Necroepilogos

“They’re handing out corpses,” repeated the airhead degenerate. “Simple as that. I’ve really got nothing else to tell you. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Storm-static filled the silence after the absurd little whore-zombie stopped speaking. The roar of the deluge and the howl of the hurricane penetrated deep into the tomb, down through layers of black metal, down into the warren of shadow and echo, down into this semi-secure refuge, this dark little chamber, this shameful hole deep in the heart of the undead mausoleum.

Cantrelle knew the storm-static was a pattern, filled with signs from God. But she refused to listen. She had a better source of divine truth now, right by her side.

She kept her eyes forward for the moment, focused on this band of degenerates.

The leader stood framed beneath one of the two archways into the room; she had strode forward as if totally unafraid, rather than warded off by the black and grinning skulls daubed either side of the entrance. She stood ahead of her companions, as if she was vanguard to the dozen or so zombies lurking in the darkness behind her narrow, reedy, weak little shoulders. Her ridiculous armoured dress made her look frivolous at best, a slut at worst. Her multitude of stolen limbs flailed about with every word, expressing everything, signifying nothing. If a zombie such as this had presented herself before the former full and glorious strength of the Sisterhood of the Skull, with that mocking look on her face, Cantrelle would have ordered her skinned and gutted.

A far more extreme example of subhuman degeneration hung from the archway above the leader’s head — a mass of tarry black flesh, writhing with loops of glistening tendril, dripping oily mucus from the delusion of her nanomachine-modified body. There was one well on the way to dissolution and collapse.

The leader called herself ‘Puk’; the subhuman mistake above her was called ‘Tati’. Absurd names for absurd creatures.

None of the dozen zombies behind Puk had given their names, nor exhibited visible signs of advanced degeneration, nor advanced one boot-toe into the light. Cantrelle’s bionic eyes could see something was wrong with the group, as if they were using cloaking devices, or perhaps employing powerful infantry-scale shields to obfuscate their outlines, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was going on. She didn’t care enough to find out. The state of their leader and her pet was evidence enough of their degeneracy.

Cantrelle worked to keep the disgust off her face, but she didn’t work too hard.

Silence dragged on, filled with storm.

Click-buzz.

Cantrelle spoke over the Sisterhood comms network, via her internal bionics, on a heavily encrypted private line.

<<Yolanda,>> she said. <<Dead air.>>

Yola replied in a rapid little rush. <<I— I know! I … I don’t know what to say to her. Ella, Ella, please, what should I—>>

<<Calm down. Listen to me. Do as I say.>>

<<Yes … yes, always, yes.>>

<<Demand context. Demand details. Make her explain.>>

Yolanda Araya Calvotana — Yola, Cantrelle’s divine messenger, her twice-lost once-regained perfect little lamb, former leader of the Sisterhood of the Skull, current leader apparent of these pitiful remnants, prophetess once again though she knew it not, and Cantrelle’s forever-bedmate, mouthpiece, and pawn — was sitting to Cantrelle’s left, upon the best throne-like chair the The Sisterhood had managed to scrounge up inside this mouldering old tomb. Yola was resplendent in her purple armour, polished to a high gleam despite the gritty rain and the tomb’s darkness, with her helmet retracted, her long red hair loose, and her noble chin held high. She was flanked by Cantrelle sitting on one side and two Sisters standing to attention in war-plate on the other. Kuro loomed behind her, a grey giant in the gloom, bristling with weapons.

Cantrelle did not need to glance at her beloved little lamb to know that Yolanda’s face betrayed none of her internal doubt and hesitation. Yola was like rime ice on stainless steel, no matter the shuddering mass of tender flesh beneath the surface. Yola had lost much, but she was still a near flawless actress.

Yola opened her lips with a wet click, and addressed the degenerate slut: “I don’t quite understand.”

Cantrelle suppressed a wince.

Yola’s voice had not lost any of its honeyed texture or cast-iron power. She still spoke with the same certainty and confidence which she had possessed as true leader of The Sisterhood of the Skull — prophet and ruler, commander and captain, the living embodiment of the ideology and inevitability of The Kingdom of Death. But Yola’s words themselves no longer carried clarity of meaning, let alone charisma. Despite all of Cantrelle’s coaching and coaxing, Yola’s oratory skills had not recovered. Those skills had been false all along, nothing more than a Necromancer’s hand up Yola’s unfaithful cunt.

Cantrelle’s little lamb needed words fed into her ear, lest she sound like the holy fool she was.

Puk actually grinned, the vile harlot. She pantomimed a shrug with half her stitched-on limbs. “What’s not to understand?” she said, almost laughing. “Do you need me to say it slow and loud? Write it out in big-font print? Draw a picture on the wall? Maybe you should put your helmet back on, you’ll see better that way.”

On the other side of Yola’s makeshift throne, DeeGee and Yazhu took offence. War-plate servo motors whined as DeeGee twitched her plasma rifle and Yazhu braced to take a step forward.

