The power sword, crackling with electricity, plunged deep into that oversized gun's body. A shower of sparks erupted, and it looked like the weapon was done for.
"I don't want to fight you, sisters!" the Lady Inquisitor's voice was as hard as ever, but now it carried unmistakable emotion. I even heard a trace of sorrow in it, and something close to pleading. "Stand aside. Don't force my hand!"
"We don't want to either!" The voice opposite sounded like a shrewish middle-aged woman, brimming with fanatical certainty. "We only want to, and must, purge that blasphemer! You have crossed the line, Inquisitor!"
"You will not—!"
The Lady Inquisitor twisted her body sharply, bending at an unbelievable angle, narrowly evading a side kick aimed at her abdomen.
Then, in the instant her attacker's foot missed and her body lurched off-balance, the Lady Inquisitor shot out a hand like lightning, seized the woman by the hair, and yanked downward. At the same time she drove up her knee—
Crack.
It slammed brutally into the side of the woman's head.
Riding that impact, she shoved the now-unconscious body straight into another armoured woman who had already drawn a short blade. While the two collided and staggered, the Lady Inquisitor sprang up, her sword arm sweeping over the head of the one she'd just kneed into a blackout. She reversed her grip and smashed the pommel down into the other woman's temple with savage force.
As two heavy black-armoured bodies clattered to the floor together, she snapped her long leg backward like a whip striking a spinning top, perfectly catching the side of the head of the woman whose hand had just been cut off—still kneeling, not yet able to stand.
I watched, wide-eyed, as the Lady Inquisitor cleanly and efficiently dropped three heavy-armour units—each a full weight class larger than her—in the span of four or five breaths. Her movements were concise, precise, and completely unshowy, and it even looked like she'd deliberately held back, avoiding killing blows.
A boss was still a boss. Even with utterly inferior gear—and hauling me, dead weight that I was—she was still strong in a way that didn't feel human.
She quickly picked up a fallen sidearm, a big pistol about the size of a hair dryer, fiddled with it twice in her hand, then tossed it away with an expression of disgust. Instead, she swiftly stripped a few can-sized objects from the woman's belt and hooked them onto her own—grenades, probably.
Later, when I was panting and asked her why she didn't take the gun, she ground out three words through clenched teeth: "Gene-lock."
The shrieking alarms all around us, the broadcast's fanatical denunciation, the increasingly dense thud of heavy boots in the distance, and the grind of machinery—everything was urging us onward, every second. I could only drag my feet, which felt like they were about to disintegrate, as I followed the Lady Inquisitor in a continued headlong flight.
The surroundings grew filthier and more chaotic. It felt like we'd escaped into the cathedral's lower auxiliary decks—levels meant for water, power, gas, sewage, and the like.
When we burst into a grey, grimy room that looked half tool closet and half dormitory, we ran straight into several people wearing crude grey robes. They were gathered around a table eating something. The moment they saw us, they sprang up from beds and chairs, staring at us in shock.
They were generally thin, sallow, and weak. Their eyes were full of terror and numb resignation.
I hadn't even figured out what to say to ease the awkwardness when I suddenly heard several soft clicks—cha, cha, cha—and saw red flashes.
Three people's upper bodies instantly turned into shattered charcoal and sparks. They toppled soundlessly to the floor. A thick, gag-inducing stench of ozone and roasted meat filled my nostrils in an instant.
"What are you doing?!" Horrified, I reflexively turned and raised the Lady Inquisitor's still-smoking muzzle with one hand. "They're just innocent civilians!"
"They're cathedral servitors. They'll leak our direction." The Lady Inquisitor slapped my hand away and said coldly, already about to finish off the rest.
But one or two of them reacted fast. Seizing that brief gap, they screamed and bolted out of the room, vanishing into the darkness beyond the doorway.
And at that exact moment, the compact communicator on the Lady Inquisitor's shoulder—the one she'd been fiddling with earlier—finally crackled to life.
"…beep… zzzzt… Lady Inquisitor?" A sharp female voice came through, broken and intermittent.
"Carabella? What's your situation?" the Lady Inquisitor shot back.
"We… we just received the alarm. We tried to take off in an emergency, but then we were shot down by the cathedral's Heavenfire system." The sharp voice was soaked in despair. "We crashed about three decks below the cathedral. The pilot… the pilot, Suluo, is dead."
"Throne above…" The Lady Inquisitor inhaled deeply. Her voice trembled. "Can you reach anyone else? Sergeant Todd? Or Brother Zebrun?"
"No. The long-range vox is completely dead. It may be heavy signal interference coming from the cathedral itself."
Archbishop, you old bastard—you really are a dog. Unfortunately, I was so out of breath I could barely keep my lungs from catching fire, and I didn't have any spare energy left to spit out proper complaints.
"Because you didn't arrange a combat contingency for this operation, even if Todd and the others got the message right now, bringing the Tempestus Scions, they still wouldn't make it in time." Carabella sounded helpless. "And even if they tried, they might not be able to break through Spirepeak City's defensive cordon to reach you."
"So Spirepeak City's authorities and the Imperial forces joined in?" The Lady Inquisitor's voice turned to ice.
"No. They're playing deaf and blind. They aren't responding to any of our calls."
"Understandable." The Lady Inquisitor's tone carried a bitter self-mockery. "They don't know the full situation, and they don't want to offend the Ecclesiarchy—nor do they want to provoke the Inquisition. Then can you contact any non-official forces?"
"That's the other bad news…" Carabella said, miserable. "The Ecclesiarchy has issued a citywide denunciation and a bounty order for the one beside you—uh, that specimen—dead or alive. The payout… even I'm a little tempted. The bounty hunters' guilds in Spirepeak City have already taken the contract, not to mention the civilian faithful and the zealots. As for the local great houses…"
The Lady Inquisitor let out a low, suppressed hiss from her throat—not the sound of exertion, but the sound of emotion on the verge of eruption.
"Invoke the Inquisition's Rosette code, in my name, and broadcast a citywide request for assistance!" the Lady Inquisitor snapped. "As for the price—anything I can bear, I will pay!"
There was a brief silence on the other end, and then Carabella's voice came back, hollow and distant.
"We… the Ordo Hereticus, this time… we're going to lose all face…"
"There are more important things than face right now," the Lady Inquisitor said, her teeth grinding audibly. "I will bear every consequence. Get down!!!"
I hadn't even processed what was happening before a tremendous force slammed me to the floor.
(End of Chapter)
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