This story came about after an incident in game, which is revealed in the story itself in a couple of places, in which the groups Assassin, Trix Roth, decided to show a juvie ganger what a really messed corpse looked like. Dice rolls were made, and the juvie lost both his lunch and a large chunk of sanity.

This story is about the consequences of player actions, and hopefully, when my players read it they'll understand they've made my setting a little bit darker and nastier, the world is responding to their actions, whether they realise it or not.
I was intending to run it as a “down time mission” but threw that idea away as I couldn't get it to gel right on paper when making notes for it.

The chatter that you see in this story is very much how our group sessions are, and the characters have an easy going patter which often makes switch-blade turns and comes up with ideas and plans with out really trying.

Here's a brief on the main characters before the story, which is I stress still in progress, and one of these days I will totally rework it

Trix Roth, Assassin.
Born on a feudal world she was saved by an inquisitorial team and promptly put in to a care home come training school for imperial killers.
She looks in her mid twenties, has very long black hair and ruddy skin. Whilst not unattractive she doesn't care much about her looks and often comes across as quite naïve in many matters when it comes to “worldly matters”.

Julian Echo Twenty-Four, Tech-Priest.
Julian is a man consumed with improving the looks of things, and often is found drawing or scrimshawing the many tools and weapons of anyone he comes across, whether they like it or not. He still has not got the hang of interfacing with those who're not part of his order, however he has come up with a number of facial muscle movements that resemble the average emotions, these expressions however often cause more nervousness or out right fear in those he tries them on.

Interrogator Magdelena
Approaching her fiftieth year she's managed to remain youthful looking in the line of duty. Initially she worked for the Ordo Xenos, however upon the death of her former master one of his colleagues folded her in to his branch and she now works for the Ordo Malleus.
She often presents as an amiable person, the kind of “favourite aunty” you half remember from your childhood.
She has a fondness for using plasma pistols and will at times personally interrogate heretics using a variety of poisons which a number of her staff refer to as her “Medicine Cabinet”.

Acolyte Kramer
Magdelenas' PA and right hand man. Little more than a glorified secretary he is often left in charge of Magdelenas' numerous small cells of operatives.

Lev Rollins, Scum
Regarded by many of Magdelenas staff as a loose canon, he's often found in bars & bordellos. However, he is a veritable master of the streets and acts as a go between the various contacts and faceless informers and Magdelena.

Secondary Scribe of the Xeno-Theologia Collegum Archimedes Grimm, Adept
As per many Adepts Archimedes is a veritable font of info, however his speciality is in the Xeno. He was indentured in to the nigh heretical Xeno-Theologia Collegum, which in turn is secretly sponsored by a number of factions within the Imperium. He has mastered the Tau language after studying numerous war reports, poems and interrogation vox clips, not that there are any Tau in the sector he works in.

I'll be posting it in chunks every couple of days, once i've put it through a spell checker

Innocence is fertile ground for Heresy in a mind filled with doubt

~Thical Prime, Southern Continent Township Aesca
~Abandoned PDF Barracks presently under the control of the Ordo Malleus

Interrogator Magdelena sat behind her Dusk marble desk, fully foot wide and six deep, gilt aquila trimmed its edges and its legs were fashioned in the shape of heroes of the local sector, a marine from the Astral Scorpions who held back an army of chaos cultists and minor daemons with little more than a broken combat blade, half a bottle of amesec and a lot of luck, another was fashioned in the image of a medicae officer who cured a planetary system of a virulent zombie plague only to be killed by a mutated strain which seemed to target him alone, the third leg was a navigator from a rumoured cursed lineage who managed to save half a war fleet by creating some unusual bubbles in the warp that repelled warp creatures more effectively when sabotage crippled the geller fields at the point of transference in to the aether and the final leg looked like nothing more than a earth-shaker mobile canon platform who's machine spirit kept firing at an enemy strong hold long after many of its crew were killed in a brutal civil uprising.

In one hand she held a slim vitrian glass of spiced tanna, her other hand distractedly traced the red veins in the dark grey Dusk marble veins. She was stalling, she knew it and yet she couldn't bring herself to read the report in front of her again, just out of easy reach.
Her last attempt caused her to all but vomit when she come to the medicae's report, or rather when she'd come to the still picts of, well best not to think of that lest the bile rise again.

Swigging the tanna in one gulp it burned hotly before she slammed the glass down, causing to crack and shatter on her desk. Shaking the shards off her jacket cuff she reached over to the intervox switch.
“Kramer, get me Trix and Brother Julian. Have them bought to my office in one hour. Arrange for a pot of recaff, and a decanter of amesec to put in it. I think they're going to need it.”
Not bothering to wait for a reply she let go of the switch and pulled the file back to her, reorganising the contents inside before reading its galling pages.

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In the near pitch black hanger Trix Roth hung by the tips of two fingers of her left hand from a slim ledge, her legs were half drawn up beneath her ready to push off from the wall when the target would come in to range beneath her. In her right hand she held a dulled blade which would deliver a charge strong enough to fell the average grown adult.

Two men crept below her rounding a Chimera APC, trying to be subtle in talking to each other but failing miserably, their whispers to loud in the darkness.
“Ok, when you see that swiving ***** try to keep her in sight, she's a nasty dancer and will jump about a bit before trying to close on you..”
“Yeah yeah I know, I saw what she done to Ferlik. Gonna make her suffer for that. I'll back up and you try to keep her pinned in place”

Once they had passed her position she pushed off gently from the wall and let go of her grip.
Managing three full spins she landed in a Languid Felid pose with a sharp exhalation.
To their credit they split up immediately, all their talk before was little more than an act to try to lull her in to recognising their false plan. One dived to the left whilst the other to her right spun on the spot, shotgun levelling on her expecting her to have gone for the moving target.
Her knife pressed in to his neck, to the soft flesh just where the jugular is located, and before he could pull the trigger the gun was wrenched from his failing grip and he he spasmed before falling to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

The one who dived off to the left had rolled under the Chimera, checking left and right as he stood for the silent killers location.
He yelped in shock when he felt the cold mouth of the shotguns barrel pushed in to the flesh behind his neck where there was no real armour other than a flimsy layer of flak.
“Bang, you're dead trooper” Trix whispered in his ear causing him to loudly loosen wind from his bowels.

“LIGHTS!” Yelled a rough voice some where in the hanger, one by one they flickered on and revealed the scene of fifteen Imperial Guardsmen all laying prone on the floor in one position or another, each one apparently killed in a different manner.
“For Thrones sake Jorge, I thought you you said you trained this lot yourself” Trix located the squads training sergeant, Jorge Almirez, standing some twenty feet up on a balcony with a pair of photo-goggles pushed up on his bald head and with a running jump grabbed the handrail and eased herself up next to him.
“Frau Roth, if you'd check your chrono you'd see it took you a full three seconds longer than your last training session with this batch.”
Putting a finger to her lips Trix made a look of thinking for all of half a second “Oh. Three seconds. Hmm. They must be getting better then” the irony was heavy in her voice as she stood fully, looking him in the eye “Well, in that case I insist that next time you send this lot in a training session with me you give them live weapons. We'll see how much longer that takes me to 'kill' them and how eager they'll be for that when I take their weapons from them.”

Turning away from the sergeant she placed a hand on the rail and leapt over, landing next to a trooper who was still hyperventilating from the stimms and muscle relaxant toxins she'd injected him with a flick needle.
“C'mon trooper, Ferlik yeah? Lets get you to the medicae and get your system pumped clean. Or, if you like I'm sure Brother Julian would love to examine your lungs...”
The trooper wheezed and leaned on the assassins shoulder, praying to the Throne she was only joking about taking him to the Tech-Priest who would only to gladly shove a pict-mechandrite down his throat just to see his gag reflex.

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The micro drill whirred to a stop as Brother Julian mentally requested that it cease its duty so that me might appraise his work.
Picking up the trigger from his autogun, which was spread in parts across the surface of his Alter come workstation, he slid down a series of lenses over one eye, praying that one day he would be granted the access code prayer to replace the organic organs.
Examining the his latest scrimshaw, which he had done in a trance like state, he was momentarily in awe of the workmanship and detail of what he had created, a catechism overlaid upon itself in sacred binary.
“Yeah though I walk in the shadow of the valley of ignorance, I shall fear no corruption of data for my memory is pure and I'm one smart son of a cog” he half murmured to himself, though he wasn't usually one to talk out loud to anyone he couldn't throw a dozen yards, most especially to himself.

As he spoke he started to put the weapon back together, one part of his mind going through the Rote of Assembly for the pattern he was used to using, the other part of his augmented brain considering using an even finer drill for the next series of embellishments.
Each click and clack of the guns parts was like an affirmation of his faith, not only in the Rote but in the Deus Mechanicus, of which the Omnissiah was the earthly manifestation.

Once he has finished the Rote, the guns simple machine spirit, little more than a counting sprite, chimed its thanks, and run a quick check of its circuits, then informed the Tech Priest that the ammo clip was full, with each third round being phosphor treated.
The tracer round was something that Julian was glad he had access to, it allowed for better precision for not only his, but any colleagues me hight be work along side. The only real negative, considered tolerable, was that it had a chance of giving away his own position if he was trying to be at all secretive.

Combat wasn't something he was overly familiar with it had to be said, but since his induction in to the ranks of the Inquisition he had found that often the only solution was a rapid strike and withdrawal, though he was never to fond of acting as the spearhead for such assaults, that sort of thing was the speciality of some one like Trix, the assassin he'd worked with for over a year now.
Yes, she was only to happy to go in and get quite blood drenched in the name of her Emperor.

Setting the gun reverently on the Work Alter he then picked up a votive symbol made of lead, finely wrought and inscribed by his own hands, and held it over a stubby candle causing the wax to hiss violently as the molten lead dripped in to it.
“May this weapon be guarded against malfunction, as my soul is guarded from impurity. The Machine God watches” he murmured.
He repeated the simple prayer once in each of the dozen sacred languages of his order, before dropping the last fragment of the votive lead in to the candle causing it to spill out black smoke as it doused.

As he finished the final word of the prayer in Hexidecimallaic, perhaps one of the most ancient of the languages that he had needed to memorise with out aid to gain entrance to the Cult Mechanicus, a light flashed just on the edge of his field of vision, above his chambers door.
Mentally he commanded it to open, thanking the doors simple spirit for doing as told.

Lit starkly from behind was Trix Roth, dressed in a simple dark grey body glove and an archaic gown coat that came from her home world, one where she had informed him that the height of techno-sorcery came in the form of catapults, crossbows and mere iron swords.
Whilst her long limbed and amply proportioned figure was pleasing to look at Julian couldn't help but feel some disdain as his gaze was pulled to the weapons of choice she wore openly on her hips, a simple and functional, if some what battered autopistol, and a a longsword which she had allowed him to modify in so much as to give it more of a killing edge so that she might kill quicker and cleaner.

