"Daemonsign!" Dinah shouted in warning as the forces of Hell tore through the fragile fabric of reality. Six Daemonettes fell from the rent in time-space, lascivious grins on their exotically enchanting faces. With unearthly speed and haunting grace they rushed past Dinah and her Celestians, pouncing upon the three Acolytes on the left side of the room. The teenage sisters-in-training froze in terror as the Daemons descended on them, claws sharp as razors and strong as adamant.
One of the poor girls shrieked as her arms were grasped by two of the creatures and pinned against the wall. A third ripped her carapace armor from her body and plunged its claws into the tender flesh of her abdomen. Her wails reached a keening pitch as the Daemons gleefully tore her organs from her body and displayed them to her in sadistic delight.
Flavia's jaw dropped in mind-numbing horror at the savagery before her, unable to move. Before Flavia's eyes, one of the Daemonettes wrapped its long fingers around the neck of her lifelong friend, Julia. With torturous slowness, the creature sank its claws into the tissue and pulled, ripping the girl's throat apart. Her friend's blood splashed across Flavia's face, drenching her in the hot, salty liquid.
When asked later, Flavia would swear she remembered none of what happened next. Shocked awake by the taste of her friend's blood on her lips, she howled like Daemon from Hell herself. Heedless of the mortal peril she was in, she threw herself at the Daemonettes, swinging her shotgun like a club. In her righteous fury, she smashed one of the creatures in the face repeatedly, maniacally. She spun and crushed another's skull with the butt of the gun. Possessed by the Holy Spirit of the Emperor, she tore through the warp-spawned terrors like a force of nature. Mindless with rage, she continued to club at the beast that slew her friend, smashing it into a splattering pulp of blackish ichors. She didn't notice as she was surrounded by Dinah and her Celestians, firing their bolt pistols and hacking the remaining Daemonettes apart with their swords…
Across the room, Sister Karen and the other two Acolytes leaned around pillars, exchanging fire with the cultist guards on the stage. Suddenly, Karen cried out as a laser bolt struck her in the hip, where the armor was thinner in the joint. She spun down to the floor, clutching the wound, her face a grimace of pain. "Sister Karen!" shouted the teenaged sister-in-training, Cornelia. "You filth! I'll send you all to Hell!" The girl came around the pillar, hip-firing her shotgun at the guards. Her friend, Octavia, was inspired by her display of foolhardy courage and joined her, spraying blasts from her flamethrower. They advanced in the face of the concentrated laser fire, ignoring the blasts that ricocheted off their armor. Round after round Cornelia fired, taking cold satisfaction at each guard that fell back in a hail of blood. Octavia filled the stage in the purifying flame of holy promethium, and the guards' dying screams were as the choirs of angels to their ears.
From the far side of the room, cultists began pouring from the back rooms. The smaller, private rooms at the back of the bathhouse were where darkest of pleasures was indulged, hidden away in the voluminous shadows. The thick, stone walls hid the screams of agony from the slaves…and willing subjects…who were molested and tortured in whatever ways the cultists' twisted, deviant desires could conjure. A dozen…two dozen…more piled in from the doorways, firing blackmarket firearms or charging with a variety of melee weapons.
"Get over here!" Dinah called to Octavia and Cornelia. "Form a firing line, quick!" As her Celestians lined up, readying their bolt pistols, the two Acolytes rushed over to join. Dinah spun around and grabbed Flavia, who was still beating the Daemonette's corpse in monomaniac fury. Lifting her by the shoulder pauldrons, Dinah shoved her onto the line. Standing next to the blood and ichors-soaked girl, the veteran leveled her plasma pistol at the oncoming horde of cultists.
"For the Glory of the God-Emperor! Fire!"
Sela hopped over the corner of a pool as she fired another burst from her stormbolter. The last of the cultists in the Frigidarum was blasted to pieces by the explosive rounds. The young sisters followed her around the pool toward the large passageway that led to the Tepidarium. However, enraged cultists came rushing in, howling for the sisters' blood. Already too close for bolters, Sela let hers fall and drew the short falchion at her hip, "Sisters! Blades!"
Chapter 13: Death Among the Decadent
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