The Inquisitor's Mark (9 page)

Jax looked up into a face he'd hoped he would never see again.

“AUBREY?”

Angus Balin must've been just as surprised as Jax, because his grip loosened. Jax wrenched sideways and dived for the tunnel entrance. He bashed his forehead on the wall of the cell first, but found the hole and stuffed his head and torso inside.

Hands clamped around his ankles.

Jax clawed at the tunnel walls, but there was nothing to hold on to. Balin hauled him backward, then wrapped his huge hands around Jax's neck and shook him like he was no bigger than a kitten. Jax kicked and pounded his attacker with his fists. He might as well have been hitting the wall.

“I'm going to enjoy choking the life out of you, Aubrey.” Balin's grip tightened. Jax panicked and clawed at the hands around his neck. Then a puzzled look passed over the man's face. “But how did you get in here?”

Jax pointed desperately at the wall. Balin eased up on Jax's throat enough for him to gasp, “Tunnel . . . invisible . . .”

Balin shifted his grip to Jax's T-shirt and felt with one hand down the wall.

Jax sucked in air. “Are they holding you prisoner? You can escape!” Surely Balin would want to escape more than he wanted to choke the life out of Jax.

“That's a brownie hole,” Balin growled. “I can't get in there. How did you?” Grabbing Jax with both hands, Balin thrust him in the general direction of the tunnel. Jax's head and shoulders banged repeatedly against the wall while Jax flailed helplessly. An arm went in and part of a shoulder; then Balin pulled him out again.

When Balin touched the wall, however, it was solid. He cursed and threw Jax off to one side, standing between him and the only means of escape.

Jax sucked in lungfuls of air. “It's because you're a Balin,” he croaked. Magic didn't work on the Balin family. They had heads like rocks.

“No, it's not. That's a
brownie hole
,” Balin repeated. “Humans can't use them. What
are
you?”

“I'm human!” Jax protested. “Riley said so!” He'd
asked
, back when all this started.

“Whatever you are, I'm going to take my time killing you. I've got nothing else to entertain me.”

“You don't want to kill me.” Jax scrambled to his feet
and backed away. “I've got . . . Look, I've got . . .” He tried to fish the keys out of his pocket, but his hands were shaking.

This
was how the Ambroses knew so much about Jax—that he'd been on the pyramid and that he was Evangeline's vassal. Angus Balin had told them. Jax had spent days in a car driving to Mexico with this man, who'd despised him on sight and offered repeatedly to
take him out back and shoot him
. It was the older brother, John Balin, who'd protected Jax, trying to recruit him for Wylit's cause right up to the moment Jax had betrayed him.

“You killed my liege.” Balin reached for him with his big, meaty paws.

“I didn't kill your liege!” Jax protested, dodging. “He fell down the side of the pyramid!”

And got stabbed by Riley's dagger.

Which was in Evangeline's hand.

Probably better not to mention that.

“You played your part,” Balin growled.

“I defended my liege lady! Just like you defended your lord. We each did what we had to, according to our oaths.” Jax kept backing up, but the cell was small and lacking in places to shelter from maniacs. “How'd you end up here anyway? I thought you were . . .”

“Dead?” Balin bared his teeth in an unfriendly grin. “Captured by Morgans?”

One of those. But Jax lied. “Got away. Back to your
clan.” There'd been more Balins at the farmhouse where they'd temporarily held Jax—and other families sworn to Wylit. They had been the strangest group of Transitioners Jax had ever met, more like some weird cult than a clan like Riley had, or Deidre, or what he'd seen of the Dulacs.

“I had to make sure my people got away,” Balin said. “That required sacrifice.”

Balin had traded his freedom for the safety of others, Jax realized, and he was startled they had that in common. “You probably want to join them,” he said, retrieving the keys from his pocket. “I can get you out of here.”

Interest flickered in Balin's cold eyes, but he said, “Even if you have a key, there's no keyhole on this side.”

“Yes, but—”

“I'm here because of
you
,” Balin interrupted. “They've kept me here for days, all so Ambrose can stick me with drugs and ask more questions about
you
. Where we found you. Who you lived with. What I know about your liege lady and where she might be now. It's all been about
you
, Jax Aubrey. Breaking your neck will be a real pleasure, if it ends their questions.”

