[Suzerain of Sheol]

They have eyes for none but the thing that speaks. Na'lsa.

The ensuing silence is interminable, alive with fear. Reaching to the slit in his balaclava, Diogenes pulls it down, freeing scar-tracked gray skin and bloodless lips. His flat voice disturbs the impasse, empty of inflection.

"What is this creature? Not resident to this unholy place -- brought here by us. To what end? Thomas!" The priest snaps his attention upward. "What do you sense of this spirit?"

He has not yet drawn a weapon on the thing inside the man called Lev.

Thomas sighs. "It is an Incarnation. Manifest sin. Intrinsic. Diabolically aware on the most fundamental level. A virus. And it does not lie. To destroy such a creature, in this place of all place... it is beyond us."

He pushes himself to his feet, shoulders sagging in defeat. "Do not attempt it."

"Then what would you have us do? Ally with such a creature? What has become of you? We came to this place to battle Hell and you have given battle to everything but, and when the infernal children at last crawl from their fiery wombs, you blanch and surrender? You will hang for this, priest!"

Thomas eyes him for a long moment, then turns away. "I am weary, and surrounded by sinners. If you strike the fiend, you kill us all. The blood is on your hands, Diogenes."

"What is our purpose, if not to die in sacrificial battle against Satan's hordes, as our Savior once sacrificed his own life on the cross?"

"And see the victory he has won!" The priest whirls, the charred metal of his hand waving in forlorn dismissal of earth and heaven.

"You speak of purpose? We have none. Our God is dead. The Law is broken. We are no longer even human! This war is lost, Diogenes, and no barb of scripture nor threat of dogma will change that."

There is movement, disruptive to the eyes, nauseating, faster than thought, and the assassin stands before the priest, his arm outstretched, pistol leveled against Thomas' forehead.

He speaks one word.

"Heretic."

And pulls the trigger. Carved with the Celestrine's blessing, invested with a field of disruptive psykhosis, the bullet erupts from the chamber, shearing through graphene and titanium into the brain. Into the soul.

The back of Thomas' head explodes in a clatter of sundered metal, in a scattering a circuits and a squelch of pulp. Nacreous light leaks from the wound, dimming as it streaks down the ruin of Thomas' face.

The body collapses.

The light goes out.

Before anyone can react, Diogenes screams to the soldiers. "STAND DOWN! Under the law of the Celestrine, I have executed this man for treason. Command of this mission is now mine."

Hesitation. Confusion. Acceptance.

One by one, the warriors kneel, heads bowed, weapons lowered.

Diogenes turns to face Lev.

He says nothing.