The Dark Tower

One of them darted forward nevertheless, a deformed skeleton in an ancient, moss-encrusted dinner suit. Around its neck it wore some sort of ancient award . . . the Cross of Malta, perhaps? It swiped one of its long-nailed hands at the crucifix Callahan was holding out. He jerked it down at the last second, and the vampire’s claw passed an inch above it. Callahan lunged forward without thought and drove the tip of the cross into the yellow parchment of the thing’s forehead. The gold crucifix went in like a red-hot skewer into butter. The thing in the rusty dinner suit let out a liquid cry of pained dismay and stumbled backward. Callahan pulled his cross back. For one moment, before the elderly monster clapped its claws to its brow, Callahan saw the hole his cross had made. Then a thick, curdy, yellow stuff began to spill through the ancient one’s fingers. Its knees unhinged and it tumbled to the floor between two tables. Its mates shrank away from it, screaming with outrage. The thing’s face was already collapsing inward beneath its twisted hands. Its aura whiffed out like a candle and then there was nothing but a puddle of yellow, liquefying flesh spilling like vomit from the sleeves of its jacket and the legs of its pants.

Callahan strode briskly toward the others. His fear was gone. The shadow of shame that had hung over him ever since Barlow had taken his cross and broken it was also gone.

Free at last, he thought. Free at last, great God Almighty, I’m free at last. Then: I believe this is redemption. And it’s good, isn’t it? Quite good, indeed.

“H’row it aside!” one of them cried, its hands held up to shield its face. “Nasty bauble of the ’heep-God, h’row it aside if you dare!”

Nasty bauble of the sheep-God, indeed. If so, why do you cringe?

Against Barlow he had not dared answer this challenge, and it had been his undoing. In the Dixie Pig, Callahan turned the cross toward the thing which had dared to speak.

“I needn’t stake my faith on the challenge of such a thing as you, sai,” he said, his words ringing clearly in the room. He had forced the old ones back almost to the archway through which they had come. Great dark tumors had appeared on the hands and faces of those in front, eating into the paper of their ancient skin like acid. “And I’d never throw away such an old friend in any case. But put it away? Aye, if you like.” And he dropped it back into his shirt.

Several of the vampires lunged forward immediately, their fang-choked mouths twisting in what might have been grins. Callahan held his hands out toward them. The fingers (and the barrel of the Ruger) glowed, as if they had been dipped into blue fire. The eyes of the turtle had likewise filled with light; its shell shone.

“Stand away from me!” Callahan cried. “The power of God and the White commands you!”

SEVEN

When the terrible shaman turned to face the Grandfathers, Meiman of the taheen felt the Turtle’s awful, lovely glammer lessen a bit. He saw that the boy was gone, and that filled him with dismay, yet at least he’d gone further in rather than slipping out, so that might still be all right. But if the boy found the door to Fedic and used it, Meiman might find himself in very bad trouble, indeed. For Sayre answered to Walter o’ Dim, and Walter answered only to the Crimson King himself.

Never mind. One thing at a time. Settle the shaman’s hash first. Turn the Grandfathers loose on him. Then go after the boy, perhaps shouting that his friend wanted him after all, that might work—

Meiman (the Canaryman to Mia, Tweety Bird to Jake) crept forward, grasping Andrew—the fat man in the tux with the plaid lapels—with one hand and Andrew’s even fatter jilly with the other. He gestured at Callahan’s turned back.

Tirana shook her head vehemently. Meiman opened his beak and hissed at her. She shrank away from him. Detta Walker had already gotten her fingers into the mask Tirana wore and it hung in shreds about her jaw and neck. In the middle of her forehead, a red wound opened and closed like the gill of a dying fish.