The Eighth Day (24 page)

“Then what do you have in mind?” Spit it out, she wanted to say
.

“To push the seven-day timeline off this world,” Wylit said. His Kin blue eyes gleamed. “To even the odds against our Transitioner enemies by giving us the same number of days they have—and to eliminate Normals entirely.”

“Leaving a world full of empty cities,” she whispered. It was a terrible, chilling image. Evangeline might not have known, at age eleven, the correct answer to give when the Taliesin men rescued her from the attack on her father's home. But in the five years of isolation since then, she'd learned about the Normal world as best she could from her position as an outsider. She knew what her ancestor Merlin had been trying to save—and on which side of the conflict she stood
.

“It can't be done,” she said loudly to Wylit, hoping that was true
.

“I've seen it done,” Wylit replied. “In my mind, I've seen this world emptied for our use.”

Prophecy was the Wylit talent. In ancient times, people took great stock in the visions of a Wylit clan leader. But Evangeline had learned from her mother that prophecies had a way of unraveling. “Be wary of those who claim to know the future,” her mother had
said. “Constant, multiple, contradictory visions will drive people insane and cloud what they see.” Evangeline's mother knew that very well. Prophetic visions had been her family's talent too, as well as their curse
.

“Forgive me, Lord Wylit,” Evangeline said cautiously, “but your injuries suggest you've already attempted this and did not succeed.”

“My previous attempt was premature,” he admitted. “I failed to procure everything necessary—including a spell caster as strong and spirited as you.” He smiled at her as if she were a pleasant surprise. “Additionally, we need representation of the three main bloodlines who led the casting of the spell. You, of course, are an Emrys. But we need to account for the Dulac and Pendragon bloodlines as well. It took a great deal of trouble to locate appropriate artifacts, but I have finally done so.” Wylit beckoned her to approach him. “Come, Evangeline Emrys. Meet one of your greatest enemies.”

Evangeline glanced at Jax in puzzlement, and they trailed behind Wylit to a table at the back of the room which held a large wooden crate. “Taken from a barrow in the Celtic foothills,” Wylit explained, “a long lost, once-famous queen, hidden in obscurity for millennia.”

After one peek inside, Jax recoiled, covering his nose and mouth. Evangeline had more restraint. Her life, Jax's life, the lives of billions of people depended on Wylit being wrong. She needed to know what she was looking at. “It's a well-preserved body,” she said at last. “Probably a Celtic queen or princess. But there's no way of telling who she was.”

“She's a Dulac,” the Donovan girl called out. “I can smell her from here.”

Silently, Evangeline cursed the girl. She could identify specific families? That was unfortunate—and probably the reason Evangeline's hiding place had been discovered. It would have taken stronger wards than she could make to defend against that talent
.

Wylit, meanwhile, looked pleased. “This is the recruit you spoke of, Balin? Quite a gift she has. Come, child. Tell me what you think.”

The girl's eyes darted guiltily toward Jax, who shook his head at her. But she crossed the room anyway, gripped the wooden slats, and leaned over to sniff deeply, as if the crate were filled with roses instead of a mummified corpse two thousand years old. “This was a high-ranking Dulac,” Donovan said. “A queen, I think. I can't say for sure she was Niviane of the Lake—but who else would be buried with that?”

“Spotted it, did you?” Wylit looked at the girl as if she were a dog with a clever trick
.

“Can't miss it. Reeks to high heaven.”

Wylit reached into the crate. “Who else, indeed?” he said. “She's the one who gave it to him, and after his death, Sir Bedivere returned it to her.”

He pulled something free from the mummified remains and held it up in the air. “Behold, the blade of King Arthur Pendragon—Excalibur.”

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IT WAS A DAGGER.

Jax was shocked. Excalibur was supposed to be a sword. But a moment later, he realized it made perfect sense.
Of course
Excalibur was the honor blade King Arthur used to enhance his voice of command in battle. The iron weapon was black with corrosion, but in better shape than the mummy it came off of. Jax could still make out part of the engraved coat of arms on the hilt.

