A/N: Move is complete, things are settling in with the new place. Had a bit of time to play around with some ideas, and I am pleased to announce I am more or less back on track with writing 40k (at the very least, this story. Developed about a dozen other ideas in the past 6 months I have been messing with). Glad to be back in the swing of things, and I hope y'all enjoy this new chapter.

Disciple of Ember- I can't say anything regarding a particular visually-impaired librarian-type, but I can definitely say that Gutterball is going to be getting more screentime. There is something special coming from that direction. As for the other part... when you said it was a vision are you assuming it did or did not actually happen...? (evil snicker)
BIBOTOT- things are going to continue to be a little iffy with the xenos. After all, we can't have a 40k story where people just get along, amirite?
OR99- that was my initial thought going into writing this story. Glad you are enjoying it.
Noone297- I am excited to see you are enjoying it. Thank you for the encouraging words.
89- Well, what can I say? Eventually something has to sort of go Louk's way. I mean, good things do happen in 40k... right?... Guys?... Anyone?
Kaneous- I cannot confirm or deny said accusation. That being said, I am glad you are enjoying the story.
SpecH82- I am curious to see what you think when you catch up. Definitely a theory.

Iora, Present Day

After a week of putting up with Jadus' minions, Louk could see why the Inquisitor had left them behind while he continued on with whatever his mission was on-planet. Every so often, if he stood by the scribe's door, he overheard snippets of vox communication. Rarely enough to tell anything important; the stormtroopers would always hurry him along. Rude, the lot of them. He was in his own house, damn it. His inability to have privacy inside his own walls grated at his nerves.

Not to mention the inconvenience of sharing two wash rooms with more than fifteen other people. Not counting the twelve stormtroopers, the three stooges, and Jaycel, there were innumerable minor cronies entering and leaving the house. Sometimes they would stay for a day or two, other times they hardly set foot inside the door. There was too much going on for his tastes. Too much bustle, not enough peace.

He rarely had the opportunity to speak to Jaycel; Greori kept them separated, either because he feared they might plot behind his back or because Jadus was simply being an ass. It did not truly matter, but Louk missed his presence. There had always been a sense of confidence and security that accompanied the man's presence. Bereft of that, surrounded by hostiles, he felt ill at ease and vulnerable. The fact that they confiscated all of his weapons only made him more helpless and discontent.

More than anything, he hated the silence. Months of speaking with Seeker had ruined him for companionship. Now he had nothing, save for the occasional attempt at interrogation by Greori, who seemed more interested in preening his own ego than in discovering information of value. Not that Louk helped; this was the first person in years who had willing subjected itself to Louk's sharp tongue. He gave Greori hell, constantly tripping him up, confusing him, offering finely-veiled sarcasm to lead him down ridiculous stories that always ended in an insult or a heart-crushing joke. The only fun to be had in this home-turned-prison, and one that he guarded as preciously as he dared. It was only a matter of time before Jadus came back, and Louk truly did not know what to expect from the man. They had many run-ins between them, first on this very planet, then Warsaw, and Gehenna, and all the other times. It was a true wonder of the galaxy that Jadus had not simply shot him in the head when he stalked into the room.

Damn. He missed the days when he could throw down with the man. The worst people always ended up with the best amenities. Throne-damned rejuvenant treatments would keep the bastard alive for centuries, provided Jadus continued his streak of stupidity-fueled-luck when it came to not dying. That thought brought an amused chuckle. Jadus was not the only one who had cheated the Reaper…

The Reaper. A chill settled on his spine. The memories rose unbidden to his mind, filling him with horrible thoughts and screaming voices. His chest tightened, and his hands curled against the armrests as he pushed the memories away. Not the Reaper. Not the Reaper anymore.

His musings faded when he realized he was not alone on the balcony. The door remained closed, no other being shared the space, but he was hardly by himself. The tingling in his spine and crawling sensation across his skin informed him of the presence of the blind psyker at his back. His battered hearing struggled to catch the rhythmic tapping of fingers on glass. She stood at the window, bandaged eyes gaping vacantly at the center of his forehead, one hand wrapped around her waist while the other beat a tune against the door. He waited to see if she would open it. When she did not, he turned back to the mountain. The sun beat down on him, obscured his vision for the glare reflecting off the multitude of angled roofs. He knew it was out there, had memorized its location years ago. It seemed further away now; even more out of reach than it had been. He had visited it once, or at least tried to, on a whim not long after coming to Iora the second time. To his amusement, if not lack of surprise, the underground city had been turned over to the Inquisition for long term research and occupation. Everything that could be stripped and sent off to secret laboratories had been, but some things defied the efforts of man to remove. That, coupled with the lingering taint of the dark forces that had possessed the city, ensured that a vigilant watch remain on hand while scribes and intellectuals combed over the remaining wreckage.

