Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

I know, they're expensive; but it would have been
    just the job today. Put him on ice in a second. A transmutation bomb .. . that is playing really dirty. And how the hell did he smuggle something like that into the House anyway? Just its presence should have set off every alarm in the building!"
    "Don't I know it," said Anne. "I can only assume it's been so long since there's been a serious threat to the House that certain people have got sloppy. Heads will roll over this. Actually, it's just the excuse I need to force some high up but basically useless people to retire."
    "It was more than that," said Lewis. "Somebody very well placed must have been paid to look the other way, shut down the relevant systems. Pure Humanity has a spy in the House."
    "Wouldn't surprise me at all," said Anne. "They're devious bastards. Once I've got my own people in place, I can start putting pressure on anyone I even suspect isn't one hundred percent behind the King."
    "Anne, dear," said Jesamine. "You don't actually run the House's Security."
    "Only a matter of time," said Anne. She looked at Lewis. "Good thinking on your feet. What exactly did you throw at the bomber?"
    "This," said Lewis. He sat forward in his chair and held out his palm, with the chunky black gold ring balanced on it. The others leaned forward to study it. Jesamine recognized it first, and shrieked out loud.
    "That's the Deathstalker ring! Owen's ring! Sign and symbol of Clan authority. It was one of the main props in Deathstalker's Lament."
    "Where did you get that?" said Douglas. "It was supposed to have disappeared with Owen two hundred years ago!"
    Lewis told them about the strange little man called Vaughn. None of the others recognized the name or the description. They took it in turns to hold the ring and study it, touching it only gingerly. The ring had belonged to a legend, so that made it a legend too. They were all more than a little awed. Finally Anne gave it back to Lewis, and he slipped it back on his finger.
    "I feel a bit weird," said Douglas. "That ring saved my life. It's as though Owen himself reached out to save me through his descendant. Weird."
    "The bomber really was very stupid, darling," said Jesamine. "All he had to do was run up to Douglas and detonate his bomb, and there would have been nothing Lewis could do to prevent it. But no, he had to show off, and make his stupid speeches first. Have his moment in the spotlight. Prima donnas. They're all the same."
    "Smart people don't do suicide-bomb runs," said Anne. "They convince some other stupid bastard to do it for them."
    "Pity you couldn't take him alive, Lewis," said Douglas. "Alive, we might have been able to get some answers out of him. I really want the people behind this."
    "You ungrateful pig!" Jesamine said immediately. "Lewis saved your life! He saved all our lives."
    "He wasn't going to be taken alive, Douglas," Lewis said evenly. "You heard him. And you can be sure there would have been a poison tooth or another bomb hidden in his belly. Something dramatic. There
    was no way his bosses would have sent him out without being sure there was no way anything could be traced back to them. We've dealt with this kind before, back when we were both Paragons. You know how they think."
    "Yes," said Douglas. "Of course, Lewis; you're quite right. Sorry. I'm ... still a little shaken. Why don't you work with Anne; see if the two of you can figure out exactly how he got past Security."
    Lewis nodded, got up, and moved over to join Anne before her monitors. She was already using her computers to work out possible routes the bomber could have used to end up in the alien section of the House. Douglas looked at Jesamine, and she came over and sat down beside him.
    "Why did you go to him, Jes, and not to me?" Douglas said softly.
    "He saved both our lives," said Jesamine steadily. "And silly me, I was worried he might be hurt. Don't make more of it than it was."
    "You must know it looked more than that, in front of the media cameras. It looked bad, Jes. Like you cared more about him than you did about me."
    "I know more about the media than you ever will, Douglas Campbell! They'll see what's there, and nothing else; a woman concerned over the Champion who saved her life and that of her husband-to-be.
    No one will say anything else; unless you make a big deal of it. Let it drop, Douglas. It doesn't matter."
    "It matters," said Douglas. "It matters to me."
    There was a lot more for them to discuss,