Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

able to overhear them in the midst of the general din from the crowds and the alien exhibits. "They wouldn't put up one of their really heavy hitters; not for the likes of us. Would they?"
    "Who knows why the ELFs do anything?" Rose said calmly. "I'd like to kill an ELF. One of the few things I haven't killed yet."
    Brett winced. "Rose; promise me you'll leave all the talking to me."
    "I can be diplomatic, when I have to be."
    "Rose; your idea of diplomacy is to shoot someone in the face rather than in the back."
    "Well, mostly, yes."
    "You're going to get us both killed, I lust know it."
    000 /
    "Then you shouldn't have made me leave my sword behind." "Trust me, Rose; a sword wouldn't get you anywhere against an ELF. I just hope they don't send one of their super-espers. There are rumors, old,
    old stories, from the dark days of esper beginnings, about appallingly powerful espers . . . mad minds, abominations, created by the Mater Mundi for reasons we can only guess at. Living weapons, that could destroy whole cities with a single thought. There are those who say these super-espers run the ELFs."
    "If they were so powerful, why didn't they fight during the Rebellion?" said Rose.
    Brett frowned. "Maybe they were too crazy, too uncontrollable, to be used; even against Lionstone."
    Brett looked about him uneasily. He was spooking himself, but he couldn't seem to stop. "Or just maybe, they refused to be used by anyone, even their own creator . . . Oh hell, I'm getting a really bad feeling about this. Maybe we should just turn around and get the hell out of here while we still can."
    "Finn wouldn't like that."
    "Finn can't turn you inside out just by thinking about it."
    "I'll protect you, Brett."
    "Against ELFs? Against super-espers? You're good, Rose, but you're still only human. God alone knows what the super-espers are. Even the names give me the creeps. The Gray Train. The Shatter Freak. Screaming Silence. The Spider Harps. Blue Hellfire . . ."
    Rose frowned at that last one. "Any connection with Stevie Blue?"
    "No. She came much later. And really she was never more than just another pyro, despite what the legends say. She'd have had to be at least three people, to do everything they said she did. I wish we had an esp-blocker, I really do. Finn could have got us one, if he'd wanted to. But no, that would have been a betrayal of trust, get the negotiations off to a bad start. . . Idiot. The only way to negotiate with an ELF
    is from a position of strength. And preferably from a completely different planet. I want to go home. And hide under the bed. If I get killed doing this, I swear I'm going to come back and haunt Finn."
    "I think we're here," said Rose.
    They came to a halt before a single unobtrusive side door marked simply MAINTENANCE. It was just slightly off the beaten track, in a cul-de-sac you couldn't easily find unless you knew what you were looking for. Above the door, someone had stenciled a stylized blackbird, the sign they'd been told to look for. Brett swallowed hard and then looked casually about him.
    No one seemed to be looking, so he tried the door. It opened immediately at his touch, and Brett slipped quickly inside, Rose all but treading on his heels. The door shut behind them with a final-sounding click. Brett immediately tried the door again, but it wouldn't open. It had locked itself. Brett shrugged glumly, and led Rose down the narrow corridor before them.
    The walls were bare steel, unburnished, glowing dully in the amber light from the glowspheres set into the ceiling at regular intervals. It could have been just another maintenance tunnel for the service crews, but Brett didn't think so. It was unnaturally quiet. The roar of the crowds and the caged specimens were entirely gone, as though Brett and Rose were now in an entirely different place. Their steps barely echoed at all, as though the sound was absorbed by the walls. The long corridor was full of a strained hush, as though someone unseen was listening to their approach. Or perhaps even quietly following them . . . Brett kept glancing back over his shoulder, but there was never anyone there.
    But they were being watched. He had no doubt about that.
    The corridor stretched endlessly away before them, curving back and forth, but leading always, inexorably, downwards, into the depths of the earth under the Zoo. No maintenance crew would ever have legitimate business this deep. The Zoo, and the city, and civilization itself were far