“Shut up, Straw!” Haber snapped, and pushedSusannah’s would-be comforter backward. Then he turned eagerly to the deliveryagain.

Mia arched her back, groaning. The ratheadnurse put her hands on Mia’s hips and pushed them gently back down to the bed.“Nawthee, nawthee, push ‘ith thy belly.”

“Eat shit, you bitch!” Mia screamed,and while Susannah felt a faint tug of her pain, that was all. The connectionbetween them was fading.

Summoning her own concentration, Susannahcried into the well of her own mind. Hey! Hey Positronics lady! You stillthere?

“The link… is down,” said the pleasantfemale voice. As before, it spoke in the middle of Susannah’s head, but unlikebefore, it seemed dim, no more dangerous than a voice on the radio that comesfrom far away due to some atmospheric flaw. “Repeat: the link… is down. We hopeyou’ll remember North Central Positronics for all your mental enhancementneeds. And Sombra Corporation! A leader in mind-to-mind communication since theten thousands!”

There was a tooth-rattling BEE-EEEEPfar down in Susannah’s mind, and then the link was gone. It wasn’t just theabsence of the horridly pleasant female voice; it was everything. Shefelt as if she’d been let out of some painful body-compressing trap.

Mia screamed again, and Susannah let out acry of her own. Part of this was not wanting Sayre and his mates to know thelink between her and Mia had been broken; part was genuine sorrow. She had losta woman who had become, in a way, her true sister.

Susannah! Suze, are you there?

She started up on her elbows at this newvoice, for a moment almost forgetting the woman beside her. That hadbeen—

Jake? Is it you, honey? It is, isn’t it?Can you hear me?

YES! he cried. Finally! God, who’veyou been talking to? Keep yelling so I can home in on y—

The voice broke off, but not before sheheard a ghostly rattle of distant gunfire. Jake shooting at someone? Shethought not. She thought someone was shooting at him.

Two

“Now!” Scowther shouted. “Now, Mia!Push! For your life! Give it all you have! PUSH!”

Susannah tried to roll closer to the otherwoman—Oh, I’m concerned and wanting comfort, see how concerned I am,concern and wanting comfort is all it is—but the one called Strawpulled her back. The segmented steel cable swung and stretched out betweenthem. “Keep your distance, bitch,” Straw said, and for the first time Susannahfaced the possibility that they weren’t going to let her get hold of Scowther’sgun. Or any gun.

Mia screamed again, crying out to a strangegod in a strange language. When she tried to raise her midsection from thetable, the nurse—Alia, Susannah thought the nurse’s name wasAlia—forced her down again, and Scowther gave a short, curt cry of whatsounded like satisfaction. He tossed aside the forceps he’d been holding.

“Why d’ye do that?” Sayre demanded. Thesheets beneath Mia’s spread legs were now damp with blood, and the boss soundedflustered.

“Won’t need them!” Scowther returnedbreezily. “She was built for babies, could have a dozen in the rice-patch andnever miss a row’s worth of picking. Here it comes, neat as you please!”

Scowther made as if to grab the largishbasin sitting on the next bed, decided he didn’t have quite enough time, andslipped his pink, gloveless hands up the inside of Mia’s thighs, instead. Thistime when Susannah made an effort to move closer to Mia, Straw didn’t stop her.All of them, low men and vampires alike, were watching the last stage of thebirth with complete fascination, most of them clustered at the end of the twobeds which had been pushed together to make one. Only Straw was still close toSusannah. The vampire with the fire-sword had just been demoted; she decidedthat Straw would be the first to go.

“Once more!” Scowther cried. “Foryour baby!”

Like the low men and the vampires, Mia hadforgotten Susannah. Her wounded, pain-filled eyes fixed on Sayre. “May I havehim, sir? Please say I may have him, if only for a little while!”

Sayre took her hand. The mask which coveredhis real face smiled. “Yes, my darling,” he said. “The chap is yours for yearsand years. Only push this one last time.”

Mia, don’t believe his lies!Susannah cried, but the cry went nowhere. Likely that was just as well. Bestshe be entirely forgotten for the time being.

Susannah turned her thoughts in a newdirection. Jake! Jake, where are you?

No answer. Not good. Please God he wasstill alive.

Maybe he’s only busy. Running… hiding…fighting. Silence doesn’t necessarily mean he’s—

Mia howled what sounded like a string ofobscenities, pushing as she did so. The lips of her already distended vaginaspread further. A freshet of blood poured out, widening the muddy delta-shapeon the sheet beneath her. And then, through the welter of crimson, Susannah sawa crown of white and black. The white was skin. The black was hair.

The mottle of white and black began toretreat into the crimson and Susannah thought the baby would settle back, stillnot quite ready to come into the world, but Mia was done waiting. She pushedwith all her considerable might, her hands held up before her eyes in clenchedand trembling fists, her eyes slitted, her teeth bared. A vein pulsedalarmingly in the center of her forehead; another stood out on the column ofher throat.

“HEEEYAHHHH!” she cried. “COMMALA,YOU PRETTY BASTARD! COMMALA-COME-COME!”

“Dan-tete,” murmured Jey, the hawk-thing,and the others picked it up in a kind of reverent whisper: Dan-tete… dan-tete…commala dan-tete. The coming of the little god.

This time the baby’s head did not justcrown but rushed forward. Susannah saw his hands held against hisblood-spattered chest in tiny fists that trembled with life. She saw blue eyes,wide open and startling in both their awareness and their similarity toRoland’s. She saw sooty black lashes. Tiny beads of blood jeweled them,barbaric natal finery. Susannah saw—and would never forget—how thebaby’s lower lip momentarily caught on the inner lip of his mother’s vulva. Thebaby’s mouth was pulled briefly open, revealing a perfect row of little teethin the lower jaw. They were teeth—not fangs but perfect littleteeth—yet still, to see them in the mouth of a newborn gave Susannah achill. So did the sight of the chap’s penis, disproportionately large and fullyerect. Susannah guessed it was longer than her little finger.

Howling in pain and triumph, Mia surged upon her elbows, her eyes bulging and streaming tears. She reached out and seizedSayre’s hand in a grip of iron as Scowther deftly caught the baby. Sayre yelpedand tried to pull away, but he might as well have tried to… well, to pull awayfrom a Deputy Sheriff in Oxford, Mississippi. The little chant had died andthere was a moment of shocked silence. In it, Susannah’s overstrained earsclearly heard the sound of bones grinding in Sayre’s wrist.

“DOES HE LIVE?” Mia shrieked intoSayre’s startled face. Spittle flew from her lips. “TELL ME, YOU POXYWHORESON, IF MY CHAP LIVES!”

Scowther lifted the chap so that he and thechild were face to face. The doctor’s brown eyes met the baby’s blue ones. Andas the chap hung there in Scowther’s grip with its penis jutting defiantlyupward, Susannah clearly saw the crimson mark on the babe’s left heel. It wasas if that foot had been dipped in blood just before the baby left Mia’s womb.

Rather than spanking the baby’s buttocks,Scowther drew in a breath and blew it in puffs directly into the chap’s eyes.Mia’s chap blinked in comical (and undeniably human) surprise. It drew in abreath of its own, held it for a moment, then let it out. King of Kings hemight be, or the destroyer of worlds, but he embarked upon life as had so manybefore him, squalling with outrage. Mia burst into glad tears at the sound ofthat cry. The devilish creatures gathered around the new mother werebond-servants of the Crimson King, but that didn’t make them immune to whatthey had just witnessed. They broke into applause and laughter. Susannah wasnot a little disgusted to find herself joining them. The baby looked around atthe sound, his expression one of clear amazement.