Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

digital mask. The word was, Dram had been sent on an extremely secret mission, got his head handed to him, and came home in a box. No one had any proof, as yet, but Valentine had heard the rumor in so many places and from so many sources, some surprisingly high up, that he couldn't help feeling there had
    to be something in it.
    And if Dram was dead, there was a good chance his proof of Valentine's treason died with him. Which meant he could go back to the underground. If he wanted to.
    Valentine pursed his scarlet mouth. With all that had happened to him of late, he no longer needed the underground as a route to power. He was doing perfectly well on his own. And his agents stood a much better chance of discovering the source of the esper drug than he ever would. No, he didn't need the rebels anymore. He didn't need anyone. And he had other, more important, worries to concern him.
    During the epic clash in which the Wolfes had gone head-to-head with the Campbells and ground them underfoot, the then head of the Wolfes, Valentine's father, Jacob, had been killed. Everyone assumed a Campbell had got a lucky blow in, but actually the hand on the weapon had been Valentine's. No one had seen.
    No one knew. But shortly after the battle was over and all the Campbells were either dead or had fled, Jacob's body could not be found. Valentine had ordered an immediate search and offered all kinds of rewards for the body's return, but nothing was ever seen or heard of it again.
    Which meant Jacob was still out there, somewhere. Not alive. He couldn't be alive. Even if Jacob's mysterious friends had got him to a regeneration machine straight away, it would still have been too late. He'd been brain-dead too long.
    Valentine was quite sure of that. He could still remember the moment when he'd killed his father. One of his drugs gave him perfect recall, and he played the moment over and over in his mind, savoring it. He'd moved in behind his father, unnoticed in the heat of battle, and slipped his dagger expertly in and out of Jacob's ribs, so fast no one saw or suspected anything. Jacob was dead.

    Valentine never doubted it for a moment. But who had his body?
    Finlay and Adrienne had been the only Campbells to escape the slaughter, running for their lives on a stolen gravity sled, but Jacob's body hadn't gone with them. The tower's external security cameras had a good view of the departing sled, and there were only two people on it. Unfortunately, Valentine couldn't study the records from the interior cameras, because he'd arranged for them all to be turned off the moment the fighting started. He couldn't afford for them to show him killing his father, after all. So anyone inside the room could have taken him.
    But what use was the body to anyone? They could clone another Jacob from his cells, but if he turned up again, a simple genetest would be enough to reveal it wasn't the real Jacob. And the Family wouldn't pay ransom for a clone. Not even the grieving widow Constance… Though they might have paid a ransom for the safe return of Jacob's body so that it could be laid to rest with honor.
    But no ransom demand ever materialized. A thought forced itself into Valentine's mind, much against his will. What if… no one had taken it? What if the dead body had just got up and walked away, unnoticed in the general chaos? Valentine shuddered involuntarily as the image played itself out relentlessly before his mind's eye. Jacob's body, its death wound still bloody in its side, rising unsteadily to its feet, and pausing only briefly to glare at its murderer before slipping unnoticed out the door. Jacob's body, stumbling unseen down some dark alleyway, animated no longer by life, but by pure hatred for its killer. Out there, somewhere, waiting for its chance for bloody vengeance against its murderous son. Valentine had always had a superstitious side. Mostly he encouraged it for the extra thrills it provided, but now the thought of his dead father haunted him and would not let him alone. Sometimes, in the night, when he
    was alone in his bedchamber, he thought he heard his father talking to him from the shadows. The words terrified him, but he could never remember them in the morning.
    Of course, that could always be the drugs.
    Valentine brought his thoughts firmly under control. No one could hurt him now.
    He was the Wolfe, acknowledged and unchallenged, and nothing could undo that, no matter what had happened to his father's body. He had