Angar trailed the scrawny urchin through Fort Acre's mess, the child's frantic dash carving a path over crumpled streamers sodden with cheap drink and vomit.
His digitigrade legs devoured the distance in effortless bounds, his normal gait more than a match for the boy's frantic sprint.
He knew their heading well enough, the festering fringe of the south sector, where the Lay crews of laborers and cleansers clustered like maggots in a wound.
Ten credits was ten credits, and the boy wore his wariness like a second skin, eyes flicking back every third step as if Angar might dissolve into the crowd and leave the debt unpaid.
His brother had been the spotter, locating Simo hours ago now. But the kid wouldn't budge from his vigil, rooted stubborn until his brother was hauled over and sent running to fetch Angar.
Sal had not taken kindly to being kept in the dark, of course. The Seraph's visored glare had bored into him like a laser, demanding the full account.
But with Simo found and no issue grave enough to yank him from the ball's grudging yoke as host, he'd dismissed Angar with the promise of later reckoning.
Minutes bled in the trek south, the sour reek of unwashed bodies and cheap booze becoming more prominent.
They broke into the southernmost sector's ragged spread, into a slurry of bachelor barracks crammed together beneath the crimson-streaked sky.
And there, squatting among the squalor, stood the den of iniquity. ‘Divine Favor,’ the sign proclaimed in flickering neon script, its letters bleeding pink into the perpetual twilight.
Angar had seen it once before, the bloated administration prefab repurposed for vice. Since then, two modular pods had been grafted to it like cancerous growths, their vents belching smoke and despair.
Gambling wasn’t Heretical in and of itself, though always sinful.
Why the Ordines Sanctus Puritas turned a blind eye to this house, he couldn’t fathom.
The urchin skidded to a halt across the street, where his elder brother lurked near some empty munitions crates, his wary eyes locked on the gambling den.
The older boy straightened at Angar's approach, his gaze flicking to the hammer locked on his back.
"Your man’s in there, Sir," he said, jerking a chin toward the entrance, where muffled cheers erupted like distant sounds of battle. "They booted me out, but I seen him go in a room with Nancy Whiskey about half an hour ago. First side room past the kitchen, far side of the bar.”
“Nancy Whiskey?" Angar mumbled through the wired jaw.
The boy shrugged. "One of the whores, Sir. A popular one, even though she’s old. They say there’s no substitute for experience, Sir. On paydays, she’s got queues like ration lines."
Rage bloomed in Angar's chest, like a black rose unfurling with venomous thorns.
Simo was as faithful as they came. Infidelity? Never. The veteran would sooner die than betray Veerta. Angar knew that truth down to his bone.
And the Ordines Sanctus Puritas allowed unsanctioned prostitution to fester too? Layfolk could marry, and for the other estates, there was already a sanctioned Voluvicas House, almost in the Beachhead's shadow.
What in the Three’s name was going on?
He fumbled at his belt-pouch, his armored fingers clumsily rushing, drawing forth all his loose credits.
He only had six and a half total of lesser denominations, the next smallest a twenty. He owed ten. There was no chance these kids had change.
He pressed the twenty into the boy's grimy hand. The eyes widened into twin moons in the neon's glow. “Thank you much, Sir!”
Angar grunted. “Plant yourselves here in case I need another errand,” he ordered, muffled through the bandages.
He turned toward the den across the street, drawing the hammer from his back, the haft settling into his palm like an old friend.
Flanking the den's entrance stood two rock-shouldered bruisers. The left one, bull-necked and squinting against the neon's glare, straightened as Angar approached, the right man's hand twitching toward a holstered pistol that looked more rust than reliable.
"Token for entry," the squinter barked out, "or five creds cover. No exceptions for your lot. Put up that hammer and mind the house rule on iron staying sheathed or locked. No exceptions there neither, not even for your lot."
Angar’s free gauntlet lashed out as he strode past, his fingers clamping the man's face, then shoving.
The bouncer reeled backward, his bootheels stumbling on the blighted soil before his shoulders met the prefab wall with a bang.
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The other bouncer, either wiser or wearier, edged aside with a bob of his head.
Shouldering past, Angar entering the den. Its stink hit his filters like gospel hit a Heretic’s ears.
Heads turned as he entered, a wake of wary glances rippling outward.
The main chamber sprawled in a cloud of jovial desperation, a roiling crush of bodies bent over battered tables where dice clattered and cards slapped down with the finality of a judge's gavel.
A pianist hammered out jaunty tunes on a battered upright, his back to the crush, oblivious to all but the keys.
Men crammed shoulder-to-shoulder, hoisting tankards that sloshed foam the color of curdled milk, mostly Laymen though some Ecclesiastics were intermixed.
Prostitutes peppered the crowd like a spice, scantily clad and painted in garish hues. A few perched on laps, their fingers tracing the line of their mark’s jaws, while others prowled for one flush enough to afford them, pausing to whisper into ears.
Men were to remain armed and armored at all hours, save the bunk's rest or the grave's hollow, ready to defend the base.
Yet half here defied that regulation, and brazenly so.
About half those had an excuse, clearly too poor to own armor, though they somehow found the credits for drink and game.
Even some clergy bucked that edict too, unarmored with robes or cassocks askew, joining in the rot instead of condemning it with litanies of Holy fire.
