Jack charged forward, but the crowd was surging back, and he stumbled, almost fell, as people went down around him. A silver-eyed joker child was clutching his leg. Jack tried to shake the boy off, yelling in fury.
Tachyon staggered back, blood pulsing from his torn wrist. Straight Arrow had been watching the crowd around Jackson and was only now turning his head to comprehend the situation. The policeman under whose arm the leather boy had reached was the only one near enough to react. Half the cop's face was dripping with Tachyon's blood, and his actions were slowed by shock. He tried to grab the boy's leather jacket. If he'd had time to think, he'd have done almost anything but that.
The leather boy turned to face the cop and Jack's heart jumped into his throat. All the kid had to do was glance past the policeman and see Jack heading for him. But the freak didn't notice Jack-he was too busy smiling up at the cop, his tongue enjoying the taste of Takisian blood on his lower lip. He sliced off the cop's right arm at the shoulder.
The kid turned back to Tachyon, away from Jack. Jack shook off the joker kid and ran, his arm cocking back, his hand making a fist. If the kid was going to finish off Tach, he'd have to remain material, and Jack could hit him with all the force of a cannon.
The leather boy reached toward Tachyon. His hand movement was gentle, almost a caress. One more step and Jack was going to knock the hunchback's head about twenty blocks.
Jack let the punch go, and the freak disappeared with a pop! The punch spun him around as Jack screamed in rage. Tachyon's blood slipped under his feet but somehow he managed to stay upright.
"Who did that!" he shrieked.
Straight Arrow was standing there, a flaming arrow raised high in one hand, like a statue of Zeus throwing a thunderbolt. The Secret Service had knocked Jackson down and had piled on him. A lot of guns were out.
"Ackroyd," Straight Arrow said. The flame disappeared from his fingertips.
The crowd moaned as if in pain. Men with television cameras circled the police cordon, trying to get a better look. The eyes of the nation were sopping it all up.
Tachyon's eyes fluttered and he fell to the pavement. The cop was screaming. Jack could see that his wound was too high to tourniquet. Jack stepped up to him, drew back his fist, hit him gently on the temple. The policeman's head bounced like a punching bag and he went unconscious.
Straight Arrow stepped next to Jack. His shocked face was pale. He reached out a hand to the policeman's wounded shoulder. Flame pulsed hotly. Blood hissed, boiling away, as he cauterized the wound. The smell of burning flesh eddied up, and from Jack's layered memories came the screams of a man burning to death in a flaming tank somewhere under Cassino.
Maybe the cop's life could be saved if the man didn't die of shock in the next five minutes. Jack followed, feeling helpless, as Straight Arrow moved to Tachyon's side and picked up the wounded arm. Tachyon's face and rules were covered with blood. There were things grinding under Jack's feet that he didn't want to think about.
Straight Arrow cauterized Tach's wound with the same efficient pulse of flame he'd used on the cop. Jack turned away, not wanting to have to listen to the hiss of blood, smell the burning meat. He reached for his cigarettes. Rage danced through his nerves. He'd had the kid, would have crushed his murderous little head like an eggshell.
Jesse Jackson was getting to his feet. From his bewildered expression it was clear he hadn't seen a thing. Secret Service were trying to call for ambulances on their radios.
"Ackroyd." Straight Arrow rose from his crouch. "Where did you send him?"
Ackroyd was the nondescript-looking man Jack had seen leave the limousine with Tach and Jackson. He seemed as much in shock as anyone else.
"Yeah," he said. "Oh, Jesus." His hands wandered over his own body as if he had an itch he couldn't locate.
"You!" Jack roared. "Who the hell are you?" Ackroyd looked at him uncomprehendingly.
"Jay Ackroyd," Straight Arrow said. "Private cop. They call him Popinjay."
"I had the bastard!" Jack shook his fist in rage, crushing his pack of cigarettes. "I could have turned him into JELL-0! Aw, fuck!" He threw down the pack of cigarettes and kicked it into the crowd.
"Where'd you send him, Ackroyd?"
"Popped him," Ackroyd said.
Straight Arrow grabbed him by the lapels and shook him. "Where'd you send the assassin?"
"Oh." Ackroyd licked his lips. "New York. The tombs." Straight Arrow took his hands off the detective and straightened in satisfaction. "Good," he said.
Jack wanted to knock Ackroyd into the next country. "He walks through walls!" he yelled. "He's out by now!" Straight Arrow's face fell.
Ambulance sirens wailed in the distance. Jack looked around the scene, the two wounded men, Jackson kneeling by Tachyon, the Secret Service with their guns out, the crowd wailing and moaning in shock, TV cameras taking it all in… He'd lost again, Jack realized. Another tragedy he couldn't stop. Everything was slipping through his fingers.
And no one was going to profit from any of this besides Leo Barnett.
He was in a room surrounded by big niggers and bars. For a moment Mackie thought he was dreaming. Then he became aware of the hot gobbets of alien meat clinging like melted plastic to his face and the front of his jacket.
His right hand held air. His left was stiffened into a blade, vibrating, ready to take Dr. Tachyon's head off his shoulder. But he was no longer in the brightness of the Atlanta street and there was no Tachyon.
"Nein!" he screamed, slamming the heels of his hands against his forehead. "Nein, nein, nein!"
He had failed again. It wasn't possible. But he had failed. A hand clamped his shoulder. Nausea tsunami crashed from one side of his stomach to the other as he turned to find himself staring up at a gigantic black with a hairless dome of head and a gold ring in his ear.
"Hey, man," the giant said in a mild voice, "how fuck you get in here?"
Mackie screamed again, this time making no attempt at words. He made his hands do things, then, and. then it was other people who were screaming, and when the screaming stopped he ran straight through the bars of the holding cell, down green echoing corridors that reeked of puke and sweat and fear, and downstairs and out into the grimy sunlight of New York.
He had to get back to Atlanta at once. To redeem himself in the eyes of his master, his love.
5:00 P.M.
The first thing Gregg did was shake Jesse's hand. Puppetman raced outward from the touch, opening the man's mind eagerly. It was an exquisite mind, one that felt things deeply. That was, after all, the best kind. There was a wash of deep orange-red there now, a memory of something very painful and horrible. Gregg knew what that would be.
Jackson hadn't changed his jacket; it was still spattered from Tachyon's blood. The sight of it made Gregg uneasy, a fluttering of guilt returning that made Puppetman mock him, inside.
"Reverend, thank you for meeting with me on such short notice and after such a horrible afternoon. How… how is Dr. Tachyon?"
"Clinging to life. In critical condition. The doctors say there was too much damage to reattach the hand." Jackson's long, dark face frowned. "A terrible event, Senator. A very terrible event. I have not seen such cold, sick violence since the Reverend King was assassinated."
Puppetman watched Jackson's emotions carefully. There was horror and fear, and revulsion, but none of it was directed toward Gregg. Which told him that Tachyon was still remaining silent about Puppetman.
Good. Then it doesn't matter-yet-that Mackie didn't finish the job.
There was only a faint yellow ochre of distaste inside Jackson directed at Gregg, and Puppetman easily pushed that back down, scrubbing it with the respect he knew Jackson had for Gregg's stand on common issues.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Reverend," he said. "Please, take a seat. I've told my aide to contact your staff and have a change of clothes sent over. Would you like anything to drink?"