Nemesis

the picters jerked on its gimbal, stuttering around to face the line of refugees. The

assassin retreated back into the shadows, unsure if the monitor had caught sight.

A few metres down the alley, the Garantine was sitting atop a waste container,

shivering with the come-down from his reflex-boosters, working with a field kit to

close up the various wounds the Son of Horus had inflicted on him during the earlier

melee. Koyne grimaced at the chewing sound of a dermal stapler as it knitted flesh

back to flesh.

The Garantine looked up; his mask was off, and one of his eyes was torn and

damaged, weeping clear fluids. He grinned, showing bloodstained teeth. “Be with

you in a trice, freak.”

Koyne ignored the insult, shrugging off the ragged remains of the PDF troop

commander tunic and replacing it with a brocade jacket stolen from a fallen shopwindow

dummy. “May not have that long.”

The Callidus shrank back against the wall and let the face of the portly PDF

officer slip away. It was painful to make a change like this, without proper meditation

and time spent, but the circumstances demanded it. Koyne’s aspect flowed to

resemble that of a young man, a boyish face under the same unruly mop of thin hair.

“Do you remember what you used to look like?” said the Eversor, disgust thick in

his tone.

Koyne gave the other assassin a sideways look, making a point of gazing at the

topography of scarification and the countless implants both atop and beneath his

epidermis. “Do you?”

The Garantine chuckled. “We’re both so pretty in our own ways.” He went back

to his wounds. “Any sign of more Astartes?”

The Callidus made a negative noise. “But they’ll be coming. I’ve seen this kind

of thing before. They march through a city, putting the torch to everything they pass,

daring anyone to stop them.”

“Let them come,” he grunted, tying the last field dressing around his thick thigh.

“There will be more than one next time.”

“Don’t doubt it.” The Eversor’s hands were still twitching. “The poisoner girl

was right. We’re all going to die here.”

That drew a harsh look from the Callidus. “I have no intention of ending my life

on this backwater world.”

He chuckled. “Act like you have a choice.” The Garantine made a metronome

motion with his fingers. “Ticky-tocky. Odds are against us. Someone must’ve

talked.”

That made the other assassin fall silent. Koyne had not wanted to dwell on the

possibility, but the Garantine was right to suspect that their mission had been

compromised. It seemed a logical deduction, given what had happened in the plaza.

211

The sharp cry of an animal drew Koyne’s attention away from such troubling

thoughts and the assassin looked up to see a raptor bird flutter past the end of the

alleyway, pivoting on a wing to glide in their direction.

There was a flurry of movement and the Eversor had his Executor aimed upward,

the sensor mast of his Sentinel gear drawing a bead; the combi-weapon’s needier

made a snapping sound and the bird died in mid-turn, falling to the ground like a

stone.

Koyne went to the animal’s body; there had been something odd about it, a

flicker of sunlight off metal…

“Hungry, are you?” The Garantine lurched along behind, limping slightly.

“Idiot.” Koyne held up the bird’s corpse; a single needle-dart bisected its bloody

torso. The raptor had numerous augmetic implants in its skull and pinions. “This is a

psyber eagle. It belongs to the infocyte. He’s looking for us.” Koyne glanced up at

the streetscreen once more, and the imagers beneath it.

“Maybe it was him who talked,” muttered the Eversor. “Maybe you.”

The image on the streetscreen flickered and changed; now it was an aerial view of

the street, then shots of the alleyway, then a confused tumble of motion. Koyne

suddenly understood the display was showing a replay of the visual feed from the

eagle’s auto-senses.

Some of the refugee stragglers saw the same thing and stopped to watch the loop

of footage. Koyne tossed the dead bird aside and stepped out into the street.

Immediately, all the imagers along the bottom of the streetscreen whirred, moving to

capture a look at the Callidus.

For a moment nothing happened; if Koyne was right, if it was Tariel watching

through those lenses, the Vanus would be confused. Koyne’s face was different from

the last one the infocyte had seen. But then the Garantine shuffled out into the open

and all doubt was removed.

The refugees saw the hulking rage-killer and backed away in fear, as if suddenly

becoming aware of a wild animal in their midst. In that, Koyne reflected, they were

almost correct. The Garantine leered at them, showing his teeth.

A hooter sounded from the monorail halt, and in juddering fits and starts, the

heavy metal gate closing off the station from the street began to draw open on

automated mechanisms. The screen above flickered again, and this time the text

displayed there announced that the rail system was now in operation.