Deathstalker

'Time to get this show on the road, gentlemen. Why don't you release poor Georgios and let him leave so that we can be about our business?'

The gang members elbowed each other and sniggered. From the chocolate and cream around their mouths, they'd obviously been gorging themselves on Georgios' creations, and Valentine winced. The confections had undoubtedly been wasted on them. The gang members were quite incapable of appreciating the subtleties.

'Poor Georgios isn't going anywhere,' said the tough with the scarlet headband that marked him as gang leader. 'Our orders are no witnesses.'

'And who gave you your orders?' said Valentine politely.

The leader smiled mockingly. 'You don't need to know that. What matters is the message I have for you. Well, not so much a message; more a warning. Word is, you've made a nuisance of yourself once too often, and our employers hired us to make sure it doesn't happen again.'

'Oh dear,' said Valentine easily. 'Another death threat. How terribly dull.'

'We're not going to kill you,' said the leader, still grinning. 'We're not dumb enough to take a job like that. Kill an aristo, and every guard in the city would be after us. No, we're just going to break both your legs, both your arms, do a bit of a dance on your ribs, and then walk away and leave you. Our employers want you hurt and humiliated, and we're only too happy to oblige. Especially for the money they're paying.'

'Whatever they're paying you, I'll double it,' said Valentine.

The gang members laughed and sniggered again, but the gang leader's smile disappeared. 'It isn't just the money. It's a chance to get back at an aristo. You've got everything we ever wanted, and you're still not satisfied. You come slumming down here where we have to live, and laugh at our quaint and picturesque lives. You smash up our bars, trash our women, and make us scramble for the crumbs you drop. We're being paid a hell of a lot to crush you, Wolfie, but we'd have done it for nothing. We hate you, aristo. You and all your kind.'

'We don't hate you,' said Valentine. 'We don't notice you, any more than we notice any of the other rubbish that floats past in the gutters.'

The Demons stopped laughing, and the tension in the air was suddenly sharp and imminent. Light glinted on steel as they hefted swords and machetes. A length of steel chain made soft clinking sounds as it was wrapped around a fist. The gang leader nodded to the two toughs holding Georgios, and they pushed him to his knees. The shop's proprietor was a small, round little man with a shaven head. He looked like a child among boogeymen. The gang leader drew a long slender knife and stood beside Georgios.

'Hold him still. I don't think our little aristo here is taking us seriously. Maybe this will change his mind.'

He cut Georgios' throat with a single economic sweep of his knife. Blood spurted out across the spotlessly clean floor. Georgios bucked and heaved in his captors' hands, but couldn't break free. He couldn't even get his hands to the gaping second mouth in his throat. The strength went quickly out of him along with his blood, and he slumped forward. His captors let him go, and he fell forward onto the floor to lie still in his own blood. He died so suddenly it was hard to tell the exact moment when the life went out of him. Only Valentine was watching. The Demons were watching him. Valentine slowly raised his dark eyes and looked at the Demons, and suddenly there was something new in the air. His crimson slash of a smile had no humor in it, and his mascaraed eyes were very cold. He looked different, and it took the Demons a moment to realize how. He didn't look helpless anymore.

'Now that was a pity,' Valentine said softly. 'Nobody made a pastry like dear Georgios. I'm going to have to punish you for that. Georgios wasn't much, but he was mine. No one takes anything from me and lives to boast of it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill you all. I'll try not to enjoy it too much.'

For a long moment, no one said anything. The Demons stood very still, and tension crackled on the air. And then the gang leader laughed softly, and everyone's attention switched to him.

'Nice try, aristo. You nearly brought it off. But you can't intimidate us anymore. There are twelve of us and only the one of you, and odds like that don't care how important you are. Take him, boys. We're going to have some fun.'

