Chapter 15

Now...

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Everything happened quickly, and at the same time, Olga again saw what was happening as if perception accelerated many times. The blue glow of the fuse, the soft click of the flamethrower's trigger opening the valve. The sharp smell of acetone hits the nose, misting the head - no gas mask.

The clap of the ignited oxygen-enriched promethium-based fire mixture slammed in the ears, sounding like a stretched 'v-v-v-voo-uuuuuuuuuuu!!!'. Even from the wagon briefing, Olga remembered that this was the most dangerous moment in flamethrowing - the first ejection from the 'cold' barrel. The propellant may not ignite immediately, and when it does ignite, due to evaporation it will be analogous to a small thermobaric charge. Not much, but enough for the operator and everyone who will be nearby. It is a design flaw, deliberately made to pay for the non-fixed ejection (i.e. it pours as long as you pull the lever) and the ability to keep the gun at ready for hours.

This time it worked properly. A jet of a whitish liquid, hitting under the blue tongue of the igniter, instantly flashed orange-yellow. The fiery flash dazzled for a moment so that Olga squeezed her eyes shut and did not see how the exhaust covered the sentinel insectoid. When the girl opened her eyes, the creature had already rushed forward silently and with terrifying force. The still-transforming flesh caught fire, dropping hot droplets like plastic on fire or a candle over a fire. The remnants of her hair turned to ash, her skin dripping in sizzling streams, revealing gray muscles.

The human fly had turned into a veritable torch in a couple of moments, but it didn't seem to hurt its fighting ability.

The chain broke at once. Or maybe that's what it was intended for - to hold the weak human form of the guardian, but in case of an emergency allow the fighting incarnation to break free. The six-legged blob of fire hovered in a mighty leap. And Olga caught a powerful flashback. Almost, in the same way, the monster from the 'Ballistic' jumped on the three-meter 'astartes'. That one was stronger than the entire squad combined, but it lost the fight. So now it's all clever, too.

Olga staggered backward and hit her back painfully - the gas cylinder hit Luct, hard and unmovable like a stone rolled in concrete. The flaming creature leaped in one move - just like an insect - to cover most of the distance from the vent to the group. It crouched on its supporting paws. Ready to launch itself into their formation.

The mighty servitor extended his arm forward as if pointing at the beast, and the ugly head with its faceted eyes exploded. At first, Olga saw a tear and a fountain of dark slime, which instantly caught fire. It was as if gasoline was flowing through the monster's veins instead of blood. And then the sound of a shotgun blast slammed into her ears and stunned her completely.

The many-legged figure was still moving, even trying to move, but aimlessly, apparently on reflexes. Only now did the monster make some sort of sound, the first since the transformation. It was more like a loud whistling exhale, bursting through the flames. And, as if to answer the call, the water in the pool boomed. Dark splashes came over the high rims, splashing against the tiles.

"Back off!" The Mentor tossed, and there was no need to explain. It was clear to everyone that holding the defense in the tunnel was much easier, with one flamethrower for each side and order. Olga did not hear the command but moved with the others.

The Priest snorted as if to clear his throat, but perhaps in contempt of the enemy. Retreating, he quickly twisted the valve on the cannon, adjusted the pressure, and raised the barrel. Olga did not see the look of anguish on Savlarz's face and the pained anticipation of something extremely bad. What happened next was something that might have seemed amusing, if not for the circumstances. The Priest shot a thin stream of acid in a steep arc, just like a naughty boy pissing over a fence. And it hit, and on the first try, causing an immediate effect.

The water hit a real fountain, with such force that it tore some parts from the crane structure above the pool. From beneath the black and bubbling surface came a terrible sound, low and lurid. It was as if an infrasound generator had been turned on somewhere in the depths. A growl broke through even Olga's temporary deafness, resonating with every bone in her skull. The Priest yelled something and kept pouring acid into the pool. Apparently, whoever (or whatever) was trying to get out of there didn't like it at all.

