The heavy airtight door slammed shut behind him, cutting off the frenetic electronic music outside while sealing in a room of deathly silence.
There was no scent of cheap perfume here, only the overpowering, throat-constricting smell of rust. The smell of blood, old black blood layered over fresh red, was painted across the metal floor.
In the center of the room, a thick industrial hook hung from the ceiling, suspending a body long since unrecognizable as human. It was a naked man hung upside down, his skin hanging in strips like tattered cloth, the exposed muscle tissue rigid and deathly gray.
Blood dripped from his bald head, drip, drip, pooling into the dark crimson puddle below, half dried and half fresh.
That was the fate of a traitor.
Directly facing this corpse was a throne crudely welded together from scrapped armor components.
Morozha sat sprawled upon it, his entire form swallowed by shadows. His left arm was a crude mechanical prosthetic, its hydraulic rods emitting faint hisses with each movement.
The massive metal hand idly held a chainsword dagger that was still spinning at low speed, casually picking at a shred of meat caught in the fingernails of his right hand.
The double-headed eagle emblem of the Astra Militarum on his chest had been ground down by a sander, leaving only a blurry outline like a poorly healed scar.
"Boss... Boss!"
Scarface threw himself to the ground, his knees sliding two meters through the blood until they slammed against the steps of the throne. He began his report, embellishing with gusto.
"You're saying," Morozha's voice grated with mechanical friction, "that this pretty boy, who used to only put powder on corpses, just conjured lightning in the alley with his bare hands?"
"Yes! It's true!" Scarface kowtowed so hard his forehead thumped audibly, a bruise already forming. "With one wave of his hand, blue light exploded everywhere! Those Iron Crow bastards were scared shitless! Jack even dropped his gun!"
Morozha finally stopped what he was doing.
He slowly raised his head. The red optical sensor of his cybernetic right eye was exposed, now focusing on the point of contention.
"Cyril."
Morozha uttered the name. The incomplete cogwheel tattoo of the Adeptus Mechanicus on his neck rippled as his Adam's apple bobbed.
"Three months ago, your corpse was stuffed into a preservation cabinet. You crawled out, claiming the Emperor had returned your soul and that you had unfinished business. Now, you've returned from that opulent Paradise Garden in the Upper Nest."
Vrrrrrrrrrm!
The chainsword dagger suddenly roared to full speed, its teeth spinning wildly and flinging off a spray of fine oil droplets.
Morozha stood up in a flash. The chainsword dagger in his hand now pointed directly at Cyril's nose, the gale-force wind from its teeth stinging Cyril's cheeks.
"Are you a Psyker? Or some filthy thing that crawled back out of the Warp wearing human skin?"
Clack-clack-clack.
From the surrounding shadows, the sounds of over a dozen modified lasrifles and shotguns being readied echoed, their black muzzles locking onto every vital point on Cyril's body.
If Morozha's finger twitched, Cyril would become the second piece of rotten meat on that hook.
Cyril moved.
His gloved right hand slowly rose, reaching into his coat pocket.
"Don't move! You wanna die?!"
The cacophony of safeties clicking off and charging capacitors filled the air.
Ignoring the warnings, Cyril leisurely pulled out the pack of Amasec cigarettes he had pocketed earlier, took one out, and placed it between his lips.
"Got a light?"
He leaned forward slightly, bringing the cigarette toward the chainsword dagger, now only two centimeters from his nose.
Morozha's cyber-eye flared crimson. His remaining organic left eye flickered with a trace of stunned disbelief before being replaced by cruel, intrigued amusement.
The high-speed chainsword ignited the cigarette.
Cyril took a deep drag, letting the smoke swirl in his lungs before exhaling it slowly into Morozha's menacing face.
Through the haze, Cyril's pupils did contract, but it was perfectly concealed by the gray-white veil.
He was gambling, betting that this veteran who had crawled out of piles of corpses would respect this kind of reckless, death-defying madness more than raw power.
"Interesting. Looks like those Iron Crow trash really kicked a steel plate. Lower your weapons."
Morozha powered down the chainsword dagger and tossed it aside casually.
The surrounding muzzles silently withdrew back into the shadows.
That massive metallic body crashed back onto the throne, shaking loose a layer of dust from above.
He waved his left mechanical arm.
A Servitor, its body riddled with tubes, shambled forward trembling, carrying a tray.
On the tray sat a glass half-filled with a purple liquid.
The liquid was thick as phlegm, and crystalline particles were precipitating along the glass walls.
A specialty of the Lower Nest's Black Hand Gang, "Morozha."
A hallucinogen mixed with Truth Serum. An ordinary person would have their brains scrambled with one sip, spilling not only secrets but even the most embarrassing childhood memories.
"Since you're back, come on, I'll toast you with this drink. Come, down this cup of 'Morozha'." Morozha leaned back in his chair, picked up a skull-shaped vessel from the table, drained it in one gulp, and then fixed his cyber-eye unwaveringly on the glass in front of Cyril.
