The Law of Nines

21

WAIT HERE UNTIL I MAKE sure it’s clear and I start the truck,” Alex said, gesturing out at his faded red Cherokee sitting in the drive.

Jax glanced back into the dark house from the kitchen doorway. “All right, but hurry.”

She was clearly more focused on what might be behind them in the darkness. The intruders had come through the front door the last time. He wondered if she expected more of them to arrive and come up behind them through the house.

Alex carefully ducked his head out, took a quick look, then pulled back in. The rain wasn’t letting up. He looked out a second time, checking the other direction. The Jeep was parked right outside in the driveway that ran along the side of the house.

“I don’t see anyone,” he told her.

She turned back from her survey of the darkness within. “That doesn’t mean a lot. It’s dark and hard to see in the rain. They could be hiding anywhere. But more than that, just because you don’t see anyone right now doesn’t mean they couldn’t show up at any moment.”

That was a disturbing thought. “Can they do that anywhere they want?”

“Theoretically, yes, but as a practical matter, no. Queen Bethany and her thugs knew this location. They came to this world right here, in this place. It only makes sense that others might have this point plotted as well.”

“You mean that to come here you have to know specifically where you want to go?”

“Not exactly. It’s not so much that it’s a problem having to do with coming here as it is knowing specifically where you want to be when you get here. The worlds — yours and mine — are big places. Imagine if you were to go to my world, not knowing anything about it. How would you find me, one person, in that whole world, among millions of people? Coming here is one thing, knowing where you want to be when you get here is quite another.”

“I see what you mean. Sounds like it must be difficult.”

“When I was trying to find you the second time I watched the area of the art gallery because it was a place I knew you went. It was where we first located you and at the time the only known place I had for you. That’s why we need to get away from your known locations.”

“That complicates things.”

“I didn’t promise you it would be easy.”

“I guess not.”

With his index finger he absently pressed the release lever on the side of holster and lifted the gun just enough to make sure that it was clear. He let the weapon drop back and click into place.

“Best if we stick to the plan, then. You stay hidden in the shadows and keep a lookout until I start the truck. And pull the door shut behind you when you leave the house,” he added. “I’d like to have a home to come back to one of these days.”

Jax smiled sympathetically. “I know how you feel.”

Alex slipped out the doorway and into the rain. It felt to him like stepping out of his old life and into a new one.

Everything felt new to him, different, as if he were seeing the world with new eyes.

It seemed he could feel each individual muscle in his body as he moved. He thought that he could have counted every cold drop of rain that fell on him. He was aware of the different sensations of the rain on his face, of it matting his hair, of it wetting his pant legs, and of it spattering on the backs of his hands. He could smell the wet dirt, the concrete, and the trees. He could hear the rain beating against the roof of the house, gurgling down the gutters, splashing in puddles, whispering against the leaves of the big maple tree at the rear corner of his house, and drumming on the metal panels of the Jeep. Clouds lit from within by lightning revealed their greenish, roiling shapes before going dark again. He could feel the thunder in the distance rumbling through the ground. Lightning flickered closer in the west, illuminating the glistening, wet scene in stark, colorless contrast.

All of his senses were firing. The world was not just new to him, but an alien place.

He swiftly unlocked the driver’s door and popped it open only enough to turn on the interior dome light. He looked in the windows, checking that no one was hiding in the back. Once he knew the truck was empty he hopped in and hit the unlock button so that Jax would be able to get in on the passenger side.

When he turned the key in the ignition he heard only a click. His pounding heart seemed to skip a beat. He tried again, and again it only clicked. The starter was resting in a dead spot. He knew from experience that he could turn the key all night and it wouldn’t start the engine.

Alex was furious at himself. He could hardly believe that he hadn’t replaced the starter when he’d had the time. With everything surrounding Ben’s death he had ignored the matter of the starter. The excuse was pointless. An excuse wouldn’t undo the mistake.

Jax ran from the house to stand in the open door of the truck. “What’s wrong? Does it always take this long?”

“It won’t start.”

“Magic is a lot more dependable than technology,” she said as she leaned in a little under the shelter of the roof.

“Really? How’s your magic working for you right now?”