“Julian Echo Twenty Four, Mags wants to see us, twenty minutes time in her main office.”
A mechandrite snaked over Julian's shoulder for a moment, and scanned her with its built in auspex, to ensure that it was indeed the young assassin in his doorway.
“Greetings Trix Roth. Initiating Smile Seventeen” he turned fully to look at her, with what he was sure would be an appropriate and beaming smile, one carefully designed to put people at ease.
Sadly the one he chose gave him an altogether predatory look, like some kind of canid about to make a kill of a decidedly small and furry creature.
“To much teeth in that one Jay. C'mon, she might have some of those pink wafers if we're lucky”
“Sustenance unrequired at this time. Sustenance next scheduled for eighteen hundred hours. Supplement paste ninety two today.”
“Don't tell me, tastes like chicken.”
“Ah, I see you have tried paste ninety two as I recommended. You might also be interested in paste thirty sev..”
Before he could finish however Trix held up a hand.
“No Jay, I've not tried it. Just everything tastes like chicken. Or at least it does if you burn the bird and what ever you're comparing it to enough.”
“Burnt food, whilst an excellent source of Carbon is not required for many diets in great quantities. Like Heretics”
Trix knew he was trying to make a joke, but ignored it and mused.
“Hmm, who knew, heretics taste like chicken. That explains a lot I suppose..”

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Kramer led them into Magdelenas office, pulling out a seat for Trix and about to do the same for Julian before a manipulator arm unfolded from the bulky robes and pulled out a seat for its owner.
Catching himself staring Kramer retreated to the recaff pot, setting to refill it again as Magdelena had all but emptied it in the last hour, along with some measure of the Amesec he had bought in not to long ago.
Checking the temperature of the recaff he poured in a generous measure of the liquor in to the pot, swirled it round expertly and then whilst it still moved counter clockwise in the pot poured out three small cups of it, placing one before the Interrogator and her two acolytes.
Setting a small plate of pink wafers on the table, in easy reach of all, he excused himself silently from the room to wait at his desk in case Magdelena required anything else of him.

Once her aide had left, Magdelena broke the silence.
“Sergeant Almirez tells me you took longer than usual in your practice session today”
“Yeah, his boys ain't so quick to get broken arms and legs any more. I had to get inventive in killing them, inventive by their standards at least”
“Well, try not to scare any of them to death, save that for the Enemy eh?”
Julian coughed, or at least a good enough facsimile as his augmetic throat and vox would allow.
“Ma'am, is this prevarication part of our briefing? If so, I would like to sample the intoxicant laced beverage and to allow those roseate confections to be inspected by my internal analysis engines”
With out thinking Trix translated, seeing a bemused, if slightly bewildered look cross Magdelenas features.
“What he means is, can he drink the tanna and eat a wafer whilst we talk”
“Yes, indeed, I would also like to test the wafers ability to extract liquid at varying temperatures and yet retain its structural integrity so that I may ascertain the correct periods of duration in which to immerse and retract the confection and perform additional internal analysis”
“What?” Now Magdelena looked back to Trix for an explanation, which took Trix a few moments to sort in to the right words, having at times to rethink what Julian had said as if it were some other language.
“Is he allowed to dunk the wafer. I think.”
Magdelena exhaled, wanting to laugh but stifling it with a quick snort and waved at the plate of wafers.
“Yes, yes, immerse and withdraw to your cardiacal content Julian”
“Initiating facial expression fifteen, pleasant joy.”
“You're getting better at some of those expressions Julian. Less teeth in that one.” Trix said round a mouth full of wafer crumbs.
“Thank you Trix. I have been studying some of the local youth elements in the low hive. It has been most informative. Last week alone I learned twelve new swearwords and seventeen new derogatory gestures.”
Julian seemed about to go off on some tangent or other, so Magdelena coughed bringing the pair of acolytes attention back to the matter at hand.

Magdelena pushed a folder across the desk, she was sometimes a little old fashioned and preferring hard copy for new briefs with the data available on a slate at a later point, giving away her upbringing in the info-hives where vast stakes of paper, card and other materials were all the eye could see on many layers of the hive through fares. Some said they were dumping grounds for any number of municipal departments, and those that lived there worked essentially as de facto guardians of the knowledge, though many of the info-hive dwellers couldn't actually read they simply knew what sort of knowledge was in any given area of half a mile due to ancestors passing the rough knowledge down.
Julian's manipulator arm took the folder and pulled it towards himself and Trix.
“One of my informants passed this file on to me, he flagged it for Special Attention. I've removed the matter from the local constabularies jurisdiction.”
Julian opened up the folder, an optic-snake slithered out from his robes hood and begun to speed reads the contents, occasionally making a small whine and click as it captured copies of picts within the folder.
“Hmm. Interesting. Hmm...” Julian murmured to himself, then passed the folder to Trix, allowing her to read its contents much more slowly
When Trix came to the medicae picts Julian leaned in “Some of those wound markings are familiar. Trix, what sort of blade would make those puncture and tear marks?”
Trix looked over the pict. She'd seen a lot in her work for Inquisitor Grindle and Interrogator Magdelena, had done a lot to, mostly neat clean kills that she took pride in.

A woman sat slumped on a couch leaning backwards, her head thrown back, the line of the neck would have been seductive, if it wasn't for the gash there, nearly severing the head but for the spine and a few strands of ligament and muscle that hadn't been cut.
Her mouth was a bloody slit, lips removed and a stump of a tongue swollen at the back of her throat. Her eyes had been gouged out, and could be seen just off to one side of the pict staring out accusingly at who ever was looking at the pict from the windowsill.
Her hands were secured above her, with what looked like a pair of Arbites cuffs, to the frame of the couch, and judging from the marks there, it had been used this way for a good number of years with its flaked veneer showing the plasteel frame in its raw grey colour.

Trix looked up at Magdelena, ignoring Julian for a moment.
“She was a joy girl?” Trix enquired, though the woman's scant clothing and much abused couch gave as much away she wanted to confirm it first before she jumped to any real conclusions.
“Yes, Upper-Hab Delta. Sanctioned to do her trade in the name of Him on Terra. All her previous offspring were taken from her at their point of birth, the girls will be cycled back in to the trade, the boys will receive basic arms training and be inducted in to either the local PDF or be taken in tithe when a recruitment drive happens on this planet again.”
Julian passed over the next batch of picts, these ones taken from further back than the initial head and shoulders close up.

Trix clenched her fists when she saw them, not expecting the mindless brutality to go any further than it already had. She recited a snipers prayer to calm her racing pulse.
The picts showed the woman's torso, her breasts were stained with gore from the savage neck wound, though they also showed marks from beatings and being bitten, the bite marks were thankfully human, and none of them broke the skin.
She had been crudely opened up from her sternum down to her nether regions, the pool of blood congealed in front of her, covering her legs which strangely had not been attacked, though there was some bruising around her ankles showing she may have been at some point restrained.
Sitting in her lap like tentafish out of water were her intestines and other organs, some of which could be seen still hanging within her hollowed out body like some alien parasite.

Magdelena sat back, allowing her two acolytes to read the file. Julian had already read the Prelim Report, and had even scanned the medicae's report with his usual expediency.
“Some of the wound report is very familiar Magdelena. Trix, do you recall that Low-Hab Alpha joy girl you found when we were investigating the Xeno artefact, the Heart-Glaive.”
“Yeah, I remember all to bloody well. Damned Wyches nearly gutted me like this poor soul. Emperor take her.”
Magdelena sat forward again, keeping the pictures obscured in her sight by her near empty tanna cup.
“Yes, I'm glad you noticed that. The killing that took place at that time was horrific, but this is different. Not as refined in some ways, this is pure butchery. Wet-work at its worst. And this isn't the the first time a body has been found like this, or in similar condition at least. Five other incidents have been logged in the last four months.”
Julian's optic-snake flicked up at that point.
“Have you input the location details in to a terrain mapping cogitator function? Could the locations form some sort of Arcane Rune?” Julian mused as the small mechandrite started to withdraw back in to his robes.
“Yes, we ran it through last night, Archimedes input the data ritual himself, so it would have been entered flawlessly.”
“I see. Hmm. Oh.” Julian suddenly sounded both very confused and defeated.
“Jay? What is it? What's the matter?”
Trix touched his arm, suddenly worried, forgetting momentarily that the Tech-Priests right arm was augmetic from the elbow down, severed by some kind of Archeo-Tech defence robot on their first mission together hunting a rogue member of the Cult Mechanicus.
Julian turned to look at Trix, his face as serious as she had ever seen it.
“I appear to have over dunked. The wafers integrity has been compromised by the extended period it was in the tanna for.”
A small clawed appendage came from his right sleeve, spraying some kind of sealant foam over the tanna cup before latching on to it and retracting back in to the voluminous sleeve.
“I shall analyse this later.”

Sliding her chair back Magdelena took out several more folders from a cabinet, placing each one on the desk, then unfurled a map of Aesca Township, using the tanna cups to weight down its corners and keep it in place on her desk.
Clearly marked on the map were six red triangles, presumably where the other deaths had occurred.
Micro fine writing was beside the location markers, containing a sting of numbers that appeared to be time, date, longitude, latitude, lunar phases and some other details besides that neither of they could discern.
The script was clearly that if Archimedes Grimm, an acolyte they had worked alongside with previously at Magdelenas behest. A man obsessed with details, he no doubt had already filled several data slates with theories and details that the average acolyte would consider little more than trivialities.
Trix looked over the map, she'd spent the best part of the last year living on this planet since the incident involving the ancient cargo lift tethered to the planet and the orbital colony hulk the Targe, something she'd rather not have been associated with.
“Jay, check with Archimedes later, get what ever notes he's made. I want to nail the sick frigger who's doing this. If I have to kill a whole coven of Wyches to do it then fine, make me happier killing the filth that opposes Him on Terra, even if I have to **** my soul to get this sorted..”
Magdelena looked at Trix and her little outburst, it was uncharacteristic of her to say the least, this was something she might ask Confessor Lukyanenko to investigate at a later date.
“Inquisitor Grindles suspicions are the same as yours. This may well be a Cult related murder spree, possibly part of a ritual to summon a Daemon from the warp. Archimedes is in the archives at the moment, going through our small collection of texts on the matter we have at our disposal here. With any luck he might find some correlation between the murder styles and known heretical cult activity”

