He swept his arm around as if introducing the hundreds of men watching. “These are but a few of my legions that I will send into the most secure, secluded places you can imagine. Do you know that we have the ability to show up in, say, the bedroom of your president? The bedroom of every world leader? We can eviscerate your leaders, your police commanders, your army generals. Why, I have an entire staff of people who have nothing better to do than think up ways in which to kill the unsuspecting people of your world.
“If I want, I could even set nations against each other and launch your world into war. I could have my legions carry out the most brutal attacks to partially bring down the ruling government of Israel, for example, and goad them into launching a nuclear attack against surrounding nations. If I want, I can light the fuse that will ignite a holocaust.”
“Alex,” Jax said, “listen to him. He’s not bluffing. He will kill innocent people in the thousands.”
Cain turned to her. “Don’t be insulting. I will kill the people here in the tens of thousands — the hundreds of thousands — if I have to.”
Alex felt dizzy. He knew that Jax was right, that Cain wasn’t bluffing.
As if to prove his point, Cain looked around at all the men watching. “If
The men all bowed their heads.
“I’m not giving you what you want,” Alex said.
Cain turned a cold glare on him. “Then the killing will continue until you do. If I have to reduce this world to a sea of blood, I will.”
“Alex,” Jax said, drawing his attention again. “Please, do as he asks. You alone hold sway over all those innocent lives. You alone can prevent this from happening to your world.”
Alex stepped out onto the sand, closer to her. “Why would you turn yourself over to him? Why are you doing this?”
“Because I know that as long as I’m free you would never give up. As long as I’m free you would fight no matter what. I can’t let you put your love for me above all the people who will die if you keep fighting him. I had to remove myself from the equation.
“To let this happen, to let him unleash his wrath on your world while I stand by and watch, is a violation of all that I value and believe in — of everything I’ve been fighting to preserve. I couldn’t let your world pay the price for the people in my world.
“We are lost. Our war is done. Don’t let it come down on your world, too. Please, Alex, do what he says. Don’t let any more people here die needlessly.
“There is nothing you can do for me now. I am lost. Let me go. Only you can do something to save all the people in your world who will otherwise die. Please, Alex, don’t allow the sacrifice of my life to stand for nothing. Do as he wants and think of your own people now.”
“Yet more outdated moral drivel,” Cain said in a contemptuous tone. “Hardly the kind of strength exhibited by the strong, by true visionary leaders. No wonder you’re losing.” He turned to Alex. “Still, you should listen to her, if for no other reason than because you are just as weak as she is and you will want to spare the people in your world all the pain and suffering I will unleash on them.”
Alex looked away from the venomous glare of Radell Cain, back into the eyes of the woman he loved more than life itself.
“These people are from my world,” she said softly. “We must suffer them. You must not let this place suffer them as well. That is your highest responsibility. I gave myself up because if I didn’t my life would be lived at the cost of the lives of thousands of innocent people. I can’t live with that.”
“I don’t negotiate with murderers,” Alex said.
“You aren’t negotiating,” she whispered, “you are making a choice. You can’t win by wishing it was other than it is. This is what is before us. We have to choose or the choice will be made for us and others here will suffer because of it.”
“You should listen to her, Alex,” Cain said. “She’s a smart lady. That’s why I can’t allow her to run free.”
Alex swallowed at the lump in his throat. He could think of no argument that could change things. He had nothing to fight with. If he held out, then all the suffering and death that Cain promised would come to pass.
“Let her go first.”
Cain heaved an irritated sigh. “I grow weary of this.” He turned to the men watching. “You all have your assignments. Go, now, and await my orders. If you get my command, then you will unleash war on these people tomorrow. If he cooperates by tonight, and you don’t receive orders from me to attack, then return home at once to prepare for the transition to the new reality in our own world, where we must be ready to rule.”
Men all around clapped fists to hearts in salute. In so doing they also vanished almost all at the same time. Where hundreds had stood, there was only darkness and stone. Only a few dozen men remained behind.
Radell Cain turned back to Alex. “They will be in place by tonight, out among the people of your world — death stalking among the unaware and unprepared. If you don’t open the gateway for me, then by morning I will give them the order to start killing on a scale you can’t imagine.
“What’s more,” he said with a growing smile, “I will hand Jax over to Yuri to do with as he will. If you cooperate, I will instead have her beheaded — put to death quickly. If not. .” He shrugged.
Yuri pulled out a knife, displaying it for Alex. It was Jax’s silver-handled knife. “Don’t you worry, my men and I will keep her alive for a good long time. When we finally tire of her feminine charms, then I’ll start in cutting on her.”
Jax closed her eyes at the terror awaiting her.
Alex knew that he’d run out of options, and time.
He gazed into her beautiful, sad eyes as they opened. In those forlorn eyes he could see his world ending.
“You know, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes,” she whispered to him. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Then don’t let me down, Alexander. The time has come to defend mankind, here, in your world. Open the gateway for him.”
“All right,” he whispered back to her, “I’ll do it.”
59
ALEX GESTURED TO JAX to move off the area of sand. Yuri seized her arm and roughly pulled her back against the stone wall. Alex went out onto the white sand and with his arm smoothed the footprints out, leveling the sand. He began drawing the symbols that he had learned from Jax to activate a lifeline, only on a large scale. He needed to buy a little time to think things through, to put together all the things Jax had told him, and the things the Daggett Society had told him about what the book said. He made a job of carefully laying out the designs as he put all the pieces together in his head.
“That’s not going to open the gateway,” Sedrick Vendis snapped.
Alex looked up at the man. “Since you seem to know so much, why don’t you tell your boss how it’s done?”
Vendis glowered but finally folded his arms and fell silent.
When he finished drawing, Alex stood and faced Cain. “I will have to trust that you will keep your word she won’t suffer at the end.”
Cain’s smile was bone-chillingly evil. “I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”
“Since this is the end for Jax and me, I want to tell her a few private words of good-bye before I finish this for you. I want to have a moment alone with her. Then I will open your gateway for you. If you won’t grant me that simple human decency, then I may not believe that you’re an understanding man who will keep his word about granting her a swift death.”
Alex gave the man an iron look. “I may have second thoughts.”
Cain glared for a moment. He finally held out his hand. “The knife first.”