“They won't be happy to find me dead in here with you,” Jax pointed out.

Balin laughed. “I don't care what they do to me.” He grabbed Jax by the shirt. “They're not going to let me out of here alive anyway. Because of your father.”

Jax didn't bother to fight as Balin drew him closer.
“Are you the one who ran his car off the road?”

“No,” said Balin. “He did that himself. When he saw he couldn't shake us, he gunned the engine and drove right over the railing, into the river.”

Jax shook his head. “No.”

“Yes, boy. We wanted him alive. He knew where the Emrys girl was.”

Jax's knees gave way. Balin laughed nastily and threw Jax up against the wall, where he slid to the ground bonelessly, feeling light-headed.

Dad drove his car off the road deliberately.

He left me.

Balin moved in a leisurely fashion, surveying Jax as if deciding what it would be fun to do next. Jax felt such despair, he was tempted to let him do whatever he wanted.

But his head buzzed with leftover magic from the tunnel, refusing to let him succumb to grief. What had Balin said? They kept asking questions about Jax's liege lady and where she might be.

They have Addie and they want Evangeline. They want both Emrys heirs.

It's not about a stupid family reunion at all.

Jax held up the ring of keys shakily. “We have a common enemy. The Dulacs and the Ambroses.”

“They're not your enemy. They're your blood relatives.”

“My loyalty is to my liege lady, not my relatives,” Jax
said. “They want her, and I have to protect her. Let me go, and I'll use the brownie tunnel to go around and unlock your door.”

“You expect me to trust you?”

“I'll swear an oath on my bloodline.”

“Miller Owens swore his loyalty to my lord and still betrayed him! You people always find a way to slip your oaths.” Balin spoke as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Miller was immune to oaths”—which was what made him such a valuable double agent, Jax thought—“but I'm bound to mine, just like you are to yours. Let me go, and I swear to come back and free you.”

Balin
did
have people worth living for. Jax could see it in his expression. There was probably a Mrs. Balin and some mini-Balins—a horrible thought, but maybe useful now. A moment later, the man's face returned to stone. “It's no use. There are guards in the hallway. They aren't going to let you walk up and open the door.”

Guards. More than one. That made it tricky, invisible tunnel or no invisible tunnel. “It won't be tonight,” Jax admitted. “But I'll figure out a way to get you out of here.”

“What's in it for you? If I let you go, why would you come back?”

“I'd be compelled to.” That was the point of making an oath.

“With no time limit to complete the bargain?” Balin
laughed shortly. “I see your trick, you worthless little—”

“I think there's another prisoner down here,” Jax blurted out. “I might need help getting her out. There's no trick. I let you out. You help me and my friends.”

“Define
friends
.”

Balin was bargaining now. That was a good sign. “Billy Ramirez,” Jax said. “He's a Normal who's here with me. And—” He didn't want to specifically name Addie. Who knew if Balin would agree to help an Emrys? “Anyone who's part of my clan. You don't hurt us. You help us if we need it, and we all get out of here alive.”

“Stand up,” Balin demanded.

Jax climbed to his feet and faced Balin, who held out his hand expectantly. “They took my blade. I'll have to swear on yours.”

“You're not going to stab me, are you?” Jax drew his dagger warily.

“Tempting. But I have a clan to return to—and another liege lord who needs me.”

Another Wylit?
Oh, great
. But Jax kept that thought off his face as Balin wrapped his hand around Jax's with the dagger between them.

MINUTES LATER, JAX STAGGERED
through the magic tunnel so weak-kneed he kept losing his balance and falling into the walls.

After his encounter with Balin, he'd almost turned around and gone back the way he'd come. But if he didn't finish exploring tonight, when would he? They might change the locks because Uncle Finn's key had been stolen, and he needed to find where they were keeping Addie so he could make a move to rescue her as early as possible on Grunsday.
If
they were keeping Addie. Jax was beginning to doubt his own judgment. So many things he'd believed had turned out to be a lie.