Julian had started to leaf through the other files whilst Magdelena was setting up the map and talking. He couldn't help but feel something was missing. Then it struck him and he exclaimed aloud.
“By the Omnissiah! The missing component...”
Trix and Magdelena looked at him, half expecting him to comment on the plate of wafers was empty.
“The organic forge of creation. Missing in the five women and the potentia coding storage device from the male who was murdered”
Trix looked at him, Magdelena knew then what he was talking about and informed Trix.
“The joy girls wombs and genitalia was missing, as were the males testes. They don't feature in the picts or the reports.”
“Why Julian? Why? Who would keep such things?” Trix said, despite knowing that any number of Imperial Death Cults kept trophies from the kills they had made, but never anything so brutal.
Forcing his lungs to cycle anew and take in fresher air Julian seemed reluctant to speak.
The Adeptus Mechanicus had a great many secrets, some of them would be shameful if not for the fact that many members of the Cult Mechanicus had such unrequired areas of their brain excised in rituals more ancient as the compact held with Terra itself.
“A myth” Julian started reluctantly, wheezing as if his augmetics were attempting to prevent him from talking “Logic dictates I should discount it, as there is no hard evidence or proof of it. Mars, like the Holy Imperium of Man has a great many sects and groups. To outsiders we appear a solid wall of red robes and augmetic limbs, but this is just a façade seen by those to ignorant or unable to see the truth of the matter. One such is said to be called the Carmine Imperative. They were said to be Master Biologis each and every one of them. They tried to distil the secrets of stable genetic coding, specifically Aether inspired coding. Psykers. But they are no more than a myth, because despite existing no one claimed to be members of the Imperative. New Initiates learn of them one way or another, and the myth is used as a cautionary tale, like bogeymen on hive worlds.”
“And what does this have to do with this?” Trix asked, unable to see the connection.
“The only part of the body the Carmine Imperative culled from test subjects were the reproductive organs, they called them the organic forge of creation and the potentia coding storage device, as Magdelena was correct in saying, the womb, ovaries and testes. They kept them viable in nutrient vats so they could have ready access to what ever data they required on the Psykers they were culled from. For over five hundred years serf bodies would be found infrequently, mutilated in such a surgical manner as to remove only the reproductive organs. From the archives it turned out that each of those found were in some way carrying a signifier in their genetic structure that might indicate future offspring with Psyk powers. Post mortem medicae reports show that no sedative was used, surgery was done on living and fully aware victims.”
Magdelena let out a slow breath, whistling between her teeth as she done so.
“I'm glad I'm barren, especially if such a thing is happening here.”
Trix looked at Julian for a long moment, she knew he had interest in medical processes, and that he had spent at least some time in the company of joy girls in the past since she'd known him, but she never asked why, especially as he had mentioned numerous times that such sporting was pointless for him as such urges had been purged from him in his initiation in to the Cult Mechanicus.
“The Red Planet has some sick frags on it..”
He looked at her and replied immediately “No Trix, the whole of the Imperium has undesirable individuals in it, not just Mars”

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Once the meeting had come to a some what sombre end Trix went to her quarters whilst Julian took time to visit Archimedes in the Archivium.
He found him hunched over a large desk, a dozen heavy tomes open on age stained pages, an ambulatory cogitator servitor stood close by the scribe, its human parts had once belonged to one of Inquisitor Grindles faithful scribes who was remarkably good at his job and was rewarded with posthumous service. It was the sort of thing that Archimedes himself one day aimed to be, serving faithfully in death as much as he did in life.
One of its arms worked as an autoquill, writing on to a data slate, allowing it to record data more swiftly than if typed. Its legs had long been replaced with vulcanised tracks and its head was dominated by a series of pict recorders and and a vox scribe unit.
Archimedes pulled two books towards himself, murmuring something under his breath, oblivious to Julian's presence. The servitors quill arm worked back and forth, recording the data that Archimedes was vocalising.
Julian sent out a small burst of binary, checking on the servitors systems and maintenance records, once satisfied with the reply he turned to the busy scribe.

“Greetings Archivist second grade Archimedes Grimm. How are you this day?”
With out looking up the archivist muttered “Still to much teeth in that Brother Echo Twenty-four. Pass me that treatise on warrior cults of deathworlds in the Segmentum Obscura will you. Its the one bound in its authors skin.”
Waving a hand in the direction of a number of leather bound books, the archivist took the book from the techpriest as a mechandrite slide it across the table from the pile it sat atop of.
“Haston Bloomingtalls guide to Warrior Cults in the Segmentum Obscura. It was written by an abhuman, a ratling to use the colloquial phrase. He was court martialed for killing a commissar that was assigned to his advance team.”
“The ratling shot him? I have heard that they are often well sought after as snipers. But I have seen little datum that supports the theories as to why they make better than average solo shooters.”
“No no, the abhuman didn't shoot the commissar. The abhuman was the teams de facto cook. One of their other well known talents. Poisoned the commissar with some local snake meat. Seems he may have confused his seasoning salts with some Mortean Death Crystals, a hard to come by highly alkaline mineral deposit. Quite easy to mistake I suppose. They look much the same, and the Crystals taste some what salty I'm told.”
“Fascinating” murmured the Techpriest taking a moment to actually look at the books detailed spine.
“However I take it you did not come here to talk about the killer culinary skills of abhumans and other assorted stable mutations. I suspect that you wish to enquire to my success in divining any form of significance in the locations of the murders.” As he spoke he flicked through the slim flesh bound tome before discarding it for a data slate, which itself was then discarded moments later, not once looking up to the Techpriest whilst he was searching for some form of data from the myriad of books on the table in front of him.
“I've run correlation checks with the unified Angstroms Referentia, compared it to four hundred and thirty seven Gothic sub-languages in case it made a pictograph or glyph in some form or another and also run a lengthy comparison to both the Eldar known glyphic language and also the Tau written words I have personally translated.”
Julian tensed up a little, he had no love for any form of Xenos, they performed unblessed and unholy acts of technosorcery.
“And? What did you discover?”
“Nothing. They do appear to be just random locations. Even with scale modifications they don't match up to anything in my small library or indeed anything in Magdelenas archives. I've requested clearance to send my findings and the datum you've supplied via astropathic relay to a few fellows who may be able to shed some of the Emperors Light on the matter back at the Collegia Xeno-Theoretica. It may match one of the Archeo Scripts in their vaults. But I believe this is highly unlikely.”
“I see. Very well, keep me informed if you do receive anything back on the matter. Thank you for applying your mind to the matter.”
“If you require anything else just ask. I'll be here no doubt.” The Archivist was still bent over the table, pouring over a data slate that managed to keep his attention for longer than ten seconds.
Julian stood there for a moment, taking every thing that he was just told, it amounted to very little that might aid himself or Trix in the investigation.

Julian remembered something that Trix had told him and looked towards Archimedes, clearing his vox a little, much like any normal person might their throat.
This caused the Archivist to look towards the Techpriest, one eyebrow raised in query.
“Have A Nice Day”
Trix had told him it was the right kind of thing to say in moments like this, though Julian thought it sounded hollow, even by his standards.
“Ah now, less teeth in that one Brother Echo Twenty-four. Much better.”
Archimedes turned back to the desk and its contents, staring at it before picking another data slate up, the Techpriest already forgotten to him.

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Trix closed the door to her rooms, taking a few seconds to deactivate the flash grenade she used as a deterrent to anyone that might think a woman on her own was a fair target in the middle of the night.
Setting a single lamp aglow she walked over to her bed and pulled out an armoured slim crate from underneath it, before reaching between her upper left wisdom tooth and cheek and removing an adhesive patch covering a micro key, little larger than a fingernail, and run it along the crates length in a slight indentation, the saliva on the key ensured the crate was gene locked to her and her alone.
A half dozen clicks greeted her, as mag-clamps deactivated and the crates lid swung up slowly revealing its contents.
She took out the Autogun that Julian had retooled and micro-calibrated, it was dull matt grey in colour, matching the Autopistols and a belt she had purchased from a trader, not long out of Gunmetal City so he said, which on the correct twitch of her hips would present fresh clips for the pistols for speed loading saving her precious seconds.
With a smile she took out a small leather pouch she knew Julian would not approve of, its contained only one thing, a code breaker designed to open electronically sealed doors. She knew the item was possibly borderline Tech-Heresy, but it was used in the name of His Most Holy On Terra, which on her eyes made it OK. Just so long as Julian didn't have to see her use it.
Tucking the leather pouch in her frock coat pocket she looked to the lid of the crate, secured by a dozen prayer scrolls was her sword, passed down through her family for the last four generations.
It was plain and functional, not like some swords she knew others in her order used, those with grinding teeth or seething with lightning.
No, hers was sharper than it once was when her grandfather made it, the only real change she'd made to the blade, she had faith in the sword and it had proved enough plenty of times.
Breaking the wax seals of the prayer scrolls she took the sword out of its lizard skin sheath, checking it for any imperfections, which she knew there were none, but it was part of her ritual and she offered a prayer up to the Sanguine Aspect of the Emperor silently.

Fastening the Gunmetal City belt under her coat she took the sword and its belt next, affixing it to her left hip and checked to ensure it wouldn't interfere with other belts mechanisms.
After a few small adjustments she removed the belts and the rest of her clothing, before walking in to the small shower room she had access to and took a scorchingly hot but brief shower, allowing the waters own heat to dry her off as she went to her wardrobe and opened it up fully revealing a full length mirror set in to each of the two doors. One one side a varied selection of clothing hung, every thing from elegant evening wear through to cheap looking gutter clothing.

The other side was filled with deep shelves, on each one sat piecemeal armour, and she took several minutes to what she thought might be most appropriate for what could lay ahead. It always paid to plan ahead she thought to her self.

Taking a plain black bodyglove from one shelf she slipped in to it before applying fast adhesive to to armour part she had selected, and with a prayer she fitted on enough to cover her shins, knees, calves, crotch, stomach, ribs, forearms and elbows, leaving her front well protected and not giving up to much flexibility thanks to her lightly armoured back.
Finally she selected a gorget, one of the few ornate items she treasured, made of strange black alloy that Magdelena told her was made by a race now long dead on a planet that had been destroyed during the Great Heresy Wars.
In some lights the black alloy looked like oil stuck to her skin, flexing with her movements, yet rigid enough to withstand even an Orks Choppa, which she had proved when she was ambushed many years ago.

Looking for her boots she laced them tightly and slipped a small knife in to each one in to specially built sheaths, the put back on the two belts, again making several small adjustments now that she was fully armoured, and shrugged on her long frock coat before grabbing the autogun and attaching a simple sling to it and hooking it over one shoulder.

Checking herself in the mirror she smiled grimly to herself.
“The Emperor my Master, And the darkness my home, The moon my working light, And the knife my tome.” She begun her orders killing prayer, anointing her forehead with a small smear of blood from a knife pricked finger. “The blood my water, And the flesh my meat, Nullified and sanctified, The target's death my hearts beat” she finished as she licked the blood from her fingertip sealing the small cut.

Closing the wardrobe, crate and resetting the flash grenade she left her room, with one purpose in mind.
To kill what ever heretic or cult had started to kill in what she had started to see as her hunting grounds.

