Your fingers wrapped around the handle of a weapon, and instantly you felt an unnatural sense of calm wash over you, like you'd dipped your hand in warm water. The slinger pistol was a smooth, fluted object, bone-white, with a flat cylindrical disc in its centre and a flat slit for a muzzle. It was a comforting void of memories, retaining only the warmth of its caring creator and the protectiveness which its giving had expressed. It did not remember blood.
You ran your thumb gently against the small pink gem near the handle, and it whistled like a wet finger rang along the edge of a glass.
The gravcar dove through alleys, skirting the edge of rooftops and ducking under balconies as Cass opened the engine,
"Not the street, they'll take it out first," you warned. "There, the roof, there's an alcove, we'll take the stairs down."
"I don't like it," Cass said. "Stay low, just in case."
You sank under the edge of the door as the car descended, cradling the pistol to keep hold of its calm. The buildings grew around you until they were giants, and then there was a grinding sound as the legs touched down. Cass stood up in her seat, scanning with her hand on her holster, then she indicated for you to move and reached back over the seat into the back, pulling out a great travelling case and slinging it over her shoulder.
The two of you proceeded down the stairs, Cass close to your side and steadying you with a hand on your elbow, filling your head with lines of sight and sniper positions and ricochet risk. You tucked your pistol away in your handbag as you came around the corner and ducked into the alcove of the café, claiming a small table in the corner, recessed in the shadows, with view of the square beyond.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck…" Cass muttered to herself, pushing you into the corner and sitting so her body covered as much of you as possible from the square. You pushed back against that, as firmly as you could.
"You're not my bodyguard," you corrected, and she chuckled grimly.
"Better me take the bullet for you than the other way around, Dahl," she said firmly. "Wouldn't even slow down, hitting you. You good?"
"Yeah," you said, keeping a hand inside your handbag under the table, fingers on the handle of the pistol. A bright young woman in a modest, shapeless blue dress came up to take your orders, and Cass sent her off for a pot of recaff, doing a very bad job not looking nervous.
"How long until the others get here?" she asked.
"Thirty minutes," you said. "I don't know if they'll be here first. She knows about the car, they'll be coming. We just had to get out of the air."
"Fuck!" Cass repeated, partially unzipping the lid of the luggage. "How did she find us?"
"I don't know," you confessed. "The tarot, maybe, she has seers."
Cass forced a smile back on her face to take the pot of recaff, for the sake of the girl, and tipped her a whole golden throne with instructions to take the rest of her shift off, now. She scampered out of the way just in time for a black half-track car to roll up to the edge of the square and a familiar man to get out. Somebody on the street pointed him toward the cafe.
"Gerhart," you muttered. Cass laughed nervously. "Of course."
The man was tall, dressed in a long black coat, his arms wrapped in long, flowing strips of wax-sealed parchment. Chains ran from his pockets and off his coat, rattling with every step, and the protruding handles of a pair of long-barreled pistols jutted forward from his shoulder holstered. He was smoking, stringy black hair wreathed with smoke, and behind him fell in a quartet of men in black robes, their faces hidden with bright red masks.
"Come out, Witch!" he cried. "I just want to talk!"
Cass reached into the luggage, steadying herself. You put a steadying hand on her shoulder and saw the men as a squad, leader, enforcer, burner, and flanker, saw her choose to sweep left-to-right, saw all the targets behind she'd be hitting. People were already scattering, but not everyone understood what was happening yet.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she was muttering, screaming silently that you were alone, vulnerable, the absence of her old squad felt so keenly it rasped against her heart. But it was giving way to a chant inside, one that smoothed everything out, as the hellgun warmed in the bag below the table. Not today, not today, not today, not today-
"What does he want, he's not just here to kill us, he'd have burnt us out already…" Cass said, her breathing steadying. Through her eyes, you saw the layers between you and your opponents; the dark recess of the café interior, the niche corner your table was backed against preventing a shot from the street, the three support pillars at the open facade which could provide cover, the two low planters outside that the enemy could dash behind. The door to the kitchen was about three metres away, but you'd need to dash into the open. There were maybe a half-a-dozen people still inside, too terrified or confused to run.
"He wants me alive, I think. Weapons?"
"Autoguns, hand flamer on the little guy to the right, mauls I think," Cass rattled off. "Why does he want you?"
"Judgement's coming, witch! Fifteen seconds!"
"He wants to know where the Inquisitor is," you summarised. "Things have escalated." You swallowed, trying to cast your mind along the strings of the future, but it was still too muddled, like always, to know what would happen. "Cass, if I don't make it, the Inquisitor needs to know that-" You paused, considering euphemistic language before settling on something more direct. "-That the Primarch Guilliman has returned."
"What?" she responded.
"Time's running out, little witch! Ten, nine-"
---
He is here to capture you, though you do not think he will much mind failing to take you alive. He will kill Cass. The past ten years are catching up, little witch, no time to reflect on the mistakes that lead you here.
[ ] Write In: His Mistress has her reasons, but why does he hate you, personally?
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