V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 (12 page)

“Never,” I said.

Then I heard a gun being cocked behind Jason’s head. “Let her go.”

I looked up. Kieran? Jesus Christ, what was Kieran doing here?

Jason slumped against me. “Not him again.”

“I swear to God,” said Kieran. “I will blow your brains out all over her face if I have to.”

Jason pushed himself up to his knees, his arms up. “I don’t suppose I want you to see what happens when you shoot me just yet.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? I didn’t have the time to puzzle it out, though. Jason was no longer holding me down, so I wriggled out from underneath him, rubbing the back of my head.

“Sorry about your head,” said Jason. He sounded sincere, too. God, I hated him.

“Put your hands behind your head,” Kieran rasped. “Get to your feet slowly.”

Jason complied, making a face. “Really, Azazel, I’m kind of insulted. I thought I set the bar a little higher than this guy.”

“Kieran and I are not together,” I said, furious. If he’d just stop taunting me, maybe I could keep my cool long enough to figure out what to do.

Kieran glared around Jason’s body. “Why are you telling him anything? Is it his business what’s going on with us?”

Oh, wonderful. Now Kieran was convinced there was an “us.” There was no me and Kieran.

There was just a slight, miniscule chance I was carrying his bastard child.

Jason barked out a hard laugh. “You’re breaking his heart, babe.”

“Stop calling me that,” I seethed. Had he called me that when we were dating? I didn’t think he had. Where was my gun? I was going to load it, and then I was going to shoot Jason myself.

“Stop talking,” Kieran told Jason, pressing the gun tighter against the back of his skull.

Jason’s voice was low and rumbly. “Kieran, don’t fall for her. Don’t try to protect her. She doesn’t need protection. And you shouldn’t read much into anything she lets you do. Azazel’s a certain kind of girl. She’s…what would you call it? I know. Easy. I only had to shoot a couple of guys, and she hopped between the sheets with—”

I was lunging for him, but Kieran beat me to it. He took Jason’s shoulder, spun Jason around to face him, and clubbed him in the face with the butt of his gun.

Jason’s head snapped to the side. Kieran drove a fist into his midsection.

“Kieran don’t fight him,” I said, but it was too late.

Jason doubled over, but raised his head slowly. He smiled at Kieran. Blood was trickling down the side of his face. “You should listen to her.”

Jason dove for Kieran, fists flailing. He tore the gun from Kieran’s hand and flung it over the railing. He punched Kieran’s ribs, while his other fist upper cut Kieran’s chin.

Kieran absorbed the impact, but took two steps back. He roared in rage and then jumped on Jason.

The two tumbled to the floor of the lookout house, Kieran on top. He hurled blow after blow at Jason, his fists crunching against Jason’s face and chest.

Jason was laughing. He was bleeding. His right eye was swelling up, but he was laughing. He reached up and took hold of Kieran’s neck, squeezing him and lifting Kieran away from his body with one hand.

Kieran’s eyes bulged. His grabbed at Jason, but he was too far away to make contact.

In one movement, Jason pushed Kieran down on the floor and got on his knees so that he was on top of Kieran. Jason twisted Kieran’s face sharply. There was a cracking sound.

I put my hand to my mouth. Had he killed him?

But Jason released Kieran’s throat and Kieran gasped. He was alive.

Jason put his knee on Kieran’s chest and drove his weight onto Kieran. More cracking. Kieran moaned. Jason stood up. He kicked Kieran’s stomach. Kieran groaned, but didn’t retaliate.

Jason faced me, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. There was blood all over his face.

“Easy,” I said. I hadn’t realized that would hurt me so much. Jason and I might have gotten physical kind of quickly, but I thought it had meant something to him.

“I didn’t mean it,” he said. “I was just trying to piss him off. After all, he’s the one who’s with you now, and I’m…” He looked down at the ground, his shoulders slumping, as if all of his anger was draining out of him. “You’re not easy. You’re…” He swallowed. “Every time you touched me, it meant the world to me. I couldn’t have handled being alive that day in the hotel if it wasn’t for you. I’m sorry.” He reached for me.

I took a step away from him, shaking my head. It was always the same. He was always doing this. Hurting people, and then expecting that some crazy romantic speech was going to make it all better. It didn’t make anything better. It didn’t.

