He made himself move faster, and soon he was running down the familiar stone corridors, his boots pounding loudly on the thick carpeting, no room in him for anything but guilt and pain and the need for the bloody revenge that would quiet them.
Finally he came to the single steel door that led to what had once been his security center. He reined back on his anger and his need, and made himself study the door carefully. It was inches-thick solid steel, with no visible lock mechanism, and undoubtably booby-trapped in a dozen ways, from hidden disrupters to primed explosives. Owen didn't care.
He concentrated, reaching down past his conscious mind, into the back brain, the undermind, and something there woke up and uncoiled, bursting outward without restraints. The mental pulse blew the solid steel door right out of its steel frame, and sent it flying backward into the room beyond. The hidden disrupters and explosives tried to arm themselves, but Owen shut them down with a single thought. His power was fully awake now, and burning brightly within him. Owen stepped through the empty doorway into the room, only to be stopped by the sound of quiet, ironic applause. At the far end of the room, almost hidden in shadows, Valentine Wolfe was sitting languidly in a swivel chair, clapping his long white hands together. Dressed in utter black, his corpse-pale face seemed to float unsupported on the gloom.
"Marvelous entrance, Owen. You really have developed a sense of the dramatic. Such an improvement. You were always so proper and stuffy before you were outlawed. Really, it's been the making of you."
Owen moved forward a few steps, looking carefully about him. Lots of computers and monitor screens and terminals, but no operators and no guards. Just Valentine, apparently unmoved. Nothing and no one standing between the Deathstalker and his vengeance. "Get up, Wolfe," he said softly, his voice cold and certain as death. "It's all over. It ends here."
"Oh, don't be so predictable, Owen," said the Wolfe, casually folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. "Do we really have to do what everyone expects of us? Act out the traditional roles of pure-hearted hero and dastardly villain? There's more to us than that. We have so much in common, you and I. We ought almost to be brothers in spirit."
"I'm nothing like you, Wolfe," said Owen flatly.
"Really? What have I done that you haven't, in your time as a rebel? I've no doubt your personal body count is much higher than mine, for all my efforts."
"You were responsible for the death of this planet. For the wiping out of its population."
"Well, I had help, but how many died at your instigation on Mistworld and Golgotha? How many good soldiers, just following orders and carrying out their duty? Who knew nothing of politics and were just enforcing the law? There's blood and death and horror on both our hands. But don't let it worry you. We're above such things. We're more than human now, and human limitations don't apply to us any longer."
"It's not what we've done," said Owen. "It's why we did it. I killed when it was necessary, fought to see an end of killing. You did it for pleasure."
"Are you saying you won't enjoy killing me?"
"No. I'm not saying that at all."
"You see? Ordinary restrictions don't apply to us. We can do wonderful, terrible things, limited only by our imagination and the narrowness of our vision. We will do these things; we must, because we can. Don't stay mired in the past, Owen. In the man you used to be, before you were kicked awake. You're still concerned with small concepts, like duty and honor and law. Law is for the little people, honor for those afraid to be more than they are, and our only duty is to ourselves now; to explore the possibilities before us, to become everything that we can be. Anything less is a betrayal of what we've made of ourselves."
"I've lost so much, had to give up so many things," said Owen. "I won't give up my humanity too."
Valentine shrugged easily. "Trust me, Owen. You'll be surprised how little you'll miss it. But I see there's no point in talking to you anymore at this point. You're not ready to hear the truth. When you've progressed as far as I have, you'll see things much more clearly. Still, I had to try. I see so much of myself in you. Now, I really must be leaving."
"I don't think so," said Owen. "If I remember correctly, and I do, there's only one way in or out of this center, and I'm blocking it. You have to get past me first. And you were never that good."
"Probably not. But I don't have to be. I've always relied on others to do the hard menial work for me. I am a Lord, after all. I have someone here who'd like to meet you, Deathstalker. Really, she's quite been looking forward to it. You went away and left her, and I'm afraid she carries something of a grudge. You never were very good with women, Owen." The Wolfe looked off through an open door that led into an adjoining room. "Do step in here and make yourself known, my dear."
