V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 (25 page)

This wasn’t good.

“It’s them, all right,” said one of the men. “The ones who killed Norris, Jeff, and Buck.” He had a rifle slung over his shoulder, and he shifted it now, so that it was in his hands, and it was pointed at us.

They had guns, and we didn’t. And they outnumbered us. I tried to think. Was there any way to get one of their guns? Could I knock one out of their hands if I kicked?

“Pretty stupid of them to park that car right out on the road, wasn’t it?” said another of the men.

The sleeping bag was in my way. I’d have to wriggle out of it before I could kick, and I’d lose my advantage. For all I knew, they’d shoot the minute I moved.

One of the men leaned down over us. “Buck was my brother,” he said, anger and hurt in his voice. “You shot him down like a dog.”

A dog? Their legs were close. Maybe I could reach out and bite one of their ankles. Maybe he’d be so surprised he’d drop his gun.

Kieran’s voice next to me, ragged: “You killed my family too, you bastards.”

The other men rearranged their guns. There were five barrels pointing at us. The biting thing was a long shot. And I wished Kieran hadn’t antagonized them like that.

“Killed your what?” sneered one of them.

“Chicago,” said Kieran. “You took our TV. You raped my sister. She bled to death later.”

One of the men turned to another. “You remember this fuckface?”

“Sure as fuck don’t,” said the man. He looked down at Kieran over the barrel of his gun. “If it was us, your sister was asking for it.”

One of the men prodded me with the barrel of his rifle. “What about this one? She looks like

she’s
asking for it.”

“What kind of slut takes it outdoors, anyway?” said another man. “You don’t got a stitch on under that sleeping bag, do you, sweetheart?”

Great. This was turning out well. Kieran started to sit up. His fists were clenched, his jaw set in a firm line. The men stopped him with their guns.

“No, no,” said one. “You’re gonna watch.”

Oh forget that. Well. I didn’t really have any options here, did I? I might care a lot about the good of mankind and my own psychological health, but there was a line. Sometimes, the end really did justify the means.

“Let us see what you’ve got on,” said a man, pushing the sleeping bag aside with his gun, nearly exposing me.

“I don’t think so,” I said, gritting my teeth. Which would screw me up more? Forcing a bunch of men to kill each other or being gang raped? That was a pretty easy answer wasn’t it?

“Besides, you dicks, I’m on the rag.”

I unleashed the magic in my head, funneling the hatred I felt for each of them into their brains. I felt their initial confusion, then I felt it fade as the destruction washed out their thoughts. They were easy targets, their minds already focused on violence. It was too easy to push them in another direction, to make them hate each other.

They began to hit each other with the butts of their guns. One man smashed the man next to him in the face over and over again. There was a crunch when the man’s nose broke. Blood spattered down on Kieran and I. The other man kept smashing him in the face with the butt of the rifle until he crumpled to the ground.

Next to him, the other two men were engaged in a fist fight. The final man had a knife and he was going after the guy who’d just killed his companion by beating him to death. He lunged over Kieran and I, slashing the air with the knife. Showing no fear, the other man lunged for him. We watched as, over our bodies, the man with a knife stabbed the other in the stomach, in the chest, in the throat. There was seemingly no end to the stabbing.

It reminded me of watching the musical
Chicago
in high school for chorus class. “And then he ran into my knife. He ran into it ten times.” I giggled.

Kieran turned to me. His face was splattered with blood. The expression on his face was distorted, almost cartoonish. It made me laugh harder. I doubled over in the sleeping bag from the force of my laughter. Tears sprang to my eyes.

The man being stabbed fell lifeless on our legs. I didn’t bother to push him off. Instead, I twisted around to look behind us. The man with a knife was going after the other two men. No, there was only one guy left. The other one was thudding against the ground, his eyes bulging. He’d been strangled.

The man who strangled him had dropped him. His arms were wide. He went towards the man with a knife as if he were going in for a hug. The man with a knife slashed his throat. The man gurgled, blood spilling out of his mouth as he dropped to his knees. His eyes fixed on mine for a second, then went blank as he toppled over.

For some reason, this was even funnier, and I laughed harder.

There was only one left. What should he do? Should he commit hari kari? Disembowel himself?

I’d never disemboweled someone. I cocked my head, sizing him up and still giggling.

