Deathstalker Return (50 page)

 

 

Treasure Mackenzie, also known as Frankie, bribed and dazzled her way past the guards at King Douglas’s door, breezed cheerfully through into his private chambers, and then locked the door behind her, using a key that would keep everybody out, even the guards. She had a lot to say and do, and she didn’t intend to be interrupted. Douglas rose up out of his chair with a polite objection on his lips, and then stopped as he realized there was something different about his fiancée this time. Her face was as beautiful and sensual as ever, but her eyes were cold and her generous mouth was set in a flat line. She strode towards him like a warrior going into battle, and Douglas dropped his book into his chair and met her with a cold, thoughtful look of his own. Treasure didn’t look happy to see him. She came to a halt right in front of him, her eyes boring into his.

“The time for masks is over, Campbell. It’s time to reveal who we really are, and what we really want.”

“Really?” said Douglas. “How very intriguing. To what, exactly, do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Treasure?”

“That’s not my name. Not my real name. I was born Francine Wolfe.” She smiled again at his reaction. “That’s right, Campbell. I’m the current head of a Family that was once your Clan’s greatest enemy. Our ancestors killed each other for laughs. And now, here I am promised to you in marriage—if either of us lives that long. It turns out we have a common enemy, someone who wants us both dead, unless we can agree to put aside our differences, and our masks, to work together.”

“This enemy,” said Douglas. “Does he have a name?”

“The Durandal,” said Frankie, showing her perfect teeth in a smile that was more of a snarl. “Finn intends to replace you with James. You must have realized that by now.”

“Perhaps,” said Douglas. “And perhaps I’m not the broken reed that I allow others to see. But why should I ally myself with you, Wolfe? I only have to be near you, and the stink of hidden agenda becomes almost overpowering.”

“You need me because you’ve allowed yourself to become isolated. You have no friends or allies, and even the House has turned its back on you. For a Paragon and a Prince you’ve been remarkably naïve. You really should have chosen your friends more carefully. Finn has become your greatest enemy, Lewis is outlawed, and Anne . . . is sleeping with James. Ah, you didn’t know that. I wasn’t sure.”

“Poor Anne,” said Douglas. “It’s all going to end badly, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.”

“She betrayed you! She sold her soul to Finn!”

“She must have been hurting for a long time. And I was always too busy to notice. But then, it seems I failed to notice a lot of things. What do you want, Wolfe?”

“Your only hope is to destroy Finn and James, before they come for you. And for that you’re going to need me, and the people I represent. I’m Hellfire Club, Douglas. Now, don’t look at me like that. We’re probably the only power left in the Empire that doesn’t bow down to the Durandal.”

Douglas showed her a face as cold as her own. “If there’s anything left in this declining Empire that’s lower and more despicable than Finn Durandal, it’s the Hellfire Club. Do you think I’ve forgotten all the atrocities you people have committed, down the years? Have you forgotten how many of your people I’ve killed?”

“Strange times make for strange allies, Campbell. Don’t let your childish dislike for our methods blind you to the opportunities here. You agree to work with me, with us, and we will make you King again. A real King, this time. Working together, we can undermine and throw down the Durandal, usurp his people and turn them to our cause, and then we will bring back the old days, of Clan and birthright and tradition.” She was standing very close to him now, her eyes gleaming, her words burning with conviction. “The Families will take their rightful place again, and we will sit on the great Thrones of Empire, and rule over all. Our word shall have power over life and death, and all our enemies shall know blood and suffering forever.”

“I never wanted any of that,” Douglas said flatly. “I never even wanted to be King. Perhaps if I’d stuck to my guns and forced my father to find another successor . . . none of this need ever have happened.”

“Well, if you won’t do it for ambition, how about revenge? The Durandal has ruined your life and destroyed everything you ever believed in. Are you going to let him get away with that? Or are you smart enough to join with us, and stop him before he brings everything down to wrack and ruin?”

“Low as I am,” said Douglas, “I still have more sense than to make a deal with the Devil. Once I let you in, I’d never be free of you. What’s the point in replacing one tyrant with another? I’ll find a way to stop Finn, and I’ll find a way to stop you too. Hope you enjoy the Wedding, Wolfe. It’s all you’ll ever have of me.”

“That bitch Flowers really did take your balls with her, didn’t she?” Frankie said, and laughed in his face as he glared at her.