From the adjoining room came the sound of slow, stumbling footsteps. Owen's nose wrinkled as a smell came to him, dark and organic, quite out of place in the spotless high-tech security center. It was a smell of preservatives, and underneath that the sickly sweet stench of rot and decay. A cold prickling ran down Owen's spine, a premonition. And then the dead woman stepped into the room and stood trembling beside Valentine Wolfe. She was quite naked, but held a sword in her hand. She'd been in the ground for some time. The primitive undertakers of Virimonde had done their best, but the pale purple and gray skin had cracked apart all over the body, revealing implanted computers and servomechanisms. The big Y of an autopsy scar ran from her sunken breasts down to her groin, the stitches stretched and broken. A single death wound still showed clearly against the ribs. The face was taut and drawn, sunken down to the bone in places. The dead lips had torn free of their stitches and drawn back from the perfect teeth in an unwavering smile that had no humor in it. The eyes were deeply sunk in their sockets, and yellow as urine. The flat blond hair had grown longer in the grave. But Owen still recognized her, and horror closed around his heart like a fist.
"Cathy…"
"Got it in one, Deathstalker," said Valentine Wolfe. "Your old mistress, Cathy DeVries, from the days when you were young and carefree. Actually, she was really an Imperial spy, set to keep an eye on you, and you had to kill her in self-defense. Your first love, who died in your arms. Such a touching scene, I'm sure. And here she is again, my little present to you.
"You see, I've done my homework on you, Owen. I know what moves you, and what holds you back. I had dear Cathy dug up when I first came here, and had my people implant Ghost Warrior technology inside her. Just in case you tracked me here to trouble me again. Now, I think I'll leave you two lovebirds alone together. I'm sure you've got lots to talk about. And, Owen… just in case you can bring yourself to kill her again before she kills you, I've arranged another little surprise for you. No, don't bother to thank me. What are brothers for?"
He gestured at the dead woman, and she lurched forward, sword at the ready. Owen backed away, and the corpse of what had once been his mistress came after him. He tried to speak to her, but his mouth was too dry. This wasn't Cathy. Cathy was dead, and the computers currently inhabiting her body cared only for the orders programmed into them. Owen knew this, but he couldn't fight her. Not her. Killing Cathy had been the hardest thing he'd ever had to do then, and he didn't think he could do it again. And so he allowed her to back him away from the open door, and Valentine Wolfe slipped easily past them, chuckling happily. He darted away down the corridor, still laughing, leaving Owen and what was left of his old mistress to sort out their differences together.
And in the computers of the security center, a program was slowly counting down to zero—Valentine's last gift to the Deathstalker.
Back in the main hall, Hazel d'Ark was bored. She sat in a chair with its back to the wall, so no one could sneak up on her, and watched the Romanov and the Kartakis sit quietly together. Hazel could have contacted Owen through his comm implant, to see how he was getting on, but she knew how snappish he could get if you interrupted him while he was in the middle of something. Hazel crossed her legs, just for
something to do, and wished Owen would get on with killing the Wolfe. There was always the chance he'd go all soft-hearted again at the last minute, and insist on dragging the Wolfe back alive to stand trial, but she didn't think so. Not this time. Hazel crossed her legs again and sighed heavily. Boring, boring, boring.
She glared across at the two silent aristocrats, and only then realized that the Romanov had disappeared. His exoskeleton was still sitting where it had been, but he wasn't inside it anymore. Hazel was immediately on her feet, gun and sword in hand, eyes sweeping the great hall. How the hell could she have missed the Romanov getting loose? There was no way he could have clambered out of that much armor without her noticing, no matter how preoccupied she' d been with her boredom. Unless the body armor had built-in stealth technology—in which case the Romanov could have freed himself while hidden behind a projected holo illusion. And if the Romanov had dropped that illusion, it could only be because he was currently skulking somewhere in the hall, hidden again behind some projected holo disguise that rendered him, for all practical purposes, invisible. Wonderful.
