The Inquisitor watched the Deacon settle himself in to the hard chair the Cathedral staff had provided for the impromptu interview room. She wanted to rub her forehead. The headache was like lightning in her brain. But she refused to show any vulnerability in front of the deacon.
The day had started well with her conversation with Dahlia and her subsequent release. Then a short trip to the grand Cathedral for what Simone had hoped would be a quiet morning of contemplation of the Emperor. After everything she had felt the need to recenter herself. But she had only had a few minutes to herself at the rail in front of the huge ivory statue of the Emperor on his throne.
She had sent both Sander and Lucus to the private Guardsmen's chapel for their own contemplation's. She had offered the same to her Crusader Malachi but he had refused to leave her unattended. So they had made their way into the Cathedral proper.
She had felt her calm returning in the cool dim light of the nave. At the front railing she had knelt down and begun her prayers for seemed like only a few minutes when a young priest hesitantly approached her with a message from one of the senior priests.
She knew that after the sordid history that the Inquisition had here on Byzantium, her arrival had caused a bit of a stir. So this latest interruption wasn't really surprising. She and Malachi had joined the Priest in his private study. But what he had to tell her had shattered what calm she had found there.
36 Psykers had been abducted in a violent raid. Simone was stunned. The psykers had been well guarded and their loss was a major blow to the Ecclesiarchy. But even more disturbing was the Priest's suspicions that the door had been opened to the raid by someone within the Cathedral. That was when the headache had started.
Simone had had no choice but to jump in. If, indeed, someone associated with the Cathedral had helped with the kidnapping, it meant that things here on Byzantium were more dire then she had thought. The simplest beginning point she believed would be the Night's Watch records.
Banking on her authority as an Inquisitor, she was easily able to gain access to those records. She enlisted Malachi's help to go over the recordings. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. But after a short time she saw that the Watch was avoiding the door that had been used to gain access to the grounds. She pointed it out to Malachi. Something tickled her brain as she watched the door on the tapes.
After they were done with the records, Simone and Malachi went to see the door for themselves. She had expected to see some sign that the door had been breached: splintered wood or a broken latch. But the entire door and frame was completely intact. It was somewhat puzzling. Simone went back out into the main chapel and stopped one of the many priests going about the business of the Cathedral.
"Excuse me, Brother." She pulled the man aside. He bowed his head respectfully, "Lady Inquisitor?"
"The door in the fourth quarter there. Have your contractors already repaired it?"
The Brother tilted his head, "No Lady. There was no damage to the door during the raid at all."
"Hmm. Well, that's rather odd isn't it?" Simone entered the information on her handheld. She noticed that the Brother was fidgeting. She smiled to put him at his ease: not all Inquisitors breathed fire and brimstone. "What do you think of that Brother?"
The priest crossed his arms defensively over his chest, "I mean no disrespect Lady, but how can I speculate on what I did not witness?"
Simone arched an eyebrow, that was just a nice way of saying he wasn't going to tattle. She turned and started back toward the door, "Come with me Brother." She motioned for him to follow her. They made their way back to the pristine door. She pointed to the heavy electronic latch, "Someone who wanted in would surely have to break that latch. Or over ride it. " The Brother glanced at the door then back down at his feet. Simone waited patiently; he wanted to tell her something. She only had to make it easy for him. The Brother jumped a little as if he had been goosed. "It would be very difficult to defeat that lock, Lady." He looked up and into her eyes. She saw that he looked a bit – blank. "But it would only take one person to open it from the inside…"
