V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 (3 page)

“Yeah. There’s no…there’s no government. There’s no authority. There aren’t people with tons of power trying to throw their weight around and force people to do stuff they don’t want to do.

Everyone is free.”

Was he insane? “There are mobs. There are gangs of people stealing food and gasoline, shooting innocent people. There are turf wars and starving babies. People are not
free
.” I’d been travelling up and down the coast, trying to help the military keep order. I’d seen what the world had become.

“That will stop,” said Jason. “Soon. I’m just not going to let the OF stick their noses into this and ruin everything. I will stop the OF. After I stop them, I can help everyone else. I can bring everyone back together, and we can all have freedom. We can live without anyone looking over our shoulders.”

Kieran was right. He was psychotic. I took a step back, shaking my head.

“Can’t you see it, Azazel? You and I were made for this. You wouldn’t be working with the OF

if they didn’t recognize your talents were perfect for this situation. All our lives, people have prophesied that we would be important if something like this happened. We are the key players here. Why don’t you help me? Leave the OF, and help me—”

“Help you what?” I said. “Rule the world?” I felt cold all over. Jason was mentioning things from our past, things that I thought I’d buried when I’d made every single one of the men chasing us kill himself.

“Help me help the world rule itself,” said Jason. “With your powers, we could—”

“I’m not using any of my powers,” I said. “Not anymore.”

Jason looked shocked. “You’re not?”

“You know what happens if I do!” He’d been there when we found out. He’d watched the tiny casket get lowered into the ground. He’d known that it was all my fault.

“Azazel, even Agnes told you that we were important to the future of the world. You and me.

We’re supposed to be part of this massive change that’s overtaking everything. This power outage is the first step. And if you just run from who you are—”

“Who am I, Jason? Am I Kali? Am I the vessel? Your dark counterpart? The person who’s supposed to save you? The person who’s supposed to kill you? If this is the apocalypse, am I the messiah or am I the anti-christ?”

“We’re both all of that,” he said, his eyes burning. “But apart, we’re nothing. You and I are made to be together. We are soul mates. You can’t keep running from me. Not now. If you used your power, you’d—”

“No.”

Jason must have heard something in my voice that told him I was serious, because he didn’t say anything. He was close to me now. He reached out and stroked my cheek. I recoiled.

“Don’t touch me.” My voice was hoarse.

He was quiet for a little longer. When he did speak again, he was quiet. “You know that what happened was an accident. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. I wish you could forgive me.”

“I wish it wasn’t so easy for you to forgive yourself.” I turned and walked to the door of the room. “They sent me here to try to convince you to join the OF and help us return order to the world. I guess that’s a lost cause.”

“I’ll never join them. I don’t deal well with people telling me what to do.”

That was true, as far as it went. He’d never been particularly good with any kind of authority. I put my hand on the doorknob. “You might want to tie yourself back up again.”

He rushed to me, grabbing both my hands. I tried to pull away, but he held me firm. “Azazel, is there any way you’ll come with me? Please?”

He was just as exquisite as he’d always been. Dark, dark hair. Huge dark eyes like pools I could swim in. His heart-shaped face. I didn’t know if I would ever look at him and not feel a stirring inside me. I’d always want him. But that was all.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ll always love you.”

“I can’t ever love you again.” My voice was shaking. Was it from rage? Fear? Pain? I wrenched my hands away from his.

He looked wounded, like a little boy. Then he squared his shoulders. He laughed. “Tell Hallam, tell Marlena, tell the Order of the Fly to leave. Leave, or I will make you leave.” His mouth twisted into a cruel, satisfied smile.

I crossed my arms over my chest. So it was going to be like that, was it?

“You know me,” he said. “You know I can do it. They don’t know what they’re up against.

Make them see that it’s impossible to win against me.”

“It’s not impossible,” I said. “If anyone’s your match, it’s me.”

Jason chuckled. “I taught you everything you know.”

I shook my head. “Not everything.”

Jason turned the knob on the door.

My hand went to my gun. “You’re not just going to walk out of here.”

“Watch me.”

I drew the pistol, flipping off the safety.

Jason’s hand paused on the knob. He looked at me. “Are you fucking that Kieran guy?”

