Daemon in Human Skin
"You still asleep Roric?" The voice ringed in his skull. Roric opened his eyes and groaned. It was pitch black, and icy cold. His head felt like it had been split, and his face felt like it was on fire. He tried to move his arms and found that they had been strapped down. His legs were similarly restrained, as was his head. He felt his heartbeat quicken.
"Nakir, what the hell is going on?"
"Relax, I've been watching. Your on a table in a heavily warded room. There is an armed guard of Inquisitorial Storm Troopers outside the door on your left. I know you can't turn your head, just take my word for it. You've been out for about an hour and a half."
"When's the ritual or whatever it is they're going to do take place?"
"I'd say any minute now. They've been prepping you since they knocked you out."
"And you didn't stop them? You didn't take over my body like before?"
"What? And risk my chance freedom? Ha! Like the flaming Warp I would. Besides the situation is well under control. As soon as they remove the last seal on my prison, we can get this show on the road. Remember we want to go along with their little séance until we merge, and get your clothes back."
"My clothes?"
"Yes, they stripped of your clothing and equipment before they strapped you to the table."
"I'm strapped to a table, helpless and naked. Wonderful." Roric sighed and strained to look around the room. As his eyes we beginning to adjust, a searing white light snapped on over head. Roric squinted into the bright light, unable to see anything, but unwilling to close eyes his again.
"The vessel has awoken. We may begin the binding." a voice intoned from somewhere to Roric's right. He strained to turn his head and see the speaker, but his head was firmly strapped to the table.
"Bring forth the prison." said another voice, this one coming from the direction of Roric's feet. There was a loud screech, as a poorly oiled door opened to Roric's left. Roric felt his ears begin to throb as something was moved into the room. The temperature dropped several more degrees and the overhead light began to flicker and dim. A haunting chant slowly filled the air. Despite his rising panic, Roric counted seven voices, one of which belonged to Ursain. Roric felt a black fury rise in his body.
"Ursain, you sack of shit! You better pray that you and I never see each other again. I will flay you alive you filthy whoreson!" Roric thrashed against his bindings. The bindings, he assumed they were leather, groaned, but held. Roric continued to shout.
"That goes for the other five of you as well! You think you can do this to people without consequences? You're going to pay for every second of this!"
"Silence!" It was Ursain. "We are doing the Emperor's work. If a handful must suffer for the good of the rest of us, so be it. Sacrifices must be made for the continued survival of humanity."
"Fuck you! You call yourselves human? You're no better than all the Chaos filth I've butchered. THAT was the Emperor's work."
"Ursain, silence him. This is difficult enough without the shouting." a wheezing voice said. Roric instantly felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth. The pace of the chant quickened, and the throbbing in his ears intensified. The chanting rose to a wailing crescendo and Roric began to see arcs of red lightning shoot from what he assumed was Nakir's prison. He felt a presence as the object the Inquisitors had brought in was moved closer. Roric could see it now out of the corner of his eye; a beautifully wrought sarcophagus of gold, with a horned, leering skull worked into where the normal human face should have been. The wailing continued. Roric felt the hair all over his body rise, and his vision began to blur. All at once, the chanting ceased. He wondered if something had gone wrong, when a bolt of red lightning arced from the sarcophagus to his body. The pain was immediate, and excruciating. He felt his back arc off of the table and his limbs thrash in their restraints as the electricity overwhelmed his will to control them. He tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. He felt his bowels go, and for a moment through the intense pain, thought it was absurdly funny. The lightning ceased and the pain slowly ebbed. Roric coughed and spewed dark blood into the air. As the pain faded into nothing, he felt very cold, but strangely peaceful. His vision began to fade to black.
I'm dying...
This isn't so bad...
At least I killed one of them...
I want a cigarette...
"Well that went smoother than I expected. Of course you weren't actively trying resist me, so I'm sure that made it easier. And no, you aren't dying." Nakir's voice sounded like it was coming from light-years away. "Get off the table; we've got business to conclude." Roric's eyes snapped open, and he took a deep shuddering breath. He sat upright and looked around. He was in a well lit, warm room. The room was completely white, and featureless, except for to large comfortable looking chairs, one of which was occupied. Roric couldn't see the figure, the chairs back was to him, but he knew that it was Nakir.
