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."
There was a long moment of silence. Jay stared at Brennan. Brennan stared back. Tachyon looked helplessly from one to the other, then struggled to rise from his chair. With only one hand, it was a painful, clumsy process.
"I can get a finger up pretty damn quickly," Jay said to Brennan.
"The moment you even start to lift that hand, I'm going to squeeze this trigger," Brennan told him. "What are the odds on you being able to teleport a bullet in flight?"
"A million to one," Jay admitted. "But only if you don't hesitate. A split second of indecision, and you'll be shooting through the bars in the Tombs."
"Do I look like the hesitating sort?" Brennan asked quietly. His hand was very steady.
Jay thought about that one and didn't much like what he came up with. He risked a quick glance back over his shoulder. Hiram sat slumped on the corner of the bed, staring off into space, completely out of it. Whatever the hell was about to go down, it didn't look like the huge ace was going to be much of a factor.
"There's someone else," Tachyon said softly. His head moved slowly from side to side, searching. "Another mind. In the wall."
"Real good," Jay said sourly. He felt ill, but he should have seen it coming. "The phantom bimbo, right?"
"Changes the odds a little, doesn't it?" Brennan said, smiling.
Jay flexed his fingers and stared down the barrel of Brennan's Walther. It reminded him how much he hated guns, and the kind of assholes who carried them around.
From the look in Brennan's cool gray eyes, he had just about run out of time. There was nothing left but to go for it.
Brennan felt a vise clamp down on his brain. For a panicked moment he thought he was having a seizure of some kind, but then he realized that it was Tachyon. Tachyon's mind control. He raged against it, pushing with all the strength he had in mind and body. But it was useless. The only part of his body that he could move was his eyeballs. He glanced around the room and saw Jennifer walk woodenly out of the walls.
"Nice work, doc," Ackroyd said. "Now-"