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Finally got a bit of time to write more of this up

I'm such a slacker

Julian & Trix arranged to meet at vehicle pool two, where they took a nondescript half track wagon and headed out to the most recent of the murder scenes.
On the drive through the dusty landscape they decided on which order they would view the sites of the brutal killings, eventually settling on reverse order with the most recent first, as they were already committed to going there and then travelling through the sprawling township all the way to the first reported murder.
Before they had left, Kramer, Magdelenas aide, contacted them to ensure that Alpha Protocol was not breached.
Alpha Protocol was something Inquisitor Grindle had instituted with all his staff, and it was something that Magdelena still urged her staff to use. It ensured that members of her staff, and ultimately Grindles staff, did not reveal who they were working for, His Most Holy Inquisition. Such things tended to scare planetary Governors and many cults went to ground as soon as the merest whiff of the I word was even bandied in hushed tones, making it all the harder to root them out for examination and purgation.
Whilst under Alpha Protocol, Magdelena allowed her staff to carry mostly authentic Arbites Special Crimes departmental badges and ID, which would allow them to go most places normally barred to them with out a warrant and if need be shoot to kill anyone who was an impediment to the case they were supposed to be investigating.
It wasn't the same as carrying a Rosette, but it did carry with it an air of deniability should anything go wrong, as it so often could with but the slightest wrong word or poorly thought through intimidation attempt on some noble house sire.

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Upper Hab Delta was located in a south eastern district of the township, and it took them little more than an hour to drive there from the barracks Magdelena used as her base of operations on the planet.
Barely twenty eight floors high, but still in excess of a hundred and fifty meters tall, the building was a standard looking hab-unit, though some what gaudily dressed in gilt and marble fascias instead of the expected graffiti and flak boarding the pair had expected.
A small troop of footmen stood to attention at the main doors, up a small flight of broad stairs, offering to help residents & guests with bags or vehicle parking.
Trix reckoned this hab would hold little more than a thousand or perhaps eleven hundred actual residents, many of them would be out at this time of the day, still not quite what would be recognized as lunchtime.
Ignoring all calls for assistance from the attendants Trix walked to the doors, which failed to open for her. She looked pointedly at one of the footmen, a slight scowl forming on her lips and brow.
“We apologise ma'am.” he said with a deep bow, never once raising his eyes to look above her knees whilst she was close to him. “Your phenomenal trace is unknown to us. Do you have business here? Is there some one we might contact to see if your entry is warranted..”
Before Trix could unload any number of expletives Julian stepped forward.
Like Trix he had changed some of the things he was carrying, his red robes had been changed for plain black with gilt chevrons on the hem and cuffs, he also wore armour, magnetically bonded to key weak areas, he'd even opted for a full visor array, a half dozen lenses and unidentifiable antennae covering his eyes, so that no flesh was visible under the robes cowl, only the alien look of what people expected of the Cult Mechanicus.
Purposefully causing his vox to squeal Julian enjoyed the moment of discomfort he caused to the footman nearest to him and Trix.
In his most mechanical voice, something Trix had told him most people would run screaming from if they could, he addressed the unfortunate lackey.
“Yes. Thank you. I am Special Enforcement Officer Smith. My colleague is Special Enforcement Officer Smith also. We are investigating a crime scene within your building.”
A small crowd had gathered, watching the strange Techpriest and his sombre looking companion.
The footman Julian was addressing flustered and pulled out a com handset, the Techpriest realised almost immediately that it had some kind of chem sniffer built in to it, and theorised that it was used as a secondary phenomenal adjudicator.
Activating a series of internal processors Julian focussed his will via an ultra low wave frequency and contacted the sniffers machine spirit directly. Once he was confident that his and Trix's phenomenal trace would be deleted within three hours, he offered a small thanks to the machine and severed the connection.
“Please, ensure our scent is registered correctly. Omnissiah watch over you.” Julian spoke, again in the most mechanical voice he could muster through his vox.

Both he and Trix presented their badges, the footman took a little while to enter them in to his com set.
“Ok, you're both verified to access this building, a senior footman will meet you inside and render further assistance. Thank you for your patience.”
Trix smiled, her eyes totally removed from the smile however, whilst Julian merely clacked his lenses in what the lackey thought was thanks.

The doors opened for them and they stepped inside.

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Senior footman Ibden seemed to be called that purely because of his age, easily in his eightieth year he walked with a pronounced limp, and was cursed it seemed with a hunched back. Trix tried to think of other things whilst she was forced to walk tediously slowly behind the man, anything but his step drag thump step marred gait.
“So, uh, Ibden.. Been in the job long?” she knew it sounded lame.
No, not lame. That just reminded her of his unusual walk and that's what she was trying to distract herself from.
Hawking phlegm up and neatly spitting it in to a broad leafed plants pot, obviously done with many years of practice, he stopped walking and painfully turned round to face her.
“Seventy four years Ma'am. Like my father, my fathers father and my fathers fathers father. And also my son and his son. Its an honour to serve Ma'am”
Hawking phlegm up once more, and depositing it in to another plant pot he turned and resumed his route to the elevator across the vast foyer.
Whether it was curiosity or some other driving force Trix couldn't help but ask another question, forcing the old man to stop once more and start the painful process of clearing his throat and turning to address her again.

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“Trix, we could have been here four point three eight four four seven minutes ago if you hadn't kept asking him questions” Julian was it seemed angry, his vox was pitched a little higher than normal.
“Sorry, I got nervous. He was old and he looked it. It isn't natural. Why hasn't he been put in some senility hospice?”
They spoke in hushed tones once they entered unit Eighty Four Beta, Julian pointedly ignored her question. The hab was on the eighth floor and faced northwards, on a good day it would be lit for most of the day, much of the harsh glare of the planets sun cut out due to its neutral facing.

The small reception room, or perhaps a large entrance hallway depending on how you looked at it, was decorated in soothing blues, a chair sat to one side, next to the habs main intervox unit, a new looking model mounted on ionic column styled legs, each one decorated with the Cog & Skull motif of the Adeptus Mechanicus as its feet.

Three doors stood ajar, one to the left revealed a sizeable closet, no doubt for the joygirls clients coats, at present it stood empty other than several sturdy hanging frames.
Julian pulled out a data slate, connecting to it via a data tendril before reading details from it out loud.
“Vivaine Dianna, aged thirty nine, twelve offspring, four misbirths, one willingly aborted. She was resident here for seventeen years, sponsored by Medicae Arsal Ensonne and Frater Serus Actle. Both have been questioned by local constabulary, as had her last twenty recorded clients. Three cases of Affray, two of False imprisonment, nine recorded accounts of blackmail. All cases dropped. She provided Chastener class services. Minor medicae training. She nearly lost her job and residency when she had the abortion. Details there of purged by local Ecclesiarchy. Marked by Mags as a dead end inquiry.”
Trix giggled, not something she done often, and the noise took them both by surprise.
“Chastener class service eh? Reckon I could make a few thrones like that if I ever fell out of favour with Mags & Grindle?”
“Part *****, part trained since childhood killer? Yes. I think you'd excel in it. You already understand the virtues of the eighty three vital pressure points and the nine dominions of pain tolerance through your interrogation technique training.” Julian pushed his visor up as he spoke, the flesh was wrinkled around his eyes as if he was smiling.
Trix scoffed and tried the door to the right, it was a little larger than the closet door and displayed a large selection of whips, clamps and motorised massagers.
“Wow, most of them would break way to quickly if I tried to use them to interrogate anyone with them. Is this the best the church will let her buy?”

Closing that door she allowed Julian time to move to and open the centre most door. It lead in to a well decorated room, plush red carpets, mock hardwood walls adorned by several suggestively erotic pictures, however the room was dominated by a low glass table, surrounded by several leather armchairs and a deep leather sofa.
The room had been tidied recently and still smelled of disinfectant, and an odd undertone neither could quite place.
“Frag, they redecorated already” moaned Trix.
“No doubt they intend the next sanctioned joygirl to start here soon. It provides a good income each year for the girls and the church. Any children produced are cared for and educated above the standard level, never told who their parents are however, simply tagged as orphans of war. Many females are cycled back in to the trade, the males are usually put in to the Youth Army, then go on to serve in the PDF or get taken off planet when they sign up to the Guards proper.” Julian curiously knew quite a lot on the matter, certainly more than Trix knew, though the world she was born on was very different to this one.
“Glad I wasn't born here. Come on, lets poke about then go check the next place”

After a fruitless search, which revealed little more than a room fitted out like some castles dank dungeon, or at least how they thought a dungeon would be appointed, lots of hanging chains and wooden walls with cuffs attached, a plain bathroom and a regular bedroom along with to totally empty rooms, no doubt they would be filled with what ever service equipment the next joygirl was trained and sanctioned to use. Julian and Trix left the hab block feeling as if they had learned nothing.
“Julian, I know your not scheduled to eat for another three and a half hours, but I'm famished. Meat roll, my treat, how about it?”
“Meat” Julian mused “It doesn't even have a name. I have a bad feeling about this”
“Oh go on, it's just paste given a more solid form when you think about it”
“Your logic is..oh very well. However I insist mine comes with extra hot sauce. It reminds me of the cleansing fluids from the Temple when it touches my pallet.”

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He stood bent forward, fists on knees, breathing heavily. The coppery tang of blood hung heavy on the air around him, a veritable miasma emanating from the still twitching body slumped in the corner.
She was dead, she couldn't he survived what was done to her, her brain still registered active and her heart was pumping away, no doubt the cause of the now slowing twitch.
What was it the old Street Preacher had said in his last sermon? Purity through suffering, or something like that.
Well, what ever her name was, he thought to himself, she was a veritable virgin akin to a Sororitas.
He looked down at the blade in his gripped tightly in his hand, it took him days to make, once it was a slaughtermans boning knife, now with all its modifications, spurs, drilled holes and blood hollows, it was nothing less than a tool of Him on Terra, and he was the one to wield it.

A couple of months ago his life was simple, rule a stretch of turf, arrange for his buddies to beat some one to grox snot for looking at him wrong, or taunt other ganger's in the locale, each with their own Turf Lord and stretch of ground to call their own.

Then it all changed.

Late one evening a bike arrived, loud as thunder and hotter than a grope behind the confessional in the local templum from the girl who lit the candles for the dead for a penny.
Its rider wore skin tight leathers, was built like he knew violence on first name terms and his hair all spiked up with each twist a different colour.
The rider asked where a good ***** was, and the street punk pointed to to a building where a dim red light shone, several the rider noticed, none more special than any other. Red Habs, always good for a ***** he murmured, the street punk agreeing with him.
The rider went in the Red Hab, and not long after the screaming started from a window seven floors up.
At first the punk and his mates could tell it was faked, the ***** giving the rider what she thought he wanted, then it became joyous, rapturous even. The street punk felt jealous.
At some point however, the screaming became chilling, then it dropped to little more than a low whimper, the punk and his cronies no longer able to hear it, and each one perhaps a little glad for that fact, and finally, half a dozen hours later the rider came out, got on his bike and roared like a daemon as one with the engine as he rode away.

A couple hours later the strangers came, four of them.
One of them seemed little more than a grey robed ministorum mouse, timid and holding his data slate like his life depended on it, kowtowing to a Techpriest who was all red robes and strange facial expressions.
The other two were different however.
The guy would have blended in fine on the street, he walked the walk and talked the talk. Talked enough it turned out to make two juvie punk gangs join up and share turf in his name.
The woman was stone cold, it was difficult to look her in the eyes, thankfully she showed enough flesh else where for the street punk and his gang to rest their eyes.
The four strangers crowded round a scrip dispenser then asking the juvie gangers more questions.
It didn't take them to long to reveal they were looking for the bike and its rider. The gangers pointed out the Red Hab and that the rider went in there before going away. Bragging all the while about the noise coming from the hab, like an animal being slaughtered.

