V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 (11 page)

We could see that the lookout house was surrounded by armed men. It was too dark to see who was inside it. I glanced from the lookout house to the kid who’d led us here. I considered. The easiest thing would be to shoot him in the head. Of course, that would probably alert the guards at the lookout house to our presence. Still, I didn’t want this kid running loose in the camp.

“How’s his arm?” I asked Kieran.

“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Kieran replied.

Great. I didn’t want to leave the kid out here to bleed to death. I had the kid take off his jacket.

Marlena and I made a tourniquet to tie around his arm, hopefully stopping the bleeding. Then we tied him to a tree with the rest of the jacket. I didn’t think it would hold him for very long, but that was fine. We didn’t need too much time. At least, I didn’t think so.

Hallam ripped some cloth off the jacket to gag the kid. We couldn’t have him yelling out to the other guards and warning them.

The four of us crouched just inside the trees and spoke in low voices.

“There are six of them,” said Hallam. “Four of them are in our sight.” The other two were behind the gazebo. “If we all shoot at once, can we take those four out?”

“Are we shooting to kill, Hallam?” I asked.

He hesitated. I knew he was weighing the options. On the one hand, dead guards were dead and therefore out of the way. On the other hand, Jason hadn’t killed any of our people. If we killed first, it would give him the reason to launch a full-scale attack on us. And there were a lot more people in their camp than there were in ours.

“I can’t guarantee a kill shot,” said Kieran. “Not with only one chance.”

“Legs,” said Hallam.

I nodded. Marlena nodded. Kieran sighed. “I’ll try.”

“Okay,” I said. “So we shoot and then?”

“We shoot,” said Hallam, “and wait. Hopefully the guys on the other side come around to see to their friends, and then we shoot them too.”

“We shoot them in the legs, and they can still shoot at us,” said Marlena.

Duh. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Why hadn’t Hallam?

He took a deep breath and set his shoulders grimly. “Shoot to kill,” he said.

We each sized up our targets and took aim. I was shooting the guy closest to the river. Right then he was looking out over the water. I wondered what he was thinking. Then I told myself not to.

But it wasn’t fair. These guys were all young, and they were all just following Jason’s orders.

They didn’t deserve to die.

“On three,” whispered Hallam. “One…two…three.”

I squeezed my trigger, bracing against the force of the shot. Immediately, I heard the sounds of the others’ gunshots. The guys at the lookout house all tensed one second, looking up. Then the bullets hit them. My guy went down, clutching his chest. Good.

Hallam’s guy’s head exploded. Of course. Trust the guy trained by the Sons to make a shot like that.

Marlena’s shot took her guy in the stomach, and he went to his knees.

Kieran’s shot went wide. He didn’t connect at all.

Kieran’s guy began returning fire in our general direction.

I hit the ground. Kieran ducked behind a tree. Hallam and Marlena took cover as well. Kieran peered around and got off another shot. This time, his bullet drilled the guy in the neck. Nice. I was impressed.

Unfortunately, the other two guys did not come around the lookout house. Instead, they took cover behind it and were shooting at us from there. Marlena’s guy was hanging on too. He returned fire, even though he was lying on the ground.

We exchanged bullets for a few minutes, neither side hitting anyone. I did my best to hit Marlena’s guy, but he was difficult to see now that he’d flattened himself against the ground, just a dark shape in the shadows.

What were we going to do? If we broke cover and raced for the lookout house, they’d see us. On the other hand, if we stayed hidden in the trees for too long, more of Jason’s people were likely to show up. I knew Hallam would suggest that I use magic, but I wasn’t going to. I could figure this out.

Darkness was hindering us, but it was hindering them too. We had that on our side. How could we use it? “Split up,” I hissed. “I’ll stay here and keep shooting. You guys creep around in the shadows.”

The other three agreed. They broke off, each slinking out of the woods. Kieran crawled further down the bank, and headed for them that way. Marlena stuck to the edge of the woods and came at them from the opposite side. Hallam, daredevil, that he was, got on his belly and crawled straight for them.

I shot over and over again, trying to make it seem that there were still four guns on them. I don’t know if they thought so or not.

