Cynewolf raised his storm bolter and fired at the blank-eyed man.
Cherubael reached out and caught the glowing shells, plucking them out of the air.
'Go home, Astartes bastard!' he yelled down the sloping roof at Cynewolf. 'This has nothing to do with you!'
The fiend came up the ridge until he was facing me. I could see the tiny arcs of power darting across his glowing skin. I could smell the stink of corruption.
Eye to eye now.
He held out his hand, palm up, fingernails long and polished like claws.
'Clever of you to find an untouchable to cancel me out/ He looked over at Bequin. 'How did you manage that?'
'Fate, like time, is not linear, Cherubael. Surely you know that. I found Bequin in the same way that the dreams of you found me/
He nodded. 'I like you, Gregor Eisenhorn. So very challenging and stimulating – for a human. I wish we had leisure to discourse and break bread… But we haven't!' he snapped suddenly. 'Give me the primer!'
I took out the polyhedron. His smile broadened.
I dropped the artefact onto the silky roof and, before it could slide away, crushed it under the heel of my boot.
The daemonhost took a step backwards, gazing down at the crunched dust.
He looked up at me again with his blank eyes. You are a man of singular dedication, Gregor. I would have enjoyed killing you, when the day and hour came. But you're dead already. This edifice is two hundred and forty seconds away from destruction. Cherish this-'
He tossed me the xenos Necroteuch and I caught it in one gloved hand.
'You've won. Take that consolation to the afterlife/
He started to run, towards the lip of the roof, and then threw himself out in a perfect dive, arms raised. For a moment, he hung in space, then
he forked his body in, executed a precise roll and disappeared into the lake of fire below.
I pulled Bequin to me as Cynewolf, Midas and the other Deathwatch Marine approached. Endor, crumpled in the Astartes's arms, looked dead. I prayed he was, for in a moment this place would dissolve in fire.
'Rosethorn from Aegis, above and… well, above, for Emperor's sake! Damn this Glossia crap! Move!'
My gun-cutter swung in over the edifice roof, ramp-jaws open. I could see Fischig at the helm through the cockpit screens, yelling at me. Aemos was at his side.
I watched 56-Izar die from the bridge of the Saint Scythus as we left orbit. Petals of flame, the size of continents, spread out under its milky skin. Sanction Extremis. Exterminatus.
After the deluge of fire, the virus bombs. The seething storms of tailored plagues. The nuclear atrocity.
It was a cinder by the time we left. No contact with the saruthi race was ever made again.
And the tainted, glowing light of the Necroteuch was extinguished forever.
EPILOGUE
At Pamophrey.
At Pamophrey, we rested.
Forty weeks of voyage through the immaterium had dulled our sense of victory. The fleet dispersed at Thracian Primaris and the last 1 saw of Sergeant Jeruss was a waving hand across a smoky, beery bar.
I rented a villa out by the Sound at Pamophrey. Midas slept most of the day, and whiled away the night in games of regicide with Aemos and Fischig. Bequin bathed in the sun, and swam in the breakers.
I sat out on the salt-whipped stoop and watched over the beach like a god who has forgotten his creations.
Great labours still awaited us. Reports to be made, interviews and debrief-ings to be attended. Lord Rorken had called for a tribunal of enquiry, and the High Lords of Terra were awaiting a full account of the matter. Months of paperwork, hearings and evidential audits lay ahead. The identity of the force behind Molitor and his daemonhost remained a mystery, and though Lord Rorken was as anxious as myself to find an answer, I doubted any would readily emerge. The question might fester and stagnate, unanswered, in the slow, unwieldy bureaucracy of the Inquisition for years.
I would not allow that. As soon as I was free to engage upon another case, I would dedicate myself to finding Cherubael's master. The beloved rule of man had come close to great calamity thanks to his scheming.
