“Bring youah best shots,” Flaherty said inhis Back Bay/John F. Kennedy accent. “Have at it.”
Lamla ordered three low men and one of thevamps forward, put two on each side, and talked to them rapidly in anotherlanguage. Flaherty gathered that a couple of them had already been down hereand, like Lam, remembered about where the projectors lay hidden in the walls.
Meanwhile, Flaherty’s dragon—or, moreproperly speaking, his da’s dragon—continued to rampage in thedeep dark forest (the jungle was completely gone now) and set things on fire.
At last—although it seemed a verylong time to Flaherty, it was probably less than thirty seconds—thesharpshooters began to fire. Almost immediately both forest and dragon paledbefore Flaherty’s eyes, turned into something that looked like overexposedmovie footage.
“That’s one of em, cullies!” Lamlayelled in a voice that became unfortunately ovine when it was raised. “Pourit on! Pour it on for the love of your fathers!”
Half this crew probably never had such athing, Flaherty thought morosely. Then came the clearly audibleshatter-sound of breaking glass and the dragon froze in place with billows offlame issuing from its mouth and nostrils, as well as from the gills on thesides of its armored throat.
Encouraged, the sharpshooters began firingfaster, and a few moments later the clearing and the frozen dragon bothdisappeared. Where they had been was only more tiled hallway, with the tracksof those who had recently passed this way marking the dust. On either side werethe shattered projector portals.
“All right!” Flaherty yelled after givingLamla an approving nod. “Now we’re going after the kid, and we’re going todouble-time it, and we’re going to catch him, and we’re going to bring him backwith his head on a stick! Are you with me?”
They roared savage agreement, none louderthan Lamla, whose eyes glowed the same baleful yellow-orange as the dragon’sbreath.
“Good, then!” Flaherty set off, roaring atune any Marine drill-corps would have recognized: “We don’t care how faryou run—”
“WE DON’T CARE HOW FAR YOU RUN!”they bawled back as they trotted four abreast through the place where Jake’sjungle had been. Their feet crunched in the shattered glass.
“We’ll bring you back before we’re done!”
“WE’LL BRING YOU BACK BEFORE WE’RE DONE!”
“You can run to Cain or Lud—”
“YOU CAN RUN TO CAIN OR LUD!”
“We’ll eat your balls and drink yourblood!”
They called it in return, and Flahertypicked up the pace yet a little more.
Eleven
Jake heard them coming again,come-come-commala. Heard them promising to eat his balls and drink his blood.
Brag, brag, brag, he thought, buttried to run faster, anyway. He was alarmed to find he couldn’t. Doing themindswap with Oy had tired him out quite a little b—
No.
Roland had taught him that self-deceptionwas nothing but pride in disguise, an indulgence to be denied. Jake had donehis best to heed this advice, and as a result admitted that “being tired” nolonger described his situation. The stitch in his side had grown fangs that hadsunk deep into his armpit. He knew he had gained on his pursuers; he also knewfrom the shouted cadence-chant that they were making up the distance they’dlost. Soon they would be shooting at him and Oy again, and while men didn’tshoot for shit while they were running, someone could always get lucky.
Now he saw something up ahead, blocking thecorridor. A door. As he approached it, Jake allowed himself to wonder what he’ddo if Susannah wasn’t on the other side. Or if she was there but didn’t knowhow to help him.
Well, he and Oy would make a stand, thatwas all. No cover, no way to reenact Thermopylae Pass this time, but he’d throwplates and take heads until they brought him down.
If he needed to, that was.
Maybe he would not.
Jake pounded toward the door, his breathnow hot in his throat—close to burning—and thought, It’s just aswell. I couldn’t have run much further, anyway.
Oy got there first. He put his front pawson the ghostwood and looked up as if reading the words stamped into the doorand the message flashing below them. Then he looked back at Jake, who camepanting up with one hand pressed against his armpit and the remaining Orizasclanging loudly back and forth in their bag.
NORTH CENTRALPOSITRONICS, LTD.
New York/Fedic
Maximum Security
VERBAL ENTRY CODEREQUIRED
#9 FINAL DEFAULT
He tried the doorknob, but that was only aformality. When the chilly metal refused to turn in his grip, he didn’t bothertrying again but hammered the heels of both hands against the wood, instead.“Susannah!” he shouted. “If you’re there, let me in!”
Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chinhe heard his father say, and his mother, much more gravely, as if she knewstorytelling was serious business: I heard a fly buzz… when I died.
From behind the door there was nothing.From behind Jake, the chanting voices of the Crimson King’s posse swept closer.
“Susannah!” he bawled, and whenthere was no answer this time he turned, put his back to the door (hadn’t healways known it would end just this way, with his back to a locked door?), andseized an Oriza in each hand. Oy stood between his feet, and now his fur wasbushed out, now the velvety-soft skin of his muzzle wrinkled back to show histeeth.
Jake crossed his arms, assuming “the load.”
“Come on then, you bastards,” he said. “ForGilead and the Eld. For Roland, son of Steven. For me and Oy.”
At first he was too fiercely concentratedon dying well, of taking at least one of them with him (the fellow who’d toldhim the Faddah was dinnah would be his personal preference) andmore if he could, to realize the voice he was hearing had come from the otherside of the door rather than from his own mind.
“Jake! Is it really you, sugarpie?”
His eyes widened. Oh please let it not be atrick. If it was, Jake reckoned that he would never be played another.
“Susannah, they’re coming! Do you knowhow—”
“Yes! Should still be chassit,do you hear me? If Nigel’s right, the word should still be cha—”
Jake didn’t give her a chance to finishsaying it again. Now he could see them sweeping toward him, running full-out.Some waving guns and already shooting into the air.
“Chassit!” he yelled. “Chassitfor the Tower! Open! Open, you son of a bitch!”
Behind his pressing back the door betweenNew York and Fedic clicked open. At the head of the charging posse, Flahertysaw it happen, uttered the bitterest curse in his lexicon, and fired a singlebullet. He was a good shot, and all the force of his not inconsiderable willwent with that particular slug, guiding it. No doubt it would have punchedthrough Jake’s forehead above the left eye, entering his brain and ending hislife, had not a strong, brown-fingered hand seized Jake by the collar at thatvery moment and yanked him backward through the shrill elevator-shaft whistlethat sounds endlessly between the levels of the Dark Tower. The bullet buzzedby his head instead of entering it.
Oy came with him, barking his friend’s nameshrilly—Ake-Ake, Ake-Ake!—and the door slammed shut behindthem. Flaherty reached it twenty seconds later and hammered on it until hisfists bled (when Lamla tried to restrain him, Flaherty thrust him back withsuch ferocity that the taheen went a-sprawl), but there was nothing he coulddo. Hammering did not work; cursing did not work; nothing worked.