Dead Mans Hand

11:00 A.M.

Chrysalis smiled at him. Brennan thought it was strange to see her again, because he was pretty sure that she was dead. Or maybe she'd just been out of town.

He smiled back tentatively. Now that she was back, how would he explain her to Jennifer? And vice versa? He decided to worry about it later and reached for her. They embraced and he pulled back to arms' length to look at her. His smile froze.

Chrysalis was deteriorating before his eyes. Her crystal flesh clouded with corruption and fell away from her face and body in rotten chunks. Blood ran in sluggish tears from her eyes, her breath whispered in a ghastly rattle from her laboring lungs. He held a corpse in his arms. He felt guilt tear angrily at him and with her last gasp she said, "Brennan," and he awoke soaked with sweat and shaking from horror and anesthesia reaction.

"How do you feel?" someone asked from his bedside. "Fine," Brennan lied. "Where am I?"

Brennan turned and looked at the speaker for the first time. He was a young man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. He looked like a cross between a surfer boy and a palomino pony. Dr… Finn. That was his name.

"The Jokertown Clinic," Dr. Finn told him. Brennan nodded wearily.

"You know," Finn went on, "it's most astonishing that you're with us at all."

Brennan nodded again. He was groggy and disoriented, but he was starting to remember things. The fire. Mother. The ceiling collapsing.

"It seems," Dr. Finn said, watching him closely, "that a fireman found you in a secret subterranean room when looking through the wreckage of the Crystal Palace. Apparently you were saved from the flames by… something… that was only a charred, fleshy mass covering your back when the fireman discovered you."

"Mother," Brennan whispered. His mouth felt as if it were full of wet cotton batting and his right arm was a hunk of unfeeling meat encased in a plastic cast. He sat up and swung his legs onto the floor, fighting sudden vertigo that made his head swirl as if he were in the middle of a three-day drunk. His arm was totally numb, but he knew that the numbness would wear off unfortunately quickly. "Where are my clothes?"

"You're in no condition to leave the hospital," Finn said gravely. "Your arm was broken pretty badly, and you've lost a lot of blood. You've also got some burns on your hands and face. You should rest for at least a day."

Brennan shook his head. "I've no time to rest."

"I can't be responsible if you leave the clinic," Finn said, his tail twitching in distress.

"You're not responsible for anything. I am." Brennan stood, and almost immediately collapsed again when he was struck by a severe attack of vertigo. "Now, where are my clothes?"

Finn shook his head. "If you're really determined to leave, I won't stop you. Wait here a minute and I'll find your clothes. It may take a while because everything's a mess this morning."

"The fire?" Brennan asked.

"No. The Crystal Palace was destroyed, but there were actually very few injuries from the fire. It seems that half the staff was up all night partying with the rest of Jokertown, and the other half is being run ragged trying to treat the results of that partying."

"Partying?" Brennan asked. "Why?"

"Oh, I guess you couldn't have heard. Senator Hartmann was nominated for the presidency last night. All of Jokertown's gone Hartmann crazy."

Somewhere in the darkness, the voices were arguing. "It's not fair," the first voice said. "We need the kiss, too. He spends so much time with him. How long is he going to keep us waiting?"

"As long as he desires," the second voice said. "It is not our right to question the master's comings and goings. Ti Malice does things in his own time, for his own reasons."

"We ought to kill them both," the first voice said. "They're dangerous."

"No," said a third voice, a woman's voice, "not these sweet ones. The master will want to taste them, to ride them, to feel them beneath him. The master will want to hear them scream."

That was enough to open Jay's eyes.

"What about us?" He saw the centipede man pacing, his voice high and nervous. "What if he likes them better than us? We'll never get the kiss. I can't stand it when he goes off."

Jay lay facedown on a decaying, foul-smelling couch, his head turned to one side, arms tied behind his back. At least he hoped they were tied behind his back; he couldn't feel them anymore, and when he tried to move his fingers, there was only numbness. The upholstery smelled of piss. His head was pounding, and his ribs screamed at the slightest motion. He was still in the same dank cellar. He could see an old hot-water heater a few feet away, its pipes eaten by rust. Beyond it was a second room, larger than the one he was in, where shadowy figures waited in the faint light that poured through grime-encrusted windows. Jay tried to count them, but there were too many, some of them moving around. When he tried to concentrate, his skull felt like it was about to split open.

He must have groaned, or whimpered, or somehow given away the game. The argument stopped suddenly, and he heard footsteps. Rough hands turned him over toward the ceiling. Sascha stood above him. The telepath looked a little worse for wear. His hands were trembling, and strands of dark hair were plastered to his pale forehead with sweat.

"What," Jay said. It was all he could manage. His lips and throat were dry and raw. "What," he repeated.

