Part 8 (1/2)

The psyker witch is still loose in the tower. While we tarry here, his every breath is an affront to the G.o.d-Emperor.'

'Can you fight?' asked Miriya, eyeing her.

'Need you ask?' Isabel glanced at the b.l.o.o.d.y laser wound on her thigh. 'A mere flea bite. It appears worse than it is.

Then what of you?' Sister Miriya turned back to Ver-ity. You won't catch Vaun unawares like his thug here. You can't engage him.'

The Hospitaller gave her a defiant look. Then be quick, and I will have no need to.

Miriya accepted that with a nod, and then recov-ered the dead thug's lasgun. Take this until we can find you a better weapon. she said, handing it to Verity. 'Use it if you must.

'But you said I would not be able to fight Vaun.

The Celestian shook her head. There are only two charges left in the weapon. If Vaun comes, I would suggest you use them to grant the Emperor's Peace to the good governor here and yourself. She gath-ered up her fallen plasma pistol and walked away. 'It is a better fate than letting that beast lay open your mind.

The witch melted out of the mist choking the chapel with bubbles of burning air dancing about his fin-gers.

He tossed streamers of fire at the aristocrats and swept them around, using them as a Repentia Mis-ttess would a neural whip. Wherever the flames touched skin or cloth, people were instandy flashed into screeching torches. Behind Vaun came his men, spreading further the touch of witchfire.

'Here they come. Galatea snapped. 'All guns to bear. She led the Sisters in a quick subvocalised litany, each of them murmuring prayers of blessing to their firearms.

Portia brought up her bolter and Reiko - who had liberated a clumsy ornamental rifle from a dead honour guard - did as she ordered, but the gun servitors and the other men at arms fell apart in a rout. The servitors, too slow of brain to react with anything other than brute reflex, marched into Vaun's firecasts and burnt to death standing up. Internal ammunition magazines cooked off in wail-ing cracks as limbs and torsos were shattered. The bodyguards and sentries lost their nerve when they were confronted by a psyker of Vaun's deadly prowess, breaking ranks and making themselves per-fect targets for his men.

Fire-streaks buzzed past Galatea's head like hover-flies, humming and slow in the melee. The Battle Sisters had come with little to replenish their weapons, and where Vaun's killers fired for effect, the Canoness and her fighters paced their shots. Each had to be certain death for the target. They could not afford to spend more than one precious bolt sh.e.l.l on each attacker.

Vaun's flame-whips guttered out and the psyker dropped low, masking himself and minimising his target silhouette. An eerie glow cast about from the witchkin's eyes. Galatea had seen the like before on those kissed by Chaos or touched by the sign of the mutant.

'By Katherine's heart, what is he doing?' Portia hesitated, trying and failing to get a good firing angle on the crouching man.From behind her where the liquor fountains gur-gled and frothed, Galatea heard the squeal of building pressure and a rush of hot bubbles. Sud-denly she understood. 'Get down. Get down!' she shouted, throwing herself into Portia and Reiko.

Vaun released a 'Ha!' of effort and threw a spear of psionic force into the wine drums. Superheated by his mindfire, the volatile alcohols combusted and shattered their wood and iron kegs. With a whoop of air, the atomised liquids turned a pocket of atmosphere into an inferno. A miniature tidal wave of burning Nevan whisky and foaming spice wine threw itself across the cowering n.o.bles. The searing flood boiled them red and screaming, the agony of it so fierce that some of the merchants died instantly.

LaHayn clung to the pulpit as it rocked and sank into the burning tide around it. Before him, striding across the flaming pool without a hint of discom-fort, Vaun met his eyes and gave the priest a theatrically contrite bow of the head.

'Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. The last word was drawn out and sibilant, turning into a harsh smile.

'h.e.l.lo, Viktor. I'm willing to bet that this isn't how you had imagined things would go when we met again.

With a callous kick, he shoved a wailing n.o.blewoman out of his path. 'It's time for you to reap the whirlwind, old man.

