The Inquisitor's Mark (6 page)

There was a lot of stuff his dad had failed to tell him—such as what the tattoo on his wrist meant. Or how Jax had a 50 percent chance of being a Transitioner. He'd never mentioned his life was in danger, or that he'd signed custody of Jax over to a stranger in the event of his death. Jax had spent months fuming over all those untold truths. But because he'd learned that his father had wanted to protect Evangeline, he'd slowly been getting over it.

Now there were lies on top of the omissions, and Jax was seething with rage.

A hand fell on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” Mrs. Crandall asked.

“Yeah. Fine.”

She sighed, and Jax belatedly remembered her truth-telling talent. “Put two chairs in front of the computer,” she told A.J. “I'm sitting with him.”

“You don't have to,” Jax said.

“I'm not letting you face this alone.”

So he ended up sitting with Mrs. Crandall in front of the computer, his stomach flipping somersaults while an electronic bleeping signaled the incoming video call. His hand shook as he clicked
ANSWER
on the screen. Then he expelled his breath in relief, because it was just Billy.

“Dude!” they said at the same time.

“You jerk!” Billy exclaimed. “An eighth day. You should have told me!”

“I couldn't! Are you okay? Your parents think you're at golf camp!”

“I know, right?” Billy laughed. “Hey, where's Riley?”

Jax didn't need the chopping gestures from Mr. Crandall and A.J. to know he wasn't supposed to talk about Riley. “Billy, are they keeping you prisoner?”

“If you can call it that when they've got a
huge
TV and a billion channels.” Billy dropped his voice to a whisper. “And one of your cousins is
hot
.”

“Dude,” Jax protested. “Ew.”

“Look, they want to talk to you. But later, I want to know
everything
.”

Billy moved offscreen, and several people took his place. A man and a boy sat down in front of the screen. A woman and a girl stood behind them.

Jax had to grab the edge of the desk. The man looked so much like his father, it hurt.

Before speaking, the man held up his left hand so Jax could see his mark. It was identical to his dad's mark—probably done by the same tattoo artist. The boy showed his mark too, but Jax barely glanced his way. The man absorbed all his attention.

“Jax, I'm Finn Ambrose, your dad's older brother. I know this must come as a shock, since Billy tells me you didn't know your father had living relatives.”

Not as shocking as you kidnapping Billy
. Jax wanted to
say that, but he couldn't make his mouth work. And it would've been a lie anyway. Seeing the ghost of his father in this man's face was more shocking than Billy's abduction.

Because Jax had been kidnapped twice since becoming a Transitioner, but he'd never seen anybody come back from the dead before.

“THIS IS MY SON,
Dorian,” Finn Ambrose said from the computer screen. “My wife, Marian, and my daughter, Lesley.”

The woman showed her mark. “Hello, Jax. My word, you certainly are an Ambrose. Anyone can tell by looking at you.”

Lesley, who was probably about fourteen years old, gave a brief wave but didn't show her mark. Dorian said, “Hi, Jax,” and stared through the screen like he was surprised by what he saw. Still stunned by the whole situation, Jax couldn't think at first why the boy looked so familiar, and then he realized where he kinda-sorta knew him from. The mirror.

Oh, crap. He looks like me.
Jax found his voice. “My name's Aubrey, not Ambrose.”

“No,” said Finn. “That's a made-up name. It might be on your birth certificate, but you're an Ambrose. Although
I do need to see your mark to be sure.”

Jax tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry.
My name is a lie, too
. He held up his left hand for the webcam.

Finn and Dorian leaned close to the screen. “Is that an eagle?” asked Dorian.

“Rayne let someone change your mark?” Finn sounded shocked.

Jax glanced at A.J., who shuffled his feet. It was supposed to have been a falcon, but A.J. thought a bald eagle was
cooler
. “No, Dad wasn't . . .” Jax broke off even before Mrs. Crandall nudged him. He didn't want to explain how his dad had died before he was marked, leaving him totally ignorant of his heritage.

“But you have the inquisitor talent,” Finn pressed him. “That's what I've been told.”

By who?
“Yeah,” said Jax.

“The Ambrose talent wasn't affected, then.” Finn sat back in his seat.

The Ambrose talent. Was he
really
Jax Ambrose? That name sucked. Suddenly he was furious again. “You kidnapped my friend.”

Finn laughed. “We
invited
your friend to come to our home in Manhattan and help contact you. He seems to like making an adventure out of everything, though.”

Jax had to admit this was true. But Mrs. Crandall said, “Kidnapped or not, his mother doesn't know where he is.”

