Nemesis

Soalm’s eyes lost focus for a moment as she took this in. “A killer…” she

whispered. “An assassin… hiding behind the identity of a rogue trader’s agent.” She

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looked up. “I saw what it did to Iota. The others it just murdered, but her… And then

the blood…” The woman started to weep. “Oh, God-Emperor, the blood…”

“What did she just say?” Koyne asked. “Idolatry is outlawed! Of all the—”

“Be quiet!” Tariel snapped. The infocyte leaned forward. “Soalm. There is

another assassin here? It killed Iota, yes?”

She gave a shaky nod. “Tried to end me… Murdered Sinope and the others in the

sanctuary. And then the book…” She sobbed.

Kell extended a hand and laid it on her shoulder as she wept.

“I can show it,” said Tariel. Koyne turned to see the Vanus grasping Iota’s helmet

in his hands. “What happened, I mean. There’s a memory coil built into the

mechanism of the animus speculum. A mission recorder.”

“Do it,” said Kell, without looking up.

In short order, Tariel used his mechadendrites to prise open panels along the back

of the metal skull, and connected cords of bright brass and copper between the

hidden ports on the device and the hololith projector built into his cogitator.

Images flickered and jumped. Fractured moments of conversation blurred and

sputtered in the air as the infocyte plumbed the depths of the memory unit, cutting

though layers of encryption; and then it began.

Soalm looked away; she did not want to witness it a second time.

* * *

Tariel watched Iota die through her own eyes.

He saw the man in the Eurotas uniform transform into the thing that called itself

“Spear”; he saw the perplexing readouts on the aura scans that matched nothing the

psyker had encountered before; and he saw the horrific act of the taking of her blood.

“It tasted her…” Soalm muttered. “Do you see? In the moment before the kill.”

“Why?” Koyne was sickened.

“A genetic lock,” Tariel said, nodding to himself. “Powerful psionic rituals

require the use of an organic component as an initiator.”

“A blood rite?” Koyne shot him a look. “That’s primitive superstition.”

“It might appear so to a certain point of view.”

Iota died again, the audio replay catching the raw terror in her death-scream, and

Tariel looked away, his gorge rising. The peculiar waif-like psyker had not deserved

to perish in so monstrous a way as this.

No one spoke for a long time after the playback ended. They sat in silence, the

images of the daemonic abomination embedded in their thoughts, the revolting

spectacle of the girl’s murder echoing in the howling winds outside.

“Sorcery,” said Kell, at length. His voice was cold and hard. “The rumours about

Horus’ sinister plans are true. He is in league with allies from beyond the pale.”

“The ruinous powers…” muttered Soalm.

“It is not magick,” Tariel insisted. “Call it what it is. Science, but the darkest

science. Like Iota herself, a creation of intellects unfettered by morals or

boundaries.”

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“What are you saying, that this witchling Spear is like her?” Koyne’s eyes

narrowed. “The girl was something bred in a laboratory, deliberately tainted by the

touch of the warp.”

“I know what it… what he is,” said Tariel, yanking out the cables from the

gauntlet and dousing the hologram’s deathly images. “I have heard the name of this

creature.”

“Explain,” demanded Kell.

“This must never be repeated.” The infocyte sighed. “The Vanus watch all. Our

stacks are filled with information on all the clades. It is how we maintain our

position.”

Koyne nodded. “You blackmail everyone.”

“Indeed. We know that the Culexus seek to improve upon their psychic abilities

through experimentation. They gather subjects from the care of the Silent Sisterhood.

Those they do not induct into their ranks, they spirit away for… other reasons.”

“This Spear was one of ours?” Koyne was incredulous.

“It is possible,” Tariel went on. “There was a project… it was declared null by

Sire Culexus himself… they called it the Black Pariah. A living weapon capable of

turning a target’s psionic force back upon it, without the aid of an animus device. The

ultimate counter-psyker.”

“What became of it?” said Kell.

“That data is not available. The starship the Culexus used as their base of

operations was to be piloted into a sun. So the orders said. I know this because my

mentor was tasked with gathering this intelligence.”

“And this Spear is the Black Pariah?” Kell frowned. “Not dead, but in service to

the Warmaster.” He shook his head. “What have we been thrown into?”

“But why is it here, on Dagonet?” insisted Koyne. “To destroy Iota? To disrupt

our plan against Horus?”

Soalm gave a shuddering breath. “Iota was just in the way. Like all the pilgrims

and the refugees. Collateral damage. Spear wanted the book. The blood!”

“What are you talking about?” Kell took her arm and pulled her around.