Deathstalker Legacy (40 page)

And Emma always wanted to know things other people didn’t want her to know.

 

She found the supposed entrance easily enough; a narrow alleyway between two blank-faced, characterless buildings in an area of the city apparently given over almost entirely to storage and warehouses. The buildings were solid stone, with no windows, and steel doors so heavily reinforced you probably couldn’t even scratch their paintwork with anything less than a point-blank disrupter bolt. Not that Emma was planning on doing anything like that, of course. Or not yet, anyway. The warehouses didn’t even have an obvious name or designation. Presumably, if you didn’t know who they were, and what they stored, your custom wasn’t needed or welcome.

Emma stood at the mouth of the alleyway, looking down it, her gravity sled hovering patiently behind her. The alleyway was dark and shadowy, ostentatiously uninviting. Very much an enter-at-your-own-risk kind of alleyway. Emma looked back over her shoulder. The street was entirely empty. The few people who had been there when she arrived, apparently just going about their ordinary business, were gone now, and even the few windows overlooking the street were conspicuously empty. No one was watching. Whatever was about to happen, no one wanted to know. Emma smiled. She’d come to the right place.

When she looked back at the alleyway, she found she was no longer alone. Half a dozen unnaturally large men with the kind of bulky distended muscles you could only buy in body shops, had emerged silently from the shadows and were now blocking the entrance to the alley. Four had swords in their hands, one had an ax, and one had an energy gun. The men held these weapons with a casual authority that suggested they knew how to use them. Six-to-one odds. Emma’s smile widened. It was going to be a good day. The man with the energy gun scowled, confused by her easy attitude. He stepped forward, his gun aimed squarely at her gut.

“Where do you think you’re going, Paragon?”

“I’m new in town. Thought I’d see the sights. And everyone says the Rookery is the place to go, if you’re looking for scumbags.”

“No entry,” said the spokesman, still scowling. “Off limits. To people in general, and mouthy Paragon bitches in particular. You’re new, so we’ll make allowances; this time. Get back on your sled and go back to your own territory. Or we’ll teach you a lesson in manners. Make you cry, little girl. Make you get down on your kness and beg to be allowed to run off home.”

“Will you really?” said Emma. “I’d like to see you try. I really would. It’s been a long time since any overweight thug with muscles between his ears has been able to teach me anything.”

She was grinning now. She knew she shouldn’t, she knew it was unprofessional, but she just couldn’t help herself. The man with the gun looked uncertain for the first time. Whatever reaction he’d been expecting, insolence and good cheer certainly wasn’t it. He looked around at his associates, to reassure himself, and that was when Emma made her move. The moment the thug took his eyes off her, she launched herself forward into a tuck-and-roll, and came up with her sword and her gun already in her hands. The thug spun around, his gun still tracking where she used to be, and he was way off target when she surged back onto her feet and shot him neatly through his oversized chest. The force of the blast punched a hole right through him and blasted him off his feet. He hit the ground hard, already dead, the front of his shirt on fire.

Emma laughed out loud and was in and among the others while they were still lifting their weapons, cutting about her with practiced speed and venom, her sword a shimmering blur. They were big but they were slow, especially the one with the ax, and she cut them down with almost insolent speed. They were too used to intimidating their victims, and when they did have to fight, they’d grown far too used to their numbers giving them the edge. They weren’t ready to face a professional fighter. And they’d never met anyone like Emma Steel. She slipped between them with dazzling speed, never where they thought she was going to be, her sword plunging in and out, killing one man and moving on to the next while the first was still crumpling lifeless to the ground. They were good with their swords, but she was so much better.

She let one live; the one with the ax. She stood before him, carefully out of range, still grinning nastily, not even out of breath. Blood dripped steadily from her blade as the axman stared at her with wide frightened eyes. He slowly lowered his ax, as though it had grown too heavy for him to hold. Emma raised her sword slightly, and laughed softly as he flinched. This was going to be easier than she’d thought.

