Day of the Damned Read Online Free PDF

decoloured on joining. But it’s not the grey eyes, pewter buttons or the pelt across his shoulder that tells me who this is. It’s the bullet round his neck, where most officers wear an obsidian cross.
    This is the Wolf.
    Commander of the emperor’s guards.
    That round is live, though dull with age. Letters and numbers are engraved up one side. SHADOW LUC, Z193XX79.
    As a cadet, General Luc bought a .72 slug with his own name on it as a joke. When his luck held through the first of the Doubter riots and an attack on OctoV’s palace, he decided his charm worked.
    So did his enemies, which was more important.
    ‘Death’s Head?’ he barks.
    The Grey-Eyed Boys don’t like the Black Machine. That’s fine, we don’t like them either. Over-privileged and over-paid. Most of them have never faced a proper battle in their lives.
    ‘General Jaxx’s ADC,’ Anton says.
    The Wolf sneers. As if he expects no better. Then he looks me up and down. Very obviously and very slowly. So I do the same, and he doesn’t like that.
    Dumb insolence, you can’t beat it.
    Well you can. A lead implant to the back of the skull tops dumb insolence any day.
    We’re of equal height. But I’ve got a combat arm, minus its spikes. My hair’s cropped. My skull a little wider than most. Even out of uniform, in combats and singlet, it must be obvious what I do for a living.
    Kill things.
    He has thick hair, swept back in a grey mane, and grey-flecked eyes that examine me without blinking. The Wolf radiates privilege, money and power. He thinks he was born to rule. I think a strategically thrown grenade can improve most chains of command with the pull of a pin.
    This is a man with little need of show.
    An officer whose reputation for savagery is so extreme no one could have done even half the things he’s accused of doing. His anger is growing. Debro must feel it too, because she frowns.
    And General Luc smiles.
    ‘Garlic snails,’ he says. ‘Always my favourite.’
    Anton shoots his ex-wife a look and it’s hard to know what it is meant to say, except that it’s not kind. The woman who brought the finger bowl lays an extra place at the table. I ask Aptitude her name. It’s Katie, she’s the cook. Before that she was Aptitude’s nurse.
    ‘And then you got Sophie?’
    Sophie was Aptitude’s bodyguard. She died the day I burnt Villa Thomassi to the ground and shot Aptitude’s husband.
    When I look up, General Luc is staring at me.
    I stare back and he refuses to look away. He doesn’t like my grin. But then I don’t like being stared at.
    ‘So,’ he says. ‘Tvesko eg. ’
    ‘It’s an old Earth name.’
    I’m only saying what Debro told me.
    Until I met her I was Sven, nothing else. She gave me the other name. One day she’ll tell me what it means. The tightness that crosses his face is matched by a tightness in her own. Seems I’ve wandered into another minefield.
    ‘You believe in Earth Perfect?’
    I shrug. Politics is dangerous enough without adding religion. Our enemies, the Uplifted, believe Earth never existed. It’s a myth, used by fools to explain why so many people in the galaxy look the same.
    We believe it exists, however.
    Well, most of us do. It’s still out there, perfect and waiting.
    A few people, the doubters, believe it was destroyed. Earth existed, right enough. Just doesn’t any longer. It’s Earth’s memory we should keep perfect.
    Debro’s one. Doubters live simpler lives than most. In Farlight there’s a community that still uses donkey carts rather than trucks or hovers. Not because they’re poor, but from choice. Sounds weird to me.
    ‘Never gave it much thought, sir.’
    ‘Maybe you should.’
    I don’t like it when other people make Debro unhappy. And Debro’s sitting there, with a tight smile on her face and her fingers gripping her fork so tightly her knuckles must hurt. She doesn’t like it when people talk about Earth.
    Aptitude’s noticed it too.
    ‘Snails,’ I say. ‘Did you