‘Tati’ — the black mass of degenerate flesh hanging from the archway — uncoiled in response, glistening tentacles lowering from the ceiling, a toothed maw opening in a circle of dark flesh.

Cantrelle switched to the all-Sisterhood channel on the comms network.

<<Guns down!>> she snapped. <<Guns down and stay where you are, you fucking insubordinate cretins! I ordered you when this started, no provocations, no threats, no firing!>>

Yazhu stuttered back. <<B-but Canny, she’s disrespecting—>>

<<That degenerate jezebel has six friends at her back in powered armour, and four more with heavy weapons. I know my eyes are better than yours, Yazhu, but you’re not blind, not inside that suit. Weapons down! Now!>>

Both Sisters obeyed, straightening up, stepping back, and making a point of taking their hands off their guns. ‘Tati’ retreated back up to the shadows of the archway, gurgling like an open drain. Puk waited with a moronic smile on her face, pretending she hadn’t witnessed the silent exchange.

DeeGee whined over the comms. <<I can’t believe we’re letting them get away with that.>>

Cantrelle bit her tongue. These twitchy fools were going to get the ragged remnants of the Sisterhood obliterated in a meaningless confrontation with a gang of nobodies.

<<All filth will get what’s coming to it,>> she broadcast. <<Show patience. Follow your orders.>>

Cantrelle switched back to Yola’s private channel; the silence had dragged on too long.

But before Cantrelle could supply a suitable line, Yola improvised: “I require neither diagrams nor help with my hearing. Little zombie, you must understand, it is very difficult for us to accept that anybody out there is giving up fresh meat. That simply does not happen. This stinks of a trap, or perhaps some kind of nasty joke at our expense. I do not like jokes at our expense. We are not to be joked about. Such matters must be rectified by serious correction of mistaken attitudes. Surely you must see that? We require additional proof of your words, or at least some kind of explanation. Will you not meet us in the middle on this matter? We are being gentle and contemplative, engaging in dialogue. Please, engage us in return.”

Cantrelle relaxed.

<<Good girl,>> she said to Yola.

The others couldn’t see the delightful little tightening of a smile around Yola’s eyes, her internal preening at Cantrelle’s compliment. Even if they could see it, they wouldn’t know what it meant.

Puk did a sickening little curtsey with her armoured dress. Cantrelle tried not to sneer.

“Mmm, an explanation?” Puk said, pouting her lips, putting a finger to her chin. “Fresh meat, still on the bone! They’ve got more raw corpses than they know what to do with, that lot. They’ve been at it for a few hours now, passing out corpses to anybody brave enough to approach their big old tank. It’s like a canteen or something. Girls just sitting around, chowing down. I saw a couple of fights almost break out, but that big tank, oh he’s sooooo biiiiig, nobody keeps fighting when he shows off his guns. What a novelty, right?”

“A novelty,” Yola echoed. “Certainly.”

“Certainly!” Puk echoed back, giggling.

Cantrelle said to Yola, over comms: <<Ask her if they’re demanding anything in return.>>

Yola said, “But surely they demand some kind of payment, something — anything — in return for all this meat?”

Puk shook her head. “Nope. Nothing. Just that we spread the good word, as it were. Pass the message around.”

“How curious,” said Yola.

<<Tell her to describe the tank.>>

Yola replied over the private channel. <<But it can’t be anything other than the one we saw, can it? There can’t be two—>>

<<Tell her to describe the tank, Yolanda. Be a good girl, do as I say.>>

Yola gulped and shivered in Cantrelle’s peripheral vision, so subtle that none other would recognise the response. Cantrelle suppressed a nasty grin of her own, filing that token flicker of defiance away for later. This was nothing more than play, regularly expected. Yola had earned herself another sobbing orgasm at Cantrelle’s hands with that, and Cantrelle would read divine truth in Yola’s pleading tears.

God could go fuck himself with his signs and portents. Cantrelle had found something so much better.

“This ‘tank’,” Yola said, ejecting the word as if it was offensive to her tongue. “Would you describe it for me, please?”

Puk smirked, lips pressed together. The dozen heavily armed revenants in the shadows behind her and Tati shifted and whispered amongst themselves.

“It’s a tank,” said Puk. “You know. Big metal box.”

Cantrelle lost her temper with this puerile little slut.

“Describe the tank,” she said out loud.

Puk’s beady eyes flickered to Cantrelle. The degenerate’s amusement lost its edge.

Cantrelle knew she looked and sounded awful, especially compared against Yola and the others. She stared back at Puk, daring her to ignore the truth.

Yola still wore her immaculate purple war-plate, despite her shattered charisma; DeeGee and Yazhu had survived the Golden Diamond and the shattering of the Sisterhood mostly intact, their suits dinged and dented but still whole and hearty. Kuro’s suit of powered armour had taken a beating during the confrontation with the Necromancer and the blob-monster, but her on-board power plant was still humming along like always, with a little help from Cantrelle’s medical and mechanical expertise. The other seven remaining revenants of the Sisterhood were over at the other end of the shadowy room, in various states of disrepair and slovenly disorder, but none of them were visibly wounded or openly crippled.

