Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

enough to get here."
    "Sorry," said Owen. "We got distracted. Need a hand?"

    "In your dreams, aristo." Ruby stood up and flexed her arms, and the enveloping chains shattered and fell away from her. Ruby smiled nastily at the stunned Storm. "You didn't really think drugs and chains would hold someone like me, did you?"
    Owen looked around him, taking in the smoldering ash pits, the burning angels, the great vents in the floor from which arose the screams of the damned. The crimson light, the rows of the impaled dead, and the tortured sinners hanging on their barbed chains. When he finally looked back at Lionstone, his voice was as flat and cold as his gaze. "Nice place you've got here, Lionstone. It's you.
    Your taste always tended to the extreme, but I think you've really outdone yourself this time. You've progressed from the disturbed to the actually psychotic. You've become a sick person, Lionstone, a mad dog, a rabid animal; and it's our job to shut you down."
    Lionstone leaned back in her Throne, apparently unmoved. "Welcome to our Court, outlaw. We've been expecting you. We even have a few guests here to greet you, specially invited with you in mind. For instance…"
    She snapped her fingers, and a masking holoillusion dropped away, revealing the huge wooden cross set up behind the Iron Throne. And nailed to that cross, Mother Superior Beatrice Christiana, the saint of Technos III.
    Her nun's robes were torn and bloodied, and her wimple was gone, replaced by a crown of thorns. Dried blood encrusted thickly around her pierced wrists and ankles, and more had run down her face from where the crown had been jammed forcefully onto her head. She was still alive and still conscious enough to feel the awful pain that wracked her. Her face was twisted away from its usual serenity, dragged beyond humanity into pure animal suffering.

    "She seemed so eager to be a martyr that I thought I'd oblige her," said Lionstone. "If she's really sincere in her religion, she should take it as a compliment. A martyr's death is supposed to be the highest honor they can hope to obtain in this life. Isn't that right?"
    "You bitch! You stinking bitch!" Surprisingly, it was Toby Shreck who broke first. He lunged forward, enraged beyond reason, as though he planned to free Beatrice by brute force. Flynn had to grab him and hold him back. "Let me go!"
    said Toby, struggling to break free. "I won't stand for this! Not her! She's the only decent person I ever met!"
    "You'd be dead before you could get anywhere near her, boss," said Flynn, almost shouting at Toby as he held him firmly. "She wants someone to try something, so she can set her maids on them, as an example."
    "He's right, Shreck," said Giles. "Listen to your friend. We'll deal with this.
    It's what we're here for."
    "Right," said Hazel. "Make sure your camera's working. You're about to witness the death of an Empress. Convenient of you to build your own Hell, Lionstone. It means you won't have too far to go when we drag you down off your Throne, and cut your damned head off."
    "The show isn't over yet," said Lionstone. "Beatrice, this is your moment. Come on down, and kill these vermin for me."
    And as the rebels watched incredulously, Beatrice raised her head on the cross and smiled down at them. With one convulsive movement, she ripped her arms and legs free from the blocky nails holding her to the wood, and dropped lightly to the ground. She started toward the rebels, still smiling, and everyone by the Throne hurried to get out of her way. Lionstone was laughing. Toby stared stupidly for a moment, then gestured urgently to make sure Flynn was getting it
    all.
    "She's not the real thing," said Hazel. "She can't be. Nothing human could have freed itself that easily."
    "Right," said Owen. "It's some kind of Fury, a machine. Lionstone just had it nailed up there to upset us."
    "And it worked," said Toby. "I can't believe I was fooled again. Is nobody what they appear to be anymore?"
    "You'd be surprised," said Owen. "Now stand back and give us some room, journalist. This could get a little messy."
    "I knew you'd like her," said Lionstone. "Dear Valentine donated her. He had her constructed as a sex toy originally, when he couldn't get his hands on the real thing, but he quite rightly thought I'd get more use out of her. I've even had some special augmentations added, just for you. Aren't I good to you? Beatrice, dear, kill them all and bring me their heads."
    The thing that looked