"The Emperor," said Fidus quietly and clearly, who was the first to notice how the fat-smelling carcass of the insectoid was engulfed in a bluish-green flame, like the firing of a wire. Then strange symbols exploded in the smoky, foul-smelling air. They flashed for literally a split second, dancing like mischievous flames of acid colors. The next moment, it was as if the lights had been turned off for the entire squad.

And then turned it back on.

Olga fell to her knees, stunned and blinded. A cramp tied her esophagus in a knot, but there was nothing left for nausea, not even stomach acid. There was only a wheezing exhalation as if the soul was tearing itself out, no longer willing to endure the ordeal of the body.

"The Emperor is with us, the Emperor is with us, the Emperor is with us," the monk muttered like a frenzied. Bertha simply yelled, restoring at least some semblance of discipline and order.

"Get up..."

Kryp's voice came very muffled, from a distance but still, it penetrated Olga's clouded consciousness. And it seemed to her that everything around had become too bright and radiant. Is everything on fire already?

"Get up!!!"

She was yanked to her feet like a feather. Maybe Luct, maybe Fidus, who was no weakling. He was two meters tall, the big guy should have been given a cylinder. Fucking bastards, they found a weak girl to load with heavy iron...

A firm hand prevented Olga from falling, acting as a desirable and precious fulcrum.

"Stand still, take a breath."

No, it seems to be Fidus. Luct mechanically reloaded the barrel with precise movements.

The girl breathed and blinked as commanded. Then she looked around and gasped.

"Kryptman!" yelled Bertha. "What demons?!"

"Teleportation..." Kryp said clearly, military-style. "Part of the guard system, I think."

"I don't get this shit!"

In a few chopped phrases, Kryp explained that in the pool hall the uninvited guests were waited for by a combined guard system, powered by some 'well into warp. If the mutating beast failed, it triggered a teleport that tossed the intruders out to who knows where. Probably along with the rest of the inhabitants of the house. But something went wrong. Or right.

In sum, so far everyone is alive, but it's not clear and probably not for long.

While Fidus was spouting off a quick sentence, Olga looked around frantically, trying to understand why everything had changed so drastically. Someone's dramatic voice overrode Fidus' report with a shriek:

"This is not the Ice Port!"

And then Olga realized - yes, it's anything but a snowy planet of eternal winter.

Most of all the new landscape reminded one of American movies from the eighties about the apocalypse and life in the ruins of civilization. Not total destruction, but a kind of natural decay like Escape from New York. That is, the city itself seems to be intact, but it has fallen into decay, depopulated and is rapidly being destroyed by its natural course.

The squad was thrown into an alley between two brick houses, each ten stories high. The lower levels are boarded up with planks of real wood. Another indication that this is not Ice Harbor. The wood is musty, rotten, and moldy, which means it was nailed up a long time ago. Next to the squadron is a rusted boxcar with a streamlined shape, coming from the fifties, when everyone tried to show it like a rocket. All that was left of the car was metal and remnants of synthetics, and the rest had turned into a crumbly mass. Frames of what looked like advertising signs or screens hung from rusty brackets on the grimy walls. They were scratched with shards of murky brown glass, like the ones in the blind windows.

The alley was very dirty, most of the garbage, from paper to torn bags, piled up in clumps like cowslips. And Olga didn't notice anything that looked like vegetation. No fallen leaves, no grass, not even moss. The only slimy mold that looked like snot. And if it's been abandoned for a long time, there should be a lot of flora around... But there isn't any, though the humidity is so damp that if you hang out wet laundry, it will rot before it dries.

A flash of rage lit up Olga's brain - when will it all end!!! Again the witchcraft, again the incomprehension all around! It shouldn't be like this! It's all tiresome!

"Fuck the evil!" The girl growled muffled into the high collar of her jumpsuit, just to express her attitude to everything that was going on. By 'evil' Olga meant the Squad too, thanks to which she was once again unknowingly and definitely in danger.

"You are pious, sister," the Holy Man appeared to hear and approve. "Keep this way!."

Olga pressed her lips into a string, holding back the bursting out of a precise, exhaustive, and very colorful definition of exactly where the girl saw Witchcraft, the Squad, the Imperium, the Emperor, and piety at the same time.

