"It didn't bother me, not then. When Ti Malice honors you with his kiss, everything seems just as it should be, and nothing can bother you. But after a few hours, the master bestowed his kiss on Ezili, leaving me alone again. That was when I finally grasped what Sascha had said. I couldn't believe it. It seemed so monstrous, so obscene. I knew Chrysalis. Not well, but I knew her, we'd spent five months together on the Stacked Deck. I couldn't believe she would do such a thing. I had to confront her. I dressed and went down to the Crystal Palace."

"She was alone in her office, playing solitaire. You have to believe me, I never intended to hurt her. I told her what I'd heard, demanded to know if it was true. She didn't deny it. She didn't say anything. She looked up at me once, suspiciously, then went right back to playing solitaire. When I pressed her, all I got were evasive, meaningless answers in that infuriating fake accent of hers. If only she'd talked to me, told me what she knew about Gregg, what she'd seen

… perhaps I wouldn't have believed her at first, but I would have listened. Dear God, why wouldn't she talk to me?"

"She didn't trust you, Hiram," Jay said, with a sad certainty. "That was how she was. She didn't trust anybody."

"I tried to make her see… how important it was. What a good man Gregg was." Hiram laughed bitterly. "I talked about his principles, his courage, his commitment to all of us, jokers and aces alike, how he was our last hope. Dear God, what a fool she must have thought me!"

"I begged her." Tears were running down Hiram's face. "If it was true, what Sascha had said, I… I begged her to call it off. And all the time she just played cards, turning them over one by one, putting them down in place. They made a little snapping noise when she flipped them off the deck, I remember. Black on red, red on black. Her face

… like a skull. I couldn't tell what she was thinking. She reminded me of death, sitting there playing cards while her hired assassin went out to do her killing for her. By what right? I asked her that, and she had no answer. I was very angry then. I made accusations, threats, told her I would go to the police. She just looked up and said that I'd do no such thing, that she knew a few things about me, too, and I knew she was talking about Ti Malice. Then she told me to get out. I refused. I begged her to talk to me, to listen to me. She just laughed, and started to get out of her chair. That was when… when. .."

His voice trailed off. Hiram Worchester looked down dully at his hands, resting on his knees. The fingers of his right hand closed slowly into a fist, then opened again, just as slowly. "I tried to make her sit back down," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I just wanted to talk to her, that's all. I swear it. She was going to walk out on me, and I couldn't stand it. So I made a fist and tried to slam her back down into her chair. I'd done it dozens of times, hundreds

… just hold her there with my power, that's all I wanted to do, make her talk to me, make her tell me the truth… tell me who the assassin was, so we could stop him. I just wanted to make her sit down and listen… but…"

Hiram broke down, choking on his own words, his immense body shaking with dry sobs. But Jay didn't need to hear any more. He remembered Chrysalis as he had found her. Her chair splintered beneath her, her bones shattered. He could imagine the rest. A fist closed in fury, a mind blinded by rage… How much had she weighed in that second? A thousand pounds? Two thousand?

"You left out the last part," Brennan said. "After she was dead, you weren't through. First you gathered up her cards, all except the ace of spades, which you dropped on the body to make them think it was me. But that wasn't quite enough, was it? An autopsy would show how she died, and that would point right at you. But the broken bones, the shattered furniture, that suggested a fight, so you did a little more damage to the office. And then, just to make sure, you knelt down and made your fist heavy so that when you hit her, it would look as though her head had been crushed by someone with superhuman strength."

Hiram sagged. "I… I couldn't let myself be caught. Without the kiss… I couldn't face that. And there was the campaign… I was an ace, a Hartmann delegate, if it got out, it could destroy everything. Barnett might even win the nomination. So much was at stake, I just

… panicked." His thick fingers pulled nervously at his beard. "It wasn't like you said… so cold… calculated."

"Wasn't it?" Brennan said. "You commit murder, try to pin the crime on someone else, and now you say it was all a mistake. I didn't notice you confessing when you thought you'd walked away clean." His gun was aimed at the center of Hiram's chest. "You were willing to let me pay for your crime, and when the cops grabbed Elmo instead, you didn't say a word." Brennan's voice was flat and calm, but Jay could hear the fury behind the words, implacable and deadly.

Hiram dropped his head again. "No," he muttered, low under his breath. "No, I didn't." His shame was written all over his face. "If you're going to kill me, get on with it."

That was when Jay Ackroyd made up his mind and stepped between Hiram Worchester and Daniel Brennan. "Get out of the way, Ackroyd," Yeoman said.

"Daniel, Jay, please," Tachyon said weakly from the chair where he sat huddled in pain and misery. Both men ignored him.

"You claim Chrysalis was your friend," Yeoman said. "Why are you trying to shield her killer?"

"It was an accident," Jay said. "You heard him. You heard how it happened. Have a little goddamned mercy."

"Mercy is God's business," Brennan said. "Mine is justice."

"Tell me about it," Jay said scornfully. "Better yet, tell all those guys you've killed. Tell their widows and girlfriends. Tell their parents. Tell the kids some of them may have left behind."

"They knew the risks they were taking. The men I've killed would have killed me just as fast if I'd given them half a chance. I've never murdered an innocent woman."

"Chrysalis was a lot of things," Jay said, "and one of them was my friend, no matter what you think. But she was never innocent."

"I knew Chrysalis," Brennan said. "She did what she had to."

"Fuck that," Jay said. "She did what she chose to. What she chose to do was send a hired assassin to Atlanta. By last count, two Secret Service agents, a hotel manager, and a journalist are dead as a direct result, and we came that close to adding Jack Braun's name to that list. I'm not defending what Hiram did, but in my book, his hands are one hell of a lot cleaner than yours."

"Jay," Dr. Tachyon interjected softly, "Brennan's killings are an affair of honor. A blood feud. On Takis-"

"That's Georgia outside the window, not Takis," Jay said. "Why the hell are you defending this homicidal loon?"

"I owe him a life," Tachyon replied.

"You owe him a life," Jay repeated with disgust. "Real good. Well, you owe Hiram a life, too, remember? Not to mention the life you owe me. Come to think of it, you owe fucking Gregg Hartmann a life, if it really went down in Syria the way the papers said. Then there's the Turtle, Golden Boy, Straight Arrow… is there anyone you don't owe a life?"

" I owe Brennan two lives," the little alien said feebly. "I could never betray his trust."

Ackroyd wanted to scream. Instead he turned back to Yeoman. "Well, I don't owe you shit," he said. "You want justice? Fine. We'll take Hiram to the police, and he'll go on trial. But let's make it a two-for-one sale, shall we? You're great at serving up justice, how about you try a nice big spoonful yourself. Turn yourself in along with Hiram. Stand up in front of a fucking judge and tell him about your war."

"I answer to my own conscience, Ackroyd, and frankly, I don't give a damn what you think about it," Brennan said. "I'm not turning myself in. Now, for the last time, get out of the way."