The Law of Nines (Sword of Truth 15.50)

“I was just so shocked, that’s all. I’m fine, Doc.” Tyler started sitting up. “I’m all right,” he insisted, if weakly. When he started to stand, some of the other men reached in to steady him.

“Maybe you’d better lie down,” Alex said as he gripped the man’s upper arm in case he keeled over again.

“Yes, he should,” the doctor said.

“I’m all right now,” Tyler said, his voice still sounding weak. “It’s just that when Hal was opening that box to show you the knife that the society has held in safekeeping for over a thousand years, I was thinking of all the generations of members who have lived for this day without ever seeing any of the things they believed in and waited for, and here I stand, seeing a prediction in a book over a thousand years old come to life right before my very eyes. But then when I saw the other knife . . .”

Everyone started talking at once. Jax took the opportunity to retrieve her weapon and return it to its sheath as she came around the table to see about the man.

The doctor told Tyler to lie down on the couch and put his feet up. The man, embarrassed by the attention, didn’t want to, even though he still looked wobbly on his feet. People spoke up, telling him that he should follow the doctor’s orders.

Out of the corner of his eye, on the other side of the knot of people, Alex saw a hand reach out and snatch the knife from its velvet bed in the open box.

In a blur of movement, the middle-aged man with the knife elbowed a woman back out of his way as he dove for Jax.

Jax saw him at the last instant and jerked back, but not fast enough. The blade caught her with a glancing blow as she spun away from the surprise attack.

Hal was close. He crashed through the chairs toward the man and deflected his arm as he again drove the blade in toward Jax. By then, Alex was also flying into the melee. The woman who had been knocked out of the way by the knife-wielding man screamed.

Other people yelled, “Fred, no!” at the attacker.

Ignoring the cries for him to stop, Fred slashed wildly. Jax drew a knife as she dodged the attacks. As he lunged for her again, Hal kicked the arm of the knife-wielding man away from her. The blow whirled him around so that his back was to Alex.

As he raced in, Alex twisted to add momentum and power as he used all his strength to smash his elbow in against the back of the man’s neck. The impact was enough to crush his vertebrae. The man went limp and in a sinuous movement collapsed, sprawling onto his back as frightened people scrambled out of the way.

The doctor went to a knee beside him, putting fingers to the side of his neck. “He’s still alive, someone call—”

Using a foot to boost herself, Jax leaped over a toppled chair, knife in hand. She landed beside the downed man and, with both fists around the handle of her knife, drove the blade down through the center of the prostrate man’s face. It slammed in far enough to hit the back of the skull.

“Now he’s not,” Jax growled.

Alex saw blood down the front of her white blouse, but other things had suddenly taken priority. He grabbed Jax by the arm, lifting her. She held on to the knife as he hauled her up. The bloody blade abruptly came unstuck and drew back out as she pulled it with her.

Alex shoved her back toward the wall behind the table. As she was still stumbling back and hitting the wall, he rounded the table and drew his gun. He used the table as a physical barrier to maintain space as he brought the weapon up, pointing it at the people before him.

“Everyone on the ground!”

They froze in shock.

“On your knees! Now! Or I’ll start shooting!”

People dropped to their knees in a panic.

“Hands behind your heads! Lock your fingers!”

“I’m a doctor,” one of the men said. “Jax is hurt. Let me help her.”

“On your knees or you’re dead! Understand?”

The man nodded reluctantly.

“Jax?” Alex asked over his shoulder without taking his eyes off the people lined up on the floor. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad enough for you to put down your Glock.”

Alex didn’t find her words all that encouraging, since he knew that she believed he was more important to stopping Cain’s plan than she was. At least she was talking.

Alex gestured with a tilt of his head. “Hal, take a look, will you please?”

Hal, to the side on one knee with his hands raised, rushed to do as Alex asked. Alex focused on the task at hand, on watching everyone in case there were accomplices to the man who had attacked Jax. He didn’t know if there was another traitor among the society. For all he knew this whole thing was an elaborate trap. He didn’t want to panic into pulling the trigger, but he had to be ready in case it became necessary.

As Alex kept the gun leveled on the cluster of people kneeling on the carpet in the middle of the room, he saw Hal rush over to the

wet bar and grab a towel. He heard the towel being ripped.

“Hal—talk to me.”

“Dead Fred there caught her arm with the knife. Fortunately it hasn’t been sharpened in a thousand years or it might have done more serious damage. I’m not a doctor, but I’m sure she’s going to need stitches.”

Alex let out a sigh of relief.

“What’s the plan, Alex?” Hal asked as he walked Jax over to the wet bar, pressing a towel against her forearm the whole way.

“The plan is not to have any more surprises.”

“That was a pretty big one,” Ralph said from his place on the floor. “I’ve known Fred Logan for years and I never thought him capable of anything like that. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“That makes two of us,” Mike Fenton said.

Alex kept his finger alongside the barrel of the gun as he sighted through the iron sights, fearing to hold his finger against the trigger lest something make him flinch and cause him to accidentally press it. He knew from countless hours of practice that from where they were on the floor no one could beat him to his gun before he could twitch his finger down to the trigger.

Hal cursed under his breath. Out of the corner of his eye Alex saw him leading a somewhat wobbly Jax around behind.

“That damn bar sink isn’t big enough to wash a grape,” Hal said. “I need to take her into the bathroom and use the sink in there, or the tub.”

“How bad is it?” the doctor asked.

“It didn’t seem to cut any veins. She’s lucky.”

“Right, lucky,” Jax growled.

Underlying the sarcasm, Alex could read the anger in her voice. He was relieved that she was angry. That meant it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared at first.

“I have a kit in my car,” the doctor said.

“You just do as Alex asked, Doc, and stay right there for the moment,” Hal said.

“Well, wash around it good but don’t get soap in the laceration, then wrap it tight enough to put compression on the wound to stop the bleeding.”