Felix Aquila
I took a breath and said a prayer to Jupiter.
"God of high, grant me victory over the degenerate, let me purge the alien and the unclean, let my roman spirit triumph and cleanse the world."
I held out a woman's hand that was missing a pinky and activated the machine spirit, a tear opened and I walked through. The mechanist behind me brought out his engineering and willed the lazy machine spirit to work.
"This is a trick."
"A trap?"
"No... I am not getting any signals but this world is poor in magic, the unclean ones would stand out."
"They could be hiding themselves."
My mechanist shook his head.
"No, there is a signal weak... They used a scapegoat."
I kicked a wall.
"Damn... Even if we capture the proflagerate we would gain little."
I looked at the severed hand, mummification made them last longer, some of the more advanced machine spirits.
"Check for a signal for the Lamb."
"Why?"
"Our furamenti says there has been a recent capture, the clones are surely active. If this proflagerate is wise then perhaps he bought one and we can refresh our stock."
He nodded his head.
"No signal."
He looked at me.
"Shit."
I sighed.
"Centurian Felix, are you unwell?"
"I hate chasing shadows, Mechanist."
"Centurian this is naught but a setback. If they have captured a Lamb then we will find her. Lambs are foolish creatures, even when given fair warning they mess with the eddies of time. The more they do so the easier, it is to find them to track them. This fresh Lamb will be found."
I raised the hand and created a tear. Perhaps, if I was lucky, I would be given the honor of scalping her, of removing the Lamb's face and putting it on my helm. It was worth a prayer to the gods at least.