The Secret Service man's finger convulsed on the trigger. A spray of nine-millimeter bullets passed through where Mackie wasn't and ripped into the crowd behind. The fresh screams of the shot almost made Mackie come.

He cut the Secret Service man's neatly pressed legs out from under him, right below the knee. The agent toppled shrieking into the moat, leaving blood splashed across the front of the dais and his lower legs standing. Briefly.

White ziggurat steps flanked the podium, too large to serve as stairs. Mackie began to clamber up them.

A blow from behind sprawled him across the second. Dazed, he felt himself picked up and flung like a doll. He smashed into the outer wall of the moat.

He was broken inside. "Mutti," he groaned. "Mommy."

It was the black-haired man, who had clubbed him down with his mangled hand and thrown him with the good one. Who was snarling at him from the foot of the podium, peeling what lips Mackie had left him, back from his teeth.

Who gathered himself and leapt like a tiger on a staked kid.

In desperation, Mackie thrust himself from the wall, bringing up a hand. Bringing on that buzz.

His hand met resistance. Fluids drenched his face, hot and sticky.

The big man crashed through the retaining wall trailing loops of gut like greasy purple-gray pennons.

Lying on her stomach on the VIP box's floor, Sara had a perfect shot at Hartmann. He was buried for the moment beneath a pile of Secret Service bodies, but they were concentrating on what was happening in the audience. No one was sparing the dignitaries' seats any attention at all. When they let him up, she'd have him dead to rights.

Except she'd lost her gun.

She drummed a fist on the floor of the box with a deliberate self-hating cadence.

Gregg had no chance to recover.

Two Secret Service people hit him like blitzing linemen, shoving him down on the floor with guttural, wordless yells, their guns out. Colin, the joker, piled directly on top of him, almost knocking his breath away. "Stay down, Senator!" Puppetman snarled at the interference.

He could still hear the buzz saw whine of Mackie's hands, tangled with the crowd's screams, as Carnifex plowed into the boy. But he couldn't see, couldn't pull the strings easily because he didn't know what was happening.

Let me go! Just let me have them! That's the only chance. Gregg let loose all hold of Puppetman, lying there underneath the guards as the power reached out, savage. He mind-raped Carnifex, slicing out the pain and the fear, pumping the adrenaline so high that he could almost feel the ace's heart pounding in his own head. At the same time, he tried to dampen Mackie's insane rage, but that was like handling fire- it burned, it twisted in his grasp.

Smash him! Puppetman screamed to Carnifex. Use that damn strength and make the little man another bloodspot on the floor.

Then he felt Billy scream in agony despite the mindblock and even as he gulped at the pain greedily, he knew Mackie had won this battle. The weight on top of him was gone. Half a dozen of the Secret Service were shouting on the podium as Gregg struggled to get up, to see again. "He's cutting us to pieces-"

Then there was more gunfire, loud, and too close.

With frantic palm strokes Mackie wiped his opponent's blood from his eyes. The bitch was gone. Damn, damn, damn. He had to find her, he could not fail again-

He looked up. Hartmann was nowhere in sight. Had something happened to him, happened to the Man? Weeping tears and blood, coughing up bloody snot, he scrambled up, a broken toy on a giant's stairs. Unimpeded, up onto the ramp that gave onto the dais from stage right. Hartmann was lying there beneath half a dozen young men in suits. He looked all right. Grateful tears filled Mackie's lower eyelids.

He felt a hot breath on his cheek, heard a yell of agony from behind him as the bullet went home. A dark-suited man knelt beside the Senator on his knees, pointing a gun at him with both hands.

He tried to phase. Doubt and fatigue clamped his mind. I can't

Yellow fire reached for him from the short muzzle. Black fire exploded in his chest. He fell.

Strong arms dragged Spector off Hartmann and spun him toward the crowd. "He's cutting us to pieces. Get your piece out. We've got to nail him," said the Secret Service man who'd pulled him upright.

It was true. A little hunchback was slicing men to pieces with his buzzsaw-like hands. Spector popped the leather restraint and hauled out his gun. What the hell, might as well look the part; it could help him get free later. Spector kneeled and fired. The gun had more kick than he'd expected and the bullet took down a man well behind the fight. He steadied his gun hand with his free arm and aimed, then squeezed off three more rounds. The hunchback spun and went down.

Spector turned back toward Hartmann. "Are you all right, Senator?"

Hartmann looked up and Spector caught his eye.

Darkness pulled at Mackie with seductive arms. He fought it. There was something he had to do. Someone Terror burst inside him. His eyes came open.

He lay spread-eagled across a tier. The dais's facing hid the Senator from him. Der Mann needs me!

That need gave him strength. He made his limbs respond to his will. Made himself climb, despite the tendency of hands and Keds to slip in the red liquid that covered the ledge.

Der Mann lay where he had been before. But his neck was craned, and he was staring fixedly up at a tall, gaunt Secret Service agent. His expression seemed both elated and terrified.

Hatred for the skinny agent hit Mackie like amphetamines. He's the one who shot me! But worse than that, he was doing something to the senator. Mackie couldn't see what, but he knew.

He limped forward. His right foot dragged. Each step sent a white-hot poker through his belly. He needs me. I won't- -fail-him-again.

Spector felt something in Hartmann resist him for a moment, then it sucked him in like a whirlpool. His deathpain boiled into the senator's mind; every excruciating detail, the broken bones, the fiery blood, the choking, rushed out.

But something was wrong. Hartmann's mind wasn't reacting like any of the others. It was bloating, feasting on Spector's death. Spector pushed harder. Slowly, the other mind gave way under the pressure and began to fade.

So good so tasty but it hurts and it kills… it isn't real it can't be real it isn't possible…

But it was and Puppetman's voice had faded to a whisper and left completely and even the pain that leaked into Gregg from Puppetman was like a searing acid poured down his psyche so that he wanted to scream and plead and beg don't kill me don't kill me I don't want to die.

But he couldn't break that awful gaze, couldn't tear himself away from those strange, sad, pained, startled, hurt eyes, those eyes that weren't Colin's at all but someone else's… . and he knew that he was going to die, that he would be next, that he would follow Puppetman into the void behind those eyes.

"You're killing me!" Gregg spat with all the strength he had left, hoping that those eyes would blink or look away or turn…

… and there was nothing left in his world but those eyes…

The dark-clad back loomed ahead of. Mackie like a narrow cliff. Mackie swayed. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a long, long time.

Instead he raised his right hand, brought the buzz. He looked at his fingers, a pink blur. The sight gave him strength. He swung his hand in a flat sweeping cut.

Spector could barely stay on his feet. His knees wobbled from the strain. He'd given Hartmann everything he had, and felt hum go under. But the son of a bitch was staring at him, blinking. It simply wasn't possible.

Spector remembered the gun in his hand. He centered it on Hartmann's chest. He heard a sound like a giant bee, and hesitated. He felt a grinding pain in his neck. The convention hall spun, over and over, then rushed up and slammed him in the face. His ears were roaring, but none of the sounds seemed to make sense. There was a body lying on the floor not far from him. It was Colin; at least, it looked like the joker. But he didn't have a head. There were ribbons of tattered flesh on the neck where it had come off. All Spector could see were rushing feet.