Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

knew who else shared her bed.
    It was in Gregor Shreck's best interests to keep everything secret For cloning his dead daughter he'd get a fine and a reprimand, but incest was severely
    frowned on in high society. Genetic engineering had taken the biological dangers out of inbreeding, but it was still a taboo, if only because the aristocracy liked to have some rules that even they couldn't break with impunity. After all, incest was such a tacky crime. If society found out about Gregor and her, no one would punish him, but no one would speak to him, either. They'd send him to Coventry, in and outside his Family, and that would be worse than death to an aristocrat.
    Of course, if they found out he'd murdered his wife and his original daughter…
    Evangeline sighed tiredly. So many secrets in one Family. Her comm implant activated suddenly, and she sat up straight before her mirror. She'd shut down all the public channels, and only one man apart from her father knew her private code.
    "Evangeline, this is Finlay. I'm in trouble. Can I come to you?"
    "Of course." It never even occurred to her to say no. "Where are you?"
    "Right outside your window. Open up, will you? It's cold out here."
    She jumped up and ran over to the window. The drapes rolled back at her quick gesture, revealing a blood-spattered Finlay standing on a gravity sled hovering on the other side of the steelglass. Even with the surprise of his arrival and the shock of his condition, her first thought was still to wonder how he'd got past Tower Shreck's security. He should have set off any number of alarms just by being there. Even with her beloved Finlay, she was still a Shreck. She deliberately pushed the thought aside and hit the emergency controls in the window surround. The great pane of steelglass swung open, and Finlay guided the sled forward into her room. The sled took up a hell of a lot of space, even hovering an inch or so above the floor, and Evangeline had to squeeze past it to shut the window again.

    "Don't worry about security," said Finlay as he stepped down from the sled.
    "I've got a little device that takes care of things like that. It's part of what helps protect my secrets. Security won't know I was ever here."
    Evangeline seethed impatiently, a dozen questions on her lips, but they died stillborn as she saw the blood spilling off the sled and onto her thick carpets.
    At first she thought he'd been badly hurt after all, but then her eyes fell on the huddled form lying on the deck of the sled, and her heart nearly stopped when she recognized who it was: Adrienne Campbell. Possibly the woman she hated more than anyone, except her father. And Finlay had brought her here.
    Finlay picked up his wife with a strained grunt, which more than anything showed how tried and drained he was, and carried her over to Evangeline's bed. He lowered her carefully onto it, then sat down beside her. The last of his strength seemed to go out of him then, and his chin dropped onto his chest as his shoulders slumped. Somewhere in the back of Evangeline's mind she was wondering how the hell she was going to get all that blood out of her carpets and bedclothes without hiring a dozen new maids, but she made herself concentrate on what was important. Finlay needed her help. She moved quickly over to the drinks cabinet, poured out a large brandy and brought it to him. She had to push the glass into his hand and encourage him to drink it, but the brandy quickly put some color back into his cheeks, and his eyes cleared.
    Evangeline knelt down before him, her knees squelching in the bloody carpet.
    "What's happened, Finlay? Did you kill her?"
    "No! No, it was the Wolfes. She's dying, Evie. I have to save her. Do you still have the regeneration machine?"
    "Of course I do, but…"

    "I know. But I can't let her die. Please, Evie."
    "All right. Because you ask."
    She got to her feet, moved over to the dressing table and dragged it to one side. She activated the hidden controls by hand, carefully punching in the correct code, and part of the wall slid up as the regeneration machine rolled out. Gregor wasn't the only Shreck with secrets. She opened up the long narrow device, thinking it looked even more like a coffin than usual, and pushed it over beside the bed. Finlay picked up Adrienne very gently, ignoring the blood that coursed down his front again, and lowered her into the regeneration device.
    It closed over her like a grave, and that was that. Her fate was in the