A black tide of disgust rose in Angar’s chest. Chaos festered unchecked, the rules ignored like a beggar’s plea, the Ordines Sanctus Puritas doing nothing to stem the debauchery, or even contain it.
A glorious purge called, a cleansing rain of crimson to wash away the sin, his enhanced Lightning Strike yearning to be utilized, killing the most depraved to drag the salvageable back to righteousness and purpose.
He clenched his jaw behind the bandages.
He'd learned his lesson, having no desire to hear the false cry of murderer again.
Theosis had stopped harassing him at last, the unjust experience-penalty possibly on erasure's brink.
He exhaled a disgusted breath through wired teeth, scanning for danger and the right door.
And he felt very mild danger coming from behind.
The shoved bouncer burst into the den on Angar's heels, his sidearm ripping free of leather in a blur of brass and spite.
The barkeep's hand shot up, palm out and steady. The gunman froze, the barrel unwavering but boots rooted.
He had courage, Angar would give him that.
Too quick for the man to react, Angar snatched the sidearm away, shoving it into his belt. He could get at least ten credits for it, recouping some of the night’s losses.
"Can I help you, sugar?" the bartender yelled out from behind the oak barricade, an older woman hefting a glass filled with amber suds.
"No," Angar mumbled, his gaze raking the far wall's crooked line of doors, each scarred by boot-kicks, spotting the one he needed. “But if your people and patrons enjoy breathing, they'll stay out of my way.”
He stalked past the bar as murmurs scurried through the room, the crowd parting reluctantly, eyes like burning coals on his back as he cleared past the kitchen’s door, heading to the first past it.
His hand twisted the knob, but it was locked. With some gentle pressure, the bolt gave with a splintering crack, the panel swinging inward on indifferent hinges to spill harsh light across the threshold.
The room wasn’t much, just a sagging cot with a filthy mattress, a dresser squatting beside, the walls paneled in laminate the color of old teeth.
It held two doors, with one ajar to a bathroom smelling of mildew and rusting pipe, the other sealed tight, probably a closet.
Simo knelt on the dirty floor, unarmored in rumpled fatigues, his shoulders hitching with sobs, his arms encircling a woman.
A naked woman.
Her old skin was milk-pale under the yellow light’s glare, her hands buried in his hair, caressing.
His cheek ground against her belly, his tears carving clean tracks through the grime coating her.
Simo was lost to the world, deaf to the door's break, but the woman wasn’t.
Nancy Whiskey jerked at the intrusion, her painted lashes spreading wide as her eyes became saucers.
She shoved Simo away, dislodging him to sprawl sideways on the grating in a heap of grief, and bolted in a pale blur, fleeing to the bathroom, slamming the door closed behind her.
Angar set his hammer on the floor, head down, haft pointing upward, then stooped to the veteran reeking of liquor, bawling like a sick infant.
He hefted Simo over his left pauldron, the torso dangling against his back, and wheeled for the threshold, collecting his maul.
He pushed back through the inside and out the den one last time, the neon's light bathing him again, relieved his friend hadn't succumbed to lust’s lure, though the inebriation probably deserved credit for that mercy.
Simo’s weight dragged at him. Not the bulk, but the growing certainty this all had something to do with the undead rot and the chapter token.
This wasn’t like his steady, God-fearing friend at all. None of it was.
He angled left toward the empty crates where the brothers sat waiting.
The boys, though ragged, looked healthy, with flushed cheeks, limbs straight and strong.
Four millennia of baseline genetic refinement had made even these slum rats able to endure harsher climes.
If these were Tributean young, the thinner atmosphere would've caused perpetually wheezing, and the lighter gravity would warp their growing bones.
The parish school would help there, of course. With children spending ten hours a day beneath its dome, he doubted bones would malform, growing longer and weaker.
The two stood at his approach, the younger one craning to peer at the body draped over Angar's shoulder.
"Need us for another task, Sir?" the elder ventured. “Why’s that man crying like that? You punch him real hard or something?”
“Give me a moment to think," Angar murmured, his gaze lifting to the perpetual bruise of the sky, where ashes drifted lazily downward. It was beautiful.
They'd rented a fine prefab for the night's celebration, tucked in the merchant quarter, from the same silk-tongued vendor who'd sold the libations and rented the dancers.
But with Simo teetering on infidelity's brink, the dancers' allure was a bad idea.
He exhaled a frustrated breath into the thin air. The girls had cost a fortune that couldn’t be refunded, and the merchant claimed they were beautiful beyond imagination.
He'd been genuinely eager for the dancers' performance, to test his resolve against great temptations of the flesh once more, watching glistening curves writhe under light while he further conquered lust.
And with Simo soused already, having so much drink on hand was a risk that loomed too sharply.
He hoped the vendor might be willing to refund the liquor, at least.
The Visio Aeterna flickered alight at a thought's nudge, showing the time. He hated it showing constantly in his HUD, and like most of its elements, kept it off.
Well over an hour until the celebration’s scheduled start.
Updates needed to be sent. The first to Salvador, and another to Garioch.
He'd steer for the location soon, but if the girls awaited already, and if their beauty lived up to the vendor's claim, he might falter, failing to cancel them.
The moment stretched out before he nodded to the boy. “I do have a task. I need you to run to the merchant quarters and cancel some dancers.”
