Deathstalker Destiny (37 page)

“And what do you get out of this?” said Random. “A chance to clone yourself another Dram?”

“All right,” said Random. “It all seems straightforward enough. But if it should turn out that any of the tech we find could be of use to me, in my mission, I want my share. I also want a guarantee that you’ll keep Ruby off my back.”

“No! Not that you could anyway, but ... Ruby is my business. To deal with as I see fit. No; just make sure she can’t find me. You can do that, can’t you?”

“Why me? What makes me so special to Shub?”

Random sniffed. “Let’s see how this deal with the Devil works out first. When do you propose to teleport me to the crypt?”

No time like the present,
said Lionstone.

And in a moment, Jack Random was gone, and the lockup garage stood still and silent and quite empty.

 

Ruby Journey stood leaning with her back to the door of the lockup garage, looking inconspicuously about her. She was wearing her old dark leathers and white furs, her sword and her gun, and looked every inch the bounty hunter and professional killer she had once been. Nobody bothered her. This was an area where people minded their own business, if they knew what was good for them. Much like all the other districts Ruby’s search had led her through, as she checked one possible bolt hole after another. Jack Random had gone to great lengths to hide behind any number of cutouts, false names, and carefully faked corporate identities. The city guard could have searched for years, and found nothing but blind alleys, false leads, and expertly laid trails that only disappeared into a tangle of dead ends. Jack Random knew everything there was to know about being on the run. But Ruby Journey knew all there was to know about being a bounty hunter, and chasing fugitives was second nature to her. And it helped a lot when she knew how her prey thought.

In some respects, the trail had almost been too easy to uncover. As though Jack had wanted her to find him. Perhaps he did. The mind can work in funny ways when you’re on the run. The urge to turn and face your pursuer, and get it over with, can be almost overwhelming. It didn’t matter. She would find him, and kill him, and that would be that. Ruby Journey had known many ups and downs in her long career as a bounty hunter, but she’d never once failed to deliver on a commission, once she’d accepted it. It was all Random’s fault anyway. She didn’t give a damn how many people he killed, or why, but by cutting all his ties to Parliament, he’d threatened her hard-won security, and she wouldn‘t, couldn’t, let him endanger that. She’d been a rebel, fought the good fight, and won. As a victor, she was entitled to the spoils. And though her new life might not be everything she’d hoped, it beat the hell out of starving on Mistworld. She couldn‘t, wouldn’t, go back to what she used to be. Not for anything, or anyone.

She turned and studied the anonymous lockup door. Solid steel, maybe an inch thick. A lock that would take hours of skill and patience to crack. Just like all the others. They hadn’t kept her out either. She let her fingertips trail across the smooth, cold steel. Jack might be in there, or he might not. Once, she would have known, deep down in her mind, in her soul. But her marvelous Maze powers wouldn’t work where Jack Random was concerned, anymore. It was the same with all the Maze people. They canceled out each other’s powers when they came into conflict; as though the Madness Maze had placed restrictions deep within them, so they couldn’t use their powers against each other. Just thinking about Jack as her enemy, her prey, was enough to take away all Ruby’s more than human strength and abilities. So she concentrated on the locked door before her, letting it fill her mind. Inhuman strength blazed in her muscles again, and she smiled her old wolfish smile. She struck out at the door with her fist, almost casually, and the metal dented deeply under the impact. Ruby’s smile widened, and she hit the door again and again, until it buckled under the relentless attack, tearing away from its hinges and the impressive lock. She gripped the edge of the door with her unbruised hands, and ripped it away amid a harsh squeal of rending metal.

