Deathstalker (43 page)

Many of the guests stirred uneasily. The esp-blockers had been shut down for this moment, and the threat of outside attack was that much greater, but mostly the guests were concerned that their own little secrets might be detected and exposed by the esper. Everyone had something to hide. They needn’t have worried. The esper knew better than to let his thoughts stray. There was a Church guard standing off to one side with a gun trained on him. So he concentrated on the bride and groom before him, and everything was hushed. Until his head came up sharply, and he stepped back a pace. Kasser glared at him.

“What is it? Is there a question of identity?”

“No, Your Grace,” said the esper quickly. “They are who they claim to be. It’s just that I sense not two minds, but three. The Lady Letitia is pregnant. And not by the groom.”

For a moment there was a shocked silence, and then uproar filled the ballroom. Robert stared open-mouthed at Letitia, who stared numbly back at him.
Had there been someone special?
he’d asked. And she’d said
yes
. Kassar tore the golden cord from their wrists and threw it to one side. It seemed like everyone was shouting and screaming at everyone else, and swords were appearing in hands. Space grew around the white-faced bride as people fell back rather than be contaminated by her presence. Adrienne tried to get to her, but was held back by the crush of the crowd. For
bringing a sullied bride to a joining of Clans, the Shrecks would be ostracized by society. It was the ultimate insult.

The Shrecks were yelling that they knew nothing of it, but no one was listening. Robert started toward Letitia, not knowing what he was going to say or do, only drawn on by the misery in her face. And then Gregor Shreck burst out of the crowd, the golden wedding cord in his hands. His face blazed with fury, and Letitia shrank back from him. Before anyone knew what he planned, he had the golden cord round Letitia’s throat and pulled it tight. Her eyes bulged as she fought for breath, and she clawed helplessly at the Shreck’s wrists. He swung her round, put his knee in her back and tightened his hold, the muscles standing out in his arms. Robert plunged forward to stop him, but then strong arms were holding him back, no matter how he struggled. William and Gerald held him firmly, their faces cold and dispassionate.

Letitia’s face was horribly red, and her tongue protruded from her mouth. There was shouting and some screaming from the crowd, but no one went to help her. Robert fought savagely, but William and Gerald held him fast. He called her name, and didn’t know he was crying. Letitia sank to the floor, held up only by the Shreck’s strangling grip. The ballroom slowly grew silent as the end drew near, until the only sounds in the chamber were Gregor’s panting breath, Letitia’s last choking gasps, and Robert’s racking sobs. And then her eyes rolled up and she was silent, and Gregor slowly relaxed his grip. She fell limply to the floor and lay still.

Gregor turned to face Finlay, his face red from his exertion, his breathing unsteady, “I make apologies for my Clan and present this death as atonement. I trust this is sufficient?”

“It is,” said Finlay Campbell. “Honor is satisfied. We will discuss the choosing of another bride at a later date that the wedding may proceed in the future. This ceremony shall be forgotten and never referred to again.”

He nodded to William and Gerald, who released Robert. He stumbled forward to kneel at Letitia’s side. Finlay gathered up the rest of the Campbells with his eyes and led them out of the ballroom. The Shrecks followed, and the Wolfes, and finally the Vicar James Kassar and his people, until only
Robert Campbell was left, kneeling by his dead bride, holding her still white hand in his.

Outside in the corridor, Gregor Shreck looked across at his favored daughter Evangeline. Let her take a lesson from this. He’d kill her, too, if he had to, to keep his secret safe. He’d done it before. He smiled slightly. He’d murdered the original Evangeline because she wouldn’t love him as he loved her, as a man loved a woman. He was the Shreck, and he would be obeyed.