He almost missed the near-silent padding of bare feet as the psyker slipped onto the balcony and stepped around in front of him. She had donned a more conservative outfit today, insomuch as a stolen coat designed for a man half her weight again and perhaps twice her physical size could be considered conservative. Louk did not begrudge her the coat, though he did make a note to have Jaycel burn it after she left. Not because he feared contamination, but because he doubted he would ever look so marvelous as she did while wearing it. It dwarfed her tiny frame, sleeves pushed back to the elbows and torso clumping up around her, hanging limply over the psyker's narrow shoulders with just enough looseness to give a hint of the threadbare garments she wore beneath it. The dark green of the coat contrasted nicely with her pale skin, ginger hair. For a long minute she stood before him, one hand clutched over her belly, the other lifted as if in the middle of raising her hand to ask a question. Her face bore a perturbed expression, one that he did not know the origin or meaning of, but one he was sure he might figure out given time. Then again, she was a certifiably nutty warphead; she could be wondering why eggs were thicker at one end than the other for all he knew.

"You have a question" he ventured, asking rather than demanding. He did not know, in all honesty, but he did not feel comfortable with her standing there in silence. Depending on how paranoid the others were regarding her, they might have forbidden her to speak with him unless others were present. He was treading in dangerous waters; Jadus' crews tended to be overly concerned with secrecy and counterintelligence. One time, he had led two of his teams on a three year smoke chase all because of a very simple rumor he had started in reference to a certain mysterious figure named "Sudaj." The fools had eaten it up like chicks from the hen, and by the time he finished toying with them they had very nearly called in an Imperial Navy battlecruiser to destroy the ship carrying their very own Inquisitor… Jadus. Ha! Fun times, that.

"I want to know." The psyker's voices were strained, pitches wavering further apart than usual. Louk bit down his reflexive wince and allowed his gaze to swing over to her outstretched hand, expecting some sort of warp magic to start forming. When nothing emerged, he shrugged and settled further back into his chair. Her lack of playfulness had him on edge. He had not seen her behave so… normal, before.

"Know what?"

"Why." Her simple one-word response seemed to strengthen her, and she lowered her hand, placing it over her heart. Tugging the stolen coat tighter over her body, she made a pained face. "Why do you… defend me?

"Defend you?" Louk lifted an eyebrow, a gesture lost on a blind woman, but his own curiosity conveyed the concept well enough. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"I am witch" she told him. "I have the devil's curse inside me. You know this."

"Are you referring to the fact that you are a psyker?" He tried to follow her; honestly, he did. He wasn't quite sure what she was getting at, though. Maybe something Jadus had instilled in her. The bastard had a puritanical streak so wide it was a wonder he even had her on the team.

"On my home, we burn witch. Purify the devil inside. We are abomination. Only cure is by fire."

"That's a bit extreme." Louk eyed her hand meaningfully, well, as meaningfully as he could considering she was unable to appreciate the gesture. "If we didn't have psykers, the Imperium wouldn't function."

"Trained witch is not the same. I am… not that. I am wildling."

"Surely you don't believe that. If you were truly bad, would an Inquisitor let you live?"

"My existence is shame to clan. I offend them by living. Brother Greori tried to purify me, to redeem. The Inquisitor will not allow it." She touched the collar at her throat. "I have tried."

"Tried to… purify yourself?" He understood that part easily enough. The thought sickened him. "You own brother tried to kill you?"

"Greori is good man" she said with a scowl. "When I discovered I was witch, he agreed to turn me over to Priests. Inquisitor interrupted ceremony. Took me away from the pyres."

That did not sound like Jadus. Not at all. Louk frowned and wondered whether he needed to review his knowledge of the man. If there was one thing Jadus was known for, it was having no mercy on those of the psyker persuasion. There had to be an underhanded reasoning behind such an action. He had a nagging idea he knew what it was.

"Who told you that you are evil?"

"Priests spoke every season, telling of the danger of demons. Witch consort with demon. It is known."

"What would make you believe that? Just because a bunch of screeching bearded men told you it was true?"

She stayed quiet for several breaths, her head tilting towards the mountain. After a painfully long silence, she lifted a hand and pointed with one finger. He knew without having to see which mountain in particular she pointed to. "Thousands. Because of witch. On my home, there was season where witches ruled. Before coming of Priests. Witches burned many. Killed more. Witches ruled. Priests came, with angels. Killed witches, freed my people and many others. We owe Priests life."

"You aren't like those psykers."

"I am."