Cantrelle’s wounds — the ones inflicted by Elpida’s fists and the teeth of Elpida’s little runt — had refused to heal.

Cantrelle’s hands were still almost useless, resting limp in her lap, marked by the improperly-healed semi-circles and ragged sores of the deep bite wounds she had taken during the struggle; she’d broken her own metacarpals multiple times to get everything sorted out, but she still could not hold a gun, and could barely squeeze Yola’s delicate throat with all the strength she could muster. The sensible option would be to cut them off, eat her own useless flesh, and regrow new hands from scratch. But Cantrelle was reluctant to take that final step — and not only because the necessary investment of nanomachines was very difficult for the broken remnants of the Sisterhood.

Her mechanical tentacles were a little better. She had adapted her pair of pincer-tentacles for better manipulation, adding greater articulation and dexterity, to compensate for her crippled hands. The two tentacles which Elpida had snapped off were in the middle of a slow and painful process of regrowth — sprouting delicate cores of copper-wrapped flesh from two ragged stubs, waving in the air to gather ambient nanomachines.

But Puk didn’t stare at those. She stared at Cantrelle’s face, at Cantrelle’s blank and screen-like eyes, Cantrelle’s bald skull and bionic jaw. Most of all she stared at the strangulation bruises on Cantrelle’s neck — the chain-link marks still engraved on Cantrelle’s throat, the bruises unfaded as black and purple ink.

Puk’s eyes lingered on that detail, then upon the bisected tattoo on Cantrelle’s cheek; Cantrelle had learned to tell when somebody was looking at the ruined and shattered symbol on her flesh.

The titular symbol of the Sisterhood of the Skull, the black tattoo of the grinning death’s head, broken in half by a zombie’s bite.

The new skin was raw and thin, red and sensitive, and had not healed any further.

Cantrelle wore her unhealed wounds with pride. At first she had been afraid to remove the bandage from her cheek and reveal the bisected skull — the rest of the Sisterhood would undoubtedly take that as a terrible omen. When her various wounds had stopped healing, she had grown frustrated; something had gone wrong with her nanomachine biology, and all her medical skills could not solve the puzzle. Zombies did not suffer lingering wounds, as long as they ate plenty of meat, and Cantrelle was not starving. She had fallen into rage and despair. Was this also a sign from God, written upon her own body? Was this the punishment for her moment of heresy?

Because she was a heretic now, in a way she had trouble untangling.

Cantrelle had abandoned faith entirely after resurrection and undeath, consigning faith and God and divine signs to the sunlit days of true life. But then God’s works had burst back into the Kingdom of Death with the Golden Diamond, and Cantrelle had felt only hate. God had not been there when Cantrelle had needed him. God had not been there when the Sisterhood had needed him. He had not protected them from his wrath, nor spared them his vengeance. The Kingdom of Death was his, not theirs, and Cantrelle spat in his face at this insult. God had allowed Yola to stray. God had brought Cantrelle to the brink of defeat. And it was not God who had saved Cantrelle and Yola in the end, not physically, nor spiritually.

The mech had saved her, and remade her faith anew.

Cantrelle had witnessed that moment of beauty, that blossom of new life amid the rot, with her own two eyes. The flesh-storm blooming of the mech, a triumphant birth of new possibilities. She and Yola had been such fools, thinking of that downed mech as nothing but an instrument of worldly power.

The mech — the new life — had smashed God’s Sign into the dirt, and strode free.

In that moment of awe, Cantrelle had rejected the Kingdom of Death. She was certain now — that was when her wounds had stopped healing. That was when something had changed inside her.

Eventually she had come to the obvious conclusion. She found comfort in defiance, and pride in her afflictions.

Cantrelle’s wounds were a reflection of the shattered Sisterhood, a sign of the broken promise from an absentee God. She would only heal when the Sisterhood was whole once more, stronger than before, stronger than ever. Then she would wrest the Kingdom of Death from God’s hands, and install her perfect little lamb on the throne. They would find that new life, that blossomed biomechanoid, and learn truth at her divine feet.

But that was for the future.

For now, Cantrelle was wounded, wracked by chronic pain, huddled in the dark beneath a storm, treating with degenerates.

Puk broke back into a smirk. Her eyes flickered across all the other black and grinning skulls among the Sisters — on Yola’s shoulder pads and armoured abdomen, on Kuro’s chestplate, on DeeGee and Yazhu’s armour.

Puk said: “And what will you do if I don’t describe the tank for you, Death’s Head?”

Click-buzz. Cantrelle spoke over the general channel. <<Do not rise to her insult. Nobody move. Nobody reply.>>

Out loud, Cantrelle said: “We make no secret of what we are, degenerate. Do you have the courage to open fire on us, or are you going to answer the question?”