The trouble in dealing with underground movements
, thought Valentine Wolfe waspishly,
is that sometimes they take their name too literally
. He struggled on through the narrow service duct, shoulders hunched and head down to keep from banging it on the low tunnel roof. It stretched endlessly away before him, cramped and gloomy and unreservedly depressing. Low-intensity lamps hung down from the roof at regular intervals, providing just enough light to make him squint painfully. An insane tangle of interwoven cables stretched along the walls and ceiling, colored-coded in a way that presumably made sense to someone. Valentine thought them unforgivably gaudy and garish. Some of the cables were frayed and dangling, like hanging vines, and he had to bat them aside with his arms as he progressed. There was dirt and dust everywhere. Clearly no one had passed through the tunnel in some time, and Valentine for one didn’t blame them. The view was monotonous, his back was killing him, and the smell was appalling.

He was deep in the guts of the world, in its hidden underside: the maze of sewers and access tunnels and service ducts that linked the varying self-contained worlds that existed within Golgotha. Although the complicated maze was necessary for the inner world’s survival, few people ever thought of them. Only service personnel were authorized to use the passageways, but then, Valentine was used to being in places he wasn’t supposed to be. His lip curled in disgust as the slime he was treading in grew steadily deeper. It was already lapping at the ankles of his very fashionable thigh-length
leather boots and was doing nothing at all for their shine. Valentine didn’t know what the slime was and didn’t feel in the least like investigating its nature. He had a strong feeling he was better off not knowing. It looked worryingly organic, and he thought it best not to disturb the stuff any more than he had to. He trudged on down the tunnel, one hand casually resting on the gun at his hip, trying without much success to ease the aching muscles of his hunched back.

He’d discarded the frailer parts of his outfit before setting out, replacing them with more robust and anonymous items, and wrapped himself in a long black cloak. He’d wiped the heavy makeup from his face, tied back his long hair in a functional braid, and together with his new outfit he presented a quite different appearance, which was just as well. It wouldn’t do for anyone to discover Valentine Wolfe attending meetings of the clone and esper undergrounds. They wouldn’t understand.

It was a shame he’d had to rush away so soon after the wedding debacle. He’d expected a dull and lifeless affair, followed by appalling food and worse dancing, but in the end it had turned out to be rather amusing. He would have liked to hang around and drop a few exquisite bon mots where they could do the most harm, but the call from the underground had arrived by its usual roundabout route, and when the underground called, he answered. He didn’t take kindly to being summoned by such lowlife trash, but as long as they had something he wanted, he’d go along with the game. It did have its amusing moments. Though he had to admit this wasn’t one of them.

He stopped suddenly and peered suspiciously about him in the gloom. The dimly glowing lamp shed a blue-white light before and behind him, but between the widely spaced lamps there was a darkness so deep even his chemically boosted eyes couldn’t pierce it. He listened intently, holding himself perfectly still, but nothing stirred. Valentine scowled thoughtfully. He could have sworn he’d heard something, but sound traveled strangely in the narrow service duct. God only knew what kind of small, disgusting life might have made a home for itself down here.

He wasn’t that far from one of the main sewer offshoots, according to the map he’d memorized earlier. There were all kinds of stories about what strange and malignant creatures
flourished in the sewers. Also, according to rumor, sewer workers received battle pay and bonuses for the heads of anything they brought back with them. Not that Valentine ever listened to such stories. He looked round sharply, sure he’d picked up something just at the edge of his hearing, but there was only the silence and the gloom. He concentrated, and deep within his body, drug caches dumped their loads into his systems. His breathing quickened and deepened as his metabolism speeded up, ready for action. He was stronger, faster, sharper now, and more than ready for whatever was out there. He grinned broadly. Let it come. Let them all come. A thoughtful voice somewhere at the back of his mind pointed out that he shouldn’t really waste his resources. He’d set in motion events that would eventually produce a new supplier to replace dear dead Georgios, but until the new source was established and proven reliable, he would be wise to avoid using up anything he couldn’t easily replace. Valentine decided to ignore the voice. It sounded entirely too sane and sensible, and Valentine Wolfe hadn’t got where he was by being sane and sensible.