“You’re alive because I want answers,” she said crisply. “You’ll stay alive as long as you answer truthfully. You even think of lying to me, and I’ll whittle you down into a more responsible citizen. So; who do you work for? Who told you I was coming? Who told you to frighten me off? And what’s going on in the Rookery that I’m not supposed to find out about? Talk to me, dammit, or I’ll rip out your spleen and make you eat it!”

The thug screamed shrilly, dropped his ax, and turned and ran back into the alleyway. He was quickly swallowed up by the concealing shadows, his scream fading away like the siren of a departing ship. Emma sighed quietly. Sometimes her reputation actually got in the way. She holstered her gun, pulled a piece of rag out of her pocket, cleaned her sword, and put it away. Then she cleaned the blood off her hands, dabbed at a few of the larger stains on her uniform before giving it up as a bad job, and put the piece of rag away. There was no point in going after the thug. He could have disappeared into a dozen different boltholes by now, and no doubt there were all kinds of nasty surprises and booby traps lying in wait if she was dumb enough to go into the darkness after him. Everything from massed disrupter fire to proximity mines. It was what she would have done.

Leave it for another day. Perhaps she could persuade the Deathstalker to provide her with another entrance point. He might even join her. Lewis looked like a man who might be up for a little righteous fun, even if he was the high-and-mighty Champion these days. Certainly he’d make a much better partner than Finn bloody Durandal . . . She frowned. She was going to have to look into that. Discover just why the Durandal wasn’t the man he used to be.

She walked back to her waiting gravity sled, and found a small crowd had gathered. They seemed more interested in the dead bodies than in her. She smiled and nodded politely to them, but they just stared coldly back at her. They didn’t look like the thugs; just ordinary, everyday people. But their faces were sour and sullen, their eyes angry. They looked like they would have liked to say angry, abusive things to her, if they’d dared. Emma supposed they were Rookery people, or at least Rookery supporters. If they weren’t . . . that would mean the general populace’s feelings towards the Paragons were even worse than she’d suspected. And she didn’t want to believe that; not yet. Careful not to turn her back on anybody, Emma stepped up onto her sled, and soared up into the sky again. She kept on going, until she was high enough that the city spread out below her looked once again like the wondrous place it was supposed to be.

 

The current Patriarch of the Church of Christ Transcendent, the very reverend Roland Wentworth, had been demanding an audience with Angelo Bellini, leader of the Church Militant, ever since the Church demonstration turned into a Neuman riot, and Angelo had finally got around to seeing him. They sat facing each other across Angelo’s very impressive, state-of-the-art computerized desk, in Angelo’s extremely sumptuous new office. Now that he’d moved up in the world, and finally become the very important person he’d always known he should be, Angelo had wasted no time in transferring his base of operations into the biggest office he could find in the great Logres Cathedral. The previous occupant hadn’t argued. He could tell which way the wind was blowing.

The new office boasted every luxury that Angelo had been able to think of. Deep pile carpets, veined marble walls, efficient but unobtrusive central heating and air conditioning, and a long shelf packed with all the very best wines from the Cathedral’s extensive cellars. Life was good. Angelo had denied himself nothing. Why should he? He was now the de facto head of the Church, supreme lord over the destiny of billions of souls, and it was about time the Patriarch realized it. Well past time that Roland Wentworth realized he was yesterday’s man. Angelo leaned back in his oversized chair, activated the massage function, and smiled widely upon the Patriarch, sitting stiffly upright on his straight-backed uncomfortable visitor’s chair. The Patriarch stirred uncomfortably under Angelo’s smile, and blinked owlishly back at him.

“Nice office, Angelo. Very roomy. Bit overblown for my tastes, but then I never was one for the material pleasures. I was a monk, you probably know that, before I was called to be a Cardinal, and then the Patriarch. I was happy being a monk. All I ever really wanted. But they told me I was needed, and I always was a sucker for that . . . So here I am. And here you are. The Patriarch and . . . what are you, exactly, now?”

“I’m the Angel of Madraguda. Media saint, spiritual inspiration for the Church Militant, and lord of all I survey. I’m Angelo Bellini; and the Church does what I tell it to. You must have noticed.”

