Nemesis

slice the raindrops in two. “I am monitoring the public and military vox-nets, and I

have prepared and loaded all my data phages and blackouts. Koyne is in the process

of mimicking the form of the troop commander we captured. I take it the Culexus and

the Venenum have still yet to arrive?”

“Your powers of perception are as sharp as ever.”

“How long can we afford to wait?” he replied. “We’re very close to the

deployment time as it is.”

“They’ll be here,” Kell said, just as something shimmered in the downpour

beyond the open hangar doors.

“I am,” said Iota, emerging from the grey rain. Her voice had a strange, echoing

timbre inside her skull-helmet. She removed the weapon helm as she stepped into

cover, and shook loose the thin threads of her braided hair. “I was delayed.”

“By what?” Tariel demanded. “There’s nobody out there.”

“Nobody out there now,” Iota gently corrected.

“Where’s the Venenum?” said Kell, his jaw stiffening. Iota glanced at him. “Your

sister isn’t coming.”

Kell’s eyes flashed with shock and annoyance. “How—?”

Tariel held up his hands in a gesture of self-protection. “Don’t look at me. I said

nothing!”

The Vindicare grimaced. “Never mind. That’s not important. Explain yourself.

What do you mean, she’s not coming?”

“Jenniker has taken on a mission of greater personal importance than this one,”

the Culexus told him.

“I gave her an order!” he barked, his ire rising by the second.

“Yes, you did. And she disobeyed it.”

Kell grabbed the other assassin by the collar and glared at her. He felt the black

shadow of the pariah’s soul-shrivelling aura rise off her in a wave, but he was too

furious to care. “You saw her go, didn’t you? You saw her go and you did nothing to

stop it!”

174

A flicker of emotion crossed Iota’s face, but it was difficult to know what it was.

Her dark eyes became solid orbs of void. “You will not touch me.”

Kell’s skin tingled and his hand went ice-cold, as if it had been plunged into

freezing water. Reflexively he let the Culexus go and his fingers contracted in pain.

“What were you thinking, girl?” he demanded.

“You don’t own her,” Iota said, in a low voice. “You gave up your part in her

life.”

The comment came out of nowhere, and Kell was actually startled by it. “I…

This is about the mission,” he went on, recovering swiftly. “Not about her.”

“You tell yourself that and you pretend to believe it.” Iota straightened up and

stepped around him.

He turned; at the top of the ramp Tariel had been joined by the Garantine, the

Eversor rocking back and forth, his massive hands clenching and unclenching with

barely-restrained energy. A middle-aged man in PDF-issue rain slicker stood nearby,

toying with a poison knife. The expression of the face that Koyne had borrowed was

wrong, ill-fitting in some way that Kell could not express.

“How much longer?” snarled the Eversor. “I want to kill an Astartes. I want to

see how it feels.” His jittery fingers played with the straps of his skull-mask, and the

pupils of his bloodshot eyes were black pinpricks.

Kell made a decision and stepped after the Culexus. “Iota. Do you know where

she went?”

“I have an inkling,” came the reply.

“Find Soalm. Bring her back.”

“Now?” said Tariel, his face falling. “Now, of all times?”

“Do it!” Kell insisted. “If she has been compromised, then our entire mission is

blown.”

“That’s not the reason why,” said Iota. “But we can tell her it is, if you wish.”

The Vindicare pointed back out into the rains, which had begun to grow worse.

“Just go.” He looked away. There was something in his chest, something there he had

thought long since vanished. An emptiness. A regret. He smothered it before it could

take hold, turning it to anger. Damn her for bringing these feelings back to the

surface! She was part of a past he had left behind, and he wanted it to remain that

way. And yet…

Iota gave him a nod and her helmet rose to cover her face. Without looking back,

she broke into a run and was quickly swallowed up by the deluge.

The Garantine came stomping down the ramp, seething. “What are you doing,

sniper?” He spat the words at him. “That gutless poisoner flees the field and you

make things worse by sending the witch away as well? Are you mad?”

“Is the notorious Garantine actually admitting he needs the help of women?” said

Koyne, in the troop commander’s voice. “Wonders never cease.”

The Eversor rage-killer loomed over the Vindicare. “You’re not fit to lead this

unit, you never were. You’re weak! And now your lack of leadership is

compromising us all!”

“You understand nothing,” Kell snarled back.

175

A steel-taloned finger pressed on his chest. “You know what’s wrong with your

clade, Kell? You’re afraid to get the blood on you. You’re scared of the stink of it,

you want things all neat and clean, dealt with at arm’s length.” The Garantine jerked