I was caught off guard. “What? No.”

He moved too fast. His hand was on my wrist in a second, twisting. I let go of the gun. He caught it with his other hand.

Damn it. He had me. Jason pointed the barrel of the gun at my face. Fine, then. I could play dirty too. “Maybe once,” I said. “He didn’t need me to show him where my clit was.”

Jason made a little growling sound in the back of his throat and seized my arm, twisting it. Good.

I’d gotten to him. He yanked me against him, my back against his front. He put the gun against my temple. He breathed in my ear, “It’s like our first date, babe.”

Right. Me, Jason, Bramford, crazy Satanists, and Jason with a gun to my head. Except back then, I’d been sure Jason wasn’t going to shoot me. Now, I didn’t know.

Jason opened the door. He walked me into the hallway.

“Sorry,” I said to the shocked faces of Hallam and Marlena. “He didn’t go for it.”

Chapter Two

Kieran went for his gun.

“You draw that, I blow her head off,” said Jason.

Marlena had her hand over her open mouth. She was shaking her head back and forth, like she couldn’t believe it.

Only Hallam kept his cool. “You expect me to believe you’d shoot Azazel?” he said. He drew his own gun out of his shoulder holster.

Jason didn’t shoot me. Instead, he moved the gun away from my temple and pushed me into Kieran. “You expect me to believe you’d shoot me, Hallam?”

Kieran and I went sprawling onto the floor, a tangle of arms and legs. We extracted ourselves and scrambled to our feet.

Jason pushed past Marlena, shoving her into the wall. He sprinted down the hallway.

Hallam yelled, but he didn’t shoot.

Kieran struggled to free his gun.

Jason burst through the door into the sanctuary.

Kieran went after him.

Hallam and I didn’t move.

I heard shots, muffled through the door. It unglued my legs. I raced after Jason and Kieran, throwing open the door to the sanctuary. Hallam and Marlena were hot on my heels.

The sanctuary was empty. I darted up the aisle and out the door, crashing into Kieran on the outside steps. He steadied me with one arm, peering fiercely around the church, his gun at the ready.

“He got away,” said Kieran.

Of course he did. That wasn’t relief I was feeling, was it?

I heard Hallam sigh behind me. “What’s happened to him?”

* * *

Hallam’s office was off the side of the church, part of the ugly addition that had been built on.

There was a sleeping pallet in one corner, and a desk in the other. It was covered with maps and other pieces of paper. The computer that used to sit on it was junked and stashed against the wall, its screen shattered. Computers were worthless without electricity.

The four of us sat on some folding chairs, and I explained what Jason had said to me.

Then Marlena started crying, for real, which was a big deal, because Marlena was tough and I’d never seen her cry. “I just don’t know what happened to him.”

Hallam put his arm around her. “I hate to say it, but I think Azazel was the only thing keeping him tethered to this world.” He looked at me. “When you left him, he just snapped.”

Right. Fine. Blame me. Hallam and Marlena had known Jason longer than they’d known me anyway. I guess they were on his side.

“This isn’t Azazel’s fault,” said Kieran. “That guy is nuts. Wasn’t he trained to be like the ultimate mass murderer or something anyway?”

Hallam studied his fingernails. He’d been the one who’d done a lot of that training. But he’d been ordered to by the Sons of the Rising Sun, a twisted secret society bent on world domination.

And Jason and I had gotten rid of them. In the end, it was really me who was the mass murderer.

I’d convinced them all to commit suicide, screwing up the entire world. Maybe it all was my fault.

“I’m not blaming her,” said Hallam.

“Of course not,” said Marlena. “I was there when you two broke up.” She looked at Hallam. “If you’d done something like that—”

“I would never do that,” Hallam said.

“The point is,” said Kieran, “he’s not going to join the OF. So we need to radio in and see what they want us to do about it. Do they want him destroyed?”

“No,” said Marlena.

I shook my head. “That’s not our problem, Kieran. We came here to talk to him. We did. Now, if I can just get the Key of Asher, then Kieran and I can leave.”

“Maybe if you talked to him again,” said Hallam.

“No,” I said.

“But you were always able to get through to him,” said Hallam. “Even at the Sons’

Headquarters, when he’d gone completely insane, you were able to stop him.”

