The Law of Nines

  44.

  WITH A FINGER, ALEX OPENED the curtains just a crack to peek out, looking for anything out of place. It was a heavily overcast, gray day, but it wasn’t raining. The Cherokee was parked right outside their room. He didn’t see anyone out in the parking lot who looked suspicious. He reminded himself that Dr. Hoffmann, the nurses, and the orderlies at Mother of Roses had never looked suspicious to him.

  They didn’t all look like pirates.

  Alex felt wide awake, truly awake, for the first time in what seemed like days and days. He was foggy on exactly how many days it had been, but he knew that the whole ordeal at Mother of Roses hadn’t been more than a few days. Some of the things that had happened didn’t seem real. The reality of how many people had died—how many people he had killed—was hard to wrap his mind around. It felt like he was coming out of a long, dark dream filled with endless terror.

  He felt a profound empathy for his mother’s years of being lost in that living limbo. He was saddened that she had never been able to escape that private, lonely hell, that she never had a chance to live her life. He was heartbroken and angry that people from another world had come here and done that to her—stolen her life—and in the end had murdered her.

  The worst part of that entire nightmare, though, had been seeing Jax hanging helpless in the shower at Mother of Roses, seeing her struggle to breathe, fearing what horrific torture they would subject her to, dreading that she would eventually suffocate as she hung there all alone, like so many others that Vendis had had in his clutches.

  Now, after twelve hours of sleep, the drugs had largely worn off. He had escaped the nightmare, some of it, anyway. Jax, too, for the most part looked like she was almost back to normal. He had no words for how relieved he was to see her eyes so bright and alive again. She was sore and bruised, but she was alive. That was what mattered.

  He heard the tub finish draining, and in a few minutes she came out dressed in fresh jeans and a red top. The color looked stunning with her blond hair, even if her hair wasn’t dry. She rubbed it with a towel, drying it as best she could.

  He gestured to the little refrigerator under the counter. “You want something to eat?”

  “No, not now. I’d rather get going and then eat.”

  She went back to toweling her hair dry.

  “You could use the hair dryer and have it dry a lot quicker.”

  She gave him a blank look. “The what?”

  Alex smiled. “Here, let me show you.”

  He took her into the bathroom and lifted the hair dryer off its rack. He turned it on high and played it over her hair a moment before turning it off.

  “See?”

  “That’s amazing,” she said, taking it from his hand and looking it over. “I can do a similar thing with magic, but magic doesn’t work here. I didn’t realize you would have technology to match it.” She handed the hair dryer back. “Do it some more.”

  Alex switched it back on and directed the warm air around on her hair. She turned her back to him and let him work at blowing her long fall of wavy blond hair dry. When he had finished, she turned back around and looked him over.

  “How come you look clean?”

  “I took a shower while you were still asleep.”

  “Oh,” she said, going back out into the main room. “I thought that we agreed that ladies go first.”

  Alex smiled. “I win any way I can, even if I have to break the rules.”

  She gave him a meaningful smile. “I’m glad you do.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like a new woman.”

  “Well, you look as beautiful as ever.”

  She smiled. “So do you.”

  “If you’re feeling better, then I’d like some answers,” Alex said, turning serious. “Before we were ambushed and the lights went out, my mother said that they asked her all the time about the gateway. When you heard that word—gateway—you said that you had figured it out, that you knew what they wanted.”

  She nodded. “They want the gateway.”

  Alex rolled his eyes. “I got that much of it. But I don’t know what it means.”

  “Well,” she said as she started folding her dirty clothes and packing them into the duffel bag they’d bought back at the outlet mall, “do you remember when I told you about how I tried to take the painting you gave me back to my world to show to people?”

  Alex nodded. “You said that on the journey back it simply vanished. You said that you didn’t know what happened to it, but that the experience confirmed what people had suspected, that things couldn’t be taken back from this world to yours.”

  “So, if nothing can be taken back to my world, why would people from my world come here? Why would Radell Cain have been sending so many people here for so long? What could they possibly want, if they can’t take anything back?”

  “Knowledge, maybe?”

  “Well, I suppose that’s not out of the question, but I think that Cain wants something more basic. They’re after something specific and they’ve spent a long time and a lot of effort trying to get it. Why do you suppose they kept your mother prisoner all that time? Why do they want you?”

  “Obviously, I guess, they want the gateway. But I don’t know what that means.” Alex opened his hands in a gesture of frustration. “What the hell is a gateway? Why would they want it?”

  She tucked her folded jeans into the duffel bag and then straightened. “It has long been speculated in some quarters that ever since our worlds were separated, some form of connection remained between them. It’s always been an obscure theory, though.”

  Alex eyed her suspiciously. “So what does this obscure theory say?”

  “Well, do you remember me telling you how the Lord Rahl banished all those people to this world to end the war?”

  “Yes. You said that they didn’t come here the way you did, that it was thought that the worlds were for an instant joined at the same place and time and when they separated the people who wanted to live without magic were left in this world and your people in that one.”

