**Author's note.

I have edited this document for grammar, spelling and some extra content to help illustrate the character's motives.**

Chapter 2

Errold sat in his chair at the little desk in his room, the data pads flung angerly under his the monitor. He knew there was truth to the heretic's words and now his last living apprentice knew of the stain on his soul. He couldn't kick the feeling that she was planning something. He had poured over her and her associate's records, reading up on any relevant data he could find when the Lockharte case had fallen on his desk. It had been the bane of the last few years and he had begun, even before Tamerin, his most promising apprentice had died, to wonder at the futility of it all. But after his death…

The thought lingered there, taunting his mind. The memories of ripping flesh and screams. Those bone chilling screams that will haunt him for a long time, if not the rest of his life.

When he had gone to Terra and prayed for guidance and resolution, at the giant, sprawling church of His Immortal Watch on Terra, he wasn't expecting the elderly priestess, flanked by two Adeptus Custodes, the personal guard of the God-King to come to him. They had made it clear that the Immortal God-Emperor himself had sent for the confused Inquisitor.

Errold rubbed his arm where under the sleeve was a deep, still-pink scar. He remembered following the guards and kneeling at His great palace, he had given the sacrament of body; a deep cut in his arm and several drops of blood into a golden chalice that was taken to a dais and poured into the sacred pools by one of the priests. Then, to his shock he had heard a booming voice, not with his ears, but with his mind. He had been tasked with a Sacred Order: to find the heretic Andromeda Tsin, and that he'd know her by the holy mark upon her chest. And that she would guide him to victory over evil.

Shaken deeply by this experience he had quickly taken his leave from that most holy of places. Later, after reading up on her and her chaotic bid to free the Chained God; a bid that had ended up with her whole group getting dispersed and eventually killed, he had thought the message had referred to her having valuable information in regards to Lockharte and the investigation. This outward evil of the body. That still might even be the case as well as now with her observations on his corruption, the evil from within, of mind and heart. He had heard that Gods tended to hit many birds with a single stone when able.

But to meet her he hadn't seen anything particularly holy about her at first. Her strangely strong connection to the gods both chaotic and goodly, had been unnerving, to be sure. But her observations, both just now and back on the planet, had been like shots to his heart, the words like bullets. Calling to the surface things he had been trying to keep submerged, knocking them loose and making it nigh impossible to ignore them.

He sighed, leaning back in the chair and letting his head fall back to the edge of the chair's seat, clasping his hands in his lap and reflected on those submerged feelings and thoughts.

He had suspected the ritual that turned his apprentice, Tamerin, into a hellspawn had also sent tendrils of corruption into him. It was a stupid mistake, the two of them falling into the trap laid by Lockharte. And the creature had been difficult to fell once it had clawed and ripped it's way from his apprentice's body. Errold had been injured quite badly in the process and the wound, three deep claw marks on his thigh, hadn't healed as well as hoped. It still pained him from time to time even though the clerics that had laid hands on him had assured him that the poison was gone. And ever since then he'd been unable to to keep his temper in check. Everything just seemed more; more irritating, more sensual, more beautiful and more vile.

The world seemed to come alive in new horrible ways, like waking from a peaceful dream to chaos. And the nightmares; waking covered in sweat, screaming. Or incredibly aroused and unable to satiate his desires. Food was both far to bland for him and to flavorful, turning to an overload of texture and taste. He didn't know how long he could go on like this, trying to pretend that he could will himself to overcome these feelings. He had recently decided that he'd confess to his fellow brothers and sisters in the inquisition, giving himself over to their tender mercies. It would almost certainly end in his long, drawn out death. But it would be a legal death. One that would be recorded as a benefit to the Empire.

But he could only do this after he'd found and killed Lockharte. Only after he'd bring this one last evil to justice.

He sighed heavily, rocking back in his chair and putting his feet up on the desk. That still left the question of how to deal with his prisoner. She seemed sincere enough, his Inquisitor training and years of learning to read people left him with the feeling that she seemed to believe her own words, even if she wasn't aware she was planning anything.

He stopped himself then at how crazy that sounded. Just how many of his thoughts were the fever-dreams of this corruption's paranoia slowly taking his soul, and how much was his true instincts that he'd learned to trust over the years.

He rubbed his face and realized he'd forgotten to shave. He'd forgotten to bathe and dress in clean clothes as well, his fingers moving down his shirt and open vest. It felt like everything was slowly slipping out of his grasping fingers. He felt he was close now to his own destruction.