Puk raised her eyebrows and put her hands together, as if praying. “And why don’t you open fire on us first, Death’s Head? Out of bullets?”

“We will not be first to initiate hostilities,” Cantrelle drawled. “We never are. Now, answer Yolanda’s question, or fuck off back into the tomb, you rancid little whore.”

Above Puk, Tati uncurled from the archway and made several rude gestures in Cantrelle’s direction.

Click-buzz. Yola spoke on the private channel. <<Well done, Ella. You’re always so stirring. Well don—>>

<<Be quiet, Yola.>>

Puk made a big show of sighing and looking behind her, past her dozen shadowy companions and down the tomb-corridor outside. The storm-rain and hurricane-winds howled and raged in the silence. Tati kept gesturing. Cantrelle wanted to spit on the floor.

Puk turned back with a lazy shrug. “The tank. Ummmm, it’s big?” she said. “Bigger than a house, for a given value of house. White armour, and very thick, very heavy. Lots and lots of guns, more than any group of us ickle zombies could carry. One turret, big cannon, all purple and distended and thick. A rear ramp, I think? Not sure what else I can tell you, skull fucker. Not sure I want to, either.”

Puk ended with a big grin. From the archway above, Tati gurgled: “Skullll-fucker!”

Cantrelle leaned forward in her chair and spat on the ground.

Yola said: “Among their number, was there one by the name of ‘Elpida’?”

Cantrelle’s veins filled with ice.

She glanced at Yola, but Yola was looking straight ahead.

That was a serious transgression. Speaking out of turn or questioning Cantrelle’s instructions, that was expected, almost playful, a regular occurrence which Cantrelle would transmute into Yola’s own sobbing orgasms and shuddering tears. But this? Asking after the so-called ‘superhuman’ with whom she had been obsessed? The ‘superhuman’ whose face the corpse-rapist Necromancer had worn to seduce Yola? The object and focus of Yola’s infidelity and betrayal?

“Mm!” Puk smiled. “Elpida, that’s right. She was the one who talked to us. The leader, I reckon. Maybe. Who knows for sure? Not me!”

Yola nodded. “Thank you.”

Cantrelle would make sure Yola never spoke that name again.

<<Yolanda. Ask them about the apostates.>>

Yola said, “And were there two others among them, called by the names ‘Ooni’, and ‘Pira’?”

Puk shrugged. “Dunno. Didn’t see many of them. Why don’t you go take a look for yourselves, hey? Maybe you could nab a corpse or two. You girls look like you need it more than we did. Hungry hungry skull-faces!”

Cantrelle sighed. Yazhu snorted from inside her armour. DeeGee didn’t make a sound, but Cantrelle saw the old soldier shaking her helmet. The others — strung out at the other end of the chamber — added some bitter laughter to the chorus. Everybody knew that was a joke. No Death’s Head would survive walking into a room like that, not when reduced to such paltry numbers. They would be torn apart and eaten alive.

Cantrelle opened the private channel again, but Yola opened her mouth first.

Yola said: “Little zombie. Miss ‘Puk’, thank you for your gracious sharing of so much information, but I believe there is something you are holding back. I am a very good judge of emotions and character, you see. And I can tell that you are lying about something. Perhaps this is merely by omission, without intention, and I would like to believe so. But you are lying to us. And this I do not like.”

Puk raised her eyebrows. From the archway above her, Tati spoke in a wet, bubbling voice: “Bah! Bah bah bah. Not tricking. It’s not a trick.”

“Ah,” said Yola, fluttering her dark lashes. “So there is some additional matter to share?”

Puk mimed a wobbling motion with several of her stitched-on limbs. “Kinda. Kinda not.”

Cantrelle snapped, “Spit it out, gutter-trash.”

Puk shrugged. “The first time we visited the tank people, they had this other girl, this … thing, sat out a ways in front of the tank.”

“Thing?” Yola said. “Please, be more specific. There are many ‘things’ in this world.”

“Like a super high-end cyborg,” Puk said. “All black metal, covered in spikes and blades. Big white face made of plastic. They were going to interrogate her or something. Only, see, when we went back a couple of hours later to see how they was all getting on, the cyborg was gone. Nowhere to be found. She didn’t look normal that first time, you know? Even for a zombie like you and us, like. And, hey, you know what I think?”

“I couldn’t possibly imagine,” said Yola. Cantrelle almost grinned — there was a touch of that old Yola sarcasm.

“I think it was a Necromancer,” Puk said.

Yola raised her eyebrows and nodded, politely and graciously. Cantrelle watched Yola in her peripheral vision, watching for hope or excitement.

