His command didn’t affect Balin at all. With Miller gone, Balin turned his gun on this new threat, and Riley, who’d started in Evangeline’s direction, was forced to turn and dive behind Wylit’s sedan chair for shelter. “Get over the side, Jax!” Riley yelled.
Jax scooped up Miller’s walkie-talkie, scrambled to the edge of the summit, and rolled down the incline. The stones bruised and pummeled him as he dropped to the terrace below. Behind him, he heard more shots fired, and his heart thudded with fear for both his friends on the summit.
But a moment later, Riley slid down beside him, unharmed. “Throw your clansmen down the stairs!” Riley shouted at three men who were running up the pyramid steps from below. Jax shivered all over, sensing the magic in Riley’s desperate command, although it wasn’t aimed at him. The man in the lead turned and bashed the second one in the head with his rifle, knocking him off the stairs. The third man, Angus Balin, put his rifle to his shoulder and fired. Jax flinched as a bullet ricocheted off the rocks above his head. Then the man under Riley’s control barreled into Angus, and the two of them disappeared over the edge of the terrace.
Jax turned to look above him, worried about the other Balin shooting at them. The angle of the pyramid sheltered them, but if Balin came down after them . . .
“He won’t leave Wylit,” Riley said, guessing Jax’s thoughts. “And he’s still got Evangeline as hostage. I couldn’t reach her.”
Riley looked every bit as stricken as Jax about that. And as if flying bullets weren’t bad enough, Jax could hear Wylit’s voice above them. The crazy Kin lord was still trying to cast his spell. “What are we going to do?” Jax asked.
Riley looked around wildly and for a moment didn’t seem to have an answer. Then a low chopping sound rose above the sound of shouts and gunfire on the other side of the pyramid, and he went limp with relief. “Reinforcements,” he gasped. “It’s about time.”
Over the pyramid, a helicopter appeared. It was as ugly as a flying turkey, an old model that probably dated all the way back to Vietnam. How had Riley gotten a helicopter?
“Where’s Miller?” Riley yelled over the noise.
“He went over the other way,” Jax shouted. “Is he really on our side?”
“Of course he is!”
The floodlights on the Pyramid of the Sun went out one at a time, leaving them in darkness. Wylit’s men were shooting out the illumination that made them easy targets from the air.
“Miller kicked you,” Jax protested. “He told them to sacrifice Tegan!”
“He kicked me so Balin would think I was down,” Riley said. “He handed Tegan the knife and put my instructions into her head. They were meant for you, but Balin moved you out of reach.”
“This was all on purpose?”
“Would’ve worked better if the Morgans hadn’t been late.” Riley looked up at the helicopter, which was making another turn around the pyramid. A searchlight swept over them, and Riley held up both hands, signaling It’s me! Don’t shoot!
“The Morgans?” Jax repeated. Someone waved a hand in salute before the helicopter banked away.
“Yeah. Congratulate me. I’m engaged.” Riley twisted around to look toward the top of the pyramid. He’d traded himself for the use of Deidre’s clan and their weaponry, Jax realized. He’d let Miller beat him up and offer him as a sacrifice so the two of them could get close enough to rescue Jax and Evangeline.
Another series of explosions erupted along the Avenue of the Dead. Jax’s head buzzed as intuition combined with magic. “That’s the Crandalls, isn’t it?”
“And Donovan. He joined up with us to get his daughter back.” Riley grinned briefly at Jax. “They crawled here through tunnels A.J. and I learned about on TV.” Jax nodded his understanding. Tegan had screamed for her father because she knew he was here. “It’s only a distraction,” Riley said, “but it keeps them guessing how many people we have—and where.”
Jax squirmed in worry as the helicopter circled again, shooting at the lower levels of the pyramid. “I don’t know where Tegan went.”
“She’s under the table.” Riley glanced upward again. “It’s safest there. The Morgans aren’t supposed to fire on the summit unless I okay it. That’s part of the deal I made with them.”
Light streaked across the sky again, longer and farther than before. It snaked across the purple heavens, breaking into branches and widening. A wind rose around them, swirling tiny pebbles. Jax half expected the sky to shatter like glass.
“On the other hand,” Riley muttered, “if Wylit keeps trying to cast this spell, the Morgans aren’t going to care about our deal. They’ll kill everyone up there to prevent him succeeding.”
“Evangeline has no cover,” Jax said. The Balins had tied her hands to the table’s surface. Unlike Tegan, she couldn’t hide beneath a table.
“I know.” Riley twisted around again, peering up at the summit.
“Miller said he’d kill her if we couldn’t rescue her.”
“He won’t.”
“He said he would,” Jax insisted.
“You don’t know him. He won’t.”
The helicopter scattered reinforcements running up the Avenue of the Dead. Seeing it fly nearer to the other pyramid, Jax grabbed Riley’s arm. “They’ve got M2s on the Moon Pyramid. They’ll shoot the copter down!”
Riley cursed and stood upright, waving his arms at the helicopter. They didn’t see him.
Jax held up Miller’s walkie-talkie.
Riley spared him one incredulous glance, then snatched the radio. “Deidre, this is Riley. They’ve got anti-aircraft guns on the Moon Pyramid. Stay out of range. Over!”
Jax cringed. Was Deidre on that thing? It was her voice that responded. “You certain? Over.”
“Our man on site confirms it. Over.” Riley glanced at Jax again, and Jax realized he’d been promoted on the field from you idiot to our man.
Instead of flying away from the Pyramid of the Moon, the helicopter turned directly toward it, bearing down on the summit at full speed. Light erupted from the top of the smaller pyramid as the M2s lying in wait fired back, revealing their position. But the helicopter was on them in seconds, silencing the big guns with its own fire.
Riley stuffed the radio into his back pocket and spoke to Jax. “Quick, go around the side and cut Evangeline loose. Get her under cover before the Morgans lose patience with me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Create a distraction.” Riley waved him off to the right, then scrambled the opposite way.
Jax eased around the side of the pyramid until he could see the altar on the summit. Evangeline stood out in her white dress against the purple sky. Wylit was still shouting his insane statements, trying to bully the Eighth-Day Spell into obeying him. He flinched whenever the light from the helicopters passed over him, but it didn’t seem to affect him the way Evangeline’s intensely magnified candlelight had done.
“I have foreseen this death from the sky. . . .” Wylit’s voice carried on the wind that billowed the train of Evangeline’s dress. “ . . . more sacrifices to feed the power of our will . . .”
Jax caught a glimpse of Balin, gun in hand, and pressed himself into the cobblestones as flat as he could. Gripping his dagger in a hand slick with sweat, Jax gathered his nerve to haul himself up that incline and cut Evangeline free before Balin could react. Riley would do it, he told himself.
No sooner had he thought it than Riley did do it. He appeared over the crest of the summit and snatched up a fallen gun before ducking behind Wylit’s sedan chair. Balin reached under the hotel table and dragged Tegan out. He twisted her arm behind her back and held her between himself and Riley.