“Today we rest,” Wylit said to Evangeline. “My vassals have preparations to make at the site, and I'm awaiting arrivals not expected until this evening. We will commence after sundown. In my condition, I cannot tolerate natural light . . .”

“Of course not. Nature abhors botched magic,” Evangeline said matter-of-factly.

Jax sucked in his breath. He couldn't believe how brave she was, standing up to this shredded-faced freak
who looked like a cross between Emperor Palpatine and Freddy Krueger. The crack about
botched magic
seemed like it went too far, but Evangeline turned away from the creep and flared out the long skirt on her dress as if she didn't care whether she offended him or not. “I require that you return me to my room now.”

Wylit signaled his men. Evangeline and Jax were escorted to the room where they'd held her last night. As soon as the door closed, Evangeline threw her arms around Jax. “Are you all right?” she asked.

He felt her trembling and hugged her back, realizing how much of an act she'd been putting on in front of Wylit. “I'm okay. I was worried about
you
.”

“Jax, I'm so sorry you were dragged into this.”

“I led the Donovans to your hiding place,” Jax said, swallowing hard. “They found you because of me.”

She smiled sadly. “People have been after me since before you were born. It's not your fault.”

“Riley's coming for us.”

Evangeline sank down on a corner of the bed. “But?”

“But I don't know what kind of plan he has or even if he knows where we are.” Jax hated to squelch her hope of rescue, but she needed to know. He sat down beside her and explained how Riley had planted a man among Wylit's vassals who could be sworn to more than one liege. “Riley said to trust him. But Miller told me that if he couldn't rescue you, he'd have to . . .”

“Kill me.” She didn't look surprised. “If it comes to it”—Evangeline lifted her chin—“you let him do what he has to do. Billions of people are a lot more important than I am.”

Jax shook his head but didn't argue with her. It didn't matter. Miller wasn't here; Riley probably wasn't going to get here in time; Jax and Evangeline were on their own.

“If you see any opportunity to escape by yourself,” Evangeline said. “I want you to take it. Don't stick around for me.”

“No way.”

“You're the only friend I've ever had. I want you to be safe. I can order you to go.”

He thought that over and tested it against what little he knew of magic—and his new vassalhood. “You don't have Riley's voice of command. You can't compel me to leave if my place is with you.”

“Jax, I'm only pretending that Wylit owes me any courtesy or respect, and he's only pretending to give it. When I refuse to do what he wants, it'll get ugly.”

Jax thought of her brother and knew that now was not the time to tell her what happened to him. “Then let's do more than refuse.” He stood up. “Let's mess up his ritual. If everything isn't exactly perfect, it won't work, right?”

Evangeline stared at him. “A small thing could throw a massive spell like this off, but it's also dangerous and unpredictable.” She paused to think. “Wylit's not going to
let me cast a spell in the middle of his ceremony, and if I set something up in advance, that Donovan girl will know. Whose side is she on?”

“Her own.”

“Everyone's going to be watching me, but they might not keep as close an eye on
you
.”

Yeah, what am I going to do? Ask a bunch of questions?
Jax doubted that revealing someone's bedwetting issues was going to get them out of this kind of trouble. “The Balins aren't affected by my magic,” he said. “They don't think I'm much of a threat.”

“If I give
you
a spell to hold, maybe your friend won't tell.”

“She's not my friend,” Jax said. Then her words sank in. “Can you actually
give
me a spell? Like what you had last night?” He didn't understand the difference between a spell and a talent, but she'd set a coffin on fire with her bare hands, and if he could do that . . .

“That spell's too hard to hold for more than a couple minutes,” she said. “It would have to be something else. Do you think you can remember a brief incantation in Welsh?”

“I'll be freakin' Harry Potter if you need me to be.”

“If I send you out to tell them I demand food or something, can you steal a candle and matches? If natural light hurts him, I can work with that.”

