V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 (32 page)

“I know, I know,” she said. “He scares me. But you can’t kill him.”

Jason shoved Polly. “Get away from me,” he said.

Polly stumbled and fell. She looked up at Jason with hurt eyes. “I just wanted you to live long enough to see your child,” she said.

Jason closed his eyes. “Child?”

“She’s pregnant,” I said.

Jason hung his head. “I’m sorry, Polly.”

He moved too fast for me. His feet kicked my legs out from under me, and I dropped the gun.

Jason had the gun in his hands, and I was on the ground before I could stop him. He aimed the gun at me. “I’ve realized something,” he said. “I used to think that you should kill me, because I brought nothing but death to this world. But now I realize that if I should die, you should too.”

Kieran put a gun to Jason’s temple. “Stop,” he said.

“He’s not afraid of that,” I said to Kieran.

Kieran pulled the trigger anyway.

There was an explosion of blood and bits of bone. I shut my eyes, and I felt it spatter against my face. When I opened my eyes, Jason was shaking his head like a wet dog and laughing.

Kieran stepped back. “What is he?”

Jason bowed low in front of Kieran, still laughing. “Haven’t you guessed? I’m the messiah.”

I got to my feet and plunged head first into Jason, sending him sprawling on his back. “I don’t think so,” I said.

He reached up and stroked my cheek gently. “Last time we did this,” he said, “I remember it being a lot more pleasant.”

Suddenly, I was crying. “Kieran, give me your gun,” I said. Kieran did. I put the gun in Jason’s face. “You’re crazy. You tried to kill Kieran. You mutilated people and sent us their fingers. You hurt Chance. You deserve to die.”

“Do any of us deserve to live?” Jason asked.

I was still crying, because for some stupid reason, I was thinking of things that Jason had done that had made me love him. Like the way he always snored, or how he loved Guns N’ Roses and would sing along at the top of his lungs to “Welcome to the Jungle.”

“You gonna do it, babe?” Jason said, grinning at me.

“Yes,” I whispered, fingering the trigger. “Jason, some part of me still cares about you. I’m so sorry.” My tears were blinding me. I took one hand off of the gun to wipe them away.

It was only a second, but Jason took that second to drive his fist into my stomach.

I oomphed, doing my best to absorb the blow.

But before I could pull myself together, his other fist collided with my chin. My teeth crunched against each other. My head snapped back.

Jason was on his feet, his foot on my chest. He kicked the gun out of my hand. He stared down at me. His eyes were full of tears too. “As long as there’s a part of you that cares about me, there’s a chance for us,” he said.

And then Jason was running. Kieran scooped up the gun and fired after him, but what did that matter? Only I could hurt him, and by the time I’d made it to my feet, he’d disappeared into the trees.

Maybe I should have gone after Jason, but I didn’t. Instead, I stumbled over the dead bodies to the corpse of my little brother, Chance. I collapsed next to him, pulling his head into my lap. We could go west now. We could get electricity. But I didn’t care, because my baby brother was dead. I looked into his lifeless eyes, stroking his cheek. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I paced back and forth in the alley, gripping the cell phone tight against my cheek. “Yes, Phillips,” I said, “it’s very impressive that you always find a way to contact me.”

I rolled my eyes at Kieran, who was leaning against the side of a building, a tiny blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms. Skyscrapers surrounded us, and the sounds of explosions underscored our conversation. Kieran made hushing noises as loud wails emanated from the blankets in his arms.

“Can you hear that?” I asked Phillips. “The baby’s screaming.”

Phillips’ voice crackled a little. Cell reception wasn’t great these days, especially since Jason’s people kept knocking down all the towers. “The baby is Wodden’s child, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Can’t you see how risky it is to have him with you?”

“Little Chance is safer with me than he’d be anywhere else,” I said. Why was I arguing with this dick anyway? I had better things to do. Like annihilate Jason’s army. “Jason’s already sending messages that he wants his son. There’s no way I’m letting that happen.” Polly hadn’t made it through delivering him. There were too many problems with the birth, and the doctor had tried to do an emergency C-section. There had been so much blood. She hadn’t even been able to name her baby before she died. But she’d grasped my arm, stared into my eyes, and made me promise to take care of him. I was determined to keep that promise.

“Please, Azazel,” said Phillips. “Please relinquish your command to the OF forces. You aren’t trained to—”

“Phillips,” I said, “stop trying to convince me to give up command. No one can fight Jason better than I can. I know what I’m doing.”

Phillips’ voice shook. “The destruction the two of you are wreaking on the country is—”

Phillips voice cut off as I lost the call on my phone. Good. I didn’t want to talk to him anyway.

I went to Kieran and little Chance.

“The explosions are scaring him,” Kieran said.

I touched Chance’s grimy cheek. “What’s going to happen to you, little man? Growing up in the middle of battles all the time? Watching everyone die?”

“Azazel,” Kieran said.

I looked up at him sadly.

“Maybe you should turn over command to the OF,” said Kieran. “The three of us could go into hiding.”

I shook my head. “Jason would take over the world if I didn’t try to stop him.”

