Wolves of the Calla

that means taking over Susannah's body—the way Detta Walker sometimes took over Odetta Holmes—she'll do it if she can.'

'And probably she could,' Eddie said gloomily. Then he turned directly to Roland. 'So what I think you're saying— correct me if I've got it wrong—is that you don't want to tell Suze she might be growing a monster in her belly because it might impair her efficiency.'

Roland could have quibbled about the harshness of this judgment, but chose not to. Essentially, Eddie was right.

As always when he was angry, Eddie's street accent became more pronounced. It was almost as though he were speaking through his nose instead of his mouth. 'And if anything changes over the next month or so—if she goes into labor and pops out the Creature from the Black Lagoon, for instance—she's gonna be completely unprepared. Won't have a clue.'

Roland stopped about twenty feet from the rectory-house. Inside the window, he could see Callahan talking to a couple of young people, a boy and a girl. Even from here he could see they were twins.

'Roland?'

'You say true, Eddie. Is there a point? If so, I hope you'll get to it. Time is no longer just a face on the water, as you yourself pointed out. It's become a precious commodity.'

Again he expected a patented Eddie Dean outburst complete with phrases such as kiss my ass or eat shit and die . Again, no such outburst came. Eddie was looking at him, that was all. Steadily and a little sorrowfully. Sorry for Susannah, of course, but also for the two of them. The two of them standing here and conspiring against one of the tet.

'I'm going to go along with you,' Eddie said, 'but not because you're the dinh, and not because one of those two is apt to come back brainless from Thunderclap.' He pointed to the pair of kids the Old Fella was talking to in his living room. 'I'd trade every kid in this town for the one Suze is carrying. If it was a kid. My kid.'

'I know you would,' Roland said.

'It's the rose I care about,' Eddie said. 'That's the only thing worth risking her for. But even so, you've got to promise me that if things go wrong—if she goes into labor, or if this Mia chick starts taking over—we'll try to save her.'

'I would always try to save her,' Roland said, and then had a brief, nightmare image—brief but very clear—of Jake dangling over die drop under the mountains.

'You swear that?' Eddie asked.

'Yes,' Roland said. His eyes met those of the younger man. In his mind, however, he saw Jake falling into the abyss.

SEVEN

They reached the rectory door just as Callahan was ushering the two young people out. They were, Roland thought, very likely the most gorgeous children he had ever seen. Their hair was black as coal, the boy's shoulder-length, the girl's bound by a white ribbon and falling all the way to her bottom. Their eyes were dark, perfect blue. Their skin was creamy-pale, their lips a startling, sensuous red. There were faint spatters of freckles on their cheeks. So far as Roland could tell, the spatters were also identical. They looked from him to Eddie and then back to Susannah, who leaned in the kitchen doorway with a dish-wiper in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. Their shared expression was one of curious wonder. He saw caution in their faces, but no fear.

'Roland, Eddie, I'd like you to meet the Tavery twins, Frank and Francine. Rosalita fetched them—the Taverys live not half a mile away, do ya. You'll have your map by this afternoon, and I doubt if you'll ever have seen a finer one in all your life. It's but one of the talents they have.'

The Tavery twins made their manners, Frank with a bow and Francine with a curtsy.

'You do us well and we say thankya,' Roland told them.

An identical blush suffused their astoundingly creamy complexions; they muttered their thanks and prepared to slip away. Before they could, Roland put an arm around each narrow but well-made pair of shoulders and led the twins a little way down the walk. He was taken less by their perfect child's beauty than by the piercing intelligence he saw in their blue eyes. He had no doubt they would make his map; he also had no doubt that Callahan had had Rosalita fetch them as a kind of object lesson, were one still needed: with no interference, one of these beautiful children would be a grizzling idiot a month from now.

'Sai?' Frank asked. Now there was a touch of worry in his voice.

'Fear me not,' Roland said, 'but hear me well.'

EIGHT

Callahan and Eddie watched Roland walk the Tavery twins slowly along the rectory's flagstoned path and toward the dirt drive. Both men shared the same thought: Roland looked like a benevolent gran-pere.

Susannah joined them, watched, then plucked Eddie's shirt. 'Come with me a minute.'

He followed her into the kitchen. Rosalita was gone and they had it to themselves. Susannah's brown eyes were enormous, shining.

'What is it?' he asked her.

'Pick me up.'

He did.

'Now kiss me quick, while you have the chance.'

'Is that all you want?'

'Isn't it enough? It better be, Mister Dean.'

He kissed her, and willingly, but couldn't help marking how much larger her breasts were as they pressed against him. When he drew his face away from hers, he found himself looking for traces of the other one in her face. The one who called herself Mother in the High Speech, He saw only Susannah, but he supposed that from now on he would be condemned to look. And his eyes kept trying to go to her belly. He tried to keep them away, but it was as if they were weighted. He wondered how much that was between them would change now. It was not a pleasant speculation.

'Is that better?' he asked.

'Much.' She smiled a little, and then the smile faded. 'Eddie? Is something wrong?'

He grinned and kissed her again. 'You mean other than that we're all probably gonna die here? Nope. Nothing at all.'

Had he lied to her before? He couldn't remember, but he didn't think so. And even if he had, he had never done so with such baldness. With such calculation.

This was bad.

NINE

Ten minutes later, rearmed with fresh mugs of coffee (and a bowl of pokeberries), they went out into the rectory's small back yard. The gunslinger lifted his face into the sun for a moment, relishing its weight and heat. Then he turned to Callahan. 'We three would hear your story now, Pere, if you'd tell it. And then mayhap stroll up to your church and see what's there.'

'I want you to take it,' Callahan said. 'It hasn't desecrated the church, how could it when Our Lady was never consecrated to begin with? But it's changed it for the worse. Even when the church was still a building, I felt the spirit of God inside it. No more. That thing has driven it out. I want you to take it.'

Roland opened his mouth to say something noncommittal, but Susannah spoke before he could. 'Roland? You all right?'

He turned to her. 'Why, yes. Why would I not be?'

'You keep rubbing your hip.'

Had he been? Yes, he saw, he had. The pain was creeping back already, in spite of the warm sun, in spite of Rosalita's cat-oil. The dry twist.