Read Wild Cards [06] Ace in the Hole for Free Online Page A

his sports jacket, barking orders.
    Puppetman lanced into Alex's emotional matrix, thrusting aside the heavy blue layers of duty and the leather-brown binding of morality until he uncovered that orange-red core of psychotic brutality. Puppetman nurtured it, fanned it into flame. It flared easily into heat. Now .
    (Alex would be shouting by this time, his neck corded, and his cheeks red with blood. He'd reach out, grab a fistful of the T-shirt, as campaign buttons rattled like tin pie plates, and shake the kid like a disobedient puppy. The mask would fall to the floor and crumple under Alex's Florsheims.)
    ... Yes. Puppetman could taste it, and Gregg tasted with him. There was raw fury there, a waiting feast. Puppetman leaned toward it hungrily, tweaking the emotions again, turning the settings just a little higher ...
    (Alex's hand would come back, and the open palm would slash across the kid's cheek, snapping the head to one side. Blood would be drooling from a cut on the lip and the kid would be crying in fear and pain, suddenly terrified.)
    ... and it happened again. In Gregg's mind, the interference seemed like a cold, obsidian wall, cutting between himself and Alex and sending Puppetman reeling backward.
    The power inside Gregg wailed in frustration and rage, hurling itself at the wall again and again and always being slammed back down. Gregg could hear the laughter behind the wall, and that faint voice.
    Only this time, this time, he could hear the words. You're a fucking son of a bitch, Hartmann, but I finally got the way to take you down, don't I? I found your goddamn weakness, Greggie old friend. I found the fucking playmate inside you, the ace you used on me and Misha and Morgenstern and everyone else. Only now I can play with your ace the way you played with us. I can keep him away from the puppets; I can make him fucking starve, and then what happens to you, Senator? What happens to you when the power turns against you? The words faded, leaving behind a mocking chuckle.
    And Gregg, with a rising horror, knew that he recognized that voice. He knew who was behind the wall, and the realization left him cold and shaking.
    Gimli. It was Gimli.
    You're dead, he shouted after the voice. You're deadyour stuffed skin is sitting in the Dime Museum; I saw it. Typhoid Croyd killed you.
    Dead? The laughter came again. Do I sound dead to you, Hartmann? Ask the friend you keep locked up inside you if I'm real or not. No, not dead. Just changed. It took me a long time to get back ...
    The voice faded and was gone. The wall vanished.
    Puppetman screamed wordlessly at the place where it had been.
    Let me out again, the power demanded. It's not too late, Alex .
    No! Gregg looked at his hands; they were trembling on his lap. He could feel sweat running down the back of his shirt. Adrenaline pounded in his chest. He wanted to run, to scream himself. The ordinariness of the hotel room and the droning voice of Rather seemed to mock him.
    He was very, very scared.
    You have to let me out. There's no choice. No!
    No choice, do you understand? The power leaped at him, spearing deep into Gregg's own will. Gregg gasped in surprise, and felt his own presence falling away. His hands clenched; he started to push himself off the couch. Like an automaton, Puppetman walked him stiff legged across the room. The muscles of Gregg's face were locked in a painful grimace, spasms rippled down his legs as he struggled to regain control. He watched, helpless, as his hand reached for the doorknob to the bedroom, twisted, and pushed.
    God, no ...
    "Gregg?" Ellen was reading on the bed, the book propped up against her swelling stomach. "Put your hand here; the baby's been giving me flutterings all morning." She turned to look at him, and her aristocratic, fine New England features went quizzical. "Gregg? Are you all right?"
    He could feel his whole body quivering, balanced between Puppetman's will and his own. Each tugged on the strings of the body, trying to