When Manric arrived in Luminous, he took a moment to examine the planet.
Luminous was a gorgeous world with a fairly kind environment. Not nearly as heavenly as a true Paradise World, it was a bit too far in the hot end, with a very bright blue sun. Sun blockers were very much required to avoid the possibility of cancers and the certainty of bad burns. For a necron, the heat and sun were rather pleasant.
Luminous was also a Civilised World, although when Manric got to see where the crime had occurred, he was reminded that that term had a very different definition in the Imperium of Man. Yvonne had always hosted small mutant slums, where whores sold themselves to the soldiers for a night. There were also other things, disreputable taverns and strong mutants willing to do day work. Not much in the way of organized crime, but only because Yvonne was really too small to support it.
The squalor of those slums saddened Manric and he wanted to learn a bit more about them. Diarmuid was no help – he called them a hunting ground – but he pointed Manric towards the highest ranking human officer on the planet, a Lieutenant. And that man got Manric in touch with the wife of one of the men, who had chosen to marry his favorite prostitute and take her away from that life. Manric was a bit bemused by that… an odd form of courtship indeed, but he would not judge.
It was easy for Manric to speak with her. She was still working, but in the barracks now, working as a laundress for the unit. It was not a hard duty overall but sometimes uniforms were soiled in bizarre and unmentionable ways. The ladies who worked in the laundry were experts at removing the oddest of stains.
When Manric saw her, he understood why a man from Hope would want to marry her. She was not a remarkably beautiful woman but her skin was alabaster and her hair was pale gold. Her mutations were a bit bizarre… she had a third eye, set in her forehead, that was inky and blind. Like a failed Navigator mutation and Manric wondered if perhaps she carried a trace of that blood. She also had pointed teeth and a slick, long tongue that made her speech a touch difficult. Despite the mutations, Manric could certainly see the appeal of her. Pale skin was incredibly rare on Hope.
"Your name is Maeri?" Manric asked and she nodded. He detected no fear from her, but she was presumable quite well accustomed to pwi-necrons. "Can you tell me about the mutant community of Yvonne? How you came to be here?" Manric was sure they were not the offspring of the people of Yvonne. There were a few points on Luminous that were afflicted with radiation and they were the main source of mutants, but they were nowhere near Yvonne. Maeri's tongue flickered out, wetting her lips.
"We are mostly from the capital. We come here… we come here when we have trouble there, and need to leave." Maeri blinked and Manric was fascinated to see she had a second eyelid like a cat. "It is easier to live in the city, more customers, more jobs. But also more enforcers, more crime, more pogroms." That was still happening?
"Pogroms are still happening?" Manric clarified. Perhaps she was talking about the past. But she nodded.
"Yes, although not as bad as they were." That was less than comforting but there was nothing they could do about it. Imotekh absolutely did not care how the humans handled deviations to their genetic code. "We mostly come here because we get on someone's bad side… I got on the bad side of an enforcer when I would not have sex with him for free. My man would not defend me so I left."
"I see… can you describe what it is like to live in the mutant part of Yvonne?" Maeri did her best and Manric formed an impression of a poor and small but fairly close-knit community. Hmm. "Maeri, you must know about what happened to that girl. What do you think of it? What was known about her in the community?"
"She was new. So was the necron," she said before licking her lips again. "It is very strange… we have never seen anything like it. The only necron we have seen was Revalt." The Commander? What was he doing in the slums? "He wanted… wanted to make sure we had clean water and sanitation, to prevent diseases." Oh, that sounded like Revalt. He fully understood that diseases rarely stayed contained to one area. "That is all. None of the others care about us." Well, that had been the God's Hands, not the Death Seekers. Still, even for them this was odd.
"So you know nothing about the girl?" Manric asked and she shook her head. "I see, thank you." He felt that was all to be learned from her so then he moved on to the woman in question.
Despite her attack being roughly a week ago, at this point, she was still trembling and in a degree of shock, flinching away from everything. There was nothing Manric could do to adjust his appearance, so he projected reassurance. His spear was in the room, but it was leaned against a wall.
