They were dressed in clothes that would be familiar anywhere — mostly jeans and oversized T-shirts with words on them. A number of them wore baggy, knee-length shorts and sandals, just like a typical guy at the mall or out getting a pizza. Alex spotted what looked like knives under the shirts of some. He was sure that all of them had weapons concealed somewhere on them.
Despite their ordinary dress, they weren’t especially well groomed, with ratty hair and scraggly beards or stubble. Alex supposed that even that wasn’t too out of place anymore with their everyday outfits. They all had hard eyes and wore grim expressions. They looked like thugs. That, too, was a rather conventional look that seemed to be cultivated by many men and had become accepted.
Walking down the street these men wouldn’t warrant a second look from most people. Any one of them, carrying a knapsack, could walk unnoticed through any airport. Seeing them gathered all together as they were, though, on a remote wilderness mountaintop, looked bizarre in the extreme, as if they had all been transported there from the bleachers of a basketball game.
Alex knew that they were chameleons, killers intended to fit in and be unseen — until they struck. That, in itself, was what was so frightening about them. They would be invisible out among innocent people.
A glance back showed that the way he had come in was now blocked by dozens more men just like them.
“Alex,” Jax said in a shaky voice, “give them your gun.”
“No.”
“Please. .”
“I’m not—”
“You can’t hope to change things,” she said. “Don’t make it any more difficult than it already is. Please?”
The audience of killers all silently watched. Alex knew that even if he hit his target with every round, and he managed to reload with every one of his spare magazines, he wouldn’t have enough bullets to take out all the men gathered. When he ran out of ammo, they would have him. But he knew that in reality it would never come to that. They would all simply rush him at the same time. They’d be on him before he could empty the magazine in his gun.
“Talk to me, Jax. What’s going on?”
“Give them your gun, or they’ll just hurt me until you do, or take it away from you after you run out of bullets.”
As if to demonstrate, one of the men heaved a fist-sized rock. It struck Jax in the back of the shoulder. She cried out as she went to a knee, bent by the pain of the blow.
Alex put two rounds into the man, dropping him almost instantly. None of the other men so much as flinched at the loud sound or the flash.
Dozens of other men all around the cavernous room lifted rocks to show him that he had no chance to change the outcome. Jax staggered back to her feet. If all of those men threw those rocks she would be stoned to death before he could do anything effective to stop them. Alex’s vision was red with rage. He wanted to strike out at all of them.
But he knew that doing so would only get Jax hurt.
Violating a rule that had been drilled into him from the first time he had learned to shoot, he squatted down, laid the gun on the ground, and slid it across the granite toward Jax. It stopped right before the area of sand.
Ben had always told him that you never give up your gun. But a gun was merely a tool of self-defense. If it couldn’t defend him, or protect Jax, then it ceased to be a tool and became nothing more than a useless hunk of metal.
Alex was enraged that he had no choice but to give up the weapon.
He was ashamed of himself for not thinking of something to keep it from coming to that.
He reminded himself that it wasn’t over yet. He might have had to give up his gun, but he wouldn’t quit as long as he had breath in his lungs.
Sedrick Vendis stepped out from behind some of the men in a dark cave opening to the left and walked out to retrieve the weapon. He picked it up and stuck it in his waistband.
“That’s better, Alex,” he said with a smirk. “Sorry I missed the show at the hospital. I hear it was quite the event.”
Alex ignored him. “Jax — what’s going on?”
“I’m saving your world,” she said in a voice choked with emotion.
Alex had thought as much.
He strode to the edge of the sand, close to her. Sedrick Vendis casually backed up a few steps to stay out of his immediate reach. Somewhere inside it pleased Alex that, even alone and without a gun, surrounded by hundreds of men, they considered him dangerous.
He intended to prove their fears warranted.
To Alex’s left, another man stepped out from the darkness beyond the men watching. He was tall, with slicked-back blond hair and thick features. He wore dark slacks and a simple white pullover shirt with short sleeves and an open collar. He looked like he might be about to go out for a game of golf. He was maybe forty, but looked to be in good shape, as though he could take care of himself if he had to.
If Alex had his way, he was going to have to.
As he approached, the man’s piercing blue eyes never strayed from Alex. He stopped ten feet away, smiling at Alex in a knowing manner.
“How nice to meet you at last,
He emphasized the title in a way obviously intended to mock Alex for having written it on the painting.
Alex was pleased to know that the title had hit a sore spot. “Get to the point.”
“Ah, the direct approach.” He shrugged. “Very well.”
Alex was distracted by another man coming out from the shadows to stand not far from Jax. It was Yuri. The pirate was still wearing the same dirty clothes and a grin that showed his yellow teeth.
“I’m Radell Cain,” the tall man said, drawing Alex’s attention back. He swept an arm out, indicating the area where Jax stood. “This is the gateway, in case you hadn’t guessed.” He crooked his fingers. “Come, have a look if you would be so kind.”
As Alex followed the man, Jax’s eyes tracked him the whole way. He stopped where indicated, at one of the boulders sitting before the area of sand. The flat top of the rock, several feet square, was angled toward him. It was smooth although somewhat weathered-looking, as if it had sat in that spot exposed to the elements for a thousand years.
Alex was startled to see that it had what looked to be a petroglyph drawn on the flat area of the light-colored granite. The darkish lines had a reddish cast to them. It almost looked like it might have been done with blood.
Alex was even more shocked to see what that drawing was. It was a simple scene of a forest, composed of ten trees, much like the scenes Alex liked to paint.
Below the drawing was a small slot in the stone.
Alex was beginning to understand.
“Rather like one of your quaint little paintings,” Cain said, smiling without amusement as he gestured dismissively at the drawing on the stone.
“What do you mean?”
Cain shrugged. “Rather outmoded, passe—as opposed to the new reality my vision is ushering in.”
“If you have invited me here to discuss art, I’m afraid that you aren’t qualified to speak on the subject.”
“No, I don’t care what you know about art, I only care about what you know about the gateway.”
Alex shrugged. “Not much.”
Cain’s humorless smile returned. “Well, since you wanted me to get to the point, here it is. I want this gateway functioning, and I want it functioning right now. I’ve followed your family long enough, waiting for the right time to come. With you, it finally has. The Law of Nines is now fulfilled. I’m through waiting.
“Yesterday I gave you a small sampling of what I can do if I need to. If you don’t cooperate, I’m going to rain death and destruction down on this world the likes of which you can’t imagine. Yesterday, where I killed one, tomorrow I will kill thousands. I can send men into schools, shopping centers, hotels, restaurants, workplaces, sporting events, and. . well, I think you get the idea.”
