The cleanroom was illuminated by harsh halogen lamps, its walls covered in white ceramic tiles and decorated with holy script. Soothing hymnals emanated from speakers built high into the walls, and a highly polished servo skull floated about, dispensing a misty spray of disinfecting incense. In the centre of the room a gurney had been raised off the ground, a functional thing of mare metal and wipe-clean material, and Adjutant Helena Brazier lay atop it, held down by tight leather straps. She was conscious, and her eyes darted around the room with some unease. A novice of the Orders Hospitallier stood by her side, a girl in her early teens wearing a plain white cassock, and comforted the wounded agent, bringing her down to some degree of calm. Behind them, a Sister of the same order was pouring over a tray laden with a selection of small needles. The woman wore close fitting carapace armour made to imitate the heavier power armour of the Orders Militant. The black robes of the order of the Bloody Rose, to which she was attached, hung from the joints of the pure white armour, and her face was hidden beneath a hooded wimple and a respirator.

One wall of the chamber was occupied by a large mirror that concealed a darkened observation room. Amelia stood behind this partition, watching the operation with concern. Another sister stood beside her, ostensibly an escort, but Amelia could feel the loathing emanating from her mind. Her face was the very example of bedside manner, but her mind ran wild with righteous wrath, directed at the ‘witch’ she had been ordered to escort. All the sisters felt this way, but Amelia no longer cared. She had her duty, in this case seeing to the safe recovery of her adjutant, and she wasn’t about to let anything get in her way.

The Hospitaller finally made her choice, selecting a long syringe filled with some opaque opiate. Helena winced as the needle went in, but the slight pain was soon replaced by a numbness that suppressed the few remaining nerves in her shoulder. A low whirr filled the room and Amelia caught sight of a small chain-blade, mounted to the sister’s gauntlet, as it was raised to the light. The saw was far more delicate than any combat model Amelia had seen, and it lacked the bulky housing of military-grade weaponry. The purpose of these modifications became clear as the blade was brought down on Helena’s shoulder. The blade must have been monomolecular on the bleeding edge, for Helena’s skin parted easily and soon the arm had been wholly separated from the shoulder.

Helena herself felt none of this, and the novice sister ensured she kept her face turned from the wound. Her shoulder began to bleed profusely as the Hospitaller began replacing damaged nerves with biomechanical replacements. To Amelia’s eyes, she looked like a watchmaker manipulating tiny cogs. Her hands moved with a speed and grace that seemed almost beyond human and soon the shoulder, complete with a new nervous system, was capped off with a steel plate upon which a mechanical arm would eventually be mounted.

To Amelia’s left, her escort coughed impatiently and she fixed the smaller woman with an intimidating gaze. Her own fears betrayed her, coupled with the slightest psychic manipulation, and the sister stepped backwards, her perfect masquerade temporarily broken, before collecting herself.

‘Agent Lafayette, the procedure is complete. The new nerves will take some time to heal, and it will be at least a month of physiotherapy until your servant adapts to a prosthetic.’

The words were meant to compel Amelia to leave, but she ignored them. She spent a silent minute looking through the false mirror as her adjutant’s shoulder was prodded with needles, to monitor the anaesthetic as it wore off. It was not long, however, before she turned to leave, satisfied that that there had been no complications.

On a bench outside the Hospitaller’s chambers, and under the watchful eye of a particularly cantankerous looking sister, the mutant girl Luka waited. Amelia had made no conscious effort to bring the child with her, the girl had simply followed them to their waiting gunship, but nor did she regret her presence. In a way, Amelia owed her for saving her life in the ambush that had cost Helena her arm. Perhaps by refusing to abandon the child, she was subconsciously paying off her debt. Either way, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the girl would have to remain in Amelia’s quarters, for the only thing the junior acolytes feared more than Psykers was Mutants, apparently. In time, she may become a useful covert asset along the lines of Donovan Jeapes, but for now she held no official position, and acted as Amelia’s servant out of a sense of obligation.

