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The Law of Nines
Terry Goodkind
The #1 New York Times bestselling author delivers a stunningly original , high-octane thriller.They watch you through mirrors…‘Your mother was twenty-seven when it came to her. Now you’re twenty-seven, and it’s come to you.’The skin of Alex’s arms tingled with goose bumps. By her twenty-seventh birthday insanity had come to his mother…Turning twenty-seven may be terrifying for some, but for Alex, a struggling artist living in the mid-western United States, it’s cataclysmic. Inheriting a huge expanse of land should have made him a rich and happy man; but something about this birthday, his name, and the beautiful woman whose life he just saved, has suddenly made him – and everyone he loves – into a target. A target for extreme and uncompromising violence…Where do you turn when your own reflection spells doom?In Alex, Terry Goodkind, the New York Times #1 bestselling author, brings to life a modern hero in a whole new kind of stunningly original, high-octane, page-turning thriller.
Copyright (#ulink_9d6a034b-5608-541f-bfe8-b5672d12af5c)
HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
FIRST EDITION
Copyright © Terry Goodkind 2009
Terry Goodkind asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015
Cover Design by Richard Hasselberger
Cover photograph © JFCreative/Getty Images
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780007303670
Ebook Edition © September 2009 ISBN: 9780007350681
Version: 01-06-2015
To Jeri, the love of my life, who is always there for me. She gives me her strength when I’m weak and her special smile when I’m strong. No one knows as well as she everything that has brought me to this place, this book, this new road. I could never be who I am, or accomplish all that I do, without her at my side every step of the way. She completes me. This one is for her.
Table of Contents
Cover (#u5f048491-a3cd-5850-858b-fc00e17dafbb)
Title Page (#uf5ca2e62-e807-56cb-8f3e-0385d180dd5c)
Copyright (#u09caaccb-8a0f-5b13-81a9-a66b65421444)
Dedication (#u96996f0a-46b6-5d76-b406-1ce8e017474b)
Chapter 1 (#ueb6be1be-ef84-5b8b-bf28-a1e76bb1c13f)
Chapter 2 (#u3b81b8c4-e570-5c06-9994-6ecc4d23dd5a)
Chapter 3 (#u624fc398-b58c-50e8-8b36-397b84dd919d)
Chapter 4 (#uc4d12d53-349e-5b2a-ad8f-52c657657233)
Chapter 5 (#ud1ab4f84-a94f-5942-b5a1-8407e0cc9a6b)
Chapter 6 (#u613e1a0e-bfa1-5916-b689-f94c42b0fc14)
Chapter 7 (#u4f314b0b-f588-5038-a47a-b618cbf17188)
Chapter 8 (#ub9f8f795-207e-55ff-8b35-2897b18394fd)
Chapter 9 (#uf2367d9a-c4ee-5980-b96e-bc38ab0dd468)
Chapter 10 (#u72f2532b-71aa-5016-ba59-816b28323f52)
Chapter 11 (#u38d59c9e-39b5-5a86-b976-eac9d90aa5e7)
Chapter 12 (#ud73d741e-df9f-5d18-aaed-bbb7e9d22b9c)
Chapter 13 (#u02514425-60b4-511a-ad3b-2886cef2d970)
Chapter 14 (#ue2f133cd-0258-5902-8d81-c5f4be209351)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 60 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 61 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 62 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
1. (#ulink_6113c9f0-6e4c-5de1-8728-39f3b9838f6b)
IT WAS THE PIRATE FLAG flying atop the plumbing truck that first caught his attention. The white skull and crossbones seemed to be straining to keep from being blown off the flapping black flag as the flatbed truck, apparently trying to beat the light, cannonballed through the intersection. The truck heeled over as it cut an arc around the corner. White PVC pipe rolled across the diamond plate of the truck bed, sounding like the sharp rattle of bones. At the speed it was traveling the truck looked to be in danger of capsizing.
Alex glanced to the only other person waiting at the curb with him. With his mind adrift in distracted thoughts he hadn’t before noticed the lone woman standing just in front of him and to the right. He didn’t even remember seeing where she’d come from. He thought that he saw just a hint of vapor rising from the sides of her arms into the chill air.
Since he wasn’t able to see the woman’s face, Alex didn’t know if she saw the truck bearing down on them, but he found it difficult to believe that she wouldn’t at least hear the diesel engine roaring at full throttle.
Seeing by the truck’s trajectory that it wasn’t going to make the corner, Alex snatched the woman’s upper arm and yanked her back with him.
Tires screeched as the great white truck bounced up over the curb right where Alex and the woman had been standing. The front bumper swept past, missing them by inches. Rusty dust billowed out behind the truck. Chunks of sod and dirt flew by.
Had Alex hesitated they both would have been dead.
On the white door just above the name “Jolly Roger Plumbing” was a picture of a jovial pirate with a jaunty black patch over one eye and a sparkle painted in the corner of his smile. Alex glared back as the pirate sailed past.
When he looked up to see what kind of maniac was driving he instead met the direct, dark glare of a burly passenger. The man’s curly beard and thick mat of dark hair made him look like he really could have been a pirate. His eyes, peering out of narrow slits above plump, pockmarked cheeks, were filled with a kind of vulgar rage.
The big man appeared infuriated that Alex and the woman would dare to be in the way of their off-road excursion. As the door popped open there was no doubt as to his combative intent.
He looked like a man stepping out of a nightmare.
Alex felt a cold wave of adrenaline flood through him as he mentally choreographed his moves. The passenger, who seemed to be getting ready to leap out of the still-moving truck, would reach him before the driver could join in, making it one against one—at least for a brief time. Alex couldn’t believe that it was happening, but it was and he knew that he was going to have to deal with it.
