Deathstalker Rebellion (18 page)

His sword slammed into a guard’s gut and out again in a flurry of blood, and the blade rose quickly to parry a blow from another guard that would have taken his head off. Fin
lay was glad someone was making a fight of it. He threw himself at the guard, and for a moment they stood head-to-head, neither giving ground. And then something in the guard’s eyes gave him away, and Finlay flung himself to one side, just as the other guard behind him lunged forward. Finlay laughed nastily as the other guard ran through his previous opponent, and cut the man down from behind while his sword was still trapped in his comrade’s body. There were only three guards left now, and Finlay disposed of them quickly. He didn’t have the time to savor it.

He ran the last guard through with a flourish, jerked the sword out in a welter of blood, and looked about him, taking in the situation. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Only a few minutes had passed since he’d struck St. John down, and outside the flyer most of the dead Lord’s security people were still trying to figure out some way of getting into the flyer so they could get at his assassin. The force shields were still keeping everyone well back, as they’d been designed to, and as yet it hadn’t occurred to any of them to try climbing Tower Silvestri, as Finlay had. One poor fool fired his disrupter at the flyer, and they all had to duck and dodge as the energy beam ricocheted back. Someone with his wits about him was yelling for extra flyers, and Finlay took that as a sign it was time for him to leave.

He moved quickly over to the flyer’s controls, stepping carefully over the bodies, and lifted the flyer up into the air. A quick glance around showed him more flyers approaching at speed from the south, and he sent his flyer weaving quickly in and out of the pastel towers, accelerating rapidly to a speed his pursuers would be hard-pressed to match if they had any sense of self-preservation. He laughed aloud and stamped his feet on the deck for the simple pleasure of hearing his boots squelch in the pooled blood of his enemies. He’d done it again, made the kill that everyone said was impossible, and got away with it. He’d shake off the flyers behind him and make his escape. He always did He glanced back at the dead Lord William St. John, lying very still with a surprised look on his bloody face, and Finlay laughed again. It sounded loud and confident; and if it was a crazy kind of laugh, too, well, Finlay could live with that.

Adrienne Campbell, wife of Finlay, once the scourge of polite company and owner of the biggest, loudest, and foul
est mouth in all society, sat fuming before her blank viewscreen and wondered whom to call next. She’d tried practically everyone she could think of, including some she would have sworn she wasn’t talking to, but no one would talk to her. Some made excuses, some were rude, but most just instructed their servants to say that they were not at home, the liars. Adrienne had fallen from grace when the Campbell Clan went down in flames, and she was taking it hard. She was now banned and ostracized from the very society she once dominated through the sheer strength of her personality. But that was when she had the power and position of Clan Campbell behind her. Now she was just one of the very few survivors of a broken Clan, and isolated as she’d never been before. No one would talk to her. They were afraid that what happened to her might be catching.

Her cousin by marriage, Robert Campbell, had been protected from the fall by his position in the military. The fleet looked after its own. It was only through his influence and protection that Adrienne had survived the vendetta pursued so viciously and methodically by the triumphant Wolfe Family. Blood had flowed in the streets, with no one to answer the begging and the screams, but she had been left strictly alone. As long as she didn’t interfere. So she hardened her heart and locked her door, and didn’t answer the desperate knocking that came again and again. They begged and threatened and called her name, and some of them cried; but she sat as far away from the door as she could, with her hands over her ears. It didn’t help. She could still hear when the Wolfes came to drag the screaming voices away. Sometimes they stopped screaming suddenly, and the silence that followed was worse.

Finally, the voices stopped coming, and no one knocked at her door anymore. Adrienne Campbell was alone. The Wolfes now owned everything the Campbells had, leaving her nothing but a few scraps of personal jewelry. Her credit rating had been revoked. A few very minor Campbell cousins escaped the bloodbath, usually because they had connections or protection, like Robert, but they wanted nothing to do with her. She didn’t blame them. The reign of the House of Campbell was over in every way that mattered.

