a big man, but she'd faced bigger, and the advantage was back on her side now. The Romanov seemed to sense this, opened his hand, and let the knife fall to the floor. Hazel relaxed just a little. She should have known the aristo wouldn't have the guts for anything remotely resembling a fair fight.
She gestured with her sword for the Romanov to go and sit down again, and knew immediately they she'd made a mistake. For a man who had one hidden weapon might well have another. The moment Hazel's blade moved away from him, the Romanov flexed his arm, and a knife dropped down into his hand from another hidden sheath. The knife in his hand streaked toward her undefended gut, and her sword was miles out of line. It was a sudden, simple, blindingly fast attack, and anyone else would surely have died, but Hazel wasn't like anyone else, and hadn't been for a long time now. She hauled her sword back into line with inhuman speed and strength, parried the knife, and knocked it aside. The Romanov plunged on, unable to stop, and impaled himself on the waiting blade.
The Romanov sank to the floor, face twisting, and dropped his knife to clutch the transfixing sword blade with both hands, as though he could somehow pull the killing steel out of his body. And it was as he held Hazel's sword with a dying man's desperate strength that Hazel realized she'd lost track of the Kartakis. She glared around her, desperately tugging her sword, but couldn't budge it. And there was the Kartakis, on his feet, a concealed knife in his hand too. She started to raise her gun, but the Kartakis's hand whipped forward, throwing the knife with deadly practiced skill, and Hazel knew she wasn't fast enough to dodge it. She tried anyway, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. The knife inched through the air, heading straight for her left eye. And Hazel knew she was going to die, alone and far from friends and help.
And then there he was, materializing out of thin air, his hand slapping the knife aside. It flashed through the air, back to its owner, and sank to its hilt in the Kartakis's throat, as though it belonged there. The aristocrat bent slowly forward, as though bowing to Owen and Hazel, and fell dead to the floor. The Romanov breathed his last, let go of Hazel's sword, and fell backward, dead too. She jerked the sword out of his body and turned, just a little breathlessly, to thank Owen for his last-minute rescue. And it was only then that she realized how different he looked.
His clothes were different, torn and bloodied, and topped with a great furred cloak. His face was tired and gaunt, and he was breathing hard and deep, as though he'd been running for a long time. He looked as though he'd been through Hell and had to fight every step of the way, but in his steady gaze Hazel saw both determination and a desperate, bone-deep sadness. He smiled at her, a strange, gentle smile, and reached out a hand as though to take hers. Hazel thrust her gun into its holster and reached out to take his hand. And that was when she realized Owen was extending his flesh and blood left hand, not the golden Hadenman hand that had replaced it long ago. Hazel hesitated, her hand stopping short of his, and Owen smiled sadly, as though he knew he'd be denied but had still hoped otherwise. He opened his mouth to say something, and Hazel leaned desperately forward, somehow knowing it was vital she heard what he had to say, but he was gone, vanished back to wherever he'd come from, to whatever desperate flight he'd interrupted to save her when no one else could.
Hazel looked about her, but the hall was empty, save for the two dead aristocrats and the quietly burning exoskeleton. Had that really been Owen, appearing out of nowhere to save her when she needed it most? But he'd had two human hands. Could it have been an alternative Owen, from some different time track, like the other Hazels she sometimes summoned? And if so, why had he looked so sad? She accessed her comm implant.
'Owen. Report in. Are you all right? Owen? Owen!'
The Ghost Warrior made out of Cathy's remains lurched toward Owen, sword at the ready, and he didn't think he'd ever been so angry in his life. He wasn't worried. For someone who'd once gone one on one with a Grendel, a lone Ghost Warrior with just a sword wasn't much of a threat. Her sword lashed out at him, and he parried it effortlessly. But to have desecrated the grave of the first woman he'd ever felt anything for, just for a sick joke… for another way to hurt him… Owen clutched his sword hilt till his hand ached. He didn't want to have to kill Cathy again. It had been hard enough the first time. But he couldn't let this mockery of an old love go on. It had to be stopped, if only so he could go after Valentine and tear him apart with his bare hands. And then the dead mouth opened, and an approximation of Cathy's voice came out. It wasn't the body speaking. The vocal cords had to be rotted away by now. It was just a recording.