“Well, yes,” said Roland Wentworth, diffidently. “I’m not so much ignored these days as bypassed. Important matters are no longer brought to my attention, my directives are lost or misfiled, and no one in the media will take my calls anymore. Half my staff don’t even bother to come into work anymore. It’s like I’ve become invisible. But I am still the Patriarch, Angelo; chosen and anointed leader of the living Church, the rightly appointed, divinely blessed lord spiritual to all the Empire. And I will not easily be put aside or silenced. I have a duty and a responsibility to guide my flock, my Church, in the right direction. To save them from evil, and if need be, from themselves. If you want a fight, Angelo, I’m quite prepared to give you one. The Church and the Church Militant are not one and the same, for all your efforts. There are still a good many good people ready and willing to support me, and the true Church.”

“Only a fool starts a fight he can’t hope to win,” said Angelo. “You have a few well-meaning supporters, scattered here and there. I have the Neumen. You have faith and a good heart. I have an army of fanatical supporters, ready to fight and die at my merest word. All your precious convictions are no defense against cold steel. Faith won’t stop an energy bolt.”

“You haven’t read your Bible recently, have you, Angelo?” the Patriarch said calmly. “You see, I’m really very unhappy with the way things have been going recently. I was confused for a while. I saw the Church changing, and I didn’t know why. I thought perhaps it was my fault. That I was out of touch. But the Neumen riot was a mistake. Even I could see that didn’t just happen. It was planned, orchestrated. By you. I freely confess I’m baffled as to why you should want such anarchy and bloodshed, but then, I have never understood evil. Only that I must fight it, with every weapon at my command.”

“Your time is past, Wentworth!” snapped Angelo, leaning sharply forward in his chair to glare across his desk. “You and all your weak kind have no place in the new Church, or the Empire that’s coming. Go home. Retire. Be a monk again. While you still have the choice.”

“The butterfly cannot go back to being a caterpillar,” said the Patriarch. “I was chosen. And unlike you, it seems, I take my religion seriously. I will fight you, because I must. Even the quietest of souls can become warriors, in God’s name. We are all capable of becoming more than we are, or think we are. That’s the basis of our faith. We can all transcend our lowly beginnings, in God’s name. What do you believe in, Angelo? Do you believe in anything, apart from yourself?”

“I believe I’m going to become very rich and very powerful,” said Angelo. He leaned back in his chair, fighting to hold on to his calm. “And I don’t care what anyone else believes. None of that shit matters anymore. All that matters now is whether you’re for me or against me. Ah, Roland; you have no idea how good it feels to be able to speak openly, to tell the truth after so many years of mouthing pleasant platitudes. Do you know why I was so very good at raising money for charities? Because the more I raised, the more I could skim off the top, to give myself the comfortable life I always knew I deserved. Personally, I think Pure Humanity are a bunch of mindless thugs, and their so-called policies are nothing more than childish xenophobia; but they do make such excellent soldiers. Just wind them up, point them in the right direction, and turn them loose. And then stand well back while they do all the necessary dirty work.”

“You admit it?”

“Why not? I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know or suspect. And it’s not like anyone will ever listen to you . . . You see, Roland, under you and your sort, the Church was never more than a wasted opportunity. No real power, no real influence, just a few woolly philosophies and a rather tiresome preoccupation with the Madness Maze. You had the ear of the King, the attention of Parliament, and the respect of the people; but you never did anything with them. You had no fire, no passion; no ambition. I have remade the Church in my own image, put some iron in its soul, and already it is a power base to be reckoned with. When I speak, the King listens, Parliament shudders, and the people rush to obey. The cry is now; ask not what your Church can do for you, but what you can do for your Church. And it never ceases to amuse me what people will do in the name of religion. They’ll hate and fight and kill, and do all sorts of vile and nasty things they wouldn’t even dream of doing for any other cause. And I will give them the Madness Maze, eventually. God knows how many thousands or even millions of poor deluded fools I’ll have to march through the damned thing to find out how it works; but then, it’s only ever been a short step from a fanatic to a martyr. And the Church has never been short of either.”