Nemesis

The Vindicare snarled and raised the rifle, but the weight of the gun told him the magazine was empty. He swore, slamming a new clip into place, knowing as he did that it would not matter. When he peered back through the scope, Spear had vanished. ‘He’s gone for cover,’ he began, turning. ‘We need to–’

‘Eristede?’ His sister’s voice stopped him dead. She lay on the deck, and her face was waxy and dull. There was blood on her lips, and when she moved her hands he saw a jagged length of bone protruding from her chest.

He let the rifle fall and ran to her, dropping into a crouch. Old emotions, strong and long-buried, erupted inside him. ‘Jenniker, no…’

‘Did you kill it?’

He felt the colour drain from him. ‘Not yet.’

‘You must. But not out of fury, do you understand?’

The cold, familiar rage that had always sustained him welled up in Kell’s thoughts. It was the same burning, icy power that had spurred him on ever since that day in the schola, since the moment the woman in the Vindicare robes had told him they knew the name of the man who had killed his parents. It was his undying fuel, the bottomless wellspring of dark emotion that made him such a superlative killer.

His sister’s fingertips touched his cheek. ‘No,’ she said, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘Please don’t show me that face again. Not the revenge. There is no end to that, Eristede. It goes on and on and on and it will consume you. There will be nothing left.’

Kell felt hollow inside, an empty vessel. ‘There’s nothing now,’ he said. ‘You took it all when you broke away. The last connection I had.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘This is all I have left.’

Jenniker shook her head. ‘You’re wrong. And so was I. I let you go that night. I should have made you stay. We could have lived another life. Instead we doomed ourselves.’

She was fading now, and he could see it. A surge of raw panic washed over him. His sister was going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘He is watching. The God-Emperor waits for me.’

‘I don’t–’

‘Hush.’ She put a finger on his lips, trembling with her agony. ‘One day.’ Jenniker pressed something into his palm and closed his fingers over it. ‘Save His life, Eristede. He will draw me to His right hand, to be with mother and father. I’ll wait for you there. We will wait for you.’

‘Jenniker…’ He tried to find the right words to say to her. To ask her to forgive him. To understand; but her eyes were all the answer he needed. He saw such certainty there, such absence of doubt.

With difficulty she pulled a slim toxin corde from her pocket. ‘Do this, my brother,’ she told him, her pain rising. ‘But not for revenge. For the God-Emperor.’

Before he could stop her, she touched the tip of the needle-like weapon to her palm and pierced the flesh. Kell cried out as her eyes fluttered closed, and she became slack in his hands.

The rains drummed on the canopy and the flames hissed; then he became aware of a presence at his side. Koyne stood there, holding his longrifle. ‘Vindicare,’ said the shade. ‘What are your orders?’

Kell opened his fingers and saw a gold aquila there, stained with dots of red.

‘In the Emperor’s name,’ he said, rising to his feet and taking the weapon, ‘follow me.’

Clade Eversor, death inescapable

SEVENTEEN Confrontation / Duel / Termination

1

Kell looked up as Koyne emerged from the hangar where the Ultio was hidden and his expression stiffened. The boyish face, the pretence at the shape of a human aspect, these were all gone now. Instead, the Callidus had stripped down to what existed in the core of the shade’s persona. An androgynous figure in the matt black overall of a stealthsuit similar to that worn by Kell and Tariel, but with a hood that clung to every contour of the other assassin’s face. The only expression, if it could be said to be such a thing, was from the emerald ovals that were the eyes of the mask. Cold focus glittered there, and little else. Kell was reminded of an artist’s wooden manikin, something without emotion or animation from within.

Koyne’s head cocked. ‘There’s still time to reconsider this.’ The voice, like the figure, was neutral and colourless. Without someone else’s face to speak from, the Callidus seemed to lose all effect.

He ignored the statement, rechecking the fresh clips of ammunition he had taken from the ship for the paired Exitus longrifle and pistol. ‘Remember the plan,’ said the Vindicare. ‘We’ve all seen what it can do. There’s just the three of us now.’

‘You saw it,’ Tariel said, in a small voice. ‘We all saw it. On the memory coil, and out there… It’s not human.’

Koyne gave a reluctant nod. ‘And not xenos. Not alien in that way.’

‘It’s a target, that’s all that matters,’ Kell retorted.