The Inquisitor's Mark (16 page)

“THEY HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING
to me,” Jax protested, but he was drowned out by A.J.'s yelling.

“I
told
Riley! I told him not to go!”

Evangeline shook her head tearfully. “He was so sure he'd be able to tell.”

“Tell what?” Jax growled.

“Where were the Donovans? Weren't they supposed to be able to sniff it out?” A.J. stared at Jax like he'd sprouted three heads.

“Thomas is with Riley, and they're fine for now.” Jax felt a twinge of guilt at that barely true statement. When he'd last seen them, both boys had been stone-cold unconscious.

Evangeline gasped. “They have Thomas too?”

“They'll kill Riley.” A.J. groaned. “If they haven't already.” He lifted his head and stared off into the distance,
as if trying to sense whether the bond to his liege still existed.

“No, they won't.” Evangeline grabbed A.J.'s arm. “They want
me
. If Jax can't deliver me, Riley will be their only other means to get to me.”

“Look,” Jax said angrily to Evangeline. “Do you care about your sister or not? Because if
I
had a sister—or a brother—nothing would stop me from going to them. I thought I didn't have any close family left, but turns out I did. Not a brother or sister, but cousins and an uncle and grandparents who wanted me. Riley knew and didn't tell me . . .”

“He
didn't
know,” protested Evangeline.

“He dragged me away from my mother's family and didn't take care of me,” Jax said bitterly. “He didn't buy groceries! He left me alone when I had my first Grunsday—never explained anything to me—and I thought it was the zombie apocalypse! He left me again, and I was kidnapped by a bank robber. He left me
again
, and the Balins got me . . .”

“None of that is true,” A.J. snapped.

“It's all true,” Evangeline said. “But it's
twisted
. Jax, he came for you when you were in danger.”

“No, he came for
you
. He sent Miller Owens to torture
me
.”

A.J. lifted his fists. Evangeline stepped between
them, and A.J. stopped. “Miller died saving your life!” he growled over her head.

Jax faltered. It was something he didn't like to remember, but it was
true
, and somehow, it didn't match everything else he remembered about that day. “Stop changing the subject. I want to go back to my family, and if Evangeline cared about hers, we'd be there already.”

“They used their magic on you,” Evangeline said. “Think, Jax! Aren't there gaps in your memory, things that don't match up? They can't have changed everything so fast.” She reached for him, trying to put a hand on his shoulder, but he flinched away.

“Crap. He's not even Jax anymore,” A.J. said to Evangeline.

Jax's skin rose in goose bumps. “You can't fool me like you did before. But I'm still
me
.”

“Is it permanent?” Evangeline asked A.J. “Can't we do anything?” Then, in horror: “Can they do this to Riley too?”

A.J. ran both hands through his sloppy blond hair. “It's not safe here. Who knows what Jax told 'em? Riley would want me to get you someplace safe, then come back for him.”

“What about Jax?” Evangeline asked, her voice breaking.

“Release me,” Jax said. “I don't want to be your vassal
anymore. I'm sick of tagging along behind you and Riley like a dog. Let me go.” Jax's head hurt so badly, it felt like it was going to split open. Maybe if he rid himself of this terrible bond, the pain would go away. And then he could turn her over to Aunt Ursula.

“You should do it,” A.J. said in a low voice. “He might be able to track you, otherwise.”

“I can't abandon him,” she whispered, as if Jax wasn't right there, listening.

“He's a lost cause,” A.J. hissed. “And I hope like heck that Riley isn't, that he's strong enough to fight them, but even if he's not, the most important thing is to keep
you
away from them. You know that, Evangeline.”

Her whole body seemed to crumple in defeat, and she pressed both hands over her eyes. “Kneel,” she said to Jax.

He dropped to his knees on the path. She uncovered her eyes and took his face in her hands. “Jaxon Aubrey,” she whispered, tears on her cheeks. “Is this really what you want?”

“Ambrose,” he corrected. “And yes.”

She sniffed. “You swore to me as Aubrey.”

“Jax Aubrey!”

