Wildcards

INSIDE, ALL OF YOU!"

Black Shadow, who had revealed himself as an ace only a few months before, indicated his sympathies quickly. He watched the conflicts silently for a time. On Pitt Street, where a band of beleaguered jokers fought with taunts, thrown bottles, and the garbage at hand against a water cannon and a squad of Guardsmen with bayonets fixed to their rifles, Black Shadow stepped into the fray. The street went instantly black for perhaps twenty feet around the ace with the navy-blue uniform and orange-red domino mask. The impenetrable night persisted for ten minutes or more. Screams came from inside the well of dark, and jokers fled. When the darkness moved off and the lights of the city again reflected from the wet pavement, the Guardsmen lay in the street unconscious, the water cannon pouring a harsh stream into the gutters, unattended.

Sondra saw that last confrontation from the window of her apartment. The violence of the night frightened her. To escape the fright, she twisted the cap from the bottle of Jack Daniels on her dresser, pouring a long, harsh slug down her throat. She gasped, wiping at the back of her mouth with her hand. Every muscle in her body protested. Her arthritic legs and hands shot agony when she moved. She went to bed and lay down. She could not sleep-the sounds of rioting drifted in from the open window, she could smell smoke from nearby fires and see the shuddering flames dancing on her walls. She was afraid that she would have to leave the building; she wondered what she would try to save if it came to that.

There was a soft knock at her apartment door. At first, she was not certain that she heard it. It was repeated, quiet and persistent, and she groaned to her feet.

As she approached the door, she knew who it was. Her body felt it. Succubus felt it. "No," Sondra whispered to herself. No, not now. He rapped on the door again.

"Go away, please, Gregg," she said, leaning against the door, keeping her voice quiet so he could not hear the old woman's tones in it.

"Succubus?" His voice was insistent. His arousal tugged at her, and she wondered at it. Why now? Why here? God, I can't let him see me like this, and he won't go away. "Just a minute," she said, and she let down the barriers that caged Succubus. Her body began its change, and she felt the swirling of his passion inciting her own. She stripped away Sondra's clothes, flinging them away into a corner. She opened the door. Gregg was masked, his entire head covered with a grotesque smiling clown's face. It leered at her as he pushed his way inside. He said nothing; his hands were already unzipping his pants, pulling out his stiffening cock. He did not bother to undress, engaged in no foreplay at all. He pushed her down onto the hardwood floor and jammed himself into her, thrusting with gasping breaths as Succubus moved under him, matching his ferocity and cooperating with this loveless rape. He was brutal: his fingers dug into her small, firm breasts, the nails tearing small, bleeding crescents of skin. He crushed her nipples between thumb and forefinger until she cried out-he desired pain from her tonight; he needed her to cringe and cry and yet to be the willing victim. He slapped her face; when she brought her hands up to stop him from doing it again, her nostrils drooling blood, he twisted her wrist viciously.

And when he was done with her, he stood over her looking down, the clown's head laughing at her, his own face unreadable behind the mask. She could see only his eyes, glistening as he stared at her.

"It had to be that way," he said. There was no apology in his voice. Succubus nodded; she had known that and accepted it. Sondra wailed inside her.

Hartmann zipped up his pants. The front of his shirt was soiled with blood and their fluids. "Do you understand at all?" he asked her. His voice was gentle, calm; it begged her to listen, to sympathize. "You're one person who accepts me without my having to do anything. You don't care that I'm a senator. I don't have to-" He stopped and brushed at his suit. "You love me. I can feel that. You care for me, and I don't have to make you care. I wish.." He shrugged. "I need you."

Perhaps it was because she could not see his face. Perhaps it was because his roughness, when before he had always been so tender, had driven Succubus's empathy deeper into him than in the past. But she could feel his thoughts for a moment as he left her sprawled on the floor, and what she sensed made her shiver despite the awful heat. He was thinking of the rioting outside, and in the senator's mind was no loathing, no distaste; there was only a glow of pleasure, a sense of proprietorial accomplishment. She glanced at him in astonishment.

It's been him. All along, it's been him using us, not the other way around.

At the door, Gregg turned and spoke to her. "Succubus, I do love you. I don't think you can understand that, but it's true. Please, believe that. I need you more than I need all the rest."

Behind the mask, she could see the brightness of his pupils. She was astonished to see that he was crying. Somehow, with all the strangeness Sondra had witnessed during this night, that did not seem so strange at all.

Puppetman found that his safety lay in anonymity, in the appearance of innocence. After all, none of the puppets ever knew that he had touched them, none of them could tell anyone what had happened inside their minds. They had simply… snapped. Puppetman had only let them act out their own feelings; there was always ample motivation for whatever crimes his puppets might commit. If they were caught, no matter.

In 1961, graduating from Harvard Law School, he had joined a prestigious New York law firm. In five years, after a successful career as a criminal lawyer, he moved into politics.

In 1965, he was elected New York city councilman. He was mayor from '68 to '72, when he became New York senator. In 1976, he saw his chance to become President. In the past, he'd always thought in terms of '80, of '84. But the Democratic National Convention went to New York in the Bicentennial year, and Puppetman knew that here was his moment. The groundwork had all been laid.

He had fed many times from the deep cup of bitterness inside Tom Miller.

Now he would drink fully.