'You will regret your arrogance, creature. spat the priest. 'I will see to it!'

Vaun snorted. ”You?' He opened his arms. 'Look around, Viktor. The wastrels you surrounded your-self with are dead or dying. Even your precious Sororitas lie defeated by me. He pointed at the spot where Galatea and the other women lay wounded and unmoving. 'Meet your end with some decorum, dear teacher. If you ask me nicely, I may even let you spout off some prayers first to your precious G.o.d.

dare not speak the name of the Lord of Mankind!' LaHayn's rage rolled across his aspect in a dark thunderhead. 'Pirate. Petty thief and brigand. Your tiny mind lacks even the smallest inkling of my unity with Him!' The ecclesiarch stabbed an accusing finger at the psyker. You could have been great, Tor-ris.

You could have known glory the likes of which have not been seen in ten thousand years. But now you are fit only to die, remembered only as an anar-chist and a criminal!'

Vaun let out a laugh. 'And who will kill me, you decrepit fool?' He drew back his hands and cupped the air between them. The molecules of smoke and haze he held there flickered and condensed, catching fire. This ridiculous monument of yours will be your funeral pyre - and once you are ashes' I'll plunder your dirty little secrets for myself.'

He was close enough now, reasoned the priest. Close enough to be certain. T think not, child. said LaHayn, and from his voluminous sleeves he pro-duced an ornamental box that ended in a finely tooled argentium muzzle. He squeezed the device and it shrieked, projecting a mid-calibre bolt sh.e.l.l at the witch's chest.

The recoil from the weapon was so strong it almost broke the priest's wrist, but the gun was just the means to deliver the sh.e.l.l to the target. The bolt itself was not the typical carbide-fusion matrix bullet that issued forth from countless Astartes and Sororitas weapons - the very matter of the round was impregnated with psionic energy, culled from the minds of dying heretics. Each molecule of it reeked with mental anguish, pain and psychic terror imprinted on the sh.e.l.l down to the atomic level. These munitions were very rare, but Lord Viktor LaHayn had taken a long time to build up the position he now held, and along the way many such items had come into his possession.

The psycannon bolt struck Torris Vaun in the chest, tearing through the heat wards that had turned the lesser shots of other men, and spent its ma.s.sive kinetic energy punching through the flexsteel armour of his batde vest. The impact threw him back into the puddles of burning liquor, ripples of contained psy-force licking around him, fading. He coughed hard and brought up a mist of blood.

'Fool. growled the priest. 'Did you think I would go about unprepared when I knew that you were on the loose?' He holstered the spent weapon, ma.s.saging his throbbing wrist. 'Now I will have the prisoner I promised for this day' LaHayn glanced down as Miriya and Isabel entered the chamber, guns questing for a target. What perfect timing,' he remarked. 'Here, sisters. Here is your witch, ready for the cages-'

A whoos.h.i.+ng jet of fire erupted from where Vaun had fallen, pus.h.i.+ng the criminal back to his feet. Curls of heat enveloped him and he bared his teeth, chewing on new pain. 'Well played, Viktor. spat the psyker.

'But I'm not beaten just yet.'

LaHayn's world turned red as the pulpit burst into flames about him.

'Take him!' screamed Miriya, her voice streaming into the concussive blast of noise from her plasma pistol. Isabel fired with her, both of the Battle Sisters throwing their shots at Torris Vaun, knocking him back off his stance.

The psyker stumbled and snarled at them, blood from broken capillaries in his eyes trickling down his face in red tracks. The glowing brand where the psycannon shot had struck him still flickered with desultoryglimmers of blue-white energy, and Vaun picked at it with sweat-slick fingers, using his other hand in a warding gesture to banish the incoming bolts. The rounds struck the heat-wall conjured by his mind and deflected, some breaking and melting, others skipping away, but Miriya could see the agony caused by the injury LaHayn had inflicted was taking its toll. Vaun met her gaze for a split sec-ond and she knew he realised it too.