Hazel held her sword out before her and spun around in a circle. She strained her ears for the slightest sound, but the hall seemed utterly silent. The Romanov could be anywhere in the damned hall… She shot a quick glare at the Kartakis, to warn him to stay put, and was cheered silently by the way he immediately sank back in his chair. And then an arm shot around her throat from behind, tightening its grip, shutting off her air. She struggled furiously against the choke hold, but couldn't shake the Romanov off. Strength wasn't enough to break a hold like this, one of the few holds that actually stood a chance against someone as strong as her. She still had some human weaknesses, after all. Hazel staggered back and forth, dragging the Romanov with her, desperate for air, furious with herself for letting her attention slip. She had to defeat the Romanov before Owen got back, or she'd never hear the end of it.
She snapped smartly forward at the waist, and the Romanov went flying forward over her head, his own weight and momentum breaking the stranglehold. She heard him hit the floor hard, and immediately turned and blasted the exoskeleton with her disrupter. The armor exploded with a satisfyingly large bang and went up in flames. The Romanov's holo illusion snapped off, and there he was before her, rising to his feet with a short but nasty-looking knife in his hand. She really should have searched him.
Hazel sucked the air back into her straining lungs, her sword held steadily out before her. The Romanov was a big man, but she'd faced bigger, and the advantage was back on her side now. The Romanov seemed to sense this, opened his hand, and let the knife fall to the floor. Hazel relaxed just a little. She should have known the aristo wouldn't have the guts for anything remotely resembling a fair fight.
She gestured with her sword for the Romanov to go and sit down again, and knew immediately they she'd made a mistake. For a man who had one hidden weapon might well have another. The moment Hazel's blade moved away from him, the Romanov flexed his arm, and a knife dropped down into his hand from another hidden sheath. The knife in his hand streaked toward her undefended gut, and her sword was miles out of line. It was a sudden, simple, blindingly fast attack, and anyone else would surely have died, but Hazel wasn't like anyone else, and hadn't been for a long time now. She hauled her sword back into line with inhuman speed and strength, parried the knife, and knocked it aside. The Romanov plunged on, unable to stop, and impaled himself on the waiting blade.
The Romanov sank to the floor, face twisting, and dropped his knife to clutch the transfixing sword blade with both hands, as though he could somehow pull the killing steel out of his body. And it was as he held Hazel's sword with a dying man's desperate strength that Hazel realized she'd lost track of the Kartakis. She glared around her, desperately tugging her sword, but couldn't budge it. And there was the Kartakis, on his feet, a concealed knife in his hand too. She started to raise her gun, but the Kartakis's hand whipped forward, throwing the knife with deadly practiced skill, and Hazel knew she wasn't fast enough to dodge it. She tried anyway, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. The knife inched through the air, heading straight for her left eye. And Hazel knew she was going to die, alone and far from friends and help.
Oh, Owen, I wish—
And then there he was, materializing out of thin air, his hand slapping the knife aside. It flashed through the air, back to its owner, and sank to its hilt in the Kartakis's throat, as though it belonged there. The aristocrat bent slowly forward, as though bowing to Owen and Hazel, and fell dead to the floor. The Romanov breathed his last, let go of Hazel's sword, and fell backward, dead too. She jerked the sword out of his body and turned, just a little breathlessly, to thank Owen for his last-minute rescue. And it was only then that she realized how different he looked.
His clothes were different, torn and bloodied, and topped with a great furred cloak. His face was tired and gaunt, and he was breathing hard and deep, as though he'd been running for a long time. He looked as though he'd been through Hell and had to fight every step of the way, but in his steady gaze Hazel saw both determination and a desperate, bone-deep sadness. He smiled at her, a strange, gentle smile, and reached out a hand as though to take hers. Hazel thrust her gun into its holster and reached out to take his hand. And that was when she realized Owen was extending his flesh and blood left hand, not the golden Hadenman hand that had replaced it long ago. Hazel hesitated, her hand stopping short of his, and Owen smiled sadly, as though he knew he'd be denied but had still hoped otherwise. He opened his mouth to say something, and Hazel leaned desperately forward, somehow knowing it was vital she heard what he had to say, but he was gone, vanished back to wherever he'd come from, to whatever desperate flight he'd interrupted to save her when no one else could.
