Deathstalker Legacy (41 page)

“I’ll stop you,” said the Patriarch. “I will stop this madness. This evil. Whatever it takes.”

“No you won’t,” said Angelo. “Your day is over, Roland. Good-bye.”

His hand moved almost casually to a single isolated control on his desk, and the transmutation bomb concealed under the seat of the Patriarch’s chair detonated with a soundless explosion. It was really quite a small bomb, with a strictly defined blast radius, but it was very efficient. Sleeting energies slammed up into the Patriarch, ripping him apart at the genetic level. He cried out once, a harsh guttural sound of shock and pain and horror, but he never took his eyes off Angelo Bellini. His lower body collapsed in on itself, losing all shape and definition. His lap and waist transformed, slumping from flesh and bone into thick jelly, and then into a viscous pink protoplasmic slime, all in a few moments. His legs detached and fell away, already melting into more of the pink sludge as they sank slowly into the thick carpeting.

The Patriarch’s torso dropped down into the mess in the chair where his lap had been, and also began to transmute. His hands clutched spasmodically at nothing. Roland Wentworth was still alive. His heart still beat, his mouth still worked, though no sound came out of it. And his eyes were horribly aware. Angelo Bellini leaned forward across his desk, studying the Patriarch’s slow and awful death with hot, greedy eyes. Wentworth’s chest jerked down again as his stomach disappeared, and then again, as his ribs dissolved, one after the other. The transmutation energies finally reached the Patriarch’s heart and destroyed it, and the light went out of his eyes. His arms fell away from his shoulders, hit the slime on the carpet, and slowly came apart. Roland Wentworth’s head slumped forward onto what remained of his chest. A few moments later, only the head was left on the chair, and then that too was gone, and all that remained of the Patriarch of the true Church were long thick strands of pink protoplasmic slime, dripping slowly from the visitor’s chair, and onto the expensive carpet.

“I never liked you,” said Angelo Bellini. “Mealy-mouthed little snot. I’ll make a much better Patriarch.” He settled back in his chair, breathed deeply, and then laughed suddenly. “Now this . . .
this
is power. I could get to like this.” He activated the comm panel set into his desk, and called his secretary. “Miss Lyle; send in the cleaners, would you? I’m afraid my late visitor made something of a mess.”

 

Douglas Campbell, King of the Empire, Speaker to Parliament, and latest of a long line of heroes, pulled on his royal robes and checked his makeup in his dressing room mirror. With so many media cameras covering the House’s Sessions these days it was vital that he looked his best. He scowled at his receding hairline, stuck out his tongue, winced at the sight of it, and reluctantly put it away again. He wasn’t getting enough sleep these days, and it showed. But the work just kept coming, there was never any end to the paperwork, and he couldn’t justify hiring any more assistants. He already had trouble remembering all the names of everyone working for him now. He looked down at the Crown, sitting on the table before the mirror, and decided against putting it on just yet. It always gave him a headache. He sniffed loudly, threw himself into his favorite chair, and nodded shortly to Jesamine Flowers, his wife- and Queen-to-be, sitting elegantly in the chair opposite him. She was wearing a devastatingly elegant gown with casual style and grace, her makeup was restrained but perfect, and Douglas just knew that she looked the part far more than he ever would.

“You’re scowling again, Douglas. Don’t. It’ll give you lines.”

“Sorry. I was thinking. Look; we don’t have a lot of time.

The day’s Session will begin in under an hour, and Anne’s been paging me increasingly urgently ever since I showed up, but . . . I felt it was important we have this little chat. Clear the air, so to speak.”

“Of course,” said Jesamine. “You first.”

“We’re going to be married,” said Douglas, as naturally as he could. “We couldn’t stop that now, even if we wanted. Too many people want it. It’s like a business merger, where the stockholders have voted it through, and to hell with what the board wants. It’s inevitable now.”

“Darling, you say the most romantic things. But yes, I understand. The show must go on. I take it the Champion won’t be attending this Session of Parliament?”

“No,” said Douglas. “I’ve decided he’s needed urgently elsewhere. And he’ll go on being urgently needed elsewhere until after we’re safely married.”

“I’ve seen the wedding dress. It’s really very lovely. Practically a work of art.”

“Lewis is my best friend.”

“I’ll look every inch a Queen. We’ll make a lovely couple.”

