++File M.41 959 – 000829+++
+++Log of Interrogator Thaddeus Drake+++
++Record Begins++
“Throne!” I yelped as I awoke with a start, cold sweat dripping profusely from my brow and down my back, coming to a grey pool at the base of my spine. Throne, the residual pain was astonishing. Pronounced veins on my forehead coursing with blood, bloodshot eyes struggling to focus and a pale disposition gave me the look of a man of far more advanced years than my own, and Throne the sound, the sound of those blasted drums just wouldn't go away. Frost coated the obsidian walls of the chamber and the vicious smell of ozone penetrated the sweet scent of incense sticks, making every breath a hellish struggle against my gag reflex. He was there again! The man.
The man!
The serpent legs. The dragon's wings. Unholy thoughts...so many unholy thoughts....so many! It was suffocating, like a smog. It burned like fire, Throne, it was like promethum. It wouldn't stop. The pain. The frakking pain! Like a boltgun the the frakking face! Then the eyes...those firey eyes staring...always staring at me...stop....STOP!
I roared her name with a pained and hoarse voice that could only barely penetrate the drumming in my head. I wanted to use the pistol in my lock box to end it all, the indescribable agony.
A light enters the corner of my vision...then only darkness..
“Thad?” came a sweet voice, but a whisper in the wind against the pounding of the war drum. A figure, blurred but clearly wreathed in nothing but a simple night robe came and threw its arms round my frozen and aching body. A holy wish to be out of the room entered me then and the throbbing was replaced by a dull ache, indeed not as unbearable as the “dun, dah, dun, dah, dun,” of the drums, but equally as unpleasant.
My pulse ceases racing, I can focus again.
She held me in her arms and we said nothing for what seemed like an age. Sweat dripped from my body onto hers, but she didn't lift a finger to remove it. She just rocked us back and forward and buried my head in her jet hair. That faint hint of strawberry fields that so followed her seemed to build in those moments and comforted me a great deal. Soft skin caressed this oily, quivering, wretched thing in her arms, tears dripping onto my forehead forming pearls of purest ivory on my pallid skin.
She tells me she loves me again...and again...and again.
“Thad, I'm so sorry, I just went to run through the vox logs again, please...please be ok!” She sobbed, her voice breaking as she did so.
“Ellie it's fine, it's not your fault. Besides by rights you shouldn't even be here, Wolf will go crazy if he finds out, no doubt Krell will be none too happy either. Throne...my head is on fire” I said feebly, trying to comfort her. She lifted her arms to cradle my racing head, but I pushed her arms away, perhaps in an act of defiance against the pain, or against pity.
“No Thad, we know how the dreams stop, I knew but I didn't...,” I cut her off by lifting myself from her and stroking her satin cheek with my trembling hand.
“Elena Ophelia Sibella,” I said trying to give her a stern look, “as an Interrogator of the Inquisition of man I order you to be silent on the matter and stop worrying about me. I'm a big boy, I can handle it on my own....”
“Thad this is no time for jokes, you aren't well...please, please tell Wolf, he can fix it he always finds a way...”
“But I've been analysed by the Tricon medicae darling. There's nothing wrong Elena, just bad dreams.”
“Thaddeus...couldn't it be more what with you being...”
We lay down on the bed together again...
My head was throbbing with the touch of a Pariah...perversely it was a good ache, welcoming. A release from the drumbeat of hatred and bloodlust that so came over me of late.
We were silent for a while, pondering the weight of the situation. She looked at me and I to her and we knew the implications of what we were doing. Madness was the only logical conclusion. Madness that she would corrode my mind. Madness that in the fray of battle one of us would eventually be taken from the other. Madness...madness that just melted when we looked into each other's eyes...
I loved her. Her raven hair, her ivory skin, her emerald eyes, the contours of her form, the scent of those strawberry fields on Iocanthos. The way she would at every opportunity take the opposite point of view in a conversation. The constant need to one-up everyone around her. Her undying need for justice. Her stupid, stupid compassion. That's what I really miss... She was my reason to fight the Emperor's fight. Throne...forgive me for that. It was hard, really hard though. In some way...maybe we thought we could overcome the greatest of the reasons we should not be in love. Two agents of the Throne. Two acolytes of an Inquisitor Lord. Two people so intensely independent. Above all, she was a blank...
I am a psyker.
++Record Ends++
The Emperor Protects
Love, Dave
No comments:
Post a Comment