Earlier that day.

"I'm sorry, Ben," Ruthie said humbly. "I didn't mean to upset you." It was bad enough that he had to endure constant pain.

He was in bed, as usual - with no blanket over him, on this warm morning. Clad only in an oversized nightshirt of Gabe's, he seemed pitifully small and vulnerable.

But he told her, "I ain't upset." And in fact, she realized, he sounded more confused than anything else.

She frowned. "I'd forgotten this, till you started talkin' 'bout whether Justin Crowe is or ain't this thing called the Omega."

He said, in a bemused voice, "Our kind have believed, for thousands o' years, that the Tattooed Man, the Usher o' Destruction, an' the Omega are one an' the same. I'm sure Crowe's the Tattooed Man, an' I got no reason to doubt he's the Usher. But the Omega..." His voice trailed off.

Ruthie, sitting beside the bed, took a quick look to make sure he was still awake. He slept much of the time; the pain left him exhausted. And he still hadn't recovered - if he ever would - from the blood loss he'd suffered in New Canaan.

When she saw that he was merely lost in thought, she asked, "What is the Omega, anyway?"

He sighed. "It's supposed to be the last Avatar. End o' the line."

"H-how -?"

He looked up at her, as if trying to judge how much bad news she could take. Then he said, "Most people who know about this stuff have believed the Omega will be the most powerful Prophet o' Darkness, ever. If he defeats his opponent - which turns out to be me - he'll go on to" - he swallowed hard - "to destroy humanity."

At first, Ruthie was speechless. But then she pulled herself together and asked, "What if you defeat him?"

He made a face. "Some scholars have argued destiny won't permit the Prophet o' Light to win - because the human race is sinful, an' deserves to be destroyed.

"But others don't hold with that. They claim this whole business with Avatars is a single battle in a war between God an' Satan. God an' Satan have agreed that if the Omega destroys humanity, Satan's won the battle. But there's a possibility the Prophet o' Light can succeed, even against this toughest-ever opponent. If he does, the battle will still be over - God will have won it - an' no more Avatars will be born.

"There will still be evil on earth, still be sin. Just no conflict of Avatars. Maybe God an' Satan will have taken the war...elsewhere.

"Lookin' at it that way, the time o' the Omega still means the end o' somethin'."

"Dear God," she whispered.

She tried to be upbeat with Ben. But privately, she didn't believe he'd ever again be well enough to fight Crowe, or anyone else.

Crowe had been dead - she had no doubt of that. But he'd resumed his radio sermons, and made some public appearances, since the notorious "riots" in New Canaan. If he was suffering any aftereffects, they didn't show.

It ain't fair, damn it! It ain't fair!

She knew Ben was as bitter as she was. At least once a day, he threw a tantrum - raging against Crowe, against fate, against God Himself, till he wore himself out and could only weep.

"But now," she prompted him, "you're havin' some different ideas 'bout the Omega?"

"Yeah." He pondered for a few seconds, then said, "The thing is, the only way I can explain Crowe's comin' back to life is that another Avatar revived him, by killin' someone else." Under pressure from Samson to get things out in the open, he'd already told her about that power of Avatars, and how he'd used it to save her. "But accordin' to all the rules, there can't be another Avatar alive now, less'n it's a son o' Crowe's! If there is a son, he'd have to be a Dark Avatar - if he was Light, I'd sense him as my Prince.

"But logically, the Omega, the last, shouldn't have a Prince.

"When I got to thinkin' 'bout that, it struck me that if you look at the language, an 'Usher o' Destruction' would be someone who ushers in Destruction. What if we've been wrong all this time, an' 'Destruction' is an actual separate person...the Omega?"

She saw a glimmer of hope. "What if you were just supposed to fight the Usher, an' it's your Prince - not born yet - who'll take on the Omega?"

But Ben shook his head, without lifting it off the pillow. "No. It's comin' to a finish, soon - I can sense that, just like Belyakov did. There ain't time for someone not born yet to deal with an Omega who's already old enough to be usin' his powers."

"His powers," she said thoughtfully, "or -?"

She'd feared she'd "upset" him when she told him about the strange message Lodz had written on her mirror.

"Sofie is the Omega. - L."

"I know you want to believe Sofie's a good person," she said carefully. She'd seen him getting close to the girl, suspected they'd had sex. "I want that too."

It's true, I want whatever he wants, even though I love him myself. I can't bear thinkin' o' him bein' hurt any more.

But then she had to say, "Her shootin' Jonesy was mighty strange." Jonesy had caught up with the carnival, and told them his bizarre story, several weeks ago.

"Yeah, I know." Ben sighed. "But remember, he'd thought o' two possibilities, an' it could be either one."

The innocent explanation was that Sofie had been so traumatized by what Crowe or his thugs had done to her that she didn't recognize her would-be rescuer: she would have struck out blindly against anyone, or at least any man.

The other possible explanation was that she'd been in league with Crowe all along. In that scenario, Crowe had misled Samson into believing she was being held hostage, while she was really – voluntarily - acting as bait in a trap for Ben.

Jonesy had been forced to hide out in New Canaan while he recuperated from the gunshot wound. He'd learned that Varlyn Stroud had died. And he'd caught glimpses of Sofie coming and going, certainly not being held prisoner. If anything, she seemed to have risen to a position of new importance after Stroud's death.

To Ben, that proved only that Crowe had "won her over" again; perhaps, he'd been able to blame all her mistreatment on Stroud.

"Jonesy thought she looked strange, when she was shootin' him," Ruthie ventured. "Somethin' 'bout her eyes..."

"Yeah, but he admitted it coulda been a trick o' the moonlight." Sounding as if he wanted to bring the discussion to a close, Ben said firmly, "None o' that really matters. Not for this Omega question. All Avatars are male."

Ruthie said, "This is the twentieth century. Things are changin', women got the vote -" The instant the words were out of her mouth, she felt stupid for having implied there could be a parallel.

Ben didn't take issue with what she'd said. But he pointed out, "By the rules I've learned, another livin' Avatar would have to be Crowe's child. How could Appy o' come in contact with a preacher - a divinity student, he woulda had to be then - from California?"

"I don't know. But it ain't impossible! No one with Carnivale's ever heard who Sofie's pa was. An' Crowe's gotta be old enough."

"Okay," Ben said, "look at it this way. Lodz an' me hated each other. An' in the end, I killed him. So why would his ghost want to give us a piece o' so-called information for any reason but hurtin' me, gettin' me riled up, an' settin' me on the wrong track?"

Ruthie had no answer for that.

They brooded in silence for several minutes.

Then Ben let out an oath, and began trying to sit up. Which he couldn't do, without help.

Ruthie got her arms around him. "What's the matter?"

"I just had an idea," he told her. He didn't look happy about it. "I need to talk to Lila."