The Bookkeeper's Skull (Warhammer Horror) by Justin D Hill

Author:Justin D Hill [D Hill, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It took me a moment before my eyes became accustomed to the sudden gloom, and then Terrini clicked the lumen on. The light it gave off was a fierce blue-white. We stepped towards the chamber containing the shredder. At the doorway I caught the familiar, metallic scent of blood and my skin began to goose-pimple.

The scent of promethium fumes hung in the air. Terrini strode forward and stopped in the middle of the room, panning the lumen about the chamber. It was a storage shed. The walls were hung with all manner of agricultural implements: hoes, scythes, forks, threshers, scourers and a spindle-driven seed drill, and in front of them a recently serviced chisel plough, a topper.

Before us was the shredder. It was just as I had left it, except Hamber was no longer there, just the scent of blood.

Perin had followed us in. He stood in the doorway and said, ‘We found it just like this. Just as you see it.’

Terrini looked about. Liquid was dripping down the far wall. He puffed out his cheeks as he took in the mess. ‘It’s a damned shambles,’ he said.

I thought that was the understatement of the year. This wasn’t a murder, it was an evisceration. Terrini took it all in. At last he touched my arm and pointed upwards. A word had been scratched onto the ceiling. I saw the first letter and knew what it said.

‘Valgaast,’ Terrini sounded, with obvious distaste.

‘It’s an old name for this place,’ I said.

He stepped closer to the far wall. A fine mist of blood hung in the air. The wall was covered in gobbets of gore. Bone, flesh, muscle, all reduced to shreds that had been splattered over every surface.

The overwhelming stench made me gag.

‘So he started it up and accidentally fell in…’ Terrini said.

Perin did not come inside, but stayed in the doorway. ‘That’s impossible. There is a safety catch.’

Terrini turned. ‘Suicide?’

I laughed despite myself. ‘There are easier ways to kill yourself.’ Terrini nodded. Throwing yourself into a shredder seemed a masochistic way to end your life. ‘And I saw him just an hour ago,’ I added. ‘He did not look like a man who was about to meet the Emperor.’

‘Was he unpopular?’ Terrini said to Perin.

‘No more than anyone else.’

‘Wife?’

‘She died.’

‘When?’

‘Six years ago. In childbirth.’

‘And the child?’

‘Died as well.’

Terrini frowned. ‘Did anyone hold a grudge?’

Perin shook his head. ‘You knew him. He was a good man, he kept himself to himself.’

I turned it over in my mind. ‘A shredder. That’s a brutal way to kill a man. Someone was unhappy.’

Perin scratched his head, but he did not come up with a name.

Terrini let his breath whistle out between his teeth as he took in the sight one last time. Here and there I could make out an ear, a finger, what looked like part of an arm.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him. ‘I know you two served together.’

‘Someone was frightened of what he might tell me… Who else has seen this?’

‘Only us three,’ Perin said.

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