Secret War: Warhammer 40,000, Ben Agar [list of ebook readers .txt] 📗

"So, how did you know it was Edracian?"

I frowned and shrugged. "Well, I don't know, actually. He wore power armour, had an Inquisitorial rosette and said he was, so I kind of believed him, and he talked psychically, telepathy, in my mind."

I tapped my temple with my index finger as I said 'telepathy', and also as I said it, I couldn't help but notice the extremely bemused looks from everyone but Arlathan.

"What?" I asked, furrowing my brow.

"Attelus, you never mentioned that he spoke to you via telepathy before," said Karmen.

I raised an eyebrow. "What? I didn't? Sorry, I must've forgotten, but what's the big deal? Aren't a lot of Inquisitors psychic? That's what Glaitis told me anyway."

His expression grim, Brutis shook his head. "Yes, but it's a well-known fact that Edracian is just as blunt as you and I."

My jaw dropped and began to twitch as a sudden horrific shiver slid up my spine.

The fear almost overwhelmed me; then the room temperature dropped dramatically, ice began to form on the walls, growing up the flak board like vines; then I heard the gunfire and the screams.

"Look's like you were right," said Brutis to me as he readied his bolter. "This is a trap."

 

A second after he said that, then came a substantial deafening crash! From outside followed a hideous, blood-stinging scream followed by another and another, each ending abruptly.

Shivering in the sudden cold, my heart thundered in my chest, and my shallow breaths steamed into the air.

Karmen turned to me with a wide-eyed, fearful gaze, and I looked back. Our attentions locked for a few seconds, and each time there was another scream, we'd flinch in fear together.

We were only taken out of our trance when we heard Brutis demanding answers into his vox link.

"Verenth! Uslith! Answer me, damn it!"

"W-what the hell's going on out there?" stammered Karkin at Brutis.

Brutis didn't answer; he just shook his head and paced the room.

"What's going on," demanded Karkin.

"That's exactly what I'm trying to find out," growled Brutis, then he turned to Karmen. "Vox is dead."

It reminded me quickly of my vox link going dead just before Edracian's mooks ambushed me.

"So, what now?" she asked.

"We go out there," answered Brutis directly as he drew his Stubb revolver and tossed it to Wesley Jeksen, who caught it neatly.

"What?" yelled Karkin. "Going out there? Are you frigging crazy?"

Brutis treated Karkin with a withering glare, and I could tell from a mile away that the Inquisitor held nothing but contempt for the Magistratum detective.

"Yeah," said Brutis. "Me and Wesley, anyway. I'm not forcing you to come, but I remind you, both him and me are the only ones armed here. So when we go, you've got no protection and nowhere to run."

Brutis shrugged. "On second thought; maybe it'd be better if you stay here, you will probably just get in the way."

Arlathan Karkin grimaced and shook his head. "I don't like this."

As this went on, I stood in the corner in silence with wide eyes, wondering how everyone could ignore the screams that constantly pierced the walls, the screams that stung my ears, that made my shoulders shake, that caused my heart to leap painfully in my chest. These screams made my lip quiver and hyperventilate in fear.

Brutis glared at me, his brow furrowing.

"Someone gets him to calm the feth down!" he bellowed.

It was then I felt a warm, soft hand wrap around mine, and I turned to find it was Estella Erith, who smiled at me reassuringly.

But I was hardly reassured as I saw the gigantic blood vessels bulged from her face and forehead. Her blank blue gaze and her teeth were hideous, sharpened incisors.

The fear finally overtook me, and I screamed, tearing my hand free and retreated further into the corner.

As I ran, the room around seemed to devolve into a blur of black and white nothingness. However, Karmen, Brutis, Arlathan and Wesley were still visible as they approached me with wild blank eyes, sharpened smiles and fingers that curled into black elongated talons, reaching out to tear me to shreds.

My heart was hammering so hard, and painfully now, it felt like it was about to burst, and blood thundered through my ears. Then there were the screams, the screams! They were no longer intermittent but completely consistent, just a vast cacophony of hundreds of voices crying out in utter agony and terror. Arlathan, Karmen, Brutis and Wesley were still coming closer and closer and as their claws came right in front of my face.

I closed my eyes.

Immediately the screams were gone, disappearing so suddenly that it shook me to my very core, but I kept them closed, hoping if I did, they wouldn't come back. It was the contemptuous sigh that caused me to open them again.

I found myself back in black nothingness, but standing over me now was the Eldar; her thin, lithe form towered over me and the red glowing eyes of her helm looked down on me with distinct disdain.

I yelped out in fright and threw myself back, scrambling to gain as much ground from the Xenos as possible.

"Oh, do not be so pathetic!" It snarled so sharply I immediately stopped in my desperate retreat. "If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you a long time ago!"

"W-who are you?" I managed through my gasps. "What happened? Where the hell am I?"

She sighed even more profound than before. "You are the one I am going to work through, I thought, perhaps, you might be a bit less pathetic than the rest of your kind. But alas."

I lay there, only able to gape up at her.

