Deathstalker Return (21 page)

“I can’t use the engines as a threat! The House would order my arrest, and take the board back under their control!”

“No, they won’t,” said Finn. “They’ll just spend all their time arguing over what course to take, until it’s far too late. I’ll see to that.”

“But . . . Virimonde?” said Wallace. He would have liked to wipe away the sweat he could feel on his face, but he couldn’t afford to do anything that might be seen as a sign of weakness. “Virimonde still has a fond place in the hearts of the people. I don’t think they’d stand for a threat to the homeworld of the blessed Owen.”

“But the current Deathstalkers aren’t nearly so beloved. Not after what Lewis did. They are our enemies, Joseph, and we must never be afraid to strike at our enemies. And there’s always the chance that a threat against his family might just be enough to tempt dear Lewis out of whatever hole he’s crept into. He always was a most honorable and sentimental fellow. I miss him, I really do. Now, off you go, Joseph, and arrange all the things that need arranging. And don’t worry; I’m sure I’ll be able to find the time for us to have another of these nice little chats. Possibly even sooner than you think. I do so enjoy explaining things to you.”

Wallace didn’t quite run out of the room, followed all the way by Finn’s terrible smile.

Not long afterwards, Finn took the Paragon Stuart Lennox drinking, to the Sangreal bar. Finn had spent a lot of time with the young Paragon from Virimonde, all but adopting him as his student, partner, and protégé. They were friends, in as much as Finn had friends. Certainly the young Stuart hero-worshiped the older, legendary Durandal. So they sat close together at one of the best tables, drinking a murky blue wine that Stuart could never have afforded on his own, and the young man listened awestruck as Finn recounted old stories of his famous exploits as Logres’s Paragon. Finn carefully avoided any of his more current exploits. He didn’t think the boy was quite ready for that just yet.

Stuart Lennox was big and muscular, with a stern, humorless face under a thick mop of curly red hair. A sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks made him look even younger than he was. But he wore his Paragon’s armor well and proudly, and he had, after all, been trained by the same man who trained Lewis Deathstalker. Finn constantly reminded himself not to underestimate the young Lennox. He was potentially a very dangerous man, which was why Finn had invested so much time in turning him.

The bar was getting rowdy. The Sangreal used to be a cop bar, patronized almost exclusively by security personnel from the House of Parliament just up the road, a quiet and civilized place for the serious drinker, but that was before the Paragons discovered it. The Sangreal’s owner hadn’t objected. The money had been good, and you couldn’t buy publicity like that. Everyone would want to drink in a bar that Paragons had patronized. Unfortunately, this new breed of Paragons, who’d returned unsuccessful from their great quest, were very different from those who’d set out so confidently and so joyfully. These Paragons had made the bar their own, and now no one else dared to come in anymore. The Paragons spent their money freely enough, but they did like to party hard. They drank everything there was to drink, openly ingested every drug under the sun, and had sex with each other right there on the tabletops, or with groupies they treated as casually as themselves. There was gambling and fighting every night, and sometimes they played games. Nasty games.

Stuart was shocked the first time Finn brought him to the Sangreal. Finn had to stop him from trying to arrest half the Paragons on sight. But Finn hauled him over to a table by brute force, sat him down, and explained that people in high pressure jobs, weighed down by duties and responsibilities in their public life, needed to relax more than ordinary people, and so were allowed more than ordinary latitude in the pastimes and pleasures they pursued when off duty.

And since it was Finn Durandal saying it, it must be true. Stuart watched the Paragons at their play, and while he never joined in, he slowly lost the ability to be shocked.

So Finn and Stuart were drinking together, talking and laughing, as Finn systematically and quite deliberately enchanted and seduced the young Paragon. Not that he cared a damn about the boy, but he could be a useful tool, if not an ally. And perhaps even a weapon that could be used against Lewis, should he ever be foolish enough to return to Logres. It was an easy enough thing to turn the boy’s hero worship into something else. Stuart was young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and still delightfully innocent in oh so many ways. Day by day, Finn made Stuart into one of his creatures, and set the boy’s heart against Lewis Deathstalker.

It wasn’t difficult at all.

They were getting along really well, giggling together over their wine like great chums, when the Paragon Emma Steel made one of her grand entrances. She slammed open the door, knocked down the bouncer when he tried to block her way, and trampled right over him. She struck a pose, hands on hips, and glared disdainfully about her. She was tall and willowy, though her bare arms were heavy with muscle. Her skin was a rich coffee color, and she wore her jet black hair pulled straight back into a tight bun on the back of her head. Striking rather than conventionally pretty, she could still take your breath away—in more ways than one. Emma Steel was Mistworld’s Paragon, greatest fighter of the old rebel planet, and generally considered the most dangerous person on Logres, in or out of the Arena. She was the law, on Logres.

The other Paragons stopped their playing, and abandoned their drinks and their drugs and their groupies to rise silently to their feet and stare at Emma Steel. Everyone’s hand was near a weapon, but no one moved. Emma sneered at them all and stalked across the room, heading straight for Finn and Stuart’s table. The other Paragons stood very still, watching her silently with cold, vicious eyes. The music in the bar cut off abruptly, and it all went very quiet. Even the drunk and drugged-out groupies had enough sense to keep their mouths shut for once. Emma ignored them all with magnificent disdain, and crashed to a halt at Finn and Stuart’s table. The young Lennox gaped openly at her. If there was one other person in the Parade of the Endless he adored as much as Finn Durandal, it would have to be the almost equally legendary Emma Steel.

“What the hell are you doing in a place like this, with a man like him?” she said bluntly. “You can’t trust a word the Durandal says. Trust me. I have reason to know this.”