Adrienne was of average height and a little less than average weight. Nothing like fear and desperation to back up a restricted diet. She’d lost pounds in the past few months
she would have sworn would be with her till the day she died. She couldn’t go out to buy food or even order it through her viewscreen. She had no money. She was dependent on Robert for everything now, and he had his own problems. He still did what he could, bless him. When he could. And whereas previously she’d proudly worn the latest and most garish outfits society had ever seen, outside of her husband, she now made do with a wrinkled housecoat of plain, subdued colors. She’d had to leave her wardrobe behind when she fled for her life. She didn’t really miss her clothes. She’d worn most of them only to annoy and upstage her fashion-obsessed husband. But it was the principle of the thing. She couldn’t bear to think she looked boring. Robert provided her with clothes now, when he thought of it, just as he’d provided this bolt-hole. Like most men he had no taste at all.

She scowled at her reflection in the viewscreen. Adrienne had a sharp face: all planes and sudden angles, her scarlet mouth currently compressed into a flat angry line. She had dark, determined eyes, and a ridiculously turned-up nose that had seemed like a good idea at the time. She still had her great mop of curling golden hair, though it looked more than a little distressed at the moment. All in all, she’d looked better.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. She was too tired and dispirited even to stay angry for long. How far had she fallen to end up here like this. A bedraggled wreck in a dingy apartment, trying to wheedle invitations and support from boring acquaintances and lesser Families she would have disdained only a few months previously. Not that Adrienne was a snob. It had always been a point of pride with her that she despised everyone equally.

Now here she was, trying to improve her position by playing politics with the only card she had left: Finlay. He’d managed to disappear very thoroughly, which surprised Adrienne. The Finlay she’d known had never been that good at anything. Still, a lot of people wanted him, for reasons they mostly preferred not to discuss, and thought perhaps they could get to him through her. Either through bribes or threats. Adrienne knew nothing, but took their money anyway, and spun them out as long as she could with hints and promises before they finally wised up. She ignored the threats. Robert and his friends in the military were protect
ing her, and everyone knew it. No one was ready to go head-to-head with the fleet over knowledge they weren’t even sure she had. The fleet had a long memory for insults, and it bore grudges. So Adrienne played her little games, a small fish in a big pond, and tried to avoid being eaten by the sharks.

She assumed she was currently ahead of the game. She was still alive, after all. If you called this living. She sniffed angrily and glared at her reflection in the viewscreen. She’d spent a lot of time with her thoughts lately and had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that she didn’t like herself much. She was too busy being negative about everything to be positive about anything, even herself. But she knew she was right about this one thing. Adrienne had built her personality quite carefully and deliberately, being hard and harsh and uncompromising, because that was the only way she knew to get things done. Being soft just got you hurt, or even killed. High society had always believed in the survival of the fittest. Besides, she’d enjoyed being rude and obnoxious and loud. If only because she was so very good at it. But all her strength and all her hardness and all her clever, vicious words hadn’t been enough to save her when the House of Campbell fell.

Her children were safe, at least, in a military school. Not quite the future she’d intended for them, but a safe haven, none the less. Robert had arranged it for her. Strange to think that that young man with the naive background and the vague smile was now the Campbell, head of the Family. There was no one else with a better claim but Finlay, and he had given up all claims to power and position when he chose to disappear into the underground. Now only a few very minor cousins remained with any legitimate claim to the title, and they were mostly still in hiding—keeping their heads well down till the storm passed and the waters calmed. The rest were mostly dead, or missing and presumed dead. A few had married hastily into lesser Houses, giving up their name in return for protection. Some of those had gone missing, too. The Wolfes had a long reach and endless malice.

Adrienne knew that if she had any pride, she should give up on society, as it had given up on her. But she couldn’t. It was all she knew. The great game of influence and intrigue was the only game worth playing, and it was infinitely addictive. She’d do anything, promise anything, to get a foot in
the door again. It was either that, or retreat into the underground, which she despised. She had no taste for rebellion. Full of thugs and non-people and the lower classes. And she’d never been one to hide her light behind a bushel. On the whole, apart from her present circumstances, Adrienne liked things as they were. If she could only find just the right leverage, she had no doubt she’d be accepted back into society again. They had to take her back. She was one of them. She might have verbally attacked society on occasion, but she was lost outside it. All she knew was how to be an aristocrat and play the game.

