Inching along the ledge that circled the third story of the building, he pressed himself against the ferro-concrete of the walls. The ledge was barely eight inches wide and the twenty-foot drop would not be pleasant. Around the abutments he cautiously crossed, clinging to the side of the building. As he came closer and closer to the courtyard, the sounds of the gathering began to waft over to him. Music, with deep, throbbing drums drifted to his ears. That doesn't sound like a meeting of the Magistrate's Committee… He mused.
As he reached the corner of the building, he poked his head around the edge. His eyes widened as his breath caught in his throat. The courtyard at the rear of the house was dominated by a great patio with massive stone planters, and stairs separating it into several smaller spaces. Trickling streams and waterfalls wound through the patios to spill into the rectangular pool. The entire courtyard was surrounded by tall columns of white stone.
But it wasn't the architecture that stole his breath from him. Across the courtyard, close to fifty men and women were engaged in an orgy of Bacchic revelry that sent of jolt of shock through Lucius' very soul. Blood flowed as much as the wine, as knives were drawn across the skin. Pain was pleasure and pleasure was pain to the cultists of Slaanesh. A number of poor souls were chained to the pillar where the revelers could satiate their deviant lusts upon them. Whips cracked and moans blended into screams and cries of passion. All manner of deviant practices were welcome and indulged, the gorge rising in Lucius' throat.
Some things just could not be unseen…regardless of how greatly one wished to forget…
The floor was a sea of intertwined, writhing bodies spattered in blood and more carnal liquids, their chorus of moans a mesmerizing murmur of libidinous ecstasy. Mixed in the undulating human flesh were things not of this universe. Pale skinned with sinuous, seductive female torsos, Daemonettes of Slaanesh joined in the revelry. Goat-like cloven hooves, six breasts, and exotic, beautiful, but clearly inhuman faces set them apart from the mortal participants. In the center was the Senator himself, surrounded in intimate contact by both men and women. Lucius shuddered in horror at the corrupt sexual acts before him, his mouth agape. Never before had he witnessed such savagery, such unbridled lust, such wicked, heretical decadence. His blood ran cold as he recognized a Magistrate here, a priest of the Ecclesiarchy there. Aristocratic Patrician debutantes coupling with public officials, highly placed businessmen, and even a Judge from another precinct!
Lucius' hand drifted down to the voxcaster at his hip. One word and the Arbitrator squads standing ready at the precinct house would pile into their Repressor armored personnel carriers and descend upon the heretics with the Emperor's vengeance…
A blur of movement to his right caught his eye and his hand swept down to his weapon as he twisted his head to look. Atop the abutment not ten feet from him, he saw that what he had mistaken for the Imperial Eagle in the gloom of night was in fact a hideous gargoyle! Summoned from the depth of the Warp by the corrupt cultists to guard their secret meeting places, the daemon screeched as it hurled itself upon the righteous Judge. His pistol had barely cleared the leather of his holster when it struck him, skin hard as stone with the strength of five men. The force of the impact knocked him from his precarious perch on the ledge, falling backward in the daemon's clutches.
Defiant even as he fell, Lucius rammed the nose of the bolt pistol under the chin of the misshapen creature, gritting his teeth. He pulled the trigger and the pistol bucket in his hand, sending a seventy-five caliber explosive slug into the gargoyle's cranium. Black ichors, stinking and sticky like tar splattered over Lucius' face a split second before he hit the patio floor.
The sound of his impact with the stone tiles was unnaturally loud in his ears…the clatter of armor, the crackling of bone, the reverberating bass Thud! as the back of his helmet struck. He lay dazed on the ground, his head swimming with disorientation and a sharp pain in his left shoulder. Broken shoulder blade? he wondered blearily. His armor and helmet had saved his life again. Suddenly the pain seemed to snap the world back into place.
Prolouge
Start from the beginning