"Please, I only want to help. What is your name?" Manric asked as he examined her. She was a very beautiful woman, with pale skin but a bit warmer than Maeri's, peaches and cream. Her hair was a soft brown and interspersed with soft brown feathers. The feathers at her temples were particularly adorable. Her eyes were a soft hazel, lightly threaded with green. Manric could not see beneath her clothes, but he thought the hair was her only mutation, which was a bit odd. Had she perhaps been exiled because feathers and bird mutations were specifically associated with the Lord of Change? From what he understood of such things, this degree of mutation should be within the allowable limits of humanity.
"Lindi," she said after a moment, her voice very soft. It was a beautiful voice though, a furry contralto and Manric was already seeing a path for her, if she wanted to accept it.
"Lindi, can you please tell me about yourself?" Manric invited, using his empathy to gently encourage her to open up. She hesitated a moment, but then began to talk about herself… she came from a very high family in the capital of Luminous. Her mutation had not been obvious at birth, it had started to really come in when she was a young child, and she had been cast out. Her nurse had taken her into the slums, giving her to a mutant woman who had tried to take care of her but fallen into using drugs. She had been sold into the sex trade for more drugs and struggled to survive. As she spoke, Manric formed the impression of a sweet, helpless young woman just trying to survive.
"How did you end up here?" Manric asked and Lindi looked down.
"My protector… he got in trouble with the Kontobu family. They killed him and I had to run," she said softly and Manric nodded. He knew very little of such things, of course, but getting into trouble with organized crime certainly made sense. "What… what are you going to do with me?" Lindi asked and Manric considered it. He did have an idea for her.
"Lindi, I know this might be frightening, but would you consider going to another world?" Manric asked, knowing it might be hard for her to give up everything she knew, even if what she knew was not good. Lindi looked bewildered at the question. "We come from a planet called Hope, far into the Halo stars. You have seen the appearance of the soldiers here? We all look like that." Well, not all of them. They had ancient pictures, recorded by the STC, of the original colonists of Hope. There were different genetics mixed into the blend and sometimes they came out, but pale skin and red and blonde hair were still exceedingly rare on Hope.
"Yes… we know they like blondes." Hah, no doubt they did. "You think I would have more customers there?" Uh… not entirely what he meant.
"There would be no need for that. Lindi, you are very beautiful. And this mutation…" Manric reached out to gently touch her hair but then stopped as she flinched a little. "My apologies… this mutation is also beautiful. It recalls our myths of angels." Truly, it would make her look angelic to the Hopians. Manric was sure that if she hadn't been so new, she would have been wildly popular among the soldiers. However. "Hope has no mutants at all." That was because they had perfectly contained the fallout from the dirty bomb the drukhari had dropped, and before that not a single nuclear weapon had been detonated on the surface of Hope. The influence of the Warp was incredibly light there, due to the stiffness of reality, and their colony had missed the Time of Strife when Chaos had run rampant. So they simply had no mutants as the rest of the Imperium would define the term. Lindi looked bewildered at the thought. "They will find this highly exotic. Lindi, you can have a great career there, as a fashion model or perhaps an actress." She would be perfect for modelling, with her slender frame and great beauty. "Perhaps an idol." That was something Manric did not entirely understand, idols, but he knew they were popular with the civilians. "If you wish to go, I will send you to Reinhart. He can manage your career." Reinhart had retired from being King to accept biotransference and Manric had been advised that he was now taking his interest in the arts seriously. He was acting as a patron of the arts, a career manager, and learning to direct and produce films. It was all quite fascinating to Manric.
"That's crazy…" Lindi said and Manric had to gently convince her that this opportunity was true. "I… I would like that," Lindi finally said, looking at him with true hope for the first time. Manric was very pleased.
"Excellent. I will arrange it tomorrow," Manric said before turning away. As he did, though, something prickled on the corner of his mind. Lindi was experiencing a great deal of pleasure. For a moment, Manric almost dismissed it. It would be pleasurable to know that her life would be so much better. He almost, almost dismissed it but then something caught his attention. A kind of self-satisfaction, a nasty little edge to that pleasure. With a feeling of deep shock, Manric recognized it.
She is lying to me. That was the delight of a liar who had just seen the story be swallowed whole. Manric looked sharply at Lindi and saw that she was just looking at the table, her expression serene and a bit sad. But she was still radiating that pleasure, that duper's delight. She is lying to me. But about what? What could be causing that feeling? What was she lying about?