Jax pulled out of Evangeline's hands, hearing his name shouted from another direction.

Tegan Donovan marched down the path from the zoo
entrance, her hands clenched into fists. “Objects at rest stay at rest,” she yelled, breaking into a run, “while objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by an external or unbalanced force!”

Then she slugged Jax so hard in the face, she knocked him over.

He rolled in the grass, moaning. “Ow! Ow! Weren't you listening?” He thrashed around and sat up. “Smitty just said you didn't have to hit me!”

But Smitty hadn't
just
said it. He'd said it two days ago. Dimly, Jax knew that.

Tegan had insisted Jax meet her father's friend Smitty as soon as their bus pulled into New York City—and definitely before he contacted his uncle to arrange a swap for Billy.

So on Tuesday morning, at a fast-food restaurant near the Port Authority bus station, Jax showed his mark to a tall, lanky Transitioner with a bulging Adam's apple, who gave Jax only a flash of his own mark before sinking into a chair at their table. “What can I do for the Donovans this time?” he asked. Jax tried to meet his eyes, but Smitty's irises bounced around like Ping-Pong balls.

Tegan pointed a thumb at Jax. “Our friend is meeting the Dulacs later today. We need a way to make sure he stays himself.”

Smitty's zigzagging eyes rested briefly on Jax. “Best way to do that is
not
meet the Dulacs.”

“Let's suppose he can't get out of it.”

Jax grunted in exasperation. “How can this guy help?”

Jax's disapproval caught Smitty's attention. His eyes locked on Jax like a guided missile.

“Smitty's a memory manipulator,” Tegan said. “Kind of like Riley's friend Miller and the Dulacs.”

“Not like the Dulacs,” Smitty muttered. “Nothing like them.”

Tegan waved down his protest. “His specialty is planting things in your memory that get activated by a trigger,” she told Jax. “He's pretty awesome.”

Thomas grinned. “There's this woman we used to work with who turned on us. Now, every time she tries to snitch on us to the police, she barks like a dog instead of saying our name! Seriously. She thinks
Donovan
but says
bow wow
!”

Tegan addressed Smitty. “I know you can't block the Dulacs. But can you
outsmart
them? C'mon. There's gotta be something you can do.”

Smitty's fingers danced on the table like he was playing piano. “A total reset might work,” he said after a few bars. “Erase him back to this morning. But that's a pretty big plant. It'll only work once. No do-overs.”

“What's he talking about?” Jax demanded.

“Shush.” Tegan punched him in the arm and focused
on Smitty. “Yeah, bring him back to this morning. But he'd have to remember what happened in between. Can you do that?”

The piano recital switched to a drum solo. “That's trickier.”

“But can you do it?”

“Your dad'll owe me big-time.”

“What are we talking about?” Jax rubbed his arm.

“Smitty can plant a memory manipulation that will send your mind back to this point when you hear the trigger. But we're going to need you to remember what happened in between or you might land yourself right back in trouble.”

“It'll have to be encapsulated,” Smitty said. “It won't be real clear. You'll remember it like a really vivid dream.” His index fingers bounced down the table, finishing off a drum solo.

“But any changes made by the Dulacs . . .” Tegan prompted him.

“Will be part of the dream,” Smitty finished. “Total reset.”

Tegan turned toward Jax. “We need a verbal trigger, something only you and me and Tommy might say.”

“Do you remember what Miss Cassidy used to recite every week?” Jax fumbled for the beginning of their science teacher's favorite physical law. “An object at rest stays at rest . . .”

“While an object in motion stays in motion.” Tegan's eyes lit up.

“Unless acted upon by an external or unbalanced force.” They finished in unison and grinned at each other.

Thomas looked confused. “Say what now?”

Smitty leaned across the table and gripped Jax's head. “Total reset, triggered by that sentence,” he said. “Got it.”

“And a smack in the face,” added Tegan.

“What? No! I don't need to be smacked in the face,” Jax protested. “Do I?”

Smitty smiled for the first time. “Only if Tegan thinks it's called for.”