Dad
. Pain pierced his chest. His father had sacrificed himself for what . . . to keep the secret of Evangeline's location? Was that why he'd left his son an orphan?

Balin could've been lying. He'd wanted to hurt Jax. It might've been a lie.

The tunnel took him upward through a wall thicker than the others and out to the street where it continued toward Central Park, shimmering and transparent. It did not return to the building. His exploration of the basement was over, and he'd only seen a small section of it.

Jax stood in the middle of the multilane Central Park West, staring up and down the street. He didn't see a single car. Even if this was the middle of the night, there ought to be traffic. On a Grunsday, he would see cars frozen in transit, stuck in the moment between Wednesday and Thursday. But inside the tunnel, he saw no cars at all.

Where am I in time?

He looked around and felt the tunnel walls with his hands, but didn't find any of the puckered openings he'd come to recognize as exits. There might be one in the park, though. He could keep looking. He could escape into Central Park, call the Crandalls, and say, “Come get me.” He could let the adults take over and handle the whole thing.

But Michael Donovan's words came back to him.
I'm not a fan o' the frontal assault, but if you're set on confronting them head-on, you're gonna need the voice of command.

That was how Riley and the Crandalls would handle this: an armed assault with Riley leading the charge. The last time they'd done that, to rescue Jax and Evangeline, they'd lost Miller. Who would they lose this time? One of the Crandalls? Riley?

Jax had to admit he didn't want to see the Ambroses hurt either. Whether he liked them or not, they were his relatives.

It was going to take cleverness, not a frontal assault, to locate Addie and get her and Billy out of that building before Riley and his vassals came charging in. If Jax wanted his guardian and his liege lady to remain safely out of Dulac hands, he was going to have to handle this himself. He'd go back and make the Ambroses believe they were winning him over. It was like the thing with John Balin all over again. Jax rubbed his face wearily. His dad had been a sort of spy. Jax was only following in his footsteps.

Returning to the building, he wished the buzz of magic in the tunnel gave him physical energy, because he was bone tired.
I've got to get back before they miss me. If they know I've been snooping, they're never going to trust me.
The need to hurry drove him forward. He passed by Balin's cell with only a glance. He could see the room but not the man—which reminded him that emerging from the tunnel would be tricky. Jax might step out and find himself facing an armed guard. Or his uncle.

Once again, he relied on his talent, waiting by the exit that opened into the basement corridor until instinct told him to climb out. He glimpsed the back of someone turning a corner twenty yards down the hallway and took off in the other direction, toward the narrow end of the building
and the elevator. But he couldn't resist looking back over his shoulder as he ran. There was absolutely no sign of the tunnel—no shimmery wall, no puckered opening. It was completely invisible. Jax counted the doors on the hallway to fix the location of the brownie hole in his mind.

He made it into the elevator, punched the button for the fifth floor, and pressed himself into the corner to avoid being seen by the doorman while passing through the lobby.

The Ambrose apartment was just as quiet and dark as when he'd left. He crossed the foyer, then stopped at the steps to the sunken living room and pulled off his socks. They'd served him well for silence, but now they were filthy. It wouldn't do Jax any good to have left and come back in secret if he tracked dirty footprints across Aunt Marian's snow-white carpet.

He crept down the hall to Dorian's bedroom and turned the knob. There was no movement inside, and before entering, Jax checked his phone to see how long he'd been gone.

It was 2:23 a.m.

He'd been gone eight minutes.

That was impossible! Even if his time in the tunnel didn't count—even if that had been outside the normal timeline—it had taken way more than eight minutes to get down to the basement, explore that lab, and talk Balin out of killing him.

Dorian sat up on the sofa bed. “Jax?” he said sleepily. “What're you doing?”

Jax shoved the phone into his pocket and pulled the door closed behind him. “Bathroom.” He climbed into the bunk and lay real still. Dorian remained sitting up for a few more seconds, then flopped down again, apparently satisfied with his explanation. After all, Jax had only been gone eight minutes.

Impossible though that seemed.

It felt as if Jax had barely fallen asleep when Uncle Finn banged on the door. “Breakfast in ten, boys! Dorian, you need to be at school by eight thirty.”