Everything?
Manric slowly reached for his spear, wrapping a hand around the ancient aeldari weapon. He felt the chagrin of the spirits within and knew they had been fooled as well. Dropping into witchsight, with the spear to augment him, Manric saw what had been invisible before and was still incredibly hard to see… little claws of darkness, entrenched in her aura. And now that he had the scent of it, there was a whiff of brimstone in the air.
General alert, Manric broadcast via interstitial messaging to all the pwi-necrons. They all needed to know, since there was going to be a lot of screaming soon. This woman is possessed by a demon. Diarmuid, please report and restrain her. Expect severe resistance. Everyone, once the exorcism begins, please advise the humans around you of the situation. From what Manric understood, that old piece of fiction, the Exorcist, was reasonably factual when it came to true demonic possession. Manric moved the spear so it was resting against his shoulder, cradled to his body. He would need both hands free.
Diarmuid came into the room on silent feet and at Manric's nod, he seized Lindi from behind. Her wide eyes and shock were real, the demon had suspected nothing, and Manric grasped her head before delving directly into her mind and soul.
The shriek that followed was ear-splitting and not entirely human. It grated on not just the ears but the soul, as the demon reacted with rage at the violation. Manric could sense its' emotions… the demon was not just enraged that the ploy had failed, but in deep fear of punishment from its true master. Manric did not care, arrowing through Lindi's mind and uprooting the demon, trying to maintain as much of the original structures as he could. It would permanently damage her, he knew that, but he wanted to keep the damage to a minimum. A surgical knife, rather than a hacksaw.
Lindi's body struggled with strength that no human should have. Diarmuid was almost jerked off his feet and cursed loudly as she gave his powerful Overlord body a true struggle. Manric just hung on with grim determination, ignoring it as she abruptly vomited all over him. The liquid stung and damage warnings came up, telling him it was more acid than true vomit. He ignored it, knowing that was specifically designed to make him stop. He could not stop, he had to finish this.
Manric managed to remove the demon entirely from Lindi's body but that was not quite enough. It darted towards Diarmuid, intending to possess him but then the spear acted. The spirits within, using Manric's mental strength, struck with pure malice and the demon screamed as it was speared with soul fire. Still screaming, it vanished, banished to the Immaterium from whence it came.
"Oh… oh…" Lindi moaned, her eyes rolling back in her head as she hung limply from Diarmuid's grip. To Manric's distress, he saw that she was badly hurt… not from what Diarmuid had done, but from what the demon had done to her in its efforts to get free. Were her shoulders dislocated? He could not imagine the soft tissue damage she had sustained. She also had some acid eating away at her clothing and appeared to be going into shock.
"Bloody hell sir. Now I feel a fool." What? Why? "Is this why my man raped her?" Manric stopped dead at Diarmuid's question.
"…Yes. That is undoubtedly why he did that," Manric said after a moment of thought. "Nothing less would bring me to Luminous." And this had been the demon's plan, no doubt aided by some ability to see the future. "The demon was influencing his mind." Manric actually felt very relieved to know that. Pwi-necrons should not be capable of such things.
"I never regret killing things, exactly, but now I feel that I have deprived the unit of a good soldier." Diarmuid sounded as upset as he ever came. "I will be more careful in the future, sir." Manric nodded.
"Keep any other aberrants for me to examine, rather than killing them outright." Manric agreed before wincing. His body was still taking damage from the acid, although it was being neutralized. "We can discuss this later. Diarmuid, get her to the medics immediately." She might need to be airlifted to a real hospital, from what Manric could see. "And I need a hose." He just had to get this stuff off him and his necrodermis and body would repair itself.
"There's a hose by the garden sir, anyone can show you the way. Excuse me…" Diarmuid pulled Lindi into his arms and carried her out, bridal style. She was unconscious now, perhaps mercifully so. Manric followed and quickly found one of the spectators, who had all been clustered around goggling at the screaming. They showed him the way to the gardens and helped him with the hose, playing it over his body and getting rid of the filth. They did it away from the garden itself, which was a good move as the filth seemed to blight the ground it fell on. Manric was mildly appalled, that this substance had somehow come from a living body.
