The Inquisitor's Mark (13 page)

“You been living under a rock?” Then the man grinned. “Oh, you just turned. These are early models. Before computer chips. They'll work, same as cassettes and record players.”

Jax looked at a bin of VHS tapes. Evangeline had never seen a movie. Jax had more important things to think about right now, but he stared at the movies hungrily, wishing he could give Evangeline something she'd never had.

Uncle Finn leaned against the cart beside him. “Want one?”

Jax snapped out of it. “No.”

“We'll take that one.” Uncle Finn pointed out a VCR for the vendor. “I need it delivered to my building.”

“No thank you, Uncle Finn,” Jax repeated firmly.

“Consider it the first of thirteen birthday presents I owe you.” Then he grinned, and Jax wished he wouldn't, because he looked like Jax's dad when he did. “Let me buy my nephew a gift. Pick out some movies to go with it.”

This is silly. When I leave, I won't be carrying a VCR
. But
Jax selected some VHS tapes anyway, playing along. Uncle Finn gave his address to the vendor and paid cash from a new wallet. Remembering who had Uncle Finn's old wallet, Jax looked around. Billy was down the street, investigating other carts and asking Dorian questions. Lesley was negotiating with her mother for the right to go listen to the band. And Uncle Finn, apparently, was sticking to Jax like glue. How was he going to meet Tegan?

“Can I look around?” Jax asked his uncle.

“That's why we brought you here.”

“No, I mean alone.” When Uncle Finn frowned, Jax put on his
I'll be honest with you
face. “Look, this family thing is freaking me out. I'm trying, really, but if you want me to trust you, then you can start by trusting me.”

They faced off for a long moment. Finally, Uncle Finn said, “I'm sorry, Jax. We've gone to a lot of trouble to find you, and I don't want to lose you.”

“Okay, no trust then.” Jax reached inside his borrowed suit coat. The Dulac kid had a reinforced pocket sewn inside it, just for carrying an honor blade. Handy. “I'll swear it. On the Aubrey name—uh,
Ambrose
,” he corrected when he saw his uncle's face. “Ambrose, Aubrey, whoever I am, I swear on my bloodline that I'll go back to your apartment with you tonight.”

That seemed to satisfy him. “Very well. Take a walk around. We'll meet you back here in an hour.”

As Jax put away his dagger and hurried to catch up
with Billy, he thought back to last Grunsday and the Kin woman at the Carroway house. His oath, sworn on two names, brought her words back to him.

You're not who you think you are
.

That was for sure.

You're not who they think you are, either.

No, he certainly didn't intend to be.

JAX AND BILLY NAVIGATED
the perimeter of Rockefeller Center. As they passed the summer gardens, Thomas Donovan vaulted over a low wall into their path. He threw an arm around Billy's neck, bent him over, and rubbed his knuckles across Billy's scalp. “Hey, Ramirez. How's it goin'?”

“Urgh.” Billy struggled to escape.

Tegan appeared from behind a tree and grabbed Jax by the lapels of his suit coat. She hauled him close and leaned her head next to his, sniffing. Jax had always been skeeved out by the Donovans' smelling talent, but this time, for some reason, it didn't seem that bad.

Her hair smelled like tangerines.

Then she shoved him backward. “He's all right,” she said to Thomas. “Nothing's changed, except I smell a couple new oaths on him.”

Okay, no. It
was
creepy.

Thomas let go of Billy. “Ramirez is messed up. Not a lot, but they hurt him.”

Billy staggered, recovering his balance. “I can't believe you guys are part of this.”

Jax felt a looming presence behind him and turned to face Mrs. Crandall. “I should put you over my knee,” she said, glowering at him, and the twins grinned like that would be loads of fun to watch. Mrs. Crandall snapped, “Your phone,” and held out her hand expectantly.

“I disabled it.” Jax handed it over anyway. “Right after texting Tegan, I realized it was a security risk. I shouldn't have been calling A.J. on it.”

Mrs. Crandall grunted. “If you'd bothered to read
my
texts, I tried to instruct you on how to contact us with less risk. Jax, what possessed you—”

“Riley's last order was to ask the Donovans to find Addie, and they did!” Jax interrupted. “Or at least, they tracked her to my uncle. I'm your best shot at finding out where she is. They're making nice with me while they try to talk me into giving them Evangeline.”

Mrs. Crandall sucked in a breath. “They won't be able to get around your oath to her, that's for sure. But I'm not surprised they want to track her down after what happened last week, probably more than they want Riley right now.” Jax frowned. That might make Mrs. Crandall feel better, but it didn't comfort Jax. “What that Kin woman told you—”

“Oeth-Anoeth fell to the Llyrs. Right?”