One figure who had not been present when she arrived was the officer who saluted her as she approached, his uniform of a black dress jacket over dark red trousers demonstrating his service to the Inquisitor. Amelia returned the salute as best she could, still a long way from perfecting the intricacies of the gesture, and stepped over to speak to the man in private.

‘Ma’am, the Inquisitor ordered me to escort you to a briefing of senior command staff.’

This was far from unexpected, the information they had gained was far to valuable to be left to decay, and within an hour Amelia sat on the front row of an improvised command centre that had been hastily established inside the Imperial Court. The room held the familiar tiered seating that the Inquisitor seemed to prefer for his briefings, and a large holilithic terminal sat at the centre of the room. In her right hand she held a number of data stacks, while her left was clenched in nervousness.

The Inquisitor stood in the centre of the room, still in his ubiquitous power armour and still flanked by his crusaders, and his penitent witch. He took in the assembled acolytes and officers with a sweeping glance before beginning.

‘Servants of the Inquisition, our prey can hide no longer! We have found the warrens he calls home, and soon we shall descent upon them like Leman Russ himself! Their corruption ends today!’

There were no cheers, no jubilant shouts, but the assembled acolytes straightened up at his words, and Amelia could feel their eagerness. It felt like a predator, waiting to pounce. Se was caught up in the mood as well, at least until the Inquisitor fixed her with a piercing gaze.

‘Prime Agent Lafayette,’ he continued, ‘in her efforts to recruit Michelangelo Borgia to the ruling council, uncovered a transmission between the traitorous Space Marines. Agent Lafayette, if you would?’

‘Yes, my Lord.’ Amelia spoke without a moment’s hesitation, though she did spend a brief pause smoothing out the creases in her open-fronted stormcoat before stepping up to the hololithic terminal. Before her sat fifty experienced acolytes of the Inquisition, mercifully shrouded in darkness, and to her right stood Inquisitor Heydrax, his arm resting on the pommel of his sword.

‘The last communication to leave the Raptor’s Nest was an encrypted signal using secure channels first set up during unification. The relay centre for this covert network still survives in the underhive, where Mr Borgia had been using it to conduct a shadow war against the Death Cults. The transmission was between a sergeant of the Word Bearers legion, and an unknown individual in Site E-4.’

She drew a thin wire from the terminal, and connected it to a small data slate. The dim orange of the rooms few lanterns was overpowered by a rich green glow as a three-dimensional model of a mountain emanated from the projector.

‘According to the records,’ Amelia continued, ‘Site E-4 is part of Nova Iberia’s strategic promethium reserves, one of a network of seven underground stores of Promethium intended for use in war or in the event of a shortage. Pipelines travel from these storehouses to government installations: airfields, heavy industry or the hive cities.’

The mountain faded away, revealing a small cluster of green shapes representing tunnels and corridors. The base appeared to be built around a gargantuan central chamber five hundred metres deep and one hundred metres in diameter, the fuel tank itself, whilst eight wings stretched out from the base like the points of a star. One of these wings was connected to the surface by a long elevator, another two were given over to what looked like barrack blocks or warehouses, four were simply long corridors with large circular chambers along their length while the last housed an eclectic collection of rooms.

‘As you can see, the original structure has been highly modified. Four thousand years ago, the silo was transferred from the Iberian Department of Infrastructure to Special Forces Command, and they drained the tanks. They were very thorough in deleting every scrap of data relating to E-4, but they neglected the paper copy of the blueprint they filed for planning permission. What we also learned was that the trade in commandoes had been occurring for far longer, possibly since the Heresy. It seems that the archenemy’s leadership decided to expand the scope of the project.’

‘Thank you, Agent.’ The Inquisitor interrupted, and Amelia gave him a short bow before returning to her seat.