“School?” Dorian whined. “But Dad! Jax is here and—”

“You've got finals, Dorian.”

“You're still in school?” Jax rubbed his bleary eyes. He'd assumed Dorian wore that stupid uniform because he liked showing it off.

“Bradley Prep goes year round,” Dorian said glumly. “With three weeks of vacation four times a year.”

Billy's head popped out from the bottom bunk. “Sucks to be you, dude.” Then he grinned at Jax, his dark hair standing up from his head like a bird's crest. “Right, Jax?”

“Yeah.” High on Jax's to-do list today was getting Billy alone and trying to break through that happy, clueless
bubble he was in. It was freaking Jax out.

The smell of eggs, bacon, and homemade waffles rejuvenated him. Once again, Aunt Marian had put out a spread. Well, Jax had no objections to eating if she wanted to cook. He was on his second waffle when Aunt Marian exclaimed, “Jax, what happened to your head?”

Startled, he put his hand to his forehead and felt around.

“You've got a lump as big as an egg,” said Lesley.

“Hit my head on the bathroom door in the dark,” Jax said. He suspected there was another knot on the back of his head, but luckily it was hidden under his hair. He couldn't very well say the door had ambushed him from both sides.

“Jax, look at me,” his aunt said. When he did, she placed her hands on both sides of his face. Immediately, the pain of his bumps and bruises subsided, and a wave of energy washed over him. That was followed by a sensation of safety and love, like hot chocolate after playing in the snow or a welcoming fire after being drenched by rain.

Jax pulled out of her hands and scowled at her. She had tried this yesterday too, when they'd first met. She kissed him and cast some calming magic over him, which he pushed out of his mind instinctively. He had to keep an eye on his aunt. She was trickier than she looked.

Aunt Marian frowned back at Jax as if she'd done nothing wrong. “You really shouldn't fight what's good
for you.” And then, as if it explained his unmannerly behavior, she added gently, “I'm told you lost your mother at a young age. To cancer, was it?”

“Yes,” he replied in a surly voice, picking up his fork. He didn't know whether he was annoyed by her nosiness—or angry because it suddenly occurred to him that this might have been another of his dad's lies. Except he remembered . . . “My dad took us all around the country, visiting doctors, but never at doctors' offices. Always at their homes. I was only four, but I knew that was weird. Now that I look back, I guess they were healers, huh? Like you.”

“Very likely,” Aunt Marian said sadly. “But I've never met a healer who could cure a chronic illness or aggressive cancer. We're best at alleviating symptoms and accelerating the healing of injuries.”

Jax glanced at Billy, who was wearing a borrowed long-sleeved shirt and shoveling eggs into his mouth. Lesley leaned across him, reaching for the syrup, and Billy cringed away from her, pulling his left arm into his lap.

Uncle Finn cleared his throat. “Jax, you and I have an appointment with my liege lady at nine this morning.”

“What if I don't want to?”

Next to Jax, Dorian stiffened, while Lesley, across the table, caught Jax's eye and shook her head. Realizing he might have crossed the line, Jax turned toward his uncle.

Finn Ambrose gazed at him expressionlessly. “If your
liege lady asked you to do something, what would you do?”

“Do it,” Jax replied.

“My liege asked to meet you,” his uncle said evenly.

“Okay. Sorry, sir.”

His uncle accepted the apology with a nod. “And tonight,” he announced to everyone, “we'll take Jax out on the town. I'm not sure he understands what an eighth day in Manhattan means.”

Billy looked up with an excited grin, and Lesley asked eagerly, “Me too?”

“You too,” her father agreed.

Just then, Dorian bumped a glass of orange juice. It spilled between Jax and Dorian, over the edge of the table and onto the floor. Aunt Marian ran to the sink for a sponge. Dorian grabbed a handful of napkins and dragged Jax under the table to help him.

“Ursula Dulac,” hissed Dorian under the table.

“Yeah?” whispered Jax.

“Don't let her touch you.” Dorian stared at Jax with big, worried owl eyes, and then his mother appeared beside them. They blotted juice and said no more.