There was a loud crack as a bomb struck a building close to us. The ground shuddered.

“If there’s a world left after this,” Kieran muttered.

I sighed, refocusing myself on the battle. My army was gaining ground on Jason’s, but that hardly meant anything. We fought so constantly, huge masses of people against each other, all over the United States, that one victory or loss made no difference. “I’ll kill him,” I said. “If I can ever get close.”

I could see Jason’s armies coming for mine, and I received messages from him—demands, insane ones. He wanted his child. He wanted me. He wanted our complete surrender, and he wanted us to join his fight for freedom. That’s what he called it.

“If only we’d been able to find the grimoire,” said Kieran.

I hated that he brought this up so often.

“Jason must have had it on him when he left Columbus,” I said. “Let’s get moving. This area is unstable. We need to find cover.” With my mind, I pulled a few dozen men to cover us as we made our escape. I didn’t tell Kieran I was doing this. It upset him that I forced people to protect us and didn’t give them a choice. But it was the only chance we had to survive.

Kieran didn’t move. “If we had that grimoire, we could get rid of both of your powers.”

“I know,” I said. Someday, I wanted that. I did. Someday, I’d tell Kieran that I’d found the grimoire in Jason’s RV, and that I carried it with me, tucked in a pocket inside one of my packs.

Someday.

I yanked on Kieran’s arm. “Let’s go,” I said.

He followed me, then, handing me little Chance. I walked with the baby snug in my arms, staring into his tiny eyes, so similar to Jason’s.

Someday, I would get rid of both of our powers. But…not yet. Not now. I just needed to feel the power flood through me again. A few more times. And there wasn’t any point in using my power without a worthy adversary, was there? I needed Jason to wreak this havoc. If he didn’t, I didn’t have any excuse. Did I?

Finis

Author’s note:

Why Azazel doesn’t love Jason anymore

By vjchambers

– December 28, 2010

Posted in:
blogging, jason and azazel, kieran, the stillness in the air

Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You

If I wanted to continue the tension I’d created in the first three stories, I had to pony up to what I’d been threatening for three books. The first three books, on one level, are all about this issue: everyone on earth thinks Azazel and Jason shouldn’t date, and they insist on doing so anyway. I had to put umph behind their warnings, or those warnings would have been meaningless. In many ways, this is what was coming since the beginning, when Azazel learned that her family wanted her to kill Jason.

Azazel’s Character Arc

Azazel was raised in a perfect family. At least it looked perfect. She was loved unconditionally by her parents and brothers. And they betrayed her. First her parents betrayed her. Then her brothers betrayed her.

Azazel didn’t kill her parents, but she contributed to their deaths. She did kill her brothers. She killed her best friend. And in the end, she trusted Jason implicitly, in much the same way she’d trusted her parents.

And then Jason, too, betrayed her.

When Jason isn’t in Azazel’s life, things seem to go slightly better for her. The minute he shows up again, all hell breaks loose. So I think it makes sense, from her perspective, why she wouldn’t want to date him anymore.

The Perfect Love, or They’re Made For Each Other

I guess the first thing that I should say as an author is that I don’t believe in crap like that in real life. When I originally wrote
Breathless
, I meant it to kind of thumb its nose at the entire idea of love being fated and all that junk. It was supposed to be creepy that Jason and Azazel stayed together when they could, quite possibly, destroy the world.

Over time, the saga of the two of them evolved. I do believe in unconditional love, but not because it’s fated or meant to be. I believe it’s a choice. While I think that Azazel has been in a position to make that choice about Jason, I feel like Jason has never had to make that choice about Azazel. In other words, he’s destroyed her life by simply existing, but she’s never done the same thing to him–at least not until she kicked him out after he hurt Chance. What this means, however, is simply that it’s a bigger deal for Azazel to love Jason than it is for Jason to love Azazel.

The question, however, remains: Are they meant to be together? Is it fate? Do they belong together?

If the answer is yes, should they be together? Do people like Jason and Azazel deserve to be happy? Lots of times, they are not particularly nice people.

Which, of course, begs the question why am I still writing about them? I guess they still interest me. That’s why.

I Worship at the Shrine of Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon said: “It’s Sam and Diane. That’s why we had Angel go bad when he and Buffy got together. Because — and I’ve gotten into so much trouble for this phrase — what people want is not what they need. In narrative, nobody wants to see fat, married Romeo and Juliet, even if fat, married Romeo and Juliet happen to be Nick and Nora Charles and they’re really cool and having a great time in their lovely relationship and really care about each other and have nice, well-adjusted children. Guess what? People don’t want to see it.

“That was the problem we ran into with Riley. We said, ‘Let’s give Buffy a healthy relationship,’

and people didn’t want it. They did some great work together. But at the same time, when they were happy, it made people crazy. We found this with Willow and Tara, we found it with Gunn and Fred. It’s fine for a while, but ultimately the course of true love is not allowed to run smooth.”

(First thing to note is, of course, that if Kieran and Azazel are actually happy, you can bet your ass that’s not going to last very long.)

Do you think it’s true? Is it boring when people are happy and in love? I guess I do. And that’s why Jason and Azazel are currently not together.