  “That’s right. That’s why it’s called the separation event. Not a lot is known about what happened back then, but it’s thought that Lord Rahl somehow bridged the void between our worlds, brought them together for a spark in time in order to send the people who didn’t want to live with magic here.”

  “You mean he sent them through a gateway?”

  “No, but according to this theory, there had to be an actual place of connection, a small breach in the void of nothingness between the worlds, an opening through time and space, that allowed everything to remain in balance while the worlds were brought together and then the separation was taking place. The fact that we can come here and return is claimed to be proof that the connection still exists; otherwise, they say, we couldn’t cross the void between our worlds.

  “The gateway, some theorized, was a side effect of the separation event, an anomaly, an artifact, that remains to this day.

  “Other believers in this gateway say that it had to be created by Lord Rahl to balance what he was doing, or the separation event could not have taken place.”

  “Seems to me to be a pretty important event. Why is this all just speculation? Why isn’t more known?”

  “At one time there were records, but the long period of the Golden Age ended in wars that resulted in the destruction of many of our most treasured records. It was a dark time. After it ended, we were left without much of our history.”

  Alex sighed. “So you think this separation event left a conduit between the two worlds? A wormhole of some kind?”

  Jax shrugged. “I don’t know what a wormhole is. A conduit is a little simplistic, but I guess you could look at it that way. A better way to think of it is as a kind of vent, a balance needed between the profound forces on each side.”

  “Do you think this connection, this gateway, is a fact, or is this simply people making wild guesses about things that may or may not h
ave once happened?”

  “It’s been inferred by some from what little is known about the separation event. At least, it’s inferred by the few people who actually subscribe to this ‘Gateway Theory.’ ”

  “Why didn’t you ever bring this up before? Why is it such a surprise? This whole gateway thing sounds pretty important.”

  “It may seem so now, but it’s actually an obscure, fringe theory. To be quite frank, Gateway Theory has always been considered a crackpot notion. It never entered my mind that this whole thing with Radell Cain could have anything to do with such a crazy idea until I heard your mother say the word ‘gateway.’

  “That they would use that specific word to your mother suddenly made everything that’s been happening all come together for me. It suddenly all made sense.”

  “But even if this gateway once existed, in the beginning, do you think it still exists?”

  “I don’t know. But Radell Cain apparently thinks so. His people kept questioning your mother about it, didn’t they? They asked me about it. I’m sure they must have asked you, too.”

  “They did,” Alex admitted. “In fact it was the only thing they wanted me to talk about.”

  “Your mother gave me the answer I’ve been looking for, the answer to why they’re coming here and what they want. Radell Cain wants the gateway.”

  Realization dawned on him. “The land I’m inheriting. The gateway must be somewhere on the land that was left to me.”

  Jax was nodding. “You were right from the beginning. All along it’s been about the land.”

  “But why would they need my mother? Or me? If they suspect the gateway is located there on that land, then why not simply go there? The place is primitive and remote. They could have the gateway to themselves and no one would likely even know that they were there or what they were up to.”

  “Maybe they already went there and found it, but they couldn’t use it for some reason. Maybe that was when they became interested in the Rahl line here in this world.”

  Alex hadn’t thought of that. He paced to the window and back as he thought about it. He wondered what part the Daggett Trust played in the whole thing.

  “If they did go there and couldn’t make the gateway work, what makes them think that I could?”

  “A Rahl separated the worlds. If in so doing he also created this gateway between worlds, and it still exists, then maybe it has fail-safes and it takes a Rahl to open it again.”

  “But that was him, not me. Even if I am a descendant of this Rahl line from your world, I don’t have those kinds of abilities. How the hell am I supposed to open a gateway between worlds? I never even knew another world existed. I’m the last person on earth to go to for answers about a gateway.”

  “Not really,” Jax said as she shrugged. “The Law of Nines names you as central to it all. You would be the very person to go to.”

  “The Law of Nines? How can that have anything to do with a gateway?”

  “I don’t know, but Radell Cain wants the gateway, and the Law of Nines leads him directly to you as being central to the whole thing. He sent Sedrick Vendis here, his most trusted man, to secure both the gateway and you.”

  Alex paced as he thought. “But like you just said, they’re coming to this world. They can already come here and go back. What more is the gateway going to do for them that they can’t already do?”

  Alex paused in midstride as the answer to his own question suddenly became clear. “Except that when they come here they can’t take anything back with them.” He met her gaze. “Could they take things back through a gateway?”

  She was smiling in an unsettling way. “According to the theory, a lifeline isn’t needed in the gateway, so objects could be taken back through it.”

  “What would they want to take back through the gateway?”

  “What’s the weapon they’re using to conquer and control people in my world?”

  “The ability your world has but this one doesn’t, weapons of magic.”

  “Right. And what is it Cain wants to eliminate from our world?”

  “Magic.”

  “So, what happens if they succeed?”

