“Didn’t he?” Melinda looked startled. “I just assumed the blade was recovered from—” His body. She cut herself off and didn’t say it.
Jax shook his head miserably.
“Maybe I misread this.” Melinda took the dagger from his hands and examined it again. “I did think it strange that he’d used it so little, but maybe this wasn’t his primary blade. Maybe this was one he had made a few years ago and used just enough to get it ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Ready for you, Jax.” She handed it back, and her eyes were filled with tears. “He probably meant to give this blade to you when—if—you transitioned.”
She insisted on feeding him dinner, and Jax didn’t argue. While they ate, he asked her to explain the system of liege lords and vassals. He already understood the vassal part. But he wanted to know what responsibilities the liege lord had. “I once heard A.J. say Riley wasn’t allowed to let him starve.”
“There doesn’t seem to be much danger of that! But a liege lord is obligated to defend his vassals and provide for them in times of adversity. For instance, if the Crandalls lost their jobs or their house, Riley is supposed to take care of them.”
“He can’t afford to do that.” Riley could barely take care of himself.
“No,” Melinda agreed. “Riley is not in a good position to fulfill his obligations. I don’t think either the Crandalls or I would expect Riley to provide us with a new home or job, but those are the old rules—and a lot of Transitioners still follow them.”
“And if Riley swore his loyalty to someone else . . .”
Melinda nodded solemnly. “You’ve heard about the Morgans, I guess. Yes, if Riley swore allegiance to Sheila Morgan, he wouldn’t be permitted to keep his own vassals. We’d be turned over to her. The Morgans would be obligated to protect Riley from his enemies, which is not a bad thing. To some extent, I trust the Morgans. They helped us cover the fact that Riley survived the bombing when it first happened, and they’ve kept the secret all these years.” Melinda looked Jax in the eye. “But I wouldn’t be happy with Sheila Morgan as my liege. She’s a mercenary, and her actions are usually self-serving. If she wants Riley to marry her daughter, it’s for the prestige of his name and because his talent is handy in combat. She’d like to have grandchildren with the voice of command.”
Jax felt a new sympathy for Riley when he got home that evening and found him repairing strings on a guitar. Jax watched for a moment and then commented, “Never saw you with that before.”
“It belonged to my sister, Alanna.” Riley picked up the guitar and strummed the beginning chords of “Stairway to Heaven.” Or tried to.
“You suck, dude,” said Jax.
“Yeah, I know.”
It was a long evening—no television, no computer, and almost no conversation. Jax went through his school papers and notebooks. Riley fooled around with the guitar, playing melancholy tunes badly. Jax would’ve gone to bed early to escape Riley’s poor excuse for music, but he was waiting for midnight. It looked like Riley was, too, and probably for the same reason. While she was present next door, they kept vigil.
The explosion at eleven thirty jolted them to their feet.
Riley ran outside with Jax on his heels. Over the rooftops of neighboring houses, the sky glowed red.
The radio clipped to Riley’s belt squealed. “Emergency! Emergency!”
He fumbled it free, nearly dropping it. “Is that you, Melinda? Over.”
Melinda didn’t wait for Riley’s “over” signal. Her cries overlapped his and were partly cut off by his transmission. “The whole back half of the house’s on fire!” she screamed. “My family’s in here!”
Jax’s flesh broke out in goose bumps. Melinda’s house was on fire, and she couldn’t get her husband and kids out because they weren’t there on Grunsday.
“I’m coming!” Riley shouted into the radio, even though Melinda was screaming and couldn’t hear him. He turned to Jax. “Get Evangeline out of that house.”
“This is a trap,” Jax said hoarsely. And I’m to blame. Oh crap, oh crap, I’m to blame.
“I have to go anyway,” Riley replied.
Jax shuddered and nodded.
“Take her somewhere safe before midnight. And give her this.” Riley unbuckled the knife sheath from around his waist and handed it to Jax, belt and all.
His honor blade? “Are you sure?”
“It’s all I have to give her. Now, go!” Riley threw open the shed and disappeared inside. A second later, the motorcycle roared to life, and Riley peeled out—without a helmet, without any help, to fight a fire and try to save children he couldn’t carry out of the house.
Jax took only a second to wallow in fear for Melinda and her kids, and then pelted across the yard to warn Evangeline.
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EVANGELINE HAD SPENT her entire day poring over the local geography books and taking notes. Trains, she concluded, were not a good idea. She’d have to find one that was stopped and taking on passengers at midnight on Wednesday for her to get on during the eighth day—and unless it was stopped somewhere else at the same time the following week, she’d probably end up stuck aboard it.
A stolen car would be better—except she didn’t know how to drive, and even Jax would guess what she was planning if she asked him for a driver’s manual.
Then she remembered. She wasn’t talking to Jax anymore.
She paused and glanced at the living-room window that faced the neighboring house. If she ran away from here, Riley Pendragon would probably come looking for her. How worried should I be? Her spell-casting talent gave her a wide range of magical options for eluding him and defending herself, while his voice of command would only work if he caught her.
She didn’t know where she wanted to go, or how to begin looking for Addie and Elliot. She only knew she needed to get out of this house before she went mad.