Hazel looked about her, but the hall was empty, save for the two dead aristocrats and the quietly burning exoskeleton. Had that really been Owen, appearing out of nowhere to save her when she needed it most? But he'd had two human hands. Could it have been an alternative Owen, from some different time track, like the other Hazels she sometimes summoned? And if so, why had he looked so sad? She accessed her comm implant.
"Owen. Report in. Are you all right? Owen? Owen!"
The Ghost Warrior made out of Cathy's remains lurched toward Owen, sword at the ready, and he didn't think he'd ever been so angry in his life. He wasn't worried. For someone who'd once gone one on one with a Grendel, a lone Ghost Warrior with just a sword wasn't much of a threat. Her sword lashed out at him, and he parried it effortlessly. But to have desecrated the grave of the first woman he'd ever felt anything for, just for a sick joke… for another way to hurt him… Owen clutched his sword hilt till his hand ached. He didn't want to have to kill Cathy again. It had been hard enough the first time. But he couldn't let this mockery of an old love go on. It had to be stopped, if only so he could go after Valentine and tear him apart with his bare hands. And then the dead mouth opened, and an approximation of Cathy's voice came out. It wasn't the body speaking. The vocal cords had to be rotted away by now. It was just a recording.
"Don't hurt me, Owen," said the dead woman, her torn black lips trying to keep up with the words. "Please. I don't want to die again. I know I'm not what I used to be, but it's still me. Cathy. Your mistress. Valentine brought me back, back from the dead, and trapped me in this rotting body. He can do things like that now. He has new friends. Powerful allies. You'd be amazed what he can do now. Please, Owen."
"Shut up."
"All right, then, let me kill you, and we can be dead together, lying side by side in the warm earth, forever. Do it for me, Owen."
"You don't sound a bit like her," said Owen, and he stopped backing away. "You don't sound at all like my Cathy."
"Being dead changes you."
"Not this much. Cathy never pleaded for anything. Damn you to Hell, Valentine."
And he lashed out with his mind, the power boiling up within him, driven and focused by fury and outrage, and the dead bo
dy before him blew apart into tiny pieces of rotten flesh and shattered tech. Owen watched them fall and felt nothing at all. It hadn't been Cathy.
"Owen?" said Hazel's voice through his comm implant. "Report in. Are you all right? Owen? Owen!"
"I'm fine," he said finally. "But Valentine's escaped. We'll have to search the castle for him. Lock up the two Lords and come and join me in the security center."
"The Lords are dead," said Hazel, just a little apologetically. "They tried to escape."
Owen started to say something cutting and then hesitated. There had been something in her voice… "Are you all right, Hazel?"
"Of course," she said. "I'm fine. I'll be with you soon."
She shut off contact. Owen looked down at the remains of a human body scattered across the floor, and told himself he felt nothing at all.
Together, Owen and Hazel searched the Standing, floor by floor, room by room. It took some time. The security system should have been able to locate Valentine, but he'd programmed it to ignore him. The Wolfe always planned his moves well in advance. And so they made their way through the ancient castle and did not find him, or any trace of his people. Valentine Wolfe had left the building.
They finally ended up in Owen's old bedchamber. The secret passage was still standing open, but Hazel talked Owen out of going back down to the flyer caves. It had been clear to her for some time that the Wolfe had made his escape from the castle, and probably from Virimonde, but she'd let Owen go on searching, because she could see he needed to. They stood together in the bedchamber and looked about them, wondering what to do next. Hazel sat down on the edge of the bed, legs swinging, and smiled as she sank slowly into the deep mattress.
"This is some place you got here, Deathstalker. Did this really all belong to you?"
"When I was Lord, this whole planet belonged to me, and everything on it," said Owen. "Now the planet and everything on it is dead. All I have left is a Standing I never really cared for, and a few memories."
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