  Alex felt the hair on his arms stand on end. “Dictators always seek to take weapons away from people so that there can be no effective opposition to their rule. If they eliminate magic, they will eliminate the weapon that people could use to resist tyranny.

  “But in taking it away from the people who might oppose them, they will also be eliminating it for their own use. So, if they eliminate the weapon everyone on both sides is using now, they will need some other kind of weapon to replace it.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “There is a kind of balance of power now. Both sides have access to the same kinds of weapons. If they eliminate magic, that would leave the balance of power static—neither side would have it. So, if they want to seize rule they will need to replace their lost weapons with some other kind of weapon. That would tip the balance their way.”

  “Technology,” Alex whispered. “They could use radios to communicate, drugs to control people, and guns to kill anyone who tries to resist them.”

  Jax was nodding again. “And who knows what else. For all practical purposes, technology is interchangeable with what we can do with our abilities—they do the same kinds of things. When the tools created with the use of magic are suddenly gone, people will be helpless.”

  “Those with technology to replace those lost tools will be able to rule the world.”

  “Exactly.” Jax swept an arm out. “There is a whole world of technology here for the taking. Last night you went out and bought that magic glue—”

  “Superglue.”

  “Right, superglue. We use magic to heal in a similar way, knitting wounds closed much like you did. But if our ability to do that is gone, we will have no way to heal the wounded. Imagine the advantage Cain’s side would have with something that simple. How many people would give in to his side just to be healed with the technology only Cain could provide?

  “But there is a great deal more. There is a whole world here full of things we wouldn’t have. They could walk into a store and buy things that would be invaluable in my world, if everyone in my world were stripped of their abilities. They could take that technology back through a gateway. Cain would be the sole source of the things that people needed to live, and only he would have weapons to enforce his rule.”

  “But do you think this Gateway Theory is really right? That people could take things back through it to your world?”

  “I imagine that Radell Cain must have reason to believe so.”

  Alex sat down on the edge of the bed. “What is it I’ve heard you say . . . ? ‘Dear spirits’?”

  “Yes, if things are bad enough.”

  Alex rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. “Dear spirits, they want a gateway to run guns to another world.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Sure, let’s call in ATF.”

  “Who?”

  “Nothing,” he said, waving off his flip remark. “That still doesn’t really explain my part in this. I’ve never even heard of a gateway. What would I know? What do they think I can do?”

  “You’re a Rahl—a Rahl specifically identified by the Law of Nines. It was a Rahl who created the gateway. I think that if they could simply find the gateway and use it they would have done so ages ago. Since they haven’t, that means they can’t. For some reason they need you.”

  “Do you honestly think that they intend for me to open this gateway for them? Do you really think they believe I can?”

  Jax let out a long sigh. “I don’t know, Alex. Do you have any better explanation?”

  “I guess not,” he said.

  “So what now?”

  He went to the desk and retrieved one of the phones he’d bought the night before. “I think I had better call Mr. Fenton, the lawyer for the land. I think we need to get ourselves to Boston, take title to the land
, and then go up to Maine and have a look for ourselves.”

  “I agree. It’s our only lead now.”

  45.

  ALEX DIALED THE NUMBER . “I’ll put it on speaker so you can hear,” he told Jax.

  “Lancaster, Buckman, Fenton. This is Mr. Fenton.”

  “Mr. Fenton, hi. It’s Alexander Rahl.”

  “Mr. Rahl, I’m so relieved to hear from you.” The man sounded like he meant it. “I was beginning to worry. Is everything all right? I mean, it’s been over a week since you had said that you were going to call. I was beginning to get concerned.”

  Alex hadn’t realized that he’d lost track of that much time drugged up in Mother of Roses. “I apologize. I was distracted by some things for a few days, but I’m free now.”

  “That’s good to hear. Say, I’ve been seeing on the news about the big fire you had out your way, at Mother of Roses. Do you know anything about it?”

  Alex wasn’t sure what he should say, so he decided to be vague. “Some. Why?”

  “Well, the thing is, one of my associates, Mr. Buckman, took ill earlier this year. His doctor thought that he was possibly suffering a breakdown of some sort, and as a result had fallen into a rather severe psychosis. They couldn’t seem to get to the bottom of it, so Mr. Buckman was sent out your way to Mother of Roses Psychiatric Hospital for extended care. I guess they specialize in that sort of thing. It’s a private care facility where he has been receiving specialized evaluation and treatment.”

  Alex’s mouth went dry. “Treatment? From who? Do you know his doctor’s name?”

  “The specialist in charge is Dr. Hoffmann. I was just wondering if you knew anything more about the fire. You know how unreliable the news can be. I haven’t been able to find out anything about Mr. Buckman. I don’t know if he’s all right or not. The news reports said that a number of patients died in the fire, most of them on the ninth floor. That’s where Mr. Buckman was confined.”

  Alex shared a look with Jax. “I’m terribly sorry. My mother died in the fire at Mother of Roses. She was on the ninth floor.”