The dam is broken, she thought. And there’s no stopping the water now.
An explosion rattled all the windows of the house. For a brief crazy second, she wondered if she’d inadvertently cast a spell while thinking about dams bursting. Then she jumped to her feet and threw open the living-room curtains. There—emanating from somewhere near the center of town—an unnatural redness lit the sky.
Evangeline whipped around and ran into the hall. She opened the front door in time to see Riley take off on his motorcycle, while Jax sprinted up the front steps of her house. She waved him inside, and his face showed relief that she wasn’t going to insist he leave her alone now. “What’s happening?”
“House fire,” Jax gasped. “But I think it’s a distraction, to get Riley out of the way. It was one of his vassals—and her kids are in danger. He had to go—”
“Of course he did,” she said. A vassal came first.
“He said to give you this and for me to get you out of here.” Jax thrust a leather sheath into her hands, the belt still attached.
Her heart thudded when she realized she was holding Riley’s honor blade. Things must be serious for him to send her this. “All right, let’s go.”
“I know it’s close to midnight,” Jax said, “but my friend Billy’s house is on the next block. You’ll be safe there.”
They made it as far as the sidewalk when Evangeline saw the vehicles converging on them from two different directions, driving with their lights off. Jax spotted them, too. He grabbed her hand, yanked her around the corner of the house, and stopped dead. Dark shapes swarmed over the fence behind the houses.
“Back in the house,” Evangeline said. “It’s protected.”
“Protected how?” But he let her pull him up the front steps. The vehicles screeched to a stop outside the house. Evangeline slammed the door shut and darted into the hallway next to the stairs, where she could see the front and
back doors simultaneously. Jax pressed himself against the wall beside her.
The back door was the first one they tried. Evangeline heard the roar of pain as someone burned his hand on the doorknob. The windows proved a similar barrier. Dark shapes appeared outside the glass frames, one by one, then backed off.
“What’s doing that?” Jax asked.
“My spell,” she said. “No harm shall enter that way.” Nevertheless, her heart pounded. The intruders couldn’t come in, but they could force her out.
They knew it, too. The assault on windows and doors stopped, but through the front door sidelight, Evangeline saw someone walk up the steps. She heard the ominous sound of a metal can hitting the concrete stoop outside.
“Daughter of the Kin!” A man’s voice boomed. “We have not come to harm you.”
A lie. Otherwise her spell would not have repelled them.
“We require you to come out and identify yourself. If you are who I believe you are, we have a great honor to bestow on you. If we are mistaken, we shall leave you in peace.”
But they weren’t mistaken.
“Refusing is not an option.” Evangeline heard the rattle of the metal can again and the sloshing of liquid as the man picked it up and shook it. She didn’t need a glimpse of it through the sidelight to know it was a container of gasoline.
No harm could enter through the windows or doors, but flames could consume the house, burning Jax alive along with Mrs. Unger, who’d reappear in her bed a few minutes from now. And Evangeline might not be around long enough to feel the flames, but she’d end up dead just the same.
“You have one minute to come out,” the man called.
Jax stared at Evangeline. “What’ll we do?”
She searched his face. He was as scared as she was. She could feel him shaking. But his eyes were flinty and his mouth set with anger.
“We’re going to cooperate until we see a chance to get away from them,” she said. “Turn around.” When he just blinked at her, she made a twirly motion with her finger, and he turned. Then she pulled her arms out of the sleeves of her blouse. Throwing the belt for Riley’s sheath over her right shoulder and under her left arm, she buckled it into place. It was uncomfortable, but the dagger lay near her heart, and she could reach down the neck of her blouse to grab it. Then she put her arms into her sleeves again and surveyed her reflection in the hall mirror. Finally, a useful purpose for her nineteen-eighties clothes! The blouse was loose and boxy with sleeves that draped from wrist to shoulder. Its diagonal stripes hid any bulges.
“Girl, show yourself!” the voice bellowed from outside.
Any second now, they’d torch the house. Evangeline looked at Jax and realized they’d kill him as soon as they had her in their grasp. He was superfluous. Her heart lurched. Her brother and sister had been depending on her, and she’d failed them long ago. She’d allowed them to be taken from her.
That wasn’t going to happen to Jax.
She grabbed his arm. “Swear to me. If you’re my vassal, they’ll honor my right to protect you.”
His brows knitted together, but he didn’t argue. “Tell me how.”
“On your knees with your dagger. Swear on your bloodline. The words don’t matter. Just mean them.”
Jax pulled out his blade and dropped to his knees. He held the dagger up like he was ordering a cavalry charge, but there was no time to correct him on his form. “I swear, on the Aubrey bloodline, my loyalty and service to you, Evangeline Emrys.”
“I accept you,” she said. Grabbing his face in both her hands, she kissed his forehead, then strode down the hall to open the front door. The man outside towered over her by a foot and a half and was three of her in width. He wore a dark suit, and his sand-colored hair was cropped very close to his scalp.
Evangeline recognized him, even though he’d been no older than twenty when she met him thirty-five years ago. His eyes lit in recognition, too. She had only aged five years.
