Riley looked Jax directly in the eyes. "Whatever they've done to you, you're still bound by your oath. Get Evangeline out of here before that thing knocks out a load-bearing wall and buries us all." He let go of Jax and drew the honor blade Evangeline wore at her side. "Let me borrow this back. They took mine."

Jax felt the sting of Riley using the voice of command on him, but he grabbed Evangeline's arm obediently and started tugging her down the corridor. "What about Billy?"

"I'm going for him now." Riley ran back the way they'd come.

"Wait!" Evangeline cried. "You don't even know what you're up against!"

Jax pulled on Evangeline. "C'mon. There's stairs this way."

Evangeline shook off his grip. "Riley can't fight a wyvern alone, and what about my sister and Thomas? I'm not leaving any of our people behind."

Jax took her arm again, compelled to make her leave. "Riley ordered me."

Evangeline wrapped her fingers around the tattoo on his left wrist. "And I'm your liege. I'm countermanding him."

The feeling of compulsion left him, like water draining from a sink. Wow, does Riley know she can do that?

"I'm going to help Riley." Evangeline marched back around the corner. She muttered a spell under her breath and clenched her fists. Jax put a hand on his honor blade and followed her. She was his liege, and besides, she was right. He didn't want to leave Riley to fight a monster alone in the lair of his mortal enemies. Taking a deep breath, Jax forced himself to get a good look at what they were facing.

The wyvern had the head of a giant lizard, with a long snout and eyes on the sides of its head. A flexible neck thickened into a body mounted on two powerful legs, like a rooster on steroids. Wings too short for flying sprouted above its legs, and leathery scales armored all of its body except the head, which was covered in sleek, gray feathers. It had shaken loose from the rubble of the laboratory wall and was orienting itself in its new environment, cocking its head to survey the five tasty morsels bottled up in a dead-end corridor.

Jax's dagger was no weapon for this kind of monster. But what else could he use? Cinderblock fragments? This place was sadly lacking in wyvern-fighting materials. It seemed that Riley reached the same conclusion, because he sheathed his blade and darted into the ruined lab.

Meanwhile, trapped on the other side of the beast, Uncle Finn opened a door and waved Sloane and Ursula inside. "Stay in here until I tell you to come out," he said. Then he called back over his shoulder, "Boys, use that door behind you."

The wyvern hunkered down, its head low and its tail arching over its body. It made a keening sound, and automatically Jax looked up. Billy, too, stopped just inside the doorway of a room at the end of the corridor and turned to stare, while Dorian stood transfixed in front of the creature, his face blank.

"Don't look at its eyes!" Evangeline shouted, turning her face away. "It has magic! Don't let it trick you into looking at it!"

The warning came too late for Dorian, who stared into the wyvern's eye, unblinking.

"Dorian!" Jax yelled. "Move!"

Evangeline threw out one of her hands, splaying her fingers wide, but the wyvern scuttled forward, and her spell missed. A ball of blue fire fizzled uselessly against a cinderblock wall.

The wyvern's tail darted over its own head and toward the helpless boy.

Uncle Finn barreled into his son, throwing him out of the way. The barbed tail of the beast slashed across Uncle Finn's forearm, knocking him to the floor before curling upward for a second strike. At that moment, a ball of fire from Evangeline's other hand nailed the wyvern's head. The creature roared in anger, its tail uncurving as it tried to shift its body in the narrow corridor to face a new enemy.

Riley emerged from the wreckage of the lab, gripping a cage in his left hand and a long rod in his right. "I told you to get her out of here!" he yelled at Jax.

"We're not leaving you!" Jax hollered back.

At the end of the corridor, Dorian shook his head dazedly while Billy pulled him to his feet. Uncle Finn lay on the floor, writhing in pain and gripping his torn arm.

"Avoid its eyes!" Evangeline called to Riley. "It'll call to you and hypnotize you. And I think the tail is poisonous!"

"Of course it is," grumbled Riley, holding the cage up like a shield. "Why not?" As the wyvern turned, he whipped the rod around, knocking the tail away. The end of the rod crackled, sparking with electricity, but it bounced off the armored creature harmlessly.

