Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

to the waiter. "Very nice," they heard him say. "Do you have anymore?"
    Lily shook her head dazedly as the waiter went on to deliver a harmless glass of wine to Daniel. "I don't believe it. Half A Man doesn't drink. Everyone knows that."
    "Maybe he's never been this hot before. I bloody haven't."
    "Well, why isn't black smoke coming out of his ears—ear?"
    Michel shrugged. "It would appear poison is just another of the long list of things that can't kill Half A Man. Cover for me. I'm going to find something to hide behind, and then vomit for a while." He stopped as Lily grabbed his arm again. "Now what's wrong?"
    "I don't know. Something bad is coming. I can feel it."
    "Lily…"
    "My witchy gifts are never wrong!"
    "Of course something bad is coming! We planted explosives, remember? Now shut the hell up, before you start drawing attention to us! And let go of my arm. I'm losing the feeling in my fingers."
    Lily scowled and turned her back on him. Michel sighed and was grateful for small mercies. The speeches droned on, lasting longer than expected, as speeches
    have a way of doing. Some of the prisoners and factory staff had passed out from the heat and were brought back to consciousness by varyingly brutal methods according to when the camera wasn't watching. Time was getting on. A lot of people had started looking at their watches. Toby looked at his and hoped the audience would stick with him, if only for the executions. He frowned despite himself. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. On the one hand they were definitely rebels, criminals, but on the other, most of them were women and children. Toby Shreck had justified a lot of questionable things in his life, working for Gregor Shreck did that to you, but murdering children in cold blood was just a step too far, even for him. He'd thought a lot about what he could do, and it seemed to him that he only had one chance. A last minute, live, on-camera appeal for clemency for the children, direct to the Empress. The watching billions would eat it up, and Lionstone just might see the advantages of appearing warm and sentimental in public. Either way, it was the children's last hope. He couldn't save the men and women. The public had to have its blood.
    And so everyone checked their watches again and again, making frantic calculations in their heads as they waited for their planned surprises to pay off. They were all so preoccupied that no one noticed Investigator Shoal quietly disappearing from the scene on a mission of her own.
    Mother Superior Beatrice sat on a folding chair outside the hospital tent, savoring the fresh air and drinking wine straight from the bottle. Even the evening heat was refreshing after the claustrophobic charnel house stench inside the tent. There was more room to move inside now that the worse-off had died, but the tent was still crowded from wall to wall with human suffering. Beatrice sighed and took another long drink. She was saving more patients than she was
    losing, but only just. The door swung open behind her for a moment, letting out a brief rush of cheap disinfectant barely covering the stench of blood and pus and gangrene that lay beneath it. She shuddered, her hands shaking for a long moment after the rest of her had stopped. She'd seen so much death and pain, and she was sick of it. Let someone else cope for a while. She knew eventually her strength would return, and then she'd get up and go back into hell again, but for the moment it was just too much to ask. So she sat on her chair and drank her wine and looked sardonically down at the great ceremony taking place outside the factory. She'd been invited, but she was damned if she'd give them the satisfaction of attending. That would have been too much like endorsing their stupid bloody war.
    Approaching footsteps jerked her out of her reverie, and she looked around to see Investigator Shoal trudging unhurriedly up the low rise toward her. Beatrice frowned. What the hell did Shoal want with her? Investigators tended not to acknowledge any wound that wasn't immediately life threatening, and they weren't great ones for visiting the sick. She studied Shoal as she drew closer.
    Grim-looking woman, but then again Investigators weren't known for their sense of humor, either. Shoal finally came to a halt before Beatrice, not even breathing hard after the climb. Shoal nodded briefly. Beatrice nodded back, but didn't feel like getting up.
    "Nice evening for a stroll, Investigator. What