Nemesis

breathed. When the Garantine had smashed Kell’s weapon into pieces out in the

Aktick snows, it was like he had lost a part of himself; but there inside the case was a

sniper rifle that resembled the very gun that had been his constant companion for

years—resembled it, but also transcended it. “Exitus,” he breathed, stooping to ran a

hand over the flat, non-reflective surface of the barrel.

111

Tariel indicated the individual components of the weapon. “Spectroscopic

polyimager scope. Carousel ammunition loader. Nitrogen coolant sheath. Whisperhead

suppressor unit. Gyroscopic balance stabiliser.” He paused. “As much of your

original weapon as possible was salvaged and reused in this one.”

Kell nodded. He saw that the grip and part of the cheek-plate were worn in a way

that no newly-forged firearm could have been. As well as the longrifle, a pistol of

similar design lay next to it on the velvet bedding of the weapon case. Lined up along

the lid of the container were row after row of individual bullets, arranged in colourcoded

groups. “Impressive. But I’ll need to sight it in.”

“We’ll doubtless all have many opportunities to employ our skills before Horus

shows his face,” said Soalm. She hadn’t left the room, but stood off to one side as the

sniper and the infocyte talked.

“We will do what we have to,” Kell replied, without looking at her.

“Even if we destroy ourselves doing it,” his sister replied.

The marksman’s jaw hardened and his eyes fell to a line of words that had been

etched into the slender barrel of the rifle. Written in a careful scrolling hand was the

Dictatus Vindicare, the maxim of his clade; Exitus Acta Probat. “The outcome

justifies the deed,” said Kell.

* * *

What he saw in the room was like no manner of death Yosef Sabrat had ever

conceived of. The killings of Latigue in the aeronef and Norte at the docks, while

they were horrors that sickened him to his core, had not pressed at his reason. But not

this, not this… deed.

Black ashes were scattered in a long pool across the middle of Perrig’s room, cast

out of a set of clothes that lay splayed out where they had fallen. At the top of the

cascade of cinders, a small hill of the dark powder covered an iron collar, the bolt

holding it shut still secure, and in among the pile there were the silver needles of

neural implants glittering in the lamplight.

“I… don’t understand.” The Gorospe woman was standing a few steps behind the

investigators, outside in the corridor with Yosef where the jagers milled around,

uncertain how to proceed. “I don’t understand,” she repeated. “Where did the… the

woman go to?”

She had almost said the witch. Yosef sensed the half-formed word on her lips,

and he shot her a look filled with sudden fury. Gorospe looked up at him with wide,

limpid eyes, and he felt his hands contract into fists. She was so callous and

dismissive of the dead psyker; he fought back a brief urge to grab her and slam her

up against the wall, shout at her for her stupidity. Then he took a breath and said,

“She didn’t go anywhere. That’s all that is left of her.”

Yosef walked away, pushing past Skelta. The jager gave him a wary nod. “Heard

from Reeve Segan, sir. They called him in from his off-shift. He’s on his way.”

He returned Skelta’s nod and took a wary step through the field barrier and into

the room, careful not to disturb the cluster of small mapping automata that scanned

the crime scene with picters and ranging lasers. Hyssos was crouching, looking back

112

and forth around the walls, staring towards the windows, then back to the ashen

remains. He had his back to the doorway and Yosef heard him take a shuddering

breath. It was almost a sob.

“Do you… need a moment?” As soon as he said the words, he felt like an utter

fool. Of course he did; his colleague had just been brutally murdered, and in an

abhorrent, baffling manner.

“No,” said Hyssos. “Yes,” he said, an instant later. “No. No. There will be time

for that. After.” The operative looked up at him and his eyes were shining. “Do you

know, I think, at the end… I think I actually heard her.” He fingered one of the braids

among his hair.

Yosef saw the semi-circle of objects on the floor, the stones and the paper. “What

are these?”

“Foci,” Hyssos told him. “Objects imbued with some emotional resonance from

the suspect. Perrig reads them. She read them.” He corrected himself absently.

“I am sorry.”

Hyssos nodded. “You will let me kill this man when we find him,” he told Yosef,

in a steady, measured voice. “We will make certain, of course, of his guilt,” he

added, nodding. “But the death. You will let me have that.”

Yosef felt warm and uncomfortable. “We’ll burn that bridge after we cross it.”

He looked away and found the places on the far wall behind him where the markings

had been made. On his entry into the room, he hadn’t seen them. Like the paintings