Wolves of the Calla

The fifth installment in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Wolves of the Calla continues the quest of Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, and his companions, known as a ka-tet, a fellowship bound by destiny. In the previous volumes, Roland drew three people from 20th-century New York into his dying world: Eddie Dean, who once had a heroin addiction; Susannah Dean (née Odetta Holmes), Eddie's wife, who lost her lower legs and once harbored a violent alternate personality called Detta Walker; and Jake Chambers, a boy who died in New York and was reborn into Roland's world. A billy-bumbler named Oy, a dog-sized creature with limited speech, rounds out the group. Together they follow the Path of the Beam, an invisible line of force leading toward the Dark Tower, the nexus of all worlds, which Roland has spent centuries trying to reach.

The novel opens in Calla Bryn Sturgis, a farming community in the borderlands between Mid-World and a dark territory called Thunderclap. Tian Jaffords, a farmer, learns from Andy, a surviving messenger robot, that the Wolves will arrive in 30 days. These mysterious raiders emerge from Thunderclap once a generation to steal one child from every pair of twins. The children return weeks later "roont," intellectually destroyed, growing to enormous size before dying young. Tian's own twin sister was taken and returned roont. With two sets of twins among his children, Tian calls an emergency town meeting and argues the Calla must resist. Wayne Overholser and George Telford, prominent local landowners, counsel submission, insisting the Wolves' weapons, including light-sticks that burn with unquenchable fire, flying bladed drones called sneetches, and firearms, make resistance suicidal. Pere Callahan, a priest from another world who bears a cross-shaped scar on his forehead, interrupts to announce that gunslingers are approaching along the Path of the Beam and urges the town to seek their help.

Meanwhile, Roland's ka-tet travels through deep forest, experiencing a strange suspension of time and a recurring fixation on the number 19. One night, Eddie, Jake, and Oy go todash, a dangerous state of passing between worlds, and appear as insubstantial ghosts in 1977 New York City. They follow an earlier version of Jake to The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind, a bookshop owned by Calvin Tower. After Jake leaves, Enrico Balazar, a Brooklyn crime boss Eddie recognizes, arrives with enforcers. Eddie reads a legal agreement revealing the Sombra Corporation paid Tower for a one-year hold on a vacant lot at Second Avenue and 46th Street. This lot contains a mystical rose the ka-tet believes is connected to the Dark Tower.

While the others are todash, Roland secretly follows Susannah as she leaves camp under the control of a new personality called Mia, a name meaning "mother" in the High Speech. Mia hunts raw prey in a bog with savage hunger. Roland recognizes that Susannah is carrying something inhuman, conceived when a demon possessed her during a ritual in the previous book. He keeps this knowledge to himself.

The next morning, Callahan arrives and introduces himself as a former Catholic priest from Jerusalem's Lot, Maine. He reveals he possesses Black Thirteen, the most dangerous of the Wizard's Rainbow, a set of magical glass balls, hidden beneath his church. Roland explains the ancient protocol: The Calla must formally ask three questions, and if all three are answered yes, the gunslingers are duty-bound to help. A delegation from the Calla meets the ka-tet, and Jake stuns the visitors with a display of marksmanship. On a second todash trip, the ka-tet visits the vacant lot in New York and experiences the rose's singing beauty, though Eddie senses a troubling dissonance within it.

Over several sessions, Callahan recounts his life story. After a vampire named Barlow forced him to drink his blood in 'Salem's Lot, Callahan gained the ability to see supernatural creatures. He fled to New York, worked at a homeless shelter, and began killing Type Three vampires, parasitic feeders who blend into human society, while evading "low men," agents of the Crimson King. He spent years wandering "highways in hiding," hidden roads connecting alternate versions of America. In 1983, the Sombra Corporation lured him to their Detroit offices, where vampires awaited him. He escaped by crashing through a 33rd-floor window and, instead of dying, passed into another world. There, a man calling himself Walter, a recurring antagonist in Roland's history, forced the container holding Black Thirteen into Callahan's hands and pushed him through the unfound door, a freestanding magical door between worlds. Callahan awoke in Doorway Cave near the Calla, where elders of the Manni, a religious sect known for inter-world travel, found him and nursed him back to health.

Eddie learns a crucial secret from Tian's elderly grandfather: Decades earlier, a woman killed a Wolf with a thrown plate, and a man pulled off the fallen Wolf's mask to discover it was a robot. Roland builds his strategy around this revelation. The Wolves' true weakness is a small spinning device atop their heads, a "thinking-cap" that kills them instantly if destroyed. Roland publicly announces a false vulnerability, intending it to reach the enemy through Ben Slightman, Eisenhart's ranch foreman, whom he has identified as a traitor passing intelligence to the Wolves' masters via Andy. Roland privately tells Eddie about Susannah's pregnancy, and Jake extracts a promise that they will tell Susannah the truth before the battle. When Susannah herself breaks down and reveals she believes she is pregnant, the cycle of secrecy within the ka-tet ends.

Margaret Eisenhart, wife of the Calla's leading rancher, demonstrates the Oriza, a sharpened throwing plate used by the Sisters of Oriza, a women's group. Susannah trains and proves extraordinarily talented. Eddie travels through the unfound door to 1977 New York, where he ambushes Jack Andolini and George Biondi, two of Balazar's enforcers, who are threatening Tower. Eddie negotiates Tower's agreement to sell the vacant lot for one dollar and sends Tower's rare books through the door to safety. Jake sneaks across the river to an old outpost called the Dogan, built by North Central Positronics, an ancient technology company. Inside, he discovers TV monitors showing locations across the Calla and overhears Slightman reporting Roland's false battle plans to Finli o' Tego, a contact at Algul Siento, a facility controlled by the Wolves' masters. Andy's role as the true architect of betrayal becomes clear. Eddie later lures Andy to the rectory and shuts the robot down permanently using the code "nineteen-ninety-nine."

At a large outdoor meeting, Roland asks the final ritual question and receives overwhelming approval. He publicly describes the Wolves as undead creatures vulnerable only through a chest wound, a lie masking the true target. He announces plans to hide the children in the old mines north of town, another piece of disinformation. On the morning of battle, Roland confronts Slightman on the wagon seat and reveals he knows about the betrayal, then executes his real plan: The children hide in the rice paddies near the river while the ka-tet and three Sisters of Oriza conceal themselves in a ditch beside the road.

Approximately 60 Wolves charge from the east on gray mechanical horses. The ambush unfolds with devastating effectiveness. Margaret Eisenhart is killed by a light-stick. Benny Slightman, Ben's young son and Jake's close friend, panics and is killed by a sneetch. Jake, consumed by grief, walks into the remaining Wolves, firing methodically. All 61 are destroyed, confirmed as robots resembling the comic-book villain Dr. Doom.

In the aftermath, Roland discovers that Mia has taken control of Susannah and disappeared with Black Thirteen. Using a small electric vehicle that Jake surmises Andy left for her, Mia reaches Doorway Cave, opens the ghostwood box containing Black Thirteen, passes through the unfound door, and seals it behind her. The ka-tet races to the cave and finds the door closed. Among Tower's abandoned books, Roland pulls out 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Callahan reads a passage describing his own private memories and realizes with horror that his life exists as fiction in another world. Eddie pleads with Roland to find Susannah. Roland affirms they will pursue her, though he acknowledges they may already be too late. The novel ends on this cliffhanger, with the story continuing in Song of Susannah.