Song of Susannah (Page 96)

Even Oy knew. The bumbler whined uneasily.

"Jake," Callahan said. "We need to think this over. That thing is dangerous. Worse, it’smalevolent. "

"That’s why we gotta take it," Jake said patiently. He stood in front of 1919, drumming the MagCard between his fingers. From behind the door – and under it, and through it – came a hideous drone like the singing voice of some apocalyptic idiot. Mixed in was the sound of jangling, out-of-tune chimes. Jake knew the ball had the power to send you todash, and in those dark and mostly doorless spaces, it was all too possible to become lost forever. Even if you found your way to another version of Earth, it would have a queer darkness to it, as if the sun were always on the verge of total eclipse.

"Have you seen it?" Callahan asked.

Jake shook his head.

"I have," Callahan said dully, and armed sweat from his forehead. His cheeks had gone leaden. "There’s an Eye in it. I think it’s the Crimson King’s eye. I think it’s a part of him that’s trapped in there forever, and insane. Jake, taking that ball to a place where there are vampires and low men – servants of the King – would be like giving Adolf Hitler an A-bomb for his birthday."

Jake knew perfectly well that Black Thirteen was capable of doing great, perhaps illimitable, damage. But he knew something else, as well.

"Pere, if Mia left Black Thirteen in this room and she’s now going to wherethey are, they’ll know about it soon enough. And they’ll be after it in one of their big flashy cars before you can say Jack Robinson."

"Can’t we leave it for Roland?" Callahan asked miserably.

"Yes," Jake said. "That’s a good idea, just like taking it to the Dixie Pig is a bad one. But we can’t leave it for himhere. " Then, before Callahan could say anything else, Jake slid the blood-red MagCard into the slot above the doorknob. There was a loud click and the door swung open.

"Oy, stay right here, outside the door."

"Ake!" He sat down, curling his cartoon squiggle of a tail around his paws, and looked at Jake with anxious eyes.

Before they went in, Jake laid a cold hand on Callahan’s wrist and said a terrible thing.

"Guard your mind."

Nine

Mia had left the lights on, and yet a queer darkness had crept into Room 1919 since her departure. Jake recognized it for what it was: todash darkness. The droning song of the idiot and the muffled, jangling chimes were coming from the closet.

It’s awake,he thought with mounting dismay.It was asleep before – dozing, at least – but all this moving around woke it up. What do I do? Are the box and the bowling bag enough to make it safe? Do I have anything that will make it safer? Any charm, any sigul?

As Jake opened the closet door, Callahan found himself exerting all the force of his will – which was considerable – just to keep from fleeing. That atonal humming and the occasional jangling chimes beneath it offended his ears and mind and heart. He kept remembering the way station, and how he had shrieked when the hooded man had opened the box. Howslick the thing inside had been! It had been lying on red velvet…and it hadrolled. Hadlooked at him, and all the malevolent madness of the universe had been in that dis-embodied, leering gaze.

I will not run. Iwill not.If the boy can stay, I can stay.

Ah, but the boy was agunslinger, and that made a difference. He was more than ka’s child; he was Roland of Gilead’s child as well, his adopted son.

Don’t you see how pale he is? He’s as scared as you are, for Christ’s sake! Now get hold of yourself, man!

Perhaps it was perverse, but observing Jake’s extreme pallor steadied him. When an old bit of nonsense song occurred to him and he began to sing under his breath, he steadied yet more.

"Round and round the mulberry bush," he sang in a whisper, "the monkey chased the weasel…the monkey thought ’twas all in fun…"

Jake eased open the closet. There was a room safe inside. He tried 1919 and nothing happened. He paused to let the safe mechanism reset itself, wiped sweat from his forehead with both hands (they were shaking), and tried again. This time he punched 1999, and the safe swung open.

Black Thirteen’s droning song and the contrapuntal jangle of the todash chimes both increased. The sounds were like chilly fingers prying around in their heads.

And it can send you places,Callahan thought.All you have to do is let down your guard a little bit…open the bag…open the box…and then…oh, the places you’ll go! Pop goes the weasel!

True though he knew this to be, part of himwanted to open the box.Lusted to. Nor was he the only one; as he watched, Jake knelt before the safe like a worshipper at an altar. Callahan reached to stop him from lifting the bag out with an arm that seemed incredibly heavy.

It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t,a voice whispered in his mind. It was sleep-inducing, that voice, and incredibly persuasive. Nonetheless, Callahan kept reaching. He grasped Jake’s collar with fingers from which all feeling seemed to have departed.

"No," he said. "Don’t." His voice sounded draggy, dispirited, depressed. When he pulled Jake to one side, the boy seemed to go as if in slow motion, or underwater. The room now seemed lit by the sick yellow light that sometimes falls over a landscape before a ruinous storm. As Callahan fell onto his own knees before the open safe (he seemed to descend through the air for at least a full minute before touching down), he heard the voice of Black Thirteen, louder than ever. It was telling him to kill the boy, to open the boy’s throat and give the ball a refreshing drink of his warm life’s blood. Then Callahan himself would be allowed to leap from the room’s window.

All the way down to Forty-sixth Street you will praise me,Black Thirteen assured him in a voice both sane and lucid.