In the secret maintenance room beneath the Governor's Mansion, the air circulation system had clearly been broken for a long time.
The smell of machine oil could not mask the pervasive stench of corpses.
"Sss~~ Fuu~~"
Cyril held a cheap cigarette between two fingers, its red ember flickering in and out in the gloom.
He did not lift a hand, just leaned against a dusty metal cabinet, watching coldly as Antioch's new Acting Governor busied himself like a common laborer.
Valen was trying to stuff the black-robed corpse into a preservation bag. This young noble, who usually had servants arrange his cutlery, was now pulling the shroud tight with all his might. Sweat had soaked his expensive silk shirt transparent, plastering it to his rolls of fat.
"S-Sir, it's wrapped." Valen straightened up, his knees wobbling so badly he did not dare look at the face he had just bundled. Moments ago, he had seen the deceased's grayish-white eyeballs still fixed on the ceiling, as if trying to accuse someone.
"This is your first official duty since taking office, Valen." Cyril flicked his cigarette ash. The grayish-white powder landed on Valen's polished leather boots. "It's also the most important pledge of allegiance."
"Understood! I understand! This is for... for the Emperor's secret mission." Valen's teeth chattered as he desperately brainwashed himself.
"Carry him onto that waste transport truck. Do not let the guards see, not even your own personal retinue."
Cyril stamped out the cigarette butt and was the first to push open the heavy airtight door.
Leaving the corpse in the Upper Nest was a ticking time bomb.
If those keen-nosed hounds from the Adeptus Arbites, or those tin-skulled Adeptus Mechanicus fools who stuck tubes into corpses at random, found this body, Cyril's identity as an Inquisitor would become extremely precarious.
Only by disposing of the body quickly could he live in peace.
Only the Lower Hive, that chaotic cesspit even the God-Emperor's gaze could scarcely reach, was a good place to hide filth.
That was where his old haunt was, the Black Hand Gang's morgue.
...
Late at night,
The heavy truck transporting biohazardous waste stopped before the elevator connecting the Upper Nest to the Middle Hive.
The deafening sound of massive gears meshing filled the air, and white steam venting from pressure valves obscured the view. A captain in blast armor approached with two squad members leveling their lasguns, muzzles swinging casually.
"Delivering this late? This shift is fucking cursed. What's that weird smell? Pull over for inspection!" The lead captain rapped on the driver's side window, his brutish face looking especially vicious under the searchlight.
"If you dare smuggle contraband, I'll throw you into the reclamation furnace to be made into corpse starch!"
The passenger-side window rolled down.
The person in the seat did not speak, just sat there quietly, even as the captain was about to shove his gun muzzle into his face.
Valen, from the passenger seat, leaned down and spoke to the captain in a low voice:
"Captain Habu, do you really want to inspect Old Moss's goods?"
"M-Moss, the Steward! No need to inspect, no need! You lot, what are you standing around for? Let them pass! Let them pass now!"
Captain Habu did not even dare lean close to the passenger window for a look. He scrambled to kick aside the barricade and let them through.
"Valen, not bad. You still have some value to the Inquisition." Cyril, driving the truck, finally let his heart settle. Having Valen fend off these annoying trivialities saved him a considerable amount of deception value.
The heavy truck roared over a speed bump and plunged into the thick darkness and neon lights of the Lower Hive.
...
Black Hand Gang, Underground Level Three, Morgue.
This had been Cyril's hell, and now it was his safe house.
A rusted ventilation fan wheezed like a dying man. The walls were covered in mold and dried bloodstains. Several filthy metal autopsy tables lay scattered about, still bearing the minced flesh of some unfortunate soul.
Valen had just finished unloading the body before rushing to a corner, hugging a trash can as he vomited violently.
Cyril deftly took a pair of rubber gloves from a tool rack. They snapped sharply as he pulled them on. He walked over to the Inquisitor's corpse and yanked off the shroud.
It was still that unsettling dead face.
"Stop vomiting. Come here and hold the light." Cyril picked up a sharp scalpel, treating Valen like an apprentice.
Valen wiped the sour bile from his mouth and shakily raised the flickering lumen lamp.
The blade tip parted the black robe, revealing the fatal wound.
