Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

though bowing to Owen and Hazel, and fell dead to the floor. The Romanov breathed his last, let go of Hazel’s sword, and fell backward, dead too. She jerked the sword out of his body and turned, just a little breathlessly, to thank Owen for his last-minute rescue. And it was only then that she realized how different he looked.
    His clothes were different, torn and bloodied, and topped with a great furred cloak. His face was tired
    and gaunt, and he was breathing hard and deep, as though he’d been running for a long time. He looked as though he’d been through Hell and had to fight every step of the way, but in his steady gaze Hazel saw both determination and a desperate, bone-deep sadness. He smiled at her, a strange, gentle smile, and reached out a hand as though to take hers. Hazel thrust her gun into its holster and reached out to take his hand. And that was when she realized Owen was extending his flesh and blood left hand, not the golden Hadenman hand that had replaced it long ago. Hazel hesitated, her hand stopping short of his, and Owen smiled sadly, as though he knew he’d be denied but had still hoped otherwise. He opened his mouth to say something, and Hazel leaned desperately forward, somehow knowing it was vital she heard what he had to say, but he was gone, vanished back to wherever he’d come from, to whatever desperate flight he’d interrupted to save her when no one else could. Hazel looked about her, but the hall was empty, save for the two dead aristocrats and the quietly burning exoskeleton. Had that really been Owen, appearing out of nowhere to save her when she needed it most? But he’d had two human hands. Could it have been an alternative Owen, from some different time track, like the other Hazels she sometimes summoned? And if so, why had he looked so sad? She accessed her comm implant.
    “Owen. Report in. Are you all right? Owen? Owen!” The Ghost Warrior made out of Cathy’s remains lurched toward Owen, sword at the ready, and he didn’t think he’d ever been so angry in his life. He wasn’t worried. For someone who’d once gone one on one with a Grendel, a lone Ghost Warrior with just a sword wasn’t much of a threat. Her sword lashed out at him, and he parried it effortlessly. But to have desecrated the grave of the first woman he’d ever felt anything for, just for a sick joke… for another way to hurt him… Owen clutched his sword hilt till his hand ached. He didn’t want to have to kill Cathy again. It had been hard enough the first time. But he couldn’t let this mockery of an old love go on.
    It had to be stopped, if only so he could go after Valentine and tear him apart with his bare hands. And then the dead mouth opened, and an approximation of Cathy’s voice came out. It wasn’t the body speaking. The vocal cords had to be rotted away by now. It was just a recording. “Don’t hurt me, Owen,” said the dead woman, her torn black lips trying to keep up with the words. “Please. I don’t want to die again. I know I’m not what I used to be, but it’s still me. Cathy. Your mistress. Valentine brought me back, back from the dead, and trapped me in this rotting body. He can do things like that now. He has new friends. Powerful allies. You’d be amazed what he can do now. Please, Owen.”
    “Shut up.”
    “All right, then, let me kill you, and we can be dead together, lying side by side in the warm earth, forever. Do it for me, Owen.” “You don’t sound a bit like her,” said Owen, and he stopped backing away. “You don’t sound at all like my Cathy.”
    “Being dead changes you.”
    “Not this much. Cathy never pleaded for anything. Damn you to Hell, Valentine.” And he lashed out with his mind, the power boiling up within him, driven and focused by fury and outrage, and the dead body before him blew apart into tiny pieces of rotten flesh and shattered tech. Owen watched them fall and felt nothing at all. It hadn’t been Cathy.
    “Owen?” said Hazel’s voice through his comm implant. “Report in. Are you all right? Owen? Owen!”
    “I’m fine,” he said finally. “But Valentine’s escaped. We’ll have to search the castle for him. Lock up the two Lords and come and join me in the security center.”
    “The Lords are dead,” said Hazel, just a little apologetically. “They tried to escape.”
    Owen started to say something cutting and then hesitated. There had been something in her voice…
    “Are you all right, Hazel?” “Of