"Where am I?" He slid off of the table and tried to stand. He succeeded, but barely.
"Oh, you're still strapped to the table. This place is merely a product of your subconscious. Your brain is attempting to rationalize its current situation, and this is the best it could do given the circumstances." A gloved hand reached out from the figure in the chair and beckoned him over. "Come, I'd like to get this settled as soon as possible." Roric stumbled over to the other chair, and collapsed into it. Across from him was a formally dressed male, human-like being. Its ears were slightly elongated, but the only other feature that set it apart were the eyes, which were completely red.
"So you are Nakir?" Roric asked conversationally. "I must admit I was expecting you to look a bit more...daemonic." Nakir flashed a smile.
"This form suits my needs at present, but I can change if you like." Nakir rose from his chair. "What would you prefer? Horns? Cloven hooves? Wings?" As he spoke, he snapped his fingers and his features changed. "Personally I think the horns and hooves are a bit gaudy, but I do enjoy the wings." Nakir snapped his fingers a final time and he changed back to his original form, and as he sat down, he smiled widely. For the first time Roric noticed how incredibly pointed his teeth were. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
"I'm going to be blunt with you. I don't trust you a damned bit. The only reason I agreed to this was to avoid my own death. I never thought I'd sell my soul to a daemon to avoid it, but here we are." Roric glared at the thing across from him. "And that's another issue I have; you're a daemon. A being of concentrated evil. That's going to be a problem in the very near future."
"A valid point. I am, as you say a daemon, and I am also, as you say, evil," Now it was Nakir's turn to glare. "But let me remind you that evil is merely a point of view that you've adopted to make yourself feel less guilty. I've been inside your head. I've seen what you've done to your fellow humans. Men, women, children, you've shed their blood more times than you count, all without batting an eye. And for what? A rotting, nearly dead sack of flesh on a planet you've never even seen. You're worse than some of the cultists I've manipulated." Nakir saw Roric go red with rage at that. "That's not to say I'm any better. In fact, I'm far worse than anything you've ever seen or fought. If I hadn't just been recently released from a ten thousand year prison term, you'd be dead and I would be a thousand light years away, carving a bloody swathe through the galaxy that would make the Horus Heresy look like a juve fight in a playground."
"So why don't you? If you're so damn powerful." Roric sat there, hating the thing across from him, and loathing himself even more, knowing that he had to live with it. It was all true of course. He'd committed heinous crimes against his fellow man for no other reason than because he was told to commit them. What was worse was that he enjoyed it. He loved it. He loved to pull the trigger. He loved to see the fear in the eyes of his victims. He loved to use explosives. He loved to press the button that brought down buildings, crushing hundreds. Their screams sent chills of pleasure down his spine. He was a fiend, and he knew it.
"As much as I hate to admit it, I actually need you. Or more accurately your body. In any case, my power has largely atrophied from my many millennia inside that box, and in my current state I am extremely weak. I could still probably butcher an army barehanded, but there was a time when I could lay waste to planets. It will take me several centuries to get back to even half that strength. That is where you come in." Nakir disappeared from his chair, and reappeared behind Roric's in a poof of sulfurous smoke. He leaned in close to Roric's ear and his voice dropped to a whisper.
"Have you ever thought about your childhood? Not just your years in the Schola, but your early childhood?" He saw Roric tense.
"I can't even remember it." he said gruffly. Nakir smiled.
"Not a convincing lie in the slightest. Answer the question."
"Yes. Why does it matter?" Roric started to shift uncomfortably.
"You do recall the day your father left, don't you? It rained, did it not?"
"Yes."
"And when the courier brought you news of his death, it was raining?"
"Yes."
"What were his words? I know you remember them."
"It was raining, we couldn't tell."
"On the day your mother killed herself, it rained. Fascinating set of coincidences, isn't it. Of course, they seem like coincidences, until you consider your capabilities as a psyker." Nakir could hear the frantic pace of Roric's heart. "Isn't it incredible how such a small child could effect the universe? To bring about the deaths of his own parents, one of them thousands of light years away?"
"I didn't kill my parents." Even as he said it, Roric wasn't completely sure that he hadn't.
"Semantics. That's like saying gravity killed a man that was pushed off of a building. Gravity didn't kill him, it was the medium of his death. The pusher killed him. The same principle applies to you, Mr. Pusher."
