‘Watch your tone,’ one of them began.
The inquisitor raised his hand.
‘That’ll do, Sirkle,’ he said.
The henchman, Sirkle, backed down slightly, but his hard gaze didn’t leave Gaunt’s face. Studying Sirkle and his cronies, Gaunt realised what was so disconcerting about them.
They all wore their master’s face.
Hair colour, eye colour and even details of complexion were different from face to face, but the basic elements of the physiognomy were identical and unmistakable. The faces of the inquisitor’s agents had all been augmetically remodelled to echo the heroic perfection of his own.
An odd piece of vanity in the first place, Gaunt thought, but doubly odd when the face you’re immortalising is an artifice to begin with.
‘I am Handro Rime,’ the inquisitor said. ‘I am here today in the service of the Ordo Hereticus. My question was, what qualifies you as an expert?’
‘Gaunt’s expertise isn’t up for debate, Rime,’ Mercure cut in. ‘He’s got extensive experience of the Gereon Campaign, and that’s where we dredged up Prisoner B. If Gaunt says there’s something in this, I trust him. He’s my man on this. Aren’t you, Gaunt?’
Gaunt found that Mercure was looking at him directly for the first time. It was a look that said: Don’t make me look stupid now, you little shit.
‘Absolutely, sir,’ said Gaunt.
Rime leaned forwards. He smiled, but the smile was not warm. It was a perfect facsimile of a smile, executed by hundreds of synthi-muscle tensors and subcutaneous micro-motors. He fixed Mercure with his augmetic stare.
‘I think the real issue, sir,’ he said, ‘is that the Commissariat Intelligence Division, without reference to, or permission from, any other department or agency, including the holy ordos, has detained a toxic Archenemy prisoner in the heart of one of Balhaut’s cities. It’s an extraordinary risk to take, not to mention fundamentally contrary to the express determination of operational procedure, as set down by the Inquisition and the High Lords of Terra. The Imperium doesn’t do this, Mercure. You don’t do this. The only body qualified and authorised to handle prisoners of this type is the Inquisition.’
‘This is too important to waste time on a jurisdictional squabble, Rime,’ said Mercure.
‘Oh, if only that’s all this was,’ the inquisitor replied. ‘You will hand Prisoner B over to us, and we will evaluate him and dispose of him.’
‘But he doesn’t want to talk to you,’ said Gaunt.
‘What did you just say?’ demanded another one of the henchmen.
‘Enough, Sirkle!’ Rime declared.
Are they all called Sirkle, Gaunt wondered?
‘I said he doesn’t want to talk to you,’ said Gaunt, gesturing generally at the ordo team. ‘And he doesn’t want to talk to them either,’ he added, with a nod at Mercure and the Section officers. ‘He wants to talk to me.’
‘Is this true?’ asked Rime.
‘Prisoner B made it known that he would only speak to Colonel-Commissar Gaunt,’ said Edur, who was waiting patiently by the door.
‘Why?’ asked Rime.
‘That’s one of the things I intend to find out,’ said Gaunt, ‘if I’m given the chance.’
Mercure dismissed Gaunt, and Edur took him back to the anteroom. The timepiece was still ticking out its deep, regular beat, and snowflakes were still prickling the glass.
‘You did well,’ said Edur.
‘Did I?’
‘I think you impressed Mercure.’
‘I couldn’t tell,’ said Gaunt.
Edur smiled and said, ‘You never can with him. But I think your bluntness piqued the inquisitor’s interest enough for us to broker some cooperation. Perhaps we can persuade them to let you interview the prisoner with them as observers. At least that way we share anything you find out.’
‘The ordos should damn well respect our need for concrete intelligence,’ Gaunt growled.
Edur was still smiling.
‘You’ve been at the front line a long time, haven’t you Gaunt?’ he said. ‘You’ve forgotten just how total their authority is. We’re lucky they’re even asking us politely. They could have just burst in here and taken him by force. You wouldn’t believe the number of promising subjects the Inquisition has snatched away from us before we’ve been able to get to work.’
‘So I’ve just got to wait?’ Gaunt asked.
‘I’m afraid so,’ replied Edur.
The snow was falling more heavily than before, in the yard beside Viceroy House. Wes Maggs started the engine of the staff car again, in the hope of squeezing some warm air out of the heaters. He knew that if he ran the engine for too long, some pen-pusher would garnish the fuel costs from his pay.
Huddled in his jacket, his hands stuffed deep inside the armpits of his vest, Maggs sat in the front passenger seat of the car, and reflected on the suckiness of the duty he’d pulled.
He was cold to the bone, and the waiting was killing him. How many hours had Gaunt been inside? The sky had gone the colour of a bad bruise, and it felt too cold for snow. He wondered about getting out and sweeping away the snow that was accumulating on the car, but he couldn’t face it. He wondered about approaching one of the guards for a chat and a lho-stick to warm his hands, but they were up at the gate or in the guard towers, and looked pretty unapproachable.
Even the mechanics, who had been working on some of the other transports parked in the yard’s garage area nearby, had given up their efforts and had gone to huddle around a pathetic brazier. Maggs wondered if they’d make room for him, but he doubted it. They didn’t look very friendly. In fact, the whole place seemed like the coldest and least-friendly location he’d ever had to spend any time in, and that included some warzones.
He gazed across the yard through the windscreen and the fluttering snow, and finally worked out the purpose of the odd architecture he’d been staring at for half a day. The side of the main building had a sort of loading dock built into it, overhanging the main yard area. There were no windows.
Maggs realised that he’d parked facing the execution block. The trapdoor in the underside of the dock overlooking the yard was the drop where men’s bodies thumped down when they were hanged. This yard, otherwise used for parking and light maintenance, was where the official witnesses and observers stood.
He shuddered. The place was getting unfriendlier by the moment.
Gaunt had stood up out of the armchair and put Eszrah’s copybook away before it occurred to him to wonder why he’d done either of those things.
Something had prompted his decisive movements, something very clear, but he couldn’t identify what. He stood there, with the timepiece ticking solemnly behind him, and heard the feathery brush of snowflakes against the anteroom’s windowpanes.
He’d seen something. He’d seen something he couldn’t have seen, shouldn’t have seen.
Just for a second, with his attention focused on the pages of Eszrah’s next story, there had been a flash, a little flash behind his eyes, like an electrical flare, like the tremor of aurora lights.
Stupid. It was stupid, really. Just another twinge of his old, traumatised optic nerves. Just another function-glitch of his new, gleaming eyes.
But there was a taste in his mouth. The metallic taste of blood.
He went to the door.
‘Do you think they’re deliberately turning the heating down to piss us off?’ asked Varl of no one in particular. No one in particular answered him.