“I am still at the pce where I have a bunch of information that would be invaluable to you but am not willing to part with without pensation.”

  “Telling me how the rest of my brothers died would hardly be invaluable. It would only take reading up on old reports.”

  I shrugged. “You would find that those reports are spotty at best. One disappeared a only a hand behind on a battlefield. Another is slumbering like a corpse somewhere.”

  “They are dead,” he said, a simmering fury behind his eyes. “sider your words carefully. I won’t allow you to despoil their memory.”

  He almost growled but caught himself.

  “I’m hardly doing anything of the sort,” I shrugged. “If I was about to do that, I wouldn’t even be here. Do you know what the main thing I want from you is?”

  He ined his head, which I took as a prompt to tinue.

  “A lock of your hair,” I smiled. “A single sample of a Primarch’s geic material. You aren’t the only source I have, and you aren’t even the easiest one.”

  It only took him a moment to ect the dots and cat to what I was implying. To be ho, grave-robbing Sanguinius would have been the easier option, but his genes were all sorts of fucked up. I didn’t want the bck rage in my head if I could help it. My mind was a chaotic mess as it was already. I didn’t want to plicate it even further.

  Guilliman didn’t o know that, though. As far as he knew, I was going to dig up his dead brother’s corpse to take a nibble out of him if our talk fell through here.

  His sword roared to life with a golden fire that set my Danger Sense on edge.

  “My soul isn’t in this drone,” I said with more fidehan I felt. That stupid sword could rend the souls of demons apart. I wasn’t sure if I wa toug me, even if it was just through a droill, my Danger Sense only informed me that the sword was rather sharp and burning. It was far from the ‘HOLY SHIT YOING TO DIE’ warning it gave me when the Shadowkeeper aimed his spear at me. “Runnihrough will not only cut otiations short but burn any bridge that exists or could exist between us.”

  After holding my baze for a few seds, the fmes disappeared with a hiss.

  “That is a tall ask,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “I know little of you, but even that tells me that handing you a sample of my genes would be the same as giving you a on of war that hasn’t been seen sihe Great Crusade.”

  “We work up to it,” I grinned. “There are many things I want, a bit of you is just the most important one. Do you have a Bnk on this ship?”

  “I do,” he answered.

  “I will give you a package deal then,” I said. “Everything I know about Lar and the Raven Lord for a nibble of that Bnk. What do you say?”

  He thought for only a moment. Bnks were rare as hell, but not that rare. With the abilities I already showed it was only a matter of time before I tracked one down and got a bite out of ‘em. He might as well profit off of handing me an easy meal that I would have gotten, anyway.

  That is what I hope he is thinking at least, if I beat that into his head, he should give me some of his blood too by the time he hears some of the things I know. Primarch gene-samples aren’t quite as hard to get as he might think and even if I don’t dig up Sanguinius’ grave, there are others.

  “Bring him here,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Don’t kill him.”

  Without a word, a pair of Astartes set off, supposedly to get the man.

  “I just want a nibble,” I said. “He’ll live. While we are at it, don’t bring him too close to me or the e with this drone might snap. A lock of hair or a bit of blood will do.”

  I saw the calcutive look that entered his eyes, thinking he found my weakness. In a way, he did. Unfortunately, I was aware of it, so I made sure arying to make use of it would have to pay a price.

  I should probably warn the guy that I’m blowing up if he gets too close.

  A minute passed in unfortable silence. Guilliman wasn’t one for small talk it seemed and the Custodes acted like living statues with the rest trying to make sure they had one of the transhumaween themselves and me.

  I took a moment to send my awareness out from my main body along with some stealthy flyer drones. Nothing fancy, just some birds with just enough energy to fly fast enough to circle around Dante’s fortress.

  Getting my door kicked down while I was mid-iation would have been annoying.

  I also hat Zedev was fiddling with some old te the building we were squatting in while Valenith was sitting up on top of it. The Eldar brimmed with eagerness and I didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d poun the first thing he could reasonably call a threat with glee.

  He might have gotten the slightest bit unhinged if that’s how all Eldar would react to being yanked into my puddle, I wasn’t sure I wao do that too much. I already had two of them.

  Almost fot about Fae and her little boy-toy. Hmm, I wonder what decision they came to. It could be fun to have more people to travel with.

  The heavy g of armoured footsteps sighe return of the two Astartes and as they stepped into the room, an unassuming man dressed in simple clothes I’ve seen on hundreds of serfs on my .

  I could already feel my e fraying even though he was around twenty metres away from me. He must be quite powerful. Still, his null-field might as well be a cold breeze pared to the deadly blizzard of the bck skull the Shadowkeeper was lugging around.