But we looked into each other’s eyes for a few minutes, and I saw the hurt guy in the hotel room, who needed me to hold him to keep the darkness at bay. I had to stop myself from going to him right then and there and putting my hand on his bloody, swollen cheek.

Jason wrenched his eyes away from mine. “Get your boyfriend out of here. I think I broke his ribs.”

Chapter Eight

It was a long walk back to the church, since Kieran was in a lot of pain. It had been hell just getting him to his feet. I was pretty sure Jason wasn’t going to send anyone after us, but just to be sure, we went through the woods. I stopped to untie the guard we’d tied to the tree. He wasn’t unconscious from loss of blood yet, so I figured he’d be fine.

Kieran winced with every step and his breathing was labored, but he wanted to talk, once we were relatively clear of the park and were certain no one was behind us. “So,” he said, “explain to me again what you saw in this guy?”

That was the last thing I wanted to talk about. Jason. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you,” I muttered.

“Oh, really?” Kieran coughed and clutched his chest.

I sighed. “Thanks for showing up, though. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of that.”

“Dude just bugs me,” Kieran said. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. Or talks to you.”

“Sometimes, he’s an ass,” I agreed.

“Sometimes?”

I glared at him. “Why did you follow me, anyway?”

“It’s my job to protect you,” said Kieran. “And the other night, what I said about caring about you. I meant that.”

“Don’t,” I said.

“I’m sorry it makes you uncomfortable if I say that, but you’re very possibly pregnant with my child, here, okay?”

“Shh!” I said, glancing around us in the woods to make sure no one was around.

“Seriously?” he demanded, and then winced again.

“Look, Kieran, he was right about one thing. Don’t fall for me. I don’t feel that way about you.”

“Why not? Because your ex beat me up and you no longer respect me?”

“Kieran!” The man frustrated me beyond words.

Kieran put a hand on my shoulder and stopped me. He turned me to face him. I looked up at his face, which was oddly not nearly as bloody or swollen as Jason’s, even though Kieran had taken the worst of the beating. His ponytail was messy. Strands of hair were falling out of it, framing his face. “I’m sorry, Azazel, I can’t help it. I am falling for you.”

I wanted to look away, but I just stared at him, feeling helpless. “Well, you shouldn’t,” I said. “I just leave destruction in my wake. I never do anyone any good at all.”

His shoulder muscles tensed. “Are you talking about what you did to the guard tonight?”

I’d been talking about my powers, but I realized I’d probably been a little hard on the guard.

“Did that freak you out?”

He half-shrugged. “You’re a badass. You’re tough. You just shot him in the arm. You didn’t hesitate.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Kieran cast his eyes away, nudging the leaves on the ground with one foot. “I could hardly shoot those guards when Hallam asked me to. I can’t believe I did it. One minute they were alive and the next…”

I took Kieran’s arm.

“Ow,” he said.

I dropped his arm. “Come on. Let’s keep walking.”

We walked.

“You haven’t killed many people have you, Kieran?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything.

“It gets easier,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice sounded hollow. “I bet it does.”

* * *

Hallam was really pissed off at me, especially when he found out that I hadn’t actually gotten the grimoire. When Kieran and I got back, he called me into his office. I sat on a folding chair. He paced the room and yelled at me for a long time, talking about loyalty and following orders and the importance of people over magic books. I just let him go the way I had when I was a teenager and he was lecturing me about sleeping in the same bed with Jason.

Eventually, Marlena popped her head in and told him to shut up. She turned to me apologetically. “He’s just worked up because the prisoners are back and some of them may have infections from where Jason cut off their fingers.”

Hallam glared at Marlena. “I don’t need your help with this.”

Marlena put her hands on her hips. “Azazel is not your daughter, Hallam. You don’t have to lecture her like a child.”

Geez. Finally somebody else besides me was saying it.

“I know that,” said Hallam, slamming his hands down on his desk. “Some kind of guardian I made anyway. They’re both absolutely out of control. Jason’s cutting off people’s fingers and Azazel’s more concerned with magic books than people’s lives.”

I stood up. “Wait a second.”

Marlena held up a finger at me.