“He said I could if it was called for.” Tegan shook the hand she'd hit him with. “Where's Tommy?”

Jax held his aching cheek in one hand and looked around, disoriented. The last thing he remembered clearly was leaning across the restaurant table and letting Smitty do who-knows-what to his head. Now he was sitting in the grass in the middle of an empty zoo with Evangeline crouched beside him. Her face was blotchy and wet with tears.

“What's the matter?” he asked in alarm. “What happened?”

“Jax?” Evangeline whispered. “Is it you?”

“What'd you do to him?” A.J. asked.

“I knew a guy with a memory-manipulation talent,” Tegan said. “We set this up before he met the Dulacs. He's as stupid as ever, but at least he's back the way he was. Now,
what happened to my brother
?”

Jax looked up at Tegan. It was fuzzy—just as Smitty had warned him—and he had to swim through disjointed images of the past two days. Dorian. Uncle Finn. Ursula Dulac. Billy's arm. His brain conjured a memory of gleefully signaling the Ganners to shoot Riley with a tranquilizer. Jax felt sick.
I betrayed Riley and loved doing it.
“Thomas couldn't remember the trigger,” he whispered.

Then every nerve in his body came alive, and he launched himself at Evangeline, knocking her flat on the ground. A dart embedded itself in a tree trunk over their heads. “Take cover!” he shouted.

Tegan took off running between the trees and bushes, but A.J. staggered, plucking a dart out of his shirt sleeve. “Grazed me,” he said, ducking behind a palm tree and unslinging the rifle. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and put the rifle up to his shoulder. “Get her out of here, Jax. I'll cover you.”

Evangeline scrambled up and ran after Tegan, but Jax hesitated. “A.J., some of those people are my relatives.” He couldn't believe he was saying this, but his muddled memories dragged at his limbs like lead weights. “Please—”

A.J. sagged against the tree and blinked, fighting the tranquilizer. “I'm just gonna distract 'em. I've never killed
anybody in my life, and I don't really want to start.”

Jax dodged sideways, and another dart whizzed by, missing him.
Sloane Dulac swore the Ganners wouldn't follow me
. He remembered her oath, but he had no idea why his altered self had been so easily fooled by it. Sloane had obviously been free to send other vassals instead, trailing far enough behind Jax that he didn't know they were there—and allowing him to approach Evangeline without violating his oath.

Lucky for him, these vassals didn't have the Ganners' magical aim.

“Jax!” hissed A.J. “Go!”

Jax glanced at A.J., whom he'd never liked, never respected, and for the first time saw why he was Riley's best friend.

Then he ran.

JAX CRASHED THROUGH THE
decorative plants and onto a path that curved into the wilder areas of the zoo. He caught up with the girls in front of a pavilion overlooking one of the exhibits just as they came running back his way. “We're cut off!” Tegan gasped. Jax skidded to a halt, realizing the enemy must have spread out strategically before revealing themselves.

“Follow me.” Tegan left the path and clambered up a tree. “
Up
is the last place anyone looks!”

Jax cupped his hands for Evangeline to step in, and Evangeline followed awkwardly in Tegan's wake—up the tree and onto the roof of the pavilion. Jax scrambled after her and lay flat beside the girls.

No sooner were they out of sight than they heard footsteps on the path below—footsteps that passed the exhibit without pausing. Jax sighed with relief, but Evangeline's
face was pinched with worry. She flinched at the sound of gunfire in the distance. “A.J.,” she whispered.

“A.J.'s doing the shooting,” Jax assured her. “The other guys just have tranquilizer guns.” At least he hoped so.

Tegan slid down the roof—not toward the walking path, but toward the exhibit. “We can't stay here.”

“You said they never look up,” Jax objected.

“I said they look up
last
,” Tegan corrected. “We need to hide someplace they think it's impossible for us to be.”

