Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

Talk to the interrogator, darling. Do it for me."

    "Do it for you?" Julian would have laughed, but his throat was too dry. "Who are you? I don't know your real name. I don't know the real you. I loved you, you bitch. I would have done anything for you, even die for you. Now just looking at you makes me feel sick."
    "Don't be like that, Julian; we had some good times together, just the two of us. Remember flying out over the Ravenscar mountains, and chasing each other on gravity sleds in and out of the great waterfalls as they came thundering down?
    Remember watching the double stars burning brightly over the Tannhouser Gate?
    Remember us dancing around a fire on the Dust Plains of Memory, dancing and singing as though the night would never end? Those were real times, Julian.
    Times we shared. We could share them again. We could still have a life together.
    It's up to you. You'll forget all about the underground, with me."
    "BB. Will you do something for me?"
    "Of course, darling. Would you like some water?"
    "No. Just lean closer."
    BB Chojiro smiled and brought her face in close to his. He could smell her familiar perfume. She pursed her mouth for a kiss. And Julian called up all the strength he had left and head-butted her in the face. He couldn't get much force behind it, but the impact was enough to knock her right back on her ass. Shock and surprise filled her face, and then pain as she brought her hands up to her nose. Blood streamed trom her nostrils. Julian chuckled harshly, even though it hurt his throat. BB blinked at him uncertainly over her hands, and then rose jerkily to her feet. She wiped at her nose with a silken scarlet arm, but just succeeded in smearing more blood across her face. She gave up on it and drew herself up, perfectly composed, ignoring the blood. She smiled at him in a brittle, satisfied way.

    "Thank you, Julian. I was beginning to feel a little sorry for you. For what you're about to undergo. You've helped remind me why I turned you in. You're scum, the lowest of the low, so far beneath the Families we can't even see you from where we are. And to think I nearly made you one of us. Talk about the Blue Block all you like. Only the interrogator will hear you, and he will see it doesn't go any further, even if he has to edit the security tapes. Think of me while he's working on you. I'll be thinking of you."
    She rapped imperiously on the door, and it swung open. BB Chojiro blew Julian a kiss and strode out of the cell, every inch the perfect little aristocrat.
    Julian seethed inwardly against the restraining straps, but they held him securely. Still, she'd made a mistake in not reactivating the spinal block. He could find some way to kill himself now and escape his interrogators. But he was too angry to think about that. He had to live now, so he could escape and kill BB Chojiro. He would survive everything they could throw at him, waiting for the slightest slip, the smallest mistake that would let him break free. And then he'd kill the interrogators and anyone else who got between him and BB Chojiro.
    He'd loved her so much, but all he could think of now was his hands around her perfect throat, her mocking smile replaced by a scream of terror. He laughed suddenly, a harsh brutal sound of the darkest humor, and the interrogator paused in the doorway of the cell, as though suddenly aware he was about to enter a small enclosed space with a dangerous animal. But the moment passed, and the interrogator strode in, smiling avuncularly at his prospective victim. He shut the door firmly behind him, so that Julian's screams wouldn't bother anyone walking down the corridor outside.
    Finlay Campbell returned from his mission on a limping flyer, bloody and
    battered and just a little out of breath. The flyers dogging his trail had proved determined, if not particularly skillful, and it had taken every trick he knew to shake them off. He landed the flyer with a defiant thud, and slumped over the controls a moment. Members of the underground came running up to drag the flyer out of sight before it could be spotted, and Finlay straightened up with a jerk. It wouldn't do for word to get around that he was getting soft. He stepped down from the flyer, enjoying the expressions on their faces as they saw what he'd left in the flyer for them. He'd brought St. John's body with him, partly as proof that he'd done his job, partly to upset the Lords over the missing body, and partly as a trophy. He'd had a