The ship heading to Inwit was the last to take off. It carried away a newly promoted Inquisitor of Ordo Machinum, his only acolyte and the last pieces of my old life.

'Uncle, you would protect me in the slums my late mentor adored,' I said with reproach at the departure, my eyes still red after the farewells with Angel and Sister. 'We've all been to cursed ships, xenos worlds, the most horrible nooks of the galaxy together.'

Uncle blinked and sighed. 'Come to visit us, lassie. Lord Asterolepis, our appointed curator in the system, has promised us a cottage in the vicinity of the capital.'

Panaque, more enthusiastic than sad, kept on looking down at his new shiny rosette on his chest. 'I'll tell you in confidence, ma'am, what a fancy secret task I've got from the sector Conclave! They say rumours about Men of Iron of truly ancient lore have started spreading again but tech-guilds from Inwit prevent the Mechanicus itself from investigating it. They have asked us for assistance, quite a rare occurance.'

'My first independent case was a box of poisoned candies from an office desk.' I had smiled like him when my rescuers saw me off over the green meadows around a peaceful city.

'It has been great to learn from you.'

'I'm not so much of a mentor, as you've probably noticed. But at last there has been a victory after all the glorious defeats.'

We shook hands. Uncle hugged me, his eyes glistening with tears he tried to hide. Fluffster who was waiting for us to finish the goodbyes walked up to Panaque. 'Don't forget what I told you about local technopaths, that's how they call their tech-guild specialists.'

'Lord Asterolepis has sent me a list of technopath candidates.'

'Fine. Don't get bored during the flight and send a heads-on on the landing.'

The gate closed with a clang. I stood staring at the polished metal door until Fluffster took me by the hand. 'Something ends, something begins.'

I shook my head so heavy as after a few sleepless nights. 'I cannot even choose whom to recruit.'

'Fate brought these ones to your retinue, not your own choice.'

'Uncle and Panaque will be safe on Inwit, by the Emperor's mercy. But Sister and Angel have departed for Cadia. Where millions will die soon.'

'Strange to hear this from an Imperial citizen. In a state engaged in permanent war, Inquisitors have to look for new recruits way more often.'

Instead of following Fluffster to the bridge, I holed up in a small mess room of the passenger compartments. All crew members on leave in the city underneath but a few on duty, the Raptor Imperialis felt like a silent temple on a cemetery world, especially after Lord Mentor had left along with his guards and retainers. Before my friends embarked, we had spent a few pleasant days roaming the quiet streets, happy just to see sunlight again after benighted Oldshadow and Pholiotina. But even during the last flight from the ex-pirate kingdom I would drop in to the mess where Lord Mentor's men kept booze for high-ranking guests.

Bottles stood in neat rows up to the ceiling in a big cupboard that occupied a whole corner. Half of the bottom row was empty as I had finished the seventh bottle of brandy yesterday. I found the old multitool among the rubbish in my pouch. As always, the shard touched my palm by itself. I tapped on the smooth surface with my fingertip and took it out to the table.

My fingers shaky with hangover and grief, it took two deep cuts to open the eighth bottle. I wiped blood off the opener and the hilt. Stains of rust I couldn't clean properly reminded me of the day among the lupines when I stuck it in Imudon's old wound. I threw it down on the shard and quickly poured myself the first shot. After three shots my heart felt warmer, contours of the room got hazy. Tears ran down my cheeks as I clutched the glass with the fourth shot, my lips frozen in a crooked smile.

The shard's glow was getting brighter, a hypnotic beacon, a fountain of raw power. My soul stirred in thirst. It took a slight effort of mind to hurl the multitool to the other end of the mess. I narrowed my eyes sipping on the booze.

The door creaked behind my back. I startled, and the glass slipped out of my fingers. Booze trickled down the table edge onto my knees.

'Here you are,' said Imudon. 'Fluffster calls you to the command center. Your dataslate is out of reach.'

I hiccuped. 'Cause I've… turned it off. To the warp with the rodent.'

Imudon sat opposite me and pushed the bottle aside. 'You've been drinking as a fish since we left Pholiotina.'

I looked into his stern eyes. 'Last time I was drinking that much… that was after you had stolen my crew.'

'A smile of fake confidence again. Pull yourself together if you don't want to turn into a copy of your wretch of a mentor.'

