Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

bring home a little souvenir when I go traveling.” The two Loki men produced handkerchiefs and began cleaning sprayed blood from their faces. No emotion showed in their faces, but their hands weren’t as steady as they might have been. Valentine bowed slightly to Donna Silvestri, in acknowledgment of the point made. Kid Death cleaned his blade with a rag and then sheathed the sword. His face was impassive save for a slight smile. “Time for another election in Graylake East,” he said lightly.
    Donna Silvestri smiled at Valentine Wolfe. “I hope we understand each other.” “Oh, we do,” said Valentine. “I’m just glad I’m working with professionals for once.”
    Julian Skye sat locked away in his bedroom again, staring at his reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite. He looked like shit. His body slumped in the oversized chair like a battered toy discarded by a child who played too rough. For once Julian wasn’t thinking about his once love, BB Chojiro. He had more immediate concerns.
    He’d just been fired from his own holo show. Ever since the rebellion ended, and he discovered to his great surprise that he was still alive and on the winning side for once, he’d been making a good living starring as himself in a weekly holo series featuring his many exploits as a dashing, devil-may-care agent of the rebellion. Such shows were very popular right now, but his was the only one featuring the actual person concerned. His acting was frankly average, but the emphasis of the show had always been on stunts, explosions, and last-minute escapes, so he got by.
    Only now they’d fired him. Replaced him with a look-alike actor, because Julian didn’t look like himself anymore. He’d been ill for some time, the continuing side effects of his incarceration in Lionstone’s interrogation cells. They came and went, so he learned to live with them and got on with his life. But just recently he’d been getting worse. A lot worse. He thought he’d hidden it by not giving in to it, and working just as hard as always, but apparently you can’t fool the camera.
    The show’s executives had called him into their luxurious office, sat him down, made sure he had a large drink in his hand, and then showed him footage of himself as he used to be and as he was now. Julian was shocked by the difference. He’d become painfully thin, his face gaunt and hollowed, with dark shadows under the eyes. He looked twenty years older. The executives said they were very sorry to have to let him go, but makeup could only do so much. They assured him they’d be happy to take him back again once he was better, but everyone in the room knew that was a crock. He wasn’t going to get any better. Those white-gowned bastards in the interrogation cells had killed him, after all. It just took a while for his death to catch up with him. So he’d gone home. Home was the old Sky Family house. Not a Tower. Not even in the same neighborhood. The Skyes had never been more than a very minor Family. And soon they wouldn’t be a Family at all. Both of Julian’s parents were dead, and all his grandparents. Wars and politics and duels. His uncles and aunts, knowing a sinking ship when they were on one, married into greater Families, and took those Families’ names as their own. There were a few minor cousins, of various removes, but for all practical purposes, Auric and Julian had been the last generation of Skye. And they never had children. Now Julian Skye was the last of his line, and when he
    died the name would die with him. He couldn’t really bring himself to care much. He’d never given a damn for being an aristocrat, not least because he was at the bottom of the pile, and looked down on by every other Clan. And he was an esper, which should have been impossible in the carefully controlled bloodlines and intermarriages of the Families. Espers weren’t people. They were property. But somewhere along the line a Skye had gone to bed with someone they shouldn’t have, and the esper gene had gone skinny-dipping in the Skye gene pool and emerged in Julian. If his parents had found out, they would have had him quietly killed. But as soon as Julian’s powers started emerging, his older brother, Auric, was right there with him, calming his terror and helping him hide what he was from his Family and the world. No one ever knew. Till Auric died and Julian gave his life to the rebellion.
    And now here he was, back home again, living alone in