A light flared suddenly in the gloom ahead of him, sharp and distinct after the blue-white glare of the lamps, followed by the faint sound of footsteps splashing through the slime. Valentine’s smile widened, and he drew his gun. A dark figure appeared in the tunnel ahead, silhouetted against the light. It stopped a respectful distance away, calm and silent, a ball of glowing clear white light bobbing at its shoulder. The figure looked human, but Valentine wasn’t in the mood to make allowances. In fact, he felt rather like shooting it, anyway, on general principles. And then the figure spoke in a calm, collected voice that had the flat perfection of a machine. Presumably computer-disguised to prevent identification.

“I didn’t mean to alarm you, good sir, but you’ll understand that in our position it pays to be cautious, if not downright paranoid. Allow me to give you the first part of the current password: New.”

“Hope,” said Valentine, relaxing just a little but not lowering his gun. “Rather an obvious choice, I would have thought, but then no one asked my opinion. May I ask who you are?”

The figure moved slowly forward, taking its time so that Valentine wouldn’t feel threatened. It finally came to a halt
before him, bent almost in two under the low roof, and Valentine’s interest increased as he realized that any identifying signs were concealed inside a long flowing cape. Even more interesting, there was nothing inside the cape’s hood: no face, no head, nothing at all. The ball of light bobbed cheerfully at the figure’s shoulder, bright and clear, and Valentine had to tone down his vision.

“I am Hood,” said the figure. “Coordinator between the clone and esper undergrounds and the cyberats. And you, sir?”

“Valentine Wolfe, patron and advisor to the undergrounds. I’ve heard of you, Hood. The shadow in the background, the presence behind the throne, so to speak. I and the rest of the patrons are required to reveal our identities, the espers insist on it, but you alone are allowed annonymity. I wonder why.”

“Because I’m valuable to them,” said Hood. “And as long as they need me, they indulge me. I’ve heard of you, Valentine, but then I suppose everyone has. You’ve pumped quite a lot of money into the undergrounds by all accounts, but I have to say I can’t see why. You are heir to the Wolfe Clan; you stand to inherit everything. What on earth do you need that you have to come to the undergrounds to get it?”

“Sorry,” said Valentine. “I never tell everything on a first date.”

“As you wish. I wonder what the undergrounds want this time that such important backers as you and I had to be summoned so urgently?”

“It had better be important,” said Valentine. “I feel quite naked without my usual persona. Shall we go?”

“Of course. It’s not far now. After you.”

“Oh, no. After you.”

The cape’s hood bobbed once in what might have been agreement or humor, and Hood turned and led the way down a side tunnel that if anything smelled even worse. Valentine followed close behind, his gun still in his hand. He flushed most of the drugs from his system, but kept a few in reserve, just in case.

Normally the underground only summoned its patrons one at a time, so that if they were captured they wouldn’t be able to identify anyone else. Something important must be in the wind for two to be needed. Valentine studied Hood’s enigmatic back thoughtfully. The lack of a face was interesting; the underground was almost fanatical in its need to know exactly
who it was dealing with. It could be a holographic disguise, but nothing less than an esp-blocker would protect Hood’s thoughts from an esper’s probing mind, and the underground wouldn’t tolerate that for a second. Hood: a supplier of money, reportedly well connected, he worked well with both the clone and esper undergrounds, which was rare. They didn’t trust easily, and there were few indeed who’d earned the trust of both.

As if to underline that thought, Hood and Valentine came to a sudden halt before the first warning sign. It was a dead man, hanging from the ceiling like a broken puppet. Its arms and legs had been smashed, with white points of splintered bone protruding from the bloody flesh. The corpse slowly raised its head to look at Hood and Valentine, and its eye sockets were empty. Blood spilled down the colorless cheeks like thick crimson tears. It opened its mouth, and maggots poured down its chin.