She sighed when she realized she had no argument.

“I just need to roll it down the driveway to get it to start.”

He always backed the truck up the sloping drive for just such an eventuality.

“I’ll push it to get it going. I do it often enough. It will be fine. Run around and get in the—”

Alex looked up just as a dark form slammed full force into Jax from behind. The breath left her lungs in a grunt. The violence of the impact drove her onto Alex, knocking him back over the center console. The armrest jammed painfully into his kidneys. His shoulders were pressed down against the passenger seat, his neck bent at a torturous angle. In such an awkward position, the full weight of both Jax and the huge man atop her prevented him from drawing a full breath.

Time seemed to stop.

The growling man had a meaty arm around Jax’s neck. Lethal rage lit his dark eyes. He was only an instant away from twisting her neck and snapping it like a twig.

Alex held his breath against the strain of monumental effort.

His gun had already cleared the holster.

He drove his fist past Jax’s head and rammed the end of the barrel into the man’s left eye socket.

Without an instant’s hesitation, before the man could react, before he could jerk back away from the gun, before he could snap her neck, Alex pressed the trigger.

The hot glare of the muzzle flash lit the inside of the truck. The sound of the gun going off was deafening. In the darkness Alex could also see the flash of the muzzle blast coming out the back of the man’s head, lighting a cloud of blood, bone, and brain as the hollow-point round blew through. The recoil snapped Alex’s hand back.

Most of the debris went out the open door, but some of it splattered against the inside of the windshield and side window in the back seat. The ejected brass shell casing ricocheted off the headliner, then pinged off the passenger window.

The instant the bullet tore through his brain, the hulk of a man went as limp as mud. He wasn’t thrown back like in the movies; he simply dropped dead in place. The man, who an instant before had been a blur of ferocity, was suddenly stone still.

Jax gripped the bottom of the steering wheel for leverage and with a growl of effort arched her back. Alex helped push her up. The dead man slid off her back and down into a heap at the side of the driveway. One arm splayed over his head, as if trying to hide the ghastly wound.

Alex at last drew a needed breath. His ears rang from the sound of the gunshot. The gun had been right beside Jax’s head when it had gone off. He hoped it hadn’t deafened her.

He hoped, too, that the gunshot hadn’t roused the neighborhood. On any regular, quiet night it would have awakened everyone within a couple of blocks, but with the thunder booming enough to shake the ground, a single gunshot was lost in nature’s mayhem.

It had all happened so fast. The night was suddenly back to normal. The rain droned on. In a blink the killing was over and done with, a man’s life ended.

Jax rubbed her neck with both hands as she twisted her head around experimentally. Blood dripped from sodden strands of her blond hair.

“Are you all right?” he asked, checking the darkness. “I was afraid that he might have broken your neck.”

“He would have,” she said, still catching her breath. “I guess that answers the question of whether or not I can count on you. Your Glock technology works pretty good.”

“That’s a Glock for you. Pull trigger go boom.”

“Thank you, Alexander. That was quick thinking.”

He nodded. “Just returning the favor.”

He holstered his gun as Jax bent down to the dead man and swiftly began cutting symbols that Alex recognized as the same design she had cut into Bethany. Ordinarily a gory sight like the aftermath of such a shooting might have made him sick, but he was too angry to be anything but angry.

Jax stood as soon as she had finished. She was getting faster at it. It had taken mere moments this time. He supposed that practice at magic that invoked travel to another world was just like any other practice that helped make one faster, like drawing a gun and firing at a threat.

Somewhere between the sporadic flashes of lightning the man wasn’t there anymore. It still seemed impossible the way he simply vanished. Alex glanced into the truck. The blood that had been splattered all over and running down the side of the dashboard was gone as well. It looked as if it had never been there, as if nothing had happened.

“Alex, we need to go. Men like that usually travel in pairs. The second will be here any—”

There was a soft thud to the air that Alex felt as a thump deep in his chest. For an instant it seemed like there was a dark smudge swirling in the air right beside Jax. As soon as he saw it, the indistinct, dark stain in the night changed into a vortex of vapor in the humid air.

The vapor almost instantly condensed into a shape.