“He was never able to stop, Hallam,” I said. “You and I both know that. He’s never been quite balanced. And I was just lucky that time in England. Because he shot at me. And if I’d hit the floor one second later, I’d be dead.”

“This guy is dangerous,” said Kieran. “I gather that he’s charming. Sociopathic people often are.

But he uses people like pawns to achieve his own ends. You can’t let him manipulate you.”

“Jason isn’t sociopathic.” Marlena leaned forward in her chair, fire in her eyes.

“He fits the profile,” said Kieran.

“He’s not sociopathic,” I said.

“Excuse me,” said Kieran, “but I don’t know if you’re being honest with yourself about this. You were essentially in an abusive relationship with him, and I don’t think it’s fair to ask you to confront your abuser—”

“He didn’t
abuse
me.”

“He tried to kill you. I just saw him holding a gun to your head.”

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “We had an unhealthy relationship. Yes. He’s not a great guy. But he’s not abusive or sociopathic. He has empathy. He feels guilt. He was just brought up in such a way—”

“Don’t defend him,” said Kieran. He looked around at us. “All three of you. You make excuses for him.”

“You don’t understand,” said Hallam. “You don’t know him.”

“I do,” I said. I looked at Kieran. Was he right? Was I defending a man who’d abused me? What was Jason if not a clever, cunning killer? How many people had I seen him kill? Sure, sometimes he cried later, but did that make those people any less dead? “Hallam, he doesn’t want to let you through because he doesn’t want the OF to tell him what to do. He hates authority. He’s always been violent.”

“He protects the people he cares about,” Hallam countered. “He saved your life too many times to count, Azazel. He saved mine too.”

“Protects?” I repeated. “After Jason appeared in my life, I spent years being chased and shot at.

Because of him, my entire family is dead. Because of him, I had to learn to kill people. If I’d never met him—”

“Those things were not all Jason’s fault,” said Hallam.

He was right. I rubbed my face with my hand. “He didn’t always do it to protect people,” I said.

“Like Marlena said, when I broke up with him, he was out of control.”

Hallam massaged the bridge of his nose. “Indeed.”

We were quiet.

“You want my advice?” I said. “Break camp in Columbus and try to cross the river somewhere else. He wasn’t wrong when he said that the force of people you have here is no match for him.”

“But you’re a match for him, Azazel,” said Hallam. “You’re powerful. The things you can do are astounding.”

“No,” I said. “Because I won’t be here. I’m taking the Key of Asher and reporting back to Georgia. Because I’ve fulfilled everything that I was supposed to do here.”

“You can’t just leave,” said Hallam.

“He’s right,” said Marlena. “Jason still loves you. I know he does. If only you could—”

“No,” said Kieran, “you can’t ask her to see him anymore. This man traumatized her. So lead us to Key of Asher or whatever, and we’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Marlena got up and came to me. She knelt next to my chair. “Azazel—”

I turned away. “Kieran’s right.”

Hallam sighed. He stood up too and walked to the door. “Lily’s out with a few others scouting for fuel and food. She should be back this evening. She’s got the Key of Asher. You can talk to her.” He opened the door and gestured to the hallway. “I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

* * *

One of the rooms in the back, the one where all the guns and ammo were stored, had been partitioned off with sheets into separate, small sleeping areas. Kieran and I both had small sleeping pallets. We spent the rest of the afternoon staying busy. Kieran offered to help with the radio, and I went out back where Marlena and few of the women were working on making food.

Some of the group had been hunting. They’d killed some rabbits. They were skinned and cleaned. We were cooking them on an old charcoal grill, along with wild onions that a few of the others had found. Rabbit wasn’t something I would have eaten before the lights went out, but I had to admit that meat sounded nice. Kieran and the group I worked with the in south subsided almost entirely on canned food and powdered pasta meals. At least there were still large supplies of prepared herbs there for the taking in abandoned grocery stores. If we couldn’t get west, though, and get help, things would go even further downhill. It was amazing to me what losing electricity had done to civilization. All our pretty, fancy little toys and tricks were suddenly meaningless. We were primitive, struggling to survive like animals. It frightened me.