‘In our efforts to uncover one conspiracy, it seems we have stumbled upon another. I am sure I do not need to remind you that this site bears all the signs of ritual use: the eight-pointed star, shipments of fine warriors and the site’s secrecy. More importantly, the presence of the Word Bearers. This scourge cannot be allowed to exist. I would wipe the site from orbit were it not buried so deep, but, alas, I fear that would have unintended consequences. This is fell magic, and we cannot risk anything that might release whatever tainted energies it contains.’

‘Therefore, we shall launch a subterranean assault. We shall leave nothing to chance. Every gun we have must be turned on that site. Fortunately, Marshall Taimur has uncovered a stock of eight Hellbore-class breaching drills. These drills will allow us to bypass the front entrance and strike with near total surprise. One drill shall be assigned to each point of the star and shall converge on the central chamber, which logic dictates would house the main ritual site. Each shall contain a Mission of the Adepta Sororitas, and two companies of Stormtroopers, as well as select acolytes.’

‘Make no mistake, the enemy will not go quietly. The forces of Chaos will test your resolve, and the traitorous Space Marines remain every bit as lethal as their loyalist counterparts. But we are the Inquisition! We are Malcador the Hero’s finest creation, men and women chosen because we alone have the strength to stand against the darkness and emerge pure! The Emperor protects! And I promise you, no matter how foul, darkness wilts in his Holy Light!’

Amelia could not tell who shouted first, it may well have been her, but the small chamber suddenly echoed with the combined strength of fifty voices speaking in unison.

‘The Emperor protects!’

Pretal Hadar watched from on high as subject three-nine-four-seven carved a bloody path through her foes. She fought in the centre of a great ritual circle, painted millennia ago and continually refreshed by chalk mixed with spilled blood. Her fighting, and the flailing corpses of her foes, scattered the dark-brown ritual circle with no regard for the effort that had gone into its construction. But that was to be expected, for no warrior should ever confine themselves over a stretch of chalk and a battlefield would likely never notice it.

Three-nine-four-seven had already slain sixty of her eighty-eight attackers, and the remaining few were circling warily around her, wielding wicked axes. This batch of slaves had been acquired on a feudal world, and they were still swaddled in furs and tribal fetishes. Psycho-indoctrination had raised them above the common coward, and ensured that they would fight to the last rather than potentially polluting the purity of the site by fleeing a battle. When the last of them died, and the last drop of their blood had been squeezed onto the floor, then he would descend and begin the painstaking process of laying out the new circle which would soak in the blood and absorb the essence of the slain warriors.

His ancient mind turned itself back to three-nine-four-seven. She had a name, Benevente if he recalled correctly, but there had been so many names, and a sequential number was far easier to reference and remember. Still, three-nine-four-seven was somewhat of a rarity; comparatively few of her thousands of predecessors had been female, and to overcome professional soldiers was worthy of some degree of recognition. She moved with a lithe grace as she carved her way through her attackers, disembowelling them with swift strokes. A lesser man might have found the display erogenous, but Hadar was entirely sexless. If there was anything he appreciated about her movements, it was the obvious devotion. Many subjects never truly understood what it meant to devote your life in service to the gods, and affected the purity of the ritual through the corrupting influence of cowardice. Three-nine-four-seven was a true devotee to the Blood God, and saw herself as merely an expendable tool of His will. Or, Hadar reflected with something approaching mirth, the Will of her masters in the Word Bearers.

The end was near, now only six remained, and Hadar shifted his massive bulk for the first time in fifty-five minutes. The joints of his armour creaked in silent protest; his chestpiece, the colour of decaying bones, scraped against his blood red pauldron which displayed the symbol of his legion; the burning tome of the Word Bearers. In truth, he was loyal to the Consortium first and foremost, but he would gladly serve if it meant he could conduct his research. Four thousand years ago a pact had been agreed between the Consortium of Fabius Bile and the Word Bearers, offering to train Apothecaries in exchange for personnel to support the Consortium’s continued experiments. Hadar cared little about any of this. As far as he was concerned the universe ended at the entrance to his underground laboratory. At the base of the steps he was met by another marine. A lance-sergeant whose existence was as irrelevant as his identity.