John Balin.
Balin was a Transitioner, vassal to the Kin lord Myrddin Wylit. Evangeline’s father had distrusted all Transitioners and had protested strongly over including Balin in their plans. But Wylit had insisted, and apparently he’d been too important an ally to cross.
At the age of eleven, Evangeline had dimly understood that. But she’d also recognized insanity when she saw it. Every time Wylit came to the house with his Transitioner vassal, she’d taken Addie and Elliot and gotten out of his way. Quickly.
“Lady Emrys,” Balin said, “Lord Wylit will be very pleased we’ve found you at last.”
“Call off your men and back away,” she said, trying to summon the arrogance of a high-ranking Kin lady. Because that’s what I am. “I’m coming out, but if you touch me or my vassal, your lord will hear of it.”
He honored tradition and her right to defend a vassal, just as she’d hoped he would. “I give you my word. You and your vassal have safe passage.”
Evangeline kept her head high and opened the screen door. Three vehicles were parked in the street. One of them was strangely long and boxy. Six or seven men waited on the sidewalk, all dressed in dark clothes.
Jax left the house behind her, his hands held up in a gesture of surrender. But that didn’t stop someone from leaping off the roof overhanging Mrs. Unger’s stoop to knock him down. They tumbled off the steps together on the side that had no railing, and before Evangeline could protest, Jax was in the hands of a man with carroty hair and a boy of similar coloring. They thrust him to his knees when he tried to stand, twisting his arms behind his back. A second boy—no, a girl—darted forward, snatched a phone from Jax’s back pocket, and tossed it aside.
“Get off me!” Jax shouted.
“Now, Jax,” said the man cheerfully. “We’re gettin’ you out of harm’s way.”
Evangeline clenched her fists. She was outnumbered and bluffing, but she turned a gaze of fury on Balin. “I see your word is worthless.”
“He won’t be harmed,” Balin assured her. “I’ll bring him with us.”
“We weren’t paid for Jax,” the girl said, and the carroty-haired man called out, “That wasn’t part of the deal. He stays here.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” snarled Jax.
“Lady Emrys, come.” Balin motioned her forward, ignoring the outraged exchanges between Jax and the people holding him. Then Evangeline saw the object being lifted out of the back of the long vehicle.
Her heart flopped over. “No.”
“This is how it’s done,” he said. “For you, it will last no more than a minute.”
Every pretense of calm and coolness deserted her. “No!” She fumbled at the neck of her blouse for the dagger.
Two men came at her from either side, catching her hands and feet and lifting her off the ground. She shrieked and thrashed, but their hands were like iron.
Behind her, Jax yelled, “What’re you doing? No! Don’t put her in there!”
A man standing at the back of the hearse opened the lid of the casket. “Jax!” Evangeline screamed, knowing he couldn’t help her and calling for him anyway. Her captors swung her over the yawning coffin and let go. She hit the silk-lined interior hard enough to knock the breath out of her.
Then the coffin lid dropped closed.
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JAX DIDN’T KNOW what was worse: hearing Evangeline scream his name as they dumped her into the coffin, or knowing he was failing his oath within seconds of making it. “Let her out of there!” he shouted.
“They aren’t hurtin’ her.” Donovan leaned down to say this in his ear, and Jax pushed off his knees with all his strength. The top of his head smashed Donovan in the nose. Jax hurled his body sideways, knocking Thomas off balance, and broke away.
He knew he was going to be in trouble once he got to the brutes who’d thrown Evangel
ine into the casket, although that didn’t stop him from hurtling toward them. At the last second, the man with the gasoline can whistled sharply, and the men stepped out of Jax’s path.
He thudded against the side of the casket and heaved the lid up.
The coffin was empty.
The pit bull started barking.
“Hey!” The dog’s owner shoved his screen door open and started down his front steps wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts. “What’s going on? Did something happen to Mrs. Unger?”
A hand grabbed Jax by the scruff of the neck and hauled him around the side of the hearse. Any thought of calling for help was squelched by the muzzle of a gun pressed against his ear and the cold, dark gaze of Gasoline Guy. Jax swallowed hard and stood very still.
One of the men left the casket to cross the street and distract the neighbor. “No need for alarm, sir. We have the wrong address. But what do you think that is?” He pointed at the red glow in the sky, and as if on cue, the fire station siren wailed across town.
Meanwhile, the coffin was lifted into the rear compartment of the hearse. Understanding hit Jax like a smack across the face. The coffin was a means to transport Evangeline. These people were using it the way Donovan had used the pet carrier—except Jax was sure there’d never been a cat in that carrier and Evangeline was definitely in the coffin. He could feel her there, as if the oath he’d made not two minutes ago bound them like a thread. She was in that casket, but there was no way to get her out until next Grunsday.
Somebody loomed on Jax’s left side. “You want me to take this boy out back, John?” Out back sounded like a bad place to be, perhaps the last place he’d ever be.
“No. I gave my word I’d bring her vassal along. And look who he is.” The first man grabbed Jax’s left wrist and yanked it into the air.
“Aubrey. Now that’s interesting.”
“Get his blade.”
The Eighth Day Page 15
