Be careful, Gregg warned him. Remember what's been happening lately. Go slowly.

Puppetman snarled in reply. Shut up! It's all right now. Everything's turning our way again. Chrysalis is finally taken care of. Oddity is going to find the jacket and we've sent Mackie after Downs. The convention's started well. I need this one. Cant you feel the hunger? Remember, if I go, you go down with me. I'll make damn sure of it.

With the threat, the power turned away, suddenly rapacious. Through Puppetman, Gregg could feel a surge of anticipation in Alex. He knew what that must mean-the guard had found someone. Gregg could imagine the scene: some nat kid, probably, dressed in stone-wash jeans, a T-shirt studded with oversized "Hartmann in '88" buttons, and a cheap J-town mask over his all-too-normal face. Alex would be staring, his hands a shade too close to the bulge under his sports jacket, barking orders.

Puppetman lanced into Alex's emotional matrix, thrusting aside the heavy blue layers of duty and the leather-brown binding of morality until he uncovered that orange-red core of psychotic brutality. Puppetman nurtured it, fanned it into flame. It flared easily into heat. Now.

(Alex would be shouting by this time, his neck corded, and his cheeks red with blood. He'd reach out, grab a fistful of the T-shirt, as campaign buttons rattled like tin pie plates, and shake the kid like a disobedient puppy. The mask would fall to the floor and crumple under Alex's Florsheims.)

… Yes. Puppetman could taste it, and Gregg tasted with him. There was raw fury there, a waiting feast. Puppetman leaned toward it hungrily, tweaking the emotions again, turning the settings just a little higher…

(Alex's hand would come back, and the open palm would slash across the kid's cheek, snapping the head to one side. Blood would be drooling from a cut on the lip and the kid would be crying in fear and pain, suddenly terrified.)

… and it happened again. In Gregg's mind, the interference seemed like a cold, obsidian wall, cutting between himself and Alex and sending Puppetman reeling backward.

The power inside Gregg wailed in frustration and rage, hurling itself at the wall again and again and always being slammed back down. Gregg could hear the laughter behind the wall, and that faint voice.

Only this time, this time, he could hear the words. You're a fucking son of a bitch, Hartmann, but I finally got the way to take you down, don't I? I found your goddamn weakness, Greggie old friend. I found the fucking playmate inside you, the ace you used on me and Misha and Morgenstern and everyone else. Only now I can play with your ace the way you played with us. I can keep him away from the puppets; I can make him fucking starve, and then what happens to you, Senator? What happens to you when the power turns against you? The words faded, leaving behind a mocking chuckle.

And Gregg, with a rising horror, knew that he recognized that voice. He knew who was behind the wall, and the realization left him cold and shaking.

Gimli. It was Gimli.

You're dead, he shouted after the voice. You're deadyour stuffed skin is sitting in the Dime Museum; I saw it. Typhoid Croyd killed you.

Dead? The laughter came again. Do I sound dead to you, Hartmann? Ask the friend you keep locked up inside you if I'm real or not. No, not dead. Just changed. It took me a long time to get back…

The voice faded and was gone. The wall vanished.

Puppetman screamed wordlessly at the place where it had been.

Let me out again, the power demanded. It's not too late, Alex.

No! Gregg looked at his hands; they were trembling on his lap. He could feel sweat running down the back of his shirt. Adrenaline pounded in his chest. He wanted to run, to scream himself. The ordinariness of the hotel room and the droning voice of Rather seemed to mock him.

He was very, very scared.

You have to let me out. There's no choice. No!

No choice, do you understand? The power leaped at him, spearing deep into Gregg's own will. Gregg gasped in surprise, and felt his own presence falling away. His hands clenched; he started to push himself off the couch. Like an automaton, Puppetman walked him stiff legged across the room. The muscles of Gregg's face were locked in a painful grimace, spasms rippled down his legs as he struggled to regain control. He watched, helpless, as his hand reached for the doorknob to the bedroom, twisted, and pushed.

God, no…

"Gregg?" Ellen was reading on the bed, the book propped up against her swelling stomach. "Put your hand here; the baby's been giving me flutterings all morning." She turned to look at him, and her aristocratic, fine New England features went quizzical. "Gregg? Are you all right?"

He could feel his whole body quivering, balanced between Puppetman's will and his own. Each tugged on the strings of the body, trying to yank them from the grasp of the other. Even as Gregg made that visualization, Puppetman scoffed. We're both the same person, you know. I'm just your ace, your power. I'm doing what we need to do to survive. Ellen's here. Use her.

No! Not that way.

She's just another damn puppet. More pliable than most, in fact. Her pain is as good as anyone else's.

It's too risky. Not here, not now.

If not here and now, you stand to lose everything anyway. Do it!

Gregg felt his body take another stumbling step forward. His fist clenched and raised. There was definite fear in Ellen's eyes now. She closed the book, tried to struggle up from the bed. "Gregg, please, you're frightening me…"

Gregg let go all his holds on the body, as if he were exhausted by the battle. Puppetman shouted in victory. Then, as his arm lifted for the first blow and Puppetman relaxed in anticipation, Gregg grappled with the power again. Surprised by the renewed onslaught, Puppetman was stripped of control. Ignoring its struggling and cursing, Gregg wrestled it deep, deeper than it had been in years, slamming and locking the mental cage, and then burying it far back in his mind. When he could no longer hear it, he stopped and came back to himself.

He was gasping alongside the bed. The hand was still upraised; Ellen cowering beneath. Gregg unclenched the fist, and brought it slowly down to her face as he sat next to her. He felt her draw back, then slowly relax as he began to stroke her hair.

"You don't have anything to be afraid of, darling," he said. He tried to laugh and heard pain instead. "Hey, I wouldn't hurt you, you know that. Not the mother of my child. I'd never hurt you."

"You looked so angry, so violent. For a second-"

"I'm not feeling well. It's nothing; stomach cramps. Nerves-I've been thinking about the convention. I took some Maalox. It'll pass."

"You scared me."

"I'm sorry, Ellen," he said, soothingly. "Please.". With Puppetman, it would have been easy; he could have made her believe him without effort. But that power wasn't safe, not now. Ellen stared at him, and he thought she was going to say more, then she slowly nodded. "Okay," she said. "Okay, Gregg."

She snuggled against him. Gregg leaned back against the headboard. Through the faint tendrils of his ace ability, he could feel her relaxing, forgetting. Since she'd become pregnant, she'd become more inward focused; things outside were not as important. It was less threatening to accept his excuse, so she did. The realization eased his mind very little.

My god, what am I going to do?

He could hear Gimli's laughter. It pounded in his head. The phone by the bed rang. Gregg picked it up, thinking it might drive the dwarf away. "Hartmann."

"Senator?" The voice on the other end was breathless, agitated. "Amy. Bad news. The word is that we're in for a big fight tonight over the California delegation's credentials…", He barely heard her over Gimli's roaring amusement.