Mother Rachel leaned against the concrete wall of the alleyway, her golden armor and distinctive red hair concealed by the voluminous dove grey cloak she was wrapped in. The Palatine was peering through the night's gloom at the rundown tenement buildings of the next block. Five Celestians were kneeling deeper in the shadows, their white Vestments pattern power armor also concealed by hooded cloaks. Scattered in the two intersecting alleys were ten of the new Lay-sisters of the order, freshly promoted from Acolyte status. Already blooded in the battle at the Pompeii estate and Caracalla bathhouse, they were steely eyed and ready to bring the Emperor's mercy to the Heretics…with the cleansing fire and lead.
Her eyes fell on Sister Flavia at the corner of the alleys, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she waited patiently. Like the other Lay-sisters, she wore the crimson armor presently covered by grey cloaks to break up their silhouettes in the urban sprawl. Stealth was not exactly considered a forte of the Militant Orders, but sometimes required. However, Flavia's right arm was not sheathed in the protective red armor like her other sisters. Instead, her arm was an exquisitely crafted cybernetic implant of glided metal, rich with filigree the heraldry of the Ordo Hereticus. The Manus Victoriae…the arm of Saint Victoria…an artifact of the Order, a Holy Relic.
Though she knew pride could be a sin, she could not help but think fondly of the girl Flavia. She could still remember when the child had been brought to the hidden Abbey of Saint Celestine nestled in the mountains. She had been a ward of the Church before then, given to the Convent by plebian parents who could ill afford another mouth to feed. She was healthy of body, agile of mind, and pious of heart. Rachel felt the glow of pride at the woman she and the other Sisters had wrought. Give me a Commandery of girls like Flavia with Katherine at our head, and I'd take the Eye of Terror itself… She thought in obvious hyperbole.
She took her eyes off the young Sister, whose face was hidden in the darkness of her hood, and turned back to Sister Esther of the Order Dialogus. Unlike the others, she was garbed in lighter carapace armor, for hers was not a militant order. The Dialogus were the sages, linguists, and scholars of the Ecclesiarchy. While the Orders Militant were honed to a razor-like focus, the Dialogus were encouraged to study anything and everything. They were repositories of knowledge, not kept cloistered as the other Sisters, but given worldly experience so they could understand the intricacies of history and sociology. Leaders like Rachel and Katherine needed Sisters like Esther to explain the often confusing and complicated universe they defended. "Explain this to me again?"
Esther nodded, "We researched the Caracalla bathhouse after the raid you and the Mother Superior made. The Magistrate given privatization rights over it is a Patrician named Appius Claudius. We searched through his financial and political records and found no direct link to Sextus Pompeii. However, we did find some financial dealings with a citizen businesswoman named Drucilla Vinculae. This would normally be of little consequence, but recently Vinculae's body was identified among the dead at a riot suppressed recently by the Imperial Guard."
"A victim, or a heretic?"
"Apparently a Heretic, leading a small street gang of Sapphic sexual deviants," Esther said with some distaste. "Vinculae has several verifiable ties to Senator Pompeii, which caused us to investigate further. We found five other names with links both to Pompeii and Claudius."
Rachel scratched her head, "So…is Claudius a Heretic?"
"We consider it highly likely," Esther nodded. "We investigated deeper to find that Appius Claudius' wife is in fact his paternal half sister, the child of his father's second wife Clara Vinculae…Drucilla's mother."
"Is that…legal?" Rachel asked, horrified.
"Technically...yes. Byzantium has some very strange, old laws on the ledgers from millennia ago. It was apparent practice for Patrician Aristocracy to have children through paternal half-sisters born to concubines, as it was believed to keep the "aristocratic" bloodline more pure. It is illegal to foster children on a maternal half sibling, however, recognizing the damage to mitochondrial DNA such incest can engender…" She looked up at Rachel's wide eyes and concluded she'd lost her. "The practice it fell out of favor a long time ago, but the law is still on the ledgers…so...technically still legal."
"Just…Ew," Flavia piped up, sticking out her tongue as though tasting something nasty.
"Thank you, Sister Flavia…" The Palatine shook her head as though to shake off the unclean feeling she had just thinking about it. "So…how does all this lead us here?"
"Oh…right," Esther smiled sheepishly. "This prompted us to do some research into family ties and cross reference other financial records and such. Senator Pompeii's third daughter married Vinculae's father, and their son Brutus Vinculae married Appius' younger sister." She made a gesture of her fingers weaving together, "There seems to be a pattern of the families trading female siblings as wives and concubines."
The Dialogus lifted the small tablet-styled thought-engine and scrolled through the data with a brass stylus. "Mother Superior Katherine went to apprehend Appius Claudius yesterday, but his home was empty. He has not reported to either his Magistracy or the Senate in three days. We believe he's gone into hiding."
"And we think he's in this run-down tenement apartment complex?" Rachel asked skeptically.