“We couldn't tell his parents the truth.” Finn eyed Mrs. Crandall through the screen. “Are you going to identify yourself?”

She held up her hand. “Gloria Kaye,” she said, which was the first time Jax had ever heard her family name instead of her married one.

Finn nodded, as if he wasn't surprised. “And is Pendragon going to show himself?”

Holy crap. They not only knew about Riley, they knew who he really was.

“You'll be dealing with me today,” Mrs. Crandall said. “And we won't be negotiating at all unless you send the Ramirez boy home.”

“We'll do that after you bring my nephew to New York.”

“My dad told me he was an only child,” Jax said. “He told me he had no family. He changed his name. Why would I want to have anything to do with you?”

A look of pain crossed Finn's face, and his wife put a hand on his shoulder. “There was a disagreement between Rayne and his father many years ago,” Marian Ambrose said. “It causes my in-laws a lot of grief that Rayne held a grudge so long. But there's no reason you should go without a family because a teenage boy once got really mad at his parents.”

Jax thought his father must've been a lot more than
really mad
to do what he'd done.

“Send Billy home, and we'll discuss letting you meet Jax,” said Mrs. Crandall.

Dorian spoke up. “Billy's okay. I promise. He's been hanging out with us, playing our video games, and asking a million questions.”

“He's pretty annoying,” Lesley muttered. “I vote we send him back.” Dorian elbowed his sister, and she shoved the back of her brother's head.

Jax watched them tussle with a strange twinge.
I have cousins.

Meanwhile, Finn called out, “Billy, do you want to go home?”

Billy shouted from somewhere nearby. “No! I want to stay until Jax gets here.” Finn smiled as if that proved his point.

Mrs. Crandall shook her head. “Meaningless. You didn't just lie to Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez. Somebody altered their memories. You're an inquisitor, and your wife is a healer. So who manipulated the Ramirezes? Sounds like a Dulac talent to me.”

Finn folded his hands on the desk. “We
are
Dulac vassals.”

Jax blurted out a curse word. Not only were these people his relatives, they were Riley's enemies.

Finn raised his eyebrows at Jax's outburst and cleared his throat. “I don't know what you've been told, Jax. Probably a lot of lies. But we're not just vassals to the
Dulacs, we're family. My mother, your grandmother, is a Dulac. She's the sister of our clan leader.”

Suddenly a hand grasped Jax by the back of his neck and yanked him out of his chair. Mr. Crandall sat down in his place and thrust his left hand at the screen for the Ambroses to see. “Arnold Crandall. You'll be dealing with me now, and I'm not letting Jax anywhere near you.”

“You have no claim to him,” Finn replied coldly. “I understand Pendragon has custody papers, but he's barely old enough by law to be Jax's guardian, and he's not a blood relative.”

“Don't talk to me about the law.
Your
liege lady assassinated
my
liege lord and all his family.” Mr. Crandall spoke through clenched teeth. “You aren't fit to have custody of Jax.”

Standing to one side, Jax had a view of the monitor but could no longer be seen by the web cam. He watched his uncle dismiss his family. Dorian alone hesitated, peering at the corners of the screen as if he might be able to see where Jax had gone before clearing out of the way. Finn Ambrose pulled his chair to the center and spoke directly to Mr. Crandall. “Ursula may never have gotten along with Philip Pendragon, but she had no reason to want his bloodline wiped out. Someone else did that.”

“Lies,” said Mr. Crandall.

Finn pointed at Mrs. Crandall. “Ask Kaye. I'm telling the truth.”

Mrs. Crandall said nothing.

“Your current liege lord is very young, with no family. That makes him vulnerable,” Finn went on. “On behalf of the Dulacs, I'm prepared to offer him the protection of our clan. Furthermore, I understand you're providing shelter to an Emrys girl who took on my nephew as her vassal even though he's far too young for it. We can overlook that breach of courtesy if she will also place herself under our protection.”

Jax felt that sweeping cold again, and his knees wobbled.
They know about Evangeline. They know everything. How? Who told them?

“This conversation is over.” Mr. Crandall stabbed the power button so hard, he tipped the monitor off the desk.

Jax watched it fall without moving. He didn't react when Tegan caught it, or when Mr. Crandall started pacing the room like a caged tiger, cursing and roaring about murderers and criminals. He watched everyone in the room as if through a fog.

Once again, he'd led the enemy straight to his friends. Billy was in the hands of ruthless killers. They wanted Riley and Evangeline, too, and worst of all, Jax was related to them.
That man looked just like my dad. That boy looked like me.