One of my shots finally got the guy that Marlena had originally hit. He cried out, forced out a couple more shots, and then was still.

For an agonizingly long time, I couldn’t see Hallam, Marlena, or Kieran. I tried to look for telltale movements in the darkness, but couldn’t see any. This was a good thing. It meant that the others couldn’t see them either. But it was terrifying.

One of the guys behind the lookout house shot a bullet that was almost too close for comfort. It wedged itself into the bark of the tree in front of me, inches from my face.

I gasped, stepping back. I couldn’t return fire for several seconds.

They were going to realize I was the only one there!

I stepped forward to shoot again, but looking out, I realized Hallam was leading the prisoners out of the lookout house. Kieran had marched the other two guards out from behind the stone structure. They had their hands in the air.

I heard Hallam yell to Kieran, “Shoot them!”

Kieran hesitated. Then he leveled his gun and put bullets neatly in each of their skulls.

Marlena appeared out of the shadows, ushering the prisoners towards the trees. There were four of them. All seven people sprinted towards me.

Within seconds they were under the cover of the woods.

“We don’t have much time,” said Hallam. “People heard those shots. Jason will have reinforcements on the way.”

“We’ll cut through the woods,” said Marlena. “It’ll be safer than following the road into the camp.” She started to lead the prisoners forward. Hallam followed.

Kieran stopped, staring at me with wide, hollow eyes. What was wrong with him?

“Go,” I told him.

He started after Hallam.

I didn’t move. I looked back at the bodies and the lookout house. I wanted that grimoire.

I thrashed forward through the underbrush of the woods to the prisoners. “Which one of you is Lily?” I asked.

One of the women spoke up. “Me.”

“Do you have the grimoire?”

“Azazel,” Hallam growled.

“They took it from me,” said Lily.

I dashed back towards the clearing. “Go on without me!” I told Hallam.

“Get back here,” Hallam said.

I didn’t pay any attention.

Clearing the woods, I was in the open. The grimoire wouldn’t be in the lookout house. It would be safe, inside shelter. Would it be inside a building on the grounds? Was there a building?

Maybe Jason had it in camp. One thing was for sure. Jason had it. I had to figure out where Jason would be.

I darted across the clearing to the lookout house and crept behind it, kneeling in the shadows.

Hallam was right. Reinforcements would be showing up soon. I could follow them back to Jason.

As luck would have it, Jason appeared in just a few minutes, followed by about ten armed men.

Not all were young boys this time. A few were older—maybe thirty or forty. They wore black shirts and jeans, almost like a uniform. These men must be Jason’s personal guard. His highest in command.

Jason and the men surveyed the bodies.

One of the men spoke to him. He didn’t have a Kentucky accent. In fact, he sounded like he was from up north, maybe New York or Jersey. Had he moved here? A northern transplant? “I told you we shouldn’t let the locals guard the prisoners.”

The locals? These men weren’t from Columbus at all then? Did they travel with Jason? What the hell?

Jason held up a hand to stop the man. “No, this is what I expected. If you had been killed, the people wouldn’t be willing to drive the OF out.”

Another guy smirked. “We wouldn’t have been killed.”

Jason smiled. “Exactly. This way, everyone will be outraged. They’ll demand we do something.

We’ll have to show the OF who’s boss.”

Wait, was I following him? This was part of his strategy? He was trying to rally the people of Columbus to fight us? Jesus, he was playing Hallam like a violin. I had to warn Hallam that an attack would be coming, but then Hallam was smart. He knew what the consequences would be when he’d ordered us to shoot to kill.

“Should we go after them?” asked one of Jason’s men.

Jason shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Let them go.”

Jason had his men load up the bodies on makeshift stretchers. They wrapped the bodies, two to a sheet. Then the men tied off the ends. Together, they dragged the bodies away from the lookout house, back to camp. Jason didn’t leave, though. He walked into the lookout house and rested his arms on the railing. He stood there, gazing at the river, quiet. I could see the shadow of his profile. I was struck again by how attractive he was.

Inwardly, I scolded myself. I wasn’t supposed to feel drawn to Jason. Not anymore. It had been so much easier to forget about him when he wasn’t around.

