VI. SLAVES

Feeling his own hot blood leaking out of several wounds, and suppressing the pain with an effort of will, Tommazo Karnaki breaks into the lair of heresy.

The retinue he's brought with him is dead, but at the cost of their lives they managed to divert a greater horde so that their master could reach the heart of the coven.

Before him stand the heretics' elite: their demagogues, their leaders. Karnaki doesn't know who these people expected to see – a naïve sacrifice, probably – but certainly not an Ordo Malleus agent.

So, his plan has worked. He's reached his target. All that remains...

He instantly evaluates the assembled figures and sends thought impulses of attack vectors to his conclave of skulls.

The servo-skulls – six in all – are made from the remains of his most pious acolytes, and are further reinforced with anti-empyrean wards.

The first and oldest of them, Flegmatic, explodes an instant later and dissolves in a cloud of ash.

The second and third ones, Desperate and Fidaes, hold on a little longer, managing to spray several of the cultists with laser fire before being hurled away and crashed against the walls of the desecrated basilica.

Iratus and Cert respond with a storm of hallowed silver shot, mowing down the wicked, and with a wry smile Karnaki enjoys barely human squeals of panic.

At last, only Numinas remains. His eye sockets flash, and the purifying flame turns the last of the heretics to charred dust.

All this lasts no more than a couple minutes, and in this time the Inquisitor manages to bring his plasma pentacle onto the cult leader.

Karnaki has no illusions. Before him is one of the most dangerous heretics in the entire Calixis Sector. A hereditary cultist, rich and powerful. A rogue trader who had seen the galaxy and the dark secrets it conceals. If he slips up, she will complete the ritual, even alone.

'I see you, Inquisitor,' the captive snarls. 'I know you. Pathetic and weak. You think yourself a loyal servant, but remain doubtful. You are flawed.'

She isn't lying, Tommazo understands. He'd learned a long time ago that heretics are often more truthful than loyals. But now it doesn't matter.

'I sense hesitation in you... thirst...'

'No use to argue,' he says evenly, not taking his eyes off the heretic bound by the pentacle's rays.

The woman is beautiful: it's not just an inherited comeliness, but also a gift from the false deity to whom she'd sworn herself. It is the most disgusting sight Karnaki has ever beheld.

'I am not perfect, of course,' he admits with a sigh. 'Just like you, I am cursed. However, my goal is pure, unlike yours. And, without false modesty, I say this must be akin to a feat – like holding a torch while gravely wounded, lighting the way for the others.'

'You know nothing!'

'Oh, maybe so,' Karnaki smiles. 'But don't they say: he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow? Perhaps you should have followed the example of your ancestress, after all…'

'Matriarch Esseker was a good-for-nothing fool!' the witch laughs shrilly. 'To trade the Aphelion, the great Aphelion away for a pittance… Through her folly, the priceless canvas had gone to the corpse god's toy soldiers! How wasteful... As if they would've been smart enough to understand the painting's real meaning! And that's why we had to find our own way, Tommazo Karnaki.'

The Inquisitor shakes his head. 'She thought she'd been wise to save you from the evils that the wayfarer predicted... Turns out she was wrong.'

The heretic's vital essence is melting under the pentacle's force, and yet she finds the strength for a malicious grin.

'How stupid you are, little mutt of the Throne... You truly think this is all?..'

And in her eluding thoughts Karnaki sees, just for a moment, another nest of corruption – on the opposite fringe of the Imperium, led by another member of the compromised family, the second rotten branch of the same dynasty. Their heresy is deeply entrenched, and even a whole Conclave will not be strong enough to root it out. This is pointless. He will lose. He...

He drives away these alien thoughts and points his weapon at the heretic. All in good time, and one day this family's blight will be eliminated without a trace. If not by his hand, then by some other's.

'You see, Inquisitor Karnaki?' she giggles. 'Everything repeats itself. All is much more closely tied than you believe. All is the Coil and the Web. And your fate has been sealed…'

Karnaki sets the trigger of his gun. 'And still, what a shame that your remarkable talent has ended up in the service of this... entity.'

'It would have me liberated!' the woman hisses weakly.

'Oh no.' The man shakes his head, and something like sadness flickers in his dark eyes. 'It would've made you a slave. For such are the lies of the daemons. But I won't let it happen.'

And with a single sacred shot, he turns the woman into nothing.