"Get him some water," Sascha said.

A moment later, Ezili knelt beside him, holding a glass to his lips. Her hands were hot, but the water was cool and Jay gulped it down greedily and let it run over his lips and chin. "Suck," Ezili whispered in his ear, laughing, and Jay could smell her, and feel the heat that came off her skin in waves.

"You should never have followed us to Atlanta," Sascha said.

Jay sputtered through the last of the water. "My arms," he managed. "The ropes… cutting off my circulation. Let me loose."

"I'm blind, not stupid," Sascha said. "You can't use your power with your hands tied. You need to point your finger, to make believe your hand is a gun."

"He's trying to trick us." The human centipede stepped up behind Sascha. He was tall and stooped, hunched over like a question mark, his face a pinched afterthought on a narrow hairless head. All his arms were grotesquely long and thin, skin pulled taut over bone and muscle. But there were so many of them. "I told you he was dangerous," the joker said. "Kill him." He had a long serrated knife in one of his myriad hands.

"No," Sascha said. "He's too valuable."

"A treasure," Ezili whispered.

"You know how the master feels about aces," Sascha said. "Ask the others!" the centipede man insisted.

"Do I get a vote?" Jay wanted to know.

Ezili laughed, and Sascha turned his eyeless face toward Jay. "You'd vote for life," he said solemnly. "Stupid." His fingers rubbed idly at a large scab on the side of his neck.

"You've been a bad boy," Ezili said teasingly. "What did you do to them, eh? All our lovely friends…"

"I told you," Sascha said. "He teleported them away. To New York City."

"The master will be angry," Ezili said. She ran a finger lightly down Jay's cheek, delicately circled his ear. "So many mounts, gone. You'll have to be punished."

"The master," Jay repeated. "Who's that? Hartmann?" Ezili looked at him blankly.

"The Puppetman," Jay said, remembering the name Tachyon had used. The centipede glanced at Sascha in confusion. "Is that what this is all about?" Sascha said. "You poor sad fool. You have no idea what you've blundered into." He gave a short, sharp laugh that had no humor in it. "But then again, few of us did," he added bitterly.

"I want to play with him," Ezili said. Her hand worked at his belt and slid into his pants.

"Not tonight, honey," Jay said weakly. "I've got a headache." Ezili smiled and took her hand off his cock. "When he kisses you," she whispered, "then you will be mine again. He likes to have the new mounts fuck me. He will ride you and you will ride me."

"Some fun," Jay said.

Ezili ran her tongue across her lower lip. There was a scab on her neck, too.

Jay had seen it before, the night they'd balled on her carpet, but he'd forgotten about it. Now it was right there in front of him, an old sore, crusted over with a scab, just like Sascha's.

He looked up at the centipede. The hole in his neck was open and raw, the skin around it red and inflamed.

All of them, Jay thought wildly Not joker terrorists or militant Hartmann fanatics but… something else. Something terrible.

His stomach clenched inside him, and again he had a sick feeling of vertigo and a sense of unspeakable dread, as if he had just dropped into his nightmare.

"You won't get away with this," Jay said with all the bravado he had left. "Blaise will tell them what happened. They'll come after you

… Tachyon, Hiram…" He tried to think of who else might come looking for him, and couldn't come up with any names. "I'm a popular guy, Sascha," he finished weakly. "They're not going to let you fuck around with me."

Ezili thought that was hilarious. Her laughter was almost hysterical. The centipede joined in.

"The boy won't be telling anybody anything," Sascha said almost sorrowfully. He reached down and grabbed the front of Jay's shirt and jerked him upright to a sitting position. "There."

Behind the sofa, a monstrous shape filled the gray shadows along the wall. In the dimness, Jay saw arms, tendrils, claws, flesh twisting into flesh. And eyes… It wasn't until the creature moved that Jay recognized the Siamese quint.

Blaise was slumped unconscious on a mattress at its feet, wrist and ankle shackled to nearby pipes. His face was battered and bruised, and dried blood had caked over one eye, sealing it shut.

All Jay could think was that Dr. Tachyon was going to be really pissed.

Noon

Brennan headed immediately to Our Lady of Perpetual Misery. As he crossed Jokertown he could observe the tail end of the mass party that Finn had told him about. Drunks were still staggering about the street wearing HartmannJackson campaign buttons. Hartmann banners festooned practically every building, having appeared magically overnight like mushrooms sprouting after a rain. Hartmann posters were stapled to every flat surface. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing his smiling face. His omnipresence was almost eerie, and for the first time Brennan felt some misgivings about such an uncritical, overwhelming passion.

Father Squid was still conducting Mass, so Brennan slipped in the back of the church and waited, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The joker sitting in the pew next to him glanced over once, saw the state of Brennan's clothing, then decided that it was far more important to pay attention to what was happening with the Mass than stare at the bloodstained nat who'd sat down beside him.