Mrs. Crandall put an arm around Jax's shoulders and turned him away from the living room. She propelled him into the kitchen and planted him in a chair. Then she
ladled soup into a bowl and plunked it down in front of him. “Eat. It's the best remedy for shock.”

He stared at the soup without interest. “Did Riley know?”

“Of course not. All Riley knew about your father was that he acted as an informant for
his
father.”

In the living room, A.J. was telling Mr. Crandall to
calm down and think things through
.

Jax turned his hand over and stared at his wrist. “Why didn't he recognize my mark?”

“Riley wasn't even fourteen when he went into hiding and not much involved in clan business. He wouldn't have met the Ambroses or had occasion to see their mark. They're a small family. Your grandfather moved here from the U.K. and married into the Dulac clan. Trust me, Jax. Riley had no idea.”

She seemed very certain. And Jax realized why. “You and Mr. Crandall knew.”

For a long minute, Mrs. Crandall was silent. Then she said, “Arnie didn't know until just now. But yes, I knew from the start.”

“I'M SORRY, JAX, BUT
I couldn't tell you. I took an oath.”

Jax stood up and turned his back on her, putting his hands on the kitchen counter and staring blankly at the open window where Thomas had climbed in.

“Riley's father swore me to secrecy back when he first started using your dad as an informant—when Rayne was a teenager. Only a few of Philip's vassals were trusted to meet him, and we swore to protect his identity because his family was looking for him.”

“Why? What happened between them?”

“Philip may have known. I never did. When Rayne approached Riley last year, it'd been almost a decade since I'd last seen him, but I was still bound by the oath I made twenty-five years ago. And when you came to us—well, the oath chose to protect you as well. I couldn't tell Riley or even my husband who your father really was.”

Jax turned around. “What do you mean,
the oath chose
? How does an oath choose?”

“Magic follows rules of its own, Jax. You saw that with the basketball and the bike. You saw it when Riley went to next Grunsday, instead of Evangeline coming to Thursday. An oath will demand obedience in ways you can't anticipate.” Mrs. Crandall gently turned Jax back toward the table. “Now that your secret is known, I seem to be released, which is a relief.” She put him back in front of the soup.

“This is why you wanted to get rid of me,” Jax said. He'd been a poisonous snake among them, a danger to the last remaining Pendragon, his identity protected against Mrs. Crandall's will by a twenty-five year-old oath. “I
heard
you trying to convince Riley to send me away.”

She didn't look surprised that he'd been eavesdropping. “Jax, I had your best interests at heart. I assume your father trusted you with us because Riley was hiding from the Dulacs, just like he was. You were only supposed to be in our care a few months, until we could confirm you were a Normal. I didn't consider it a problem. But then, you weren't a Normal, and worse, you swore on with Evangeline. When Riley said he wanted to claim his seat at the Table, I realized the correct thing to do was to send you back to your Normal relatives as soon as possible. If we came out of hiding, it would only be a matter of time before someone recognized your mark and informed the Dulacs, which is the last thing your father wanted. As it
is, I'm pretty sure Deidre has guessed who you are. She
must
know the Ambroses, and your mark is only slightly different.”

Jax remembered Deidre's warning to be careful. “Yeah, she knows.” Why hadn't she told Riley?
She must think he already knows. 'Cause what kind of idiot shelters his enemy without knowing it? When Riley finds out . . .
Jax was surprised to discover how much Riley's opinion mattered to him. “When my”—Jax swallowed hard—“my
uncle
said the Dulacs had nothing to do with what happened to the Pendragons, was he telling the truth?”

“I detected no lie in anything he said. But your uncle may not know the truth.” Mrs. Crandall put a hand on Jax's arm. “None of us will judge you for what they did, Jax. I certainly don't, and I lost family in that explosion, too.”

“Were you there?” Jax croaked. The Pendragons had been killed at an engagement party for Riley's sister, when the entire family and their vassals had been gathered in one place.

“No. Arnie and I were at home because A.J. had the chicken pox. Melinda happened to be on her honeymoon, so she wasn't there either. Out of the family members and vassals present, there were only two survivors.”

“Riley and Miller Owens,” said Jax. Mrs. Crandall nodded. “I didn't know your name was Kaye. That's like Sir Kay, right?” He'd been reading about the Knights of the Round Table most of the afternoon, and Sir Kay had
been Arthur's foster brother.

Mrs. Crandall said, “My family has served the Pendragons a long time.”

That was for sure. “What are we going to do about Billy?” he asked.

“Leave that to us.”

Jax didn't like that answer. Not when he was the cause of the problem.