He nodded. “There's candles on the tables in the
courtyard outside this room.”

“They might kill us if we do this,” she warned him.

“So what else is new?”

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AFTER SUNDOWN,
Jax and Evangeline were moved from the hotel into one of the Land Rovers and driven down a cobblestone road to the Avenue of the Dead. Information on Teotihuacán swam up from Jax's memory, although he would've sworn he'd never paid any attention to
Extraterrestrial Evidence
. There were three famous structures in this ancient city: the Pyramid of the Moon at the end of the avenue; the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, hidden behind hills almost a mile away; and the Pyramid of the Sun—the third largest pyramid in the world.

It was going to be one heck of a climb to the top.

Wylit couldn't do it. His men had brought a sedan chair to carry their lord like a king. Heavy and wooden, with carvings on the legs and back, it was cushioned in red velvet and topped by a canopy. Two poles were bolted to the arms so that four men could carry it. When Jax saw Wylit emerge from one of the Land Rovers, he didn't
know whether to laugh or throw up.

The Kin lord had dressed himself like an Aztec king. He was bare chested, which exposed more of his flaky, peeling fish skin, and bare legged beneath a short skirt. To top it all off, he wore a headdress of feathers fitted around the carved wooden face of a serpent.

“This is bad,” Evangeline murmured. “He's invoking the shamans of this place.”

“Aren't they all dead?” Jax whispered.

“Encapsulated in an alternate timeline and snipped off from reality, but still here . . . in a manner of speaking.”

Jax shuddered, remembering how Evangeline had been in the coffin and not in the coffin at the same time. The people of this city had vanished waiting for a “next day” that never came. In a way, they were
still
waiting.

Up and down the avenue, men with guns were deploying on the tops of other structures. A pickup truck bumped along the concrete road on its way to the Pyramid of the Moon with a double-barreled machine gun in the bed. “What's that?” Jax asked.

The nearest of Wylit's vassals who wasn't a Balin promptly responded, “Twin M2 Browning. By the orders of my lord.”

Jax had to smother a smile even though there wasn't much to smile about. He hadn't needed to chant a verse or even direct his question at that man. Evangeline's magic buzzed at the back of his head, and he felt empowered.

They were ordered to start climbing, just behind the men carrying Wylit and ahead of the two Balin brothers. Jax glanced around discreetly, but there were enough armed vassals on site to block any escape attempt. Their path up the pyramid was illuminated by floodlights set up on the landings and powered by generators. After the first section, Evangeline struggled to mount the steep steps, and Jax carried the train of her gown. When he looked up to see how much farther they had to go, he spotted Tegan on the second terrace.

“A little help?” he called.

Tegan didn't budge. “I've been up and down
three
pyramids today, sniffing out security. She can do
one
.”

Evangeline staggered onto the level surface and said, “You didn't have to drag a wedding train behind.” She'd braided her hair to get it out of the way, but loose strands were plastered to her face and neck with sweat.

Jax hauled the white fabric up the steps and dropped it in a heap. “Have you sworn on with your new masters?” he snapped at Tegan.

“No,” she replied, looking Jax up and down with a sniff. “I'm not as stupid as you are.”

She smelled Evangeline's spell on him. Jax watched her, not sure what to expect from her after five days as Balin's pet bloodhound. But he'd never known what to expect from Tegan.

“My mom's a Normal, you know,” she said.

Like, he hadn't expected that. “No, I didn't know.”

“She ran out on us years ago.” Tegan dropped her voice. “Doesn't mean I want her snuffed out like a candle.” Then she gave Jax a strange, distant smile. “Did you know there's a tunnel under this pyramid? Runs all the way to that smaller one on the other side of the ruins.”

Jax blinked. “Actually, yes,” he said, surprising himself. That TV show again.

“
They
don't,” Tegan murmured, glancing at Wylit's vassals. “Very interesting smells, those tunnels . . .”