"Bastard!" Roric leapt from his chair and turned to face his tormentor. Nakir stood there, completely impassive.
"Aren't I though?" Nakir sat in Roric's chair. "Be honest with yourself. You were furious at your father for leaving. That inward fury and grief caused an outward manifestation in the guise of rain. Humans have always equated rain with dark emotions. Your father swore when he left that'd he be home in two years, tops. The day arrives, and, lo and behold, he isn't there. Again, fury and grief. Again, rain. You kill him, in the rain. Do you begin to see the glaringly obvious pattern?"
"No!" Roric's head was buried in his hands.
"Very well. Your mother upon hearing the news, seeks solace in the bed of another man. That, coupled with the fact that she veritably whored herself to most of the other men she knew, in your own home no less, pushed you just a little to far. You directed that fury and grief from your father's death onto your mother, and rather than deal with it, she opted to paint the inside of her head all over the ceiling. And don't tell me you weren't glad to see justice done."
"Shut up!" Roric was on his knees, shuddering and weeping.
"Look at you now," Nakir appeared beside him, and crouched on his haunches. His voice was filled with condescending pity. "You look so similar to the boy from all those years ago, who sitting in bed wept and raged at the unfairness of the world, the hatred from his peers, the disdain of his tutors, but most of all, at the fact that his little bedroom plaything, was taken away from him by another man. Pathetic." Nakir began to laugh hysterically. The room began to dissolve into a red mist. Roric's heart pounded, and his head pulsed in tune with it. His lungs heaved and his blood boiled in his veins He threw his head back and roared. Nakir stood there and continued to laugh.
Roric woke up, drenched in sweat. He could still hear Nakir's laugh echoing in his skull. It was dark and cold. He could hear the sound of his breath rebounding off metal walls. He tried to move his arms and legs. They weren't restrained. He sat up, and his equilibrium wailed in protest. He ignored it and tried to stand. It felt like an eternity before he was on his feet. He vainly tried to perceive his surroundings, but the darkness was absolute.
"Hmm, some illumination is in order I believe." Nakir sounded vaguely annoyed. "Snap your fingers." Roric obeyed without thinking. A red, glowing nimbus of light winked into existence. It cast a soft, crimson light onto the entire room. It was small, less than five feet across, and roughly twelve feet in length. Opposite to Roric was a door.
"And there's our exit." Roric's body moved, seemingly independent of his will. After what seemed like an hour, he finally reached it. "Let's make a little noise." Faster than what he thought possible, Roric's hands thrust themselves at the door. There was loud clang. Instead of crumpling against the thick steel, they had pierced it like it was paper. Roric's hands griped the metal, tore it away from the door. There was a horribly loud screech as he ripped it. He stepped out through his newly made exit into a dimly lit hallway. He heard the sound of many heavy boot steps coming towards him. At the end of the hall on his right, a large door was thrown open. Light spilled into the hallway, followed by a large number of soldiers bearing the mark of the Inquisition. Two carrying powermauls advanced on him. The rest formed a neat double rank, the front row kneeling, and the back standing over them. They aimed their las-guns at him, and there was a series of clicks as the safeties were switched off. The two soldiers with mauls had reached Roric by now, and made an effort to restrain him. One grabbed his left arm, while the other raised his maul, with intent to bring it down on his head. The world seemed to screech to a halt.
"Here's your body back. Have fun." Nakir chuckled, and Roric felt a shift in his mind. He suddenly became intensely aware of his surroundings. His senses magnified many hundreds of times over. He could hear every breath the soldiers took, every beat of their hearts, with absolute clarity. He could see their bodies, their uniforms, their faces down to the most minute detail. He could smell them, the stink of sweat, and unwashed bodies. He could smell something else in the air. Something he had caught only faint whiffs of before, and only then on the battlefield. Now he smelled it unmasked by other scents. Fear. He also noticed that it wasn't just his physical senses that increased. He felt a terrible, raging bloodlust inside him. Time seemed to resume its pace.
"Restrain him! The host cannot be allowed to escape!" the soldier gripping his arm shouted. Roric winced. His voice was painfully loud to Roric's ears.
"Shut...up." Roric grabbed the soldier with his free hand, and pushed him into the wall. There was a clang, and sickening squelch, as the soldiers body impacted the wall. His body continued to flatten, such was the force behind Roric's push. The smell of blood and viscera was almost overpowering The other soldier tried to strike Roric. The arc of the maul slowed to almost a halt as time stopped again.