As far as Cantrelle knew, Yola’s Necromantic benefactor had not attempted further contact. The rejection beneath the Golden Diamond had marked the end of Yolanda’s infidelity. But Cantrelle took no chances; these days she never let Yola out of her sight. They slept together, ate together, pissed together. Cantrelle held the encryption keys to Yola’s internal comms uplink, and the maintenance codes to her powered armour. At any given moment Cantrelle could remotely access the diagnostics of Yola’s war-plate, to read off her heart-rate, the electrical activity in her muscles, or the arousal down in her crotch. There was no possible opening for further betrayal.

Still she watched for interest in Yola’s face, and saw none. But Yola was a liar and a cheat and a traitor, and a very good actress. Her face would only show truth while sobbing and pleading, while Cantrelle’s hands closed around her throat.

Was this black metal creature the same Necromancer who had seduced Yola? The same Necromancer who had gifted Yola her powers of oration, her immunity to pain, her supreme self-confidence?

Cantrelle doubted that very much. But she had to remain vigilant, or wolves would steal her little lamb again.

“Thank you very much for this information,” Yola said. “You have given us much to consider, Miss Puk.”

Puk did another curtsy, with a sickening smile on her face.

Cantrelle fed Yola a line: <<Tell them they can go.>>

Yola raised a purple armoured glove from the armrest of her metal throne. “You may be on your way. Go unmolested, with our blessing.”

DeeGee and Yazhu glanced at each other, chattering on a private channel. Some of the other Sisters grumbled and frowned. Cantrelle resisted the urge to chastise Yola for improvising. What worth was the blessing of a Death’s Head?

Puk curtseyed and backed away, out of the arch, skirt held out to either side. Her vile pet followed, sliding across the ceiling and retreating into the corridor, departing with a wet raspberry noise from her mutated maw. Puk and Tati’s friends went with them, receding into the shadows of the tomb corridors beyond.

“Smell ya later, alligators!” Puk called, waved half her hands, and was gone.

<<Hold,>> Cantrelle sent over the open channel. She waited until the booted footsteps were swallowed up by the sound of the storm, then said: <<Check she’s clear. Nothing by the entrance?>>

<<Nothing there, Canny,>> DeeGee radioed back. <<Entrance is clear. We’re alone again.>>

<<Alright. Stand down. Theo, Hems, you’re to remain on watch by the other archway. DeeGee, Yazhu, you take this one. I don’t want any surprises coming out of the dark. Stay awake. No fucking around.>>

Acknowledgement pings filled Cantrelle’s on-board comms. Sisters moved to obey her orders.

Cantrelle closed her eyes for a moment. She listened to the roaring rain and howling wind of the storm. That hurricane could only be sent by God, filled with patterns in the chaos. Cantrelle concentrated in hope of discerning a message, so she could do the exact opposite of God’s wishes, and spite him to his face. But try as she might, she could not discern anything in the noise, neither truth nor lies, no sense in the madness. God was silent. God was testing her.

<<Fuck you,>> Cantrelle sent on an unencrypted channel, off the comms. <<I hope you’re listening. We will tear you from heaven and feast on your guts.>>

A whisper replied — Yola, listening in. <<Ella?>>

<<Nothing.>>

Cantrelle opened her eyes again and turned to Yola, to the little group which had gathered to receive the unexpected degenerate visitors. DeeGee and Yazhu were still standing on the other side of Yola’s makeshift throne. Kuro was planted behind Yola, like a statue in grey slate.

Cantrelle spoke out loud. “I thought I told you two to watch the door. Are your comms malfunctioning?”

DeeGee answered, voice muffled by her war-plate helmet. “Negative. Canny, we just thought—”

“Then you thought wrong,” Cantrelle rasped. “Go watch the door. Up close.”

Yazhu said, “Why?”

Cantrelle glared at Yazhu, at the little lenses in her helmet. “Because I give the orders and you obey them. Do we have a problem?”

DeeGee said, “Yaz, come on. Boss says we shift, so we shift.”

Yazhu looked down at Yola, who was pointedly ignoring this exchange between an actual subordinate and a fake subordinate.

Yazhu said: “Canny’s not the boss. Yola, boss, what do you say?”

Cantrelle broadcast to Yola: <<Answer her.>>

Yolanda looked up as if stirred from deep thought, green eyes flashing in the gloom, a gentle smile on her bow-shaped lips. “Do as Ella orders, please. Her words are my words. Her will is my will. We are all friends and allies here. I wish no strife inside the Sisterhood.”

DeeGee saluted. Yazhu shrugged. Both Sisters stomped over to the archway and assumed relaxed watch positions, fixing their attention on the corridor. They were well beyond earshot over there.

<<Good girl,>> Cantrelle said.

<<Ella, I’m … I’m afraid,>> Yola said. <<Everyone is so on edge. And this storm, it’s … it’s just impossible. What’s happening to us, Ella? What’s happening to the world?>>

Cantrelle sighed. She glanced over at the other end of the room, where the ragged remnants of the Sisterhood were gathered in the gloom.