Mass lasted only a few more minutes, but the church took a long time to empty. Brennan caught the priest's eye as he was surrounded by members of the congregation who wished to talk to him-mainly, it seemed, about the coming of Hartmann and the expected golden age-and Father Squid called Quasiman over and whispered a few words to him.

Quasiman shuffled off and Father Squid gestured significantly to Brennan.

Brennan slipped out of the church and went around to the back, where Quasiman was unlocking the rectory.

"I hope you're all right," Brennan told the joker. He could see a series of deep scratches running down Quasiman's face.

"Sure," Quasiman said. "Do you think you'll be needing me soon?"

Brennan looked at him. Quasiman looked back with deep, intelligent eyes that held no memories at all of the events of last night. "I-no, I'll think I'll be able to handle things now. But if I do need you, I'll let you know."

"Okay," Quasiman said. "I'll be ready."

He opened the door to the rectory and Brennan went quietly inside. The shades were drawn and Jennifer was still asleep on the couch. Her face looked smooth and serene as that of a child. Her skin color was good, her chest rose and fell with easy regularity. She looked well on the road to recovery, but Brennan didn't want to jeopardize her health by waking her.

He quietly tiptoed to the hallway that led to Father Squid's little bedroom. His bag was sitting by the bedroom door. He took off his battered, bloody clothes and discovered how hard a simple thing like changing pants can be with an arm in a cast. Once he accomplished this, he closed the door behind him, and sat down on Father Squid's water bed and rested for a moment.

He took a deep breath. Dr. Finn had been right. He was worn out already. He hoped the rest of the day would be easy on him. Right now he didn't have the strength to fight half his weight in puppies.

He picked up the phone by the bedstand and dialed a number that had been given him by a cat. It rang once, then a recorded message came on that said, "We're sorry, the number you're trying to reach is no longer in service."

He hung up the phone. Fadeout worked fast. He even had the telephone company jumping. Brennan sat on the bed, thinking for a moment. Kien might know where Fadeout's headquarters were, but the thought of going to his enemy for help made Brennan gag. He would do it if he had to, but there were others he could see first. There was one other he was particularly eager to see.

He put the last weapon he had, a snub-nosed. 38, securely in the waistband of his fresh set of jeans, and went out into the living room.

He watched Jennifer sleep for a moment and resisted a powerful urge to kiss her. He walked through the living room without making a sound and closed the door silently behind him.

Quasiman was sitting in the grass, listening to whatever thoughts they were that drifted like clouds across his mind. "Tell Father Squid I'll be back," Brennan said, but Quasiman gave no sign that he'd heard. Brennan smiled to himself, well aware how lucky he'd been that Quasiman had responded when he'd needed him the night before.

As he went through the churchyard to the street beyond he wished that he could always be that lucky. He stepped to the sidewalk just as an empty cab went by. Brennan whistled shrilly and the cab stopped a little ways up the block. Maybe, he thought, my luck has shifted.

"Twisted Dragon," he said to the cabbie, who nodded, flipped the flag with his flipper, and pulled off down the street.

The talkative cabbie was festooned with Hartmann buttons, and Brennan let him jabber on about the crucial events in Atlanta while putting in only an occasional grunt to sustain his end of the conversation.

"The fur," the cabbie said, "is really gonna fly now. Hartmann versus Bush. Oh, boy. And if Hartmann don t win, Jokertown is gonna go crazy. I don't think Tachyon will be too welcome around here. Why do you think he done it?"

The cab pulled up in front of the Twisted Dragon. "Why do you think Tachyon turned his back on us?" the cabbie asked Brennan again.

Brennan would have shrugged, but the cast made that difficult. "I'm sure he had his reasons," he said, only vaguely aware of what the cabbie had said, and not at all sure of what Tachyon had done or hadn't done. The answer didn't please the cabbie, who burned away from the curb despite the twenty that Brennan handed him.

Brennan went inside the Dragon, dismissing the political maneuverings from his mind. He had more immediate problems to worry about, and so did Lazy Dragon, whom Brennan spotted drinking at the bar.

The Twisted Dragon was as crowded and noisy as it usually is, which is saying a lot on both accounts. Brennan simply walked up behind Dragon, who jerked with surprise when Brennan stuck a knuckle in his back, simulating the barrel of a gun.

"Nice to see you again, pal," Brennan said. "Shall we have a little chat?"

Dragon nodded once, and his hand started to go slowly to his jacket pocket, until Brennan jammed the knuckle a little harder into his back.

"Relax. Keep your hands in sight. I don't want you turning into a teddy bear and scaring all these people."

"All right," Dragon said quietly, his hands resting flat on the bar. "What do you want?"

