I hummed thoughtfully, a frown lining my face as I watched the bou Psyker start to trash and wail as she failed to keep up the flow of energy o fuel the artifact.

  The woman before me was my final test subject, the only one I had with tent Psyker powers and a strong enough soul that I thought she might be able to fuel the artifact without my help. I was right too, instead of sitting idle, the nasty gem tched on to the woman’s energy like the parasite it was.

  Her stores were not ehough, and she couldn’t replenish them fast enough. She powered the artifact for a respectable five minutes. She had been desperately pushing herself to keep feeding the gluttonous gem hanging around her neck, but then her focus broke, and the ramshackle funnel she’d thrown together fractured.

  If I were in her shoes, I would have cut ba the throughput for a bit, knowing the artifact was satiated enough to not rend my soul to shreds for another few minutes with the amount of energy I’d given it. A few minutes of rest might have been enough to gather myself and start eling again wholeheartedly.

  The woman wasn’t iate of mind to think logically, or to pn ahead like that. She cut off the energy flow instead, and I could see the els carved into her very soul drying up, their structure weakening.

  To my surprise, even as the st licks of energy drained out of her and got devoured by the artifact, her soul remained in a single piece. It wasn’t healthy and was about as far from ‘alright’ as anything could be. I felt if I poked it, or breathed too harshly near her, her soul might be pushed over the edge and shatter.

  However, it was still rgely whole at the moment, and that meant the woman was still very much alive. Even if she looked like she wished that wasn't the case. Curled up in a fetal position and sobbing, she made for a pitiful sight, ohat would have pulled on my heartstrings had I not taken a peek into her deranged mind.

  The woman was a maer. Ieral sense and iaphorical too. She liked to do the killing bit just as they ‘peaked’.

  “Fasating,” I said, watg for any signs of the woman’s soul suddenly colpsing but after a mi still held even as she was trying to desperately el some new energy into herself. “What a nasty creation. Do you know who is responsible for crafting that artifact?”

  For the first time since I began, I g my onlookers. Rakel was gone, having made a hasty exit earlier — acc to the mental records of my senses kept by my mind-cores — but the rest were still there. looked halfway between disgusted and afraid, while Amberley was likely w about how much I was about to find out about her precious gem.

  And whether I’d really destroy it once I was done.

  Luckily for her, it really was a nasty little thing, and I had no iion of doing anything other than to obliterate it. I could try to make a better version of it ter. I knew fuckall of enting, if that even was how this thing had been made, but it’d be another side project to let my mind nibble on when I had spare brainpower.

  “Some Xeno Sorcerer from many millennia ago,” Amberley said, another not-quite-lie. “It has been trading hands for turies, going from Sorcerer to Sorcerer and having even ended up in the Inquisitions possession more than ohat is why we knew of it in the first pce.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” I said without turning. “This is unsustaihe artifact is worthless to ah a brain. I thiroying it will be of little loss, though if it had something to go together with … perhaps another artifact to passively siphon energy from the and feed it to this one. As it is, the user would have to spend 80% of their day charging the gem for it to fun properly for the st 20. I wonder, was it a horrid design, or just made for a species better at splitting their focus? Or perhaps it is just … inplete.”

  I didn’t know why I was thinking out loud, I just was. Did I want t about how quickly I figured out the stuff that probably took the Inquisition’s research team months, maybe even years? That robably it, maybe not the whole of it, but most certainly a part. Pride and narcissism were character fws I knew myself to have, aher bothered me all that much. Excess of either roblem, case in point: the Aeldari and every sed Saneshi cultist.

  What was even more curious was how Amberley stiffened mihe moment I said the word ‘inplete’. I grihough with my back fag them, they couldn’t see it. So that was it. They probably had another artifact that would make this oually viable, or at least they knew of it.