She let her right hand drift closer to the high slit in her dress over her right thigh. Under the dress she had a concealed leather sheath holding a long slender dagger. The leather had been cloned from her own skin, and the dagger fashioned from scrapings from her own thigh bone—which meant neither of them would show up in any security scan. And who would body-search a woman going to meet her husband-to-be, after the scan had already cleared her? If Douglas couldn’t be persuaded to do the sensible thing, then that left only one option: kill Douglas, and plant evidence to make it look like Finn did it. The Hellfire Club could then step in and take advantage of the resulting chaos, and before you knew it little Treasure Mackenzie would be Queen. Her court would be all Hellfire Club, and all her advisers, and soon enough the Empire would wake up to discover that everything had changed . . . The Dark Queen would hold dominion over all, devils would run riot in the streets, and
Do what thou wilt
would be the whole of the law. It would be glorious. Frankie laughed again, holding Douglas’s angry eyes with her own, and drew the concealed dagger from its sheath. She leaned forwards as though to kiss him, and then thrust the dagger into his unprotected groin.

Except somehow, impossibly, his hand was there in time to grab her wrist and stop the blow well short of its target. He laughed softly, and twisted her wrist cruelly until she had no choice but to drop the knife. She slashed at his eyes with her free hand, the long fingernails digging bloody furrows in his cheek as he snapped his head back. She broke free from his grip and fell back a step. They stood there a moment, glaring at each other, breathing heavily, and then they both lunged forwards. For they were Campbell and Wolfe, Paragon and Hellfire Club, and they would never be anything but enemies.

It was a killing fight now, and they both knew it.

They slammed together, both of them fighting expertly and viciously, as they’d been trained. Their hands struck like weapons, going for soft spots and unguarded places. They used killing blows and crippling moves, parrying vicious attacks at the very last moment, hurting each other with almost clinical precision. Their clothes tore, and blood splashed on the luxurious carpeting, but neither of them cried out. They lurched back and forth, sometimes trading blows, sometimes fighting in close with deadly holds and purchases, fingers probing for pressure points, their bodies wet with sweat as their passion drove them on. They raged across the room, smashing antique furnishings and priceless heirlooms, so caught up in their struggle they didn’t even notice. The guards outside were beating on the door and demanding to be let in, but Frankie had fixed the locks.

Douglas and Frankie fought hand to hand, with marvelous skill and deadly fury. She knew every dirty trick there was, but he was a trained Paragon, and in the end he was a professional and she was just a gifted amateur. Douglas slipped under a carelessly timed blow, spun Frankie round, and caught her in a full nelson. Both his hands clapped firmly over the back of her neck, pressing her head forwards, while her arms stretched helplessly out. She heaved and struggled, slamming her marvelous body back against his, but she couldn’t break the hold. She swore viciously at him, stamping down at his feet. Douglas applied more pressure, forcing her chin down against her breastbone, and she cried out in pain and anger as her neck bones creaked loudly.

“That’s it,” Douglas said, struggling to get his breath back. “This is over! Surrender, and stand trial, or die right here.”

“You haven’t got the balls!” said Frankie. “The Hellfire Club will see you dead for this insult! No one refuses us! We’ll be at your back and at your throat, for as long as it takes to get you. Let me go, bow down to me, and you can still be someone!”

And somehow, impossibly, her right shoulder dislocated itself, and her right arm came snaking around, holding the bone dagger, heading straight for his ribs. Douglas’s arm muscles flexed powerfully, and her neck broke with a loud crack. She went limp against him, all the breath going out of her. The bone dagger fell from her dead hand. Douglas let her go, and she fell untidily to the floor like a beautiful broken doll. Douglas knelt down beside her.

“I am someone,” he said quietly. “I am the King. And I sentence you to death, for treason.”

His breathing slowed as he sat down beside Frankie’s body. He could hear a loud pounding, but couldn’t tell whether it was his heart or the guards outside his door. He looked at his hands, and there was blood on them, from the fight. And that was how Anne Barclay and the guards found him when they finally broke down the doors and burst into his chamber: King Douglas, sitting beside the dead body of his wife-to-be, with her blood on his hands.

“Oh, my God,” said Anne. “Douglas . . . what have you done?”

“He’s killed her!” said one of the guards. “The bastard’s killed Treasure Mackenzie!”

He started towards Douglas, and the other guard had to restrain him. Anne moved slowly forwards, and Douglas looked up at her.