Alex was already starting to draw the gun even as he could still feel the thump deep in his chest. The shape came into being before his weapon had cleared the holster. Jax was already spinning toward the threat.

There was no question in Alex’s mind; he had just seen a man step out of another world and hit the ground running, charging at them out of the downpour. The vapor rising from his beefy arms evaporated into the rain as he came at them.

Before Alex could get the gun up and on target to fire, Jax spun, slashing open the man’s abdomen.

As the man stumbled to a stop to stare down in shock at his insides erupting out of the long gash just as he had appeared in a new world, Jax rammed her knife up through his eye. The blade went in hilt-deep. It was as effective as the hollow-point round had been.

The man went down before he’d known what happened.

In the quiet whisper of rain, Jax looked up at Alex. “Like I said, usually in pairs.”

Ben had always said that in close-quarters combat, a knife was often faster than a gun. Alex was a believer.

As she hurriedly squatted down to repeat her task of activating the man’s lifeline, Alex holstered his Glock. “Let’s get away from here before we find out they travel in quads.”

Jax glanced up, giving him the oddest look. She then gestured. “You said that you had to push the, the. . what did you call that thing?”

“Truck. I have to push it down the drive to get it to start,” he said as he ducked in and released the parking brake. He leaned his weight into the windshield pillar to get the truck rolling. “Hurry with him while I get the truck started. When I do, jump in.”

The truck rolled down the drive, picking up speed. Alex ran beside it, pushing, then when it was going at a good clip he hopped in and put it in gear. As he turned to the right out into the street, in the downhill direction, he lifted his foot off the clutch. The engine caught. He pumped the gas a few times to make sure it wouldn’t stall, then put it in reverse, spinning the wheels on the wet pavement as he backed to the drive. Jax ran down the driveway to meet him. The second man was gone.

Alex rolled his hand, urging her to hurry.

Jax pressed up against the door. She slapped the palms of her hands against the passenger window as the truck started rolling forward.

“Alex! Wait! How do I get in?”

Rather than try to explain where the handle was and how to push the button, he leaned across and popped open the door. The woman had opened a doorway between dimensions or worlds or something, and yet she couldn’t open a truck door.

Jax jumped in. “Sometime you will have to teach me how to do that on my own.”

As he shifted into second, leaving his house in the distance behind, he noticed that she had a death grip on the console and the door’s armrest.

“Do we have to go so fast?” she asked in a breathless voice.

Alex glanced down at the speedometer. “We’re only doing thirty.”

“Can you make it go slower, please?”

For someone who had just gutted a man three times her size and given him a lobotomy for good measure, she suddenly seemed pretty squeamish. He guessed that he was starting to feel pretty squeamish himself. He slowed down a little to let her get used to the sensation.

With her blond hair plastered against her head she looked half drowned. He noticed, too, that her hair was no longer stained with blood. Her wet dress was a shambles from the brief battle. Seeing her alive, though, he doubted that she could have looked any better to him. At least she also looked like she was starting to relax, if only a little.

“I’m sorry, Alex.”

“About what?”

She waited until he looked over at her. “That you had to kill that man.”

“I’m just thankful that he wasn’t able to hurt you.”

As they raced away slowly down the street, he noticed her hands fisted in her lap. She looked like she wanted to pound rocks.

“What’s wrong?”

She stared off through the passenger window. “I should have been paying more attention. It’s not like me to be so careless. I almost got us both killed.”

Alex was angry as well, but for a different reason. He was still in the grip of rage — rage at a man who had tried to hurt her and had come so close to doing so.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’re both alive and they’re both dead. That’s what matters.”

“Not to me,” she said under her breath as she looked away. “I didn’t come here to be stupid.” He could detect a catch in her voice when she said, “People are depending on me.”

“Jax, look at me.” Reluctantly, she did. “We survived. I don’t think those people depending on you would give you points for style. They’d only care that we survived so that we can find out how to stop this.”

She smiled a bit at last. “You’re right. We survived. I would lecture you for being so sloppy, Alexander Rahl, but I was no better. Let’s hope that we both are more careful so that the next time it isn’t nearly so close.”

He returned the smile. “Deal.”