Nemesis

He executed all who saw that moment of error, target and collaterals all. Men and

women and children.

And he had his revenge.

Once more, he was in that place. Life taken to balance life taken from him, from his

family—and once more, there was no sweetness in the act. Nothing but bitter, bitter

ash and the rage that would not abate.

With an angry flourish, he grabbed the cable rig on his belt and used the fast-fall

to drop quickly from his hide to the waterlogged floor below. The cloak billowing

out behind him like the wings of the prey birds overhead, he strode towards the body

of the Spear-thing, one hand snaking down to the clasp on the holster at his hip. He

did not spare Koyne’s brutalised corpse more than a second glance; despite every

tiny challenge to Kell’s authority, in the end the Callidus had obeyed and died in the

line of duty. As with Iota, Tariel and the others, he would ensure their clades learned

of their sacrifices. There would be new teardrops etched upon the face of the

Weeping Queen in the Oubliette of the Fallen.

The monstrous killer lay cruciform, floating on the surface of the floodwater.

Rust-coloured billows of blood surrounded the body, a halo of red among the dull

shades of the rubble and wreckage.

Kell gave the corpse a clinical glare, barely able to stop himself from drawing a

knife and stabbing the crimson flesh in mad anger. The skull, already malformed and

inhuman in its proportions, had been burst from within by the lethal concussion of

the Shatter bullet. Cracked skin and bone were visible in lines webbing the face; it

looked like a grotesque terracotta mask, broken and then inexpertly mended.

Putting the longrifle aside, he drew the Exitus pistol, sliding his hand over the

skull sigil on the breech and cocking the heavy handgun. He would leave no trace of

this creature.

Kell’s boot disturbed the blood-laced floods and the misted water parted. Motion

drew his eye to it; the rusty stain was no longer growing, but shrinking.

The wounds across the body of the killer were drinking it in.

He spun, finger on the trigger.

Spear’s leg made an unnatural cracking sound and bent at the wrong angle,

hitting Kell in the chest with the force of a hammer blow. The Vindicare stumbled as

the red-skinned creature dragged itself out of the water and threw itself at him. Spear

no longer moved with the same unnatural stealth and grace he had seen down the

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sights of the longrifle, but it made up for what it lacked in speed and aggression.

Spear battered at him, knocking the pistol from Kell’s grip, breaking bones with

every impact of his jagged fists.

The skin of the killer moved in ways that made the Vindicare’s gut tighten with

disgust; it was almost as if Spear’s flesh were somehow dragging about the bones and

organs within, animating them with wild, freakish energy. Brain matter and thick

fluids dribbled from the impact wound in the killer’s eye, and it coughed globules of

necrotic tissues from its yawning mouth and ragged nostrils. The marksman took

another hit as he tried to block a blow, and Kell’s shoulder dislocated from its socket,

making him bellow in agony.

Stumbling, he fell against the crimson-stained spire where Koyne lay impaled.

Spear advanced, with each footfall his body bloating and thickening as it drew in

more and more of the blood-laced fluids sloshing about their feet.

There was a face in the bubbling skin of its torso. Then another, and another,

biting and chewing at the thin membrane that suffocated them, trying to break free.

Spear twitched and halted. It turned its clawed fingers on itself, slashing at the

protrusions in its flesh, making scratches that oozed thin liquid.

The faces cried out silently to Kell. Stop him, they screamed.

The daemonskin had saved Spear’s life, if this could be considered life. It was so

ingrained in the matter of his being that even the obliteration of his cerebellum was

not enough to end him. The proxy-flesh of his warp-parasite contained the force of

the bullet detonation—or as much as it was capable of, forcing the broken pieces of

Spear back together into some semblance of their undamaged form.

But the daemonskin was a primitive creature, unsophisticated. It missed out petty

things like control and intellect, holding tight to instinct and animal fury. The killer

was self-aware enough to know that he had been murdered and returned from it, but

his mind was damaged beyond repair and what barriers of self-control it had once

had were in tatters.

Without them, his cages of captured memory broke open.

The formless force of a fragmented persona-imprint came crashing into Spear’s

wounded psyche with the impact of a falling comet, and he was spun and twisted

beneath the force of it. Suddenly, the killer’s thoughts were flooded by an overload of

sensation, a bombardment of pieces of emotion, shards of self.

—Ivak and the other boys with a ball and the hoops—