Nayl waved me left down the hall. I trusted his judgment completely. He had stalked the galaxy's most innovative and able scum for three decades. If there were intruders, he'd find them.
I entered the Ocean House's main hall, and saw the front entry was ajar. The code display on the main lock was blinking a default of zeros.
I swung round as a gun roared behind me. I heard Nayl cry out and sprinted back into the inner foyer. Nayl was on the floor, grappling with an unidentifiable man.
'Get up! Get up! I'm armed!' I shouted.
In reply, the unknown intruder smacked Nayl's head back against the floor so hard he knocked him out, and then threw Nayl's heavy sidearm at me.
I fired, once, and blew a hole in the wall. The spinning gun clipped my temple and knocked me over.
1 heard a series of fleshy cracks and impacts, a guttural gasp and then Medea Betancore's voice shouting, 'Lights up!'
I rose. She was standing astride the intruder, one hand braced in a fierce fist, the other pulling down her undershirt for modesty.
'I got him,' she said, glancing round at me.
The dazed intruder was clad in black from head to foot. I wrenched off his hood.
It was Titus Endor.
'Gregor/ he lisped through a bloody mouth. 'You did say you were home.'
FOUR
Between friends.
An interview with Lord Rorken.
The Apotropaic Congress.
'Grain joiliq, with shaved ice, and a sliver of citrus/
Seated in my sanctum chamber, Endor took the proffered drink and grinned at me. 'You remembered/
'Many were the nights, in those fine old days. Titus, I've mixed your drink of choice too many times to count/
'Hah! I know. What was that place, the one off Zansiple Street? Where the host used to drink the profits?'
The Thirsty Eagle/ I replied. He knew full well. It was as if he was testing me.
The Thirsty Eagle, that's it! Many were the nights, as you say/
He held up his tumbler of clear, iced spirits.
'Raise 'em and sink 'em and let's have another!'
I echoed the old toast and clinked my lead-crystal of vintage amasec against his glass.
For a moment, it was indeed like the fine old days. Both of us, nineteen years old, full of piss and promethium, newly promoted interrogators ready to take on the whole damn galaxy, students of old Inquisitor Hapshant. Five years later, almost simultaneously, we would both be elected full inquisitors, and our individual careers would begin in earnest.
Nineteen years old, drunk on our feet, carousing in an armpit of a bar off Zansiple Street after hours, mocking our illustrious mentor and
bonding for life, bonding with that unquestioning exuberance that seems to me now only possible in youth.
It was like regarding a different life, so far away, almost unrecoverable. I was not that Gregor Eisenhorn. And this man, with his long, braided grey hair and scarred face, sitting in my sanctum dressed in a body-heat masking stealth suit, was not that Titus Endor.
'You could have called/ I began.
'I did.'
I shrugged. 'You could have joined us for dinner tonight. Jarat excelled herself again/
'I know. But then…' he paused, and rattled the ice around in his drink thoughtfully. 'But then, it might have become known that Inquisitor Endor had visited Inquisitor Eisenhorn/
'It is well known that those two are old friends. Why would that have been a problem?'
Endor set down his drink, unpopped the fasteners around his waistband and pulled the top half of his stealth suit up over his head. He cast the garment aside.
'Too hot/ he remarked. His undershirt was dark with sweat. The jagged saurapt tooth still hung around his neck on a black cord. That tooth. Years ago, I'd dug it out of his leg after he had driven the beast off. Brontotaph, twelve decades ago and more. The pair of us, alongside Hapshant, in the mist-meres.
'I've come for the Novena/ he said. 'I was summoned to attend by Orsini's staff, like you I imagine. I wanted to talk to you, talk to you as far off the record as was possible/
'So you broke into my house?'
He sighed deeply, finished his drink and walked over to the spirit stand in the corner of the room to fix another.
