Contents

Cover

Grim Repast – Extract

A Black Library Imprint

eBook license

CHAPTER ONE

Reconsecration of Purpose

There was darkness, and there was pain – neither of which were new sensations to Quillon Drask.

The metal of the gurney was cold against his back, as uncomfortable as any apothecarion he had previously experienced. He realised now, at last, why he had taken so long to bring himself to this moment. The fear. The fear of being seen to be weak, or vulnerable, or simply being thought of as lax in his dedication to the job.

The darkness faded as he opened his eye. He could only see out of one of them, his left, and was staring at the plain grey ceiling of Bastion-P’s medicae wing. He found himself focusing on details that shouldn’t matter, the cracks and ridges of the ceiling holding his attention as surely as any cartorum. He felt as though he could reach out and he would be able to touch it, just a little, to dig his fingers into the stuff of it. That would be the drugs, Quillon, he thought, chiding himself.

‘Is–’ he tried to say, but a firm hand pushed him down hard against the steel. He could feel the augmetic implants in the fingers digging into him in warning.

Is everything all right? he had wanted to ask, but she ignored him. The chirurgeon was masked and gloved, a plastek apron crinkling against her torso as she moved. Her focus was absolute, even as her fingers pressed into his shoulder. He watched what he could see of her features as she worked, the sharp blue of her cybernetic eye, burning in such stark contrast to her dark skin and the pale green of the mask.

Her other hand was working, slowly easing the blade of a scalpel across the back of his eyeball, testing the iris’ embedded image lattice. A network of scars and tech nestled there, like a forgotten secret. Drask tried not to wince, not to think too hard about the fact that his eyeball had been drawn out of its socket – held on only by the stretched cord of his optic nerve.

Enucleation. The word came to him with a sick, sympathetic pop. The sort of word he had only seen before in reports, bound together in his mind with acts of utterly horrific violence. His breathing hitched as he willed himself not to panic.

‘Not much longer, Quillon,’ she said, with an almost maternal indulgence. ‘You’re doing very well. Everything seems in order with the implants – update and reactivation should be a fairly simple procedure.’

Drask tried to speak, but the words died in his throat. The migraine pain behind his eyes – behind his eye – spasmed and burned, flexing its invisible tendrils as it permeated his brain. He could feel the urge to vomit, the acid sting of it rising in his throat to meet the pain in his skull. He bit it back.

The web of suspensor wires bracing the orb tightened infinitesimally at his movements, the way a serpent coils around its prey. There were flickers of light across the clouded side of his vision, not sight resolving, merely the misfiring of nerve and machine. He did not blink. He could not. Instead Drask could only watch as the light returned. Stronger. Clarity came, and with it a word in place of imagery.

INTERFACING…

Drask heard the word, echoing in his mind in the bone-dry rasp of a servitor, but there was no voice. The machine-spirit of the iris implant was re-energising, connecting with the memetic systems-whisper of the dataveil. Functions that had long since atrophied were swelling once again into vital life, and his mind bore the trauma of the inload. His skin burned, itching with contradictory feedback.

‘Not long now, Quillon,’ she said from above him. Amelya Visarth looked down at him. He could sense the indulgent smile behind her mask, the gentle patronisation in her words. Perhaps it was to calm him, a little bedside manner, or perhaps it was for her own amusement. ‘You should be seeing the direct interface now.’ She looked away from him, at some distant screen, before looking back down at his sweating, strained features. ‘Talking isn’t a good idea, so give me a nod if you can see it.’

He nodded, and she nodded back, pleased. She drew the scalpel blade away from the socket and the nerve, and he stopped feeling its gentle pressure upon the base of his eyeball. It was an almost impossible sensation to describe, made all the stranger by the slow pulse of the wire cradle. Amelya turned away, and the wires began to retract at some typed instruction. He felt the wet suction as his eye was lowered back into place.

Vision returned slowly, from out of the darkness of the optical disconnect. It was blurred, at first. His eye had been kept misted, but even so it felt dry within its socket – till the involuntary flood of tears came. He blinked them away, and the iris implant responded to his blink-clicks avidly, starved from lack of use.

‘I’ll still never understand how you went so long on terminals alone, Quillon.’ Amelya shook her head as she spoke. He smiled, wincing at the pain behind his eyes. His face, his entire musculature, felt as though it was still struggling to readjust. His skull felt somehow heavier, though he knew on some intrinsic level that it was simply his imagination.

‘You’re one of the few people who actually use my given name – did you know that?’

‘You might have mentioned it before.’ Amelya placed her implements down, brushed her hands against her apron and leant back in to examine his eye. ‘Settling nicely,’ she said, clicking her tongue. ‘I know that it hasn’t always been your way, but a return to active duty was dependent upon you actively using the tools at your disposal.’ She looked down at his bare torso, at the long ragged scar across his abdomen. It had a sheen to it. A freshness. The cause of it, the much lamented cause… Amelya shook her head. Drask knew it hurt her as much as it did him. The sense of betrayal inherent in it. They had loved Alexius, each in their own way. Drask as a father, Amelya as a respected colleague and friend.

Alexius Voight had much to answer for, and had paid the price in the end. In many ways, Drask felt he was still paying for the sins and mistakes of the past.

Drask blinked, over and over, as the writing clarified and the tracery of lines resolved themselves into the iris’ interface patterns. Nests and webs of sigils unfurled, like incantations, and he shook away the overlay. Old habits, years old, from when he had first taken the implant, re-established themselves with the ease of breathing.