'I say, man, I'm just not needed here.' I picked up the glass and squeezed it. 'There are big games galore but no damn job for me. Low-ranking Hereticus operatives do bounty hunting or infiltrate petty cults but it's too pathetic for you two pompous Angels of War and your vile puppeteers. The old blank has gone for good but haven't taken you and Aphedron along to the Cadian frontlines where you would be of use.' The glass slipped out again and rolled across the table.

'We're staying with you.'

'To remind me I'm a poorly equipped worthless weakling.' I grabbed the shard, and a blaze of power set my soul on fire.

He put his heavy hand over my fist with the shard. 'This is not the power to crave for.'

'Well.' My tongue loosened by booze, a question I hadn't dared to ask Fluffster popped out as soon as it came to my mind. 'I haven't had nightmares of the Dark Apostle since we left the Macan Kumbang. There've been no those cramps in my midriff either. The Evernight carried my nemesis away, and he didn't chase us. Maybe…that miracle happened to me as well after you and the Panther. So no more harm from the thing.''

He shook his head. 'Lord Mentor and Fluffster spent hours discussing how to keep you safe from the mark's further influence.'

'As usual, there are lucky people. As well as the opposite.'

'Everything is His will. Gather your strength to pass the trials decently.'

'Be so kind to pass me the bottle with liquid strength.'

He pushed it to the opposite end of the table. 'Booze makes you weaker.'

I closed my eyes. 'There's no other source. No owl, no family.'

'You've accepted us. In our joint missions you cared for us.'

'Does it matter if the world is falling apart? When the first whispers of the Black Crusade started spreading through the Inquisition offices, we youngsters envisioned it as an epic clash of demigods. A last stand of noble armies. I imagined us five misfits holding our ground against a horde of traitors and daemons, dying together in the owl to go to the Emperor's kingdom.'

'What a dramatic scene. Have you taken it from a school book about Imperial saints?'

Against my will, tears streamed down my face dripping to my tunic. 'You've got no ties to the Imperium. To the modern Imperium. It's often silly, often pathetic but it's the world that friggin' brought me up.'

He leaned closer, his voice quiet and hollow. 'It's true that we had no saints during the Crusade. With Him by our side all we needed was tenacity, dedication and natural human ingenuity to accomplish our goals, to drive back the horrors of the Age of Strife. You need faith to do that, the cornerstone of your personal world. My own personal world has fallen apart with the start of the Great Crusade. I was a heir of my chieftain family of devoted Khornates with a wife and two newborn sons. It was all my inheritance from the Old Night. An army of space people has descended from a great fleet of sky ships to destroy the blood altars in the name of Mankind and to teach us feral and superstitious folks how to wipe ourselves. Very soon my wife decided she didn't need a caveman by her side. She took both sons to Ultramar and remarried within a year. The Imperials hired many of our young to the army. I was luckier to be chosen by legion recruiters.'

Tears kept on running, and I covered my face with both palms. 'So you didn't see them anymore.'

'I did. She died of old age already after the end of the Heresy. She outlived both sons by me as they had fallen in the battles for Macragge. One fought for the Imperium, the other sided with the traitors. But their children had children of their own. Their distant offspring has spread over the galaxy while their failed forefather has got stuck in his old musings.'

'A family saga,' I snapped up. 'Is this supposed to tell me I should shut up with my petty complaints?' My bowels spasmed, and I pressed my hand to my mouth.

Imudon got up. 'I'll tell Fluffster you're busy. You'd better go to the rooms now.' He put the unfinished bottle back on its shelf and left.

You should have stayed, I wanted to tell him but hiccuped instead. Sitting all alone in an empty compartment mulling over the endless memories would really turn me into a drunkard in no time. The news about the mark would have struck me if I was soberer. There was a bright side of the nuisance though. A goal to chase in the future bleak months.

I turned on the dataslate and connected to the ship network. 'Chief Astropath, an urgent order concerning the case under investigation. Send BOLOs out to every astropath choir in the vicinity so they forwarded it further. If anyone has information on the gull ship from the attachment, they must send it to my astropathic mailbox. Privacy is strictly demanded. Even from other members of the Inquisition.' I quickly made up a description of the sorcerer and his vessel and pressed on 'Send'. By the Lex Imperialis, even senior Inquisitors didn't have an absolute right to remove me from investigating any incident. Though with so many high-scaled agents, I needed to pick up new skills to ensure maximum autonomy. What was disturbing about my position, both Lord Corydoras, my current curator, as well as his Lunar relative Lord Platydoras himself, had ancient ties of friendship with Fluffster and his buddies. As well as Lady Cichlasoma, the Malleus boss of the sector who was Lord Mentor's distant offspring.