He flinched at the venom in her voice. He had known people that hated themselves, cursed their own names, been ashamed of their heritage. He had never known someone to sound so intensely broken. Her words struck him like a punch in the gut. In his life he had seen a thousand levels of pain and sorrow. He had not seen this. Never before had someone's voice cracked at the speak of death, of reminiscing of the prospect of dying for no greater cause. He had seen Guardsmen steel themselves for certain death, watched heartbroken survivors suffer the guilt of being alive while all others had died. There was something different in her voice. Something that made his gut twist and stroked his spine with an icy claw. She knew she was correct.

"Witch are curse of man" she continued. "This is known. I am part of curse."

"Did these priests tell you that the only reason they arrived at your planet was because of psykers? Or that psykers are the reason we can communicate from one place to another? Or that psykers are some of the most powerful defenders of humanity?"

"Trained witch is different" she repeated, a hint of aggravation in her tones.

"All psykers start the same. I have seen plenty of 'trained' psykers, and plenty not. I can tell you honestly, there isn't a lick of difference between the two, as far as goodness goes. Most powerful psyker I ever met was never trained by anyone, and he is about the most human person you are ever going to find from here to Terra."

In the silence that followed, he caught the burning question that struggled to break free of her lips. She was too confused to say anything else. In lieu of speaking, she drew closer, stepping forward on silent feet until her legs brushed against his. The uncertainty in her posture had him on edge. She clearly did not know what to think. Louk waited, gave her time. He wasn't going anywhere. While he waited, he tried to pinpoint a reason why Jadus would keep her around. More than likely, because she could serve as a psychic watchdog. She already had demonstrated a degree of telepathic ability. Perhaps that was her schtick. Not a bad one to have at one's side. Louk had worked with a telepath before. Nice guy. Had a surprisingly ordinary sense of humor. Until Louk had to shoot him in the head to halt an unwanted daemonic possession. That guy had been 'trained.'

"Inquisitor said you had… fondness… for witches. I did not believe such a thing possible."

"Fondness?" Louk laughed bitterly. "Was he referring to the fact I look at them as people, or the fact that I allegedly…"

She moved like lightning, sliding forward over him like water, straddling his lap and pressing both of her hands against the sides of his head. A faint glow emanated from beneath her bandages. Louk felt the psychic power pooling around him and reached instinctively for the pistol under his cushion. It wasn't there anymore, of course. Damn stormtroopers had spirited it away. Shit.

"Inquisitor said you knew witch." Her voices spoke in harmony, the dissidence fading into an almost-pleasant sound, like a trio of singers matching pitches. That hardly relieved him. Her slim fingers pressed against his skull like adamantine rods. Her mind held just on the other side, a cacophony of power just waiting to be unleashed. Louk could feel her presence. Physically, feel her mind. She was that powerful. For the briefest moment, he wondered whether or not Jadus realized how powerful she was. His time around psykers had given him enough of an idea of the abstract nature of their differing power levels that he had a sense of placement for this one. Definitely, over nine thousand whatever-the-feck-units they used.

"Easy there, tiger." Louk tried to pry her hands away, but he was not as strong as he used to be. And she had a fierce grip. Probably psychically charged, too.

"I want to know" she murmured, her voices cracking. There was a desperation in her voice, in her mind, that hammered at his mental defenses. Ocean tides crashing against rocks, attempting to dislodge even just a little piece to cause the whole cliff to fall away. She was speaking faster, losing the intent behind her words as she spoke. "Inquisitor says you are liar and heretic. Says you were intimate with xenos witch. I do not understand."

"Don't understand what?"

"All others treat me as dog. They kick me. They hit me. They wish me dead. You are first who does not. You look at me and I feel... pity. I do not understand. Why do you feel this?"

It was hard to think with the pressure on his temples, and with her nose barely not-touching his, and the weight of her body pinning him to the chair. A headache began to scrape at his consciousness, her raw psychic power splashing against him in less than pleasant ways. Picking each word took more effort than it should have. His breathing was becoming a little too stressful for his liking.

"I knew a woman. A long time ago. She was like you, and when I found her she had been tortured by evil men."

"You speak of witch." Her breath left his face cold. He tasted frost on his lips. "You cared for her."

"I did." He blinked slowly, refusing to let his gaze go anywhere other than her bandaged eyes. Even though her physical eyes could not see him, he knew that her other sight could. This was not a staring contest he could afford to back down from. Her aura was growing increasingly frantic, confused, and predatory. Something powerful was building up inside her. Something he did not want to be next to whenever it unleashed.

"Show me! I want to understand!"

"What do you want to understand?" He grit his teeth against the pounding in his skull. Her fingers continued to press; it felt like they had pierced bone and were digging into the grey matter. Waves of psychic energy gave way to thunderous battering rams, blasting against his defenses. He had held against daemons and pskers of all kinds. He wasn't sure he could hold against this. Not for very long.