  I didn’t eveo dig around in her mind to get that information. I thought gleefully, feeling quite proud of myself. In a way, offeelepathy was cheating, while what I’d just done was more like winning at chess. Sure, I was more like a chess mae that thought a thousand times faster than the Inquisitor and analysed every little twitch of her facial muscles while she was just a regur human, but still, it was more fair thaernative.

  “Well, no matter.” I huffed and stood, reag out with an ember of my power to push the woman’s soul over the edge. Oblivion really was a mercy too great for some of these cultists, but whatever, it was quid would leave my peanut gallery w. “I am just about done. Please tell Jurgen to get his biggest gun, I don’t want even a siom to remain of this thing. Alternatively, I bst it with a Ne Gauss Fyer if you don’t have anything powerful enough on hand.”

  “A Gauss Fyer?” Amberley asked, some of her disgust seeping into her tone.

  “Hmmm?” I raised an eyebrow and g her, amused. “What? I’m sure you have worse things stashed away on your void-ship than a measly Gauss Fyer.”

  “Jurgen, please get the melta,” Amberley ordered dourly, and the Bnk obeyed after giving a sloppy salute. “Would that be thh enough for you?”

  “We’ll see.” I shrugged. There was no reason for me to keep the artifact, besides maybe to start my own colle like Trazyn. The Immaterium and Sorcery usually worked more on willpower and ihan anything else, however the makers of the artifact built it, it might not be replicable for anyone else even with a perfect blueprint.

  No, the way to replicate it was to create my own version of it. I had tasted it now, saw a how it worked, more importantly, I k worked.

  Jurgen came ba, hauling a on the size of his torso and I stepped bad o the Inquisitesturing for him to have at it, I left the artifact behind on the dead cultist’s corpse.

  The man looked at the Inquisitor like a hound waiting for the order to attack, which he got from Amberley.

  “No one is standing oher side of those walls, right?” asked, his gaze goiween Jurgen and the way his on was aimed at. Met were powerful ons, and I had little doubt it would blow through the corpse, the artifad the textile making up the tent’s walls behind them.

  “No sir,” Jurgen said. “Told them to move away a bit.”

  “Good,” said, looking nervously over at me.

  “Fire,” Amberley gave the order, and Jurgen obeyed.

  Light a burst forth from the on, it was sht the others had to cover their eyes and even then; I was sure they could see the veins in their closed eyelids. The smell of ozone washed over me, following the scorg heat. I was well out of the way, but even still, I felt like I was standing out ih Valley in the middle of June.

  The light was just a momentary fsh, ing and going in the span of half a sed, but afterimages of it lingered in my eyes for a bit. I blihem away and looked over at the localised devastation with a suspicious squint.

  A charred line of earth, still smouldering and hissing like an angry snake was all that remained. I looked for the artifad the corpse, but was gd to find no sign of either. The back of the tent was burning, a man-sized hole having been bsted right through it and I could see wary troopers poking their heads in from the distao take in who and why fired a damned menta in the middle of their camp.

  “That cludes my business here,” I said, stepping away and turning to face them. Where my white leathery boots left their imprint on the soft earth, a dozen of tiny bug-like drones covered in Lictor-based camoufge carapace scuttled about, each heading for one of my version partners. I watched one of them meld with ’s boots, another race up Amberley’s pants and absorb itself into her belt. “Been nice meeting you. I’d say this will be the st time we see each other, but I’m sure if you keep nosing about in this se of space we will eventually stumble across each other once more, Inquisitor.”

  “Good thing I io get as far away from here as possible and never e back,” Amberley said with just enough of a smile for me to know it wasn’t inteo offend, more as a sign of her ‘respect’ for me. Yeah right, there will be a report on me going back to Terra the moment she reaches an Imperial Astropath. I’d be surprised if nobody else came to sniff about. “Do you wao escort you out?”

  “There won’t be any need for that, I’ll see myself out,” I said with a snort. “Ciaphas, Jurgen, farewell. It’s been fun.”