‘Apothecary Hadar, we have been unable to contact anyone on the secure channels for quite some time now. I suspect the Inquisition may have found us.’

‘Soldier, do not bother me with trivialities at this crucial stage. The experiment will continue, no matter what petty changes happen above our heads.’

‘To the Warp with your experiments,’ the marine spat back, venom in his words, ‘how many more pointless years will you waste here until you finally realise you're chasing the impossible!’

‘Soldier,’ Hadar spat back at the impudent whelp, ‘need I remind you that your masters gave you to me. To assist in my experiments. You do not need to understand their purpose, and I doubt you even can. If the lapdogs of Malcador the Weak do come here, then you will keep them away until I am done. For as many years as it takes.’

The marine fell silent, or perhaps he was simply taken aback. It mattered little, and Hadarr simply brushed past him. He had missed the killing blow through that pointless dialogue, and instead of the end to a glorious melee he was greeted by the sight of three-nine-four-seven kneeling prostrate in the centre of the chamber, whilst his staff cleared the room of corpses. The subject did not move as he approached, nor did she seem to mind that her forehead was pressed into blood half an inch deep. She bore only light wounds, but even so some of her own blood was being added to the floor. When he stood before her, he paused for a moment as he tried to dredge up her name. He had long ago theorised there was a psychological component, and so he always tried to address his subjects by their own name, at least once.

‘Maria.’

Subject three-nine-four-seven displayed the same reaction as all her predecessors, save one unfortunate who had gone deaf in the melee, and cringed back, trying to lower herself even further into the ground. Hadar’s voice, crafted to his own exacting specifications, tended to instil a sort of primal fear in normal humans, and he took some small pleasure in watching them squirm. The subject had not replied, though that was hardly abnormal.

‘You fought your way through the Warrior’s Trail, to prove your strength.’ Her joints stiffened, perhaps in pride?

‘You have slain your sisters-in-arms, to prove your devotion.’ Not the slightest hint of sadness, perhaps even a degree of sadistic satisfaction?

‘You have bathed in the blood of a hundred foes. The Blood God looks favourably upon you.’ In spite of the obvious pain his voice caused her, Hadar saw the muscles of her cheek tighten. She was smiling. Good.

‘You will be judged once more. I offer you the chance to ascend, to become something more than you are and take your place at His side. Do you offer your life for this cause?’

She shuddered, her right eye began to twitch, her back arched and Hadar could see a fresh stream of blood coming from her nose but still she spoke.

‘Yes, master. My life is yours.’

‘Then return to your cell. You will be summoned when we are ready to begin.’

She rose in fits and starts, her legs trembling too much to gain a steady footing. She left the chamber bent over and with her arms folded in against her chest, her head kept averted away from Hadar. With the subject’s departure, Hadar took a bag of chalk from a waiting slave and began the painstaking process of marking out the ritual circle. The slaves fled the chamber, ascending to the walkway that ringed the pit before disappearing into their quarters. Over four painstaking hours, Hadar marked out a ritual circle of an intricate, and mathematically precise, design. He worked from memory, having done the same procedure thousands of times.

Once he was done, subject three-nine-four-seven was brought back to the chamber by a slave. She was naked, to remove foreign impurities, but she had not washed and much of her skin was coated by a thin crust of dried blood. She stepped before the Apothecary, her head bowed, and was directed to lie on her back in the centre of the circle, her arms and legs outstretched. Without so much as a word of warning, Hadar took up an iron spike and, using his armoured fist, drove the length of metal through the palm of her hand. The subject screamed, and her unbound limbs flailed, but her resolve was strong and she moved her other hand back to its original position. She did the same for her two feet, and soon the subject was affixed to the concrete base of the ritual chamber.

The Apothecary took up his own place outside the ritual circle and began the lengthy chant that would break down the barriers of reality itself.