum complex and the downtown district and turned to a broad avenue, side by side with an exact copy of our car. Offices and malls stood in ruins, rainwater pooled in shell craters. People shunned the city center streets I had seen crowded and festive on the picts. A few ragged teens looked out of a broken window of a deserted hotel. One of them hurled a chunk of glass at the other van but missed. An Enforcer patrol car showed up from a sidestreet, and they darted back into the dark rooms.

The navigator program announced another turn. Uncle drove through a narrow street, crossed a bridge that arched over the canal, and we headed down along the riverfront. Dark clouds rushed by over our heads, sickly trees on the boardwalk swayed back and forth under the wind. A few passers-by ran across the road, covering their heads from the first raindrops. The moss-green surface of the canal rippled, a pack of gulls took wing from the parapet.

'If I was a real paranoid, I'd say the sorcerer is watching us.' I chuckled pointing at the birds who were circling over the car.

'They're after the food that couriers carry in vans like the ours,' Uncle grunted. 'Let's choose a more cheerful thing to talk about, lassie.'

As we were getting far from the center, the streets came alive. Some of the districts were almost intact. Elderly citizens were having their morning cup of tea in small diners with bright neon letters over the windows. A bus pulled to a stop, and a crowd of children ran out opening colourful umbrellas.

Only once in a while we passed by a damaged building or a crater. After a few more miles down, I saw the first genestealer emblem. A clumsy copy scribbled on a storehouse fence by some drunkard as a stupid prank, it still gave me chills. The yards were smaller, trashed sidestreets looked abandoned even though there were no signs of destruction. Twenty-thirty dark windows for every one lit.

I reached for my vox bead. 'Proctor, do you copy? We're five miles away from the presumed infestation area.'

A few beeps, and the Arbitrator's husky voice replied, 'On the spot with a suppression squad in our best wargear, ma'am. Honestly, we haven't noticed any fresh traces of alien or mutant presence. The local shop owners write tons of petitions to the Administratum. They blame the genestealers to make the officials pay a compensation for their goods they'd sold on the black market.'

'Sounds optimistic but we have to check the area first. Be ready to summon the rest.'

'Everyone's in full combat readiness. But for the enforcer cadres… I suppose you'd better give them orders in your own name. You know the tense relations between the Adeptus Arbites and planetary police forces.'

Uncle drove under a city railway bridge that connected two upper levels of living blocks. Next to a crossroads where a glazed gallery led down to the boardwalk, I noticed a small convenience store. Couriers often buy food in shops like that, so the manager would feel at ease to chat about the latest news.

I took a courier company badge from the glove box, gave another one to Uncle. On the parking there was an only abandoned car with broken windows. I climbed the slippery steps. A woman with a full bag of dairy and vegetables that went out of the glass doors paid no attention to the two shabby delivery servicemen.

The manager was loitering between rows of shelves, checking security cameras. He waved his hand at the entry chime.

'You're welcome. Look up the fresh ready meals to the right. What's up in the city?'

'Driving around since daybreak,' Uncle answered. 'A good chance to earn some cash for me and niece.'

The manager chuckled. 'That's the fellow who finds profit in the mess around. Salesmen from the center dropped their prices, and the locals took out their savings for the rainy day.'

'These are the rainy days in all senses.' I smiled back.

'Not afraid of the mutants there, girl?' he said when I brought a lunchbox and a package of sliced fruit to the cash desk.

'They tell creepy tales about them. Have you seen any? I heard they rob stores.'

He flinched. 'The Emperor's merciful. A gang burglared a store two blocks away from here. Some crazy mobsters. But the manager is gonna write to the Administratum. Let the fat bastards open their wallets.'

'The center's got hit by bombs,' Uncle said.

'I don't believe the big dogs died. Just skedaddled from the planet with our money. And the rest keeps on telling us these sad tales so that we felt sorry and put up with another tax surge. I've got under half the usual customers now. In less than a month after the rumours and the attacks. In a district with the least damage. All huddled in their flats, scared by their own shadow.'

'I was a soldier in the Guard years ago. Seen much worse monsters.' Uncle activated his microchip ring to pay for our food.