"This entire city block is owned by his wife's brother, who is also his sister's husband…Brutus Vinculae. According to Arbites and PDF records, the residents have a certain propensity for arrests…minor crimes, gang activity, and the like. It is our belief the street gangs in the area are the muscle for the Cult's Patrician leaders." Esther set the stylus back into the receptacle on the side of the thought-engine and the screen went dark. "We believe if he was to "go to ground", this is where he would go."
Rachel nodded, "We'll go in like it's a regular purity sweep. Squads Charity and Chastity will cover the west and east approaches. If we flush anyone out you are to detain them. If they do not comply…cleanse them. Hope and Faith squads will come with me." She turned to Esther again. "You have a holo-image of this Claudius?" Esther nodded and withdrew a hardcopy from a pocket. "Good, everyone eyes on that holo. This is our target. Remember…we want him alive so the Inquisitor can question him. Let's move out."
"By the authority of the Ordo Hereticus, this is a Purity Sweep!" Rachel shouted as Celestian Sister-superior Jezibel kicked down the side door of the apartment complex. "Honest citizens have nothing to fear! Move to the nearest wall and place your hands against it! Those who do not comply with the lawful orders of the Inquisition are Heretics and will be dealt with as such!"
Shrugging their cloaks from their shoulders, the Crimson-clad sisters moved down the hallways, kicking open the doors. "Clear!" They called out as they discovered the first two apartments were empty. Flavia kicked down the next and moved in quickly to prevent providing a silhouetted target in the doorway. She held a bolt pistol in her golden cybernetic arm, sweeping it over the dingy apartment. She had discovered the cybernetic arm moved with the same precise grace as her flesh once had, and she had required no time to adjust to it. The holy relic had seemed to adjust to her instead. She could sense the pressure of the bolt pistol's grip in her hand, though couldn't actually feel anything with it. It was as though her hand was numb, but still functional.
The squalor of the apartment filled her with disgust. How could people allow themselves to live like this? Walls were dingy with the accumulated grime of years unwashed, the floors covered in assorted trash and detritus. Half-eaten food still lay on plates at the low table before a filthy, threadbare couch facing a holo-vision. Cautiously she crept across the room to peer into the tiny kitchenette where roaches scurried from underfoot, two other sisters covering her from the door. She checked to two small bedrooms, which stank of stale body odor, liquor, and other scents she was glad she couldn't identify. As she stepped into the hallway, she looked at Mother Rachel curiously, "Clear…"
The next two rooms were also devoid of occupants. Flavia crashed through the next door and quickly scanned the apartment. "Clear…wait…" She noticed plates of half-eaten food lying about as she had in the other apartment. "It's like…like everyone picked up and left in the middle of dinner…"
Rachel frowned. It was well past midnight, so it was unlikely they'd somehow detected them coming and fled mere moments ago. Dinner time was hours past and the food had gone cold. "Maybe Claudius came and gathered his underlings…left for somewhere else?" Flavia offered.
"Perhaps," The Palatine answered. "Still…we finish clearing the entire building."
The squad of Lay-sisters crept down the hall, bolters at the ready, with the white-armored Celestians following closely. Flavia led them, bolt pistol stretched out in firing position, eyes wary for any threat. The corridor turned to the center of the building complex, four L-shaped structures surrounding a large forum. In the center, the forum served as a "common room" for the apartments, with a small public bath. It was divided into "rooms" by lines of columns, and half-walls to create an open space of semi-private chambers. When it was first built, it was probably very pleasant…
…Now it was a slaughterhouse…
Corpses were everywhere. Men. Women. Children. All brutally murdered…all suffered horribly. Many were dismembered, pieces strewn with abandon about the chamber. Others had been disemboweled, their intestines gleaming wetly. Several lay on tables, their torsos ripped open as though vivisected by a coroner, their organs scattered nearby. Still more were chained to the columns where they had been cut over and over again, or beaten to pulpy, misshapen masses. Bodies…or just pieces hung from the ceiling…
"Emperor's mother…" Rachel gasped.
Shadowy forms suddenly leapt up in different places about the room, the staccato sound of weapons fire echoing throughout. The Palatine staggered back as two dart-like projectiles ricocheted off her breastplate. "Splinter guns!" She cried out, her eyes picking out the jagged silhouettes and profiles of their attackers. "Dark Eldar!"
A black beam, like someone took the stygian darkness of the Void and fashioned into a lance, burned past Flavia's shoulders, centimeters from striking her. It struck the concrete behind her, disintegrating a one-meter diameter chunk from the wall. Flavia followed the path of the beam back to the Dark Eldar who fired it, a strange, jagged, barbed rifle-like weapon in his hand blaster…A smaller version of the Dark Lance… She remembered from the many times they had reviewed the weapons of the enemies of man. She raised her bolt pistol, sliding sideways to present a smaller target. The pistol bucked in her hand. The thin, spiked, deep purple armor of the Dark Eldar had no chance of stopping the seventy-five caliber slug, and when it exploded it blew off his right shoulder and half of his chest with it.