The adjacent exhibit was surrounded by a chain link fence. A metal netting covered the entire enclosure and was bolted on one end to the eaves of the pavilion. Visitors entering the pavilion could observe the animals through glass windows.
Must be birds in here,
Jax thought, wriggling down to sit on the edge of the roof next to Tegan. Evangeline joined them, and Tegan demonstrated where they should place their feet on the steel net below. They kicked in unison. Five or six hard kicks dislodged a wooden plank with the net still attached. This created a narrow gap between the net and the pavilion, which Tegan widened by bracing it open with her legs.

Evangeline slid through the hole and into the yard beneath the netting. Jax wiggled through next and landed beside Evangeline. Above them, Tegan squeezed as much of her body through the gap as she could while still bracing the opening with her feet and hanging
on to the roof with her hands.

“Catch her,” Evangeline urged Jax. “Or she'll break her neck.”

Before Jax could do more than awkwardly hold out his arms, Tegan let go. She dropped and landed on her feet, and the loose plank fell back where it belonged, weighed down by the steel net. Tegan looked triumphantly at Evangeline. Then they heard voices and all three of them dived deeper into the animal enclosure for cover, lying flat in the grass between rocks and trees.

“What about in there?” a new voice asked.

“They can't get into the snow leopards' cage. It's fenced in over the top.”

Leopards?
Jax turned his head to stare at Tegan, but he waited until the men moved away before whispering. “Are you crazy? You made us climb in with leopards?”

“They aren't here today, dummy,” Tegan whispered back.

Evangeline lifted her head up from behind a clump of grass and glared at Tegan. “Why didn't you tell us you had a fix for Jax?” she snapped. “You let us worry for nothing.”

“You didn't tell them?” Jax asked incredulously.

“It would only work once,” Tegan said. “The fewer people who knew, the safer you were.”

“You should have told
me
,” Evangeline hissed.

“I don't owe you anything.
I'm
not your vassal.” Tegan put her head down and wouldn't look at either of them.

Jax exhaled in aggravation. Yes, Tegan had been clever, getting Smitty to manipulate his memory, but Jax couldn't believe she hadn't let his friends in on the plan. If she had, maybe Riley and Thomas wouldn't be in the hands of the Dulacs right now. He didn't know why Tegan was so secretive and dishonest—or why she disliked Evangeline. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was jealous because Jax and his liege were such good friends. But that was impossible. Tegan thought Jax was a jerk and said so all the time.

More than an hour elapsed, and it was getting late in the afternoon. At one point, they heard alarmed shouting, and Jax had the impression someone might have been hurt.
Not A.J.,
he told himself.
Or they'd be happy, not upset.

Men passed by their hiding spot several times, and by their conversation they seemed frustrated and puzzled over how their quarry had gotten out of the zoo. Some of them paused to peer into the leopard exhibit, but most didn't bother because the netting still appeared to be nailed in place. One man eventually hollered to check the roof of the pavilion, proving that
up
was indeed the last place they looked.

Jax had to credit Tegan for brains.
Shame she's so mean.

Eventually, silence descended over the zoo. Tegan got
up, walked the perimeter of the enclosure, sniffing, and decided it was safe to leave. Nimbly, she climbed the outside of the pavilion, digging her fingers and toes into the wooden siding between the observation windows. Once she reached the roof, however, she encountered a problem. From the inside, using her hands, the net was too heavy to lift. “Do you want me to come up?” Jax called.

“No, get me something to prop it open. Break off some tree branches—sturdy ones.”

“Hurry,” Evangeline urged.

“Chill, Blondie,” Tegan said. “The leopards won't be back till midnight, and you'll be gone by then. Only Jax and I can get eaten.”

“I'm worried about Riley and A.J.,” Evangeline retorted. “And Thomas.”

“Nice of you to add him to the list.” Tegan took a thick branch handed up to her by Jax and shoved it between the broken plank and the building. “I know he's not a high priority for you.”

“Higher than you,” muttered Evangeline, stomping a low limb off a nearby tree.

Tegan used the branches to pry open the gap between the net and the pavilion. Once it was wide enough, she slithered through onto the roof, where she again braced the gap open with her legs. Jax boosted Evangeline, and Tegan offered her a hand from above. At least the girls
confined themselves to verbal jabs, Jax thought with relief, and worked together when they needed to.

