that I have taken a personal interest in you. Most things that cross me get destroyed very quickly. I could have hunted you out years ago. But I knew… there was a bond.'
'More of your riddles. More nothings. Tell me something real. Tell me about Vogel Passionata.'
He laughed, an ugly sound. 'Oh, you heard about, that did you?'
'Reports of the incident have made me suspect in the eyes of many.'
'I know. Bless you, that wasn't my intention. It was just a tiny error on my part. I'm sorry if it's inconvenienced you.'
'I have no wish to be seen as a man who would form a compact with daemons/
'I'm sure you haven't. But that is what's happening, whether you like it or not. Destiny, Gregor. Our destinies are entwined, in ways you cannot even begin to see. Why else would you dream about me?'
'Because it has become a central goal of my life to hunt you down and banish you/
'Oh, this is a lot more than simple professional obsession. Think, why do you really dream of me? Why do you search for me so diligently, even hiding the extent of that search from your masters?'
'I…' My mind was racing. This thing knew so much.
'And why did I spare you? If it had been you on Vogel Passionata, I would have let you live. I let you live on Thracian/
4Vhat?'
'You stopped to pay homage at Spatian's tomb, and the Gate shielded you from the disaster. Why did you stop? You don't know. You can't explain it, can you? It was me. Watching over you. Planting the suggestion in your mind. Making you pause for no reason. We've been working together all along/
'No!'
'You know it, Gregor. You just don't know you know it/
Cherubael floated away a short distance, and looked around. The auction site was frozen, all eyes on him. No one dared move, not even the most weak-willed twist guard. Even those present who didn't know what he was recognised the extraordinary evil and power he represented.
'What are you waiting for?' a voice yelled from nearby. Several armed men stepped out of their cover in the chew-after tangles and approached. It was Lyko, with six gristly examples of hired muscle.
'Look who I found, Lyko. I sprang this trap, just like you suggested, to discover if anyone was on your tail, and look who it turned out to be/
'Eisenhorn…' Lyko murmured, fear crossing his face for a second. He looked over at Cherubael.
'I said, what are you waiting for? Kill them and we can be gone.'
It was suddenly clear to me Lyko wasn't the daemonhost's master. Like Konrad Molitor all those years before, Lyko was another pawn, a corrupted agent of someone… something… else.
'Must I?' asked the hovering figure.
'Do it! No witnesses!'
'Please!' cried the elderly Merdok. 'We only meant t-'
Lyko whipped around and incinerated the old man with his plasma gun.
That broke the impasse. Phant's people and the other buyers broke in panic, drawing weapons, shouting. Indiscriminate shooting began. Lyko's gunmen, all ex-military types with autocannons, hosed the staging area and cut down the fleeing twists. I saw Phant Mastik hit by a burst of fire and collapse in rough sections backwards off the platform.
His horn-headed minder ran at Cherabael, firing a grubby old laspistol.
Cherabael hadn't moved. He was simply watching the murder around him. The las-shots sizzled off his skin, and he glanced down at the twist, as if his reverie had been broken.
The daemonhost didn't even move a hand, a finger. There was just a slight nod in the direction of the horned minder, and the miserable twist was somehow filleted where he stood, waves offeree stripping off his flesh and popping out his skeleton, parts of it still articulated.
I felt the warp churning around that dismal place as Cherabael went to work. Once he had started, his fury was unstinting. Merdok's war-rena ferns disappeared in a sudden vortex and died, fused together. The mud beneath Vassik's feet boiled, and she and her bodyguards sank, screaming and thrashing, into it.
I was frozen, rigid. I felt Bequin pulling at me.
Shots seared past my face. I snapped round, and saw two of Lyko's men charging us. One dropped suddenly, headshot by what could only have been a sniping round from Husmaan out in the torn undergrowth.
Nayl flew past me and gunned the other down with his Tronsvasse para- bellum.
'Come on! We've got to get out of here!' he yelled at me.
There was blood and filth and swirling plant-fibre in the air. A warp storm was crackling around us, so dense and dark we could barely see, barely stand against its churning force. But I could make out the glowing shape of Cherabael through it all.
I drew my power sword and ran towards him.
'Gregor! No!' Bequin screamed.
I had no choice. I had waited the best part of a hundred years. I would not let him go again.
He floated around to face me, smiling down.
'Put that away, Gregor. Don't worry. I won't kill you. Lyko has no power over me. I'll deal with his complaints later, and-'
'Who does have power over you? Who is your master? Tell me! You caused the atrocity on Thracian, didn't you! Why? On whose orders?'
'Just go away, Gregor. This is not your concern now. Go away'
I think he was honestly surprised when I hacked the power sword into his chest.
I don't really know if I had imagined I could do him any harm.
The blessed blade almost disembowelled him before it exploded and hurled me backwards.
He looked down in dismay at the wound across his torso. Warp energies, bright and toxic, were spilling out of it. In a second, the wound closed as if it had never been.
'You little fool,' said Cherabael.
I found myself flying backwards through the air, blood in my mouth.
The impact of landing shook my bones and smashed the breath out of me. My head swam. The daemonhost's power had thrown me a good thirty metres across the site, into the underbrush.
Furious psychic detonations went off all round. Screaming, semi-sentient winds from the deepest warp snaked around the field, destroying the last of the twists and the fleeing buyers.
I tried to rise, but consciousness left me.
When I came to, the chew-after was on fire. There was no sign of Cherabael. Inshabel and Aemos were pulling me to my feet.
'Bequin! Nayl!' I coughed.
'I'll find them,' Inshabel said.