Ruby threw the door aside and surged forward into the dark interior of the lockup, disrupter in hand, and then moved quickly to one side, so she wouldn’t be silhouetted against the outside light. No point in making an easy target of herself. She stood very still in the concealing gloom, barely breathing, listening. There was someone else in the lockup. She could feel it. Whoever it was, he was good. She couldn’t see or hear a thing. But she could tell. Which suggested it wasn’t Jack Random. She reached out for the light switch by the door, and hit it. Bright light filled the lockup, blindingly bright for normal eyes, but Ruby’s vision adjusted in an eye-blink. There were weapons, basic provisions, and more explosives than Ruby felt comfortable about sharing a confined space with, but no trace of Jack or anyone else. The lockup garage was entirely deserted. Except she knew it wasn’t. She concentrated, reaching out with her mind, and almost immediately she became aware of a presence, ahead of her, just to her right. She aimed her disrupter carefully, and showed her teeth in a smile that had no humor in it.

“Show yourself, or I’ll blow a hole right through you. I mean it.”

“Of course you do,” said Valentine Wolfe, appearing out of nowhere right where her gun was aimed. Dressed as always in deepest black, his face was white as bone, save for the dark mascaraed eyes and scarlet smile. His long dark hair fell to his shoulders in oiled ringlets. He carried a sword and a gun on his hips, but his slender-fingered hands were empty. He looked utterly at ease, and as dangerous as a coiled serpent, ready to strike at any moment. There was something else about him too; an unhealthy aura that grated on Ruby’s expanded senses. She could feel the hackles rising very slowly on the back of her neck. Valentine smiled at her winningly.

“I’m impressed, bounty hunter. No one else can see me, unless I want them to. I do so envy you your wonderful Maze abilities, my dear. I have only a minor telepathic skill or two, courtesy of the esper drug. Still; who knows what the future holds, eh?”

“What are you doing here, Wolfe?” Ruby said flatly. “Looking for Random?”

“Why no, my dear. I know where he is. He made an alliance with my Shub colleagues, and he has gone where they sent him.”

“You’re crazy! Jack would never ally with Shub!”

“Oh, you’d be surprised what a man will do, when his back’s against the wall. Still, not to worry. You can serve Shub too, in your own way. My good friends the rogue AIs have asked me to bring you to them. You fascinate them. Your powers, your abilities. The amazing things that only you and your Maze associates can do. They want those things too, and one way or another they’re determined to dig them out of you. If I’m very good, they might let me watch. Now; is there any chance you’re sensible enough to come quietly, and avoid unnecessary violence?”

“Guess,” said Ruby Journey, and shot him through the heart.

The energy beam punched right through the Wolfe’s chest and out his back. He gasped once, and fell to his knees, his head hanging forward. At the last moment, his hands slapped against the hard concrete floor, stopping his fall. He slowly raised his head to look at Ruby, and he was smiling. His mouth was a great scarlet gash, like an open wound, but not a drop of blood showed. He got to his feet again, not hurrying, and the hole in his chest was already gone. Behind the hole burned in his black shirt, there was only pale, unmarked flesh. Ruby blinked a few times.

“Impressive,” she said finally. “You’ve learned a new trick, Wolfe. Dammit; doesn’t anyone stay dead when you shoot them anymore?”

“It does seem that way sometimes, doesn’t it?” said Valentine easily. “Finlay Campbell thought he could kill me that way too. He’s going to be so surprised when I show up to tear the heart out of his chest.”

“Finlay Campbell’s dead.”

“No. Merely resting. Some days the Empire seems to be positively crawling with people who should be dead. Superhumans and heroes and monsters, of one kind or another. Bad time to be just a man, as other men. My own invulnerability comes from nanotech. Shub introduced the busy little things into my system, and now nothing can damage me for long. Age will not wither me, nor time destroy me. I shall live ages, and do terrible things to keep myself amused. If the Devil didn’t exist before, he does now.”

“You always were full of yourself, Wolfe,” said Ruby Journey, unmoved. “Shub might have promised you these things, but you can’t trust Shub. Better first to put faith in fairness from life, or mercy from the tiger. Or from me.”

“There’s really no point in fighting,” said Valentine. “You can’t hurt me, but I can hurt you. The AIs would prefer a living captive to experiment on, but they’ll settle for a body to dissect, if need be. It’s really up to you. Your choice.”

