“My father,” Eddie murmured under hisbreath just before Roland opened the passenger door and climbed in.

“Did you speak, Eddie?” Roland asked.

“Yes,” Eddie said. “ ‘Just a littlefarther.’ My very words.”

Roland nodded. Eddie dropped thetransmission back into Drive and got the Ford rolling toward Turtleback Lane.Still in the distance—but a little closer than before—thunderrumbled again.

Chapter IV:

Dan-Tete

One

As the baby’s time neared, Susannah Deanlooked around, once more counting her enemies as Roland had taught her. Youmust never draw, he’d said, until you know how many are against you, oryou’ve satisfied yourself that you can never know, or you’ve decided it’s yourday to die. She wished she didn’t also have to cope with the terriblethought-invading helmet on her head, but whatever that thing was, it didn’tseem concerned with Susannah’s effort to count those present at the arrival ofMia’s chap. And that was good.

There was Sayre, the man in charge. The lowman, with one of those red spots pulsing in the center of his forehead. Therewas Scowther, the doctor between Mia’s legs, getting ready to officiate at thedelivery. Sayre had roughed the doc up when Scowther had displayed a little toomuch arrogance, but probably not enough to interfere with his efficiency. Therewere five other low men in addition to Sayre, but she’d only picked out twonames. The one with the bulldog jowls and the heavy, sloping gut was Haber.Next to Haber was a bird-thing with the brown feathered head and vicious beebeeeyes of a hawk. This creature’s name seemed to be Jey, or possibly Gee. Thatwas seven, all armed with what looked like automatic pistols in docker’sclutches. Scowther’s swung carelessly out from beneath his white coat each timehe bent down. Susannah had already marked that one as hers.

There were also three pallid, watchfulhumanoid things standing beyond Mia. These, buried in dark blue auras, werevampires, Susannah was quite sure. Probably of the sort Callahan had calledType Threes. (The Pere had once referred to them as pilot sharks.) That madeten. Two of the vampires carried bahs, the third some sort of electrical swordnow turned down to no more than a guttering core of light. If she managed toget Scowther’s gun (when you get it, sweetie, she amended—she’dread The Power of Positive Thinking and still believed every word theRev. Peale had written), she would turn it on the man with the electric swordfirst. God might know how much damage such a weapon could inflict, but SusannahDean didn’t want to find out.

Also present was a nurse with the head of agreat brown rat. The pulsing red eye in the center of her forehead madeSusannah believe that most of the other low folken were wearinghumanizing masks, probably so they wouldn’t scare the game while out and abouton the sidewalks of New York. They might not all look like rats underneath, butshe was pretty sure that none of them looked like Robert Goulet. The ratheadnurse was the only one present who wore no weapon that Susannah could see.

Eleven in all. Eleven in this vast andmostly deserted infirmary that wasn’t, she felt quite sure, under the boroughof Manhattan. And if she was going to settle their hash, it would have to bewhile they were occupied with Mia’s baby—her precious chap.

“It’s coming, doctor!” the nurse cried innervous ecstasy.

It was. Susannah’s counting stopped as theworst pain yet rolled over her. Over both of them. Burying them. They screamedin tandem. Scowther was commanding Mia to push, to push NOW!

Susannah closed her eyes and also boredown, for it was her baby, too… or had been. As she felt the pain flow out ofher like water whirlpooling its way down a dark drain, she experienced thedeepest sorrow she had ever known. For it was Mia the baby was flowing into;the last few lines of the living message Susannah’s body had somehow been madeto transmit. It was ending. Whatever happened next, this part was ending, andSusannah Dean let out a cry of mingled relief and regret; a cry that was itselflike a song.

And then, before the horrorbegan—something so terrible she would remember each detail as if in theglare of a brilliant light until the day of her entry into theclearing—she felt a small hot hand grip her wrist. Susannah turned herhead, rolling the unpleasant weight of the helmet with it. She could hearherself gasping. Her eyes met Mia’s. Mia opened her lips and spoke a singleword. Susannah couldn’t hear it over Scowther’s roaring (he was bending now,peering between Mia’s legs and holding the forceps up and against his brow).Yet she did hear it, and understood that Mia was trying to fulfill herpromise.

I’d free you, if chance allows, herkidnapper had said, and the word Susannah now heard in her mind and saw on thelaboring woman’s lips was chassit.

Susannah, do you hear me?

I hear you very well, Susannah said.

And you understand our compact?

Aye. I’ll help you get away from thesewith your chap, if I can. And…

Kill us if you can’t! the voicefinished fiercely. It had never been so loud. That was partly the work of theconnecting cable, Susannah felt sure. Say it, Susannah, daughter of Dan!

I’ll kill you both if you—

She stopped there. Mia seemed satisfied,however, and that was well, because Susannah couldn’t have gone on if boththeir lives had depended on it. Her eye had happened on the ceiling of thisenormous room, over the aisles of beds halfway down. And there she saw Eddieand Roland. They were hazy, floating in and out of the ceiling, looking down ather like phantom fish.

Another pain, but this one not as severe.She could feel her thighs hardening, pushing, but that seemed far away. Notimportant. What mattered was whether or not she was really seeing what shethought she was seeing. Could it be that her over-stressed mind, wishing forrescue, had created this hallucination to comfort her?

She could almost believe it. Wouldhave, very likely, had they not both been naked, and surrounded by an oddcollection of floating junk: a matchbook, a peanut, ashes, a penny. And afloormat, by God! A car floormat with FORD printed on it.

“Doctor, I can see the hea—”

A breathless squawk as Dr. Scowther, nogentleman he, elbowed Nurse Ratty unceremoniously aside and bent even closer tothe juncture of Mia’s thighs. As if he meant to pull her chap out with histeeth, perhaps. The hawk-thing, Jey or Gee, was speaking to the one calledHaber in an excited, buzzing dialect.

They’re really there, Susannahthought. The floormat proves it. She wasn’t sure how the floormatproved it, only that it did. And she mouthed the word Mia had given her: chassit.It was a password. It would open at least one door and perhaps many. To wonderif Mia had told the truth never even crossed Susannah’s mind. They were tiedtogether, not just by the cable and the helmets, but by the more primitive (andfar more powerful) act of childbirth. No, Mia hadn’t lied.

“Push, you gods-damned lazy bitch!”Scowther almost howled, and Roland and Eddie suddenly disappeared through theceiling for good, as if blown away by the force of the man’s breath. For allSusannah knew, they had been.

She turned on her side, feeling her hairstuck to her head in clumps, aware that her body was pouring out sweat in whatcould have been gallons. She pulled herself a little closer to Mia; a littlecloser to Scowther; a little closer to the crosshatched butt of Scowther’sdangling automatic.

“Be still, sissa, hear me I beg,” said oneof the low men, and touched Susannah’s arm. The hand was cold and flabby,covered with fat rings. The caress made her skin crawl. “This will be over in aminute and then all the worlds change. When this one joins the Breakers inThunderclap—”