Scarface lay prostrate on the ground, not daring to lift his head, trembling like a sieve.
Cyril reached out and picked up the glass of "Morozha."
The glass was cold. That disgusting sweetness assaulted his senses.
He was a Magician, not an Apothecary, and certainly not an Astartes, those poison-immune superhumans. If he drank this, his whole performance would be ruined.
He raised the glass but did not bring it to his lips. Instead, he gently swirled it. The crystals inside clinked against the walls, producing a crisp, tinkling sound.
"Morozha."
Through the purple vortex in the glass of "Morozha," Cyril stared into Morozha's pupils and shook his head.
"That cyber-eye of yours is second-hand, isn't it? The resolution is too low to see the real situation."
Morozha's mechanical hand clamped onto the armrest like an eagle's talon, the sound of straining steel grating on the ears.
"What you really want to ask isn't who I am."
Cyril suddenly raised his hand and casually splashed the valuable "Morozha" onto the floor.
Sizzle!
"You want to ask what I can bring you."
Cyril pulled out a shattered-edged data slate from his coat, something he'd pocketed from a dead administrator during the Paradise Garden chaos.
Thud.
The data slate was thrown onto the blood-stained table, sliding to a stop in front of Morozha.
"A dead man returning to life could be a miracle, or it could be a curse. But either way, it's more valuable than the trouble you're facing right now."
Morozha glanced at the data slate, and his previously casual expression began to harden.
It was a fragmented, yet still shocking, communication log.
Only a few keywords were clearly visible: [Antioch Hive City Overpopulation], [Lower Nest Cleansing Protocol Initiated], [Black Judgement Seat Itinerary].
"Where did you get this?" Morozha's voice dropped to a low, metallic tremor.
As a former Astra Militarum soldier, he understood all too well what "cleansing" meant. It was indiscriminate slaughter, the prelude to turning the entire Lower Nest into a crematorium.
"From above." Cyril pointed upward. "Those noble lords think there are too many 'Meat Pigs' in the Lower Nest, consuming too much and producing too little value. They plan to give this Hive City a thorough cleaning by the end of the month."
Morozha's mechanical arm emitted a harsh servo motor overload screech.
The Inquisition's Black Ships.
That was no mere legend. It was the sword of Damocles hanging over every piece of scum in the Lower Nest. Once they descended, whether you were a gang boss or a sewer rat, the outcome was the same: turned into corpse starch, or worse, a Servitor.
"Why should I believe this is real?" Morozha snapped his head up, his red cyber-eye almost touching Cyril's face. "Maybe you forged it to scare me."
"Do you smell it?"
Instead of answering, Cyril took a step closer, his nostrils flaring slightly.
"Sulfur, ozone, and that burnt psychic stench."
He lowered his voice to a whisper only the two of them could hear:
"The Inquisition's advance team has already arrived. Tonight, in the Upper Nest. A Slaanesh Daemonette tried to manifest but was consigned to oblivion on the spot by a Daemon Hunter."
Morozha's pupils shrank violently.
Daemon Hunter? If even they were mobilized, this was no simple cleansing. This was the prelude to an Exterminatus.
"How do you know all this?"
"Thanks to you, I was there."
Cyril reached out and lightly tapped the data slate, producing a firm, rhythmic sound.
"I knew I'd be safe, so I watched the daemon be banished, watched those nobles piss themselves in fear. And you, Morozha, your Rusty Throne right now is worth less than scrap metal in their eyes."
Morozha fell silent.
The information did indeed match up. There had been a Chaos incursion event in the Upper Nest today, but the details were tightly sealed.
For a full thirty seconds, the only sound in the room was the occasional drip of blood from the hanging man.
He was judging. He was weighing.
He was ...afraid.
"What do you want?" Morozha finally spoke, his voice raspy as if swallowing gravel.
[System Alert: Lower Nest Black Hand Gang BOSS unit "Morozha" has generated moderate-level emotional fluctuations of the wavering type.]
[Deception value +5]
[Balance: 35 points]
The fish had taken the bait.
Cyril flicked the ash from his cigarette. The gray-white powder fell onto Morozha's expensive mechanical arm.
"I can see the future. Or rather, I have the ability to prophesy."
Cyril began weaving his vast web of lies, each thread baited with alluring poison.
"I know the Inquisition's cleansing routes. I know what leads to survival and what leads to death. I can even help you find a few truly deserving heretics, let you chop them up and send them up there as a token of submission to buy survival."
Morozha's breathing grew heavy. Survival was the only law in the Lower Nest.
"The price?"
In the Lower Hive, not even a breath of air is free, and certainly no prophecy comes without a price.
"I want your eyes and ears."
Cyril placed both hands on the table, leaning down to stare imperiously at this gangland emperor.
"I want all of Black Hand's intelligence networks, all resource channels. And..."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the shadows behind Morozha, where an inconspicuous small door stood.
"I want access to that underground facility. Don't tell me there isn't one. I know what you're hiding down there."