Everything was chaos. All around me people were scream, some who had seen the cardinal die, many more who had been caught in the blast of whatever device Vorn had just employed. Several of those closest to the false Inquisitor were down, blood leaking from shattered mucus membranes or burst orbits. Thousands of people were screaming and trying to flee. I saw a half dozen people go down under trampling feet to be pounded to death. Relics and oratories were knocked to the ground as people scrambled away in mass flight. A bronze brazier filled with burning coals was upended adding the smell of burned flesh to the scene. Church orderlies armed with heavy staves were trying to force their way towards the cardinal’s body, beating furiously at the panicking crowd, splintering bones and cracking skulls. Cyber cherubs flew in all directions, apparently infected by the berserk panic, in some cases zooming too close to the panic crowd to be pulled down and smashed to pieces. Bells and great brass gongs began to ring in alarm. The nave of the cathedral had been designed to channel choral music and the screaming and ringing amplified itself so much that I felt like the island was about to shake itself apart.
 
Somewhat ironically, my kneeling pose had granted me a degree of protection by placing my face below the blast. I sprang to my feet and lashed out at the retreating Vorn with my mind. The mental attack melted off his blessed power armor and I cursed myself for forgetting about it. Fleeing pilgrims in a ten foot radius went down, wetting themselves and frothing at the mouth from the psychic backlash. Without thinking I pulled the bolter free and fired it at the retreating Vorn. Clara had warned me against it but in my haste and panic I had forgotten. Sororitas train for years to use the blessed weapons and I learned why in the first few instants. The big weapon roared in my hands, emptying the magazine in a long burst. More by luck than skill the first round struck Vorn in the back. It splintered off his armor hewing down a pair of hapless pilgrims with shrapnel. The second round detonated the ribcage of a Church orderly in a spray of bone and entrails, by then the muzzle flash had lifted the gun to such a degree that I was raking the temple walls. A cyber cherub exploded, raining viscera and metal components down on the crowd, pieces of masonry and mosaic tumbled and fell, braining at least one person I could see. Mercifully, the gun clicked empty, the report still ringing in my ears as empty shells clattered to the ground.
 
“Frak!” I cursed, in most un-sororitaslike fashion as I took off after Vorn. When I say took off, I’m only barely exaggerating. Running in power armor is an interesting experience, and not something to attempt without training. I learned this last fact as I crashed through the crowd, flinging people aside with broken bones and worse. Vorn was out of the nave now running down a long hallway lined on both sides with intricate scenes of the Great Crusade, beginning on Terra and stretching to the stars in baroque splendor. I turned to follow and learned that a hundred or so kilograms of armor has thoughts of its own. I smashed into the mosaic on the wall, crushing the face of a savage looking Leman Russ before bouncing off and staggering to keep my feet. Several stunned looking orderlies looked on, but none appeared too quick to try conclusions with an apparent Sister of Battle. I reached out with my mind again. This time I didn’t aim for Vorn. An image of Horus Lupercal, rendered in marble and jet, pulled itself free of the wall and stepped into Vorn’s path. The rogue inquisitor smashed the image to dust a moment before Sanguinus brought a sword of glowing citrine down onto his shoulder. Vorn smashed the Angel with a fist before trampling Euphrataii Keeler underfoot.
 
I could hear Vorn laughing in contempt as my profane army continued to tear itself from the walls to assault him. Not a one of them did him any harm but that wasn’t the point. Vorn crashed head long into a wall that I had beglamored to appear like a doorway while his attention had been fixed on my mosaics. His power armor made a sound like a bell being struck with a sledge as he staggered backwards, head whipping to crack against the back of his armor. I slammed into him from behind, driving him into the wall again with the weight of my charge. Roaring in pain and shock, he smashed an elbow back into my chest plate in a shower of sparks, then spun, a power blade appearing in his hand. The humming steel would have gutted me if I hadn’t overbalanced and fallen on my ass. He glared down at me with hate filled eyes.

 “Got any more tricks up your sleeve witch?” he demanded in a surprisingly cultured voice, raising the blade for a killing thrust. Bullets exploded off his chest in a shower of sparks and he staggered backwards under the impacts. Snarling in frustration he slapped something on his wrist. The fine hairs all over my body stood up and then Vorn vanished with a crackle and a whump of air rushing in to fill the space he previously occupied, leaving nothing but the faint effluvia of ionized air to mark his escape. I stared up at the empty air for a moment, turned to see Hadrian coming down the hallway with a smoking pistol, then sneezed violently as the remnants of the mosaics tickled my sinuses.