AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Will do,” Hal said, his voice echoing from the bathroom as he flicked on the light.
“Mr. Rahl?” Mildred said, unable to take her eyes off the bloody corpse sprawled on the floor in front of her. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Mildred, look at me.” The frightened woman looked up at him. “You’re going to be fine. Don’t look at him, look at me. You’re not going to be sick. You’re a member of the Daggett Society. You’re going to be strong.”
That seemed to buck her up a little. She took a deep breath and kept her eyes on Alex. He hoped she wasn’t in on it.
“I don’t understand,” Mike Fenton said. “We’ve all known Fred Logan for years.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Alex said. “I’ve been fooled by these people as well. They’re good at what they do. You knew Fred here for years. I’ve only known most of you for hours. There is a lot at stake. I hope you understand why I can’t take any chances.”
Most of the people nodded.
Alex was glad to see Jax coming out of the bedroom. Her left forearm had a makeshift bandage made of strips of motel towels.
She drew her knife as she knelt down beside Alex. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “I’m just angry with myself that he caught me off guard like that. I feel stupid letting him cut me.”
“Now you know how I felt,” Alex said.
A number of the people watching from only a few feet away gasped when Jax leaned over and started cutting symbols into the dead man’s forehead. The beige carpet was soaked with blood all around his head. Yet more trickled down as Jax cut.
Finished, Jax sat back on her heels. Alex concentrated on trying to stop his hands from shaking as he sighted down the gun at people he hoped he wouldn’t have to shoot.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Hal said under his breath. “He’s vanished.”
Alex glanced down and saw that the dead man was indeed gone. The carpet was clean. Jax’s knife was clean.
“He was from my world,” Jax said to the people watching in wide-eyed shock. “I sent him back.”
Everyone began asking questions at once.
“Quiet!” Alex shouted. The room fell silent.
“What now?” Jax whispered to him.
“Now,” he said so that everyone could hear, “we’re going to test all of these people to see if any of them vanish and go back like Fred did.”
People gasped in fear. Alex gestured with one hand to quiet them down.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to use a knife.”
Struck with a sudden worry of his own, he glanced over at Jax and whispered, “You don’t need to cut the skin, do you?”
“No. I only use a knife because I want to send their people a message, a message delivered in blood. I can use anything that will make marks.”
“Hal,” Alex said, gesturing with his gun, “frisk them. I want to know if any of them are armed.”
Hal apologized as he went from one person to the next, doing a thorough job of looking for hidden weapons. When finished, he stood.
“No hand grenades, no rocket launchers.”
“Good. Can you get Jax a pen off the table there, please?”
Hal stayed out of the line of fire and walked around behind to hand Jax the pen.
Jax crooked a finger at Mike Fenton, then pointed at the carpet a few feet in front of her. “Stay on your knees and come forward.”
Mike moved forward, keeping his fingers locked behind his head. He looked up at Hal, as if pleading his case.
“Just do as they ask, Mike. After what happened with Fred, Alex is making sense. We have to check everyone out.”
“Why not you?” Mike asked.
Hal heaved a sigh and knelt down in front of Jax. He tapped a finger against his forehead. “Test me first.”
Jax nodded and started drawing the symbols with the stubby motel pen. When she finished she sat back on her heels and rested her drawing hand in her lap. Hal turned and showed off the symbols on his forehead.
“See?” she said to the group. “I’m drawing a trigger that will activate a lifeline to take anyone from my world back there. If Hal had been from my world, he would have gone back just like that dead man, Fred, did.”
Everyone nodded that it made sense. They all looked considerably less worried. They came up one at a time and let Jax draw on their foreheads with the pen. It looked bizarre to see a roomful of people on their knees, all getting strange symbols drawn on their foreheads.
Mildred went last. She didn’t vanish. She looked relieved, though, as if she had feared she somehow might.
“I wish I could somehow preserve it,” she said to the group as she looked at all their foreheads. “We’re the first members of the society to see something from that other world since the book was first written.”
“Now what?” Hal asked, concerned with more important things than preserving a design.
“Now we let the doctor see to Jax’s arm,” Alex said.
“About time,” the man grumbled as he stood and came forward.
On his way by, Hal grabbed the man’s shirt at his shoulder. “Don’t you be that way to Alex. Fred’s the one who tried to kill Jax. Alex didn’t have to come. He didn’t have to take the land and he doesn’t have to be a part of any of this. Don’t begrudge him being afraid for his life, and the life of this young lady, here. It was one of the people we asked him to trust who attacked her.”
The doctor sighed. “You’re right, Hal. Sorry, Alex, Jax. I guess I just feel guilty because we let one of them into our midst. We could have ruined everything, and it would have been our fault.”
Other people nodded.
“Like I said, they fooled me, too,” Alex said. “But just because you all passed the first test, that doesn’t mean that I’m satisfied yet. Jax and I were almost killed by a doctor from this world who was working with them.”
Hal looked surprised. “Seriously?”
“Serious as a heart attack,” Alex said.
“This is going to need stitches,” the doctor said as he unwrapped Jax’s arm.
“Can’t you use magic glue?” Jax asked.
When the doctor frowned up at her, Alex said, “She means superglue.”
“Oh. Well, I could.”
“I have some in my truck. Hal, you want to get it?”
“Wait.” The doctor tossed Hal his keys. “Get my bag out of the back seat of my car instead, will you? I’ve got superglue but it’s medical grade. It’s more flexible and works better.”
Hal hurried out. He shortly returned with a black bag.
The doctor gestured to the table. “Over there. Let’s get her over there so she can lay her arm on the table.”
The two of them guided Jax over to the table. The doctor warned her that the glue would feel hot and sting. If it did, she didn’t voice a reaction. Alex didn’t hear a peep out of her as he kept his eye on the group on their knees before him. A few of them were getting tired and sat back on their heels.
It seemed to take forever, but when the doctor was finished Jax reappeared at Alex’s side sporting a tightly wrapped arm below the rolled-up sleeve of her white blouse.
“I have blood all over me,” she said. “I need to get some other clothes or I will draw attention.”
With a quick glance, he saw that she looked like she’d participated in an ax murder. “You’re right. Hal, would you go out to my truck with her? Watch her back?”
Hal caught the keys when Alex tossed them. “Sure.”
After they had returned, Jax hurried into the other room to change. It wasn’t long until she came out of the bedroom wearing the red top and different jeans.
“What now?” Hal asked.
“Now,” Alex said, “we’re leaving.”
“What about all of us?” Mike asked. “We have so much more we need to talk about.”
“We’ll have to talk later. I’m going to let Hal do the second half of the testing first, to see if any of you were in cahoots with your
dead Daggett Society member from another world.”
Alex kept the gun pointed in the general direction of the group as he took Jax by the arm and backed toward the door.
51.
ANY IDEAS WHAT WE SHOULD DO?” Jax asked on the way across the dark lot toward the Cherokee. Safely out of the room, Alex scanned the area and at last holstered his gun. “I don’t see that we have a lot of options. We can go after them or we can run.”
“If we run they will hunt us down.”