"We came into the house in the evening," thought aloud the Wretched Man. "So it must be night now. Maybe it's early morning. And here it looks like evening. But we haven't walked all that much..."

Fidus looked at his watch and remained silent.

"It's not our planet," Savlar squeaked out in a droopy voice, sniffing loudly with a nose hole.

'Maybe just a different time zone," Kryp encouraged.

"There's no landscape like that on the Port!" Savlar cried out in despair.

"So the 'pocket' is local, inconspicuous. I don't think it's another planet. The teleport worked too quickly and carefully."

"If you wet your pants again, I'll shoot you, panic-stricken," Bertha promised as she shoved her mega-gun under the convict's absent nose. He shut up.

"It's not Warp, that's good," the monk said, spinning on the spot with the chemical cannon at the ready. Demetrius, showing 'his fiercest grin,' jerked the slide of the submachine gun, sending the unused round flying in a long flight. The brass cylinder jingled, rolling over the dirty asphalt until it stopped in a puddle of some kind of yellow-pink splotches. In time with the tinkling of the metal, soft laughter rang out high above our heads and farther away, like crystal bells.

The group closed in, barrels bristling in every direction. The smell of toxic chemicals from the recent volleys of flamethrower and chemical cannon was literally suffocating, tearing at my nasopharynx. Luke panted as if he were preparing for a brisk run, oxygenating his tissues beforehand. Olga, as the shortest and most non-combatant, found herself in the middle of the formation. In addition, frightened crouched down, so that for a few moments could not see anything because of the wide backs and heads. And someone continued to chuckle merrily high up.

"Sorcery," Demetrius whispered, and the Wretched Man cursed softly but floridly.

"Definitely," Kryp said, as if someone was asking him.

"Oh, what cute boys visited me," the invisible one reported cheerfully. The voice sounded strange as if it were double - first, it appeared in my mind, by itself, and then, with a tiny delay, it manifested itself more traditionally.

"Oh, and there are girls among you too! What a nice and pleasant company!"

Olga finally straightened up more or less. She lifted her head, stood up on tiptoe to look over her colleagues' shoulders... And she saw that one of the old, long blackened panels had sparkled with lights. As if someone's magic hand had carved a beautiful portrait and placed it in a squalid frame. Beautiful, but most importantly, alive.

Olga had never seen anything like this before. At least here, in the future. Televisions were plentiful here, but very primitive, like the Soviet classics. Only worse in every way. There was also holographic projection, many times better, but it was very rare. To all appearances, it cost some unrealistic amount of money, and in addition, it could only be operated by 'cogs'. Here in the old frame shone and shimmered amazingly clear, three-dimensional picture, which seemed to be three-dimensional, despite the apparent 2D. Moreover, with each second of viewing the image was getting closer, becoming deeper, more three-dimensional, literally drawing the attention and gaze of the observer.

It was portrayed there... Olga had never been a prude and the situation and the preceding events did not dispose to embarrassment. But looking at the bright rectangle, the girl felt that the heat rolled from her toes and higher, up to the tips of her ears, which were about to burn through the orange plastic helmet.

It was some kind of crazy collage, a string of images that couldn't even be called hard porn. A merry-go-round of static images and short clips, literally four or five seconds long, flowed into each other with a smooth rhythm that was surprisingly in harmony with the heartbeat and the natural movements of the eyes. The images seemed surprising, prohibitively vile, the brutal violence was the mildest form, flowing into overt snuff and interspecies bonding. But...

Olga had never practiced photography, so she could not express in words that the categorical abomination was created with a prohibitive, inhuman skill. The light, the foreshortening, the camera movement, the movements of the models, the people themselves, not quite people and categorically not people who were captured by the dispassionate gaze of the lens... She could only feel herself being drawn in by a video extravaganza that went as far beyond pornography as the sea surpassed a puddle. It had gone out in every sense, from the ingenious editing to the utter gloom of the 'plots'.

She wanted, at last, to throw off the burden, sit down on the hood of the rusty car, and take a closer look, to understand how it was done. How did the sketchy scenes of unbelievable perversion and savage sadism look like a divine revelation, images of the high painting? Why the grimaces of horrifying pain on the faces of delightful 'models' border on smiles of incredible pleasure, succeeding each other in harmonious perfection.

