The Eighth Day (23 page)

Tegan narrowed her green eyes. “You mean I should just suck up to him like you do?
My lady this, my lady that
. . . all that vassal crap he likes so much.”

“Look.” Jax grabbed her arm. “He's trying to recruit you. Don't use your talent for him.”

She pulled away. “I do what keeps me alive and loose and ready to run. I know how to survive in this world better than you do. I don't
need
you jumping between me and guns.”

“Well, I promise never to do it again!” Jax snapped, looking over her shoulder. John Balin was walking toward them.

“Donovan.” He took her by the arm, steering her away from Jax. “You're coming with me.”

Meanwhile, Angus threw open the rear passenger door of the Land Rover. “In,” he ordered Jax.

They were being separated. First Evangeline. Now Tegan. And Miller—Jax scanned the area again. There was no way to warn Miller that Tegan had been used against him. He looked at Angus. “Where are you taking me?”

Angus folded his arms, stone-faced. “Get in the car, Aubrey.”

Jax looked up into this man's cold eyes and imagined him behind the wheel of a car on a dark night, swerving viciously into the side of another vehicle. Then he did as he was told.

On Monday, Jax was driven across the border into Mexico.

He didn't hold out much hope they'd be stopped at Immigration, and they weren't. An official stamped a passport with a picture bearing no resemblance to Jax and handed it back without question. He had followed Angus Balin to the car, angry that he hadn't realized the significance of the pesos mixed in with the money Tegan had stolen from the farmhouse.
Where was that talent for information I'm supposed to have?
Jax could've told Miller, maybe given him an idea where they were headed—but instead he'd been too much an idiot to recognize a clue when he saw one.

Miller was Jax's best hope of rescue, but that gave him little comfort.
The final option
. Did Riley agree? That killing Evangeline might become their only choice?

But he didn't know if Miller would catch up with them anyway. He'd seen no one but Ugly Angus since Friday, and he only had John Balin's word that Jax would be present when they let Evangeline out of that casket on Grunsday. He had long since given up asking Angus questions—where they were going or what had happened to Tegan. He didn't dare ask about Miller.

On Wednesday, they skirted around Mexico City and headed into the countryside, toward a mountain range. Each individual mountain peak was conical, like a volcano.

Oh God. They aren't planning to throw her into a volcano, are they?

Then Jax spotted a road sign suspended over the highway:

↑ PIRAMIDES

“No way,” Jax whispered.

Thanks to that television show Riley liked to watch, Jax knew exactly what spot had been chosen to conduct the end of the world.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

THE WORLD LURCHED,
and Evangeline's scream died in her throat. Seven days had just passed without her, and the silk-lined prison rocked with the rhythm of footsteps
.

She screamed again, furiously pummeling the sides of the coffin. They might have flown her halfway around the world by now. Jax—for whom she was responsible—might have been left behind or seven days dead for all she knew
.

The only certain thing was that she was still among enemies. Her hand went to the Pendragon dagger lying next to her heart. Riley would come to retrieve it. That promise had been implied in the gift. But he hadn't reached her yet, or he would've had the coffin open already
.

Perhaps he'd been killed trying
.

She stifled panic at the thought. Whatever had happened in the last seven days, Riley had sent her this blade so she could draw magic from it. It had been a generous gift and a sign of trust. Evangeline took control of her breathing. For his sake, and for Jax's, she would go down fighting
.

She slipped her right hand inside her shirt. When she ran her fingertips over the engraved crest on the dagger's hilt, she experienced a jolt of power. Emrys magic on a Pendragon blade. She wondered if such a thing had ever been done before. Perhaps not since Merlin and Arthur and the Eighth Day Spell
.

Evangeline murmured the incantation for the only spell she knew that required no symbolic objects to invoke it, just the energy of her own body. She clenched her hands into fists. Magic tingled on her flesh, dancing along her forearms with startling intensity. Holding both fists tight against her sides, she rocked back and forth with the movement of the casket and planned for the moment they set this thing down and opened it
.

