He saw the leader of the Chekist reach a solid iron door with a mesh grille set at eye level and bang his fist against it, the sound booming and somehow dreadful. A light grew behind the grille and Kaspar heard the rattle of keys and the sound of several iron bolts being pulled back. The door squealed open and Pashenko led them through into the cells.
They descended into a wide, straw covered gallery that stretched off into darkness, the brick walls pierced at regular intervals with narrow doors of rusted iron. The stench of stale sweat, human waste and fear made Kaspar and Bremen gag, but Pashenko appeared not to notice it.
'Welcome to our gaol,' smiled Pashenko, his underlit face looking daemonic in the lamplight. 'This is where we keep the enemies of Kislev, and this is our gaoler.'
The gaoler was a heavyset man with thickly muscled arms who carried a hooded lantern and a spike-tipped cudgel. His face was obscured by a black hood with brass-rimmed eyepieces fitted with clear glass and a thick canvas mouth filter. He wore an iron breastplate, leather gauntlets studded with bronze spikes and heavy, hobnail boots, putting Kaspar in mind of the handlers of the lethally exotic beasts kept by the Emperor in his menagerie at Altdorf. Were the captives kept here as dangerous? The thought gave him pause and Kaspar shared an uneasy glance with Kurt Bremen.
'Where is Kajetan?' asked Kaspar, wanting to leave this cursed hellhole as quickly as he could. Pashenko chuckled and pointed along the ink-black corridor.
'On the left, the cell at the end,' he replied, leading the way. 'He is securely chained to the wall, but I would not recommend approaching him too closely.'
'Has he become violent again?' asked Bremen.
'No, he is just covered in his own filth.'
Kaspar and Bremen followed the Chekist along the corridor, the gaoler bringing up the rear. Kaspar could hear desperate shuffling and muffled pleas for help or mercy from behind each cell door as they passed.
'Truly, this place is hell,' whispered Kaspar, unconscionably grateful when they reached the end of the bleak, soulless passage.
'If it is hell,' said Pashenko, 'then everyone here is a devil.'
The gaoler stepped up to the cell door, searching on his belt for the correct key; his actions slowed by the thick gauntlets and cumbersome hood he wore. At last he found the correct key and spun the tumblers of the lock, opening the door for them.
Pashenko stepped inside the cell and Kaspar followed, the stench of human excrement almost overpowering him. The lamplight threw its flickering illumination around a square cell of crumbling brickwork, the floor dank and glistening with patches of moisture. Kaspar covered his mouth with his hand to ward off the stench and felt his skin crawl as he saw the naked form of Sasha Kajetan curled in a foetal ball in the corner.
The swordsman had been a shell of his former self when Kaspar had last seen him, but he was now little more than a beaten wretch, his body covered in a patchwork of bruises and cuts. The lamplight threw the shadows where his ribs poked from his emaciated frame into stark relief and his cheeks had the sunken hollowness of a famine victim.
He whimpered as they entered, covering his eyes against the light, the thick chains securing him to the wall rattling as he moved. Despite the horror of his crimes, Kaspar could not help but feel pity for any man subjected to such brutal conditions.
'Kajetan.' said Pashenko. 'Ambassador von Velten is here.'
The swordsman's head snapped up and he tried to stand, but the gaoler stepped forward and slammed his cudgel into the side of his thigh. Kajetan grunted in pain and collapsed into a groaning heap, streamers of blood running down his leg.
'Ambassador...' he hissed, his voice hoarse and cracked. 'It was all for her...'
'I'm here, Sasha.' said Kaspar. 'What did you want to tell me?'
Kajetan's chest heaved, as though every breath was an effort, and said, 'The rats. They everywhere here. Just when you think you all alone, I see them. They keep watch on me for her. Tried to kill me once already, but happy now just to watch me suffer.'
'Rats, Sasha? I don't understand.'
'Filthy rats! I see them, I feel them!' wailed Kajetan and Kaspar feared the swordsman's mind had finally snapped in this intolerable place. 'Above in the city, I hear their little feet as they plot and plan with her.'
'With who, Sasha? I don't understand,' said Kaspar approaching Kajetan.
'Ambassador,' warned Bremen, 'be careful.'