"I could want your ass, chum, but you saved my life once, so we'll call it quits. If you tell me how to get in touch with Fadeout."

"All I have is a phone number," Dragon said. "The one I gave you a few days ago.".

Brennan shook his head. "It's no good anymore."

"Then I can't help you."

Brennan stared at Dragon, who returned his gaze steadily. "All right. But if you're lying, if you know how to get in touch with Fadeout and warn him that I'm coming, then it's open season on dragons. And I've got my hunting permit right here." He increased the pressure with his knuckle. Dragon shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Why should I care what you white dudes do to each other?" he asked. "Good attitude," Brennan said, and faded into the crowd. Cross Dragon off the list, Brennan thought when he hit the street. It was time to visit the Magic Kingdom again.

"Blaise," Jay said in an urgent stage whisper.

The boy's eyes were closed, but Jay could see the tension in his muscles. He was conscious, Jay was convinced of it; groggy maybe, terrified almost certainly, but conscious.

In the next room, Charm was singing. That was what the others called the Siamese quint; Jay had a sick feeling he knew what that was short for. Sascha had left twenty minutes ago, after saying something about needing to get a new boy. From the conversation, Jay gathered that he had popped away the old boy last night in the park. He wasn't quite clear what they needed a boy for, but it seemed to have something to do with the master's travel plans.

Sascha's telepathy would have made any attempt at escape futile. If they were going to make a move, they had to do it now. As near as Jay could determine, there were only five people left in the other room-six if you counted the grotesque infant nursing at its mother's breast. He figured he could discount the mother and child. Ezili and the joker who looked like a sack of blood pudding shouldn't be too dangerous either. That left only Charm and the centipede man. The centipede sat beneath a window in the other room, a whetstone in one of his left hands, a half-dozen knives in his rights, the arms on the right side of his body moving with a strange rhythmic grace as he sharpened the blades. The sound of steel against stone lent an eerie counterpoint to Charm's singing.

"Blaise," he whispered again. "C'mon, dammit. Wake up."

The boy opened his eyes. All the arrogance was gone from them now. Even in the darkness, Jay could see how scared they were. The contemptuous junior mentat had turned back into a little boy on him.

"We got to get out of here," Jay said, trying to keep his voice low. "This is the best chance we're going to get."

"They hurt me!" Blaise said. His voice cracked with pain. He spoke much too loud. For a moment Jay stiffened, but the singing went on in the next room.

"I know," Jay whispered. "Blaise, you have to keep your voice down. If they hear us, we're fucked."

"I'm scared," Blaise said. His voice was softer, but not soft enough. "I want to go home."

"Pull yourself together," Jay said. "I need you. You have to mind-control one of them."

"I tried," Blaise said. "Last night… I had Sascha, but they didn't listen to him, and then that thing… that joker… too many minds, I wasn't even sure how many, and some of them… it was like an animal mind, only smarter, and it kept sliding away from me, I couldn't get a grip… they hurt me." He was crying now. A line of red ran down one cheek, where his tears mingled with the dried blood that had closed his eye.

"They're going to hurt you a lot worse if we don't get out of here," Jay said. "You don't need to mess with the big ugly one. Just grab the guy who looks like a centipede. Make him stand up and say, I'm going to go check on the prisoners. You got that?"

"I'm going to go check on the prisoners," Blaise repeated numbly through swollen, cracked lips.

"Casual," Jay stressed. "Make it real casual. Then get the fucker back here with one of his knives and have him cut me loose. Once my hands are loose, we're home free. I'll pop you back to the Marriott and you can bring the cavalry. Okay?"

" I don't know," Blaise said.

" I thought you were part Takisian," Jay whispered with all the scorn he had in him. "You guys good for anything but crying?"

Blaise blinked back tears, then nodded slowly. "I'll try." The boy's battered face twisted in concentration. Jay held his breath. The singing went on for what seemed like an eternity. Then a chair pushed back and he heard a thin voice announce, much too formally, "I'm going to go check on the prisoners."

The singing stopped. Jay heard footsteps. Too many footsteps.

The centipede crossed the cellar like a sleepwalker, knelt down in front of Jay, groped behind him, and started sawing at his bonds with a knife. From the sound it made, Jay had the sick realization that his hands were bound with wire, not rope.

Charm came in just behind him, lurching forward with a ponderous stumbling gait. One head glanced over at Jay and the centipede, and ignored them. All the other eyes stayed fixed on Blaise. "No," the boy whimpered as the joker's vast dark shadow fell across him. He tried to scuttle back on the mattress, but there was no place to hide.

One of Charm's hands reached up into the pipes that ran along the ceiling and emerged with a baseball bat. The first swing caught the boy's head with a crack that made Jay nauseated.