The manager pointed at the booze shelves with a smirk. 'I'd advise you a bottle of liquid courage, just in case.'

'Man, I'm driving.'

'Cops are understanding here. They're tipsy all the time when the locals call them to investigate another abandoned house with a scary sign.'

'Are there many mobsters hanging around?' I asked.

'Not at daytime,' said the manager. 'But you'd better leave the district before dark. Wonder why those mutants haven't eaten them yet.'

I stuffed the sandwiches, lunch boxes and sliced fruit into a plastic bag. The rain had only grown stronger. In the minute it took us to reach the van, I was drenched like after a swim in the canal.

'Are we there?' Panaque put his head through an opening in the partition between the cabin and the body. 'Time to turn up the heat!'

'First, try to overcome this.' Uncle handed him the package with a lunchbox and a sandwich. 'Your appetite would make genestealers envious.'

Rain was pattering on the cab roof as we were driving deeper into the densely built district. The boardwalk had ended. A torrent of waste water was rushing towards the flood gate downhill, rumbling inside a long rockcrete tunnel. Yellow street lamps never went off where dim daylight didn't reach enclosed yards and narrow roads.

Emblems, sinister emblems everywhere. Drawn in dried blood on grey rockcrete. No one had removed them. It was barely noon but the streets were deserted like it was the middle of the night. One or two lit windows for a whole block. Parked cars all smashed and covered with mud.

A large black car stood out among cheap bolt buckets. A familiar model. Its cab and roof molten and charred, the fake eagle from the pict remained intact. I closed my eyes and reached out. A faint breeze with a faded note of musk brushed against my mind and died out. A trail once strong, but too old to catch.

A sudden squeal of brakes pulled me out of the psyker trance. The van shivered.

'A damn madman!' Uncle bellowed.

Someone started banging on the body with desperate cusses.

'Drunk or nuts?' Uncle rolled down his window. 'Popped out of nowhere, crazy fast.'

The stranger ran up to the cab on shaky legs. Not a genestealer. An unremarkable slum man in dirty clothes. He leaned down and picked up an empty bottle from the kerb.

'C-c-come out, b-b-bastard!' He hiccuped and swung the bottle.

'Bugger off or we'll call the cops!' I shouted. 'We've to deliver this damn order!'

The bottle broke to splinters. The man yelled an indistinct curse, brandishing the bottleneck. For a moment he froze up before the cab but then put his other hand into his pocket.

'Holy crap, a grenade.' Uncle whistled.

'Probably stolen from the genestealers,' I said. 'I have a way to scare the shit outta him.'

'Aye, let's show him the rosette!' Panaque interfered.

'He'll blow us up in fear,' said Uncle.

The Will. All that remains. I clenched my fingers to concentrate. 'Put it back. Put it back and get away.'

He stared at the van with his mouth gaping. His fingers clutched the grenade but he didn't move.

'Get away,' I repeated the order.

Bright white light fell on the madman. Another car stopped at the closest corner. An Enforcer patrol. A gun barrel appeared from the half-open window.

'Hands up!'

The madman didn't move, stunned by the psychic contact.

I looked out of my window. 'He's probably stoned.'

'None of your business,' the officer answered from the car. 'Prepare the license and the waybill for the check.'

I rolled the glass down and put through my hand with the rosette. A muffled cuss and a cough reached my ears. In a second the officer jumped out of the car.

'Waiting for the orders, ma'am!'

'First, take the grenade from the man while he's gaping at us. Then, send a message to your department. I need the Enforcers to watch over the area around the flood gate. There might be groups of mutants trying to break through to the upper districts.'

We continued the way into the maze of steep passages between tall rockcrete walls. Living blocks gave way to sewage treatment facilities. Fully automated and sealed away from intruders, they hadn't ceased the usual work after the calamities.

Uncle stopped the car before a mauled metal door in the wall of the tunnel. Pools of blood had dried in potholes under a canopy at the entrance.

I got out first to examine the broken seal on the lock. Bloody fingerprints on the lock didn't look human.