Seven other stragglers sat around the chamber, cleaning their guns, watching the doorways, listening to the storm. They muttered together in low voices, sullen and sulky. Several fights had broken out earlier, tempers fraying, fears ignited by the impossible storm and the rush to flee inside the tomb.

After the shattering beneath the gravitics and aircraft of the Golden Diamond — and the private confrontation with Yola’s Necromantic seduction — The Sisterhood of the Skull had been scattered amongst the ruins, no stronger or more unified than any roving cannibal degenerates. In the wake of the awe of the biomechanoid’s blossom, Cantrelle had dragged Yola to safety; she still wasn’t sure how they had survived the attack by the sniper — the tall zombie who openly wore the crescent-and-line symbol of the Wreckers and Murderers. But they had survived, scrambling away in the confusion. Cantrelle had dragged Yola out before the nuclear storm had consumed the fight behind them.

At first she had been alone with Yola, sleeping in holes at night, scurrying along like rats in the day. Cantrelle had come very close to strangling Yola to death, once, twice, then three times.

Yola’s betrayal hurt, worse than unhealed wounds, worse than the indignity of starvation.

All Yola’s confidence and power had come not from Cantrelle’s support and protection, but from the Necromancer who had wormed into Yola’s heart beneath Cantrelle’s notice. The Sisterhood of the Skull owed their prophet not to truth or correct thought or victory, but to some corpse-rapist monster.

So Cantrelle had squeezed Yola’s throat until Yola had begged and pleaded. She had called Yola a traitor and a heretic, a slut and a bitch, an unfaithful rutting animal no better than the degenerates they had once slaughtered together. But Yola never fought back, despite Cantrelle’s weakness and wounds. She never raced ahead and left Cantrelle behind for the scavengers. She never drew a gun and put it to Cantrelle’s head and told her to stop.

Cantrelle had tasted Yola’s tears and decided they were true. She had fucked Yola until there was nowhere her little lamb could hide anymore secrets, no place for Yola to turn to ignore her betrayal.

And in Yola’s tears and Yola’s pleas and Yola’s body, Cantrelle had rediscovered a medium far more real than any of God’s messages.

This was the lamb who should sit on the throne. Victory would make her clean.

Kuro had found them eventually. Kuro was a good hound to Yola, even Cantrelle had to admit that. Kuro had been there during that confrontation with the Necromancer, and Kuro had heard every word, and Kuro had not abandoned Yolanda. Cantrelle felt far less jealous about Kuro these days, not least because she knew Yola wasn’t bouncing up and down in Kuro’s lap anymore. Kuro’s fuck-pet days were over.

Cantrelle had spent the long, gruelling weeks of starvation and scavenging since then rebuilding what she could of The Sisterhood. She’d located DeeGee and Yazhu — not too difficult, as their powered armour gave them a survivor’s edge — and swept up whatever other stragglers she could find. By the time the graveworm had approached this fresh tomb, Cantrelle’s efforts had amounted to no more than seven other revenants recovered. Only Yola, Kuro, DeeGee and Yazhu had powered armour. The others had scraps and clothes at best. They’d lost all the drones, large quantities of advanced equipment, and most of their big guns.

Worst of all, they’d lost confidence. Morale was non-existent. They lived no better than the degenerates now.

But the ones who had survived were tough, those who could make it even when cut off from the group. Cantrelle saw the silver lining in this process of winnowing. The dead weight had been cut free. The Sisterhood was lean now, and would be strong again.

Death’s Heads always came back; Cantrelle had been around enough times to know that. The Kingdom of Death could never be truly stamped out. It would always rise again.

Yola, however, was worse than dead weight — she was a lie.

Cantrelle knew she was holding these remnants together through the sheer force of her own willpower, but she still needed Yola’s status as a figurehead. All those pretty words and that prophetic ideology had turned out to be seeded by a Necromancer, but Cantrelle did not have the reputation or charisma to command this flagging gang by herself, not without victories.

She needed to give them triumph, and soon.

Cantrelle turned away from the seven other stragglers and back to Yolanda. Kuro still loomed behind the makeshift throne, close at hand, but she could stay. Kuro knew the truth already, that the prophet had been a fraud.

“Ella?” Yola said, from up on her throne.

Unlike Cantrelle, Yola had fully recovered from her wounds. The burn mark which had marred half her face was gone, leaving only perfect amber-bronze skin over sharp cheekbones and an elegant jaw. Her bright green eyes were unclouded by blindness or damage. Ruby-red hair fell about her face in a rich wave.

But Cantrelle saw the uncertainty in those eyes, the hesitation in the lips, the flinch in the muscles when Cantrelle stared too hard.

“You asked about Elpida,” Cantrelle said.

Yola’s eyes widened slightly; beyond earshot of the others, the mask of the actress slipped away. “I … I thought it pertinent to … our … plans … ”

Cantrelle reached out with one set of tentacle-pincers and laid the cold metal against Yolanda’s cheek. Yola went very still and very stiff. Cantrelle slid the tendril-limb down the side of Yola’s throat, then wriggled it past the neck-seal of Yola’s armour.