The thing Riley held was a cattle prod. Jax wondered why there'd been a cattle prod in the lab, and then it dawned on him. No wonder the brownies were ticked.

The wyvern continued its slow turn, no longer having the space or momentum to knock walls out of its way. It let loose its keening call again. Jax couldn't help looking up in response, but the wyvern wasn't aiming its predator eye at him. It was after Riley, who struggled to keep his face averted.

This is useless, Jax thought. They couldn't look directly at its head, and every other part of it was armored with scales. Uncle Finn was down. Sloane and Ursula were hiding, and what could they do anyway? Change its memory? Evangeline's fireballs and Riley's cattle prod only annoyed it. Jax could run from it if he wanted to-and so could Riley and Evangeline-if they were willing to abandon Billy and Dorian.

What can I do?

"Keys!" he shouted. "Billy, does Uncle Finn have keys on him?"

"I have keys!" Billy yelled back.

A set of keys skidded across the cement floor, between the wyvern's legs, and smack into the cinderblock rubble. Jax snatched them up and ran away from the monster.

"Find Thomas and Addie and get them out of here!" Evangeline shouted after him.

But that wasn't Jax's plan at all. He had somebody else in mind.

Somebody big and strong and deadly-and immune to magic.

32.

JAX PELTED TOWARD ANGUS Balin's cell. Above him, the ceiling shook violently, and the lights flickered. That's it. The building's coming down. He covered his head as he ran, like he could hold off twenty stories with his arms. But all that happened was the ceiling lights on the far end of the corridor exploded into glass shards, and footsteps pounded overhead.

Something was going on upstairs. Maybe the brownies were taking their revenge one story at a time, and after dropping off a wyvern in the basement, they'd delivered Big Foot to the ground floor. Jax thrust a key into the lock on Balin's door, shoved his way in, and found Balin standing in the middle of his cell, looking just as menacing and hostile as ever.

Jax didn't waste words. "There's a wyvern in the basement. You gotta help me."

"You're kidding," Balin said in a flat tone.

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" At that moment, the wyvern let loose its magical cry again, and even with solid walls between them, Jax whirled around to look in its direction. Balin frowned, his forehead hunching into ridges.

"You swore an oath you'd help me get my friends out of here if I could get you out too," Jax reminded him. "And there's a wyvern in the way!" Riley couldn't reach Billy with that monster blocking the corridor, and Evangeline wouldn't leave without Riley. He needed the wyvern neutralized and Balin's muscle to get his friends out of here before the Dulac security force arrived and captured them all.

Balin turned back, into the cell. For a moment Jax thought he was going to say he preferred to stay a prisoner. But Balin overturned the mattress on his cot, revealing a wooden crossbar that had been wrenched from the bed frame and broken into two jagged pieces. Balin took up one in each hand. Jax realized that if anyone besides him had opened this door, they might've received a splintery surprise.

Balin glanced longingly at the stairs at the end of the hall but stalked left instead. Jax started to follow, then paused. Between him and the stairs, a red wooden box hung on the wall. Jax dashed over and threw open its glass door. The coiled fire hose didn't interest him, but the fire extinguisher did. When he pulled out the canister, he found a small axe hanging behind it. Aha! With a decent weapon in each hand, Jax sprinted to catch up with Balin.

Back in the other corridor, Evangeline stood on a pile of rubble, peering anxiously into the laboratory. Jax guessed from her worried expression and the wyvern's repeated head butts into the ruined lab that Riley was tucked into a corner where the beast couldn't reach him. Jax couldn't see Billy or Dorian anywhere, and Uncle Finn was gone too.

"Evangeline!" Jax called. She jerked in his direction, and when she spotted Balin, she gasped. "It's okay!" Jax assured her. "He's on our side!" Sort of.

Balin stared in disbelief at the creature. Half its body was in the lab, and its deadly tail waved wildly in the corridor. He grimaced at Jax. "Only you could cause me this much trouble."

The wyvern keened again. Evangeline threw both hands over her eyes and yelled at the top of her lungs, "Don't look, Riley! Don't look!"