'I won't let you run again. she spat. 'Take the witch!'

Groggy and wounded, Portia dragged herself into the fight alongside her squadmates. Near the wrecked pews, Galatea, a shock of her perfect auburn hair crisped into white ash from the fires, stumbled up from where she lay bearing Reiko on one shoulder.

'You should not have come back. shouted LaHayn. 'Now you will pay for daring to defy the church. The priest pointed at the corpses of the raiders where Galatea and the other Battle Sisters had terminated tiiem along the way. 'All your reavers and cutthroats have fled or died, fiend. You are alone and naked before the G.o.d-Emperor's righteous vengeance!'

'Always the lectures with you, eh?' Vaun barked out a harsh laugh and shook the sleeve of his coat, revealing a bulbous, ornate device of jewels and metals wrapped about his wrist. 'You make the same mistakes over and over again, Viktor. You never fail to underestimate me. The psyker squeezed a trian-gular emerald switch and delicate, century-old microcircuits sent an activation signal.

The Battle Sisters heard a chug of static across their vox channels. Instants later, the shaped charges of detonite that Vaun's men had secreted all about the cathedral exploded. Under cover of the fires and the panic they had gone unnoticed. Still, there were enough in place to do what Vaun wished of them.

The coughing crashes of noise blew out stained gla.s.steel windows and threw doors off their hinges. They cut through support pillars as saws might fell trees, or dashed ancient pews and unlucky people about the place in clouds of vapour.

Stonework from the upper tiers dropped to punch ragged holes through the mosaic floors, and Lord LaHayn threw himself off the pulpit just as a granite angel smashed the thing to matchwood. Blinking through brick dust and pain, the priest cursed the psyker's name as Vaun's mocking laughter echoed back at him.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

The Tier of Greatest Piety shuddered beneath Ver-ity's feet and she sprawled, falling away from where Governor Emmel lay. His skin was waxy and sallow, and death was close to him. The Hospi-taller heard the sounds of rock grinding on rock, and in horror she saw the high spire of the Lunar Cathedral above her twitch and break off, cascad-ing down past the terrace. Growing up on the st.u.r.diness of Ophelia VII, Verity had never experi-enced earthquakes, and the occurrence of a solid, rooted building s.h.i.+fting around her was new and terrifying. The thunder of explosions from the lower level set the whole church humming, and the woman threw a fearful look to the smoke-choked sky. Where was the rescue s.h.i.+p? If she were here much longer, Emmel would be dead from his injuries or she would perish with him when the great terrace crumbled.

From above, a narrow-beamed spotlight suddenly stabbed down at the tier, probing at the cluttered s.p.a.ce.

Verity leapt to her feet, the weapon in her hand forgotten, and waved. 'Here. Here!' The sound of ducted rotors reached her ears and in the thick of the haze she saw the dark shape of a coleopter mov-ing against the night sky.

The spotlight pa.s.sed over her, lingered for a moment and then moved on, tracing towards the entrance arch that led down into the chapel. A fig-ure emerged into the sodium glare, dark coat and tunic spattered with fresh blood, s.h.i.+elding his eyes from the light. The beam faded away and the 'copter swept about for another pa.s.s. With a great chill the woman realised that the flyer was one of the s.h.i.+ps she had seen strike at the cathedral.

Torris Vaun walked painfully towards the middle of the terrace and halted there, panting hard. For a moment, Verity was struck dumb by the sight of him. The psyker examined the red on his hands and returned to cupping the wound on his chest, sparing her gun a quick look. 'Axe you going to use that, nursemaid?'

Verity tried to speak, but no words came. Vaun stepped closer.

'How is the esteemed governor?' He peered at the injured man lying in the shadows. 'Dead, or near enough? Pity. I wanted to use him a little before he died. Oh well.' A rueful smile crossed his lips. 'Plans change.