Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

then the top floor exploded, snapping him out of it. All the windows blew out at once, and thick black smoke billowed from where the windows had been. Sharp-edged steelglass shrapnel flew past him, cutting him here and there, as he reached down and struggled to pull back the heel of his right boot. Inside was the coil of climbing wire he’d used in his old assassin days, during the rebellion. He’d always believed in being prepared. Guards might take your sword and gun, but they rarely took your boots till after you were dead. Julian knew about the boot heel.
    Finlay had told him enough stories about it. Julian. Julian was dead. Finlay squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and then pushed the thought aside. He’d mourn later, when he had time. Assuming there was a later. He threw the grapnel on the end of the wire at the side of the Tower, and it snagged on an ornamental outcropping. He wrapped the other end of the line around both his fists and braced himself.
    The line snapped taut, straining his arms and biting deep enough into his hands to draw blood. Finlay gritted his teeth and used his remaining momentum to swing him into the side of the Tower. A moment later he was clinging to the wall like an old friend, flexing his aching hands one at a time, trying to get his breath back. He couldn’t break his way in, so he’d have to climb the rest of the way down. He looked cautiously down and counted twenty-one stories. He shook his head slowly. He was getting too old for this shit.
    It took him over an hour to reach the ground, descending carefully foot by foot, avoiding the notice of the Tower guards. Luckily the explosion had taken out the Tower’s exterior sensors, and the guards were all inside, trying to put out the fire on what was left of the top floor. Finlay dropped the last few feet, hitting the ground hard. The solid support felt good under his feet. He looked back up the way he’d come. The top of Tower Chojiro was lost in smoke and flames. Julian’s funeral pyre. Finlay still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but he could guess. He’d always known BB Chojiro would be the death of Julian.
    Finlay sighed and decided the time had come to kill Gregor Shreck. He might as well. Everything he cared about had been taken from him. He’d lost his closest friend, Julian. He’d lost all hope of contact with Adrienne and the children. And he’d lost Evangeline too, by walking out on her when she needed him the most. No, he was alone now, and free to do what he should have done a long time ago. The law wouldn’t understand. Nor would his former friends and comrades in the rebellion. They’d call him a killer, a renegade, and band together to hunt him down. But none of that mattered. All that mattered now was punishing Gregor Shreck for all the pain and horror he was responsible for. Finlay nodded, once, and then strode away from the burning Tower.
    Gregor should have known. The most dangerous man of all is the man with nothing left to lose.
    He’d never given up his weapons when the rebellion ended. He’d always thought he might need them
    again someday. Just in case the new order didn’t work out. He had stashed them in a secure lockup in a part of the city where no one asked questions, and kept their existence a secret. Even Evangeline didn’t know about them. She would never have approved. A taxi took Finlay to them in under a half hour. He stopped the driver well short of the destination, tipped him enough not to remember who his fare had been, and walked the rest of the way. He stopped before the plain steel door and carefully checked all his hidden telltales were still secure. None of them had been triggered. His secret was still safe. He opened the locking system with his thumb print and voice code, and nodded, satisfied, to see all his old friends just where he’d left them. Blades, axes, energy guns, projectile weapons, grenades, and all the other useful little items he’d acquired during his time as an assassin. There was enough firepower here to take out a small army, and that was just what he intended to do.
    He put on full body armor first. Next came a force-shield bracelet around his left wrist and a sword belt around his waist. The weight of the sword on his hip was reassuring, like coming home. On his other hip, a holster carrying a fully charged disrupter. He slipped a projectile pistol into the back of his belt. He had something special in mind for that. Finally two