“I had to kill her. She was Hellfire Club.”

“Of course she was, Douglas. Now please, stand up. Let them get to the body. I’ll . . . get someone to take you somewhere else.”

“This isn’t what it looks like, Anne. She tried to kill me.”

“Her? Empty-headed, harmless little Treasure Mackenzie? The woman who was going to be your wife, your Queen? Oh, Douglas . . .” Anne put a hand to her head, and swallowed hard. “There’s no way we can cover this up, Douglas. There’s nothing I can do for you. Oh, God . . . I should never have gone along with a second marriage. Not so soon after . . . By introducing her to you, I as good as killed her myself.”

“She was . . .”

“
I don’t want to hear it, Douglas!
Oh, Jesus, I should never have left you alone for so long. I knew you were depressed, but . . . I never meant . . . Oh, hell. I’m sorry, Douglas. You’ve gone too far now. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

More guards came crashing in through the open doorway. They had guns in their hands. Douglas stood very still. Anne put a gentle hand on his arm.

“Go with them, Douglas. I won’t let them hurt you, I promise. They’ll take you somewhere safe.”

“What the hell happened here?” said one of the new guards.

“The King has lost his mind,” said Anne. “He must be placed under house arrest, under secure conditions, for his own protection. Until a trial can be arranged.”

“You have security cameras in here,” said Douglas. He tried hard to keep his voice calm and reasonable. “I know you, Anne. You’d have cameras here somewhere, to keep an eye on me. Make sure I wasn’t plotting. Check the recordings. They’ll show what really happened.”

“All the cameras were shut down,” said Anne. “That’s why I came here, as soon as I heard. How did you do that, Douglas?”

He laughed suddenly, bitterly. “She really was very thorough. Of course she wouldn’t want any witnesses.”

“Take him away,” said Anne. “Be firm, but don’t hurt him. He’s not responsible. And get that body out of here.
No one is to say anything to anyone!
Not until I figure out how we’re going to play this. And someone go find the Durandal! He’ll have to . . . put things in action. For the trial. And the funeral. And I’ll have to tell James.” She looked at Douglas almost triumphantly. “He’ll have to be King now.”

“Over my dead body,” said Douglas.

“Yes,” said Anne.

 

 

Out on the Rim, on the edge of the Empire, they picked up the Terror’s herald, the awful black ship that preceded the Terror’s coming, the moment it appeared in normal space again. No one saw it coming. It was just suddenly there, heading for its next target, Heracles IV. It didn’t look like much—just a dark, vaguely organic shape about a mile in length, heading in a straight implacable line towards the sun of its next victim. It was traveling at less than light speed, but even so Heracles IV had only a few hours in which to prepare itself.

Heracles IV was the only inhabited planet in the system, an artificially maintained farm world producing luxury foods and wines. Normally, it didn’t even have much of a security force. It had never needed one. But on this day, Heracles IV was the most heavily defended planet in the Empire. The outermost defensive ring was composed of thousands of sensor drones. They picked up the Terror’s herald the moment it appeared in normal space again, but the herald had already passed them all, by the time the planet responded to their warning. The oversoul might have bought them more time, but there were no espers in the Empire anymore—Finn Durandal had seen to that. The next layer of defense was provided by an orbiting minefield of the most powerful subspace detonators the Empire had ever produced. They blew up, one after the other, as the herald passed through them, and didn’t slow or alter its progress one bit.

Down on the planet’s surface, hundreds of thousands of remote news cameras turned themselves on. Every news station in the Empire was represented on Heracles IV, ready to cover the story. There were no actual reporters there, of course. They couldn’t get insurance. But their cameras were there, ready to broadcast the death of a planet and its whole population, live and as it happened—or, just possibly, a world’s miraculous escape from utter destruction. The news stations had editorials ready to run either way. Pretty much the whole Empire was watching breathlessly as Heracles IV’s dearly purchased defense systems activated. State of the art disrupter cannon fired on the herald from orbiting stations as it approached, hitting the intruder again and again with almost unimaginable energies. Forces that had scorched all the life from whole planets struck the herald full-on, and left it unscathed. Mindbombs powerful enough to madden whole cities detonated one after the other, to no effect. Sensor arrays bathed the herald with every investigative technique known to the Empire, and they couldn’t even decide on whether the herald was really there or not. The herald just kept coming.