Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

and unfocused without them. He wasn’t a King anymore, or even a Paragon, but he didn’t know how to be anything else. So mostly he just went through the motions, getting through the day until he could finally go to bed and lose himself in sleep. He looked at the discarded leather bravo’s mask beside his plate. Sometimes he thought that was his real face now. He could feel Stuart looking at him, and stared at the mess on his plate so he wouldn’t have to look at Stuart. He knew the earnest young man only wanted to help, but Douglas didn’t want to be helped. He wanted to be numb, so he wouldn’t have to think or feel or remember.
    According to the official media news sites, Anne Barclay was dead. Killed by falling debris during Douglas’s daring escape from the court. Another old friend hurt, and gone, because of him. Nina tried to tell him you couldn’t trust anything on the official sites these days, that it was all Finn’s propaganda, but that was just Nina being kind. At least Lewis and Jesamine were still out there, somewhere, avoiding capture. Douglas hoped they were happy, at least. He desperately wanted somebody to be happy, out of the mess he’d made of things.
    He looked at his dinner. It wasn’t up to much, but then it never was. Stringy meat and potatoes, with lumpy gravy. Douglas pushed it about a bit with his fork.
    “What’s the meat?”
    “Best not to ask,” Nina said briskly as she sat down next to him. “And you really don’t want to know what’s in the gravy.”
    “Is there pudding?” said Stuart, hopefully.
    Nina gave him a withering look. “What do you think?”
    Stuart had a plate of ropey-looking vegetables, boiled within an inch of their lives. He never touched meat. The others never said anything. They knew why. Once Nina would have insisted on their saying grace first, but they had all fallen far beyond a state of grace now. The three of them sat and ate for a while in silence. It was food and it was fuel, and that was all it was. Outside in the street, there were occasional shouts and screams and sounds of violence, but then, there always were.
    “I heard a rumor today,” Stuart said finally.
    “Now there’s a surprise,” said Nina. “This whole place runs on rumors.”
    “This one was about Clan Deathstalker,” said Stuart. “Word is, a handful of minor cousins escaped the slaughter on Virimonde, and might be coming here.”
    “I’m sorry, Stuart,” said Nina, putting a hand on his. “But I was there, remember, with poor Emma? I saw them all die. No one escaped.”
    “Some of them could have been offplanet,” said Douglas, not looking up from his food.
    “Perhaps,” Nina said kindly. “There’s always hope.”
    “Poor Lewis,” said Douglas, pushing his food about the plate. “The last Deathstalker. I wonder if anyone’s told him yet. Can’t help feeling sorry for him.”
    “Even though he stole the woman you loved?” said Stuart.
    “She was never really mine,” said Douglas. “I never really knew her. There wasn’t time. I thought we’d have all the time we needed to get to know each other after we were married. Now . . . I think perhaps I only loved the image—the diva and the star. Maybe that’s why she fell for Lewis. Because he was the only one who cared for the real her.”
    He made himself eat the rest of his meal. Stuart and Nina would only look at him if he didn’t, and he didn’t know how much more of their worrying about him he could stand. He supposed there would come a day when he’d be so hungry he’d be able to wolf it all down without tasting it; but he wasn’t looking forward to that at all. Nina checked they’d all finished and then bustled around the table, gathering up the plates and keeping up a stream of chatter. She was trying to be motherly and supportive, but truth be told she wasn’t very good at it. Douglas gave her extra marks for trying anyway. And then he made himself concentrate as he realized she was saying something about a new step forward in her attempts to set up a viable rogue news site.
    “A whole bunch of new media people have turned up in the Rookery! First-class techs, the loveys—just what we needed. I mean, yes, I’m a reporter and all that, but I never did understand the science side of things. Up till now it’s been the blind leading the deaf and trying not to electrocute ourselves. These new guys got out of the city just ahead of Finn’s people, and they’re keen as mustard to