He would have to wait for Lindi to be at least somewhat recovered before he questioned her again. Everything she had said so far might have been a lie.
Three days later, Manric went to see Lindi in the hospital.
A quick evaluation of her injuries had gotten her an emergency lift to the finest hospital on Luminous. They hadn't wanted to treat her but both rank and money talked, and Manric had pulled both. The medical technologies of the Imperium of Man were good and her body, while badly damaged, was not past mending. Fractures in bones and torn ligaments were being treated expertly and should be fully mended, without even a trace of the original damage, within a month. That was a long time, really, but the damage had been extensive.
Lindi was awake and coherent in just three days, though, so Manric went to see her. And he found she was deeply confused.
"Where am I? What happened?" Lindi looked at him like he was an alien creature… which he was, actually. "Wh-what are you?" She did not remember the pwi-necrons?
"What is the last thing you remember?" Lindi went completely silent and her face paled as her lips pressed tight together. Manric felt a great roil of fear inside her. "Ah… I understand." She did not want to confess to something that would be a death sentence, but she thought he would detect a lie. "Is the last thing you remember summoning a demon, and making a bargain with it?" Tears leaked from the edges of her eyes but Manric was actually relieved. This meant she would not remember her rape at the hands of one of his men. There might be other rapes in her history, but she would not remember that.
"Y-yes. Please don't kill me," she said hoarsely and Manric shook his head.
"I have no intention to kill you. Please, can you tell me your history?" Lindi obliged and it was the same story the demon had told but Manric was utterly fascinated by the different WAY it was told. Instead of a helpless victim, being moved by the tides, in this version of the story Lindi was an active participant. Manric formed the impression of an intelligent and strong woman, trying to survive and somehow make a better life for herself, refusing to fall into pure hopelessness. But that strength had also been her downfall, when the grimoire had fallen into her hands. In her desperation to grasp power and free herself from the stigma of the mutant, she had read it and used it to summon a demon.
"It offered me everything… it said I would have great wealth, I would be an idol to millions, my picture would be on signs…" Lindi sounded like she was in so much pain. Manric nodded gravely.
"It did not lie. It just did not tell you that it would only be your body, not you, doing those things." Lindi sobbed harshly, looking down. She could not put her face in her hands, her arms were still immobilized for the healing. "But now it can be you. There is no reason it can't." The only difference now was that before she was sent to Hope, Manric would have blackstone permanently installed in her body. Those who survived possession were very vulnerable to being possessed again, so that was only practical to keep her and those around her safe. "Lindi, let me tell you of Hope." Manric went through the explanation again, but this time he was more practical about it. The first time, he'd treated her almost like a child, as that was how the demon had portrayed her. Now he knew he could give her more details, the nuts and bolts of how her rise to stardom might be achieved. Lindi listened with disbelief but also carefully guarded hope. "I assure you, this is not a false dream. This is precisely what the demon intended for you, but with itself in control."
"Then I want that. More than anything in the world, I want to get off this horrible planet and go somewhere better," Lindi said fervently and Manric felt a bit saddened, that she called Luminous horrible. It was a lovely place… but not for everyone, it seemed. Manric nodded.
"You will be recovering for some time. When you are well, Diarmuid will see to getting you fitted with blackstone and put on a troop transport bound for Hope. That might take some time," Manric warned. They were not going to alter the schedule for her, so she might be waiting on Luminous for months. Lindi just nodded but then, she surely understood the realities of interstellar travel. Before, Manric would have thought she did not, but now he knew that she was more than intelligent enough to understand.
Manric left her in the hospital and reflected on everything that had happened and that he had learned. He was far more pleased with this version of Lindi than the first… she would be able to stand up to Reinhart, be treated as an equal, rather than a mere charge placed in his care. He was also dismayed with himself, that he had come so close to such a profound failure. The demon had cozened him quite effectively and Manric had almost, almost dismissed that final pleasure as merely a natural reaction. Manric was relieved that this once, Tzeetch's plans had NOT gone according to plan. Although perhaps the God of Change would claim otherwise, but from Manric knew of him, he did tend to claim everything was part of his plan. It wasn't like anyone could prove him a liar.
Manric though, was confident that his true plan had been completely destroyed and Lindi, the real Lindi, would have a good life on Hope.