'Don't hurt me, Owen,' said the dead woman, her torn black lips trying to keep up with the words. 'Please. I don't want to die again. I know I'm not what I used to be, but it's still me. Cathy. Your mistress. Valentine brought me back, back from the dead, and trapped me in this rotting body. He can do things like that now. He has new friends. Powerful allies. You'd be amazed what he can do now. Please, Owen.'
'Shut up.'
'All right, then, let me kill you, and we can be dead together, lying side by side in the warm earth, forever. Do it for me, Owen.'
'You don't sound a bit like her,' said Owen, and he stopped backing away. 'You don't sound at all like my Cathy.'
'Being dead changes you.'
'Not this much. Cathy never pleaded for anything. Damn you to Hell, Valentine.'
And he lashed out with his mind, the power boiling up within him, driven and focused by fury and outrage, and the dead body before him blew apart into tiny pieces of rotten flesh and shattered tech. Owen watched them fall and felt nothing at all. It hadn't been Cathy.
'Owen?' said Hazel's voice through his comm implant. 'Report in. Are you all right? Owen? Owen!'
'I'm fine,' he said finally. 'But Valentine's escaped. We'll have to search the castle for him. Lock up the two Lords and come and join me in the security center.'
'The Lords are dead,' said Hazel, just a little apologetically. 'They tried to escape.'
Owen started to say something cutting and then hesitated. There had been something in her voice… 'Are you all right, Hazel?'
'Of course,' she said. 'I'm fine. I'll be with you soon.'
She shut off contact. Owen looked down at the remains of a human body scattered across the floor, and told himself he felt nothing at all.
Together, Owen and Hazel searched the Standing, floor by floor, room by room. It took some time. The security system should have been able to locate Valentine, but he'd programmed it to ignore him. The Wolfe always planned his moves well in advance. And so they made their way through the ancient castle and did not find him, or any trace of his people. Valentine Wolfe had left the building.
They finally ended up in Owen's old bedchamber. The secret passage was still standing open, but Hazel talked Owen out of going back down to the flyer caves. It had been clear to her for some time that the Wolfe had made his escape from the castle, and probably from Virimonde, but she'd let Owen go on searching, because she could see he needed to. They stood together in the bedchamber and looked about them, wondering what to do next. Hazel sat down on the edge of the bed, legs swinging, and smiled as she sank slowly into the deep mattress.
'This is some place you got here, Deathstalker. Did this really all belong to you?'
'When I was Lord, this whole planet belonged to me, and everything on it,' said Owen. 'Now the planet and everything on it is dead. All I have left is a Standing I never really cared for, and a few memories.'
Hazel smirked. 'I'll bet you have some good memories from this room, at least.'
'Some,' said Owen. 'I had a mistress called Cathy when I was Lord. We were happy here.'
Hazel sat up straight. Owen had never mentioned any previous women in his life before. She'd always supposed there must have been someone, somewhere, but a mistress was news to her. She kept her voice carefully casual. 'And what happened to this Cathy?'
'She turned out to be an Imperial spy. Tried to kill me when I was outlawed. I had to kill her.'
'You killed your own mistress?' said Hazel incredulously. 'Damn, that's cold, Deathstalker.'
Owen stared at the holo portrait before him, showing the original Deathstalker, founder of his Clan. 'I killed him too, and he was my most revered ancestor. Seems to me I've been responsible for too many deaths in my life. And far too many of them people I cared for. Maybe you should find yourself a new partner.'
Hazel got up off the bed and moved to stand beside him. 'You never killed anyone you didn't have to.'
Owen shook his head. 'I betrayed my inheritance when I killed Giles. I betrayed my name and my Family honor.'
