Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

two really alternate versions of Hazel?”
    “We like to think she’s an alternate version of us,” said Midnight. “And we’ve decided to stick around for a while, see how things play out in this universe.” “Right,” said Bonnie. “I could use a break from running Mistworld, and I do miss a little action now and again.”
    “And it’ll mean we can spend more time with Owen,” said Midnight brightly.
    “Oh, good,” said Owen, and glared at Hazel as she tried to stifle her laughter.

Chapter 5
    Old Hatreds and New Revenges
    Jack Random paced back and forth in Ruby Journey’s luxurious apartment, waiting impatiently for her to make an appearance. They were running late again, but that was nothing unusual where Ruby was concerned. She never let herself be hurried by anyone, outside of actual armed conflict. He kept himself from looking at the clock on the wall yet again by an act of extreme self-control, and glared around the apartment as though he could force Ruby into appearing through sheer willpower. It didn’t work.
    There was a lot to look at in the apartment. It had all the comforts money and intimidation could bring, including a few that were technically illegal, though Jack doubted anyone had dared point that out to Ruby. There were thick rugs on the floor, tacky paintings of dubious taste on three of the walls, and a huge holoscreen that covered all of the fourth wall. A glass chandelier, quite amazingly awful in its clumsy ostentation, hung far too low from the ceiling of a room far too small for it. Ruby had one in each room.
    She liked chandeliers. Rickety antiques stood next to the very latest in leisure designs, ostentatiously ignoring each other. The antiques looked as though they’d collapse under him if he so much as thought about sitting on them, and the comfy chairs all insisted on giving him a massage whether he wanted one or not. Jack gave them a wide berth. He felt very firmly that furniture should know its place, and not get overly familiar.
    Scattered across the room were all kinds of high-tech gadgets, some of them still half unpacked. Every labor-saving device, every new convenience and overpriced fad of the moment, had wheedled their way into Ruby’s apartment, only to be forgotten or discarded almost as soon as they arrived. For Ruby ownership was everything. And she never threw anything out, partly because she didn’t believe in giving up things that were hers, and partly on the grounds that you never knew when it might come in handy.
    The massive ironwood coffee table set exactly in the middle of the room was covered with piles of discarded style magazines, the last three issues of Which Gun, and no less than four opened boxes of chocolate, with all the coffee creams missing. Jack looked wistfully at the chocolates, but wouldn’t allow himself to be tempted. Thanks to the Maze, his weight never changed by so much as an ounce, no matter how much he ate, and he knew that once he started, he probably wouldn’t stop till he’d emptied at least one entire box. Ruby wouldn’t mind, but she’d undoubtedly give him one of her knowing looks, and he hated that. He didn’t even look at the massive bar, with its proud examples of every kind of liquor, gutrot, and sudden death in a bottle known to man or alien. The Maze had made him immune to all kinds of poison, including hangovers, and he had always believed one should suffer from one’s excesses.
    That’s how you knew they were excesses.
    A chair purred invitingly at him as he passed, and he gave it a good kick to shut it up. At least Ruby had got rid of her small army of servants and hangers-on. At one point he hadn’t even been able to get to see Ruby without making an appointment or threatening to shoot several people. But she soon saw through
    the hangers-on, and got bored with the servants, and threw the whole lot of them out one memorable afternoon that the neighbors were still talking about. It turned out that several had tried selling their stories of Life With Ruby to the media, and one had got all sulky after she kicked them out of her bedroom, and tried to knife her. Bits of his body kept turning up in the sewers for weeks afterward.
    Jack sighed and finally came to a halt, staring at nothing in particular. He felt tired. And tired of being tired. For weeks now he’d been working all day and long into the evening, fighting to keep his dream of democracy alive, and struggling to make himself over into a