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“I won’t be the one to kill you if you tellme the truth. Did a woman come through here?”
The washerboy hesitated, then said: “Aye.Sayre and his closies had ‘er. She ‘us out on her feet, that ‘un, head alllollin…” He demonstrated, rolling his head on his neck and looking more likethe village idiot than ever. Jake thought of Sheemie in Roland’s tale of hisMejis days.
“But not dead.”
“Nar. I hurt her breevin, me.”
Jake looked toward the door, but no onecame through. Yet. He should go, but—
“What’s your name, cully?”
“Jochabim, that be I, son of Hossa.”
“Well, listen, Jochabim, there’s a worldoutside this kitchen called New York City, and pubes like you are free. Isuggest you get out while you have an opportunity.”
“They’d just bring me back and stripe me.”
“No, you don’t understand how big it is.Like Lud when Lud was—”
He looked at Jochabim’s dull-eyed face andthought, No, I’m the one who doesn’t understand. And if I hang around heretrying to convince him to desert, I’ll no doubt get just what I—
The door leading to the restaurant poppedopen again. This time two low men tried to come through at once and momentarilyjammed together, shoulder to shoulder. Jake threw both of his plates andwatched them crisscross in the steamy air, beheading both newcomers just asthey burst through. They fell backward and once more the door swung shut. AtPiper School Jake had learned about the Battle of Thermopylae, where the Greekshad held off a Persian army that had outnumbered them ten to one. The Greekshad drawn the Persians into a narrow mountain pass; he had this kitchen door.As long as they kept coming through by ones and twos—as they must unlessthey could flank him somehow—he could pick them off.
At least until he ran out of Orizas.
“Guns?” he asked Jochabim. “Are there gunshere?”
Jochabim shook his head, but given theyoung man’s irritating look of density, it was hard to tell if this meant Noguns in the kitchen or I don’t ken you.
“All right, I’m going,” he said. “And ifyou don’t go yourself while you’ve got a chance, Jochabim, you’re an evenbigger fool than you look. Which would be saying a lot. There are videogames out there, kid—think about it.”
Jochabim continued giving Jake the duhlook, however, and Jake gave up. He was about to speak to Oy when someone spoketo him through the door.
“Hey, kid.” Rough. Confidential. Knowing.The voice of a man who could hit you for five or sleep with your girlfriend anytime he liked, Jake thought. “Your friend the faddah’s dead. In fact, thefaddah’s di
“Turn it sideways and stick it up yourass,” Jake called. This got through even Jochabim’s wall of stupidity; helooked shocked.
“Last chance,” said the rough and knowingvoice. “Come on out.”
“Come on in!” Jake countered. “I’ve gotplenty of plates!” Indeed, he felt a lunatic urge to rush forward, bang throughthe door, and take the battle to the low men and women in the restaurant diningroom on the other side. Nor was the idea all that crazy, as Roland himselfwould have known; it was the last thing they’d expect, and there was at leastan even chance that he could panic them with half a dozen quickly thrown platesand start a rout.
The problem was the monsters that had beenfeeding behind the tapestry. The vampires. They’d not panic, and Jakeknew it. He had an idea that if the Grandfathers had been able to come into thekitchen (or perhaps it was just lack of interest that kept them in the diningroom—that and the last scraps of the Pere’s corpse), he would be deadalready. Jochabim as well, quite likely.
He dropped to one knee, murmured “Oy, findSusa
The bumbler gave Jochabim a finaldistrustful look, then began to nose about on the floor. The tiles were dampfrom a recent mopping, and Jake was afraid the bumbler wouldn’t be able to findthe scent. Then Oy gave a single sharp cry—more dog’s bark than human’sword—and began to hurry down the center of the kitchen between the stovesand the steam tables, nose low to the ground, only going out of his way longenough to skirt Chef Warthog’s smoldering body.
“Listen, to me, you little bastard!” criedthe low man outside the door. “I’m losing patience with you!”
“Good!” Jake cried. “Come on in! Let’s seeif you go back out again!”
He put his finger to his lips in a shushinggesture while looking at Jochabim. He was about to turn and run—he had noidea how long it would be before the washerboy yelled through the door that thekid and his billy-bumbler were no longer holding Thermopylae Pass—whenJochabim spoke to him in a low voice that was little more than a whisper.
“What?” Jake asked, looking at himuncertainly. It sounded as if the kid had said mind the mind-trap, butthat made no sense. Did it?
“Mind the mind-trap,” Jochabim said, thistime much more clearly, and turned away to his pots and sudsy water.
“What mind-trap?” Jake asked, butJochabim affected not to hear and Jake couldn’t stay long enough tocross-examine him. He ran to catch up with Oy, throwing glances back over hisshoulder. If a couple more of the low men burst into the kitchen, Jake wantedto be the first to know.
But none did, at least not before he hadfollowed Oy through another door and into the restaurant’s pantry, a dim roomstacked high with boxes and smelling of coffee and spices. It was like thestoreroom behind the East Stoneham General Store, only cleaner.
Two
There was a closed door in the corner of theDixie Pig’s pantry. Beyond it was a tiled stairway leading down God only knewhow far. It was lit by low-wattage bulbs behind bleary, fly-spotted glassshades. Oy started down without hesitation, descending with a kind of bobbing,front-end/back-end regularity that was pretty comical. He kept his nose pressedto the stairs, and Jake knew he was onto Susa
Jake tried counting the stairs, made it asfar as a hundred and twenty, then lost his grip on the numbers. He wondered ifthey were still in New York (or under it). Once he thought he heard a faint,familiar rumbling and decided that if that was a subway train, they were.
Finally they reached the bottom of thestairs. Here was a wide, vaulted area that looked like a gigantic hotel lobby,only without the hotel. Oy made his way across it, snout still low to theground, his squiggle of a tail wagging back and forth. Jake had to jog in orderto keep up. Now that they no longer filled the bag, the ‘Rizas jangled back andforth. There was a kiosk on the far side of the lobby-vault, with a sign in onedusty window reading LAST CHANCE FOR NEW YORK SOUVENIRS and another readingVISIT SEPTEMBER 11, 2001! TIX STILL AVAILABLE FOR THIS WONDERFUL EVENT!ASTHMATICS PROHIBITED W/O DR’S CERTIFICATE! Jake wondered what was so fabulousabout September 11th of 2001 and then decided that maybe he didn’t want toknow.
Suddenly, as loud in his head as a voicespoken directly into his ear: Hey! Hey Positronics lady! You still there?
Jake had no idea who the Positronics ladymight be, but he recognized the voice asking the question.
Susa
And heard her cry out in happy surprise.
Oy, realizing that Jake was no longerfollowing close behind, turned and gave an impatient Ake-Ake! cry. Forthe moment at least, Jake disregarded him.
“I hear you!” he shouted. “Finally! God,who’ve you been talking to? Keep yelling so I can home in on y—”
From behind him—perhaps at the top ofthe long staircase, perhaps already on it—someone yelled, “That’s him!”There were gunshots, but Jake barely heard them. To his intense horror,something had crawled inside his head. Something like a mental hand. He thoughtit was probably the low man who had spoken to him through the door. The lowman’s hand had found dials in some kind of Jake Chambers Dogan, and wasfiddling with them. Trying