Yola swallowed. “ … Ella?”

“Nobody cares. They know we fuck.”

“But—”

“Be quiet.”

Cantrelle forced the pincers lower. She dragged the hard edges over the soft flesh of Yola’s proud chest, then down across her quivering belly, then settled the flexing mass between Yola’s legs.

None of the Sisters could see what she was doing. Only Kuro, and Kuro never complained.

Cantrelle said, “Never speak that name again.”

Yola nodded.

Cantrelle withdrew the tendril — slowly, dragging it back up across Yola’s belly and chest and collarbone — until it popped free from the armour’s neck seal. Yola swallowed and panted, placing one armoured glove against her own throat. Cantrelle pulled the tendril back toward herself, then shoved it into her coat and awkwardly pulled out her PDW. She pointed the gun off at the floor and slid out the magazine, checking the bullets.

“We’ll talk about this more later on,” she said. “First we have to decide what to do about Elpida’s band of degenerates, and their tank.”

Kuro spoke from inside her armour, a high-pitched garble of static: “Can’t do anything about them.”

“Mm,” Cantrelle grunted, trying to think, looking down the sights of her gun. It was so difficult to form coherent thoughts beneath the pounding noise of the storm beyond the tomb. She looked up at Yola’s face and pictured her tears; that cleared her head. “We’ve lost all the heavy weaponry except what you’ve got built into your armour, Kuro. We can’t mount an effective attack on them physically. We can’t scratch that tank. Fuck.”

Yola cleared her throat gently. “Why must we assault them? Surely we can simply stay out of the way, avoid contact, and go unnoticed.”

Cantrelle sighed at Yola’s idiocy — but she didn’t snap. This was her little lamb, true and real. An empty-headed fool. A holy vector.

Cantrelle said, “What do you think she’s doing, Yola? Why do you think she’s handing out corpses to any random zombie who shows up?”

Yola wet her lips. “To buy their allegiance.”

Cantrelle nodded. “Right. Good girl, well done. Yes, she’s growing the size of her group. Buying pawns and ablative meat, with meat.” Cantrelle snorted. “How ironic. Meat for meat.”

Yola frowned delicately. “Whatever for? What task will she use them for?”

“To finish off her enemies.”

Kuro crackled: “Us.”

“Oh,” said Yola. She blinked several times, batting those dark lashes, then fell silent. She looked so regal and contemplative, as if her strategic genius mind was chewing on the problem, but Cantrelle knew that head was almost empty. Cantrelle stared off at the archway into the rest of the tomb, listening to the storm. Maybe if she—

Yola spoke again. “May we not take advantage of this situation, as other revenants have done so?”

“Pointless,” Kuro squeaked.

“Quite,” Cantrelle drawled, returning her gaze to glare at Yola. “We’d be seen and known — not least by Elpida and her arch-degenerates. If the apostate is still with them, it’ll be even worse. Ooni will know us instantly. If they haven’t eaten her already. We’ll be noted, hunted down, and wiped out. We need other options, other ideas.”

“The tomb,” Kuro said, voice full of static.

“What?” Cantrelle snapped.

“The tomb itself,” said the big dumb giant. “Full of secrets. Astrometrics. Communications hubs. Topographical maps. Other stuff. We might find something good.”

Cantrelle frowned with sudden sharp concern.

Kuro had been showing more intelligence and initiative since the shattering of The Sisterhood, as if regular playtime with Yola had been draining her already residual intelligence. She had spent some time exploring and patrolling the nearby rooms, dragging pairs of the other Sisters along with her, and also carefully checking the tomb’s armoury — already stripped by Elpida’s group. Cantrelle had assumed she was trying to be helpful, but this new level of comprehension was potentially dangerous. She wished Kuro would open her armour so Cantrelle could read her expressions.

“We lack the technical skills for that,” Cantrelle said carefully. She sighed and raised her eyes to the ceiling, dripping with shadows, echoing with distant rain. “And therein lies our answer. There may be others in the tomb, others formerly of The Sisterhood, who also made it in here before this blasted storm hit. We may be able to make contact. We need to grow our numbers again. But we’ll need meat in the meantime, that much is true. Perhaps we can steal it rather than beg.”

“Ella,” said Yolanda. “We should take advantage of this.”

Cantrelle sighed and glared at Yola again. “Stop repeating yourself. The idea has already been—”

“Ella,” she hissed. “I want to be useful, and—”

“Be quiet.”

<<Ping-ping-ping>> Yola sent. A non-verbal systems ping. The old cry for help.

Cantrelle was stunned into silence.

Yola followed up: <<You’re not listening, Ella!>>

Cantrelle blinked. That was true defiance. Yola needed more than discipline, she needed reminding. Cantrelle steeled herself for the task once the others were asleep.