The man punched his knife into his gut and began to drag it through his flesh. I didn’t know if his knife was going to be long enough to actually disembowel him. He might have to dig inside his rib cage with his knife, cutting through the meat of himself—

There was a gunshot and a bullet blew up the man’s face. He fell down. I stopped laughing.

Kieran set down the rifle. He must have picked it up after one of the men dropped it. “Jesus,” he said, swallowing.

“Hey,” I said. “I was in the middle of something there.”

“Yeah,” said Kieran. “I could see that.”

I shrugged, and got out of the sleeping bag. My clothes were lying on the grass, all bloody and covered with dead guys. Gross. “You wanted me to use my magic,” I said.

Kieran looked around at the bodies. “You went a little overboard, don’t you think? I mean, they could have all just shot each other.”

“Sure, if you want it to be
boring
,” I said. Whatever. He and I could have died. I could have been raped. I pulled my shirt out from beneath the strangled dude. It wasn’t too bloody. I guessed I could put it back on.

As I shrugged into my shirt, I realized I hadn’t heard the voice this time either. Something about that should bother me, shouldn’t it? I tried to remember why. It was silly, wasn’t it? I hated the voice. If it was gone, it was good. I got to my feet and looked down at Kieran, who was still sitting in the blood-smeared sleeping bag. “By the way, you’re welcome. I just saved your life.”

Chapter Sixteen

When we got back to the church, we were astonished to find it in bad shape. Two of our people had been shot, and one was dead. I realized that when the men found the Subaru, they must have gone through the church looking for us. If we’d been there, I could have stopped them earlier.

Several of the others were wounded, including Gus.

Mercifully, they’d left the Subaru intact. I didn’t for the life of me know why. It seemed like they would have smashed it to bits. Maybe they’d planned on taking it after they killed us. Kieran and I changed our clothes, and I sent him for Nancy. We needed her to heal those that were left.

I checked everyone out, and then I realized something. Chance was gone!

Damn it. I asked Lily if she knew where he was. She told me that she hadn’t seen him since the men had broken into the church. It had simply been too confusing after that. I couldn’t blame her for losing track of Chance. But I knew exactly where he’d gone.

I’d have to go to Jason’s camp and retrieve my stupid little brother. Good God. I really did have to take care of everyone, all the goddamned time. Why was it my responsibility?

I made sure Lily had things under control and that everyone was at least bandaged or in the process of getting bandaged. I stopped to pick up my gun and headed for the door.

I heard a car pull up. Its engine was loud. Shit. Were there more of the men? What the hell?

I sprinted through the sanctuary, gun cocked and loaded. I’d head them all off myself if I had to.

Hell, I’d use magic. It had worked fine just a few minutes ago. It would work again.

The door of the sanctuary burst open and men dressed in black t-shirts and black jeans poured in, their guns out. Then Jason came in, with Chance trailing behind him in the wheelchair.

“Chance, stay back,” Jason threw over his shoulder.

Chance didn’t listen. Jason swore at him, but scoured the room with his eyes. He saw me.

“Azazel? Are you okay?”

Why was he asking, anyway? “Fine,” I said.

Jason eyes swept the sanctuary. “Chance said you were being attacked.”

“So you came to rescue me?”

“Well, whatever our differences, Azazel, I don’t want you to die,” he said.

“I took care of it,” I said.

He nodded, holstering his gun. He signaled to the other men to do the same. “I think the men that attacked you might have been some of mine. I’m sorry about that.”

“They weren’t yours,” I said. “We ran into them in Clinton. They came after us because we shot some of them. It had nothing to do with you.”

He considered. “I hope so. I don’t know what I would have done with men like that.” He took a deep breath. “They’re coming, Azazel. I’ve held them off for as long as I could, waiting for you, but I can’t wait any longer.”

They’re coming.
That was what Jason had said in my dream. What did he mean? “Who’s coming?”

“There’s so much I need to tell you,” said Jason. “I wanted to tell you that night I came here, but when you said that stuff about being pregnant, I lost it.”

“Well, you’ve always had a temper,” I said. I wished he’d leave.

Jason hung his head. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry about Chance. I’m sorry about Mitch. I was out of control.”

“You’re always out of control.”

He looked up at me. “I’m not. Not now. Not as long as I have something to fight. Something worth fighting.”

