Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

on like that for some time, pausing only when she absolutely had to, to breathe or drink or glare at someone who didn't look like they were listening to her intently enough. Finlay watched admiringly, from a distance. He appreciated a good performance, and Adrienne was certainly on form this afternoon. Mind you, after enduring several years of such verbal battery at close range, he'd acquired a certain immunity. Others were not so fortunate.
    More than one of the ladies in Adrienne's current audience looked as though they were thinking wistfully how easy it would be to drop something really unpleasant but not necessarily actually fatal in Adrienne's drink when she wasn't looking.
    Finlay completely understood the impulse. Adrienne's voice had the carrying quality of an airstrike and was usually about as welcome. People arranging parties and other social gatherings had been known to get extremely inventive when it came to producing reasons why Adrienne shouldn't attend, everything from outbreaks of plague to social unrest, but it didn't make any difference.
    Adrienne turned up anyway. As a Campbell by marriage, she couldn't be excluded, and she had very thick skin. And it had to be said, the more attention they paid to her, the less they paid to Finlay Campbell. Which wasn't always a bad thing.
    He gazed about the crowded ballroom, packed with all the bright flowers of the aristocracy going through the familiar ritual dances of intrigue and seduction, politics and gossip. Everywhere there were brightly shining fluorescent faces
    under gleaming metallic hair, and clothes cut to the extremes of fashionable taste. They struck Finlay as so many chattering birds of paradise, or prettily painted toys with hidden sharp edges. There was no depth in them, no passion or commitment to anything but the pleasure of the moment. They were only saved from outright decadence by their short attention spans and inbred laziness. True debauchery was hard work, and most just couldn't be bothered. Finlay despised them all. They knew nothing of courage, or the true extremes of life and death, except in their carefully orchestrated code duello, where honor was often satisfied with first blood. Finlay watched them all with an empty smile on his face and contempt in his heart.
    He looked desperately about him in search of diversion, and his gaze lighted on the Wolfes. The Wolfe himself was absent, along with his new wife; a courtesy, so that whatever happened they could officially ignore any behavior that might threaten the neutrality of the occasion. But Valentine, Stephanie and Daniel were there, looking as though they'd much rather be somewhere else. Finlay smiled slightly. Of course, all three of them had arranged marriages of their own coming up in the very near future. Presumably their father had insisted they attend to gain a few pointers on the terrible fate that awaited them. Stephanie and Daniel were standing together, ostentatiously ignoring their respective betrothed, who were currently chatting amiably together and getting on like a house on fire. Valentine stood alone, as always, tall and slender and darkly delicate, wearing a plum-colored coat and leggings. With his long dark curly hair and painted face, he looked like nothing so much as a rich but bruised fruit from some unhealthy tree. Beyond the mascaraed eyes and wide crimson smile, his face seemed polite but partly absent, as though his thoughts were
    somewhere else. Finlay didn't like to think where that might be. Valentine had no wineglass in his hand, presumably because there wasn't a wine in the room potent enough to jolt his jaded appetites.
    Finlay decided he'd better find someone to talk to before someone really boring settled on him, and the Wolfes looked as interesting as any. Besides, Valentine intrigued him. They'd both attended the same school at the same time, but that was pretty much all they had in common, then and now. As far as Finlay could remember, Valentine had been a normal enough child, with no hint of warning of what he was to become. But then, that was probably true of him, too. He strode casually over to the Wolfes, as though he just happened to be drifting in their direction, nodding and smiling to those he passed, every movement the epitome of grace. It wasn't difficult. One of the first things he'd learned in the Arena was how to control his every movement. He noted the admiring glances as he passed and felt only the satisfaction of a good