The Guy and the Cold Woman ran in to the Red Hab and a few minutes later the Techpriest and the ministorum mouse made their way in to the whores den.

Twenty minutes later the Cold Woman came downstairs, grabbed the street punk and hauled him up each flight of stairs, muttering all the while about Dirty and Impure Work.
She'd questioned him briefly again, outside one of the hab doors, asking for more information about the bike and its rider.
Clearly what he'd said at that time wasn't good enough, his answers were glib, all bravado and crotch grabbing, like any juvie he guessed with hind sight.
She'd grabbed him by the throat and all but threw him in to the stinking hab room, before kicking him in to the bathroom.

That's where he came face to face with two utterly undeniable things.
One was the sheer nightmare scale of what was before him was inconceivable to his fragile mentality, something broke and reformed inside him, allowing him to acknowledge the second thing.
The Impure and Dirty work.

It became his task then to hunt them down, purify those joy girls, those harlots, those base whores who did not match up to the dead girls memory.
Yes, he knew her, how could he not, she lived on his patch. He'd lost his boyhood to her when he was just fourteen, older than most, but he'd become a man through her.
He couldn't always afford her though, she was special and special meant pricey.
But the others always seemed to lack something compared to her.

The corpse in front of him had stopped twitching, blood cooling and congealing already on the late evening chilled alley pavement slabs.
He'd wanted to go to her hab, she'd said it was close, he would have felt at ease there, but then she'd insisted on the alleyway, behind a waste disposal chute that was cracked, noxious fumes rising regardless of the time of day.
This made him realise she was lacking something too, she was Impure and Dirty.
He expected better, given how much she was asking for, but no, she really was nothing compared to his First.

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Three days passed until the body was found, half buried in rubbish, and bought to to Magdelenas attention. Within thirty minutes of receiving the details she voxed Kramer to contact Julian and Trix, arranging a meeting with them within the hour.
Kramer placed a jug of juice and left the office whilst pleasantries were passed around, sitting at his desk and starting on the fiendishly difficult numeric puzzle game on his dataslate.
“We've been over all the reports, visited all the murder sites, most of which are already being used for other activities, bunch of juves got a shock when we went in, thought they were hallucinating us. Don't think they'll be injecting again for a while at least.. Julian kind of scared them. There were only two sites that were not being reused at present.” Trix sighed after sipping the juice.
“Yes, the Sanctioned joygirl and the mutant” Julian picked his glass of juice up but did not drink from it. Displeasure was evident in his voice.
“Mutant” Magdelena queried “You think the hermaphrodite was a mutant? All med-records show it as a genuine birth defect, no sign of taint on it, either at birth or at later check ups in its life. Made a business from its unique talents. Moderately profitable as well from what I understand of background checks.”
Pulling a folder from a draw behind her desk she slid it towards her two proxies on the street. “Well, you'll be glad to know a new ones been found. The scene's been left as is. Read the notes then go check it out. Once you're done there tell the Constabulary to call for a med-wagon. This ones a bit different.”
Trix sat forward “Oh. How so?”
Magdelena motioned to the slim folder. “Read the file and you'll understand.”
Julian pulled the folder towards himself, speed reading its contents, a mechandrite capturing picts of critical information, then passed it to Trix to digest.
“This is different” mused Trix “It was done outdoors, I wonder why..”
“Copycat possibly. Initial probability of 73 percent. Same weapon used drops the rate to less than zero point zero zero three percent. So dismiss that line of thought. The joygirls working residence is less than fifty meters from the scene of death. This is a clear break in the pattern. I suggest we allow Lev to inquire of the locals. He's highly likely to get intel that would be denied to us.”
Julians mechandrites stirred as he spoke, twitching and writing more noticeably when he spoke Levs name. It was no secret that he and Lev Rollins didn't really get on that well. Where as Julian was very much a devotee of the Machine, Lev was an adherent to pleasures of the flesh. Lev was considered lean and handsome in a way that made many women desire him and many men envy his easy attitude and charm skills.
Trix smiled as she subconsciously switched on her vox bead, patching it through to Levs private channel.
“Lev. Lev you there?”
A grunting voice came back, clearly he was exerting himself in some manner “Yeah, go.”
“Lev, need you to get to know some joygirls. Should be right up your street. Need intel from the street level on a former joygirl. Bethane Rosen, went by the name of Lady Grace”
“Yeah, I'm on it” came a rushed reply.
“I'm sure you are. Debrief us tomorrow at fourteen hundred hours on your findings”
She switched off the bead, not bothering to wait for a reply, and look to Julian then to Magdelena.
“Says he's on the job. Will give us initial intel tomorrow at fourteen hundred hours.”

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-+-+-+-

Lev voxed Julian and Trix to inform them he was in the casual rec-room with their intel, and within twenty minutes they were present. Magdelena had left the base the previous night, something one of her other cells came across needed her personal attention, the kind that also required her to take twenty well trained and armed men out in a recommissioned Rhino class APC.
Kramer remained on base but was attending the communications room providing Magdelena with what ever info she required from him.
Lev reclined on a large much patched grox leather chair, looking asleep when they came in.
Julian was about to emit a static shriek in place of a cough, but Lev opened one eye languidly and flashed a smile.
Trix chose a chair across the low table placed in the centre of the room, sitting on the cushioned edge. Julian remained standing.
“You wouldn't believe what some of them girls know. Don't think I'll be walking straight for a week”
Julians mechandrites rattled a moment “We are not here to discuss your prowess at procreation Lev. You were instructed to get information from other joygirls in the victims working area.”
“Pillow talk is cheaper than a bribe Julian Echo Twenty-Four. I had to pay them one way or another, so we made it a 'business transaction'. I think I got receipts from some of them too”
“Boys, calm down. We've got a job at hand. You can have your pissing contest later.”
Both men looked at Trix and glowered in silence.
“And besides, Julian would win. He's got pumps to make it go higher.”
“I do not. That would be sacrilege in the eyes of the Omnissiah..”
“Relax Julian, she's just pulling your leg. We all know you've got a catheter and re-cyc system, common for your lot.”
One of Julians mechandrites snaked from under his robes wrapped around a dataslate, depositing it in his hands before retracting again in to the unseen depths of his robes.
“The data if you please Lev”

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Once Lev had said all he had to say on what he'd found out he excused himself to get some much needed sleep before heading back in to the township later in the evening to scare up some more rumours.
Walking round the marching yard they discussed a few details, they'd found in the past that if they bounced info at each other from their own perspectives they might learn a new angle, something that they had done well by in the past.
“So, she was under pressure from her new pimp to pull in more trade” sighed Trix
“Yes, it would seem he was giving her access to narcotics. She was already a Grinweed user, but he turned her on to Kerastone as well. She simply needed more trade to get her next fix, hence using the street as opposed to her residence to ply her trade. Why do you pollute your bodies like that? It's not logical.”
Trix bit back a sharp reply, about to remind Julian he was just as human as she was and he was just as bad as other addicts, replacing his body with the machine augments with a fervour that indicated addiction just as much as any Grinweed smoker or Kerastone inhaler.
“People do it to escape reality. Life isn't all hymns and nutrient paste twenty-three for the vast bulk of Hivers. Even on my home world we mostly tended the fields, milked the beasts and kept the wolves at bay each winter, brain numbing stuff, and some times people want to escape that tedium. When I was three and I used to tend the hearth, making sure it was always lit, I used to fall asleep from the warmth. Because I was to busy enjoying a dream one time the fire went cold and father refused to light it for a whole week. I try not to dream any more purely because of that, I don't want to escape again, not like I used to, for me it is all hymns, callisthenics and ritual blood letting each new moon. For some that's brain numbing but if I didn't do that I'd probably be on Grinweed back in the village, and if I lived in a hive I'd probably be on solvents or other Stims.”
“I've always found Twenty-Three to have a slightly bitter after taste, like Recaff that's been on the boil to long.”
“Metaphor Julian.”
“Oh, I see. Continue.”
“Well, she was last seen with a juvie, local looking, ego the size of an Astartes bolter. Said juvie was looking for some one local, aged between twenty five seasons and thirty two seasons, clean, slightly larger frame than average, didn't want skinny or malnourished, brown eyes, natural not lenses or augmetic, soft skin especially the hands.” Trix counted off the list on her fingers.
“Well, he certainly knew what he wanted. Lady Grace certainly fits the details for the most part. A little older, but I guess in the right lighting she could have been taken for younger.” Julian stopped to inspect a beetle that was crawling across a spent heavy stubber case, picking up the case once the bug had moved on, slipping it in to his robes for latter scrimshawing, pondering a design based on the insect that was interested in the brassy ammunition case.
“It appeared he had plenty of Gelt, he even asked for some of with their own pad” she counted off on an eight finger “So, he was looking for a plump classy soft handed *****? Maybe he should try an Imperial Guard R&R world, not a dingy down hive zone”
“Lady Grace was known to have her own working place, she charged above normal rates, used to have an extensive client list, mostly merchants who'd pay her with gifts as well as Gelt”
“You sure its the same one as we found the in the alley? Sounds like the two were worlds apart.”
“Yes, it's quite interesting. If she was being forced to get more trade she would have perhaps cut corners, become inefficient. It's something I've witnessed in factorums before.”
“She cut corners and was killed for it? If she lived up to her own hype she might still have been alive today none the wiser as to how close she'd come to being killed” Trix stood decisively on the bug as if to make her point.
“Yes, quite possibly. We need to reappraise this. We are going about this incorrectly I think. I must confer with Archimedes. Something is missing here.”
Trix looked at the Techpriest.
“Julian, just a thought, but check to see how many of the victims made claims to class or style based on what Lev told us. The Sanctioned Joygirl worked specific types of clients, not cheap. Lady Grace had a normally richer than average client base. The hermaphrodite worked a closed client bases, not a street worker, recommendation only.”
“Mutant. Sexual genetic defect”
“Call it, he, she, what ever you like. It was successful at what it done, despite the odd pull by the Constabulary Morality Squad which all turned up less than nothing other than some exotic spices in the bathroom.
Julian turned away from Trix, refocussing his will and forcing a connection via the vox bead planted deep in his brain tissue. Mentally forming a short burst message to send to Archimedes detailing the cross checking he wished done based on the clients themselves, as well as the other criteria mentioned, throwing in the nugget of a juvie being wealthy enough to make specific demands.
Archimedes sent a brief burst message back saying he would look in to the matters immediately and had already been through the known client lists but would redo so again with the latest victims list thrown in to the datum pool.
The messages took less than a second to go back and forth.
“Archimedes is already on our train of thought with the client bases. His thoughts on the matter are most logical, it is most agreeable.”
“Jay, do you recall if any of the girls were augmented at all? Mechanically or Genetically?”
Julian turned back to Trix “Accessing memory. Positive. Two had received augmentation beyond standard health care. The third victim, Austra Leah, had received silicate muscular enlargement of the mammary glands. The fifth victim, Erensine Newun had received secretional glands, she was diagnosed at birth as sterile, damage due to environmental factors possibly due to inbreeding in her family at some point in the not to distant past as well as atrophied genitalia. She was borderline a midget, again possibly relating to genetic deviancies in her families past. Her medicae notes mention a positively child like structure, not standard dwarfism. All others check as standard for medicae attention. Why so?”
“Was just a thought, maybe he was picking rich ******* to kill who looked good. Hmm. Stray thought was all. To many differences for it to be a vigilante killing possible members of a pleasure cult. Only some of the victims suffered any form of genetic deviance. And all were seen regularly by medicae with nothing reported there either. Have we had confirmation if any of the victims were at all Psi active at all?”
“Confirmation to the Negative. Ministorum, Ecclesiarchal and Medicae records all show null taint or fleshly corruption. Constabulary also looked in to that angle. They sent in a dowser to see if any warp echo was present.”
“And?”
Julian opened his eyes and looked amused for a moment. “He used two copper and silver rods, walked round for a bit, then claimed to hear voices offering services of a sexual nature. He's presently in custody for wasting constabulary time”
Trix suppressed a giggle at the image of a sanctioned dowser being arrested for doing what he was hired to do in the first place.
“Imagine what it would have been like if that Constantine Drake was in place of the dowser” Trix let the image of one of Inquisitor Grindles other cell members slip to the for of her mind. Vivid red hair all beaded and waving like snakes, followed closely by the Sister, Ruby Starr, murmuring prayers. She could imagine him walking in to a murder scene and open his mind to the elements. She'd seen him do it before, and even seen him levitate a few feet of the ground still as a ramrod whilst a sudden wind stirred up where none could be and buffet every one around him before lowering to the ground and declaring the place to be clear of any significant warp taint. At the time it put the fear of Him on Terra in to the arbites that witnessed it, he'd only done it for show, to make a point that they were wasting his time. If it wasn't for the fact that he always carried and presented his sanctioning papers before performing any “Emperor given miracles” he would have likely been killed as a wytch many years ago.
“Hmm, quite.” was all Julian had to say on the matter.