Reluctantly, they decided not to look for A.J. The Dulac clansmen had spent well over an hour searching the zoo. Either A.J. had been captured, or he'd escaped, or he was hiding in a place as good as theirs—possibly passed out cold from the tranq dart. So, instead, while the pink sky darkened toward purple, Tegan led them through the park toward the Dulac building. “We can't take Evangeline there,” Jax protested.

“Then this is where we separate,” Tegan grunted. “'Cause I'm going for Tommy.”

“And I'm not abandoning Riley and Billy,” Jax said. “But the best thing is for me to go back and pretend I'm still on their side. I'll lie about what happened in the zoo.”

“They'll only believe that if you turn me in,” Evangeline said. “And that's what you're going to do.”

“Are you crazy?” Jax felt like he had to ask that question way too often.

“They have four hostages. Five if they caught A.J.” Evangeline trudged down the path. “We can bargain for them to give up Thomas and Billy. I ought to be worth that much to them.”

“Then why didn't we surrender at the zoo!” Jax
exclaimed in exasperation.

“I won't go in unconscious, like a wild animal. I'll walk in under my own power and by my own choice. With someone they think has turned against me—but hasn't.”

“Shhh!” Tegan grabbed Evangeline and Jax and dragged them off the path. Then she darted toward something on the ground about thirty yards away. Some
body
on the ground.

Tegan poked the motionless figure with the toe of her shoe before bending to take a closer look. Then she beckoned them over. Jax didn't recognize the man, but by his mark he was a Ganner. “He's part of the Dulac security force,” Jax said.

“He's not dead.” Tegan rolled him over to search him. “Just asleep.”

Evangeline looked around. “Did he get shot accidentally by one of his own men?”

“I don't see any dart.” Tegan pocketed his wallet. “And it smells like a spell to me.”

The Dulac building was across the street, and this guy might have been on watch duty. But he was a fair distance into the park. Had he been lured away from his post—or was
this
his post? Why would they post a guard on a random park path? Jax pulled out his honor blade to focus and enhance his talent. A memory nagged at him, something Dorian had said.
The tunnel that goes to the park is the longest.
Jax walked back and forth until he sensed what he
was looking for. Then he flipped the dagger into its sheath and reached his hand into a brownie hole.
Wow, if anything in my head had turned out to really be just a dream, I would've bet on this part
.

He was gratified to see both Evangeline and Tegan staring at his apparently severed arm with identically stunned expressions.

It took Jax a few minutes to explain—at least what he remembered—and he knew he wasn't making much sense. Tegan refused to accept that she couldn't use the tunnel, so Jax stepped inside and reached out to take her hand. But the tunnel didn't exist for Tegan. Jax's disembodied hand dragged her around empty air, but he couldn't pull her inside.

Jax stepped back into the park to consider the situation. “I can sneak into the building this way,” he said to Evangeline. He didn't like the idea of leaving her, but turning her over to the Dulacs was unacceptable—and so was abandoning Riley and Thomas, not to mention Addie and Billy. He eyed the sleeping Ganner man. Something weird was going on. Weirder than usual, even. “You and Tegan are going to have to hide someplace in the park. You can't stay near this building.” Jax looked uneasily at Tegan, wanting to ask,
Can I trust you with Evangeline's safety?
and knowing he'd offend her if he did.

Instead of replying to his suggestion, Evangeline, who'd watched Tegan's attempts to enter without saying a word, darted forward, slipped past Jax, and disappeared into the brownie hole.

Tegan howled in outrage. “How come she can get in and not me?”

Jax was just as flabbergasted. “I—I don't know.” Maybe he was remembering it wrong? No, he was
certain
that Dorian said only a handful of Dulac vassals had access to these tunnels.

“Never mind.” Tegan scowled. “I'll find my own way into the building if I have to.”

Jax hesitated. If the look in Tegan's eyes was any clue, Jax was close to getting punched in the face again. “I'll get Thomas out,” he promised.

Then he slid into the brownie hole after his liege.