Jax, meanwhile, stared helplessly at the beast even though he wasn't its chosen prey. He didn't know if the wyvern was ridiculously strong or if he was just weak, but Jax couldn't fight the compulsion to look at it.

The tail whipped around, and Balin ducked it emotionlessly. "Has it got magic in its call?" he wanted to know, like a deaf man asking about music.

"Yes, and if you look in its eyes, it hypnotizes you."

Balin snorted, unimpressed. "And it's completely armored?"

"Not the head."

"Then I need to get to the head." Balin surveyed the beast, looking for the least dangerous way to reach its vulnerable spot.

"Riley?" Evangeline called out worriedly.

"Still here!" he hollered from somewhere inside the lab. "Why are you? I told you, Evangeline, get out!"

The voice of command made Jax want to bolt for an exit even though it wasn't directed at him. But Evangeline braced herself against the wall. "Stop making me waste my strength fighting you!" she shouted. "I'm not leaving!"

The wyvern's tail whipped around again, reminding Jax of a very irritated cat. He ducked underneath it and ran toward Evangeline. "What's Riley doing in there?"

"He tried to lure it back into the hole it came from. But either it can't leave that way-or it won't-or he couldn't find the right place." She whispered her magic words under her breath again, clenching and unclenching her hands. But her face was streaked with sweat from the effort. Producing the fireballs was exhausting her, and they weren't very effective anyway. Riley was right. She ought to get out of here.

"Where are Billy and Dorian?" he asked.

"They dragged the wounded man into the room at the end of the hall."

With the wyvern's attention on Riley in the lab, Jax could reach Billy and get him out of here, but he'd have to abandon Dorian with his poisoned, possibly dying father. Jax felt a twinge of guilt at the thought. He couldn't. "That man's my uncle. Can you help him?"

Evangeline spared Jax a glance of regret. "I'm not a healer."

Running away without all his friends was not an option. Jax considered the situation. Balin needed to reach the wyvern's head, but it would be easier if they could entice the creature out of the lab. Jax scanned the corridor and spotted something he could use.

"Stand back," he told Evangeline. He shoved the axe through the belt of his dagger sheath, ripped out the safety tab on the fire extinguisher, and fired at a plastic smoke alarm in the ceiling. The device registered the foam as smoke and went off with an ear-piercing shriek.

The wyvern began to back up and turn around. Jax pushed Evangeline out of its path but couldn't dodge a body blow from the wyvern's wing. The breath left his chest in a whoosh, and the next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back, gasping for air.

The wyvern smashed its head against the ceiling, silencing the alarm and cracking the concrete all around. A fissure ran into the room where Uncle Finn had hidden the Dulacs. Sloane screamed, and the beast drove its head toward the sound, caving in the door.

If Sloane screams again, she's dead, Jax thought, climbing to his feet. But she didn't. Either she'd finally realized her voice was attracting the wyvern, or Aunt Ursula had muffled her into silence. The wyvern drew back its head and surveyed the corridor with first one eye and then the other, looking for suitable prey.

And there stood Balin, staring up at the beast unafraid. The wyvern dropped its head, bringing its right eye and hypnotic gaze level with the man. Its tail arched for a strike.

Balin slammed a stake into the wyvern's eye.

The creature screamed and wrenched its head up. The tail thrashed from side to side. Jax crouched, watching it pass overhead. It was segmented, just like a scorpion's tail.

While the beast was wailing and shaking its injured head, Sloane peeked out and apparently decided this was a good time for an escape. "Now, Grandmother!" She shot across the corridor into what was left of the laboratory, pulling Ursula by the hand.

The wyvern broke off screeching and attempted its siren call. Jax clenched his teeth but couldn't stop himself from looking up. The punctured eye was bleeding, its hypnotic power gone. The head whipped around, seeking prey with the functioning left eye.

Every muscle in Jax's body seized up. His mind raced, but he couldn't so much as twitch a finger. The eye, as large as his whole head, fixed on him with rage and pain, its pupil a black bottomless hole for Jax to fall into.

Then a meaty hand covered his face and shoved him backward.