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Little more than three hours had passed before Archimedes signalled Julian to indicate he had results.
“Well, no mention of age is given for any of the clients in the joy girls contact lists, however with a quick use of Ministorum override protocols I was able to ascertain the ages of all the interviewed clients, which is to say all of the clients that were listed with actual vox channels. None of them conform to the pattern you was looking for. I suspect that many of them had unrecorded clients, or that other individuals took other records to prevent some form of secret from getting loose. I'll see if I can get authorisation for a detailed inspection and cross reference of all known suspects and clients. As a side issue, two notable clergymen and a planetary transport minister have been detained by the local constabulary for the crime of Trafficking With Mutants. Kramer has been made aware of the issue and will handle it himself apparently.
Sensing disappointment from Julian, Archimedes carried on with his verbal data flow.
“However, here's the good news. All of the joygirls killed had at some point received what is known in the trade as Sympathy Training, which means at some point they've all had heavy backing. Records indicate that that some of them have paid for this themselves or worked as sanctioned whores for a couple or three years on Naval Ports.”
“What is the meaning of this training?” Julian asked matter of factly.
“Basically, they've been taught to nod at the right time, say soothing things, and generally perform simply psycho-calming procedures.”
“Thank you Archimedes, remain diligent.”
Julian spoke the prayer to sever the contact and then relayed the information to Trix, who during the private call had taken the clips from her pistols and spoke Prayers of Execution over each bullet individually.
“So, they were taught to be a better ride? You don't get taught that in the lower hives, nor back where I came from. You paid your money, you got on, you get off and then you got going.”
“Crudely put Trix, but essentially yes. And as you just pointed something out that hadn't occurred to either of us as far yet. It's all upper hive joy girls. No Low Habbers, no Red Window girls. No street walkers or transport hub tenders. What does this suggest to you?”
Trix pulled out a knife from one of her boots, kissing the blade and offering up prayers to the Emperor, Julian waited for her finish her minor devotion, they always seemed to calm her mind down to cold levels that surprised Julian with the efficiency of her killing techniques. Some of it was almost mechanical, a strange machine grace to her movements.
“Two things. The killer is afraid to enter the Lower Hab zones, or he comes from there and doesn't want it all on his door step in case people look a bit to hard.”
“Yes. Also, each of the killings were made in very easy reach of of the main tram hub.”
A mechandrite slid out from his robes and connected to the cogitator, a static hiss of speed rote prayers of access filled the room for a few moments before the screen click clacked loudly and turned a dull green, the symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus flashed up in a lighter shade of green.
“Accessing topographical database. Cross-referencing transport links. Additional datum: Locations of victims.” Julians gaze slipped in to the distance as his soul connected to the machine spirit, his voice a hollow representation coming from the cogitators tinny mono speaker. “Calculating. Collating. Complete. All routes connect at Lower Eighth Junction.”
That last sentence was spoken by Julian from his own vox as he disconnected from the cogitator.
Trix looked at the map on the cogitators screen.
“Hold on. Julian, that's virtually where we started looking for Prosperos killer, must have been what seven or eight months ago now?”

Trix did not have good memories of that investigation. It resulted in her almost being gutted by Eldar Pirates, though she had been told at a later date that it was in fact their kin, the Dark Eldar Corsairs. Either way, she'd spent almost three weeks in the Medicae ward, her body fighting an infection that the blades had carried deep in to her tissue. The infection had robbed her of the chance to produce an heir to offer in to the Imperial Cult as tribute, the multi barbed dagger had ruptured many vital parts inside her.
Her eyes took on that mechanical look, that dark and cold one that only came across her when she was either in her deepest devotions or drenched in the blood of her kills.
“Julian Echo Twenty-Four. I have a plan. Get Lev to spread the word that a new Gentle Lady will be taking up residence in Junction Four Lower Hab. See that Archimedes starts installing a false data data persona, lets call her, oh I don't know, Sable Moira. That sounds suitably serious enough but with a soft edge I guess. Ensure that the persona has a Closed Client base, use names from from on base if you have to. We'll need to acquire a hab dwelling , two actually, one for me to act the ***** from and the other either next door or above for you, Lev and Archimedes to watch from. We can pull info quicker about the client base by being part of the cycle”
Julian looked at her, and his face registered a very real look of aghast.
“I cannot allow you to do this. Yes, you're a dedicated killer, a sanctioned and much bloodied one, you've over eight hundred cleared contracts to your name, and you are a member of His Most Holies Inquisition. Not some mere piece of walking dross that needs to sell her body for fun or profit.”
“Jay, I think it's the only way to catch this killer or possibly killers. Don't make me go over your head to Kramer. You know Mags will be pissed if these killings keep going on. Look, if we set it up right you'll be less than ten seconds away, just next door.”
Julian looked doubtfully at the assassin in front of him. They'd joked not to long ago about her being a sacred killer and sell-body, but now that idea started to make some twisted kind of sense. The logic was faulty, but there was some measure of logic there all the same.
“And besides” Trix continued “it's not as if we can glue a wig on you and call you Sister Shrapnella is it? So do as I ask please. Lets get this nailed.”
Julian relented. He didn't even allow the more creative sectors of his brain to even picture himself in a curly blonde wig. He was thankful he could shut out such images at times.

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Between Lev and Archimedes the clients of the now very dead girls had all been contacted discretely, along with the by now pardoned clergy who, according to the local media feeds, were simply ministering to to the poor and unfortunates who were found dead and who in no way were they conducting unseemly personal relations with. All of whom were spoken to were given special dispensation, and several minor crimes were waived due to their assistance in Minsitorum and Inquisitorial matters.

By the time the murders had ceased for a whole three weeks, Trix had been in business, so to speak, for a month. Julian, Lev and Archimedes were investigating the last murder in which a high hab Madame was butchered in much the same manner as those prior, though curiously the Eyes were left in situ. They were a dusky violet, and turned out to be contacts, something Julian noticed upon closer examination.

As Julian explained this fact via vox bead Trix looked at herself in the floor to ceiling mirror, lit by icy blue lumin strips. Looked at her own eyes. Her own dusky violet eyes.
It's some one who visits me she thought to herself, not mentioning this to Julian. Nothing but calm filled her as she terminated the vox communication with a simple thank you for the information.

Needle heeled black soft grox leather boots, her ruddy toned flesh on show where the boots terminated halfway up her thighs. Pink Nroni silk garter standing starkly in contrast to her bloody red corset and frock coat. Her coat was buttoned from just above the garter, allowing it to be seductively offering the promise of more for the right person, its buttoning stopped barely at her navel. Her normally long loose hair had been shorn to mid back length and deftly made in to several thick braids, something akin to an ancient creature from Terra's lost past.

In five minutes she was due to receive her next client, one that had become almost a regular.
She thought back to the first time she had received him, almost turning him away, but for some reason allowing him to stay. He'd offered her money that time, she laughed harshly telling him to it in to a donations box at the local church on his way back to the steps and sit with all the other kids in his gang. Something broke in him at that point, and he started crying, long uncontrollable sobs wracking his skinny frame. Some thing about that reminded her of how she used to cry, in those secret times when she was back in the scholam and she thought the harsh tutors were finished on their marches of the corridors for the evening.
She held him then, soothing him and telling him it would all be ok and that what ever he'd done would be forgiven in the eyes of the Emperor. She'd even let him call her by her real name, some thing she'd never revealed to her other so called clients.
To all of them she was Sable Maria, Lady of the Gentle Arts, to him she was Trix Roth, that ice cold lady who once showed him the Truth. The one who showed him what he must do. And now he was utterly devoted to her, not to the first who then had meant so much, but to her the one who had showed him something more about reality, about his place in the Emperors great plan for humanity.
Never once during any of his visits had he asked to lay with her beneath the sheets he had once glimpsed as she moved from room to room with in her domain. He was content to be held as he cried.

She was startled out of her reverie by the buzzer going, he was early she thought to herself, by a whole minute. She opened the door and stood to one side as he entered, taking his coat silently as she had been instructed was the preferred and proper manner.
Once the door was closed and his jacket hung in a closet she led him in to the main room, still in silence. A delicate Cinderwood incense smoke hung in the air about the room.
Normally he was brimming with tears by now but some thing was different.
“Trix, will you..” his words died off, choked in his throat.
“Yes? What?” she'd replied, trying hard to demure.
“Um.. let me stay with you. In your bed I mean. Today.” He started shyly, but something was bubbling up inside him, building like a juggernaut and not stopping.
“I want you. Tonight. Now. I feel good when i'm around you. You know what it's like on the streets. Purified kinda I guess..”
“Listen kid” an edge had crept in to her voice, cold and hard how he remembered her when they'd first met. “I told you once before, you couldn't afford me. Ever. So, No is your answer. And trust me, I do know what its like to be one the streets, I know what its like to look out in to the deep dark void, I know what its like to see things staring back at you from the edge of your dreams.” She let out a long sigh.
“No, wait, it doesn't matter. It's only sex, i'm just a joy girl in your narrow minded eyes. Sure you want to screw me? Fine. Come on then.” She turned away from him, and walked to her bedrooms door. He was mumbling some thing behind her, then she felt a sudden pain lance through her head as he hit her across the base of the skull.
“You... you're just like so many of them others. Dirty! Impure! I thought you cared” he screamed at her as she fell, clutching at the bedroom door for support, blood smearing one hand as she touched it to the back of her head. The world was going grey, slowing down as she fell to her knees.

