8:00 A.M.

Billy Ray knocked and poked his head through the open door. "Security says the stairs are clean, Senator. You two ready?"

"We're coming now," Gregg told him. He finished knotting his tie and adjusted it around his neck.

Puppetman prowled like a sleek cat just under the surface, waiting. Ellen came from the bedroom and gave Gregg a worried, concerned glance. Gregg smiled back reassuringly, hating the act. "I'm fine," he said. "Much better this morning since I talked with you. Back to normal." He put his arms around her and patted her belly. "After all, the kid might just have a president for a daddy, right?"

Ellen leaned against him. She hugged him wordlessly. "He still kicking this morning, darling?"

"He? And just what makes you so sure it's a boy?" Ellen teased him, hugging him again.

Gregg shrugged. Because my child's a goddamn dwarf joker who's supposed to be dead. Because I've heard him talking to me. "Just a hunch, love."

Ellen chuckled against his chest. "Well, he's been mostly quiet. I think he's asleep."

The breath went out of Gregg in a sigh. He closed his eyes momentarily. "Good," he said. "Good. Let's go, then. Amy and John are probably waiting." He waved to Billy.

The morning staff briefings were held in the campaign headquarters one floor below. Gregg had always taken the stairs down-while he could have commandeered an elevator, it hardly seemed worth it. Now he was glad for the routine. He knew exactly what he needed to do.

You're sure? You're sure this will end it? The power was vibrating with intensity. Puppetman's voice was insistent.

I don't know. If it doesn't, we'll find another way. I promise. Now that we know, we can plan. Just wait and be ready.

The stairwell was an ugly contrast to the halls: stained concrete landings connected by steep metal stairs. They nodded to Alex James, stationed there as usual. Echoes rebounded as Billy held the door open and let Ellen pass. Gregg caught the door and motioned to Billy to precede him. I don't want to do this. I don't, Gregg thought.

We don't have a choice. Puppetman. Eager.

He searched in his head for Gimli and found nothing. He let Puppetman loose.

As Ellen approached the stairs, the power lanced from Gregg in a rush, fearing that if he hesitated at all Gimli would stop him again. He invaded her long-open mind and found what he wanted.

It was all there, as he knew it would be: A faint, swirling vertigo as Ellen looked down the stairs; an uneasy feeling of imbalance from the unaccustomed forward weight of her stomach. Puppetman wrenched brutally at both responses, dampening everything else in her mind. When the inevitable quick panic followed, he amplified that as well.

It took less than a second. It was worse than he'd thought it would be.

Ellen tottered, screamed in fright. Her hand grasped far too late for the handrail.

Puppetman leaped for Billy Ray in that instant. He truncated the adrenaline surge as Billy saw Ellen lose her balance on that first step, slowing the ace's superb reflexes.

Gregg himself could have done nothing even if he'd wished, trapped behind Ray. Billy made a valiant leap for Ellen; his fingertips grazed her flailing arm and then closed on empty air. Ellen fell. It seemed to take a very long time.

Gregg pushed past the horrified Ray, whose hand was still futilely outstretched. Ellen lay crumpled against the wall on the next landing, her eyes closed and a deep gash streaming blood down one side of her head. As Gregg reached her, her eyes opened, clouded with pain. She tried to sit up as Gregg cradled her and Ray shouted for James to call an ambulance.

Ellen moaned, clutching suddenly at her stomach. There was bright blood between her legs. Her eyes widened. "Gregg," she breathed. "Oh, Gregg…"

"I'm sorry, Ellen. My god, I'm sorry."

Then she began to cry with tremendous gasping sobs. He cried with her, mourning for the child that might have been, while another part of him celebrated.

For that instant, he hated Puppetman.

9:00 A.M.

The breakfast crowd was thinning out. The people who came here some black, some white, all working class-had to get to their jobs. Spector was a hell of a lot more comfortable eating here than at the Marriott. There were too many people he was tempted to kill there, and after last night's attack he was in a particularly foul mood. He'd been working his way through the morning newspaper, but so far hadn't seen anything about Tony getting sent to the hospital by a group of anti-joker thugs.

He'd let Shelly check Tony into the hospital. He didn't want to be around when the cops showed and started asking questions. No point in pushing his luck. Shelly had given him a strange look when he took off, but he knew she wouldn't talk. She was satisfied that he was on their side and that would be enough.

Spector finished the last of his hash browns and bacon.

The coffee was hot and they kept his cup filled, so he didn't feel like going anywhere just yet. He was beginning to lose his enthusiasm for this job, anyway. Maybe he should just pay Tony a visit and skip town.

He'd sort it out later. Right now he was going to relax and mind his own business.

The press were lined up six deep in the waiting room. Gregg caught a glimpse of them every time the doors opened: a wash of portable video lights, a flurry of electronic flashes, a babble of shouted questions. The news of Ellen's fall had spread rapidly. Before the ambulance had arrived at the hospital, they were waiting.

Billy Ray leaned against the wall, scowling. " I can have security move them if you want, Senator. They're like a flock of buzzards. Ghouls."

"It's okay, Billy. They're just doing their job. Don't worry about them."

"Senator, I was so close, I tell you." Billy clenched his hand in front of his face, his mouth twisted. "I should have got her. It's my damn fault."

"Billy, don't. It's not your fault. It's no one's fault." Gregg sat head in hands on a couch outside the surgical clinic. It was a careful pose: The Distraught Husband. Inside, Puppetman was exuberant. He rode Ellen's pain, relishing it. Even under the haze of the anesthetic, he could make her writhe inwardly. Her worry for the baby was a cold, primal dark blue; Puppetman made the emotion an achingly saturated sapphire, fading slowly into the orange-red of her injuries. But better-far, far better-was Gimli. The Gimli-thing that had fastened itself on his child was in torment, and there were no drugs to blunt that pain, nothing to stop Puppetman from doubling and redoubling it. Gregg could feel Gimli suffocating, choking, screaming inside Ellen's womb.

And Puppetman laughed. He laughed as the baby died because Gimli died with it. He laughed because at last the insanity was over.

The infant's slow, horrible death was tasty. It was good. Gregg felt it all numbly. He was being split in half.

The part of him that was Gregg hated this, was appalled and disgusted by Puppetman's exuberant response. That Gregg wanted to weep rather than laugh.

You shouldn't feel relief. It's your child dying, man, a part of you. You wanted it and you've lost it. And Ellen… She loves you, even without Puppetman, and you betrayed her. How can you not be sad, you son of a bitch?

But Puppetman only scoffed. Gimli had it. It wasn't your child, not any longer. It's better that it dies. It's better that it nourishes us.

In his head, Gregg could hear Gimli sobbing. It was an eerie sound. Puppetman chuckled at the anguish and desolation in it.

Gimli's cry turned abruptly to a rising, hopeless shriek. As his voice rose in pitch, it began to fade, as if Gimli were falling away into a deep, dark pit.