The cameras followed Senator Hartmann’s progress toward the gate where a few scuffles were just beginning. When his bodyguards tried to hold the senator back, he shrugged their hands aside. “Dammit, someone has to try” he was heard to say.
“Oh, good stuff,” one of the reporters muttered. Hartmann pushed forward. The bodyguards looked at one another, shrugged, and followed.
Gregg could feel the presence of most of his puppets in the area near the gate. With the Turtle holding back the jokers at the other end of the park, Gregg realized that this would be his best opportunity. Getting Gimli and the others to retreat now would turn everyone back. If the rioting continued into the night again, no matter-Gregg would have quite amply demonstrated his calm sureheadedness in a crisis. The papers would be full of the account the next morning and all the networks would feature his face and name prominently. That would be enough to ensure the nomination with a grand momentum into the campaign itself. Ford or Reagan; it wouldn’t matter who the Republicans chose.
Keeping his face grim, Gregg strode toward the center of the conflict. “Miller!” he shouted, knowing the dwarf was close enough to hear him. “Miller, this is Hartmann!” As he shouted, he gave a tug at Miller’s mind and closed down that molten heat of rage, laving it with cool azure. He felt the sudden release, felt the beginning of the dwarfs disgust at the vision around him. Hartmann twisted the mind again, touching the core of fright in the man and willing it to grow, a cold whiteness.
It’s out of control, Gregg whispered to the man. You’ve lost it now and you can’t get it back unless you go to the senator. Listen: he’s calling for you. Be reasonable.
“Miller!” Gregg called again. He felt the dwarf begin to turn, and Gregg pushed the Guardsmen in front of him aside so that he could see.
Gimli was to his left. But even as Hartmann began to call to him, he saw the joker’s attention shift away toward the gate. There, pursued by a crowd of jokers and Guardsmen, Gregg saw her.
Succubus.
Her form was erratic, a hundred faces and bodies flickering on her as she ran. She saw Gregg in that same instant. She cried out to him, her arms outstretched. “Succubus!” he shouted back. He began to shoulder his way toward her.
Someone caught her from behind. Succubus twisted away, but other hands had her now. With a shrill scream, she fell. Gregg could see nothing of her then. There were bodies all around her; shoving, striking each other in their fury to be near her. Gregg heard the grotesque, dry crack of bones snapping. “No!” Gregg began to run. Gimli was forgotten, the riot was forgotten. As he came nearer to her, he could sense her presence, could feel the pull of her attraction.
They piled on top of her, the swarming, snarling mob pummeling her, tearing at Succubus and each other in an attempt to find release. They were like maggots wriggling over a piece of meat, their faces strained and fierce, their hands clawed as they pawed at Succubus, thrusting. Blood fountained suddenly from somewhere below the writhing pack. Succubus screamed; a wordless, shrill agony that was suddenly, eerily, cut off.
He felt her die.
Those around her began to pull back, a horror on their faces. Gregg could see the body huddled on the ground. A thick smear of blood spilled around it. One of the arms had been ripped completely from its socket, her legs were twisted at strange angles. Gregg saw none of that. He stared only at her face: he saw the reflection of Andrea Whitman lying there.
A rage grew in him. The intensity of it swept everything else aside. He could see nothing around him-not the cameras, not his bodyguards, not the reporters. Gregg could only see her.
She had been his. She had been his without having to be a puppet, and they had taken her from him. They had mocked him; as Andrea had mocked him years ago, as others had mocked him who had also died. He had loved her as much as he could love anyone. Gregg grasped the shoulder of a Guardsman who stood over the body, his cock hanging down from unzipped pants. Gregg jerked him around. “You asshole!” As he shouted, he struck the man in the face repeatedly. “You goddamn assholel”
His fury spilled out from his mind unrestricted. It flowed to his puppets. Gimli bellowed, his voice as compelling as ever. “You seel See how they kill?” The jokers took up the cry and attacked. Hartmann’s bodyguards, suddenly fearful as the violence was renewed, dragged the senator away from the combat. He cursed them, resisting, fighting to be loose, but this time they were adamant. They pulled him back to the car and his hotel room.
HARTMANN ENRAGED AT KILLING, ATTACKS DEMONSTRATORS CARTER APPEARS TO BE WINNER
The New York Times, July 20, 1976
HARTMANN “LOSES HEAD” MUST SOMETIMES FIGHT BACK, HE SAYS
New York Daily News, July 20, 1976
He salvaged what he could from the fiasco. He told the waiting reporters that he’d simply been appalled by what he’d witnessed, by the unnecessary violence done to the poor Succubus. He’d shrugged his shoulders, smiled sadly, and asked them if they, too, might not have been moved by such a scene.
When they finally left him, Puppetman retired to his room. There, in the solitude of his room, he watched the proceedings on television as the convention elected Carter as his party’s next presidential candidate. He told himself that he didn’t care. He told himself that next time it would be his. After all, Puppetman was still safe, still hidden. No one knew his secret.
In his mind, Puppetman lifted a hand and spread his fingers. The strings pulled; his puppets’ heads jerked up. Puppetman felt their emotions, tasting the spice of their lives. For that night, at least, the feast was bitter and galling.