women, and children were walking through the woods below them, walking through the light, appearing and disappearing and then appearing again. As he watched, he felt a cold drop of water splash his neck, followed by a second and a third. The wind swooped down through the trees, provoking another upward gush of those fairy-like creatures and turning the tree that had been halved by lightning into a pair of vast crackling torches.
"Come on," Roland said, grabbing Eddie's arm. "It's going to come a downpour and this'll go out like a candle. If we're still on this side when it does, we'll be stuck here."
"Where-" Eddie began, and then he saw. Near the foot of the driveway, where the forest cover gave way to a tumble of rocks falling down to the lake, was the core of the glow, for the time being too bright to look at. Roland dragged him in that direction. John Cullum remained hypnotized for a moment longer by the walk-ins, then tried to follow them.
"No!" Roland called over his shoulder. The rain was falling harder now, the drops cold on his skin and the size of coins.
"You have your work, John! Fare you well!"
"And you, boys!" John called back. He stopped and raised his hand in a wave. A bolt of electricity cut across the sky, momentarily lighting his face in brilliant blue and deepest black. "And you!"
"Eddie, we're going to run into the core of the light,"
Roland said. "It's not a door of the old people but of the Prim-that is magic, do ye ken. It'll take us to the place we want, if we concentrate hard enough."
"Where-"
"There's no time! Jake's told me where, by touch! Only hold my hand and keep your mind blank! I can take us!"
Eddie wanted to ask him if he was absolutely sure of that, but there was no time. Roland broke into a run. Eddie joined him.
They sprinted down the slope and into the light. Eddie felt it breathing over his skin like a million small mouths. Their boots crackled in the deep leaf cover. To his right was the burning tree. He could smell the sap and the sizzle of its cooking bark.
Now they closed in on the core of the light. At first Eddie could see Kezar Lake through it and then he felt an enormous force grip him and pull him forward through the cold rain and into that brilliant murmuring glare. For just a moment he glimpsed the shape of a doorway. Then he redoubled his grip on Roland's hand and closed his eyes. The leaf-littered ground ran out beneath his feet and they were flying.
Part One THE LITTLE RED KING Chapter VII:REUNION
ONE
Flaherty stood at the New York/Fedic door, which had been scarred by several gunshots but otherwise stood whole against them, an impassable barrier which the shitting kid had somehow passed. Lamia stood silent beside him, waiting for Flaherty's rage to exhaust itself. The others also waited, maintaining the same prudent silence.
Finally the blows Flaherty had been raining on the door began to slow. He administered one final overhand smash, and Lamia winced as blood flew from the hume's knuckles.
"What?" Flaherty asked, catching his grimace. "What? Do you have something to say?"
Lamia cared not at all for the white circles around Flaherty's eyes and the hard red roses in Flaherty's cheeks. Least of all for the way Flaherty's hand had risen to the butt of the Glock automatic hanging beneath his armpit. "No," he said.
"No, sai."
"Go on, say what's on your mind, do it please ya," Flaherty persisted. He tried to smile and produced a gruesome grin instead-the leer of a madman. Quietly, with barely a rustle, the rest pulled back. "Others will have plenty to say; why shouldn't you start, my cully? I lost him! Be the first to carp, you ugly motherfucker!"
I'm dead, Lamia thought. After a life of service to the King, one unguarded expression in the presence of a man who needs a scapegoat, and I'm dead.
He looked around, verifying that none of the others would step in for him, and then said: "Flaherty, if I've offended you in some way I'm sor-"
"Oh, you've offended me, sure enough!" Flaherty shrieked, his Boston accent growing thicker as his rage escalated. "I'm sure I'll pay for tonight's work, aye, but I think you'll pay fir-"
There was a kind of gasp in the air around them, as if the corridor itself had inhaled sharply. Flaherty's hair and Lamia's fur rippled. Flaherty's posse