“I should never have made him Champion. I should never have given up being a Paragon. We were happy then. Our lives made sense. I never wanted to be King.”

“You could abdicate,” Jesamine said carefully. “It’s not a prison sentence.”

“No. I can’t. I’m needed.”

“Then be King, dammit! Do the job, and don’t look back. Just as I’m not going to look back. We’re going to be King and Queen. Nothing else matters.”

Douglas nodded slowly. “I thought . . . we’d have the same choir my father chose for my Coronation. They sounded fine.”

“Bit weak on the descants, and the main tenor isn’t nearly as good as he thinks he is, but yes, they’ll do. Who’s going to be best man? It can’t be Lewis now.”

“No; it can’t be Lewis. I thought maybe Finn Durandal. He was my partner for years, after all, and it might help to make things up with him for not being chosen as Champion.”

“Yes, the Durandal. Good choice. He’ll look good, he always does, and it’ll play very well with the media. Maybe I should have Emma Steel as my maid of honor . . . If we can persuade her to leave the sword and gun behind. Any thoughts as to where we should spend our honeymoon? I hear the Sighing Mountains on Magellon are very lovely this time of year.”

“I thought perhaps the Black Lakes on Hali,” Douglas said diffidently. “They’ve become quite the place to be, and be seen.”

“Oh yes, sweetie! Hali! Gorgeous scenery, and lots and lots of the very best people for us to look down our noses at.”

And then they stopped, and looked at each other for a long moment. In the three days since the Neumen riot and its aftermath in the House Infirmary, Douglas and Jesamine had spent a lot of time together, making a great public show of togetherness, but there were still a great many things they hadn’t said. Things that needed to be said, now, if only so that they need never be discussed again.

“We can still make this work, Douglas,” Jesamine said finally. “We can be happy together, as King and Queen. As husband and wife.”

“We’re really very well suited,” said Douglas. “We have a lot in common, we work well together . . . It doesn’t matter that you don’t love me.”

“I do . . . care for you, in my way. You’re a strong man, brave and true, with a good heart. Trust me, you don’t meet many like that in show business. We’ll make a good partnership. And I want to be Queen. It’s what I’ve always wanted. And you’ll make an excellent King. It doesn’t matter that you don’t love me.”

“But I do,” said Douglas, quietly, miserably. “I do love you, Jesamine. That’s the problem.”

“Oh God,” said Jesamine. “Douglas . . . I didn’t know. This . . . is going to complicate the hell out of things, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” said Douglas. “I love you, Jes. And Lewis is my best friend. Do you see now, why—”

“Of course, yes. No wonder you . . . How long have . . .”

“I loved you from the first moment I met you. I just looked at you, and knew you were the one. The woman I’d been waiting all my life to meet. The only woman I ever wanted to give my heart to.”

“Oh Jesus, Douglas; are you saying . . . you never loved anyone before me? Surely there must have been other women in your life before me? I mean; you were a Paragon, a Prince . . . the Empire’s most eligible bachelor. I saw you on the gossip shows, with girls on your arm . . .”

“Oh yes,” he said, looking at the floor between his feet so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “There were always girls. Pretty girls, even beautiful girls. It’s amazing how attractive being the only heir to the Imperial Throne can make a man. Some mothers did everything but smuggle their daughters into my bedchamber. And there have always been women desperate to bed a Paragon. Any Paragon. They even chased after Lewis, bless his ugly face, though he was always more . . . particular than me. I never had to go to bed alone, unless I wanted to. Some of them I even liked. But none of them ever meant anything. I never loved any of them; because I could never be sure any of them loved me. Loved the man, and not the Paragon, the Prince. You must know what I’m talking about. You’re a star. A diva. Have you ever been in love, Jes?”

“Oh darling, I’m famous for it,” said Jesamine, fighting hard to keep her voice light and easy. “Six marriages, twice as many official partners, and more lovers than I feel comfortable remembering. I never had to deny myself anything, so I never did. And it can get really lonely on the road, traveling from one theater to the next . . . I was a real tart in my younger days, falling in love with every pretty face or nice tight little arse that came along . . . I was fond of them all, at the time, but . . . I can’t honestly say any of them ever meant anything to me. None of them ever mattered. There’s never been anyone in my life as important to me as me.” She laughed, just a little shakily. “God, that makes me sound so shallow. Douglas; you’re a very impressive man. I’m just a star; you’re a legend. You deserve someone better than me.”