Only Lord Kryptopterus, the High Inquisitor of local Ordo Xenos, played a game of his own. I had already inquired him about Fluffster's mysterious connections. Sadly, the man I was chasing was a simple heretic with little use for an alien hunter. Though the Eldar artifact that had crippled the Evernight would certainly interest Kryptopterus, I thought typing a quick draft of a letter.

Hangover pestered me worse than always on the next day so I stayed in my room while everyone on the ship was busy with their daily cares. Aphedron hadn't returned from another tour of bar districts yet, Fluffster was tinkering with the Machine Spirit. I was sure Imudon was on board but didn't dare to call him up. He always claimed all he wanted was to be left alone but fought in Lord Mentor's secret crusade with more devotion than his fellow pardoned renegade while he could have escaped with the help of his acquaintances from the other side. Not even out of fear of the Terrans. One day I should get up the courage to visit him in the gym for another talk.

Since that day, I gave up drinking and dedicated the remaining energy to self-discipline that would help me to survive the stalemate. Every day I got up early, training in the gym and at the shooting range, reading books from the ship library and taking tech lessons from Fluffster in the engine chambers and docks. One afternoon I even found the old pink dress and descended to the city to take a stroll in a park on the middle levels. It was the brightest of summer months but the alleys felt like early autumn when the colours are still fresh but coming chills are already in the air. On the way back I spent half an hour in a small needlework shop hidden in a sea of greenery on an old narrow street. Talking to the frail elderly shopkeeper, I tried to recall how to live away from the horrors of the galaxy. She brewed me a cup of floral tea and brought me a stepladder so I could look at balls of bright knitting silk under the wooden ceiling.

At local sunset, with a cloth bag with three hanks of yarn, a stitching kit and a big package of sweets, I ran out of the shuttle and hurried to the astropaths to download a new portion of information. Ninety-nine per cent of bullshit, one per cent of false clues, like on all earlier days. In the doors of the astropath pavilion I bumped into Imudon going downstairs with a flash drive in hands.

'It's been a while,' I said and hung the bag on my elbow to shake hands with him. 'The city's worth spending a few hours under the sun.'

A shadow of a smile flickered on his peaked face when he looked at me. 'Not many occasions to wear summer clothes in these time of ending.'

I handed him the package of sweets, and he took a handful of candies. 'I've got my wage today, so I felt obliged to buy something for my only friends left. One day, when you're less busy, I might tell you more about the city where a candy bag led my team to an artifact coveted by Aphedron Pansexualis.'

'Just don't call him Pansexualis to his face.'

'Fine, gonna check up the mail. Hope I'm lucky today so we continue the hunt for the Mockingbird.'

The smile left his lips. 'I'm not sure Fluffster agrees.'

'I've already chosen a few allies in the Inquisition.'

It was the beginning of a working week so the mail arrived in such numbers it took a full standard day to read through the endless reports. My chain letters had reached the sector borders, and every big planet had found something to write me about. Fifteen reports described a rogue trader ship named the Kittiwake, three astropaths had managed to locate a system that marked its ships with gull silhouettes. Finally, I stumbled upon a needle in the mountain of a haystack.

The letter was marked with a Mechanicus cog and signed by my old acquaintance, Magos Explorator Tetraodon. Right after meeting Taphius, another reminder from the sweet young years. 'Glad to hear from you, Lady Volentia. By a coincidence, I've been searching for the gull ship for two standard weeks. It carried away a glamoured psyker who had worked for my research mission on a Perdita world named Cyprinus on Imperial maps you will find in the attachment. I'm currently digging up relics from the Dark Age of Technology with the assistance of Clan Vurgaan of the Iron Hands, and you're welcome to join us. My greetings to your laudable acolytes, I would be very delighted to see them again.'

The last sentence brought tears to my eyes despite my best efforts. I reached for an emergency bottle hidden under my pillow but slapped myself on the hand. It was time to move forth without the need to drown nostalgia in booze. I found the crew chat in the messenger app of my dataslate. 'Come to the mess room for an important announcement. We have to get ready for departure in a day.'

Fluffster was the first to arrive. Despite my fears, he spared me of long tedious objections. 'Let's wait for the two. Imudon is already on the way but I'm afraid Aphedron will be quite late. He's sleeping like a log after five days of carousing in a row.'

'It's very important,' I started with a cheerful grin. 'Lord Mentor will be fine, I'll write to Lord Corydoras so he gives us a free vessel after Tamias left.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'The Raptor is fully yours to sail.'

