As an aside, you can read the previous 3 Finch tales following the links in the handy Librarium, should you be intrigued as to how she got here. Link Here
Enjoy. I am hoping to write the fifth story this winter. Should be fun.
I felt like I’d been there before.
It was cold; my breath clouded the air. I looked up towards the curved ceiling of the chapel, down at the stone floor and gazed unseeing at delicate tapestries; anywhere but at her. Single strands of winter sunlight cut through the stained glass windows and cast green and red images on the opposite wall.
Evgene Worhle shifted behind me and his boots squeaked against the polished floor tiles. I cleared my throat and cast around for the right words to say. I coughed and adjusted my gaze by fractional increments until finally I was looking at her.
They had cleaned her up, hidden her wounds and now she lay in peace, her hands clasped on her breast and cradling her rosette. Her white skin glowed, ethereal in the pale light and her lips were a bruised purple. Her black hair was arranged carefully across the white velvet pillow and the delicate lace of her black bodice was trimmed with glittering gold thread. Even in death, she was magnificent. I cleared my throat.
‘I hate you,’ I said. ‘You cost me everything, became everything I had and now you’ve ducked out of even that responsibility.’ A grim smile parted my lips. I reached out, placed the gloved knuckles of my left hand gently against her cheek. ‘But it was a good death.’
I turned around and caught Worhle’s eye.
‘I don’t do dead people,’ I said and stalked past him, out through the archway and into the snow. I had to get away from that place, wreathed as it now was in agonising memories.
Outside the chapel the wind had got up. Thick black clouds scudded across the sky, wearing at the fading sunlight. Fresh snowfall beckoned. I fumbled in a pocket of my black, waxed parka, fingers shaking as I struggled to slide a lho stick from the case. I sheltered it from the wind with my hands and lit it with my battered, promethium-fuelled lighter.
‘What will you do now, Finch?’ Worhle asked. He had followed me outside and was wrinkling his nose at the acrid smoke wafting from the ‘stick. I glanced at him and fought to control my irritation. He was a tall, arrogant man, sporting a thin, dark moustache and slick black hair. I didn’t like him, but at Zalkamar’s bequest I’d tolerated him and now we were united in our grief.
‘Find out who killed her,’ I replied. ‘And seek vengeance.’
‘But you weren’t responsible,’ he said. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and hunched his shoulders against the cold.
I drew on the lho stick until it was a glowing ember between my fingertips and cast it away into the snow. Fresh flakes were beginning to fall now, glistening on Worhle’s hair and coat.
‘Am I not?’ I replied, sudden anger cracking my voice. I started walking towards the waiting Rhino, craving its warmth, needing to be away from this place. ‘If we aren’t responsible for our failings then who is?’
‘Inquisitor Zalkamar died bravely,’ he replied. ‘We were ambushed. We all took wounds. We could have done no more.’
‘Bravely?’ I was incredulous, shouting now. ‘Zalkamar is dead. We were ambushed, Worhle, ambushed. We thucked up. We are all responsible and I am going to make up for my failure.’
We reached the rhino. I banged hard on the rear ramp. After a couple of seconds, it lowered with the groan of near-frozen hydraulics. Saris ducked out of the compartment, her face wrapped in a scarf and her eyes covered by goggles. She was wearing full carapace armour and a Cadian-pattern helmet, both in a nifty winter urban camouflage pattern of pink and grey smears. She was holding my much modified autogun. I reached out for it, casually checked the chamber and racked the slide. Worhle didn’t react but then it wasn’t unusual behaviour; outside of its bulbous hive cities, Limbyr was untamed and these snowy wastes were home to vicious, often starving predators.
Worhle was still standing near the bottom of the ramp. He wasn’t coming with us. He had chosen to spend the night here, holding a candlelit vigil and praying for Zalkamar’s soul. I admired his devotion, but I knew her soul was safe. No daemon from the warp could get between Lady Eliza Zalkamar and her rightful place with the Emperor. A lifetime of personal sacrifice and ruthless servitude to the highest cause had seen to that.
‘So what will you do?’ He asked again.
‘Vengeance is not in my nature, but now it’s all I’ve got.’ I levelled the autogun, stared not unkindly, into Worhle’s widening eyes and shot him.
Twice. To make sure.
He stumbled backwards, grasping at the holes punched through his coat. The snow behind him was splattered with his blood. He dropped to one knee, breath squeaking in his throat as his respiration system failed.
I shot him again. He collapsed onto his back. I followed Saris into the welcoming warmth of the rhino. The ramp groaned shut behind me. I left Worhle’s body out in the thickening blizzard.
I sat down on the hard metal bench, carefully set the autogun in the rack above my head and let out a breath.
‘She would have approved, Finch.’ Saris said, her blue eyes and squat features now revealed from behind scarf and goggles.
‘Vengeance? She would have classed it as atonement. It may take the rest of my life,’ I said, ‘but I will do it.’ I ran one hand through the metal tresses of my coppery bionic hair, and the strands curled and crackled with static.
‘Worhle was their insider?’ she asked.
‘Worhle was their pawn. Worhle was a moron. Now he’s dead, we’ll have a real fight on our hands.’
‘Good,’ Saris said, ‘because that last fight, when Zalkamar was killed and we all nearly died; that wasn’t a real fight.’
I looked at her, but her lips were split in a wry smile. I reached into my inside pocket, withdrew a flask of cheap amasec and raised it.
‘To Eliza Zalkamar,’ I said, ‘the damndest bitch I ever knew.’