“The Order of the Fly is not worth fighting,” I said.

“It’s more than that now. I need to tell you about it. Come back with me. Talk to me. I’m sorry I got so weirded out about your pregnancy. I was an idiot. Congratulations and all of that.”

“I’m not pregnant,” I muttered. “Not anymore. And I don’t want to talk to you.”

“It’s important. Please.”

“No.” I swung my gun in a circle, sighting each of his men in turn. “Get out. I’ll start shooting if you don’t.”

“For Christ’s sake, Azazel—”

“
Get out
.”

And then the door opened, and Kieran and Nancy came inside the sanctuary. They looked at all of the people there and at me with my gun.

“What’s going on?” said Kieran.

“Chance went and got Jason to help with the guys who attacked us. Jason came, but he was too late. And now he’s leaving. Right, Jason?”

Jason shook his head in disgust. “Yes.”

“I’ll give you guys a ride since I drove you over here,” said Chance.

I waited silently, my gun still trained on them, as they all filed out of the sanctuary. Kieran and Nancy moved forward as they left. They’d gotten here fast.

Nancy had met Kieran halfway, as it turned out. She’d known he was coming and had gone out to wait for him. She asked me to take her to the wounded right away. I did. While Nancy did what she could for the wounded, Kieran asked me to fill him in on what had happened with Jason. I told him as best I could.

Within an hour, everyone was patched up and feeling better. Kieran and I were sprawled on pews in the sanctuary. Nancy came in and threw herself down in a pew next to us. “What I wouldn’t give for a beer,” she said.

Of all the stuff that people raided, they raided the alcohol first. Go figure. I hadn’t seen an alcoholic beverage in at least three months, if you didn’t count the moonshine Jason had. It was just as well, I guess. I didn’t do well with alcohol. But that didn’t stop me from saying, “Guess that’s another good thing about not being pregnant. I can still drink beer.”

“You thought you were pregnant?” asked Nancy.

Oh right. Nancy hadn’t known about my pregnancy scare. I told her all about the false positive and getting my period that day.

“Doesn’t sound like a miscarriage to me. You just read the result too late. Happened to Carol and I when we were trying too. I wanted a positive so bad, I think I willed myself to see it,” said Nancy.

“So I was never pregnant,” I said. Somehow this made it even worse.

“Probably not,” said Nancy. “But I did have an odd dream about you the other night. You were in a gazebo thing with the Wodden guy. What do you call him? Jason? It was raining honey.”

“You had that dream too?” I asked.

“He was holding a baby in that dream.”

Kieran sat up in his pew. “Did you tell me about this dream, Azazel?”

“I told Hallam and Marlena. You weren’t speaking to me at the time,” I said. I turned back to Nancy. “Did you dream the part where I was talking to a face in the clouds too?”

She shook her head.

“What do you think it means?” I asked.

Nancy shook her head. “There’s something between you and him. Something powerful. But that dream was so convoluted, I couldn’t say what any of it meant.” She frowned. “It’s late. I need to get back to Carol and Guy. Can you drive me, Kieran?”

Kieran nodded. “Sure.”

Chance came back into the sanctuary, wheeling himself up to the three of us as Kieran and Nancy stood up. He looked tired. “You’re right, Zaza,” he said. “He is different. But you’re different too.”

* * *

I met Polly in the woods on the day we had picked to meet. She was there when I arrived at the spot we’d talked before. Her red hair was tied back in a sloppy bun, and she looked pale and frightened.

“Polly,” I said. “Are you okay? Did you find the grimoire?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know where he keeps it. And he hasn’t been talking to me so much lately. Or coming near me. After your brother showed up the other night, he’s been ignoring me completely. I can’t get close to him to look for it without him being suspicious.”

The grimoire was not such a big deal anymore. I’d spent some time thinking about it, and I’d concluded that I wanted to keep my magic. If I hadn’t had magic, the situation with the men, Kieran, and me the other night might have turned out quite differently. Kieran and I could be dead. I wanted to be able to protect myself in the future. Still, if Polly brought it to me, then I could use it against Jason. That would work out well. But I didn’t need the grimoire as much as I’d originally thought. “Polly, you don’t have to get stressed about it,” I said. “If you can’t get it, you can’t get it.”