I stared at him, stunned. 'You're not gonna forbid me to…'

'I've taken a copy of your map from the Chief Astropath. It's not too far from the Cadian sector if we're ever needed there.'

'The prospects of snatching some archeotech is quite tempting.' I winked at him.

'This as well.'

Both marines accepted the idea with stoic resolution though Aphedron looked obviously disappointed to leave the city and its frivolities. Pretty sure the ship was packed with spy devices and warp beacons for Lord Mentor's clique to watch over us so I could only draw their interest to the Mockingbird chase. The sorcerer, an ancient Terran, had keys to knowledge useful to get before the real mess begins around Cadia.

During the pleasingly short but still boring journey I found the list of the Iron Hands Clan Companies to discover Tetraodon's companions were also a reminder of my first case I recalled so often recently. Verrox the brute, Arothron who had snapped a Greater Daemon's neck with his augmented but still bare hands. The desire to live and work even a broken leg and the garden of flesh hadn't ruined. Aphedron was probably aware of his old rivals but his happy-go-lucky attitude rid him of fears and doubts.

Cyprinus, a dead world that had been a megapolis long before the Unification Wars, orbited a small yellow star along with four other lifeless rock spheres. Its moons had been destroyed by the same bombings that had vanquished the city in a brief but deadly war the reasons of which remained obscure. Magos Tetraodon had drilled deep into the burnt remains of the main city that occupied a whole continent. His vessel, along with the battered barge of the Iron Hands, was anchored in high orbit to defend the system from any other relic hunters.

Our shuttle left the Raptor for the dirty atmosphere of Cyprinus. We descended past a pack of Mechanicus surveillance drones and a few remaining spires to the Explorator camp built in the upper levels of a massive shaft. Like on a forge world, the place was stuffed with all kinds of machinery. Massive servo-constructs and cargo servitors were hauling rockcrete blocks and charred chunks of metal from the depths and dumping it to growing spoil-heaps that surrounded the shaft like a mountain ridge. Mobile laboratories were analyzing retrieved pieces and sending data through hundreds of network channels.

'May the Omnissiah's grace be with you, Magos!' I shouted into the vox. 'Where to find you?'

'Hello, hello, my lady,' Tetraodon's husky voice answered in a few seconds. 'I'm in my personal lab, already sending the coordinates. Sorry for not meeting you in person, there've been accidents here. I'll call up Verrox and Arothron right now.'

'Better not,' Aphedron grunted but I had already broken the connection.

The shuttle was moving through the dark well of the shaft lit by flickering lamps of the mining machinery. Deep underneath, the living blocks glowed with hundreds of windows and signal lights like a town at night. Guarded by two quiet Skitarii rangers, Tetraodon's lab was located in the very heart of the camp next to a vast server chamber and the main reactor that provided energy for his exploration host.

Tetraodon was sitting before a three-dimensional projection of a city district, a cup of steaming recaff on the control panel. By his side two tech-adepts about my age in dust-stained red robes were studying corroded data modules, servo-scribes hovering over their heads. He tapped his mechanical finger on a section that lit red and waved to us with the other hand.

'You're welcome, dear guests! My lady, Lord Crinitus, meet Marilyna and Pao, my apprentices. The other acolytes of your crew are currently staying on board, I guess.'

'That's all left.' My voice trembled, and I faked a bout of coughing.

'My condolences.'

'Not in that sense, Magos. I will send them your greetings.'

'Times do change. I assume they have returned to their previous positions.' Tetraodon's tone remained placid no matter what he was talking about. 'Delighted to meet your new companions.'

'Not that new,' a bass voice roared from behind a tangle of cables that hung from the ceiling beside the projector. Arothron's bulky shape clad in black and silver broke through the jungle of cables, his massive mechadendrites catching on the wires. The Iron Father stopped before Aphedron, his red augmetic eye lit up to scan the armour chips as he stared into the eye lenses of Aphedron's helmet. 'Here you are, heretic. You dare to wear the old legion colours soiled by your old treachery.' He turned to me, and I tried to pull a smile under his glare. 'What an unscrupulous Radical you've become in these years, Inquisitor.'

'I'll beat the shit out of this scumbag if he tries anything,' Verrox bellowed from behind the stalls with relic machinery samples.

'Sirs, my fighter was pardoned by a miraculous intervention of the Emperor Himself, and it's documented by a cadre of special agents of Terra. He has both normal hands, as you see, and no more shark teeth under the visor,' I said and looked up at Fluffster for support.