Thomas looked surprised. “You already knew?”

Jax recalled the Kin woman's glassy eyes and faraway gaze. “I think I got a real-time report of it.” He turned to Mrs. Crandall. “You said there were only a few of them left. How'd they break out?”

“They had help,” Mrs. Crandall said. “Possibly from Kin who came from
this
country.”

“Dad thinks they'll be coming here,” Tegan said.

“Oh, you've talked to your dad, have you?” Mrs. Crandall put her hands on her hips. “He disappeared after we got to New York, and just like Jax, he won't answer my calls.”

Tegan shrugged. “He has stuff to do, investments to protect. Especially if the Kin are going to rise up and start the next apocalypse.”

“Look,” Jax said to Tegan, “I know you don't like Kin, but—”

Thomas barked out a laugh. “It's not
all
Kin she has a problem with. Just
one
she can't stand.” He waggled his eyebrows at Jax as if expecting him to guess who he meant.

Tegan punched her brother in the stomach hard enough to double him over.

Mrs. Crandall grabbed each twin by the scruff of the neck and separated them. “This is too dangerous a time for you to play spy, Jax, even if you think the Dulacs are being nice. Trust me: they won't be for long. The Llyrs
have a unique and powerful talent, and now that they're free, things could get deadly fast. Securing the two Emrys girls is the surest way to prevent the Llyrs from tampering with the Eighth-Day Spell. That's why Ursula wants them.”

“You'd almost think she was trying to do the right thing,” Jax muttered. “Except if she had good intentions, she would've told me Addie was here.”

“Glad you see my point,” Mrs. Crandall said. “That's why you're leaving here with us. Now.”

“I don't think so.” Jax was pretty sure that if she picked him up and threw him over her shoulder, Mrs. Crandall still wouldn't be able to leave the area with him. “I swore an oath to my uncle that I'd go back to his apartment tonight.”

“Jax!” she exclaimed.

“But you can take Billy,” he said.

“What?” Billy looked hurt and betrayed.

“My uncle will be mad, but at least you'll be safe.”

“What about the damsel in distress?” Billy demanded. “I thought I was going to help!”

“It'll be better if I only have one person to worry about,” Jax said apologetically. “I'm going to take another stab at finding Addie in that building. I've got less than twenty-four hours to figure out if she's there . . . and smuggle her out if she is.”

Mrs. Crandall grimaced in disapproval but gave in.
“Since you swore an oath to go back there, you've left us with no choice. We'll take Billy. If you get Adelina out of that building, you can meet us in Chinatown, where we're staying with
friends
of the Donovans.”

By the tone of her voice, Jax already knew what she meant by
friends
even before Tegan corrected her. “Not friends.
Associates
. And they won't want us bringing trouble to their hideout. We'll use the Balto statue as a meeting place instead.” When Tegan saw that meant nothing to Jax, she explained, “It's a statue of a dog in Central Park, near East Sixty-seventh Street. Tommy or I will be waiting there.”

Jax nodded and made no comment about dog statues and smelling talents, although it crossed his mind.

Suddenly Thomas pushed Jax aside and dived into the Rockefeller Center garden. A moment later, he emerged, dragging a boy pinned under his arm. “Look what I got.”

“Dorian,” Jax growled. “What're you doing?”

“Dad told me to follow you and find out who you were meeting.” Dorian tugged at Thomas's forearm.

Jax groaned. He didn't think he'd been that obvious. “Let him go, Thomas.”

Thomas did, reluctantly, and Dorian brushed himself off with injured dignity. His eyes darted around the little group. “I guess you must be Tegan,” he said to her. Jax groaned again.

“What does he mean?” Tegan demanded.

“Never mind that,” Jax said. “What're we going to do?” Mrs. Crandall seemed just as aghast at Dorian's sudden appearance as Jax was.
Is our side going to start kidnapping kids now?

Dorian looked back and forth between the Donovan twins. He gasped and pointed at Thomas. “You're the boy who picked Dad's pocket at the bus station. And you”—the finger moved to Tegan—“you bumped into Jax in the doorway. Which means”—he whirled on Jax—“you have his keys. Oh wow, you have
Dad's keys
!”

Thomas slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand. “This is going to get ugly.”

Dorian, for some reason, was grinning. “No, this is perfect! But you can't let Billy leave with them now, or you'll give it all away, and we'll never be able to find that girl.”

“What?” exclaimed Mrs. Crandall. Jax blinked in confusion.