  “You should stop there,” I said softly and thankfully he obeyed even though he didn’t know me. It was easy to assume that anyone whive orders with Guilliman around was important. “We wouldn’t want my fail-safes to activate just because my trol over this drone snapped.”

  “Here he is,” said Guilliman. “You will be allowed to do what you were promised once you have givehat ‘information’.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, then cast a gnce around. A dozen Custodes, more Astartes, and a fair amount of tech-priests with even a few normal human officers here and there sweating buckets.

  “You sure?” I asked. “I was of the mind that even saying that there are more tha primarchs was a recipe fetting roasted by s-fire.”

  “I will worry about that myself,” he said. “Speak.”

  “Oh well, whatever,” I shrugged, leaning bato my chair. I was teically both the chair and the body sitting on it, but thinking about it like that would make things weird. “Lar only led a few little incursions sihe Heresy, taking some fringe worlds here and there and sometimes supp Abbadon’s escapades. He couldn’t do anything too big sihe Raven Lord spent every living moment sihe Heresy hounding him.”

  “Corvus?” he muttered, disbelief clear on his face. “You are g he is alive?”

  “In a sense,” I said. “He … is probably far from the brother you knew once.”

  “The reports I have say he left for the Eye of Terror shortly after the Heresy, o be seen again.”

  Ah, he doesn’t believe me. Of course he wouldn’t, I could hear it in his voice. Why would one of his loyalist brothers leave the Imperium to rot, after all? It was illogical and hard to uand for a man of duty and honour like Guilliman.

  “And they are correct,” I shrugged. “What I know is that several Daemon Worlds of the Word Bearers fell at his hands. Somewhere along the way, the powers of the ged him. If not in mind, then in form.”

  “Expin.”

  “You were all special, you know?” I said, looking him over. “There were many attempts to e primarchs, but almost all of them failed. Not because they couldn’t replicate your bodies, but because your bodies are just vessels. They aren’t what makes you special. You have that bit of tidbit as a freebie since I’m feeling generous.”

  “That’s all?” he asked, feigning indiffereh some measure of success.

  “Yes, that’s all I know ing those two.” I rolled my eyes. “You barely paid for it, so you shouldn’t have expected anything more. Now … I’d appreciate not getting shot for taking my price?”

  He waved his hand but made no other motion. I held back the urge to roll my eyes again. Stupid power py. He wao see how I’d take a nibble out of the trembling Bnk if getting close to him ‘hurts’ me.

  I slowly lifted a hand, palm up a a siendril slip through my skin aach from it. From then on, I had no trol over the little thing and it followed only pre-programmed ands.

  It was an easy side-stepping of the issue. If there was no psychiion to disrupt, the Bnk was basically just a weak human, and I had no trouble killing those even without my psychic might.

  The tendril twisted around itself, shifting from white mass to flesh and blood around normal bones. In just a few seds, a tiny white dove sat in my palm, staring up at me with beady bck eyes.

  Then it swung its wings and flew into the air. Barely a moment ter, it nded silently on the Bnk’s shoulder, its cwed feet easily pierg through his clothes and skin, tasting and abs just a bit of blood.

  Before the man could even yelp in pain, the dove was ba my palm. I patted its fluffy little head, the uself into tendrils and sink bato my body. Helpful little thing, a bit of a safety hazard, with me not being able to stantly monitor whether something had gotten its grabby cws on some of my eldritch flesh, but it has its uses.

  “I’m done,” I said, returning my gaze to Guilliman.

  “Take him away,” he said to the Astartes. “Check him over.”

  “I have more iing stuff for you, some of it much better than what I just gave you, but I wonder whether you give me something worthwhile for it?” I hummed. “The st one will cost you a lock of your hair for sure, though. But we egotiate oher.”

  “Just two?” he frowned.

  “I know something worthwhile of only two more people you might be ied in,” I shrugged. “But we make it a package deal and I’ll tell you all I know about the rest of your brothers. No promises about you learning anythihough.”

  “What would you ask for? That doesn’t involve me giving you my ‘hair’?”

  “Hmmm,” I thought. “I don’t suppose you have a geic library on this ship? Or on one of the Meicus vessels in your fleet?”

  “I might,” he aowledged. “Are you looking for anything specific?”

  “Just some iing wildlife from Death Worlds,” I said. “Though I would prefer stuff from Cata. They have the most curious things there. And no, I won’t be satisfied with just one or tles, I think what I’m going to tell you is worth the loss of a little geic library.”

  “You ‘think’?” he asked. “How I be sure of that?”