Jax ate enough soup to satisfy Mrs. Crandall, then slipped off. When he passed through the living room, Michael Donovan was criticizing Mr. Crandall's proposed plan. “I'm not a fan o' the frontal assault,” Donovan was saying, “but if you're set on confronting them head-on, you're gonna need the voice of command.”

“We won't have Riley back for two more days. Are you suggesting I leave the Ramirez boy with them that long? Who knows what they'll do to his head in the meantime?”

Jax skirted around the edge of the room and upstairs to the bedroom he was sharing with A.J. and, normally, Riley. There were two beds, both claimed by the older boys. Jax had been making do with a sleeping bag on the floor until Riley disappeared. Then he'd thrown the dirty clothes off Riley's bed and taken it over.

Now he flung himself down and stared at the ceiling in misery.

Who the heck am I? Jax Aubrey or Jax Ambrose?

He was surprised by how quickly the answer came to him.

Names change. That's what Evangeline said. But I'm her vassal no matter what.

He didn't have fifteen hundred years of tradition behind his vassalhood, like Mrs. Crandall, but he knew who he was.

Dad told me a lot of lies, but what do I know is true?

When his father was in danger, he'd asked Riley to be Jax's guardian. Not his own brother.

So I'm not going to trust Uncle Finn. But Mrs. Crandall didn't detect any lies in what he said today.

And Jax's uncle said they would let Billy go when they got Jax.

What would Riley do?

That was easy. When Evangeline and Jax were abducted by Wylit's vassals, Riley had delivered himself bound and gagged into enemy hands, just to get close enough to rescue them.

Riley had traded himself out of loyalty to his friends. Put it like that, and Jax's course of action seemed clear.

A.J. snored so loudly, Jax didn't have to be quiet sneaking out of the room. He was a little more careful in the loft, because Mrs. Crandall had sharp hearing. But downstairs,
Donovan was sleeping on the sofa, and he made almost as much noise as A.J.

Jax didn't know where the twins were.
Probably burglarizing neighboring houses
.

He rode his bike five miles down the mountain road to the convenience store/bus station, where he purchased a ticket for the last bus departing for New York City, the time of which he'd checked on his computer earlier that evening. Nobody in that smoke–filled place questioned why a boy was buying a ticket for a bus mainly used by late-shift employees from local casinos and resorts, but Jax took a seat in the back of the bus and curled up out of sight, in case someone thought better of it and decided to intervene. When the bus started moving, he dozed with his head resting on his backpack.

About an hour into the ride, someone pushed his legs off the seat and sat down beside him. “Wanna doughnut?” Thomas offered him half a slightly squashed bear claw.

Jax banged his head on the window sitting up. “What the—where—have you been on the bus this whole time?”

“What d'ya think?” Thomas said. “We dropped in from the sky?”

“We?” groaned Jax.

Tegan appeared over the back of the seat in front of him. “You really don't observe your surroundings much. It's a wonder someone hasn't robbed you already.”

Jax grabbed at his backpack, just to check, and glared
at her. “How'd you get to the bus station?”

Tegan shrugged. “We ‘borrowed' some mountain bikes from a cabin down the road. What d'ya think you're doing?”

Jax held up his fingers one at a time, counting the steps. “One, meet my uncle. Two, get Billy sent home. Three, make like my dad and run away from them.”

“That's your plan?”

“It's better than Mr. Crandall making a
frontal assault
. Someone'll get killed.” Jax had seen that happen when Riley and Miller had rescued him and Evangeline on the pyramid, and he didn't want to see it again. Not when he could prevent it. He didn't know how Riley was going to react when he found out who Jax really was, but Jax knew he'd have an easier time facing his guardian if he cleaned up his own mess.

Especially since it was Jax's stupidity that got them into the
last
mess.

Of course, the Donovans had helped create that one. Jax glared at the twins. “Why do you care, anyway? Don't you have stuff to do? Banks to knock off? People to swindle?”

Thomas looked at his sister and grinned mischievously. “Well,
I
didn't want to go to New York City, but Tegan made me come. She was worried that without someone looking out for you—”

“I have an idea.” Tegan silenced her brother with a
threatening glare and pulled out her phone. “Which is more than either of you two numbskulls can say. I'm calling Smitty. I'm sure he's in New York.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. “That
is
a good idea.”

“Who's Smitty?” Jax asked.

“An associate of my dad's.” Tegan searched through her contacts.

An associate. She meant another crook. “Great,” Jax said sarcastically. “I'm sure I'll love him.”

Tegan hit the dial button and grinned just like her brother. “Actually, I'm pretty sure you'll hate him.”