Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

ground. They were good with their swords, but she was so much better.
    She let one live; the one with the ax. She stood before him, carefully out of range, still grinning nastily, not even out of breath. Blood dripped steadily from her blade as the axman stared at her with wide frightened eyes. He slowly lowered his ax, as though it had grown too heavy for him to hold. Emma raised her sword slightly, and laughed softly as he flinched. This was going to be easier than she'd thought.
    "You're alive because I want answers," she said crisply. "You'll stay alive as long as you answer truthfully. You even think of lying to me, and I'll whittle you down into a more responsible citizen. So; who do you work for? Who told you I was coming? Who told you to frighten me off? And what's going on in the Rookery that I'm not supposed to find out about? Talk to me, dammit, or I'll rip out your spleen and make you eat it!"
    The thug screamed shrilly, dropped his ax, and turned and ran back into the alleyway. He was quickly swallowed up by the concealing shadows, his scream fading away like the siren of a departing ship.
    Emma sighed quietly. Sometimes her reputation actually got in the way. She holstered her gun, pulled a piece of rag out of her pocket, cleaned her sword, and put it away. Then she cleaned the blood off her hands, dabbed at a few of the larger stains on her uniform before giving it up as a bad job, and put the piece of rag away. There was no point in going after the thug. He could have disappeared into a dozen different boltholes by now, and no doubt there were all kinds of nasty surprises and booby traps lying in wait if she was dumb enough to go into the darkness after him. Everything from massed disrupter fire to proximity mines. It was what she would have done.
    Leave it for another day. Perhaps she could persuade the Deathstalker to provide her with another entrance point. He might even join her. Lewis looked like a man who might be up for a little righteous fun, even if he was the high and mighty Champion these days. Certainly he'd make a much better partner than Finn bloody Durandal... She frowned. She was going to have to look into that. Discover just why the Durandal wasn't the man he used to be.
    She walked back to her waiting gravity sled, and found a small crowd had gathered. They seemed more interested in the dead bodies than in her. She smiled and nodded politely to them, but they just stared coldly back at her. They didn't look like the thugs; just ordinary, everyday people. But their faces were sour and sullen, their eyes angry. They looked like they would have liked to say angry, abusive things to her, if they'd dared. Emma supposed they were Rookery people, or at least Rookery supporters. If they weren't . . . that would mean the general populace's feelings towards the Paragons were even worse than
    she'd suspected. And she didn't want to believe that; not yet. Careful not to turn her back on anybody, Emma stepped up onto her sled, and soared up into the sky again. She kept on going, until she was high enough that the city spread out below her looked once again like the wondrous place it was supposed to be.
    The current Patriarch of the Church of Christ Transcendent, the very reverend Roland Wentworth, had been demanding an audience with Angelo Bellini, leader of the Church Militant, ever since the Church demonstration turned into a Neuman riot, and Angelo had finally got around to seeing him. They sat facing each other across Angelo's very impressive, state-of-the-art computerized desk, in Angelo's extremely sumptuous new office. Now that he'd moved up in the world, and finally become the very important person he'd always known he should be, Angelo had wasted no time in transferring his base of operations into the biggest office he could find in the great Logres Cathedral. The previous occupant hadn't argued. He could tell which way the wind was blowing.
    The new office boasted every luxury that Angelo had been able to think of. Deep pile carpets, veined marble walls, efficient but unobtrusive central heating and air conditioning, and a long shelf packed with all the very best wines from the Cathedral's extensive cellars. Life was good. Angelo had denied himself nothing. Why should he? He was now the de facto head of the Church, supreme lord over the destiny of billions of souls, and it was about time the Patriarch realized it. Well past time that Roland Wentworth realized he was yesterday's man.