Lord of the Night

It radiated thought. It oozed malice. It exuded a palpable sense of presence that... yes, she was sure... that mimicked life itself.

She realised with a start that this was the prize. This was the item that had been stolen from the Traitor Marine, and the ocean of sentience that burned from within was so akin to the Night Lord's own mind that it had fooled her. This close up she could detect the tiniest of differences, the ugly inconsistencies that should have told her, long before: she had not sensed the presence of her foe. She had sensed his greatest possession, his dearest treasure, a mystical something that burned with an astral presence all of its own.

The Corona Nox.

'You begin to understand why I drugged you, perhaps?'

Kaustus's voice.

He was directly behind her.

He'd been watching. Of course.

Damn him! Damn him to the jaws of the warp! 'What do y—'

'I had to be sure I had the correct item. The thieves who stole it were hardly trustworthy, and whilst I could rely upon the governor's... interest in all things rare and valuable, even he lacked the resource to determine the item's true ownership. I knew that you would sense the beast's presence if I had the right package.'

Confusion gripped her. Had the duplicity truly gone so deep? Had he used her so mercilessly? 'This is... oh, God-Emperor, I don't under—'

'Naturally I couldn't let you get too close to the item. I'd already decided you were better off out the way. A microdart in your arm, child. It was the easiest thing.'

Stall for time, Mita. Draw him off guard. Keep him busy. Then shoot the warpshit bastard right in the face.

'I almost died! In my dreams... I... I couldn't get back to my body an—'

'Yes, yes. Very interesting.' Scorn dripped from his voice. 'Now put the gun down, interrogator. Kick it away.'

So much for stalling for time. She struggled to find a tone of rebellion in her voice but it was stifled, crushed down by the sense of defeat that gripped her.

'I'm not your interrogator any more'

'Ha. Very true. The gun. Now!'

She bent to do as he said, and as she placed the pistol against the floor she reached out with her mind, probing for weaknesses. But no, Kaustus's brain was as impregnable as ever, protected by whatever mental techniques the Ordo had bequeathed upon him. If he was accompanied by anyone else they failed to register in her psychic senses. There was nothing else she could do but comply.

She skittered the gun away into the shadows with one foot, and turned slowly to face her treacherous master.

He had stepped from the frescoed doorway linking the governor's throne room to the gallery, and stood flanked by six gun servitors: praetorian monstrosities with bodies moulded in polished bronze, bulging with stylised representations of human musculature, faceless heads swarming with sensory ganglia. In each iron-fused hand a weapon was hefted, and Mita found herself staring into the barrels of bolters, meltaguns and flamers alike. It was an impressive show of strength, but — psychically speaking — utterly blank.

'All this for me?' she mumbled, dazed.

'Ha, no.' Kaustus fiddled with a tusk, scowling. 'We were expecting someone taller. It seems he was delayed. I believe we have you to thank for that.'

'W-what do y... oh...'

And piece by piece, like a jigsaw completing itself, the fragments of enigma came together.

The Night Lord would have ascended in the elevator himself had he not been attacked in the Macharius Gateroom. He would be standing here instead of her, gazing down upon the prize he had spent so long seeking, had it not been for her actions.

Kaustus and his gunmachines had not been waiting for her. They'd been waiting for the Night Lord.

They'd always been waiting for him.

Kaustus had kept the Night Lord alive, despite all of her efforts. He'd left a trail of rumours and information, like blood in the water — from Glacier Rat to Slake to governor — to be followed piece by piece, a torturous progression of clues and hints for the beast to pursue. It would lead him here. To this place. To this gallery.

To this stolen item.

'You're waiting for him to open it for you, aren't you?' she whispered, dizzied by the scale of the scheme, the complexity of the lie in which she'd become embroiled. 'You stole it from him, but... but you couldn't open it. You had to wait for him. You had to keep him alive. You had to make him think he was gaining ground, coming for you, all by himself. You wanted him to walk into a trap.'

'Very good,' Kaustus smirked. 'And all without even reading my mind.' He held up his hands as if waving, displaying the thick blood that coated them. 'Which is why the governor couldn't join us, by the way. I couldn't have you performing any... mischief... on the little maggot's brain, could I?'

She peered through into the glassy bridge in which Kaustus had been waiting, and sure enough her eyes fells upon a small, crumpled shape, blood ebbing from its expensive robes. Kaustus shrugged. 'He was very understanding about the whole thing, come the end.'

Nausea boiled through Mita. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed back on it with bitter tears in her eyes.

Such duplicity! Such convoluted manipulation!

'Why?' she snarled, lips trembling, face burning. 'Why do all this? You had the power to stop the beast! You had the means to kill it! What could be so important that you've allowed a... an abomination the freedom of the hive?'

For a second the inquisitor seemed uncertain. For a fraction of an instant his face clouded, his brows dipped, and his eyes roved from left to right — as if he were somehow unsure where he was. For an instant his emotions and thoughts uncoiled from his mind, and Mita tasted the childish bewilderment that was an oil-slick through their midst.

'I...' he whispered, lost.

And then his features hardened, the gimlet-glimmer returned to his gaze, and his jaw clenched with an unpleasant rasp. He waved the servitors forwards, and without vocal command two wrapped sinuous arms around her, ignoring her strangled protests and dragging her out of the endless gallery, onto the vertiginous bridge where Kaustus and they had been waiting. The inquisitor followed behind, closing the doors at his back.

'You want to know why?' he smiled, hand reaching inside his robes.

She nodded slowly, mind awash.

His hand reappeared, holding within its grasp a jewelled lasptisol, and he aimed it carefully at her head. She tensed herself, the world dropping away from her.

'That's a question you can enjoy from within the grave,' he hissed, leering.

And then—

The steel eagle, rising up from the base of the metal mountain, tilting its wing towards the highest peak and racing forwards, snapping with beak and claw, to retrieve what belonged to it.

A sudden flicker of premonition, a recalled burst from the furor arcanum she'd endured within the elevator.

'Oh... oh, no...' she muttered, forgetting the gun, forgetting the inquisitor's glaring eyes.

The Night Lord was coming.