"I do," Callahan said.
The phone rang twice and then the operator asked how she could help. Callahan told her. He was connected, and in some room on the nineteenth floor, a telephone began to ring.
Jake watched the Pere begin to speak, then subside into listening again with a small, bemused smile on his face. After a few moments, he hung up. "Answering machine!" he said. "They have amachine that takes guests' calls and then tapes messages! What a wonderful invention!"
"Yeah," Jake said. "Anyway, we know for sure that she's out and for pretty sure she didn't leave anyone behind to watch her gunna. But, just in case..." He patted the front of his shirt, which now concealed the Ruger.
As they crossed the lobby to the elevator bank, Callahan said: "What do we want in her room?"
"I don't know."
Callahan touched him on the shoulder. "I think you do."
The doors of the middle elevator popped open and Jake got on with Oy still at heel. Callahan followed, but Jake thought he was all at once dragging his feet a little.
"Maybe," Jake said as they started up. "And maybe you do, too."
Callahan's stomach suddenly felt heavier, as if he'd just finished a large meal. He supposed the added weight was fear. "I thought I was rid of it," he said. "When Roland took it out of the church, I really thought I was rid of it."
"Some bad pennies just keep turning up," Jake said.
Eight
He was prepared to try his unique red key in every door on the nineteenth floor if he had to, but Jake knew 1919 was right even before they reached it. Callahan did, too, and a sheen of sweat broke on his forehead. It felt thin and hot. Feverish.
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.