“I choose neither,” said Ruby. She put away her gun and drew her sword. “Let’s see how immortal you are after I’ve cut you into a dozen pieces.”

She sprang forward, swinging her sword with both hands, and the Wolfe’s blade was immediately in just the right place to block it. Ruby immediately disengaged and attacked again, boosting her strength and speed to their limits. The two of them dueled back and forth across the concrete floor, thrusting and parrying and slicing in the confined space of the lockup. Sparks flew as their blades slammed together again and again. Valentine was strong and fast, but Ruby was the better fighter. She cut him again and again, and even ran him through twice, but no blood flowed, and his scarlet smile never once wavered. She wasn’t hurting him, and both of them knew it. He was just letting her tire herself out. And when her strength and stamina finally reached their end, he would hurt her just enough to weaken her, and then bind her securely. A gift-wrapped present for his new masters.

Ruby could feel herself slowing fractionally already, as they stamped back and forth in the lockup, kicking boxes and provisions out of their way. Her mind raced furiously, coming up with one plan after another, discarding them more and more desperately, until one final possibility suggested itself. For Ruby, to think was to act, and she put all her boosted strength into one parry, slamming the Wolfe’s sword aside. And while he stood momentarily unbalanced and undefended, Ruby gripped her sword with both hands and brought it flashing round in a great, unstoppable arc. The heavy steel blade sheared right through Valentine’s neck. The head fell backward, still holding its last startled expression, and blood fountained up out of the severed neck, splashing against the low ceiling overhead.

Ruby lowered her sword and leaned on it, panting for breath, her chest heaving. It had been a long time since she’d been pressed that hard in a fight. Sweat ran down her face and stung in her eyes. Valentine’s head rolled slowly across the floor, until it bumped up against a crate of grenades. And it was only then that Ruby realized the headless body showed no signs of falling. It stood squarely on its own two feet, still facing her, still holding its sword in its hand. The chest was still working, and she could hear its breath bubbling in the open throat. The hackles on the back of her neck were standing up so stiffly it was almost painful, and gooseflesh covered her arms, as the body turned unhurriedly, bent over, and picked up its head. The arm held the severed head out on a level with her face, so she could see it smiling, the eyes bright and aware and knowing, and then the body replaced its head on its neck. The blood flow cut off in a second, and the wound vanished. Valentine Wolfe was whole again, and very much alive.

“Good to be back,” he said easily. “Did you miss me?”

Ruby didn’t wait to see any more. She called up her fire, blasted the nearest crate of explosives, and threw herself out the open lockup door, rolling to one side tucked into a ball with her hands over her ears. The explosives all went off at once, painfully loud, and a great blast of fire and heated gasses came boiling out the lockup door, close enough to singe Ruby’s clothes and hair. The ground shook beneath her as more explosives went off. She scrambled to her feet and ran as fast as her feet would carry her. Behind her, the entire row of lockup garages was a mass of flames, leaping high into the night, accompanied by a loud rumble of collapsing brickwork. Ruby didn’t know how long it would take the Shub nanos to put the Wolfe back together again, or what he might look like afterward, but she was sure she wasn’t curious enough to stick around and find out.

It was a long time since she’d had to run from a fight, but survival was more important than honor, and besides, no one was paying her to kill Valentine Wolfe. Her job was to find Jack Random, and she’d already established he wasn’t in the lockup. Ruby scowled as she ran. Random, allied with Shub? Was the whole universe going mad?

 

Jack Random appeared deep in the shining metal bowels of Lionstone’s old Palace, and immediately began to shudder violently at the cold. Extremes of temperature didn’t normally bother him much these days, but the air here was bitter cold, barely above zero. The freezing air seared his lungs as he breathed it, and he could already feel hoarfrost forming on his bare face and hands. He pulled his cloak tightly about him, and gritted his teeth to stop them from chattering. His unsteady breath steamed thickly on the air before him. He looked around him, but there was only the featureless metal walls of an unremarkable corridor. He could have been anywhere in the Palace.