Yola must have taken Cantrelle’s shock for acquiescence. She hurried on, hissing words into the darkness.

“Ella, we should take advantage of this opening. What if we disrupt the process, disrupt their sharing and redistributing of meat? And I don’t just mean disrupt the physical process — I mean disrupt the very fabric of what El—” She caught herself, gulped with a touch of fear in her eyes, then carried on. “Of what the degenerate is trying to achieve. Don’t you remember all the things she said when we held her captive? She holds to this very specific nonsense and foolishness. What if we could show that it was foolish nonsense? Not just to her, but to those whose hungry mouths she is feeding with lies?”

Yola’s emerald eyes burned with a light Cantrelle had not seen in a very long time.

“Disrupt it?” Cantrelle said slowly. “With that tank on overwatch? We’d never get anywhere near them. What exactly are you suggesting, Yolanda?”

Yola began to smile. “We use a pawn.”

“A hostage? They’d blow right through a hostage, Yola. Don’t be stupid.”

Yola’s smile blossomed. “What if we want them to?”

A shiver went up Cantrelle’s spine.

She hadn’t seen Yola this way in forever — a clever little nightmare with a dark plan and a taste for cruelty. For the first time in far too long, she knew exactly what was Yola was thinking.

“Yolanda?”

“Yes, Ella?”

“Are you thinking what I assume you are?”

Yola bit her lower lip.

Yola the Prophetess had never bitten her lower lip. Yola the Prophetess had never cried or shivered or moaned beneath Cantrelle’s hands. This Yola was Cantrelle’s Yola, the one she had been trying to coax back out for much longer than the last few weeks of desperation. This was Yola’s initiative, Yola’s idea, Yola’s pretty little mind finally slipping into gear, oiled and warmed by Cantrelle’s hands.

Cantrelle spoke into the comms network: <<Cerybe, Francka, over here.>>

On the other side of the room, two Sisters clambered to their feet and walked over to the throne. Cantrelle glanced up at Cer and Franny. Both of them were a mess, wearing patchwork bits of armour carapace, carrying guns strapped over their backs. Cerybe had long blonde hair tied in a braided ponytail. Franny was grey and ragged with some kind of attempt to grow herself iron-impregnated skin.

These two had been responsible for preserving most of the supplies which The Sisterhood now possessed. They were capable and cautious and knew when to play it safe. They were survivors, and they took orders well.

Cantrelle said, “Both of you are going to strip off any parts of your armour or clothing which shows our symbol. No skulls. Understand?”

Cer raised her eyebrows.

Franny shrugged. “Okay, sure. What for? We doing some covert ops shit?”

“Yes,” said Cantrelle. “You two are going to request a corpse from the degenerates. Pretend you’ve never heard of the Death’s Heads before. Take the body cam we have, and keep your radios open. We need as much information about their process as we can get. We need to understand their procedures, how they’re sharing out the meat, who they have in the open, all of it. Take note of how many revenants there are in that room, their positions, how well-armed they are, and so on. I want details, details, details.”

Cerybe pulled a grin. “We eating in or taking out?”

Cantrelle snorted. “Bring the corpse back here. We’ll partition it out. But that’s not the purpose of this operation.”

“Right, right, understood,” said Francka. “So what’s step two?”

Yola spoke before Cantrelle could answer. “You won’t be responsible for that part.”

Cantrelle glanced back at her. “We’re going to need a ‘volunteer’ for the follow up. Yola, do you have a plan for that?”

Yola wet her lips with a flicker of tongue. “How about little Puk?”

Cantrelle shook her head. “No, too dangerous. She’s too experienced, too well protected. We need a freshie, a fool, somebody scared.”

Yola shrugged. “I’m sure we can rustle that up.”

Kuro squawked through her cloud of static: “I will.”

Cantrelle nodded. A dark grin grew on her face. “We’ll need all the explosives we can muster. Cer, how much do we have?”

Cerybe blew out a breath. “I haven’t taken stock in a while. Grenades, plastics, enough to make a pretty big boom. But I doubt it’s enough to punch through the side of that tank. Canny, that ain’t gonna work.”

Yola smiled wider. “That is more than enough. We are not aiming for the tank, after all. We also need metal, a welding tool, and radio equipment enough for remote detonation. A timer would be acceptable, but remote would be better. Something that can’t be jammed, either. Can we do all that, Cerybe, my dear expert?”

Cerybe frowned, then raised her eyebrows in realisation. “Uh, yeah. Yeah we can, boss.”

“Holy shit,” Francka said slowly. “What have you cooked up, Canny?”

Cantrelle felt a grin rip across her face. “Not me. This plan is Yolanda’s baby.”

Yola beamed — at her subordinates, then at Cantrelle.

Cantrelle’s heart skipped a beat. Yola was only usually this beautiful when she was crying.

“Our baby, I think,” Yola said. “Now, Ella, Kuro, let’s go find us a ‘volunteer’.”