I shut up.

Marlena walked to Hallam. She put one of her hands on his. “This is not your fault,” she told him.

He pulled his hand away from her. “Everything’s falling apart.”

She sucked in a breath through her nose. “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean you have to fall apart too.”

Hallam snorted. “So now I’m falling apart, huh? You sure know how to make a fellow feel better, Marlena.”

Marlena rolled her eyes.

I needed to figure out a way to get out of the room if they were going to argue.

But just then, someone stuck his head in the door. “Uh, sorry to interrupt, but there are two women here with a baby. They’re saying something about dreams?”

Carol and Nancy! Excellent.

“I know who that is,” I told Marlena and Hallam. To the guy at the door, “Take me to them.”

The wounded prisoners were in the sanctuary, along with Kieran. They lounged on pews. A few were lying on pillows. Carol and Nancy were in the entrance. Carol was holding baby Guy.

Nancy was especially excited to see me, but Carol looked a little annoyed.

“Thank God you’re here,” I said to Nancy.

“You need me, don’t you?” she asked, grinning at Carol. “I told you the dreams meant something.”

“We have five wounded people,” I said. “They might have bad infections. And I think Kieran has broken ribs.”

“Oh God,” said Carol. “What happened to your boyfriend?”

I sighed. “He’s not my boyfriend.” Why did everyone keep calling him that?

* * *

Nancy got to work right away. She sat with each of the wounded people, putting her hands over their wounds. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her body shook. Then the healing would begin to happen. The wounds would begin to shrink. New skin would inch its way over the blood and exposed muscle. The skin would knit itself back together, and the person she was with would be whole again. I watched the injured as they stared in wonder at their healed bodies, twisting themselves to test if they were really unhurt. It was astonishing.

While this was going on, I filled Marlena and Hallam in on how we’d met Carol and Nancy and about Nancy’s particular abilities. Hallam was intrigued. He wanted to be sure of the details. It had started after the power outage? She hadn’t been able to do it before? I told him to the best of my knowledge that was true.

Now that Hallam wasn’t screaming at me, I also told him about my run-in with Jason, and that he had the grimoire. I explained that Jason said he had powers and that he thought I wanted the grimoire in order to purge him of them. Hallam appeared even more thoughtful.

Afterwards, he gathered me, Kieran, Marlena, Nancy, and Lily in his office to talk. Nancy was exhausted, but exhilarated. She’d never healed so many people. She told us that she’d never felt quite so important or helpful in her life. It was wonderful to be able to make people feel better.

We could all tell though, that it had taken a lot out of her. She was a little pale and her eyes looked a little too wide.

Hallam thanked her. “We’re blessed to have you among us,” he told her. “We can’t express our gratitude enough. Is there anything we can do for you and your partner?”

Nancy just laughed. “Oh, I love his accent. Sure, hon, you and your wife can just keep talking English to me like that.”

Lily laughed too. “It always did strike me as odd that the two of you were here and working for the American government. There’s a story there, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’ve always been an expatriot,” said Marlena. “I was born in America, but my parents were both British. That’s why I talk this way. Hallam was just on the run from the Sons of the Rising Sun.”

Lily and Nancy both raised their eyebrows.

“Evil secret society,” I said. “Enough said.”

“You’re probably wondering why I called everyone in here,” Hallam said. “It’s just a little odd.

There seems to be a sudden explosion in extra-normal abilities.”

“Explosion?” said Lily.

“Well, we’ve got Nancy, Azazel, and then Azazel told me that Jason claims he can do things too,” Hallam said. “Did you witness anything like that while you were in the camp, Lily?”

Lily considered, then shook her head. “He was just very interested in the grimoire. And Azazel, of course.” She studied her hands, the two stumps where her pinkies used to be. “He’s very compelling, I suppose. He got me to give him information. I mean, he was torturing me, but I got the impression I would have given it to him anyway, even if I hadn’t been threatened.”

“Hmm,” said Hallam. “Maybe he’s bluffing.”

“We never did figure out how he came back from the dead,” I said.

“He came back from the dead?” Kieran asked. “Like Jesus?”

“The bullet didn’t cause as much damage as we thought, obviously,” said Hallam.