  “Gamble a bit,” I shrugged. “I am well aware how muust want to believe you aren’t aloo guide this rotting carcass of an empire ba its tracks. I am you hope. Real hope. Not the sham I just sold you that one of your brothers, ed by vengeance, is running around like a space horror.”

  Shit, why ’t I keep my mouth shut? This isn’t how one should be iating! Stupid!

  I didn’t let any of that show on my face. Might as well roll with the arrogant alien thing I have going on. It’s just … being myself, after all. Urgh.

  “So be it,” he said after almost a minute of staring at my face like he was trying to drill a hole in my brain with his gaze and see what it’s made of. “First the information, then you have a library of geic samples.”

  “How do I know you won’t be giving me a library of random grasses or something?”

  “You don’t,” he said.

  “Throwing my own words back at me,” I rolled my eyes. “So be it. But that will be the end of iations for today. We start with the st one once I have that library.”

  “Agreed,” he said, a bit too quickly for my liking. Hmmm, is he trying to figure me out? Giving himself more time to study me and figure out what makes me tick? Well, I don’t mind. Could be fun. I might eve a bite out of whatever is hiding down under Baal when he iably goes to beat it up.

  Now … which to tell him, I wonder. It was either the return of the Lion or the name and goals of the King in Yellow. I think I’ll go with the Lion. That seems like the less important information, he is just going arouing up bad guys while the other is out there scheming in his personal pocket dimension with a fuck-off huge army. Yep.

  “The Lion is alive,” I said, deg not to beat around the bush. “Alive and well, if a bit grumpy.”

  “How?” Guilliman asked in a whisper, and the silen the and deck seemed to grow even louder.

  “He never died,” I said. “I don’t know what your reports said about him, but after the fall of Caliban, he fell into a a from his wounds. I’m not sure why, but he never woke up from it up until now … or in the few years. Time is a bit of a tangled mess right now.”

  “He’ll just … wake up?” he asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

  “Personally, I believe those little aliens he kept around were keeping him asleep until he was needed. Not that it matters. He is going to be needed.”

  Guilliman leaned back, his carefully kept stoic expression crumbling for but a single fragment of a sed. Then he was back to his statue-like self.

  “Anything else? How I find him, if what you are telling me is the truth at all?”

  “I think it would be much easier to wait until he finds you,” I said, rubbing my in thought. “Like Corvus, he isn’t quite the same man you khough to a far lesser extent. Primarily, he has a strange ability that lets him teleport through ielr distances.”

  Seeing the look he’s got on his face, I just shrugged. “Don’t believe me, if you don’t want to. But you will waste far too much time trying to track him down, especially since he will primarily operate on this side of the Great Rift.”

  “And he could make these ‘teleports’ even with the being as it is?”

  “This ability isn’t the equivalent of a -Jump,” I said. “More like a personal Webway ected right to his soul, one where he enter a the sub-space wherever and whenever he wishes.”

  He gave me a nod, though I could feel he was not going to believe a single word that left my lips until he had firmation. Hmmm, maybe he was a bit more disturbed than I’d thought, letting those feelings radiate through his aura.

  Whatever. I have all that I wanted from this. Getting a geic sample from him was a stretch, I know there is a gene library so I rob it blind without his help if he doesn’t pull through and the Lion would be even easier to pay off for a lock of hair than Guilliman if that final trade fell through.

  Okay. Goals updated: Get the gene library, bite the super Swarmlord if possible and maybe get a lock of Guilliman’s hair.

  Giving myself a mental nod, I stood up. No matter what I implied, I really didn’t want Sanguinius’ genes anywhere inside my body, so the Great Angel was safe from grave-robbing. Maybe if Dante was less of an asshole, I might have even attempted to shove the parts of his soul back together and stitch them to his corpse, but fuck him.

  The room tensed, and I gave them a grin.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” I said. “We will meet onake pfall, I will collect my price then. Until then, farewell.”

  All the eldritch flesh in my body immoted, burning bio-energy at just the right temperature to turn my droo ash instead of busting it. Giving myself a mental pat on the back for the cool exit, I pulled the telepathik back.

  Waste not, want not. o let all that soul-energy dissipate into the void. It almost spped me in the face like a snapped rubber band, but I mao slow it just in time.

  Alright. That weer than I feared and worse than I hoped. No pn survives first tact with the blue giant, after all. I think I did well, for this being my sed-ever iation.

  Yep. Oep at a time. This was a rge step, but I’m still otom of the stairs. Many more steps are to e.

  [Achievement Unlocked: Very Poetic! — you write metaphors just as well as a frader!]

  Oh, shut up!