Zidarov glanced at him as he strode past. Third Circle, by his look. This intelligence, at least, seemed to be on the money.

They entered a much larger room that smelled of long-entrenched damp under a much newer stench of propellant. A high ceiling soared above them, criss-crossed with plasteel girders. The sodium lumens were all smashed, and swung crazily on their cables. It was dark, though Zidarov could see enough to make out more bodies twisted across the floor, hot and damp with fresh blood. Onorova had grabbed someone by their neck and was dragging them towards him. The sound of gunfire and maul-cracks rang out from the rooms beyond, telling of ­ongoing slaughter at a fast pace.

It was all over very quickly. Zidarov never even fired. The den wasn’t that big – half a dozen rooms, a little over thirty inhabitants, now reduced to one. The outer chambers looked like general-purpose spaces, where the Third Circle hung out and injected cotin and toyed with their knives. A couple further in held a lot of physical slate in locked cabinets, packed up ready for onward movement. Another room had cold chambers for storage of topaz, sleeper and other controlled substances. There wasn’t very much of that – they might have made a delivery recently. The room they were currently in seemed to be the centre of it all. It had lockable desks filled with papers – appointment books, records of payment, lists of places to call on. None of it would be of much interest – anything important wasn’t written down.

The sanctioners stopped firing, and the echoes died away. Two of them went back to secure the Bulwark and guard the entrance. Two more rooted through the destruction they had caused, seeing if there was anything worth bagging up for the verispex. One stomped through the adjoining door to help ­Onorova pull the lone survivor from his knees, strip him of his jacket and shirt and kick his blades away.

Zidarov waited until they were done before he gestured to the nearest chair. They shoved him into it, keeping one hand each on his shoulders.

The man was in a bad way. He’d been clipped in the shoulder, and the wound was bleeding. He hadn’t been targeted, but then again Onorova hadn’t been too careful. When he looked up, his thin face was white and disorientated. With his shirt off, Zidarov could see the hard-muscled torso. He blinked a filter, and the Vidora marks came into view. Second Circle. Probably the only one who’d been placed down here.

Zidarov drew up another chair and sat opposite him.

‘What the… hells is this?’ the Vidora said, breathlessly.

‘The result of stupidity,’ said Zidarov. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Rogal Dorn.’

‘Good to meet you, Rogal.’

Onorova hissed. She didn’t like that.