He nodded. 'A special order from Terra.'

Arothron paused. 'The other one has no Chapter colours.'

'He was the last loyal survivor from… the Bear Wardens,' I quickly made up a Chapter name that sounded like Imudon's original legion.

'Probably successors of the Dark Angels,' Arothron said in a more peaceful tone.

'Wanna a rematch, Mr. Automaton?' Aphedron chuckled. Fluffster gave him a shove.

'Good that all misunderstandings have been resolved,' said Tetraodon. 'Soon servitors will bring you drinks and snacks, and we can see the latest data.'

Sipping on burning hot recaff, I took a cookie from a package and opened a list of files projected over the panels. The fake curriculum of the mysterious psyker was as unremarkable as his other aliases.

'That's him for sure,' I said. 'He worked for the rebel council of Forge Colomesus during the riots.'

'He assisted Marilyna and Pao with a really priceless STC we had managed to uncover on the lower levels and pull up to the surface.' He found a file in the bottom of the list. 'An advanced model of a city reactor. Fit enough to power a hive.'

'You wrote me that he had stolen the best archeotech. So like him. He's roaming around snatching things human and xenos as well as bits of ancient lore. I've got my own reasons to pursue him.'

'Sadly, my astropaths were unable to scope out the warp for the traces of the gull last week, my lady. A vicious bunch of xenos assaulted the bottom part of the shaft six standard days ago. All drilling rigs and primary platforms destroyed.'

'Aeldari raiders?' I asked trying to find the necessary report in the list.

'The Hrud,' Arothron growled. 'Cowardly garbagers. There's their junk colony somewhere in the ruins, and we have to burn it to the ground together with the xenos scum. Captain Verrox has dispatched tactical squads to explore the underground passages on both sides. Yesterday they were lucky.'

'Maybe you'd like to see the xeno-consorting wretch we caught.' Verrox appeared before us, his gauntleted fists clenched. 'We've put him in fetters in the upper cells where it's the coldest. Once I'm done with the excavators, I'm going to personally interrogate him. I'll break every damn bone of his body if he dares to keep mumb.'

'May I speak to him first?' I asked.

'Here you are. He's not of the dangerous kind. Don't spare the bastard.'

'I will accompany you.' Arothron put his mechadendrite on my shoulder and examined my face. Paranoid as many chaplains, he surely expected me to run off with a Hrud army after he had seen Aphedron in my retinue.

The small passenger elevator barely had room for even Arothron alone. I squeezed to the back corner and crouched under a bulky metal claw hanging from Arothron's back plate. It was growing colder level by level, and I wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck. Hands in pockets, I followed him out to a dark corridor lit by a couple dim whitish lamps.

Prison cells in the end of the corridor had been offices or classrooms before the city's death, their walls black with soot, window panes melted. The dazzling beam of a flashlight mounted on Arothron's mechadendrite slid over an unconscious man in rags lying face down on the floor. Blackened blood had frozen under his foot bent under an unnatural angle, his wrists were chained to the wall.

'But for a precise shotgun shot, he would have eluded us.' Arothron kicked the captive in the side. 'He slipped down the ledge right under their feet. Sit up, bastard!'

The captive moved with a groan, pressed his stiff hand to his wounded leg. 'I cannot tell you anything,' he whispered. It's… forbidden.'

'An Inquisitor is here to interrogate you. If you keep mumbling, I'll smash your other leg.'

The captive's head jerked up. 'What Ordo?' he said louder.

Arothron gripped his throat with a mechadendrite. 'You're not to ask questions!' He lifted the captive into the air and directed the flashlight beam at the captive's chest. There was a small bump on the dirty skin under the torn shirt. 'An information chip. He deactivated it before we could scan it. Magos Tetraodon didn't want to remove it before your arrival fearing to destroy the contents.'

I pulled out my rosette. 'Hereticus.'

The grimace of excitement on the captive's face faded. He licked his chipped lips and closed his eyes. I reached for my flask and held it to his mouth.

'No need.' The mechanical claw squeezed my arm so hard I bit my tongue. 'I'll let you ask questions, the rest is up to me.'

I raised the other hand. 'The Emperor granted my peers the authority to take decisions. This man has served the Holy Ordos and will answer to a person of the Ordos.'

The captive took a sip and coughed. Brandy trickled down his chin smeared with blood. I touched his shoulder. 'You were expecting someone from Ordo Xenos. Do you serve under Lord Kryptopterus?'

