Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

light-years away. “We tried fighting. We lost. Our only hope now is the Wolfe’s plan. And God help us all if it goes wrong.” “If it goes right, I’ll make gods of you all,” said Valentine calmly. “We will return in glory and know power beyond that even Lionstone wielded. But that’s the future. Tell me of the present, Gregor. How goes the cabal?” “Growing all the time,” said Gregor. “No one’s willing to come out in public, but more and more aristocrats and politicians are supplying people and money to help expedite your plan. No telling how many of them will actually stand up and fight when the time comes, but I’ll settle for them just abstaining at the right moment. The rebels and their pet Parliament may think they’re running things, but their precious new regime is built on sand.” “And the sands of time are running out for all of them,” said Valentine. “How I do love a good metaphor. Now, be a good boy, Gregor, and make yourself scarce. I must think. I have to prepare a suitable welcome for dear Owen and the redoubtable Hazel d’Ark.”
    “Watch yourself,” said Gregor. “They aren’t human anymore. If they ever were.
    They’ll take a lot of killing.”
    “If it was easy,” said Valentine, “there’d be no fun in it, would there?
    Goodbye, Gregor.” He shut down the viewscreen.
    “Let them come,” said the Silvestri. “We can handle them.”
    “We can,” said the Kartakis. “I’m not so sure about you.”
    Carlos Silvestri flushed pinkly, a knife in each hand. “I can hold up my end.” “Relax,” said the Romanov, rooting through the remains of his dinner in case he’d missed anything. “With all the guards and security we’ve set up here, we could hold off an entire army till they starved to death.” “Anyone else maybe,”
    said the Silvestri. “But this is the Deathstalker and the d’Ark woman. I’ve heard stories about them, of the things they did during the street fighting on Golgotha. Someone said they died and brought themselves back to life.”
    “Stories,” said Athos Kartakis. “There are always stories.” “In this case they might just be true,” said Valentine. “But not to worry, dear comrades. Let them come how they will. They’ll find nothing here but death.” He laughed softly at his little joke. The others didn’t look too appreciative of his humor, but then, they rarely did. Valentine’s sense of humor had changed and evolved along with his alchemical transformation, and wasn’t to everyone’s taste anymore. He sighed, and got to his feet, the signal that dinner was officially over. He dabbed daintily at his scarlet lips with a napkin and started toward the door. The three aristocrats made varying sounds of alarm despite themselves. Valentine took his time turning back to face them.
    “Yes, dear friends? Was there something else?”
    “The drug,” said the Kartakis stonily. “We need the drug.” “Of course,” said Valentine. “What was I thinking? It’s time for your daily dose, isn’t it? How very forgetful of me.”
    He strolled back to the table and took a small phial of pills from his pocket. The three men who had once been Lords and masters of their destiny looked at the phial and tried not to appear too desperate.
    Valentine was quite capable of dragging out his little game for ages if he felt like it. He could make them do anything, anything at all, at this time of the day, and they all knew it. The esper drug had originally been discovered by a small group of scientists looking for something else. To their surprise, they found they had created a drug that could give everyone who took it regularly a small but real gift for telepathy.
    The original Lord High Dram, the Widowmaker, had seized control of the drug and the scientists, and put it to his own use, but his plans, like his imagination, were somewhat limited. After his death Valentine took control of the drug and the single laboratory that produced it. There was of course a catch or two.
    First, the drug was highly addictive. Once you’d started taking it, you had to continue for the rest of your life, or die horribly. And second, a small percentage of the people who took it died immediately.
    Valentine had weighed the pros and cons, but not for long. It was only a drug, after all, and Valentine had never believed in letting a chemical get the better of him. The three ex-Lords had also taken the drug and survived. It had been the Wolfe’s