Curze crept silently up to the sentry. He clamped a hand over the guard's mouth and drew a shard across his throat; no sound escaped.
Caelan followed right behind him. Curze knew Caelan wouldn't act unless danger struck, but just having Caelan at his side gave him a sense of security.
Leon had said the Hadrid Gang was stronger than the Bloodclaws. To Curze, there was no difference.
Their bodies were all equally fragile.
Self-taught, he knew every way there was to kill. He knew how to torture a man, and he knew how to kill swiftly.
He chose the latter, even if the former could inspire greater terror.
"Too much is as bad as too little," he thought.
He had seen futures where rulers used fear to impose absolute order, crime all but erased, every offense wiped clean from the planet.
But he never saw what lay further ahead. A society with no crime satisfied him, but he knew it was flawed.
So long as he remained, people would live in fear.
But once he was gone? Without his hand pressing down, the world would snap back to its old ways, crime running rampant once more.
He had also glimpsed a brighter future. He saw underhive killers lay down their blades under his example. He saw people turning toward the light.
He liked that vision, but it was too good to be real.
Caelan had told him the world was a delicate shade of gray, had told him that class and privilege would never vanish. Could a society of class and privilege ever truly be good?
No, it would only look polished on the surface.
Both futures were flawed. So Curze chose the middle path.
Society needed order. Laws had to be upheld. And fear would guarantee they were enforced.
Curze slit the throat of another ganger. Then, to the child who had been brought along, he said, "Your father has sinned. But I won't kill you. Go home. Hide. This will all be over soon."
He dropped the corpse by the roadside and stepped past the child.
The boy's eyes brimmed with terror. But hatred still drove him to snatch up the fallen gun and aim it at Curze's back.
Just as he squeezed the trigger, Curze vanished into the darkness like a wraith.
"What a pity." Curze's cold hands closed around the boy's throat and lifted him up. "I gave you a chance. You could have been redeemed."
He snapped the child's neck and laid him beside his father.
Behind him, Caelan used psychic force to crush their bodies into pulp, ensuring Curze could continue his infiltration without worry.
Curze slipped easily into the Hadrid leader's chambers.
All gangs were the same; the leader always lived at the heart of the camp, beside the lift, the symbol of their power.
He pushed open the thin iron door. The hinges groaned.
But his movements were light; the faint sound should have been drowned in the camp's murmurs.
This time was different. Inside, silence.
Curze felt danger. His body and mind screamed warning. He instantly abandoned the door and slipped behind the wall.
Bang! Bang!
Dozens of scrap-guns and lasguns unleashed a storm at the entrance. Bullets and red beams chewed the door into a honeycomb of molten holes.
Curze saw every shot, every beam; time slowed in his vision. He slipped through the barrage and into the room, a phantom weaving death. His shard carved a man's throat, and an instant later, the rain of fire shredded him into bloody pulp.
Even with his speed, Curze couldn't avoid every shot.
His shoulder burned, a scar etched into it by a lasbeam.
That was deliberate. He didn't want a scrap round embedded in him; he didn't want Caelan to see him digging out bullets. That would make him worry.
A burn wound from a las? That would heal quickly. Caelan would never know.
Curze killed with terrifying efficiency. Their magazines ran dry; fear rooted them in place. They couldn't keep up with him. One by one, they fell, clutching their necks, gurgling in pools of blood. Their cries only deepened the terror of those still alive.
"Out of my way!"
A towering brute stepped from the inner chamber, his roar like thunder.
He hefted a heavy lumber-cutter gun, guessed Curze's next target from his men's corpses, and fired in advance.
Brrrt-brrrt-brrrt!
In seconds, the weapon spewed a hundred rounds, shredding his own men into ribbons of flesh. But the thud of a body came from the opposite side.
Curze had seen him long before.
He had never laid eyes on such a weapon, yet somehow he knew it, knew its power.
His gut told him he could survive even if the entire barrage hit him. But why take bullets when he didn't need to?
The "sequence" of his kills was only a trick to fool them. In the dark, he was in his element. He killed whoever he wished, whenever he wished.
"Game over."
The cold words whispered in the brute's ear.
Sweat poured down the man's face. He dropped the gun, reached for his knife, but blood welled from his throat. He clutched it in vain.
He fell. One after another, his men fell. None could stop Curze.
But a single thought haunted the brute as he died:
'Where's the sorcerer?'
He had fed the sorcerer for years, sacrificed even his beloved wife and daughter to him. Why wouldn't the sorcerer fight for him now?
His vision dimmed. In his final moments, he saw the sorcerer, huddled at the doorway like a helpless child. A man stood beside him.
And he understood. 'Ah… so I'm about to die too.'
When Curze finally stopped, the room held no survivors.
They had begged for mercy. He gave them none. 'Beg the dead,' he thought.
He turned back. Caelan was waiting at the door. At his feet, the psyker knelt, eyes glowing blue, wailing in pain.
Curze did not kill him. Instead, he said to Caelan, "Help me kill him."
Caelan replied, "Every life and death must be chosen by you."
"I choose death," Curze said. "But I want you to carry it out. Will you?"
Caelan saw the look in his eyes, the hope. He nodded.
He thought to kill the psyker with his mind, but Curze pressed a shard into his hand.
Caelan hesitated, then decided it made no difference. He crouched, found the psyker's neck, and slashed.
A red line appeared, but no blood gushed out.
"Not enough force. And the angle's wrong," Curze said, demonstrating. "Cut from here, across to here."
Caelan followed his guidance. This time, blood spurted in a hot arc.
On Curze's pale face, a smile spread. Because Caelan had done it, because he had obeyed his request.