Kaspar nodded as he listened to more of Kajetan's ramblings. 'The pestilent clans of the Lords of Vermin are here. Evil in me can feel them, brothers of corruption we are. Told you once I was tainted with Chaos and so are they, but they glad of it. I feel them in my blood, hear their chittering voices in my head. They bring their best sickness and death here for her, but it won't take me. It won't take me!'
'Sasha, slow down, you are not making any sense,' said Kaspar, reaching out to touch Kajetan's shoulder.
With a speed that belied his pitiful form, the swordsman's hand snapped forward and seized Kaspar's wrist.
'Their sickness won't take me because I am like them, creature of Chaos! You not understand?'
Kaspar pulled away as Kajetan released him and he tumbled onto his backside as the gaoler leaned in and hammered his gauntleted fist into Kajetan's face. Blood exploded from the swordsman's nose and he gave a wild, animalistic howl, but rolled with the punch, lunging forward to wrap his hands around the gaoler's neck.
But Kajetan's strength was not what it once was and the gaoler was no apprentice when it came to dealing with violent prisoners. He slammed his spiked gauntlet hard into Kajetan's solar plexus, driving him to his knees, but the swordsman refused to let go, his chest heaving with violent spasms.
The gaoler raised his spiked cudgel, but before he could land a blow, Kajetan vomited a froth of gristly black blood over the man's breastplate. Kaspar watched horrified as the viscous liquid spilled down the armour, melting it with a noise like fat on a skillet. Stinking smoke hissed from the dissolving metal and the gaoler howled in pain as his armour was eaten away. He dropped his weapon and struggled to undo the straps that held the liquefying breastplate to his body.
Bremen rushed to help him and, between them, they were able to strip the armour off and hurl it to the ground where it crackled and hissed as Kajetan's tainted vomit completed its destruction.
Kajetan slid down the wall of his cell, weeping and rubbing the heels of his palms against his forehead. Bloody vomit dripped from his chin, displaying none of the corrosive properties towards him as it had to the armour.
'Sigmar save us!' cried Bremen, dragging Kaspar to his feet and hauling him from the acrid reek of the cell. 'He is an altered!'
The gaoler stumbled from the cell, his padded undershirt burned away and his chest raw and bleeding. Pashenko, who looked more terrified than Kaspar could ever remember seeing a man, closely followed him. The head of the Chekist shouted at the stumbling figure of the gaoler. 'Lock the door! Shut that monster in now!'
Kurt Bremen kicked the cell door shut and the gaoler eventually managed to find the key to lock Kajetan away once more.
'Ursun's blood,' breathed Pashenko, coughing at the foul stink still emanating from Kajetan's cell. 'I have never seen the like.'
Kaspar's senses still reeled from the horror of what he had just seen, his skin crawling at his proximity to a creature surely touched by the power of the Dark Gods. He had thought that Kajetan's claim to be a creature of Chaos on that lonely hilltop in the oblast was the delusion of a madman.
Now he knew better.
Without another word, he and Bremen fled the cells of the Chekist.
VII
Kaspar and Bremen returned to the embassy in silence and darkness, still in shock at what they had witnessed. The moon was high by the time they reached it and upon entering the warmth of the building, one of the embassy guards gestured towards the receiving room where guests would await the ambassadors pleasure.
'Someone to see you, Ambassador von Velten,' said th
e man.
Kaspar was in no mood for visitors at this hour and said, 'Tell them I am-'
But the words died in his throat and his pulse raced as he saw the three men within the receiving room.
The first was a man he knew to be a cold-eyed killer; the second a dishevelled man he did not recognise, but the third...
'Good evening, ambassador,' said Vassily Chekatilo.
CHAPTER FOUR
I
Kaspar could not believe that Chekatilo dared set foot in his embassy and for a moment he was stunned rigid, shocked that this piece of filth had actually sought him out after the events of the past few days. Chekatilo's killer, Rejak, stood beside him, taut like a stretched wire, with one hand resting on the pommel of his sword, the other gripping the filthy collar of a man smeared with dirt and of wild, unkempt appearance.
Before another word could be said, Kaspar whipped his pistol from his belt, pulling back the flintlock with his thumb and raising it to aim at Chekatilo's head.