'The High Inquisitor showed us similar fingerprints. We had to identify genestealers among hundreds of fingers.' Panaque left the van without my sign, eager to sate his curiosity and boast his experience. 'I'm sure they broke it from the inside.'

'A surprising discovery,' Fluffster grunted. He took a few tools out of his pouch and carefully scraped off a blood drop. 'Curious.' The report file opened on the screen of his slate. 'Purestrain hybrids. Most likely, a clash with local mobsters. About three weeks ago.'

He went on studying the door surface.

'How fresh are the newest prints?' I asked.

'It depends. If we talk about genestealers, the same three weeks. But there are a few human traces as well. Left no earlier than yesterday.'

'So the mutants decided to stop using this exit.'

'But their food thought otherwise,' Panaque said with a chuckle.

Uncle frowned. 'Take care so that they don't snack on you, boy.'

'That's why I've got a cool gun.' Panaque closed one eye and took aim at the door, mimicking action movie stars.

'Did your mentor often take you out for combat raids?' I said.

Panaque lowered the weapon. 'Not really. When in Ordo Xenos, I accompanied the High Inquisitor to a few crime scenes. I was an apprentice of his sage acolyte then. The old man was always scolding me. He called me brainless so often I printed the results of my latest EEG and made it the wallpaper of his working cogitator.'

'What about the Ordo Machinum then?'

'The High Inquisitor's enginseer discovered I had technical talents. He was a normal guy and taught me a few tricks for weapon management and repair. My late mentor needed educated Progena acolytes for a mission on Colomesus so I was transferred to Ordo Machinum. Most of his people were sour guys and gals so I monopolized the social interactions.'

'How did you miss rumours of the rebellion then?'

He sighed. 'I heard about the fishy schemes in the upper echelons. For a few times, from different people. When I described all risks and possibilities to my mentor, he got angry with me. He said I needed to check the facts before distracting him from his own investigations. But then cultists appeared in the vicinity. The rebellion broke out on that very night.'

The door creaked open. A strong stench of damp and decay hit my nose. Angel, bolter in hand, claws activated, made a brisk step into the dark.

Sloshing through streams of wastewater, we moved forth in a single-file. Flashlight beams picked out beast jaws carved in moldy rockcrete. Even layers of old rust on pipes looked like bloodstains in the lamplight.

My boot slipped on a broken tile, and I grabbed a hanging bundle of cables to stay upright. The headlamp on my hat slipped aside. Right at my feet, in a deep gutter along the wall, brown water was running over piles of picked bones. Human bones.

A note of musk in the draught I could hardly catch. Concentrated on the psychic background, I followed Angel deeper into the maw of the Devourer's lair. A canary down the mine, he would sense the proximity of the mutants before any of us. Blood is drawn to blood. Beast to beast. As long as his tense aura stays calm, we're safe.

'What do you feel now?' I asked him by vox.

His voice sounded only a bit nervous. 'The call of my duty. To the Emperor, my Chapter and you.'

'And your morning blood wrath?'

'I must fight it. Even the slightest sparks. Not because the indoctrination tells me. Because I need to grow strong before the times of trial.'

'Glad to hear that your serious attitude has got manly notes.'

New notes popped up in the psychic white noise. A level below. Sentient beings. The remaining aura of the cult didn't let me have a closer look. Just lights flickering in the distance. My heart pounding, I sent our coordinates to the Proctor. A dozen steps forward, a rusty ladder led down into a dark chasm.

Angel stopped before the bent fence scanning the lower corridors. Trickles of congealed mutant blood were black against the rust. I waited until he went down the shaky steps and started descending. The lights were glowing brighter as I came closer. Not too many of them. Most likely, guards or scouts left to warn the cult. We had to hold on till the arrival of the Arbites.

'Let's catch them by surprise,' I whispered into the vox. 'Try to catch one alive.'

'They're in a control chamber. Fifty meters to the left,' Angel said back.

Even jolly Panaque clenched his jaws and frowned. The fourth combat in his life.

I gave him a friendly smile. 'At least, you've already seen their foul kind.'

'So I'm well aware of the risks.'

