Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

bandoliers of assorted grenades, shrapnel and concussion and incendiary, crossing his chest and back. Finlay stamped back and forth about the lockup for a while, getting used to the new weight. His plan was very simple. He was going to walk in the front door of Tower Shreck and kill everyone he saw until he got to Gregor Shreck. And that was what he did. As a plan, it worked surprisingly well. The security in Tower Shreck, as in most of the pastel towers, was mainly concerned with warding off attacks from the air, by gravity sleds, or on the ground, by massive armed forces. They weren’t prepared for a single, cold-eyed, cold-hearted killer who no longer cared whether he lived or died. Finlay walked up to the guards by the main door, shot the first one in the face, and cut the throat of the other. A shaped charge from his bandolier blew the main door in. He tossed a shrapnel grenade into the lobby, waited till it had gone off and the screams began, and then stalked into the smoke-filled chamber and cut down the few people the grenade hadn’t finished off. Finlay dropped an incendiary to start a distracting fire and made his way up the stairs to the next floor. He wasn’t dumb enough to use the elevator.
    Guards came running down the stairs, and he killed them all, making his way steadily up the stairwell, stopping at each floor to toss around grenades and incendiaries. Those who didn’t die in the blasts were soon preoccupied with trying to escape the building fires and smoke. Sprinkler systems did their best, but had never been designed to cope with anything like this. There were always more guards, and Finlay killed them all, except for those with sense enough to turn and run when they saw death coming.
    Finlay’s sword arm began to ache, and the blood that dripped from his armor was sometimes his own now, but he didn’t care. He was doing what he was born to do, and doing it well. His force shield deflected energy weapons, and in the narrow stairwell the guards could come at him only a few at a time, and that wasn’t enough to stop him, not nearly enough. He stepped over the bodies and kept going.
    He’d set fires in half the floors of the Tower by now. Thick black smoke was drifting up the stairwell after him. He could hear screaming and panicking and the screeching of alarm sirens, and it was all music to his ears. Let Tower Shreck burn. He wasn’t planning on going back down again. And finally Gregor ran out of guards. Their impressive-looking armor wasn’t much use in close-quarter fighting, and with the Tower burning up all around them, most decided they weren’t being paid enough to deal with this madman and took to their heels. Finlay carried on up the stairwell, sometimes coughing from the smoke, but not slowing down. He came to the top floor of the Tower and made his way down the deserted corridor, kicking open doors till he came to the reinforced door that led into Gregor’s private chambers.
    Finlay blew in the door with a shaped charge, and strode through the smoke into Gregor’s bloodred womb of a room.
    Gregor was sitting on his huge rose-petal bed, clutching the sheets defensively around him. Half his
    oversize face was hidden behind a blood-soaked bandage, and Finlay smiled briefly. Evangeline had done well. But standing beside the bed, gun in hand, was a tall, slender figure, dressed all in black to show off his pale skin and delicate features. Valentine Wolfe. Finlay laughed softly, a disturbing, not altogether sane sound. Gregor flinched. Valentine didn’t. “Well, well,” said Finlay. “It’s all my birthdays come at once. The two men I hate most together in one room. There is a God, and he is good.” “You and I have never had much to do with Him,” said Valentine easily. “We’ve always served a much darker master. But your timing is impeccable, as always. I came here to make an alliance with Gregor, on certain delicate issues that needn’t concern you, and you choose this very evening to pursue your somewhat delayed vengeance. Well, I can’t allow you to interfere, Finlay, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to die.”
    Finlay laughed, and it was an ugly sound. Gregor whimpered, and Valentine moved forward to stand between him and Finlay. He put away his gun and drew his sword. “I’ve heard many tales of your swordsmanship, Campbell. Let’s see how good you really are. Man to man, blade to blade—let’s finish what we started in Tower Campbell so long ago.