The motion of the casket stopped, and Evangeline clenched her hands experimentally. The magical charge stung her flesh like she was holding fistfuls of lightning. The casket thumped onto the floor, and her heart pounded, adding fuel to her prepared spell. When the lid opened, Evangeline elbowed herself upright, stood, and scanned the room
.

John Balin faced her in a room that contained a bed, a chair, and a television bolted to the wall. A skinny woman with a pinched face stood beside him, armed
.

“She has a spell prepared,” a voice piped up. Evangeline's eyes snapped back to Balin. A girl with carrot-colored hair stood behind him
.

Balin and the woman drew their guns. “She's built up a big charge,” the girl said. She was obviously a sensitive with an acute awareness of magic, and Evangeline recognized her as one of the
people who'd subdued Jax—only a few minutes ago by Evangeline's timeline
.

“Lady Emrys,” Balin said. “Disperse your spell—and gently.”

Evangeline shook her head. “You didn't go to all this trouble just to shoot me.”

He smiled grimly and raised his voice. “Bring in the boy.” A man who looked like a younger version of Balin dragged Jax into the room and shoved him to his knees. Balin pressed his pistol to the back of Jax's head. “If you begin hostilities, all bargains are dissolved between us.”

“Don't—” Jax started, but the two men together forced his head down further
.

Brave Jax. Evangeline was absolutely certain he'd been going to say “Don't worry about me” and not “Don't shoot.”

John Balin spoke evenly. “Don't make me kill this boy for no reason. Even if you get out of this room, the hotel is full of my men and you are very far from home.”

Evangeline was outnumbered and outmatched, and Jax would die if she made the wrong move. Reluctantly, she uncurled her fingers and pressed her palms into the lining of the coffin lid. A loud poof preceded the combustion, and the fabric burst into blue flames. She stepped out of the coffin and slammed the lid closed to smother the fire
.

Balin didn't take his gun away from Jax's head. “Donovan.”

The girl inched forward, sniffing inquisitively. Her eyebrows shot up, and her eyes went straight to Evangeline's chest
.

Evangeline's heart sank. This girl was very talented; the ones with scent sensitivity often were. Even over the stink of magic fire in
the coffin, she'd pinpointed the hidden honor blade. But then the girl stared Evangeline in the eyes and said, “She's clear.”

Only then did Balin holster his gun, although the pinch-faced woman kept hers handy. The man who'd brought Jax in hauled him to his feet. Jax tried to walk toward Evangeline, but was pushed to the door instead
.

“Leave him here,” Evangeline exclaimed
.

“If my lord gives permission, you'll have your vassal back. Until then, he stays under guard.”

“Then bring Wylit to me at once.” Evangeline snapped her fingers as if she were the person in charge, but her voice cracked
.

Balin smiled coldly at her attempt to take control. “My lord has not yet arrived, but when he does, you will be summoned.” He looked her over from head to toe, and a spasm of distaste crossed his face. “In the meantime, you'll change into something appropriate for the occasion.” The woman held up a dress of frothy white fabric. Evangeline snatched it, but when she started toward the bathroom, Balin ordered, “Donovan, go with her.”

They weren't even going to let her into the bathroom alone. The girl, Donovan, didn't look happy about it, but she slipped into the room with Evangeline and shut the door behind her
.

The sole window was narrow and high up the wall. No escaping that way, even if she overpowered the girl. With an angry twist of her wrist, Evangeline turned on the faucet full blast and faced Donovan
.

The girl eyed her sourly. “Let's see it.”

Evangeline pulled the blouse over her head, revealing the dagger strapped across her chest. “Why didn't you tell them?”

“So you'd owe me.”

“Why'd you tell them about my spell, then?”

The girl shrugged. “So they'd owe me.”

Evangeline drenched a washcloth in water and wiped her face and neck. She stank of fear and panic. No wonder she'd been sent in here to clean up. “You're not a vassal?”