“I don’t think I could stand to meet anyone more impressive than you,” Douglas said dryly. He finally lifted his eyes to meet hers, and each of them saw compassion in the other. Douglas sighed, quietly. “I guess we’re stuck with each other, Jes. We’re going to be King and Queen. We should be proud.”

“Yes, we should. It’s a great honor.”

“It doesn’t matter that you don’t love me.”

“Oh Douglas . . .”

“Why Lewis, Jes? Why him?”

“Oh hell, I don’t know. Perhaps because . . . he’s so unimpressed with who and what I am. Because he’s brave and honorable. Because . . . you always want what you know you can’t have. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. Time to move on.”

“I have to be able to trust you, Jes.”

“You can, Douglas.”

“Lewis is a fine man.”

“Yes, he is.”

“I was always proud to call him my friend. But I think everything will be better, once he’s gone.” Douglas rose to his feet, crossed over to the dressing room table, picked up the Crown, and put it on his head. He looked briefly into the mirror, his face calm and empty, and then he turned his back on what he saw. He walked over to the door, opened it, and then paused there to look back at Jesamine. “I’m giving up my only real friend to marry you, Jes. Don’t ever let me regret it.”

 

Lewis Deathstalker sat alone in the only chair in his empty apartment, staring straight ahead of him, not really thinking about anything, waiting for it to be dinnertime, so he could eat a meal he didn’t want. The room was silent, still, with nothing to look at or distract him. Even the walls were bare. The few belongings he’d brought with him were mostly still packed in a crate in the next room along with the mattress that served as a bed. Lewis stared at an empty wall, not thinking, only feeling. When he’d eaten as much of his dinner as he could, he’d drop the disposable plates into the atomizer, go back to his chair, and sit and wait for it to be late enough for him to go to bed, so he could escape into sleep, and leave his life behind for a while.

How could everything have gone so wrong, so quickly?

He didn’t have much to do as Champion anymore. Douglas had seen to that. Anne had called, in the King’s name, to tell Lewis his presence as Champion was no longer required at the House, and it seemed all his other duties had been suspended. So all that was left was to sit in his chair, and sometimes think about just how badly he’d screwed up his life. All the things he once took for granted, all the things he used to live for; all the honorable underpinnings of his existence had been swept away, and he didn’t know what to do anymore. He had betrayed his best and truest friend. Not physically, perhaps, but in his heart. He loved Jesamine Flowers, the woman, not the star, but she was going to be Douglas’s bride, and Queen to the Empire, and even to love her in silence and from a distance was a kind of treason. He’d never thought love, when it finally came along, would be like this. A pain he couldn’t bear, a need he couldn’t ease, a woman he couldn’t have. Dishonor and disgrace. But then, that was Deathstalker luck for you. Always bad.

Ask Owen. Ask Hazel. Wherever they were.

Lewis sighed, deeply, and looked slowly around his room for something to do, something to interest him, for a while at least. So he wouldn’t have to think, or feel. He supposed he could go and unpack his belongings, but he couldn’t seem to work up the energy. It wasn’t as if there was anything important in the crate. He’d never been one to collect . . . things. Never had the time, or the interest. His work was his life. Or at least, it used to be. His eyes drifted on, across the empty room, and he wondered how he could have lived so long, and still have so little to show for it. His gaze finally settled on his computer terminal and monitor, sitting on the floor by the single polarized window. He supposed he should check to see if there were any messages. It wouldn’t be anything important. Anything that mattered would come through his comm implant. But there might be something. Something to occupy him.

He rose slowly, tiredly, from his chair, like an old man, and walked over to squat down on the floor before the terminal. He hit the message function, and the screen lit up. Just the one message today, from the fan who ran his tribute site. Lewis frowned. Tim Highbury didn’t usually bother him directly unless it was something important. Maybe he’d tracked down some new bootleg operation, making money off Lewis’s name and reputation. Lewis always shut them down. He took his good name seriously. Besides, the last set of knockoff action figures had looked nothing like him. He made the connection, called Tim’s private number, and the monitor screen immediately cleared to show the face of his truest fan and supporter. It was a young face, barely out of his teens, but Tim had been running the tribute site with frightening enthusiasm and efficiency ever since he was fourteen. Lewis smiled at him. It was good to know there were still some things he could depend on.