The gang members moved forward as one, spreading out in a circle around Valentine, who made no move either to attack or escape. He kept his dark eyes fixed on the gang leader, while his hyped-up senses kept track of the others. He could hear every step, every rustle of clothing, and their scents came thickly to him on the close air. He didn't need to see them to know where they were. His smile never wavered. From the orchestrated nature of their movements, it was obvious to Valentine that the Demons' enhancements included some kind of cheap sympatico drug. They moved in a synchronized, coordinated way, as though each member knew exactly where every other member was, and they all lifted their weapons at the same time, in the same way. Follow the leader. Of course, if you took out the leader…

Valentine stepped forward impossibly quickly, his movements driven by the battle drugs raging within him, and pivoted sharply on one foot so that the other shot up and slammed into the side of the gang leader's head. The force of the blow whipped the Demon's head around, breaking his neck, and he crumpled to the floor, his eyes rolling up in their sockets. By the time he hit the floor, Valentine had already turned on the next Demon.

The various battle drugs were howling in him now, filling his mind and his body with possibilities. The Demons were thrown by the sudden loss of their leader, but it wouldn't take mem long to find a new focus. The Demon before him was a young thing, slender beyond the point of gender, with skin stretched parchment tight over its skull. Valentine hit it in the throat and it sank choking to its knees. Valentine swung on his next victim with dazzling speed, but a new light had entered the Demons' eyes. The gang had found a new focus, and their gang mind was fixed on Valentine again. Only this time they wouldn't stop at a beating. Demon blood had been spilled. Only a death would satisfy them now. In his own way, Valentine approved. It showed the gang understood something of honor.

A knife flashed through the air toward Valentine, thrown with more than usual strength. Valentine snatched it out of midair, reversed it and threw it back at its thrower with a single smooth motion. It sank hilt-deep into the Demon's eye, and blood washed down his face as he fell backward. Another tough lashed out with her length of spiked steel chain. The barbed links whistled on the still air as they flashed toward Valentine's face. He stepped forward and stopped the chain with an upraised arm. It wrapped itself tightly around his wrist, but the cruel barbs didn't penetrate his skin. His flesh was different now, stronger and more malleable. It swept up over the links, holding them firm as the demon tugged at the chain. Valentine yanked on the chain, pulling the Demon within reach, and his free hand slammed into her face. The skin of his fingers formed a broad flesh mask, covering her mouth and nose. She dropped the chain and tugged desperately at his arm, but couldn't move it an inch. Valentine was rather pleased with the effect. He hadn't tried that particular drug in battle before. It had been originally intended as a sex drug to free the form of the flesh for more intimate caresses, but it hadn't taken Valentine long to see it might have other uses.

The Demon's struggles weakened quickly as her air ran out, and then the other Demons jumped Valentine and there was nothing but the press of bodies and thrusting steel. But quick as they were. Valentine was quicker. He danced among them like a ghost, everywhere at once, his hands lashing out to kill and cripple. He was boosted now, fast and furious, neurons firing at impossible speed, decisions and evasions planned and executed in the spark of a moment. His blows were devastating and unblockable, and the few times a Demon's steel found a fleeting target, the pliable flesh healed itself in seconds. The Demons cut and thrust with increasing desperation, but hit each other more often than not. They fell one by one as Valentine danced among them, pirouetting with deadly grace in the midst of death. His hands and feet moved too fast to be seen, and the last thing the Demons saw before they fell was his terrible crimson smile.

In the end, eleven dead gang members lay scattered across the patisserie floor, like so many broken flowers, lying still in awkward poses in pools of their own blood. Only one Demon remained alive, sitting shaking with his back to a wall, nursing a broken arm and trying to keep as far from Valentine as he could. His breathing was harsh and his eyes were wide, and shock and pain had driven most of the drugs from his system. For all his clawed hands and pointed teeth and bulked-up muscle, he'd never stood a chance against Valentine, and both of them knew it. He licked his dry lips, stared in fascinated horror at Valentine, and tried desperately to think of anything he knew that he might be able to trade for his life. And trying even more desperately to keep from his face the thought of the one thing that might still save him.

Valentine Wolfe brushed himself off and made a quiet moue of distaste at the blood that soaked his garments. Little of it was his, and his wounds had already healed. He'd dumped a universal cutoff and flush into his bloodstream, and the various battle drugs had dissipated quickly, leaving his mind sharp and clear and his body whole and relaxed. Nothing like a good workout to focus the mind. He looked about him at the dead Demons and