"I don't know what you wan-"

It might have happened in a split second. Or maybe an hour. There was no way to tell with warp magic until after it ended. He had just enough time to register her entire psychic presence retreating into a ball the size of a pinhead before it speared forward, arcing through her finger and puncturing his defense like a lance shot. The pain was incredible, so excruciating that for a moment Louk could not tell if he had died or merely transcended the point of cognition. The world exploded into a million indecipherable colors.

She was stunning. Her face was delicate and youthful, slashed open in a dozen places by the whip's bite. Fiery red hair, shorn roughly with a knife to a shoulder length, was matted together with crimson glue. The bloodstained white robes covering her had been ripped and rent all across her body, revealing lily-white skin blemished by horrific gouges. Heavy leather bindings pinned her arms and legs in place, but even so her captors had taken the liberty of snapping her forearms so thoroughly he could see where the bones were separated under her tortured skin. A glittering black collar covered her throat, a single display-like panel flashing white. Every part of her was damaged, broken, shattered.

Her body was heavenly, a glimpse of perfection so alluring and haunting that Louk felt the blood rushing to his skull. From her muscular, elegantly curved, calves to her slim waist, there was not a true blemish on her. Her hair hung loosely about her shoulders, gleaming in the light like fire danced among her locks. Her forbidding, terrible scowl revealed the harsh beauty of her lips, the shadow of dimples teasing her cheeks. That was a face that Louk could never forget. It was fierce and terrible, but so inhumanly beautiful as well.

He lay next to her in bed, an exhausted grin on his face. Her smooth, delicate back faced him, the last scars just barely visible at the small of her back. Extending a finger, he gently traced the pinked flesh. She shivered, arched her back away from him. A slight shift of position turned her face upwards, eye emerging from the dishevelled mess of scarlet hair that hid her shoulders. That beautiful profile gazed back at him reproachfully. For a long second she held that reproving stare. Then he pulled her in against him and her grimace turned into a kiss.

She stood over his limp body, blood streaming from the wound on her arm, driving them back with screams that warped metal and set bodies alight. Lightning crackled around them, exploding incoming fire and shooting off to obliterate any who ventured close. He felt her pain, felt her fury. Felt the aspect of death itself fill the hallway with her wrath. The dagger in his belly continued to burn, sucking away his lifeforce, draining it into the screaming voices tearing at his spine.

Even as the others set about preparing the perimeter, he could not think of anything else. He held her close, huddled under the meager protection of the shuttle. His heart threatened to tear itself in two as she shivered. The fever alone would kill her if they did not get her to her own kind soon. Off in the distance, one of the Praetorians shouted a warning. Gunfire erupted along the eastern perimeter. He did not go. He held onto her, held onto the sickly, gasping woman that carried his…

And then the witch collapsed against him, her breathing coming in ragged gasps. The first thing Louk noted was that her hands had fallen, sliding over his shoulders and disappearing past the back of the chair. Then that his legs were soaked. Either the witch had wet herself or she had...wet herself. Her shuddering body and rasping breaths left room for interpretation. If it wasn't for th-

Oh Throne he felt sick. His vision swam as reality asserted itself. His insides felt as if someone had cracked his ribs open and thrown an unshielded blender inside. The fingers on his right hand were twitching uncontrollably. Nausea proceeded to slap him a dozen times in the face like a vindictive woman. He felt absolutely terrible. Like he wanted to curl up in bed and sleep for the next two months. His shoulder was wet, and he reached up to feel it, half-expecting it to be blood from his ears.

It was the witch crying. Her bandages were damp, tears pouring from under them. Her breathing began to steady, in that it settled on bubbling breaths as she made that horrible keening wail that one expected from a widow at a funeral. One hand reappeared at his back, and to his surprise she held onto him and pressed her face further into his shoulder.

"I… understand" she managed to gasp out between sobs. "You loved witch."

"Yes." He slowly reached up and patted her head, unsure of what else to do. A quick glance confirmed that none of the stormtroopers had taken interest in the balcony. And there were no signs of psychic disturbance. Odd. He did not have time to muse. The witch leaned back just a little, giving herself enough room to bring her face level with his own. Not sure what else to do, Louk brushed her cheek with his hand, wiping some of her tears away.

"You... do believe we are not… abomination."

"I have killed many abominations in my time" he answered, truthfully. "A hell of a lot more of them were not psykers rather than were."

"Thank you." She laid her head back against his shoulder, her tears gradually slowing to a trickle. Louk made no move to push her away. He simply stroked her hair as she let it out. The noises she made slowly evolved from anguish to sorrow, then to a sound that could almost be described as… happy? She whispered something as she drifted off to sleep in his arms. He couldn't quite catch it.