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Visage – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Visage

Rich McCormick

The skull glistened in the gloom of the apothecarion. White bone protruded from red meat, high cheekbones and a jutting chin forming islands amidst the sea of gore. Once, these islands had been hidden by tanned skin, itself decorated with a spidery scrawl of tattoos, but that skin had been roughly flayed from the flesh beneath by Horus Lupercal, and lay now on the cold decking of the Warmaster’s flagship.

Erebus – First Chaplain of the Word Bearers Legion, Dark Apostle of the Pantheon, and the sufferer of Horus’ punishment – was unconscious. So the devices attached to his body reported, anyway, but even as his acolytes and assistants worked to stabilise the massive Space Marine, his lidless eyes swivelled in their sockets, fixing the mortals with frenzied glares.

‘Primary heart rate spiking,’ a hooded figure reported.

‘Administering sedative,’ the lead chirurgeon intoned in response. His voice belied his age: he was young, having risen through the clandestine ranks of the Word Bearers’ medicae serfs, before being hand-picked by Erebus himself to join his surgical staff. The First Chaplain did not trust his Legion’s own Apothecaries as a rule, expecting – with just cause – that they may take any opportunity to kill him.

‘Secondary heart rate spiking,’ the hooded figure intoned again, with the cadence of a call to prayer.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ the lead chirurgeon said. ‘Acolyte Tournel, prepare a second–’

The rest of the sentence died in his throat as a massive hand took his neck in a vice grip. He followed the muscular arm up, and found himself staring into the bloodshot eyeballs of a now very much awake Erebus.

‘My… lord…’ the chirurgeon managed through a constricted windpipe. ‘I am pleased… to see you have stabilised.’ He squawked – an attempt at a breath – as his face reddened to the colour of the XVII Legion’s armour. ‘Please… rest… that we may begin the process of repairing your wounds.’

Erebus’ lipless mouth was locked in a rictus grin, as if he found the situation perversely amusing.

‘No time,’ the Dark Apostle said, tendons in his cheeks visible as they worked his mouth and tongue. ‘The athame leaves its mark on those it touches.’ He raised the dagger, still clutched in his left hand, its edge hissing gently even now with its master’s own blood. ‘It is simple, chirurgeon. I need a new face,’ Erebus said, as he pulled the man closer to the ruined mask of his own. The chirurgeon could smell the Dark Apostle’s breath, hot and rancid, even over the metallic stench of blood. ‘I will take yours,’ Erebus growled.

‘But, my lord,’ the chirurgeon stammered, falling backwards as Erebus loosened his grip on his neck. He rubbed at his throat, his voice still hoarse. ‘I fear such a procedure would kill me.’

‘Then you must give thanks to the gods directly,’ Erebus said conversationally to the cowering man as he sat up on the stone slab. ‘That your sacrifice may be in my name.’

The chirurgeon screamed as his fellows grabbed him from behind, restraining his arms and binding his kicking legs with a length of surgical hose. They pinned the man to the floor of the apothecarion, and Erebus heard the wet sounds of sharp metal on human flesh. The shrieks of panic turned into gurgles of agony, and when the figures reappeared, they held a scrap of olive-brown skin, raising it aloft like a hunting trophy.

Erebus examined it. It lacked the full range of intricate tattoos that had decorated his own face, but he could address that later. He could feel the athame’s effects coursing through his body: a grave-cold touch flash-freezing nerve endings as it slowly severed his physical connection to reality.

The mutilation was symbolic, as well as agonising. Stripped of his face, he was stripped also of its web of warding tattoos. Between the athame’s wounds and the constant attention of the Neverborn that he attracted, Erebus knew enough of the diabolic to understand that waiting much longer without those wards would put his life in jeopardy.

This solution would not last – a mortal’s face was not only physically smaller than a Space Marine’s, but also lacked the dense web of blood vessels – but Erebus had ensured that his acolytes were all marked with the same basic warding tattoos as he had been. The face would buy him the time to craft a more fitting solution. Perhaps he could even coerce Fabius to help him, he thought; the Chief Apothecary of the III was a skilled fleshcrafter.

‘Hurry,’ the Dark Apostle said, as he repositioned himself on the slab. The chirurgeons loomed over him. Their own faces were largely hidden, hooded by cowls and covered by masks, but he could see the fear in their eyes. He saw himself reflected in the lenses of their ocular implants – a visage from human nightmares – and he laughed.

He was still laughing as the chirurgeons placed the new face, still warm from its previous owner, onto his mutilated skull.

Bloody skin covered his eyes for a moment – a forced blink that marked Erebus’ first since Horus had meted out his punishment – but the apothecarion came into focus a moment later as the chirurgeons brought the scrap of skin into alignment. Needles kissed skin, their burrowing tips bringing fresh pricks of pain to the abused flesh. Gossamer-thin thread tied the new skin in place, expert hands blessing the sutures in the name of the gods as they were being made.

For a moment, as the last needle left his body, there was no pain. Erebus allowed his hand to move to his new face, and touched its skin. It was too tight, already splitting along lines of pressure, the capillaries and blood vessels strained to bursting. Erebus smiled, or tried to; his new lips could not move.

‘Behold,’ he said. ‘The new face of your–’

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