First, the world cracked and exploded, then came the pain, not lovely and decadent as in the mystical video, but down-to-earth, real, and very nasty.

"Wake up!" Kryp commanded, rubbing the palm with which he had slapped the girl. The Inquisitor looked very pale, just as he had when he was dying of terrible injuries.

"It's an illusion!" Fidus shouted, giving generous kicks mixed with slaps. Olga shook her head and saw that she was not the only one caught in the illusionary net by the attractive disgust. The other squads, just like Olga, flinched at Kryp's blows, twirled their heads, and generally looked like people who had awakened from a dream, but their minds were still in the bonds of a nightmare.

"Wake up! Wake up!" yelled the inquisitor, slapping at Savlar's noseless face, who rolled his eyes and settled down on his knees, folding his hands like a penitent sinner. The convict waved absurdly away, muttering something like a somnambulist.

Fuck, thought Olga, rubbing her throbbing temples. He reads poetry! A convict face, all masquerading as an experienced prisoner, who stay strict on prison ways and had not escaped except the Alcatraz. Yes, he was reciting poems of great and bright love in an almost prayerful ecstasy. And he was good at it, damn it! Like a man who has been polishing his pronunciation and syllable for years. I guess he was not deceived by the first impression that Savlar was not really a seasoned up convict, not at all...

"Break it! Smash it!" Kryp yelled at the top of his voice.

Bertha's cannon shot hurt her ears almost as much as Kryp's palm. The live screen failed after the third shot, showering a rainbow of splinters. Each one fell slowly, like fluff, and each one became a different picture, defiantly hideous and delightfully beautiful. Each beckoned and promised and showed...

The Priest spun the valve, switching the gun to a wide spray. He praised the Emperor and pulled the lever, spraying the mirage with a fountain of smoke like a shower nozzle. The sorcerer's shards died slowly, blurring in blotches of every color of the rainbow, falling to the dirty pavement, glowing like little drops of sunshine. And yet it died.

"Oh, our God the Emperor," someone murmured in shock, seemingly a Holy Man.

But the Sinner did something quite simple. He took a knife and poked out his left eye, which had seduced his master with demonic temptations. He would have gladly got rid of the right one as well, but his duty demanded that he remain combat-ready, and a blind man is not a warrior. Olga, however, did not see the penitential self-torture, for she was looking at the figure that lurked behind the mirage.

She had been here from the beginning, but she was lost in the glitter of high-fashion pornography. A thin female figure, as if carved out of crystal, dressed in something weightless and as crystal-sparkling. A silhouette that makes you think of Disney fairies, it seems that now the dragonfly wings will open and carry the enchanting creature away.

"Well, the mirror is broken. You are so boring..."

The glow obscured her facial features, but her tone left no doubt - the 'fairy' pouted capriciously.

"Go away," the Priest demanded sternly but did not hurry to spray acid.

" Ay-yi-yi-yi, a corpse servant," the 'fairy' reproached, and her voice rang even more invitingly, even more charmingly. Olga had never felt a predilection for her own gender, but at that moment she wanted to embrace and kiss the crystal enchantress with a, not at all sisterly kiss. Judging by the companions' needy breathing, the sorcery had got everyone hooked. She wanted to fall to her knees and start worshipping the 'fairy'.

"You came into my house and started breaking my toys roughly. That's not nice.

Now there was a clear menace in the sparkling figure's words, and the voice itself had changed, with a growling, bassy tone, as if the human voice had been brilliantly, but not perfectly, imitated by a wolf's mouth.

"Let's shoot?" Demetrius asked softly, gripping the hilt of his weapon until his fingers ached.

"Wait," Kryp said just as quietly. Then he turned to the 'fairy,' with some degree of bowing. "To entertain a host you must know his name. Or at least his kind. And we're not."

"Enough talking," whispered Crybaby, who had even stopped sniffing his nose. "We must burn."

His harness, which looked like an armored vest with a mechanical paw made of old plastic and hydraulic rods, buzzed loudly as if to emphasize his master's impatience.

