demons and ill-sicks. But who? Is she really one of the elementals?
Detta laughed. She say so, but she lyin bout dat, sugar! I know she is!
Then what is she? What was she, before she was Mia?
All at once a phone, amplified to almost ear-splitting shrillness, began to ring. It was so out of place on this abandoned castle tower that at first Susannah didn’t know what it was. The things out there in the Discordia — jackals, hyenas, whatever they were — had been subsiding, but
with the advent of this sound they began to cackle and shriek again.
Mia, daughter of none, mother of Mordred, knew that ringing for what it was immediately,
however. She came forward. Susannah at once felt this world waver and lose its reality. It seemed almost to freeze and become something like a painting. Not a very good one, either.
“No!” she shouted, and threw herself at Mia.
But Mia — pregnant or not, scratched up or not, swollen ankles or no swollen ankles —
overpowered her easily. Roland had shown them several hand-to-hand tricks (the Detta part of
her had crowed with delight at the nastiness of them), but they were useless against Mia; she parried each before Susannah had done more than get started.
Sure, yes, of course, she knows your tricks just like she knows about Aunt Talitha in River Crossing and Topsy the Sailor in Lud, because she has access to your memories, because she is, at least to some extent, you —
And here her thoughts ended, because Mia had twisted her arms up behind her and oh dear
God the pain was enormous.
Ain’t you just the most babyish cunt, Detta said with a kind of genial, panting contempt, and before Susannah could reply, an amazing thing happened: the world ripped open like a brittle
piece of paper. This rip extended from the dirty cobbles of the allure’s floor to the nearest merlon and then on up into the sky. It raced into that star-shot firmament and tore the crescent moon in two.
There was a moment for Susannah to think that this was it, one or both of the final two Beams
had snapped and the Tower had fallen. Then, through the rip, she saw two women lying on one
of the twin beds in room 1919 of the Plaza-Park Hotel. Their arms were around each other and
their eyes were shut. They were dressed in identical bloodstained shirts and bluejeans. Their
features were the same, but one had legs below the knee and straight silky hair and white skin.
“Don’t you mess with me!” Mia panted in her ear. Susannah could feel a fine, tickling spray of saliva. “Don’t you mess with me or with my chap. Because I’m stronger, do you hear? I’m stronger! ”
There was no doubt about that, Susannah thought as she was propelled toward the widening
hole. At least for now.
She was pushed through the rip in reality. For a moment her skin seemed simultaneously on
fire and coated with ice. Somewhere the todash chimes were ringing, and then —
SIX
— she sat up on the bed. One woman, not two, but at least one with legs. Susannah was shoved,
reeling, to the back. Mia in charge now. Mia reaching for the phone, at first getting it wrong-
way-up and then reversing it.
“Hello? Hello!”
“Hello, Mia. My name is — ”
She overrode him. “Are you going to let me keep my baby? This bitch inside me says you’re
not!”
There was a pause, first long and then too long. Susannah felt Mia’s fear, first a rivulet and
then a flood. You don’t have to feel that way, she tried to tell her. You’re the one with what they want, with what they need, don’t you see that’?
“Hello, are you there? Gods, are you there? PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE STILL THERE! ”
“I’m here,” the man’s voice said calmly. “Shall we start again, Mia, daughter of none? Or shall I ring off until you’re feeling . . . a little more yourself?”
“No! No, don’t do that, don’t do that I beg!”
“You won’t interrupt me again? Because there’s no reason for unseemliness.”
“I promise!”
“My name is Richard P. Sayre.” A name Susannah knew, but from where? “You know where you need to go, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Eager now. Eager to please. “The Dixie Pig, Sixty-first and Lexingworth.”
“Lexing ton,” Sayre said. “Odetta Holmes can help you find it, I’m sure.”
Susannah wanted to scream That’s not my name! She kept silent instead. This Sayre would like her to scream, wouldn’t he? Would like her to lose control.
“Are you there, Odetta?” Pleasantly teasing. “Are you there, you interfering bitch?”
She kept silent.
“She’s in there,” Mia said. “I don’t know why she’s not answering, I’m not holding her just now.”
“Oh, I think I know why,” Sayre said indulgently. “She doesn’t like that name, for one thing.”
Then, in a reference Susannah didn’t get: ” ‘Don’t call me Clay no more, Clay my slave name, call me Muhammad Ali!’ Right, Susannah? Or was that after your time? A little after, I think.
Sorry. Time can be so confusing, can’t it? Never mind. I have something to tell you in a minute, my dear. You won’t like it very much, I fear, but I think you should know.”
Susannah kept silent. It was getting harder.
“As for the immediate future of your chap, Mia, I’m surprised you’d even feel it necessary to ask,” Sayre told her. He was a smoothie, whoever he was, his voice containing exactly the right amount of outrage. “The King keeps his promises, unlike some I could name. And, issues of our integrity aside, think of the practical issues! Who else should have the keeping of perhaps the most important child to ever be born . . . including Christ, including Buddha, including the Prophet Muhammad? To who else’s breast, if I may be crude, would we trust his suck?”
Music to her ears, Susannah thought dismally. All the things she’s been thirsting to hear. And why? Because she is Mother.
“You’d trust him to me!” Mia cried. “Only to me, of course! Thank you! Thank you!”
Susannah spoke at last. Told her not to trust him. And was, of course, roundly ignored.
“I’d no more lie to you than break a promise to my own mother,” said the voice on the phone.
(Did you ever have one, sugar? Detta wanted to know.) “Even though the truth some times hurts, lies have a way of coming back to bite us, don’t they? The truth of this matter is you won’t have your chap for long, Mia, his childhood won’t be like that of other children, normal children — ”
“I know! Oh, I know!”
” — but for the five years you do have him . . . or perhaps seven, it might be as many as seven
. . . he’ll have the best of everything. From you, of course, but also from us. Our interference will be minimal — ”
Detta Walker leaped forward, as quick and as nasty as a grease-burn. She was only able to take possession of Susannah Dean’s vocal cords for a moment, but it was a precious moment.
“Dass raht, dahlin, dass raht,” she cackled, “he won’t come in yo’ mouf or get it in you’ hair!”
” Shut that bitch UP! ” Sayre whipcracked, and Susannah felt the jolt as Mia shoved Detta head over heels — but still cackling — to the back of their shared mind again. Once more into the
brig.
Had mah say, though, damn if I didn’t! Detta cried. Ah tole that honky muhfuh!
Sayre’s voice in the telephone’s earpiece was cold and clear. “Mia, do you have control or not?”
“Yes! Yes, I do!”
“Then don’t let that happen again.”
“I won’t!”
And somewhere — it felt like above her, although there were no real directions here at the
back of the shared mind — something clanged shut. It sounded like iron.
We really are in the brig, she told Detta, but Detta just went on laughing.
Susannah thought: I’m pretty sure I know who she is, anyway. Besides me, that is. This truth seemed obvious to her. The part of Mia that wasn’t either Susannah or something summoned
from the void world to do the Crimson King’s bid-ding . . . surely the third part really was the Oracle, elemental or not; the female force that had at first tried to molest Jake and then had taken Roland, instead. That sad, craving spirit. She finally had the body she needed. One capable of
carrying the chap.
“Odetta?” Sayre’s voice, teasing and cruel. “Or Susannah, if you like that better? I promised you news, didn’t I? It’s kind of a good news-bad news thing, I’m afraid. Would you like to hear it?”
Susannah held her silence.