We came so close I heard their muffled voices from behind the walls. Sister slowed down, both hands on the throttle of her Eviscerator. I slipped behind Angel as he swung his claws and rushed to the chamber.

A yell of horror echoed in the corridors. Angel stopped abruptly.

'Good Emperor, that's not his goon! Not the frigging Tyranids!' a human voice shouted.

The floor in the chamber was smeared with dried genestealer waste. Bones lay all over the metal plates. Control panels had been dragged to the corner to build a clumsy hideout. Ragged, disheveled men and women huddled inside, covering their eyes from the light. Hair, I breathed a sigh of relief. Human faces of natural coloring. No extra hands.

Panaque put his flashlight beam on the strangers. 'They look like someone way too familiar.' He pulled at the greasy dreadlocks of the closest hobo. 'To check up for sure.'

'He himself told us to bugger off!' One of them cried out.

Dirty but once glam clothes. Tattoos of leopard heads and Chaos Stars.

'The cultists that had driven me to the ruins on Colomesus just before Uncle Ruy found me. But these ones are too scared to fire their guns.'

'Are you the Pirate King's men?' I showed them my rosette.

'Not anymore,' the same man answered. A typical sailor from a rogue trader ship, he had peculiar augmetics on his face and right hand but his garbs were torn and covered in dried blood. 'He's got a better crew.' Even the rosette had left them undisturbed. They had seen worse shit than an unexpected visit from the Inquisition, and I had to find out the details.

'You've arrived to the city on the Biruang?' My retinue surrounded the hideout, holding the runaways at gunpoint. 'If you give me honest answers, I'll be merciful.'

'The King chose sailors from the Macan Kumbang before the trip. Everyone volunteered. We couldn't stand that anymore.' A few teens in the distant corner gave out loud sobs.

'Beasts, damn beasts,' a shivering woman said, her face still covered with her scarf. 'They kept on coming until they occupied all the lower decks. We tried to drive them out. But they ate everyone who went down. And the meat… It was growing over the walls. Meat and scales.'

'The reek was so strong we had to wear gas masks,' said the man. 'Those left on board cried curses at us. When the Biruang stopped over the city, we were ready to start a mutiny. We hadn't known that before… The King took his Headsman along. To try a new poison on us.'

'Did he notice the genestealer cult?' I asked.

'The cult noticed him. When the survivors gathered on the bridge, too angry to be afraid…'

'He was there, in his horrid swollen suit,' the woman went on. 'He burst out laughing. The baldies will serve better than you, so bugger off, he bellowed. We saw insect fiends jumping up to the platforms. So we ran away, as fast as we could.'

'To the shuttles,' said the man. 'Then… They swarmed the docking decks. They paid us no attention. A living river of purple-skinned, nasty scum that darted from their own shuttles to the lower part of the ship. They carried in a giant deformed monster in a palanquin of iron and gold. We ran hard on our asses until we found refuge in these tunnels. Where the mutants used to live.'

'Have you seen any?' I said.

'They left to the last one. But the citizens are still scared. They won't dare to look for us here. Only one man will…'

'Hope he's still busy with his poison-brewing business,' said another man.

I frowned at the guess. 'The Headsman's in town now?'

'The King sent him to test the poison in the hive after the bombings. We should have joined the others who went to the biggest city.'

'So listen. Keep calm, find a job, at least in the underhive. I won't do you harm unless you draw too much attention of local cops. Get ready for another visit if we don't find the Headsman quickly enough.' I found the Proctor's vox channel. 'Proctor, all-clear. Just a band of hobos who have settled in the abandoned lair. They ensured me the genestealers have all left. Wait until I get the presumed coordinates of the Patriarchs former lair.'

'Do you believe them, Fluffster?' I asked him when we left the chamber.

He narrowed his eyes. 'The Panther's usual way of recruiting unusual forces.'

'His apothecary is way more important now. Let us finish some formalities and proceed to the next task.' I sent the coordinates of the lair to the microchip of my cyber-moth. The metal insect's wings flashed in the lamplight, and it vanished in the depths of the maze.