"Quiet," hissed Bertha, who must have thought of something. Behind her, the radio operator put on black ebonite headphones, twisting the controls on the radio. He seemed to be getting somewhere, or at least his teeth were chattering a little brisker.

"I have many names, courteous young man," sang the 'fairy. "Guess it, you'll be rewarded!"

The crystal figure shimmered especially brightly, beguilingly, and rested on the top rung of the empty frame. It was already barely hanging on by its rusted uprights, and now, after being shot by buckshot, it was a miracle it wasn't going to fall. Only a weightless creature could hold onto it. The creature assumed a graceful pose, full of frank appeal, so much so that Olga was tempted to change her orientation again.

"I think you should be called by your master's name," Kryp reasoned aloud. "Who is your father? The Many-Faced Knower of All Ways? Or the Insatiable Longing for Perfection?"

"Oh, what a virtuous young man," the figure laughed again. "You know the old names, it sounds like music! Inquisitor, isn't it?"

"I had some relation," Fidus bowed again. "In the past."

"What shall I say to you," the glittering maiden said thoughtfully. "My patron knows many ways, has many faces, is perfect himself, and therefore expects perfection from others, endowing them with the will to strive tirelessly for perfection! Does this answer your question?"

"More than enough," Fidus grinned wryly. "Too direct for a follower of the Lord of Changes. A servant of the Tzinch would play with words more subtly. And too much about perfection, a worshipper of the Six."

"Unless I'm deliberately misleading you, oh, my little connoisseur of harmless puns," the demonic creature clapped its little hands." What an interesting story you could probably tell, inquisitor boy..." With a slight sadness stretched the 'fairy' and flopped down on the pavement, hanging over the dirt at a height of a few millimeters, just enough not to touch it with the tips of crystal slippers. Behind the crystal maiden's back, the transparent wings did indeed unfurl, fluttering finely. Only not dragonfly-like, but more like a fly. This immediately brought Olga back from her fantasies to earth, making her remember the other 'girl' who was now burning away with the scraps of flesh that no one knew where.

"About yourself..." The crystal mask turned as if looking for something among the tightly packed group. "And about her..."

Olga swallowed, but her mouth was instantly dry so that her esophagus only went into a prickly spasm.

"But, unfortunately, you don't belong here," the 'fairy' said with genuine sadness, and the charming voice again exploded with beast notes. "And you shouldn't be here."

"Fire," Bertha ordered, and Luct, as if just waiting for that, fired.

The servitor fired all eight barrels at once, so that the muzzle flames struck a meter ahead, scattering sparks. The crystal figure turned into a cloud of glass spray and vanished into the twilight air, leaving behind a shadow of whispers in their heads: Die.

"Slaanesh, definitely," Kryp sighed, then added incomprehensibly. "Tzinchit wouldn't be able to resist."

"What is there?" Bertha barked, turning to the radio operator.

"We seem to be somewhere in this world," the Holy Man reported hastily. "There's a signal, but not enough range. Or the signal is too weak to penetrate. I turned the beacon on full, so hopefully, someone will hear it."

"If they hear it, if they quickly pass it on to the authorities, if they fly in," the Priest enumerated. "It's hours. At the very least."

"We're not at the Beacon," Savlar sobbed mournfully, losing his prisoner arrogance. "No one can hear us!"

Bertha immediately gave him another slap, shouting 'Don't be a coward, you jailbird!

"So it's probably a pocket," Fidus muttered. "And we're redundant in it... That means..."

Olga gulped again and groaned softly in horror. An unhealthy atmosphere was concentrated over the dusky city, woven of dying light, hopelessness, and a distant but approaching sound.

Unpleasant, very disturbing, promising much unpleasantness. It was as if a pack of wolves had surrounded its prey and was tightening its grip, only it wasn't the living things howling.

"We can't get out by ourselves," said Fidus. "We have to retreat to a place where we can defend ourselves. If I'm right, all we have to do is hold out for a while, then the 'pocket' will collapse."

"So now the long fun begins," the Priest concluded. "To battle, so help us the Emperor!"

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