‘I think it’s working now,’ he said, not entirely convincingly. Amelya looked at him, sighed and shook her head. Her augmetic fingers cracked and whirred as they realigned. She took up the tools she had been using and placed them back on the tray with a frown.

‘If there are any complications, though, I expect–’

‘Of course,’ Drask said, cutting her off. ‘You’ll be the first to know if it starts to burn its way through the back of my eyeball.’

‘Quillon,’ she said. He could hear the caution in her voice. Even he knew where to draw the line with Amelya Visarth. ‘There are any number of complications that could arise from the implant, especially after so long a period of disuse. Visual distortion, pain, blindness, audiovisual hallucination. All I’m asking is that you are careful.’

‘I know,’ he said contritely. ‘I’ll be careful. But I trust your work. I wouldn’t want anyone else digging around inside my skull.’ Something flickered in his eye, an eagerly flashing rune – crimson and insistent. He chuckled a little. ‘Not that anyone else cares about my preferences. There’s a…’ He blink-clicked the symbol, and it unfolded out. ‘A case, already.’

‘Anything interesting?’ Amelya asked. Her tone was calm. Neutral. Drask knew her better than that, though. He could taste the interest, just beneath the surface. Amelya had always had a morbid streak. Even in Alexius’ day. Her passion for it was exceeded only by her knowledge, as though everything were a book to be read, or a body to be rendered apart. Everything was secondary to that quest for understanding. Her desire verged upon obsession, known and visible only to those closest to her.

Drask knew that feeling well, had felt it writhe beneath his skin, and he had learned it from the best. His gift, his knack – whatever names others threw at it – lay in seeing that hunger in others. Seeing where it thrived, or burned, or curdled.

He scanned the unspooling information as it flowed down his eye. He shook his head. ‘Nothing special. Homicide. Only blessing is that it’s up-district.’

‘A break from the worst of the cold then?’ Amelya chuckled. ‘Keep me posted. If there’s anything I can do to help, you know where I am.’

‘I’ll forward the body on to Bastion-P. Least I can do, considering…’ Drask waved his hand vaguely around his eye. Amelya shook her head and laughed softly.

‘I appreciate the meagre effort, Quillon. Throne keep you. His Hand.’

Drask did not nod, and he did not look back as he picked up his long black greatcoat and shrugged it on, hearing the reassuring crack of synthleather as it adjusted and moulded to his body. He raised a hand in a gesture that might have passed as a goodbye and then shouldered past the doors to the apothecarion chamber. It abutted the central mortuarium of Bastion-P, and he emerged into the gleaming chrome of that chamber. He could see his distorted reflection in the cryo-fixed drawers, his dark hair close-cropped and greying at the temples. His skin was ruddy despite the chill beneath the station. His eyes, pale blue, caught the lumen light of the mortuarium, and Drask could make out the ring of red-gold that marked the active iris implant.

That’ll take some getting used to, he thought with a soft chuckle.

Servitors trundled into the room, long mag-lifters stretched out behind them in place of arms as they heaved the unliving cargo into the room – waiting for Amelya or one of her acolytes to examine them or assign them a berth. They stared ahead, unthinking and unaware. If they noted their grey-skinned cybernetic reflections in the surface of the drawers, they gave no indication. As dead, for all intents and purposes, as the bodies they transported.

Who had they been? he wondered sometimes as he traversed the many floors of the Bastion. Whether cornered in technical areas such as this or watching from the sanctity of his desk space, he had watched them going about their business. Had they been sanctioners past their prime? Acolytes or helots who had failed to make the grade and ascend into the ranks? Or were they, as so many were, criminals themselves? Lobotomised. Reworked. Shaped for service eternal. Drask suppressed a shudder and moved past the cyborgs. They did not react, merely pivoted and laid their charges upon the examination tables with a hydraulic hiss of effort.

Drask scrolled through the case file again.

Quite a ways up-district, as it happened. The active location for the case was a few streets away from the outer quadrants of the Risyan Commercia. He had been considering taking the mag-trans, but at that much of a remove a groundcar might be the better option. Drask suppressed a sigh as he headed out of the mortuarium, up the cold granite stairs and into the bustle and never-ending tumult of the Bastion’s central hub. With any luck there would be a spare vehicle for him to requisition.

Before… He paused, catching the thought. Before the Silver Coin, he would have simply soaked the indignity, but the world was changed now. He was noticed again, and things were expected of him. And there were the wounds, of course. The ache of old scars across his stomach where the knife had bitten. Where the man who had been his mentor, who had been his friend, had tried to kill him.

The wounds ached even to think of it. An itching, burning whisper of memory and pain. By the end Alexius had been less than himself. He had become a thing, a ghoulish, broken reflection, and killing him had been a mercy. Such thoughts had haunted him since the incident. The barbed necessity of it.

‘I did all I could,’ he whispered, and the words were lost beneath the din of the Bastion. ‘I did my duty.’

Click here to buy Grim Repast.

WARHAMMER CRIME

A BLACK LIBRARY IMPRINT

First published in Great Britain in 2021.
This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch,
Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1,D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Amir Zand.

Grim Repast © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2021. Grim Repast, Warhammer Crime, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80026-602-5

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Warhammer Crime on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop and the worlds of Warhammer at
games-workshop.com

For my brother, Jamie, my oldest partner in crime.

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media.

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.