I lost Edwards in the confusion of the chase. I had committed they layout to memory at the start of the night, but this wasn't the way I had come in. I paused in a gate house of some kind and cursed my luck. Then, as though in answer to that very curse. Edwards fell into some bushes not thirty feet away. I blinked, unable to believe my luck. I would later come to reassess these kind of strokes of serendipity but for the moment I was blissfully ignorant. Unfortunately I was momentarily at a loss for what to do, I didn't want to kill Edwards, at least not until I had interogated him, and the only weapons I had were my kukri and the stolen autopistol. I could always use my will, but if that worked then what, I would have to try and drag a fugitive out of the hornets nest that this place was rapidly degenerating into. As though to underscore this point, men began to drop from the same window Edwards had used, landing in the garden and then pelting off in pursuit. Whatever else Edwards was doing to night he was going to cost the Baron a fortune in landscaping fees. 

Well if Edwards had an escape plan I supposed I might as well use it. Throwing caution to the wind I sprinted across the court yard after the guards. I had imagined that Edwards was taking the car tunnel but instead I found the guards leaping into an open circular tunnel that must drop down to some kind of underground passageway. I admit I was equally impressed and aghast at the scheme. As far as smash and grabs went it combined intricately planned with ridiculously simple, a welcome change from the months of subtle labor I had been undertaking in the prosecution of my own case. There was a slight bunch up as the guards jockied for position and I pulled my kukri's as I went at them at a dead run. They were beautiful weapons those knives, a present from Old Fuss and Flamers after I fought of a heretic hit squad with a kitchen knife when I was an Interogator. They were ebony black and ten inches long and razor sharp, vicious things for close in work and perfect for situations like this where a blaze of gunfire would attrack too much attention.  Only three of the pursuers had not yet made the jump and the first one died before he knew he was under attack. The second one turned as he was sprayed by the arterial bood of the first. Eyes wide he  swung his riot gun towards me but too slow, much too slow. My second blade went in under his armpit and I used a rip twist to jerk it free before it bound. The gun fell from the destroyed nerves and blood bubbled at his lips as he sank to his knees. The third man shouted and swung the butt of his rifle at my head I ducked under the blow. I aimed an upward cut at his face and he skipped back to avoid it, forgetting that there was an open man hole behind him. He plummeted down and I leaped after him, landing atop him with both blades pointed down like a preying mantis. He gurgled briefly then died and I climbed back up the iron staples and grabbed the manhole cover. More men were rushing towards me and I heard them curse as I inverted the manhole cover and dropped it back into place, flush against its metal combing with no handles for them to grab. Welding it would have been better, but if I couldn't pull this off with the five minute head start I would gain while they found a prybar to get it up then I didn't deserve to get away at all.

People really underplay the stink of a sewer. Everyone is like: the life of an Inquisitor is so glamerous. Well let me tell you slogging through even an old sewer in a party dress and heels is no picnic, but after you meet your first few plauge cults you build up a bit of a tolerance. Fortunately the arbites who had made it down here were already in pursuit of Edwards and there shouts made them easy to follow. No one ever thinks of chasing someone silently you will find. I pelted down the tunnel after them, twisting and turning down ancient aqueducts fringed with mould and mushrooms that I didn't want to think about. I came around the corner at a sprint and crashed right into eight men all arbites in body armor. They had been trying to raise some kind of grate which Edwards had evidently dropped during his escape.

[hider=I fought my way through them]
CLASSIFICATION: *Pirmary Level Redaction*
CLEARANCE: *Obsidian*
ENCRYPTION: *Cryptox v 2.6*
CODED: -=Vermillion Theta Gold =- Interdict #Ordo Xenos - 2663-25-261

I was dead. They weren't expecting attack exactly but they had heard me coming and they were jumpy enough that the second they clocked I wasn't an arbite or a cultist or whatever the hell they were I was going to get a face full of flechettes. I did the only thing I could. I reached out to the Stone. She didn't want to help me of course but the knowledge that these were servants of the ruinous powers gave her little choice. Knowledge and skill flowed into me. My senses grew sharper, colors gained nuainse they hadn't had before. I went to the right, using the least prepared man to foul the aim of the quickest. His barrel bounced off his comrades armor even as the blast that would have killed me gouted down the tunnel. I came across with my right foot, cracking his left knee as I spun him to shield me. He screamed in agony as I placed my weight perfectly and pitched him over my shoulder into two of his fellows. They both went down under his weight, no threat for the moment. I parried a pistol with my left hand, slapping the saftey on so that when the man releveled it the piece didn't fire. I thrust my right handed kukri up into his soft palette then, using it as a hand grip twisted his body to interpose it between myself and another gunman. The arbites shotgun went of, shreding the unarmored portion of his comrade and scooping away his left arm. Blood and tissue spattered me but I was already moving towards the endgame. I caught hold of the shooter's webbing belt and came away with the pin of the fragmentation grenade he kept clipped to his belt at the same time as I swept my kukri in a single ark which slashed the tendons of both knees. His body folded down atop me and I curled myself up behid the armor of his torso. The grenade went off with a noise like the end of the world and my heightened senses screamed as they tried to track every piece of ricocheting shrapnel that filled the tunnel. All eight men were dead or dying in the space of a second and a half of frenzied violence. The link broke and I fell to the floor, vomiting up what little I had eaten that day. The sense of wrongness was every bit as palpable as the first time and my body felt too short, too slow, too grotesque. My head was swimming with thoughts too complex for my biochemistry to follow and I tasted burning cinnamon at the back of my throat.

"Frak," I whispered as I tried to push myself to my feet. 
[/hider]

I had to reach Edwards before he escaped.