  With that, I let my aura surge and push ba Jurgen’s Bnk field. It was like a thick mist inating from him that grew even thicker the closer you got to him. All I had to do to allow my Blink to gh was to myself up in my aura and push ba the mist behind me and make a tunnel of ‘clear air’ leading out of it. It took some serious mental gymnastid willpower brought to bear, but I mahough I would have started having trouble if I wao make a simir ‘clear tunnel’ leading to the source of this ‘mist’.

  With a final grin, I disappeared from their sight without any further fanfare.

  *****

  “Jurgen, stay close and someo RAKEL!” Amberley shouted after making sure she couldn’t see the strange woman anywhere. Just ten seds ter, the youthful Psyker ran up to her, arg away from the bnk and looking nauseous, but she still came. “Is she gone? You told me you could feel her, is she still lurking here somewhere?”

  “I only felt what she wanted me to feel,” Rakel said, uainty written on her face. “An echo of her still remains, the winds of the Immaterium still in her wake, an- … and with the soulless ohis close- “

  “I get it,” Amberley said it, hesitating for a brief sed before she steeled herself. “, make sure someone Voxes Pontius as a shuttle down here yesterday. We o get away from here.”

  Ciaphas, Emperor bless him, just nodded seriously and was already moving by the time she finished her order. It was risky, the Witch might still lurk nearby, waiting for her to do exactly as she did now so she could infiltrate her Yacht.

  If Amberley was in her pd wao squash any news of her existence from reag the Imperium at rge, she’d do just that. Lull them into a facade of security so she could get aboard their Void-Ship aerminate every st person onboard. Amberley doubted the woman didn’t know they’d already got off a cise report of her existence off through the vox and had it recorded in the yacht’s tral database.

  Her pilot’s standing order was to -jump if she failed to vox him personally by nightfall. Even if all was lost, at least she’d get a small wihe alien. But she’d much rather remain alive and deliver the report herself.

  “Madam Inquisitor, please firm your order to request a shuttle,” her pilot’s voiced buzzed in her ear as the voc came to life. “Apologies, but please also provide the security code Gamma.”

  Amberley was irritated, and she was woman enough to admit that being locked in a room with a Xeno Witch who could turn her i with a thought for hours had frayed her nerves down to tatters. She wao scream into the vox for the man to shut up a his butt into the shuttle so they could get off this accursed rock already, but she didn’t. turies of w as an Inquisitor and havihrough much worse than this, many, many times had given her ample training in reigning in her emotions.

  “firmed, this is Inquisitor Amberley Vail,” she said, then closed her eyes and subvocalised the security code into the vox. Some of the sounds, taken from stratural nguages or sibint dialects strained her vocal cords, but it was necessary. The code had been made as plicated, and hard to replicate as possible. Even if someone could pry the memory out of her mind, mimig both her void the specific pronunciation of the code would be much more challenging even for most Psykers.

  “firmed,” the pilot said. “Shuttle inbouA: 11 minutes. Perkins, out.”

  It was done, all that was left to do was hurry up and wait. Eleven minutes and she’d be on her way out, but it’d be days more until they could -Jump aruly out of the Witch’s reach if she was even half as powerful as Amberley suspected.

  This … ‘Emilia’ wasn’t the most powerful Sorcerer she’d ever met. Despite being an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, Amberley had found herself face to face with Daemon Princes and even a Greater Daemon once, along with dozens of various Eldar Sorcerers. ‘Emilia’ was not even iop five most dangerous being she’s met, maybe not even top ten … ahere was something about her that unhe Inquisitor, something she had to be missing.

  “She said she’d been human once,” Amberley mused, her voice a hushed whisper as she frowned up at the cloudy sky. I wonder what abominable sorcery was required to ge a human into whatever she is now. No human Psyker could use their powers so close to a Bnk, they’d be quivering messes and trying to cw their eyes out. But she didn’t seem bothered … Jurgen has made a Daemon Prind Aeldari Farseers stumble before.

  Just what is she?

  P3t1