Stuart flushed angrily. He was already a little drunk, and made an effort to speak clearly. “I think I’m quite capable of choosing my own friends. And I don’t think you ought to talk like that about Finn. He’s Imperial Champion, and the greatest Paragon we’ve ever had.”

“I thought that once,” said Emma, looking coldly at Finn. “He was my hero. And then I met him. And now there’s just me to patrol the whole of Logres, because the mighty Imperial Champion can’t be bothered anymore.”

“I have other duties now,” Finn said easily. “New responsibilities. I can’t be everywhere at once. And you’re doing such a fine job, Emma. Hardly ever out of the news. I hope you’ve got someone experienced handling your merchandising.”

“I’ve never given a damn for any of that shit, and you know it. I care about the job—because someone has to. Lennox, listen to me. Learn from my mistakes. The Durandal isn’t the legend he was. If he ever really was.”

She broke off as one of the carousing Paragons suddenly threw away his drink and came charging straight at her, sword in hand. Emma spun round, her sword leaping into her hand, and met him head-on. She parried his sword thrust easily, kicked him in the balls, and then hit him on the back of the head with her sword hilt as he dropped towards the safety of the floor. She sneered down at the twitching body at her feet.

“The quality of Paragons has really gone downhill recently. I suppose that’s what happens when you pal around with the Durandal.” She looked unhurriedly about her, her free hand hovering over the disrupter on her hip. The other Paragons stared flatly back, their faces cold and dangerous, but none of them moved. Emma sniffed loudly. “Seems I’ve outstayed my welcome. Lennox, you know where to find me, if you need me. Don’t leave it too late.”

She backed out of the Sangreal, not taking her eyes off the other Paragons, not hurrying but not hanging about either. The Paragons waited until they were sure she was gone, and then they went back to their various unpleasant pursuits as though they’d never been interrupted. Stuart looked at Finn, shocked almost sober again by the unexpected confrontation.

“What the hell was
that
all about?”

“Women,” Finn said calmly, refilling Stuart’s glass. “She’s just jealous that I’ve got a new partner. She wanted the position, but she was never worthy of it. Not like you, my dear.”

Finn plied the young man with drink, flattered his ego, cuddled and kissed him, and none of it meant anything to Finn. Boys and girls, girls and boys—none of that had ever meant much to him. He took his pleasures as they came, and none of it ever touched him where he lived. There’d only ever been him, in his life. But it amused him to corrupt the idealistic young man and turn him into a weapon that could be thrown at Lewis; most of all because Finn knew how much it would hurt Lewis. As a useful side project, Finn also quietly pried information out of Stuart about Virimonde’s planetary defenses, just in case he found it necessary to use the transmutation engines on Virimonde after all. Finn believed in covering all the angles.

 

 

Emma Steel rode her gravity sled high above the bustling streets of the Parade of the Endless. It was the only place she felt safe anymore, high enough in the sky that the madness and the corruption couldn’t reach her. Sometimes it seemed that she was the only sane person left in Logres, and she was hanging on by only her fingertips. Other air traffic saw her scowling face, and gave her plenty of room. Emma didn’t even notice, lost in her own thoughts. She was all on her own, these days. Finn left all the work to her, and none of the other Paragons she’d approached would help her, even though they showed no signs of returning to their own worlds. They refused to talk to her, even the few she’d thought of as friends. And the peacekeepers were reluctant to back her up, for fear of being caught in the middle of a Paragon quarrel. So now only one Paragon patrolled Logres, and that was Emma Steel. Sensing her isolation, the criminal element had declared open war on her, and placed an unofficial bounty of half a million credits on her head. It hadn’t done them any good. Emma took on everyone and everything they could throw at her, and never even looked like losing. She had been raised and trained on Mistworld, that most dangerous and barbaric of worlds, and compared to the everyday menaces she’d faced there, Logres’s lawbreakers were just talented amateurs. Her continuing triumphs in the face of overwhelming odds captured the interest of the news media and the public. They needed someone to admire—someone who clearly had no interest in extreme politics or religion, someone not tainted by the current era of corruption and betrayal—and they took Emma Steel to their fickle hearts.

To her credit, Emma didn’t give a damn. Mostly.

She glanced at the watch face embedded in her wrist, and sighed heavily. She was going to be late for her appointment. She’d reluctantly agreed to allow a reporter to tag along with her for one shift, to show people how much pressure she was under without the Durandal’s help. Normally Emma had no time for reporters, except to kick them when they got in the way at crime scenes, but she needed some way to get her views on Finn to the public. So for today’s shift, she was to be accompanied by one Nina Malapert, of Channel 739.
All the news, as it happens, up close and personal.
Not the channel or the reporter Emma would have preferred, but it had been almost impossible to find a journalist willing to put her own arse on the line. Most worked only through their remotes these days, sending their cameras into dangerous areas while they stayed safely in their offices—said it helped to give them “distance” from a story. Emma wasn’t having any of that. She wanted a reporter right there with her, transmitting live, so they couldn’t edit or cut out any controversial material.

And the only person to volunteer had been . . . Nina Malapert.

The reporter was where she said she’d be, her camera bobbing above her shoulder. She smiled and waved brightly to Emma as she descended on her gravity sled into the quiet side street they’d agreed on. Nina was a bright young thing, with an open happy face and a towering pink mohawk. She was wearing a clutter of pastel-colored silks and carrying a large leather shoulder bag decorated with images of pretty flowers. She wore far too much makeup on her somewhat pointed face, and had on entirely unsuitable shoes. Emma looked at her for a long time.

“You do realize we’re going into the Rookery today?” she said heavily. “Into the most dangerous and evil part of the city?”