'Kaspar, no!' shouted Bremen as Rejak released the man he held and moved with blinding speed, his sword slashing from its scabbard like a striking snake.
Bremen drew his own sword, but Rejak's blade was at the ambassador's neck before the weapon had cleared its scabbard.
'I'd lower that pistol if I were you,' said the assassin.
Bremen raised his sword, ready to strike at Rejak's heart. 'If you so much as draw a single drop of the ambassador's blood, I will kill you where you stand.'
Rejak smiled, predatory, like a viper. 'Better men than you have tried, knight.'
Kaspar felt the steel point press into his flesh and calculated his chances of pulling the trigger and evading a killing stroke of the blade at his neck. He felt Rejak's icy resolve and knew he wouldn't even manage to fire the pistol before the assassin opened his throat.
He saw Chekatilo disdainfully turn away from the unfolding drama and Kaspar felt his finger tighten on the trigger. How easy it would be to shoot this bastard, who had caused so much misery to the city of Kislev. He pictured the path the bullet would take, the terrible, lethal damage it would do to Chekatilo's head and was shocked to find that he wanted to pull the trigger. When commanding men in battle he had killed his foes because he had been ordered to, because that was what his Emperor had commanded. And when he had fought the kurgan horsemen in the snowbound landscape around the Kajetan family estates, he killed those men because they were trying to kill him.
But now he wanted to shoot someone who was not actively trying to kill him and whom he had not been ordered to put to death.
'You cannot do it, can you?' said Chekatilo without turning. 'You are not able to murder me in cold blood. It is not in your nature.'
'No,' said, Kaspar releasing a shuddering breath and lowering his arm. 'Because I am better than you, Chekatilo. I despise you and I will not become like you.'
'Sensible,' said Rejak.
'Take your sword away from his neck, you bastard,' hissed Bremen.
Rejak smiled and put up his sword, sheathing it with a flourish and stepping away from the ambassador. Kurt Bremen quickly stepped forward and, keeping his sword drawn, put himself between Kaspar and Rejak. He reached for Kaspar's pistol and carefully eased the flint down.
Hearing the click, Chekatilo turned and smiled at Kaspar. 'Now we have necessary show of bravado out of way, maybe we can get to talking, yha?'
Kaspar walked over to a long sideboard and carefully put his pistol down, gently - as though it were a piece of delicate crockery - feeling the tension slowly drain from his body. His heart was pounding fit to crack his chest and he gave thanks to Sigmar that he had not become the very thing he hated: a cold-blooded murderer.
'Why are you here, Chekatilo?' asked Kaspar.
'Same reason you wanted to kill me tonight,' said Chekatilo, sitting in one of the receiving room's large, leather chairs. The filthy man he and Rejak had brought whimpered as the giant Kislevite passed him, and curled into a foetal ball.
Chekatilo tugged at the drooping ends of his moustache as he continued, 'Someone has attacked me and now I want to hurt them back.'
'And what has that to do with me?' asked Kaspar.
'Because I think ones who tried to kill me are same as attacked you in Urskoy Prospekt and hurt your friend. More happening in Kislev than you or I know. Perhaps we can help each other, you and I?'
'What makes you think I would help you with anything?' laughed Kaspar. 'I loathe you and your kind.'
'That not important, Empire man,' said Chekatilo, with a dismissive wave of his hand.
'It's not?'
'No, what important is that we have common enemy. Like I said, those who try and kill you try to kill me too. There is old Kislev saying, "Enemy of my enemy is friend".'
'I will never be your friend, Chekatilo.'
'I know this, but we can at least not be enemies for now, yha?'
Kaspar considered Chekatilo's words, fighting not to let his loathing for the fat crook cloud his judgement. If what Chekatilo was saying was true, then he would only be putting himself and others in harm's way by ignoring this offer of cooperation. And after the terror of what had happened to Sofia and now Pavel, he was unwilling to run that risk again. He nodded warily and said, 'So what would this help cost me?' asked Kaspar.
'Nothing.' said Chekatilo. 'You help me, I help you.'
'Kaspar, no, you cannot trust this man.' protested Kurt Bremen.
'Your knight speaks true, you should not trust me, but I not lie.'
'Very well, suppose I believe that you are sincere,' said Kaspar, ignoring Bremen for the moment, 'who do you think orchestrated these attacks?'
