The Law of Nines. Terry Goodkind

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       11.

      ALEX STARED FOR A MOMENT. “You mean you’re an alien. From Mars, or something.”

      Her expression darkened. “I may not know what Mars is, but your tone is all too clear. This isn’t a joke. I risked my life to come here.”

      “Risked your life how?”

      “That isn’t your concern.”

      “What is my concern?”

      “That there are people from my world, dangerous people, who are likely to come after you for reasons we don’t yet fully understand. I wouldn’t like you to be unprepared.”

      He wondered how one prepared for people from some other dimension or time or twilight zone or something—he couldn’t imagine what—who were liable to come looking for one.

      Alex tapped his fork on a piece of chicken in his salad as he considered her words. If there was ever a look that meant business, she was giving it to him.

      Still, he just couldn’t bring himself to take seriously such talk of people coming from a different world. He wondered yet again if his lifelong worry was coming to pass: he wondered if he could be going crazy like his mother had. He knew that she believed things that weren’t real.

      He pushed the thoughts aside. He wasn’t crazy. Jax was real enough. It actually made more sense for him to believe that she was crazy. Yet, despite how absurd her story was, she simply didn’t strike him as crazy.

      Even if he couldn’t believe that this woman was from some other world, something seemed to be going on, and it was serious. Deadly serious, if he was to believe her.

      He wanted to ask her exactly how she had traveled from this other world, but he instead checked his tone and started over. “I’m listening.”

      She took a sip of tea. “Someone is meddling.”

      “With my family?”

      “Yes.”

      “Why?”

      “Most likely because you’re a Rahl. We believe that unless you have children you will be the last in the Rahl bloodline.”

      “And you think someone is interested in the Rahls?”

      “If I had to guess I’d say that they may have killed your father to prevent him from getting to his twenty-seventh birthday.”

      “My father died in a car accident. He wasn’t murdered.”

      “Maybe not.” Jax arched an eyebrow. “But if you had been run down the other day don’t you suppose it would have looked like an accident?”

      “Are you saying that was intentional? That those men were trying to kill me? Why?”

      She leaned back and sighed as she dismissed the suggestion with a flick of her hand. “I’m only saying that if they had been trying to kill you it would have looked like an accident, don’t you think?”

      He stabbed a piece of chicken as he recalled the murderous look the bearded man had given him. He looked up at her. She was watching him again.

      “Why are these people so interested in the Rahl bloodline?”

      “We’re not entirely sure, yet. Like I said, we don’t fully understand their reasons or what is going on.”

      She seemed not to be sure about a lot of things. Alex didn’t know if he believed that she was as in the dark as she claimed, but he decided that since she chose not to tell him yet she must have her reasons, so he let it go.

      Jax sat back a little as she went on. “When I was but a child, a few people started to get an inkling that something was going on, something nefarious. They dug into things, followed people, spied on them, and eventually, along the way, as one thing led to another, they found out that your mother was in danger. They tried to help her. In the end they weren’t able to do so. They didn’t yet know enough.”

      “If twenty-seven is so important, what with the Law of Nines and all,” he asked, “then why didn’t these dangerous people do anything to my grandfather, Ben? He’s a Rahl.” There were just too many holes in her story. He gestured with his fork to make his point. “Or, for that matter, why not come after any of the previous generations?”

      “Some of my friends believe that these other people simply weren’t able to get here yet.”

      “But you think differently?”

      Reluctantly, she nodded. “I think that important elements of the prophecy weren’t yet in place. It was too soon. Up until now it had been the wrong time, the wrong Rahl, for the prophecy.”

      “I don’t believe in fortune-telling.”

      She shrugged. “It could be that you’re right, that it’s nothing more than some kind of baseless lunatic idea they came up with. They would hardly be the first group of people who acted on a completely deluded idea.”

      He hadn’t expected her answer. “That’s true enough.”

      “Whatever their reasons, some time ago they found a way to come here. These are people who, in my world, kill for the things they believe in.”

      Alex again thought about the plumbing truck that had nearly run him down. He thought about the two dead officers, their necks broken. He remembered his mother saying “They break people’s necks.” He didn’t want to ask the question for fear of lending credibility to СКАЧАТЬ