The Law of Nines

As he drove slowly through the lot, he scanned the cars for license plates from Massachusetts. He saw a number of them here and there. Maine being a tourist destination, there were plates from all over. Some of the cars were packed full with belongings pressed against rear windows. Some of the trucks had kayaks or bicycles attached to their roofs.

Alex drove around to the far wing of the two-story building that extended back to end at a small area of residential woods. A lot of cars were parked for rooms up closer to the office, but farther down the side was mostly deserted except way at the end, where there was a cluster of cars. By the room numbers on the doors he knew that was the place he was looking for.

When he reached the end he made a U-turn and parked on the slight slope at the back of the broad lot so that if he had to he could get the Cherokee rolling downhill to start it. So far, on their trip east, it had behaved itself, failing to start with the key only once. He supposed that if someone had been chasing them it would have failed to start more often.

Parking as he had also put the driver’s side closest to the room.

“You ready?” Alex asked as he watched for any activity.

Jax carefully scanned the whole area, appearing to take note of every detail. “This makes me nervous.”

“I can’t say that I disagree.”

Jax took his hand and squeezed it, offering reassurance. They’d made it through tough situations before.

Alex hooked a magazine pouch on his belt on his left hip. It held two seventeen-round magazines. He double-checked to make sure the magazines were placed in the pouch with the bullets facing forward so that if he got in a gun battle and had to draw them to reload, he could use the index finger of his left hand to feel the tip of the hollow-point round at the top of the magazine to help guide it into the gun in his right hand for fast, blind reloading. He lifted the Glock from its holster and held it in his lap, his index finger lying along the slide.

Alex opened the phone and hit Redial with his left thumb. Mike Fenton answered.

“This is Alex. We’re outside.”

Alex watched and saw the drapes open a crack as the man peered out.

“I see your truck. We’re so glad you’re here, and that you’re early. Come on in. Everyone is dying to meet you.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Including me, nine.”

“I want all of you to come out of the room. Leave the door wide open. I want everyone to move away from the door, toward the woods at the back. Stay in plain sight. Jax is going to go in and check the room.”

“Alex, I can understand that you would be a little nervous, but we—”

“If any one of you does anything threatening, I won’t hesitate to shoot them.”

Mike went silent.

“Do you understand?” Alex asked.

“I do,” Mike said. “I don’t blame you for being cautious. You’re right. We’re happy to do as you ask.”

“Thank you.”

Alex closed the phone.

“If you hear any gunshots, hit the ground,” Alex told Jax. “Understand?”

“Yes. I think they’re sincere.”

“I hope so, but I’m not going to take any chances. You be careful in there, will you? If you have any problem I’ll be there in a flash.”

Jax nodded. “Just don’t miss if this turns out to be an ambush. There’s two of us and nine of them.”

Alex offered her a smile. “It’s their tough luck to be at such a terrible disadvantage.”

She squeezed his hand as she returned the smile.

Alex watched as the people started filing out of the room. They strolled casually, talking among themselves so that it wouldn’t look suspicious to see that many people standing around in the parking lot. There were seven men and two women. They were all dressed casually, similar to but perhaps just a little better than most any tourist traveling up to Maine for a vacation.

“The trees smell so good,” Jax said to herself.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking of home. The balsam trees remind me of home.”

As Alex watched the group amble off into the lot closer to the trees and out of the way of the open door, he squeezed Jax’s hand again. “Be careful.”

She winked at him. “You too.”

He watched her walking across the lot, mesmerized by the graceful shape of her, by her fall of long blond hair, by how beautiful, how precious she was. There was no other woman in the world like her.

How he wished she was from his world.

He knew that if they ever accomplished what they needed to accomplish, accomplished what she had come to his world to do, and they found the gateway and somehow were able to make it work, she would have to go back to her own world.

Along their long trip east, when she had told him what she knew about the gateway and how it could be used to take things back to her world without a lifeline, he had asked if it was possible for him to go through the gateway, too.

Jax had said that that was one thing she was certain of: no one from his world could ever go to hers. Lord Rahl, the man who had separated the worlds, who had sent people to this world, had made certain that that could never happen.

She could come here, but he could never go there.