“I know you’re here,” Jason said, his voice soft, like black velvet.

I didn’t move. He couldn’t be talking to me.

“Azazel,” he said.

Damn it. He was bluffing anyway. There was no way he could have seen me. I’d keep quiet.

Eventually, he’d assume he was wrong and shut up.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said. “I know you’re looking for that grimoire. That Lily chick told me before I threatened to cut off her fingers.” He giggled then. He sounded completely insane. “I cut them off anyway, of course.”

Jason strode to the edge of the lookout house. He was maybe three feet away from me. I didn’t move. I was huddled in shadows. He couldn’t see me.

“Now,” he said. “Why would you want the Key of Asher? Maybe it’s because there’s a section that’s supposed to purge someone of power completely.” He knelt down so that he was eyelevel with me.

Shit! He knew where I was. He had to. What was I going to do?

“You constantly surprise me,” he whispered. “That’s why I can’t stop loving you, I think. When you kicked me out, you were so caught up in your own issues with magic. I didn’t think you realized I had any magic.”

Jason had magic? That was silly. My grandmother had told me that I’d done it all. I’d placed the suggestions. I’d driven people crazy and made men kill themselves. It was me. Not him.

“Are you going to come out?” he asked.

I guess there was the fact that Jason had sort of come back from the dead once. That had been kind of creepy. And before, all the weird things had happened after Jason and I had kissed. I’d always figured that the kissing was just a coincidence. We’d thought that Jason had power, because everyone had been convinced that he had, from Michaela Weem to the Sons. It had been kind of ironic, I thought, when we realized that it had all been me, the whole time.

But maybe it hadn’t been all me. Maybe…

“Or am I going to have to drag you out?”

I stood up. I drew my gun.

“Jesus, Azazel,” he muttered. “Always with the guns.”

“I want the grimoire,” I said.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “I won’t let you try to get rid of my powers. Unlike you, I happen to like them.”

What? Wait a second. Jason was completely confused about what I wanted with the grimoire. He thought I wanted to purge his powers, not my own. I didn’t care about his damned powers.

I leapt on him.

He wasn’t expecting it. We both went sprawling onto the stone floor of the lookout house. We struggled for a second, but I was on top, and I had the advantage. I pinned him, my knees between his legs, putting pressure on his groin, my gun pressed against his chest. “Tell me where it is,” I said.

“You just can’t handle not being close to me,” said Jason. “I miss you too, babe.”

“Tell me where the book is or I will shoot you,” I snarled.

“I’m not going to tell you,” he said. “And you’re not going to shoot me.”

Oh, that was what he thought, was it? “I’ll find it another way,” I said. I didn’t need Jason anyway. He was psychotic. He was a killer. He’d ruined my life. I pulled the trigger.

Click.

I was out of bullets.

Jason looked stricken. “You pulled the trigger.”

I fumbled for more bullets, but Jason wouldn’t let me do that.

His arm came up hard and fast, knocking my gun out of my hand so that it skittered across the floor of the lookout house and dropped off the side onto the river bank.

He grasped my arm and twisted it behind my back, sitting up at the same time.

I cried out in pain. He wrenched the arm he held out from behind me and pushed me down on my back.

My other hand was free. I clawed at his face, digging at one of his eyes. His hold loosened. I was able to start to sit up.

He snatched that arm away and slammed me down against the floor.

My head cracked into the stone. I moaned.

Jason had both of my arms held down now. He was on top of me, and I lay beneath him, spread eagle.

He lowered his face to mine. “The last time we did this,” he murmured. “I remember it being a lot more pleasant.”

“Fuck you,” I muttered.

He gave me a wistful look. “No. Not if you don’t want to.” His lips hovered close in the air, next to mine. “But I miss that. Don’t lie to me and tell me you don’t.”

I turned my face away from his. There had to be some way I could get out of this.

His mouth was against my ear. His tongue darted out against it, something that always made me shudder in pleasure. My traitorous body did it this time too.

I struggled in his arms. “Stop it.”

“We could have everything. We could usher this world into the next age. Don’t you realize it’s what we’re made for? Be with me, Azazel. Forgive me.”