He blinked. 'Lord… Kryptopterus…'

'He's a good acquaintance of mine. A man from my retinue saved him from a gruesome death in a monster's jaws. Don't say anything out loud. Think about what you'd like to tell.'

He looked me straight into the eyes while I was whispering psyker litanies. My abilities had grown in the presence of the shard, and I hoped to hear at least a few of his thoughts.

'Lady… The Hrud… Cold abyss… Death deep down. They know. Don't tell...'

'Witchery,' Arothron snapped up with contempt. 'Let's go up, Inquisitor.'

He turned his back to the huddled captive and kicked the door. I nodded and followed him into the corridor, my fingers and nose already tingling in the burning cold. The mysterious aliens knew what had happened in the shaft but had their reasons to stay away from the vengeful Iron Hands.

'Have a cloak brought to him lest he'll die,' I said.

'Our apothecary has injected him with a drug mixture to postpone death by exposure,' Arothron said. 'Up there, you'll tell anything you've found out to Captain Verrox.'

I crossed my arms on my chest, my heart pounding under the carapace. 'I'm afraid this is confidential data I can entrust to an operative of my rank only.'

'The rule of force is the only law of the wilderness. Do you have an Exterminatus fleet or an army behind your back, Inquisitor? This is our common war, and our Clan had taken damage from alien sabotage.'

'Blowing up half of the city will hardly help to retrieve the archeotech. Magos Tetraodon will support me.'

'You're too petty of a cop to understand what punishment and vengeance really mean.'

Once we got back to the lab, I found the marines by Fluffster's side and sat down between them. Arothron said something to Verrox in the binary code, and both marines headed to the panel, their stares locked on me.

'The wretch has told you his lousy secrets.' Verrox pointed at me. 'Are you gonna to side with the traitor we'll behead tomorrow?'

'He has shared the details of a mission too secret to describe to the Chapters.' I pressed myself to Imudon's side.

Tetraodon waved both hands. 'Calm down, sirs. There's nothing worth acting up.'

'Give me some time to do my own investigation, Captain,' I said firmly. 'I swear no harm will be done to you and your men.'

'Until tomorrow,' Verrox roared. 'If not, I'll break the wretch and will take care of you. If you prove innocent, I'll replace any damaged parts with augmetics from my forge. If not, your boss will get your head in an iron chest with a note.'

'No.' Imudon got up, his gauntlet on my shoulder. 'You shouldn't threaten an Agent of the Throne like an underhive criminal.'

Verrox gritted his teeth. 'I'll rip you in half with my bare hands alone with your lecherous buddy.'

An binary signal beeped so loudly it nearly deafened me. Tetraodon got to his feet and showed his clenched metal fist to the marines. Arothron beeped back. They exchanged a few angry remarks, then Arothron said a short phrase to Verrox. Verrox nodded.

'The Magos has spoken for you, Inquisitor,' said Arothron. 'He values the Terran sage's high opinion of you. You're allowed to deal with the case until tomorrow afternoon.'

'Ferocious jerks,' I said to my crew with a chuckle when we finally left the lab for the rooms in the living barracks provided by our host. 'I'll laugh at those who say the Sharks are the scariest.'

Fluffster sighed. 'Way fiercer than the Iron Warriors. The death of their primarch imposed the ultimate fear of weakness upon them. They respect only those who can defend themselves.'

'Even with a stronger crew, I still suck.'

'Everyone sucks for the time being. The Iron Hands might teach you a good lesson but I won't advise to admire their way of life blindly.'

A long escalator brought us to a likeness of a small hab-block built from metal vans. The former city square around was brightly lit but tunnels of destroyed streets wound further into the impenetrable dark. It was already night in the camp, and there was no one outside but three cyber-mastiffs sniffing around. They surrounded us but once I held the rosette over the auspex of the largest hound, they lost their interest in the newcomers and trotted away to the corner of the block.

There was something wrong around the place. A subtle, chilly psychic draught came from the tunnels. I gave Aphedron a nudge, and he nodded.

'Psyker?' I asked him.

'Not a human one.'

I ran to the source of the draught, the marines on both sides with their bolters drawn. A second after I had left the circle of lamplight, something brushed against my shoulder. A small hand caught me by the arm. Where nothing but shadows had been, short, crouched creatures wrapped in hooded ragged robes appeared from nowhere, flickering from place to place before I could see them properly. Another hand gripped me by the back of my coat. A gun barrel poked me in the neck.