Cyril's pupils constricted.
It had been too chaotic at the banquet, and the lighting was dim. He had not seen clearly then. Now, under the strong light, the wound in the center of the chest looked bizarre. There was no gory mess, no charring.
The skin and muscle around the wound had taken on a semi-transparent, vitrified, crystalline state.
It was as if a red-hot branding iron had pierced through butter and then been flash-frozen.
"What is this..." Valen took one squinting glance and felt his scalp crawl.
"Shut up."
Cyril tapped the crystalline patch with forceps, producing a crisp ting.
Physical attacks could not achieve this. Las weapons only caused ablation.
This method of instantly transforming organic matter into inorganic crystals could only be accomplished by a very high-level psyker.
Alpha-level? Or higher?
A chill ran down Cyril's spine. This dead Inquisitor had not provoked some common heretic, but a true monster.
He forced himself to continue the examination.
His gaze moved downward. The deceased's right hand was twisted into a claw-like shape, several fingers crushed, with black fibers embedded under the fingernails. He had fought desperately, or tried to grab onto something.
Next, the head.
There was an extremely fine red dot on the left temple, invisible without a magnifying glass.
Cyril leaned closer, his nose almost touching the corpse's forehead.
It was a needle puncture.
In this brutal universe filled with bolters and chainswords, killing with a needle?
"A professional," Cyril muttered to himself.
First, paralyze the target with a needle laced with some neurotoxin or psychic inhibitor to the temple, then finish them with that terrifying high-temperature psychic strike.
This was a meticulously planned murder, even a covert execution.
Judging by the lividity and time of death, postmortem relocation could not be ruled out. The primary crime scene might not have been Paradise Garden.
Finally, Cyril's gaze fell on the corpse's wide-open, unseeing eyes.
In this mad universe, some powerful psykers could imprint their final obsession onto their retinas before death.
"Valen, turn the light to maximum brightness. Aim it at his pupils."
"Huh?"
"Do it!"
Intense light shone directly into the death-gray pupils.
Cyril took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the fear within, and focused his mind on staring into the cloudy crystalline lenses.
[System Warning: Detected residual high-level Warp psychic contamination.]
[Consume 10 points of deception value for visual effect extraction?]
Current deception value: 35 points. After extraction, only 25 would remain, barely enough for one more use of an ability.
"Yes." Cyril silently affirmed in his mind.
Boom.
An impact echoed in his head, as if he had been punched hard.
The scene before him distorted and reassembled.
Through the dead man's eyes, he saw.... No fierce struggle.
The deceased had been turning around, his face showing surprise, even... trust.
Then a slender hand rested on his shoulder. That hand was very pale, extremely well maintained, with purple nail polish.
Immediately after, a purple light consumed everything.
That light was filled with cloying sweetness, twisted pleasure, and the ultimate betrayal.
The vision cut off.
Startled by the vividness, Cyril stumbled back a step, crashing into an iron shelf behind him. With a clatter, the surgical instruments on a tray scattered across the floor.
Two streams of nosebleed flowed over his upper lip and into his mouth, metallic and pungent.
"Sir?!" Valen was so startled he almost dropped the lamp.
Cyril gasped for breath, glaring fixedly at the corpse.
That purple psychic aura... it was the mark of Slaanesh.
The one who killed this genuine Inquisitor was not some outside assassin, but an acquaintance who could make him lower his guard, even walk side by side with him.
A Slaanesh cultist, lurking within the Empire's highest echelons, possibly even inside the Inquisition itself.
"Damn it..." Cyril wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes turning fiercer than a wild beast's.
This was not picking up a boarding pass. This was taking possession of a ticking nuclear bomb.
"Burn it." Cyril's voice was terrifyingly hoarse. "Use the industrial incinerator here. Burn it to ash. Leave not a single speck."
"Y-yes! Sir! What about the ashes..."
"Dump them into the Lower Hive's recycled water system." Cyril lit his second cigarette. The flame illuminated his shifting, grim expression. "Let the whole Hive City drink it down."
Only then would it be true destruction of evidence.
A dead man's mouth is the most tightly sealed, but a living man's eyes must be kept wide open.