Roric looked at the man's face. His mouth was open, showing a crooked row of yellow teeth, and his breath stank of cheap liquor. His eyes were black, beady little orbs. Roric shifted his gaze to the mess on the wall that used to be a man. The blood seemed frozen in the air. He marveled at his new strength. Roric looked back at the soldier with the maul. His swing had barely moved. With an almost casual shrug, Roric reached up and arrested the soldiers swing. He placed his left hand on the soldiers chest. With astounding ease, he ripped the soldiers arm off. He watched as the mans face turned into a mask of pain, and absolute horror. Roric made a blade with his hand and thrust with his left arm. His hand slid into the soldiers torso like water, and closed around his spine. He grabbed the soldiers shoulder with his right hand, and ripped him in half.
"Open fire!" barked a voice. To Roric, it seemed comically slow. The two halves of the soldier had yet to hit the ground. No matter how slow time moved, las-bolts still traveled at the speed of light, so he took the most prudent action. He moved, or more accurately, he ceased to be in his present location. To the soldiers it seemed as if their target had simply disappeared. And then reappeared behind them.
Roric decapitated the man closest to him with a swipe of his hand. He took his gun and emptied the clip into the backs of the men in front of him. Time marched forward once again. There was a double thump as the man he'd torn apart finally hit the ground.
"I'm out of my cell. Now what?" There was the sound of laughter in his head.
"Your a smart man. Figure it out."
"Indulge me then. I don't particularly feel like thinking now. I just want my vengeance."
There was an exasperated sigh. "Fine. You are still on the ship, so the most effective course of action would be to take control of it. First get some clothes. Yours were most likely incinerated."
"Right. Hopefully one of these corpses is my size. After clothes, I'm thinking armory, then bridge." Another laugh.
"The armory won't be necessary. Just put some clothes on, and I'll teleport us to the bridge."
"That's risky in such a confined space. Might wind up in a wall."
"I'm a denizen of the Warp, remember? Don't worry about it."
Roric hurriedly stripped the corpse that looked the most compatible. The uniform was riddled with holes and smeared with blood, but it was serviceable. Almost as an after thought, he took the soldier's combat knife. The bridge was likely heavily guarded, and while he had no doubt that he was perfectly capable of killing everyone on it bear handed, it always paid to have a knife handy.
"Done."
"Good." The air around Roric began to crackle with energy. He felt the hair on his body stand up. There was deafening crack, and Roric was suddenly hurtling through the Empyrean. There was bright light everywhere, and human like shapes. Almost as suddenly as his journey had started, there was another deafening crack, and he found himself on the bridge of the ship.
There were a few startled gasps. He quickly took in his surroundings. There were four guards, a number of serfs, the captain, a woman who could have only been an inquisitor, and a Nobilis Navigator all staring in shock at him. The guards were just starting to level their weapons when Roric pounced. He dispatched them in a whirlwind of strikes. Before the corpses had hit the ground, Roric had moved to the captain. He plunged his knife into the screaming mans skull. The captain went limp and Roric heaved his body away. There was a loud boom. Roric turned toward the sound. The Inquisitor had managed to draw a bolt pistol. The bolt was flying straight at him, but with a speed that defied logic, Roric reached out and caught it. He turned and threw it at the Navigator, and watched with satisfaction as the creature was blown in half. Roric lunged at the Inquisitor and drove his knife into the breach of the bolt pistol. She dropped it and tried to draw a power sword, but Roric seized her arm and lifted her into the air. She tried to strike him with her free hand. Roric calmly grabbed her other arm and pinned her to the wall.
"Hold her there for a moment. I need to know where the others are," Red lightning arced out of Roric's head and into the Inquisitor. She writhed in agony. The lightning quickly stopped. "I've got what I need. We can dispose of her."
Roric leaned in close to the struggling woman's face. He smiled as he whispered in her ear.
"You are the second woman I've killed today." He bit down on her neck, and ripped out her throat. He spit it on the floor, and watched with a smile as the life faded from the woman's eyes. There was hysterical laughter in his head.
"You really are a daemon aren't you. A daemon in human skin. Who do you want kill next?"
"I think you know who."