Just as he was an ordinary man.
Which only made the scale of their crimes all the more horrifying.
How could anyone believe that such evil could come from such unremarkable specimens?
Surely the slaughter of so many innocent lives could only have been at the behest of some winged, fire-breathing daemon or undertaken by a host of bloodthirsty orks.
No, it had been done by men and women.
They had done it, and the nearness of the punishment was a blessed relief to the former cardinal.
'I think prayer can't hurt, Leto,' he answered. 'We are going to pay for what we did and I need to get right with the Emperor before then.'
'They can cook up a farce of a trial, but I won't apologise. They'll get nothing from me.'
'Even now, with everything in the open, you still don't think we did anything wrong?'
'Of course not,' snapped Barbaden.
'Then you are truly lost, Leto,' said Togandis with a shake of his head. 'I always knew you were a very dangerous man, but I don't think I realised why until now.'
'What are you babbling about?'
'You are the dark heart of man, Leto,' answered Togandis. 'You are the evil that can lurk in any of us, the potential to commit the most heinous acts and do it with a smile on our faces. There is a wall of conscience between acts of good and evil inside most of us, but that's missing in you. I don't know why, but for you there is no concept of evil, just results.'
The words flowed from Togandis and he felt the catharsis of them as he spoke.
He closed his eyes and smiled as he smelled the faint, but distinct aroma of burning flesh.
'They're coming, Leto.'
Togandis turned his head and looked out beyond the bars as he heard shouts and cries of alarm from the other prisoners.
A mist of shimmering light was forming in the chamber, as though some ductwork had split open and was pouring hot steam into the gaol. Togandis knew it was no such thing and smiled as he saw a host of jostling, ghostly forms in the mist.
First to emerge from the acrid smoke was a small girl, her dress blackened and smouldering. Her flesh was burned and hung from her body in melted strips.
Other forms joined the girclass="underline" men, women and more children. On they came until it seemed as though the chamber was filled with the dead.
They moved as though blown by a gentle breeze, drawing near to the cells. Togandis welcomed them, knowing that neither he nor Leto Barbaden would ever stand before a court martial.
Togandis looked over at Leto Barbaden and didn't know whether to be impressed or revolted at his lack of emotion. The former governor of Salinas appeared as unmoved by these apparitions of death as he did by everything else in life.
How grey life must be to him, thought Togandis.
The young girl turned her face to Barbaden and said, 'You were there.'
'Damn right I was,' snarled Barbaden. 'I killed you and I am not sorry.'
The girl's face twisted, the flesh of her face rippling with light and undulant motion as she launched herself towards Leto Barbaden.
Searing blue lightning flashed from the bars of the cell and Togandis blinked in surprise as the girl was hurled back. Her substance faded and vanished into the mist as though she had never existed.
Barbaden laughed. 'It seems these phantoms of Thayer's are not so powerful after all.'
'What do you mean?' gasped Togandis, willing the spirits of the dead to come for him and end his miserable existence.
'I think Leodegarius really wants us alive to stand trial.'
Then Togandis understood.
Bad didn't even begin to cover it.
The House of Providence was aflame, streamers of cold fire billowing like blazing shrouds from every opening and around every rivet, as though the interiors of the three mighty vehicles were full to bursting with light.
Howling winds, like the shrieking cries of the damned, swirled around their destination carrying tormented screams of anguish so intense that it seemed impossible that they could be wrung from a human throat. Arcs of pellucid lighting crackled and rippled over the metal surfaces of the colossal war engines and a creeping sickness oozed down the hill.
'Still think we shouldn't bomb this place from orbit?' asked Pasanius.
Serj Casuaban looked at what had become of the House of Providence with sick horror, and Uriel could only begin to imagine what he must be feeling. A place of healing had become a place of death and vengeance, and the physician in him rebelled at such a perversion.
Uriel and Leodegarius led the way uphill on foot, the Land Raider's passage onwards blocked by a multitude of burnt out tank chassis dragged onto the road. The Grey Knights followed in five-man combat teams, and Pasanius helped Serj Casuaban to keep up.
'How did these tanks get here?' asked Casuaban. 'They weren't here before.'
'The Unfleshed,' said Uriel, pointing upwards to where five hulking shapes were silhouetted at the ridge of the plateau. No more than midnight-black outlines, their veins ran with light and Uriel saw that the Lord of the Unfleshed had grown more powerful since their last encounter, his flesh monstrously swollen and seething with angry souls.
The creatures vanished from sight behind the ridge and a wave of black despair engulfed Uriel as he knew he would have no choice but to aid the Grey Knights in their destruction. Whatever he had hoped for the Unfleshed was lost. The brutal reality of the galaxy was that there was no place for them, no happy ending, only death.
The winds howling around the House of Providence were getting stronger and the screaming was growing louder. Lightning arced from the middle Capitol Imperialis with a deafening thunderclap, exploding against the hull of a hollowed out Chimera.
'Something's definitely trying to keep us out!' shouted Uriel.
Serj Casuaban clamped his hands over his ears and a hard rain pounded the ground.
Their path wound up the hill, the pace slowed by the need to thread through the maze of burnt and abandoned tanks. Leodegarius hauled those that couldn't be got round out of the way, the incredible power of his Terminator armour able to push tanks from their path as though they weighed nothing at all.
The ridge was approaching and Uriel racked the slide on his bolter, the very notion of going into battle as a Space Marine of the Emperor once more filling him with pride. The Grey Knights spread out, their halberds thrust forward into the storm of light and rain.
Uriel's bolter snapped left and right as he caught fleeting glimpses of darting, ghostly figures at the edge of his vision. A thousand whispering voices rustled like a forest of fallen leaves, the words unintelligible, but all filled with anger.
'You hear them?' asked Leodegarius over the vox.
'I do,' said Uriel, 'but I'm more worried about the Unfleshed.'
'They will be inside,' said Leodegarius, 'waiting for us.'
With that thought uppermost in his mind, Uriel jogged over the ridge, his neck craning upwards as he stood in the enormous shadow of the House of Providence.
Seen from a distance, the three Capitol Imperialis had been hugely impressive symbols of the Imperium, but up close, they were incredible, towering visions of the power to destroy. Their rusted metal flanks soared into the battered sky, the lightning that surrounded them flaring into the heavens as though it was a reactor on the verge of meltdown.
The image was not a comforting one.
As they approached the House of Providence, Uriel's every instinct told him that he was surrounded by foes, yet he could see nothing, nothing solid anyway, for the shrieking winds carried hints of floating phantoms, wisps of bodies as insubstantial as smoke, yet with the presence of a living, breathing being.