'Better take this first,' he said. 'I'm still weak, and it wants to go back with you. I feel that.'
Jack took it and helped Richard up. Richard put an arm around Jack's neck.
'You ready . . . chum?'
'Yeah,' Richard said. 'Ready. But I somehow think the seagoing route's out, Jack. I think I heard the deck out there collapse during the Big Rumble.'
'We're going out the front door,' Jack said. 'Even if God put down a gangway over the ocean from the windows back there to the beach, I'd still go out the front door. We ain't ditching this place, Richie. We're going out like paying guests. I feel like I've paid plenty. What do you think?'
Richard held out one thin hand, palm-up. Healing red blemishes still glared on it.
'I think we ought to go for it,' he said. 'Gimme some skin, Jacky.'
Jack slapped his palm down on Richard's, and then the two of them started back toward the hallway, Richard with one arm around Jack's neck.
Halfway down the hall, Richard stared at the litter of dead metal. 'What in heck?'
'Coffee cans,' Jack said, and smiled. 'Maxwell House.'
'Jack, what in the world are you t - '
'Never mind, Richard,' Jack said. He was grinning, and he still felt good, but wires of tension were working into his body again just the same. The earthquake was over . . . but it wasn't over. Morgan would be waiting for them now. And Gardener.
Never mind. Let it come down the way it will.
They reached the lobby and Richard looked around wonderingly at the stairs, the broken registration desk, the tumbled trophies and flagstands. The stuffed head of a black bear had its nose in one of the pigeonholes of the mail depository, as if smelling something good - honey, perhaps.
'Wow,' Richard said. 'Whole place just about fell down.'
Jack got Richard over to the double doors, and observed Richard's almost greedy appreciation of that little spray of sunlight.
'Are you really ready for this, Richard?'
'Yes.'
'Your father's out there.'
'No, he's not. He's dead. All that's out there is his . . . what do you call it? His Twinner.'
'Oh.'
Richard nodded. In spite of the Talisman's proximity, he was beginning to look exhausted again. 'Yes.'
'There's apt to be a hell of a fight.'
'Well, I'll do what I can.'
'I love you, Richard.'
Richard smiled wanly. 'I love you, too, Jack. Now let's go for it before I lose my nerve.'
9
Sloat really believed he had everything under control - the situation, of course, but more important, himself. He went right on believing this until he saw his son, obviously weak, obviously sick, but still very much alive, come out of the black hotel with his arm around Jack Sawyer's neck and his head leaning against Jack's shoulder.
Sloat had also believed he finally had his feelings about Phil Sawyer's brat under control - it was his previous rage that had caused him to miss Jack, first at the Queen's pavillion, then in the midwest. Christ, he had crossed Ohio unscathed - and Ohio was only an eyeblink from Orris, that other Morgan's stronghold. But his fury had led to uncontrolled behavior, and so the boy had slipped through. He had suppressed his rage - but now it flared up with wicked and unbridled freedom. It was as if someone had hosed kerosene on a well-banked fire.
His son, still alive. And his beloved son, to whom he had meant to turn over the kingship of worlds and universes, was leaning on Sawyer for support.
Nor was that all. Glimmering and flashing in Sawyer's hands like a star which had fallen to earth was the Talisman. Even from here Sloat could feel it - it was as if the planet's gravitational field had suddenly gotten stronger, pulling him down, making his heart labor; as if time were speeding up, drying out his flesh, dimming his eyes.
'It hurts!' Gardener wailed beside him.
Most of the Wolfs who had stood up to the quake and rallied to Morgan were now reeling away, hands before their faces. A couple of them were vomiting helplessly.
Morgan felt a moment of swooning fear . . . and then his rage, his excitement, and the lunacy that had been feeding on his increasingly grandiose dreams of overlordship - these things burst apart the webbing of his self-control.
He raised his thumbs to his ears and slammed them deep inside, so deep it hurt. Then he stuck out his tongue and waggled his fingers at Mr. Jack Dirty Motherfuck and Soon-to-be-Dead Sawyer. A moment later his upper teeth descended like a drop-gate and seered the tip of his wagging tongue. Sloat didn't even notice it. He seized Gardener by the flak-vest.
Gardener's face was moony with fear. 'They're out, he's got IT, Morgan . . . my Lord . . . we ought to run, we must run - '