Part 15 (1/2)

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Vaun was not smiling now. 'Your curiosity is all that keeps me breathing, isn't it?' He moved his head slightly to look at Sister Verity. 'I thank you for these additional moments of life.'

'He has nothing to give us. Ca.s.sandra murmured irritably. 'Sister Superior, if you will break the lord deacon's edict to keep this witch alive, then do it now, before he tries to talk us to death.

Vaun blinked at Miriya, and she searched his face for truth and lies. The psyker's aspect was one she had never seen on him before, without masks or artifice. In his way, he was naked to her. 'Is it abso-lution you want?' she asked him.

'Will you confess your sins to me?'

'Oh, there shall be a confession. he nodded, 'but not mine. I'll give you LaHayn's in proxy. Tell you the secrets. Vaun raised a bloodied hand and tapped a spot at the base of his skull. 'Show you things.

Miriya's eyes narrowed as she remembered the strange device Verity had found implanted in the head of Vaun's cohort Ignis. With a quick motion, she holstered her plasma pistol.

A moment of relief crossed Vaun's face. 'You've seen the value in my words.

The Sororitas shook her head. 'I have learnt that every sentence you utter is just one more gambit in the strategies you spin. She looked at the other women. 'Hold him down.

Before Vaun could struggle, Ca.s.sandra and Isabel took Vaun's wrists and pressed him against a slab of hull metal.

Portia kept her gun on him. The psyker blinked, trying to muster his powers, but his injuries had made him weak and tired.

Salvaging a turn of ragged, sharp-edged wire from the wreck, Miriya fas.h.i.+oned a makes.h.i.+ft binding to hold the criminal's wrists together. She glanced at Verity. You have a sanguinator in your medicus kit, and neuropathic drugs.

Show them to me.

The Hospitaller did as she was asked. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Sedate him. There was a long moment before Verity understood that Miriya was not telling her but ordering her to do it.

Vaun struggled. 'I told you, I will freely explain everything!'

The Sister Superior gave him a measuring stare. 'I must be convinced. She pointed at his arm, and Verity reluctantly discharged the gla.s.s injector into the psyker's clammy skin.

The rush of chemicals struck his bloodstream. He let out moans and the occasional coughing yelp, thesounds rolling about the burnt landscape. Now and then, small fires puffed into life around the clearing as Vaun's pain exhibited itself through his witchery. The whites of his eyes showed. Like the fluids that had contained him in the gla.s.s prison capsule on the Black s.h.i.+p, the potent philtre robbed him of the will to create his mindfire. He became groggy and pallid.

Finally, when she was sure he was quietened and unable to attack them, Miriya allowed him to answer questions. You have your audience. she told him, 'now enlighten us.

Verity gently cleaned the dirtied sanguinator. 'How did you escape custody?'

Vaun sniffed wetly. 'Unimportant. You know the answer to that already.

You were in league with Sherring. He brought the men of the Mercutio to Metis and coerced them.

'Clever, clever Holt. Too clever for his own good. Yes, a simple task, really. With the reach his clan gave him, to the s.h.i.+pping guilds and the commerce station, he found it easy. A man's mind can be moulded quite quickly, if one has the right tools and is untroubled by morals. Those that did not take to the imprinting...

They were allowed to die. The others he made my erstwhile saviours, although they would never know it, seeds of my control sleeping in their heads. The psyker coughed and spat. The one who came to the cargo bay... ? He car-ried the order in his unconscious, then spoke it to all the others.

Ca.s.sandra's lip curled. You expect us to believe that you allowed yourself to be captured on Groom-bridge?

Just so you could be brought to Neva?' She snorted. There must be simpler ways to come home.

The ghost of a smile emerged. 'Indeed. But I am such a slave to my sense of drama. His self-amus.e.m.e.nt faded. 'I wanted to make sure Viktor would let his guard down. I knew his arrogance would make him complacent and careless, but for that to happen, he had to believe he had beaten me. Vaun's teeth flashed.

'All to give him a greater height to fall from!'

Your hate for him must consume you. said Verity, pity in her words.

He glared at her. 'Hate7. There's not a word strong enough to describe my loathing for your precious deacon. A million deaths won't pay back the years he took from me, the life he stole.

'Explain, witch. demanded Miriya. 'I grow weary of your obtuseness.

Ask yourself this, Sister. If my talents were so deadly, then why was I not surrendered to Black s.h.i.+ps whilst I was still a mere child? Why was I not put down? What happened to me between then and now?'

The datum. said Verity quietly. The records of the librarium. There were missing pieces...'

Years!' spat Vaun. 'Made into an experiment for him, a tool, a plaything*. He took only those he could conceal, only those with the strongest potential. Broke us like animals, used us!' With a savage yank, Vaun tore a clutch of hair from the back of his head to reveal the distortion where a metal implant lay under his skin. This was just one of his gifts!'

'Like the pyrokene in Sherring's mansion. said Isabel.

Yes. We were all his playthings, doctored and neutered by LaHayn's secret scheming.' His eyes were wide and manic. 'Do you see now, Sister? Can you begin to understand? His agenda is not that of your church - it is not even that of your G.o.d. With his pup-pet governor and willing slaves in one hand, and those blind and hidebound to your dogma in the other, LaHayn does as he wishes. He plays his long game-'

'Must we listen to any more of this?' Portia growled. We have dallied long enough with this wastrel.

Canoness Galatea must be informed of his capture, and the witch must be processed.

'Aye. added Ca.s.sandra. 'Can any of these creature's ramblings be corroborated? Is there more evidence than his treasonable spewing?'

There is. said Verity, after a long moment. 'In the deeps of Noroc's librarium, I found facts that back up what he has told us. I am certain there would be more to find, if only we could search deeper.

'Facts? Enough to take the word of a witch over that of a High Ecclesiarch?' demanded Portia. 'I imagine not.

'But there is doubt, yes?' Vaun broke in. You must have seen the edges of LaHayn's grand falsehood, you felt it out there. I know you have, else your Sister Superior would have executed me the moment I was pulled from the airs.h.i.+p. You want to know, don't you? You have to be sure!'

'Doubt is the cancer in the minds of the unright-eous. said Portia, quoting a dictum from the Cardinae Noctum.

'Only the certain can know faith. Only they are fit to judge. countered Miriya.

”Whose words are those?' asked Verity.

The great Sebastian Thor's, from his speech at New Hera during the Age of Apostasy. She turned a penetrating stare on Portia. 'Are you sure, Sister? Beyond all shadow of uncertainty?' Portia's silence was answer enough.'Heh. managed the psyker. As entertaining as it is to listen to you cite your turgid scripture at one another, may I continue?' Vaun blinked. 'By your own admission, the Canoness knows nothing of my survival as yet.

Keep that silence for me and in return I will open the doors of the deacon's duplic-ity to you. Better than that, I will take you to the site of his blackest and most mendacious secret. He took a breath, his eyes glittering. 'I will take you to the Null Keep, and you will see for yourself.

'A covenant with a witch?' Miriya made a dis-gusted face. 'You would dare to utter such a suggestion to a Sister of Battle?'

The man gave a sigh of false contrition. 'It is your choice, Sister Superior. But you know as well as I do that the moment I leave your sight, it will be my death and you shall never have the answers you want. You will never know why I came here, or what it was that the Hospitaller's sibling perished for. He ignored Verity's sharp intake of breath and focussed all his attention on Miriya. 'By the time you realise that I speak the truth, all the scripture in the galaxy won't be able to stop Viktor LaHayn from ripping your precious Imperium apart.'