She hit the floor with a dull thump, her eyes rolling in to the back of her head as unconsciousness took her.
The juvie went back out to his coat and pulled something wrapped in oiled cloth from inside the long coats pocket.
Pulling the cloth off of the object walking back until he stood over her revealing a crudely made blade, something akin to an Eldar torturers blade, kneeling down until he was straddling the unconscious Assassin come ***** and sliced at her coat, the few buttons flying away under the pressure of the blades speed and force, then turning the blade to the delicate ribbons on the front of her corset.
Grabbing her hair he dragged her to the edge of the bed, already she'd begun to bleed from where he had cut to deep past the corset ribbons.

Her exposed stomach showed a number of lacerations, old scars long healed, marks of purity and dedication burned in to her in the scholam, tattoos of cleansing etched in to her flesh from the tutors who'd shown her how to kill, small marks, little more than dots, each a skull, a mark of sanctioned kills she had undertaken.
The juvie saw none of this however, he now only saw a debased piece of meat, something worse than the corpse in the bath tub this woman had once shown him. Something less vitally human some how in his eyes.
“*****. Dirty false emotioned cold hearted slut2 he spat on her with almost every word, a fervour rising in him that had never really existed until this point.
“In the name of the Emperor.. I cleanse you. I remove the taint from your body so that you might soar at his side, redeemed in his eyes” he continued his hate filled litany, tears welling up inside of him as he concluded the bitter prayer “You who bought me in to the Emperors Light, I now return you to its divine source..” He bought the barbed knife down to her stomach, aiming to push it deeper than any of her scars showed, but the knife was kicked from his hand as she snapped her eyes open and kneed him from her prone position.
Reeling back he grabbed something cold from behind him, hoping it was a lamp he'd not noticed before.
The snake like mechandrite writhed in his grip before twisting around his arm, slithering deftly upto his elbow and locking down firmly in to place, immovable.

Julians face hove in to view around the door frame.
“Smile ninety one. Vindictive. Facial expression four, pleasant thoughts of revenge”
Coughing hoarsely Trix sat up.
“I want him alive. This little frigger set us up. Set me up. I want to find out why. Then, I want to kill him personally. My body was used for a month as a *****, and I saw to a lot of mens needs. For this alone I could kill him a dozen times over. If he was some crazed warp loving cultist it would have been worth it. But for this little piece of snot, for this babbling crying child, no, none of that was worth it.”
The juve kept his face down cast, wincing in pain as Julian delivered a swift kick to the back of the knees, forcing him to kneel before the enraged and painfully cold eyed assassin.

She stood over him and dug a finger in to one of the cuts he'd made in the rush to remove her corset and wrenched his head up, forcing him to look her in the eye as she smeared her blood on his forehead in the crude shape of an Aquila, a kill prayer slid from her lips, a sibilant hiss of words, his fate sealed.
Letting go of him the juve fell back, his eyes brimming up once more.
“Julian, tell Lev to bring a wagon and ask Archimedes to prep the Interrogator Chirugon devices. I'm going to get my answers.”

She stripped then, in front of the juvie, showing him every thing he would never touch, taste or violate ever again. Julian had already seen her naked and the sight done nothing for him that he would ever admit to in the eyes of either the Emperor or the Machine God.
She dressed, wincing as her wounds were pushed closed by the cold covering her her synth skin body suit. Picking up the frock coat and tutting at the lack of buttons she put it on, relishing the comfort it bought her.

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The Juvie lasted just four hours until he broke down, two and a half of those were spent with Trix and an equally cold Magdelena just watching him, and a whole hour & ten minutes were spent with Magdelena reading out various snippets from medicae reports, spreading picts on the cold metal desk in front of him. Five further minutes were spent with Trix & Magdelena talking quietly to each other in a semi ciphered code, with the odd look at him, two were spent ordering the Chirugan-Interrogators to be fired up.
So really, it took him three minutes to break. Trix felt cheated some how.

He was dragged kicking and screaming to the interrogation cell, and when the door clanged shut behind him he suddenly became calm, and spoke of the vile practices he had succumbed to, fornicating with women even as he slit their throats or gouged out their eyes.
He claimed to see something beautiful in the death of the debased and loveless. It took the death of the only women he'd ever really loved to make him see it.
He'd spent weeks trying to find some one like her, broken but proud, always ready with a real smile and never asking for Thrones or Gelt-Chits, the lesser planetary currency, she'd never asked because he'd always left it on the side in the small “Donations” bowl that had found its way out of a small temple some years back and in to her possession. He wasn't paying her, he was giving back to those as unfortunate as himself. That was how he saw it. Rationalised and clean. Pure.

He'd visit joy girls every few days around the township, in the low and high habs, some would have their pimps close by, or in some case, other girls working from the same hab rooms, each on a rota. These escaped being murdered, or as he put it, purified.
He confessed to each and every one of the brutal killings, explaining things that only the killer would know, he even explained where he had dumped the trophies he had taken, Magdelena was quick to dispatch people under her control to these locations to ascertain the truth of these unasked for additions to the confession.
He admitted to not being sure why he took the wombs, something inside him told him that if he took the most impure parts and ruined lesser impure parts on the bodies this would purify their spirit some how.

By the end of his confession he was crying again, long deep shuddering gasps for air, his nose running freely with snot, the occasional bubble of it growing and shrinking like some disturbing lung with each sob.
Magdelena stood finally when the juvie had lapsed in to silence, taking Trix with her from the cell, Kramer removing the chairs as they stood, leaving the solitary metal chair and its occupant in the center of the room, restrained and silent but for his snot impeded breathing.
Once Kramer had left the cell, Magdelena locked it, and passed the keys to Trix.
“Trix Roth, I here by sanction you to commit this mans sins to your memory, learn from his corruption. In the morning you will be performing the Final Sanction on him, the Emperors Mercy, not that he deserves mercy. Mercy is not for us to decide, we simply judge and execute if found wanting.”
Trix nodded, slipping the keys in to her frock coat, still buttonless but a reminder as to what each must sacrifice in the name of duty.
With that said, Magdelena walked away, heading to her office for either a hot & spicy Tanna or a very large and very cold Amesec. Kramer would decide which she received, though knowing him the Tanna would be ready and waiting for her and some twenty minutes later the Amesec would arrive.

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He was left in the cell over night, the chair he was strapped to became bitterly cold, and his struggle became painful due to the needles that Magdelena's Chirugan-Interrogators had inserted in to him, the chemicals already looking to run dry long before dawn from the sacks hung from the back of his chair.
At some point he'd started to hallucinate of a beautiful tall woman, with off world blonde hair worn long and free around her body, her large child bearing and sensuous hips swaying to some unheard music, her lips so red as to look like blood, her eyes bottomless pits of understanding, of half hidden desires and unspoken promises.

Her dance took her around him, becoming a dervish of passions unspent, her hair wild around her like some mist or ghost constantly chasing the dance of her body.
Her voice sung out in the dance, singing his praises, soothing the pain from the cold and the needles, laughing as she mounted him in the interrogation chair though he was still restrained, rocking in time to a more ancient tune, the pulse of the moons, the fervour of his beating heart and hers joining as one, until he could take it no longer but she denied him that release.
Her tongue played with his ear as she whispered to him, telling him of all the pure loves and passions she would show him, he would be fulfilled and pure with her, if only he promised to love her and her alone, forever.

Crying out in agreement he felt her accept him once more, and the dance of their hearts slowed, time itself slowed until it felt that with each century distant heart beat he was exploding inside her, the sensation as pure and beautiful as she'd promised.
As she rocked atop him he felt something change in the air, and he looked in to her slit eyes, her forked tongue lapping at the tears he cried in exaltation of his love as he gave himself to her utterly, body and soul, most especially the soul.
One clawed hand, spiked like some giant crustacean, cut the pipes connecting to the needles, small pools of blood formed as the juvie bled out uncaring. The blood though, seemed to have some life of its own, and crawled back up his legs and arms, then along the tubes and needles themselves, coating the tubes and needles as they went, forming a skin of sorts, the power of the warp twisting them in to bone hard spines something akin to the daemonettes own claws.

With a thunderous roar he was pulled in to the warp at the very moment he finally ejaculated, sealing the deal he had made to Slaanesh and her ever lust-hungry children.

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Alarms were sounding all over the base, trained guardsmen rushing to and fro. Some were unable to report for duty, trapped in lustful dreams unable to escape from the lure of the goddess of depraved desires and lust. For these few prayers were said and a bullet was administered to ease them in to the welcoming arms of the Emperor.

Julian connected to the bases alarms and silenced the spirits that controlled them, his own dreams had been positively disturbing even by his standards, he'd dreamt of a dozen gleaming mechandrites, each made from metals and minerals he'd never thought to exist, each wrought so perfectly and etched so beautifully as to make him weep, the mechandrites trying to disrobe him, to get under his rust red robes, to strip him of the clothing and see to his needs, mechanical and fleshly.
He'd woken before they had managed to remove to much of his garments, a binary scream on his lips and a sheen of sweat coating his brow making several implants itch as if they were newly implanted once more.

He left his quarters, seeing Trix walking towards him looking oddly flushed, her pupils dilated until there was scarce any colour in her eyes at all.
She was wearing her customary near black body glove, armoured plates covering key locations, a brace of daggers tied to one thigh, autopistols on her hips and her sword on her back.
Most certainly looking like her old self, her true self, and no longer like a joy girl as she had up until recently gone under cover as.
“Trix, what is the cause of the alarms? The cogitators spirit was unable to inform me, I had to lull it to dormancy again with a lullaby prayer chant. Not had to use it since my days of novicehood..”
“The juve. His systems flat lined three minutes ago after extended erratic behaviour. He might have had a reaction to Magdelena's medicines.” She'd said the last part almost in good humour, she'd seen several people have adverse reactions to the medicines, only Lev had survived a larger than usual dose.

They both went down the corridor towards the detention cells, expecting to find nothing more than an already dead boy, just another one to escape true justice through some bad reaction to the slow acting poisons and pain givers that were pumped in to his body.
When they arrived they saw two guardsmen, who were placed outside the cell “Just in case”, laying on the floor. Their faces showed a bizarre rictus grin that was neither pain nor pleasure but some extreme of both, Magdelena was kneeling beside one of them, closing their eyelids.
“Dead, both of them. Esquivez my pyrokene was found half burned to death a few moments ago, it seems he may have been the first to suffer given the damage done to his quarters. I've men reporting late for alarm roster call due to dreams of an extreme personal nature. What about you two? Anything unusual about your dreams?”
Julian related what had happened in his dreams, whilst Trix commented that she was awake at the time and forced to relive some of her recent duties. What ever dream Magdelena herself had remained unspoken of.

