Black House

Lord Malshun raises Ty and shakes him. Although Ty’s eyes are open and he’s obviously aware, his arms and legs flop as bonelessly as those of a rag doll.

“Put him down, Munshun,” says the one with the club, and Lord Malshun realizes with growing dismay that he could have trouble with this one. He really could. Yet his smile widens, exposing the full, ghoulish range of his teeth. They are pointed and tip inward. Anything bitten by them would tear itself to shreds trying to pull free of that bony trap.

“Munshun? Munshun? No one here by that name. Or Mr. Monday either, for that matter. All gone, cheerio, ta-ta, toodle-oo. As for putting down the lad, couldn’t do that, dear boy, simply couldn’t. I’ve made commitments, you know. And really, you fellows should count yourselves fortunate. Your local reign of terror is over! Huzzah! The Fisherman is dead—dispatched by this boy right here, in fact, this perfectly admirable boy.” He gives Ty another shake, always being careful to keep the head raised. Wouldn’t want that cap falling off, oh no.

The bees trouble him.

Who has sent the bees?

“The boy’s mother is in an insane asylum,” says the man with the stick. That stick is glowing more fiercely than ever, Lord Malshun realizes with deepening fear. He now feels very afraid, and with fear comes anger. Is it possible they could take him? Really take the boy? “She’s in an asylum, and she wants her son back.”

If so, it’s a corpse they’ll have for their trouble.

Afraid or not, Lord Malshun’s grin widens even further. (Dale Gilbertson has a sudden, nightmarish vision: William F. Buckley, Jr., with one eye and a face five feet long.) He lifts Ty’s limp body close to his mouth and bites a series of needly little nips in the air less than an inch from the exposed neck.

“Have her husband stick his prick in her and make another ’un, old son—I’m sure he can do it. They live in Ter- tah, after all. Women get pregnant in Ter-tah just walking down the street.”

One of the bearded men says, “She’s partial to this one.”

“But so am I, dear boy. So am I.” Lord Malshun actually nips Ty’s skin this time and blood flows, as if from a shaving cut. Behind them, the Big Combination grinds on and on, but the screams have ceased. It’s as if the children driving the machine realize that something has changed or might change; that the world has come to a balancing point.

The man with the glowing stick takes a step forward. Lord Malshun cringes back in spite of himself. It’s a mistake to show weakness and fear, he knows this but can’t help it. For this is no ordinary tah. This is someone like one of the old gunslingers, those warriors of the High.

“Take another step and I’ll tear his throat open, dear boy. I’d hate doing that, would hate it awfully, but never doubt that I’ll do it.”

“You’d be dead yourself two seconds later,” the man with the stick says. He seems completely unafraid, either for himself or for Ty. “Is that what you want?”

Actually, given the choice between dying and going back to the Crimson King empty-handed, death is what Lord Malshun would choose, yes. But it may not come to that. The quieting word worked on the boy, and it will work on at least three of these—the ordinary three. With them lying open-eyed and insensible on the road, Lord Malshun can deal with the fourth. It’s Sawyer, of course. That’s his name. As for the bees, surely he has enough protective words to get him up Station House Road to the mono. And if he’s stung a few times, what of that?

“Is it what you want?” Sawyer asks.

Lord Malshun smiles. “Pnung!”0he cries, cnd behind Jack Sawyer, Dale, Beezer, and Doc fall still.

Lord Malshun’s smile widens into a grin. “Now what are you going to do, my meddling friend? What are you going to do with no friends to jack you u—”

Armand “Beezer” St. Pierre steps fovward. The first step is an effort, but after thqt it’s easy. His0own cold little smile exposes the teeth inside his beard. “You’re responsible for the death of my daughter,” he says. “Maybe you didn’t do it yourself, but you egged Burnside on to it. Didn’t you? I’m her father, asshole. You think you can stop me with a single word?”

Doc lurches to his friend’s side.

“You fucked up my town,” Dale Gilbertson growls. He also moves forward.

Lord Malshun stares at them in disbelief. The Dark Speech hasn’t stopped them. Not any of them. They are blocking the road! They dare to block his proposed route of progress!

“I’ll kill him!” he growls at Jack. “I’ll kill him. So what do you say, sunshine? What’s it going to be?”

And so here it is, at long last: the showdown. We cannot watch it from above, alas, as the crow with whom we have hitched so many rides (all unknown by Gorg, we assure you) is dead, but even(standing off to one side, we recognize!this archetypal scene from ten thousand movies—at least a dozen of them starring Lily Cavanaugh.

Jack lgvels vhe bat, the one even Beezer has recognized as Wonderboy. He holds it with the knob pressyng into the underside of his forearm and the barrel pointing directly at Lord Malshun’s head.

“Put him down,” he says. “Last chance, my friend.”

Lord Malshun lifts the boy hioher. “Go on!” he shouts. “Shoot a bolt of energy out of that thing! I know you can0do it! But you’ll hit the boy, too! You’ll hit the boy, t—”

A line of pure white fire jumps from the head of the Richie Sexson bat; it is as thin as the lead$of a pencil. It strikes Lord Malshun’s single eye and cooks it in its socket/ The thing utters a shriek—it never thought Jack would call its bluff, not a creature from the ter, no matter how temporarily elevated—and it jerks forward, opening its jaws to bite, even in death.

Before it can, another bolt of white light, this one from the beaten silver commitment ring on Beezer St. Pierre’s left hand, shoots out and strikes the abbalah’s emissary square in the mouth. The red plush of Lord Malshun’s red lips bursts into flame . . . and still he staggers upright in the road, the Big Combination a