'I not know, but think on this: on same day my brothel overrun by every rat in Kislev, you shot at by killer with gun that can see through walls and kill a man through thick timber. Same day. I not believe in coincidences, Empire man.' said Chekatilo, reaching down to haul the dishevelled man that Rejak had been holding to his knees. He stood and pulled the whimpering man to his feet. In all the excitement, Kaspar had quite forgotten that this sorry specimen of humanity was still in the room.
The man was tall, but Kaspar could see his spine was hunched, as though he had spent long years stooped over. He wore little more than a filthy smock of stiffened linen, and Kaspar could see he was absolutely terrified, his face alive with tics and twitches. His hair and beard were long and unkempt, his eyes darting to the skirting and corners of the room as though afraid of something that might be lurking there.
'Who is this?' asked Kaspar.
'This sorry specimen is Nikolai Pysanka.' said Chekatilo, 'and I just fished him from the Lubjanko.'
Kaspar knew of the feared Lubjanko, the dark-stoned building on the eastern wall of Kislev that had once been a hospital, but was now a dumping ground for the dying, the crippled, the sick and the insane. Its dark, windowless walls carried a terrible weight of horror and Kaspar had felt a nameless dread of the place when he had seen it.
'Nikolai was once a ratcatcher who worked in sewers and homes of rich and powerful people. I pay ratcatchers for the nuggets of information they bring me. It is great profit to know the thing they tell me.'
The wretched man flinched at the sound of his name, his eyes filling with tears. He squirmed in Chekatilo's grip, but had no strength left and eventually ceased his struggles.
'What happened to him?' asked Bremen.
'That I not so sure of,' admitted Chekatilo, 'he raves much of time, screams about rats coming to kill everyone. Now, I see many ratcatchers go mad from time in sewers and most hate rats, but Nikolai screams fit to burst lungs if he see one now.'
Kaspar felt a shiver up his spine, remembering similar thoughts spoken by another madman that very night. Kajetan had spoken of rats too and the similarity in these lunatics' words was chilling.
'I pay no mind to this at first, but then my brothel is attacked by rats so large I think they are dogs. Giants they were, with fangs to bite a man's hands off.'
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Chekatilo lifted his arm, exposing several deep cuts and bites, and Kaspar recognised them as identical to the bite marks on Pavel's body.
'The rats kill everyone in brothel - ate them up, snap-snap!'
'I saw them, their bodies I mean,' said Kaspar, 'when I went there tonight.'
'Rats that big not natural, eh?'
'No,' agreed Kaspar.
'So, Rejak here has told me of Nikolai earlier and now I think maybe he not as mad as people think, so we go and speak to him. He not do so good now, no one does in Lubjanko, and he even madder than when they put him in. People they put in there not good people, do terrible things to each other, but who cares, eh? I speak to Nikolai and not get much sense out of him, but he says some things that make me interested.'
'Like what?' said Kaspar, thinking of the triangular brand on the burnt rat's corpse.
'He say he saw things in sewer,' whispered Chekatilo. 'A box that glow with green light. A coffin. And rats that walk like men.'
Kaspar laughed, feeling the tension in his limbs evaporate. He had heard the tales of the ratmen who supposedly lurked beneath the cities of the Old World and plotted the destruction of man, but did not believe them - what civilised man would?
'I too have heard of the ratmen.' scoffed Kaspar, 'but they are nothing more than stories to frighten children. You are a fool if you believe that, Chekatilo.'
Chekatilo pushed the ratcatcher to the ground and snarled, 'You are the fool, Empire man. You think you cleverer than Vassily? You know nothing.'
He knelt beside the quivering ratcatcher and pulled up his smock, exposing his scrawny naked flesh. Chekatilo held the struggling man down and said, 'Look at this and tell me I am fool!'
Kaspar sighed and knelt beside the convulsing Nikolai, his eyes widening as he saw what Chekatilo was pointing at. On the ratcatcher's side there was a small wound, little more than a scratch.
But the wound suppurated, weeping a thin gruel of pus, and the flesh around the wound was a peculiar shade of green, a spiderweb of necrotic jade veins radiating outwards from the cut. Kaspar had seen many wounds that had become infected, but had only ever seen something like this once before...