Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

your teeth while you slept; but it could still be a kind of home, for those who needed it. For those with nowhere else to go. In the Rookery lost souls found kindred spirits, and stayed, to work quiet and very profitable revenges against those who had driven them there.
    Several saucy-looking waitresses with exactly the same face moved among the tables, laughing and joking and slapping the occasional face as they dispensed drinks, drugs, and bar snacks of a rather unsavory nature, all of it on Brett's tab. They were clones; Madelaines to be exact, a waitress franchise currently very popular in cities everywhere. These were knockoffs, of course, bootleg copies. And in the Rookery, these Madelaines owned their own contracts.
    Brett Random sat on the exact middle of the long wooden bar counter, legs dangling, face flushed, ripped to the tits on absinthe, crazy as a bag full of weasels, and happy as the night is long. The only thing better than running a successful con was boasting of it afterwards, preferably to a crowd of his compatriots who were secretly eating their hearts out with jealousy. He'd got rid of the distracting bright red hair, had a new eye put in to replace his spy camera, and was now back to his usual mousy brown hair, mild brown eyes, and weakly handsome face. His real appearance, that he only ever showed to his own kind. He was telling the indulgent crowd again how he'd sneaked into the Court, and all the things he'd seen and done while he was there (including many things he'd thought about doing, or wished he could have). He made a big thing of how he'd escaped afterwards, with Court Security baying at his heels, but drunk as he was he still had enough sense not to mention Finn's involvement. They wouldn't have understood. Hell, he was there, and he didn't understand it.
    Besides, he didn't like to think about Finn Durandal. The man scared him. Ditching the Paragon was the smartest thing he'd ever done. Brett Random hadn't got where he was without being able to recognize trouble when he saw it. He wasn't even going to think about the man again.
    Brett stopped boasting to prepare himself another drink. It took a while, but it was worth it. Brett always drank absinthe, when he had the money. There were other drinks that tasted better, or got you legless faster, but for sheer halfbrick to the side of the head impact, there was absolutely nothing to match absinthe. It cost an arm and a leg, was bad for you in practically every way possible, and some of the hallucinations it brought could be downright unsettling; but drink enough of it, and the world could be a fine and wondrous place. But most of all, Brett loved the ritual of it.
    First, pour yourself a glass of absinthe and place it on the bar. Next, take a spoon (flat, pure silver, shaped like a leaf) and place it over the top of the glass. Next, place a sugar lump on the spoon. Then dilute your drink by dripping spring water over the sugar lump, until the liquor below turns from a dull blue into a vivid green. Then, and only then, drink. And hold onto your hat. Absinthe could do major damage to the liver, the kidneys, and the brain; but it was very good for the soul. Especially when taken
    to excess. Suitably refreshed, Brett turned back to an audience even more refreshed than he was. In fact, some of them were so refreshed they weren't even in the same time zone as him.
    "My fellow Bastards!" he said grandly. "So good to be back among family again! Fleecing the sheep can be fun as well as profitable, but it's only here with you I really feel at home. In a very real way, I like to think of you all as my children, gathering at my knee to listen and learn. I have this strange urge to make you all go upstairs and tidy your room . . . Are you all wearing clean underwear? Then feel free to go out and get knocked down by a truck; I promise I won't care. But never forget, boys and girls; you may be Random's Bastards, but I alone am worthy of the title of The Bastard.
    "My father, as many times removed as he could stand, was the legendary Jack Random. Just like all of you. God, he put it around. But my dear mother, equally removed, was the just as legendary Ruby Journey! My genes are so damned heroic it's a wonder I'm able to bear being in the same room as the rest of you."
    He grinned unmoved into the face of raucous derision from the crowd, who might be pissed as farts but could still recognize bullshit when they heard it. Even the Madelaines stopped