“
This
is why you didn't run away with Billy last night,” Dorian said, his eyes alight. “Even though you had the keys. You couldn't get
her
out last night, but we can do it tonight.”

“You know your family's keeping a girl prisoner in your building?” Jax asked, horrified to find out Dorian was an accomplice to it.

“I heard my dad talking about it,” Dorian said. “I haven't seen her for myself.”

“Why would you help me?”

Dorian faltered. “Because . . . uh, because . . . the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing?”

He said it like it was a question, like he wasn't sure, but Mrs. Crandall took a step backward, her expression changing.

“I did nothing when Albert Ganner broke Billy's arm,” Dorian admitted. He turned to Billy. “It's a good thing you don't remember. It was
hours
before we could get you to Mom.”

Billy gulped.

“And I've done nothing while Dad tortures my sister. I . . . I can't stand it anymore . . . and I don't think I can stop it by myself.” Dorian seemed to shrink a couple inches. “I need your help,” he whispered.

“He's telling the truth,” Mrs. Crandall said, but Jax didn't need her talent to know that.

Twenty minutes later, Jax, Billy, and Dorian sat on a wall overlooking the band and ate ice cream, while Uncle Finn and Aunt Marian watched from nearby.

“What'd you tell your dad?” Jax asked Dorian.

“That your girlfriend followed you to New York because she was worried about you.”

Jax nodded but still felt obligated to say, “She's not,
you know. I made that up.”

Dorian shrugged. “If you say so.”

On the plaza, Lesley danced to the music, spangled bracelets glittering on her arms, her dark hair loose and bouncing on her shoulders. She didn't look like someone subjected to experiments, alternately ignored and tormented by her father.

“Do you think she'd run away with us?” Billy asked. “I mean, this is her home.”

“My dad did it,” Jax said. “If Uncle Finn is going to try blood magic on Lesley, we'll
make
her come.” Thinking whose blood Dorian said Uncle Finn wanted to use made Jax's own blood boil.

“I know she won't want to leave. But if the nightmares and the sleepwalking keep going, and Dad won't leave her alone . . .” Dorian looked at Jax. “Would your guardian take her in?”

“Absolutely.”

“You're that sure without asking him?”

Jax tried to imagine Riley turning away a fourteen-year-old girl in trouble and couldn't picture it. Of course, this girl was related to people who'd killed Riley's own family—and who might still want to kill
him
. In spite of that, Jax said with confidence, “I'm sure.”

It was two thirty by Jax's Grunsday watch when Uncle Finn decided to go home. Jax was starting to worry the whole night would get away from them.

“Not a problem,” Dorian assured him. “Trust me.”

Aunt Marian pried her daughter away from the music under protest—at least until Lesley caught her father's eye. Then she scrambled to do as she was told. Uncle Finn flagged down a blue pedicab, and they climbed aboard. The cyclist pedaled down the sidewalk, diverging onto the road when there was space between the stopped cars. Billy leaned over the side to look at the stationary vehicles, fascinated.

They were delivered to the Dulac apartment building. Jax yawned, then shook himself vigorously. He doubted there was any time to be wasted sleeping tonight. As he stepped out of the pedicab, an urgent tug in his heart caused him to stop and look down the street.

At the end of the block, a motorcycle idled softly. The rider was anonymously dressed in a black leather biker's jacket and jeans, wearing a helmet with the visor down, but Jax recognized the bike.

Dang it, Riley. What part of “hang tight and wait to hear from me” didn't you understand?
He must have jumped on his bike at 12:01 and ridden ninety miles an hour to get here this fast. But it was the irresistible pull drawing Jax's attention to the motorcycle that alarmed Jax most—because he had no such bond with Riley.

Then the passenger on the bike shifted position, peeking out from behind the driver. She was dressed in a too-large jacket and also wore a helmet, visor down. There
wasn't a strand of blond hair visible, but there didn't need to be. Jax knew her with every cell in his body.

Crap! Why did he bring her here?
But Jax knew why. Evangeline's sister and vassal were here. She'd refused to be left behind.

Jax cut his hand sharply across the air in a
back off
gesture, then looked up to find his uncle watching him. Uncle Finn changed direction and walked briskly toward the motorcycle.

The rider gunned the engine and took off, weaving between the cars, passing the Ambroses, and disappearing around a corner. Uncle Finn turned to Jax, eyebrows raised, but Jax didn't look at the departing bike. He yawned deliberately and headed, zombielike, for the door of the apartment building as if he had nothing but sleep on his mind. But his heart thumped madly.

The two people the Dulacs wanted were now within their reach.

This was not part of Jax's plan.

Why didn't anybody ever listen to him?