The Eldar sighed yet again and shook her head.

"Well, we may be working together for a while from now on. So, if you truly must know, my name is Faleaseen; I am a farseer of the craftworld, Dalorsia. What happened? You were almost turned into a mindless, slavering daemon in the service of the ruinous powers and, where are you? You are now in the dark recesses of your mind. Any more questions?"

"I-I-I-I."

"It seems that Inquisitor Nonin Edracian did not just inject you with a nerve agent, as he had first claimed, but with some primitive sort of warp sorcery. If I believed in your race's first, abstract concept of 'luck', I would say you were 'lucky' I was here to save you."

"You...saved me?" I asked dumbly.

Faleaseen attention turned slightly to the left, and it took a long time before she finally answered.

"Yes, I just told you that, and here I was hoping you would be somewhat smarter than some of your kind. But alas."

"B-but...Why?"

Faleaseen groaned loudly. "Because, human, I have placed much time and effort into you, letting you die now would have been a waste."

I wasn't sure how to reply to that; all this had happened so frigging abruptly that I shouldn't be blamed for being taken aback and frightened. Yet here was this Xenos holding such contempt for me for having a perfectly reasonable and human reaction, and now here I was beholden to this farseer?

This new revelation I didn't like, this I didn't like at all.

She shook her head again, contempt oozing from her every pore.

"The Inquisitor has set his trap," said Faleaseen. "As we speak, daemons are slaughtering your people; it is a blood-fest, outside that building. When you awake, you need to be ready; you need to escape."

"Nah!" I said sarcastically.

Faleaseen tilted her helmeted head suddenly. "I mean this; there are those you would deem as 'innocents' in that building, do not throw away your life protecting them; they are nothing. Not worth the effort, you have far more significant problems you need to live to attend to, do not be a fool. Time to awake, Mon'Keigh."

"But-!"

Before I could say anything more, the darkness was engulfed in a sudden blaze of blinding bright white light, and I awoke.

 

The light cleared, revealing the grey, rockcrete ceiling above me and slowly, the images of the concerned Karmen, the confused Karkin, Wesley and Brutis standing over me.

Brutis had the barrel of his bolter levelled right in my face.

"D-don't! Don't shoot!" I cried, quickly raising my arms to cover my head for all the frigging good it'd do.

"What happened?" demanded Brutis bluntly, his bolter not moving an inch.

"I-I don't know," I lied. "I-I, I just was listening to you guys, th-then everything turned black! I must've fainted."

"You forgot about the going mad and screaming like a little girl and hiding in the corner part," said Karkin.

"I-I don't remember that."

Before anyone else could say anything more, there was another sudden, horrid crash! That seemed to shake the entire building around us, then followed by the blood-chilling screams with the intermittent roar of the desperate gunfire.

"Frig! That came from the inside," said Karkin, voicing what we all thought.

"Alright!" said Brutis. "We're fething moving! Get him up; we're going!"

"But-!"

"'But' what detective Karkin? As far as I see, we'll have to face down whatever it is out there eventually anyway; I'd rather not have to with a wall at our backs."

Karmen was the only one to offer her hand, which I took with an appreciative smile, and she pulled me to my feet.

"That's not what I meant!" said Karkin. "I agree with you, but you've seemed to have forgotten; we're unarmed."

"No, I haven't," stated Brutis. "And no, you're not getting one, either. I don't trust any of you enough. So enough of this meandering, let's get moving."

He looked at me. "And you. You, I trust the least. I'm keeping an eye on you, understood?"

I nodded, thinking, fair enough, I wouldn't trust me either.

"Good," then with bolter raised, he opened the door and stepped outside.

 

Chapter 16

Me, Karmen, the Olinthre-thing, Garrakson and Torris quickly got out of the old Hersuitor 89, and I slammed the door shut as I stepped out onto the beaten, badly maintained under hive street. Around the buildings had fallen so far into disrepair they disturbingly reminded me of the war-torn ruins of Velrosia, rusted and ramshackle. I couldn't help wonder how many poor lost souls scrapped a living in this hell hole.

The other two escort limousines came to a halt beside us, and the twenty total Stormtroopers got out and fanned out to secure the perimeter doing this despite the many, many Magistratum troops around already.

I sniffed and spat onto the rockcrete as the stench of the under hive assailed my senses, watching as on the other side of the limo, Garrakson and Torris pulled the handcuffed No One of Consequence from the Hersuitor, doing it a little more roughly than I would've appreciated.

I turned away and eyed the surrounding Magistratum troopers, who looked back at us with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. I did this while nonchalantly popping out a stick of Lho from its ceramic case, placing it into my mouth and lighting it, then I slipped my hands into the pockets of my Flak Jacket.

Karmen came up to me. "You know those things will kill you one day," she pointed out.

I shrugged and exhaled smoke pointedly. "There are plenty of things that will kill me a hell of a lot quicker right now. So I'm not too worried right now, in all honesty."

Torris and Garrakson came around the back of the Limo with the Throne Agent,