“Ruinous Powers. They've some how done something here tonight..”
Trix walked over to the interrogation cells door and was about to unlock it, but as she put the key in the lock she noticed how bitterly cold it was of a sudden, her hand forced to recoil at the intensity of the temperature.
“Allow me” Julian offered, a mechandrite swinging over his shoulder, its three fingered grip taking hold of the key, turning it with a squeal before the key sheared in half, frozen. The grip took hold of the cell door handle and simply ripped it out from the door, again like the key it shattered as if nothing more than brittle ice.
The door began to swing inwards slowly as he pushed on it. A chilly mist hung in the air, obscuring their vision. Small flakes of snow fell from inside the room, coating the floor just outside in the main corridor, before melting away to an oily looking water.
“Thermal Auspex shows major temperature drop, negative four hundred standard Mars units, around the chair, itself showing temperatures of in excess of three hundred standard Mars units. Well beyond the metals normal tolerances and smelting point.”

With the cell door open however the temperature rapidly cooled to tolerable levels, the chair returning to almost normal levels, cooler than the rest of the room, but not untouchably so.
The mist cleared, and they all saw the empty chair. It showed some signs of being used in a fight, deep gouges in the metal, silvery shavings on the floor , and small puncture holes all over it.
“Oh Crud...He's been taken by the other side..” murmured Magdelena.
Trix drew her auto-pistols reflexively, as the last vestiges of mist coalesced in to a semi transparent human form.
“Thank you foolish mortals, you have provided us with a new toy, a new tool to use, a vibrant new plaything. In time we might unleash him on one of your worlds, perhaps this one, to slake his desires.”

As the daemon image spoke all three were filled with a violent need for fornication, Julians mechandrites whirred in anticipation, Magdelena panted in open lust for the misty figure, and Trix stirred in to a bloodlust, aroused more by the prospect of now having something to unleash her fury on to.
With a cry of “Deus Imperator” Magdelena broke the grip of the enchantment it had woven in to the air they all breathed. Her lusts forgotten in her love for the Emperor and her Duty.
Levelling her plasma pistol, watching the conductors flare blue before she fired the super heated matter, catching the daemon in its right shoulder.
It howled in sensuous agony as part of its form was cooked away, a low throaty chuckle escaped its lips as it became more solid, taking on a proper body from the very stuff of the immaterium itself.
Its ruined parts regrowing, damaged tissue knitting together before their eyes, pulling lustful energies from those still half slumbering guardsmen, caught up in their own fantasies about joy girls, cheap liquor and warm beds.

Seeing the weapons effect Magdelena fired twice more in rapid succession, causing the pistols runes to flash in warning at the sudden build of potentially lethal energy levels.
Magdelena threw the pistol at the daemon, but it caught it deftly with a newly formed tentacle covered in lips quivering in delight.
Grabbing Julian and Trix she retreated beyond the doorway once more, stumbling over the two dead guardsmen.
“Your weapons and minds are weak mortal germ.” it glowered as it took a sinuous step towards them.
Something inside Trix clicked, an ancient prayer, forcing her mind to sharply focus, pulling her from the stupor that had affected them all. With a kill prayer on her lips, screaming out with awful urgency she pulled her arms up, both pistols fired a spray that might have cut lesser men or animals in half, the clips half empty, then finally empty, bitter smoke filling her nostrils as her prayer came to a close and the pistols auto ejected the spent clips and ready for fresh ones.

The bullets hung in mid air, less than a foot from its pearlesent flesh, having fully formed now.
It stood nearly nine foot tall, the very image of the perfect male except for its cloven hooves and its left arm a tentacle.
Unphased by the fact that she had not penetrated its barriers she set her mind in to an automatic kill loop of reload and fire, the same kill prayer as before a mere hiss from her lips this time instead of a scream.
This time several bullets broke through the unseen barrier, striking its cheek, neck and and jaw, tearing away gobbets of flesh where hey struck, leaving pristine bone on display.
Its concentration truly broken now, it let out an ululating cry, a curiously rapturous smile creasing what was left of its mouth.

It swung its pallid fleshed hand at Trix, striking her as one might a canid that had spoiled the carpet. The blow connected wetly with her face, sending her spinning off against a wall down the corridor.
Julian snapped out of his fugue, systems having restarted and performed rushed spirit cleansing auto-rituals.
He saw Magdelena's still over charged plasma pistol held in the daemons tentacle, its lips flicking out tongues to caress the scorching hot conductors, crying out moans of pain and lust for more even as the warp spawned meat cooked.
Circuit paths flared inside him, ideas formed, cross examined themselves and reformed anew with in less time than a heart beat. He had a plan, one that would assuredly cause the loss of Magdelena's vaunted and treasured weapon.

Standing fully, he seemingly shrugged as several mechandrites appeared from holes in his robes.
One, ending in a medicae's rotating mini bone saw, slashed at the creatures engorged genitalia, whilst rune etched manipulator latched on to its right wrist as it pulled back to take a swipe at those foolish enough to try and stop it.
The daemon leered as it pulled him in to the room, licking its damaged lips and teeth ready for a fresh soul to devour.
It swung blindly with its tentacle, attempting to prevent the shrieking blade from finding flesh to cut. Julian noted its reaction dispassionately and revised his plan within half a heart beat, repeating the saw blade to continue slicing at the member, each time he done so the daemon tried to prevent the attack with the tentacle.

The daemon lashed out at Julian with one of its hooves, impacting with a loud crack against his left shin causing Julian to stagger as he felt the bone being crushed from the blow, he was held upright only by his one good leg and the mechandrites latching on to the daemons body in any way they could.
He was wrenched from side to side as the daemon tried to free its right hand from the crushing pincer.
His chirugon saw lashed out once more, and found flesh, cutting deeply, though it was only the tentacle, forcing it to rear up, pulling the damaged limb out of harms way.
With a burst of binary shunted out of his vox at full distorted volume, Julian forced the creature to stagger round, momentarily dumbfounded.

That was all the others needed, Trix had already slotted home a clip, her only one, of blessed rounds, and unleashed the full clip in to the things side and back, all but pulping one of its legs, it fell on to its ruined knee, dragging Julian down with it as it fell.
Magdelena saw Julians right hand and forearm fold apart, the robes shredding as a short blade sprung from the remainder of his arm, locking in to place with an audible hiss and clack. An electronic charge sparking to life across the etched blade, covered with micro fine engravings of the Aquila, the Cult Mechanicus symbol and the Inquisitorial Skull and Tri-Barred I motif.
Magdelena suddenly saw what Julian was going to do, and dove to one side, pulling Trix with her as a concussive blast shook the building.
A sudden pall of heat washed over Julian and the Daemon as his own empowered sword connected with the capacitors of the pistol held in the daemons tentacle.

With a deafening crack-thum the weapon exploded, sending Julian flying beyond the the still upright interrogation chair, crunching against the wall, leaving a bloody smear as he fell to the floor, his robes smouldering, his body inert, his mechandrites coming to a stop, their frail lights dimming to nothing.

The death cries of the pallid daemon frosted the air, a thick choking mist spilling out from its burned husk, the mist was sucked back in to the wounds with a sickening slurp and the daemons body turned to ice, rapidly melting then evaporating until no sign of it remained other than a hoar frost coating the interrogation chamber and the temperature dropping briefly to a degree below normal human tolerances.

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Glorimunda Nox, Rogue Traders vessel, in orbit above Spectoris Beta

Inquisitor Grindle read Magdelena's report, his brow furrowed in concern.
Picking up a stylus and dataslate he started to write.

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Interrogator Magdelena,
It is with vast concern that I receive your report.
Am I given to understand that the daemon manifested with out aid or ritual as we know it?
The youth who vanished prior to the warp spawns appearance, you mention that he was involved in a previous incident relating to Cell Theta, yet at that time was little more than a hoodlum who acted as a fence and informant on behalf of Lev Rollins.
Enquire of Lev, at your convenience, of any unusual items the youth may been moving on behalf of other parties. It is my hope that we will find much larger indication of troubles relating to this planet, though I note that the township/hive close to which you are based has not as yet been infected with the infective as seen around the rest of the planet, and indeed local system as a whole.
Perhaps the two incidents are related, as Inquisitor Salvator Bombassa once said “Coincidence is no such thing, million to one chances seem to happen nine times out of ten”.

Pass on my gratitude to Trix Roth for her continued assistance, however it does seem to me that she may have had some hand in the youth becoming a focus for such powers to manipulate with apparent ease, I suggest that you consider her for monitoring beyond the usual scope for any signs of malignancy or curruption.

I will give this matter some thought, and I may send a team from under Interrogator Palanthus, who I'm told, have had a great deal of contact with warp entities and come out remarkably unharmed thus far baring near death, Xenos and even the unusual combination of the two.

I hear through other channels that Julian Echo 24 has become accustomed to his recent augmetics, the healing rate is passing more swiftly than normal in regards to his ocular augmetics.
Though I have been informed that the psuedo-skin grafts have not taken as well, in some places they have been out right rejected. He has pledged to return to our duties here as soon as he is able to, Opus Mecharius is not that far, and he should already be journeying back as you receive this note.

I have also recently received word that Inquisitor Malicant of the Ordo Xenos found some of the recent treatises by that Archimedes Grimm under your wing to be quite enlightening, and some what disturbing. Malicant is widely regarded as an agent who operates only half in the light of the Emperor.
So be careful as this man was your original sponsors tutor, and ensure he does not lure you out of my auspice of protection.

I have some months ago also passed on word to the Conclave that I think you are well beyond ready to be elevated in to our ranks fully. I received word this very morning that you are called for judging and accounting in three months time. Once Julian has returned to you, head straight for the Bastion, your primary cell is a gift from me, Trix Roth, Lev Rollins, Julian Echo 24 and Archimedes Grimm are from that point on yours fully.
I have every faith in you, you have served me long and faithfully, and I look forward to treating you as a full equal, something often difficult given the things we must sacrifice in the line of duty.

=I= Grindle.

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He put the stylus and data slate to one side he'd no doubt change the wording later before sending it on via Astropath to Thical Prime where he had left his two Interrogators to work with out him as they each saw fit. IT was only natural that there might be some convergence in their inquiries.

Sitting back, he reached off to one side and pulled a pipe made from grox horn, stuffed it with tobac, lit it and inhaled deeply, allowing the rich smoke to curl out between his lips and nostrils like some forgotten beast of Terras mythic past, then he reached forward and flicked on the hololith and watched a report from another team, this one local, working in conjunction with a support squad of Sisters of Battle.

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Finished1 w00t!

I really should have had this uploaded ages ago, but the joy of having a laptop at work means i can do a ton of things besides actually working