The distinctive Kow, kow, kow, kow! of a Splinter cannon rang out, and Flavia saw one of her fellow sisters, named Leontia, stagger back clutching her hip. Cornelia stepped up beside her, hefting a storm bolter and ripped off a burst that tore the offending Dark Eldar to pieces. The other sisters opened fire on the squad of twisted beings with devastating effect. The Dark Eldar struck terror in the hearts of the common folk, the planetary defence forces, and militias they commonly engaged during their raids…but against the holy aegis of power armor and righteous retribution of the bolter, they were overmatched. Over half of them were slaughtered in the first seconds of the firefight.
Rachel opened her mouth to direct the Celestians to charge and finish off the Eldar warriors, but movement in the corner of her eye captured her attention. To her left, she saw five misshapen things darting from behind a low wall. They raced toward them, slinking impossibly quickly, low to the ground. Simultaneously, from behind a row of columns, a dozen Wyches charged the line of Lay-sisters, whooping and shouting and taunting the humans in their native tongue. They wore only scraps of armor and clothing, much of their pale flesh showing through. Their hair was spiked or fanned out, or in any variety of outlandish styles.
The Celestians raised their bolt pistols to fire on the charging, twisted forms before them. Rachel shouted, "No! You Can't hurt the Grotesques with the bolters! Target the Wyches!" Rachel knew quite well that the Grotesques had been tortured and experimented on by the demented Haemonculi of the Dark Eldar, the wretched creatures could no longer feel pain and their resistance to injury was astonishing. Most projectile weapons were useless against them…the only way to kill them was to carve them to pieces or crush them. She fired her plasma pistol, the blue-white beam shearing through one of the things and slicing it in twain. The other Celestians ignored the encroaching danger of the Grotesques and fired on the Wyches' flank, cutting down a handful of them before they could reach the crimson-armored sisters.
The Wyches crashed into the young Sisters, all manners of wicked looking and barbed weapons flashing in the dim light of the forum. Their skills in melee honed by innumerable bouts in the gladiatorial pits of the Dark Eldar, they were extraordinarily deadly with their weapons…however, for all their vaunted puissance, they had great difficulty piercing the Vestments of the sisters.
Flavia caught the flash of movement just in time to twist away from the slash of the Wyches' leader, the Succubus. The Eldar licked her lips with a manic smile, "Matuvanyet hóneltya!"("I will eat your heart!")
The Succubus pirouetted with flawless grace, thrusting her crooked blade at Flavia. "Whatever…" The young sister raised her hand and swept the sword aside with the back of her cybernetic wrist, sparks flying from the contact. Stepping into the slender foe, her arm became a golden blur, fist crashing into the center of the Eldar's chest. The thin armor of eldritch material shattered like glass and her ribcage collapsed with a horrifying Crunch!
As the Succubus crumpled to the ground like a broken doll, time seemed to slow to a crawl to Flavia. The last handful of Dark Eldar warriors were leaping into the fray, slashing with cruel blades fixed to the end of their wicked rifles. The Lay-sisters were fighting back valiantly with fists and rifle butts. Flavia leapt forward, seemingly to float, her golden hand reaching out and grabbing another Wyche by the wrist. She spun about, hurling the Eldar against a column with an unbelievable strength. The Wyche's spine cracked and she tumbled down to the grisly, gore-covered floor.
Another came at her with a trident in one hand and a net that glittered like diamonds in the other. She hurled the razor net at Flavia, seeking to ensnare and slash her. Flavia caught it and looped it around the Manus Victoriae. With a wrench, she pulled the Eldar woman off her feet, falling to the floor on her stomach. Before she could twist away like a snake, Flavia stomped on the back of her neck, breaking it with a sickening Crack!
Beside her, Cornelia parried a Dark Eldar warrior's overhead strike, swinging his rifle like a club. Her leg whipped out and hooked the Eldar's behind the knee. Cornelia rammed into him, knocking the lithe man on his back. She dispatched him with a single slug from her bolter. Another approached unseen from the flank, thrusting with his weapon like a bayonet. Snarling, Flavia grasped the rifle and ripped it from his hands. She swung it in a mighty backhand, breaking the rifle in half over his head, his tall, horned helm shattering in pieces.
Not ten meters away, the remaining four Grotesques pounced like lean, predatory cats upon the Celestians. Rachel stepped forward with a wordless battle cry, swinging her gleaming power sword with all her might. It hacked completely through the first of the foul things in an explosion of blood and strange alchemical ichors used to transform the hapless creatures into their pathetic state.
Snarling and growling like beasts, the Grotesques slashed their long, curved talons at the elite Sisters. Despite their fierce, berserk fury and their cruel viciousness, their claws could find little purchase on their heavy armor. The Celestines' blades however had no such difficulty carving into their unarmored flesh. Frightening as the Grotesques might have been, The Celestians of the Order of Saint Magdalena stood firm and struck them low.
Rachel turned about to survey the scene. Where did the Dark Eldar come from? And why would they brutally murder a building full of Cultists? Two of the Lay-sisters were on the ground wounded or dead, and a couple others with minor injuries while the Celstians had emerged unscathed. Across the room, the Palatine's eyes met Flavia and softened. A look passed between them, speaking volumes without the need for a single uttered sound. Flavia knew she made the Palatine proud, and Rachel could see the loving respect of the girl she had practically raised.