“I'm no one's vassal.”

“Are you another prisoner?” The girl didn't answer. Evangeline threw the wet cloth into the sink in frustration. “Can you at least tell me where I am?”

“Mexico.”

Evangeline shook out the dress they'd given her. It was a full length white dress with a train, like a bride might wear. Or a human sacrifice in a magic ritual. There were only thin straps instead of sleeves, and it was backless
.

Donovan snorted. “You're going to have to hide that dagger somewhere else.”

Late the next morning, Evangeline was escorted to a dining room in the hotel. The ceiling was crisscrossed by dark beams, and a mural covered one of the walls. A tall Kin man with long white hair stood in front of the mural, examining it with interest
.

His vassals were lined up on either side of him. Balin stood at the head of one line, with the Donovan girl beside him. On the other side, Balin's younger lookalike held Jax by the shoulder. Evangeline lifted her chin and straightened her back, bracing herself to face a
man who'd made even her father nervous
.

Then Lord Myrddin Wylit turned around, and she couldn't contain a gasp of shock
.

He was horribly burned—and not by fire. There was no mistaking the signs of magical backlash: the bluish tinge to his ruined skin, which hung from his face in peeling shreds. Some very powerful spell had gone terribly wrong
.

“Evangeline Emrys,” he said, drawing out her name between thin white lips. “I am very pleased to have freed you from your captivity.”

“I was not a captive,” she said, hoping her cold expression covered the tremor in her voice. “I was exactly where I wanted to be.”

“In hiding?” Wylit scoffed lightly. “With your one fledgling vassal?”

“Don't presume to know the extent of my connections,” she said
.

Wylit indicated his chief vassal. “Balin informs me that he found you a prisoner of Transitioners, cut off from the Kin, and that you only took the boy as your vassal at the last second. You may keep him, by the way. My gift to you.”

Jax looked startled when the younger Balin handed back his honor blade. Evangeline motioned him over with a subtle curve of her fingers. Jax took the hint, strapping his dagger around his waist and crossing the room to her side
.

“It's very kind of you to give me something I already had,” Evangeline said. “If you would like to win my trust with a more significant gift, you could grant me safe passage home.”

“I'm sure you understand that's not possible. I brought you here for a purpose.”

“I don't even know where here is.”

Wylit raised a hand toward the mural and stepped to one side
.

Now that she gave it her attention, she saw it was a map titled Zona Arqueologica de Teotihuacán. Three pyramids were connected by a long road lined with smaller temples
.

“Teotihuacán,” Wylit said. “City of the Gods. When the Aztecs rose to power in the thirteenth century, this city had already been in ruins for seven hundred years. The Aztecs had no knowledge of the people who built this place—only legends of their greatness. Do you know why?”

“Because the people who lived here were wiped from existence,” Evangeline guessed. “Their timeline destroyed.”

Wylit gazed at the mural. “Imagine a city with a population in the hundreds of thousands at a time when London was a Roman village—obliterated in the span of a few seconds by a handful of Indian shamans.” Wylit turned to Evangeline. “The perfect location to right an ancient wrong.”

“You want to bring them back?”

He laughed. “Hardly.”

“Then you're still following my father's plan to undo the Eighth Day Spell.”

Wylit's voice hardened. “Your father's plan was flawed.”

Evangeline said nothing. She knew her father had been misguided. Even when she was a little girl, his passionate speeches on the matter had made her uneasy, especially when she saw what kind of allies rallied to his cause and how her mother had grown more and more reluctant to participate. But she listened silently to Wylit's reasoning
.

“The Kin are scattered across the earth, hidden among Normals. We've had no more than ten generations to their hundreds and are outnumbered by billions. The Wylit line has been lucky, served for centuries by the Balin family, but most Kin were weakened by this imprisonment. What would Normals do if an unexplained race suddenly appeared among them? Mistake us for aliens? How long before they decided to kill us all?”