Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

me. Now be quiet, and let me try and put in a good word for both of us."
    "I am an outlaw now," said Finlay. "That means they have to take me, doesn't it?"
    "No," said the hog. "It doesn't." Its voice was deep and harsh and seemed to
    echo on in Finlay's bones. "There are always spies and traitors, seeking to destroy us from within."
    "And what happens to them?"
    "I eat them," said the hog.
    Finlay decided to let Evangeline do all the talking. He put on a respectful face while she talked to the leaders and carefully kept his hands away from his sword and gun. He looked across at the few relatively normal-looking people in the chamber with him, and moved over to join them, bowing respectfully.
    "I'm Finlay Campbell, or I was. Not really entitled to the name anymore, I suppose. Are you part of the underground, too?"
    "My name is Hood," said the tall man with no face. "I advise."
    He wore a long cloak with a cowl pulled forward. There was only darkness inside the cowl. Probably another esper, thought Finlay. He turned his attention to the three women with the same face and gave them his most charming smile.
    "Don't waste it on us, stud," said the woman on the left. "We're married."
    "Really?" said Finlay. "Who to?"
    "Each other," said the woman in the middle. "We're Stevie Blues. Call us One, Two and Three, but don't get us mixed up. We get very short-tempered when that happens. We're really very different."
    "Right," said the woman on the right, Stevie Three. "And we don't like aristos anyway."
    "Not many do, these days," said Finlay. "Perhaps I can help persuade you we're not all bad."
    "I doubt it," said Stevie One. "And if you say some of your best friends are clones, I may puke."

    Finlay decided to take that as an exit line and moved back to Evangeline, who seemed to be summing up. Clones. Like Evangeline. He still wasn't sure how he felt about that. He kept hoping for time to think, but things kept happening so quickly. When he got up that morning, as an elder son and heir of a respected Family, he'd never thought he'd end up down here, standing helplessly by while a clone argued with espers for his life.
    He'd never thought much about clones and espers before. They were just there to be used, like other things belonging to his Family. And now here he was, in love with one. Whatever else had changed, that hadn't. He'd lost his Family and his place in society, and the Empress he'd sworn to serve all his life was now his implacable enemy, but he hadn't lost his Evangeline. And in the end, she was perhaps the only one out of all of them that mattered. She was still talking eloquently to the esper leaders on his behalf, and there was no one else in the chamber to talk with, so he moved reluctantly back to Hood and the Stevie Blues.
    For better or worse, they or people like them were going to be his future companions, so he'd better learn to get on with them.
    He was an outlaw now. Like Owen Deathstalker. Finlay wished he'd felt more concern over Owen when it happened. He understood more now. Rather than think too much about Owen's fate, and his own possible future on the run, he nodded lightly to the man with no face. In his time at court. Finlay had made polite conversation with lunatics, eccentrics and monsters of all sorts. He could handle a few disgruntled clones and an esper. And if anything went wrong with the leaders, he could always grab Evangeline and fight and shoot his way out of here. He was the Masked Gladiator, and he'd faced worse odds than this in his time. Actually, he didn't think he had, but he decided very firmly that he wasn't going to think about that.

    "My apologies for our barging in on you like this," he said easily to Hood, "but life up above was getting a bit frantic. Guns firing all over the place, and assassins on our tail. You know how it is."
    "Yes," said Hood. "We all do. That's why we're here. But persecution above doesn't automatically buy you acceptance in the world below."
    "Right," said Stevie Three. Finlay admired her leather and chains outfit, and wondered fleetingly how Evangeline would look in it. He realized the clone was still talking and made himself concentrate on her face. Stevie Three smiled nastily, as though she knew what he'd been thinking. "Far as we're concerned, you're just another damned aristo who got his fingers burned and came crying to the underground for help."
    "Not that we're entirely unsympathetic," said Stevie Two. "Any enemy of the Iron Bitch can't be