Which was why she’d been reduced to making more and more desperate calls to fringe elements, lesser Houses, and those “personalities” who lived on the edge of events for whatever crumbs they could pick up from the greater players. Renowned for taste and repartee and knowing all the latest gossip, they passed in and out of fashion according to a season’s taste or whim.

But one figure was always there, raising laughter and eyebrows with barbed bons mots and the perfect put-down. Chantelle. Not so much a friend, more an honored rival, but Adrienne had known her for years. Chantelle had no aristocratic blood or political power, but somehow still commanded everyone’s attention at those soirees she deigned to attend. She decided fashion, chic, and everything else that mattered with a gorgeous smile or a flared nostril, and never gave a pretender an even break. You could break fingernails on her charm, but she never forgave a slight. She and Adrienne had always had a lot in common. Including several ex-lovers, who kept their mouths firmly shut on certain matters, if they knew what was good for them. If Adrienne could get Chantelle’s backing, no one would dare insult her, or refuse to take her calls. If Chantelle accepted you, so did society. If society knew what was good for it.

Adrienne braced herself and made the call. There was always the chance Chantelle would see her own possible future in Adrienne’s fall and feel sympathetic. Adrienne jumped despite herself as the viewscreen cleared to show Chantelle’s frowning face. The doyen of fashion was wearing last night’s rather lived-in gown and makeup, suggesting she’d only just got in from a late night, or more accurately, an early morning. Her long hair gleamed a lustrous bronze with silver highlights, and her heart-shaped face glowed flo
rescent. And only the truly picky would have pointed out that the sheen on her hair was looking rather dull in places, and that the makeup around her mouth was smeared. Adrienne bore it in mind in case she needed ammunition later on. She smiled bravely into the viewscreen, but before she could speak Chantelle sniffed loudly.

“I wondered when you’d get around to me. Yes I do know why you’re calling, and no I can’t help you. You are out, Adrienne dear, so far out I can’t even see you from where I am, and nothing short of a major miracle or direct divine intervention will get you back in. Your Clan is scattered, your influence broken, and your credit rating has sunk so low you’d need an earthmover to find it. Personally, I don’t think it could have happened to a more deserving person. You were never really one of us, Adrienne, with your big mouth and bullying ways. You never understood decorum or proper behavior. The right way of doing things. You aspired to be a scandal, but truth be told, you were always too boring for that. If I were you, I’d run to your friends for protection. But then you don’t have any friends, do you? Good-bye, Adrienne. Don’t call this number again.”

Chantelle’s face disappeared from the viewscreen. “Goodbye, Chantelle,” said Adrienne. “I do hope you have dysentery soon.”

She was debating whether to call Chantelle again, just to remind her that her choices in dress had always inspired projectile vomiting in anyone with a smattering of taste, when her viewscreen chimed, alerting her of an incoming call. For a moment Adrienne just sat there. No one had called her since she arrived here. Not least because most people weren’t supposed to know where she was, and those who did were careful to contact her only in person. Adrienne drew herself up and accepted the call. Maybe she’d won the lottery. The viewscreen cleared to show Lord Gregor Shreck, head of Clan Shreck. A short, fat butterball of a man, with a bulging fleshy face and deep-set eyes, the Shreck was one of the most dangerous men in society, mostly because he never cared what his actions cost him as long as he got what he wanted.

“Dear Adrienne,” said Gregor, his voice oozing a charm that didn’t reach his eyes. “I have a proposition for you. A little give-and-take to our mutual advantage. Are you interested?”

“Depends,” said Adrienne in her most frosted voice. It didn’t do to get chummy with Gregor. He took advantage. “What do you want from me? As if I didn’t know.”