"Sing all you like," Balin shouted at the wyvern. "Doesn't bother me!"

Jax's muscles went limp like cooked spaghetti.

"Jax, you idiot! Get out of the way!" Riley yelled, emerging from the lab. When he saw Balin, he recoiled, swearing loudly.

"I feel the same way about you." Balin tossed his second wooden stake to Riley. "Trade you for the cattle prod. You beat off the tail and leave the head for me."

Riley threw Balin the electric prod. The wyvern snapped at Balin, who whacked its snout and snatched up the other stake from the floor. The monster retreated a few paces. "Smell the blood on it, do you?" Balin taunted. "C'mon, bring that other eye down here!"

Instead, the tail snaked around, passing through the space where the laboratory wall had been and coming at Balin sideways. Riley batted it away with the stake. Instantly, the wyvern swept a wing back, knocking Riley into the air and six feet across the lab. He landed on his back among the wreckage of broken tables and smashed glass.

Across the room, Sloane was investigating the hole made by the wyvern when it burst through the brownie hole and into the lab. "The entrance to the tunnel's gone, but we can still get out this way." She climbed through the wall and into the adjacent furnace room. "Grandmother, hurry!" But Ursula was watching the battle with calculating eyes and didn't seem as interested in escaping the mayhem as her granddaughter.

Jax wasn't happy about the idea of Sloane getting away to fetch reinforcements, but he didn't see how he could stop her, and he still had no intention of abandoning Billy and Dorian. He removed the axe from his belt. If the monster's tail came by him again, he had an idea.

Balin held up the cattle prod and whistled through his teeth, calling the wyvern. But the beast was learning. Feinting with its head, it turned sideways at the last second, bashing Balin with a wing. It swung its head into the lab just as Riley rose to his feet, weaponless.

And Ursula, seeing her chance, strode forward and kicked Riley in the small of his back, catching him unawares and sending him to his knees. His hands smacked the floor, and when he looked up-he faced the unblinking eye of the wyvern.

The tail curled into strike position, out of Jax's reach. "Riley!" Jax yelled. Evangeline hurled a fireball at the wyvern's head. She might as well have thrown the cinderblock dust.

Riley couldn't move, but out of the ground, a stream of brown fur erupted like a geyser. Two dozen brownies enveloped Ursula Dulac, swarming up her body and shrieking like a teakettle on full boil. The wyvern's head snapped toward the sound, breaking eye contact with Riley. The tail reoriented and lashed forward. Just before the barb struck home, the brownies leaped off Ursula, leaving her to take the blow alone.

It cut straight through her abdomen.

"Grandmother!" Sloane screamed, running back into the lab as Ursula fell. The wyvern's tail whipped backward out of the dying woman, slapping the concrete wall next to Jax's head and launching forward again toward its new noisy target.

Riley was too dazed to make it completely off the ground, but he dived forward and hit Sloane in the knees. She fell, butt first, and the barb sliced the air over her head.

The tail whipped backward again, and this time Jax was ready when it hit the wall in the same spot. His axe caught the tail between two segments, severing the barb. Jax didn't think the wyvern felt the blow. It struck again, trying to pin Riley and Sloane to the floor, but it had nothing to hit them with except a stump.

Balin leaped onto the wyvern's back and ran down its snake-like neck. He raised the bloody stake and jammed it into the base of the wyvern's skull where the armor ended and the feathers began. The beast collapsed but kept snapping at its prey. Sloane scooted backward while Riley kicked its snout away from them. Balin leaned on the stake with all his weight. The debarbed tail hit the ground next to Jax, and the massive body slumped to the floor.

Jax looked across the monster at Evangeline, who covered her mouth with her hand and gave a shuddering sigh of relief.

Balin jumped off the corpse and, before anybody could react, grabbed Sloane and Riley by their shirts and hauled them off the ground. "Dulac and Pendragon," he snarled. "Lucky me. Neither of you is covered in my oath to Aubrey." He shifted his grip to their throats and slammed their heads against the wall beneath the cracked warding symbol.

Jax's mouth fell open. He hadn't thought to include Riley in his deal with Balin.