V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 (27 page)

“Well, that’s polite,” I said to him.

“I didn’t know you cared about Polly’s feelings,” he muttered.

“It doesn’t look like you care either,” I said.

Polly scrambled out of the RV, her clothes a little rumpled. When she saw me, she started.

I noted again that Jason wasn’t wearing a shirt. Great. Guess I’d interrupted something.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her. “It’s not—” I broke off and looked at Jason. “Can’t she stay?”

He shook his head. “No. I notice you didn’t bring your lap dog boyfriend along either?”

I shut up.

Polly darted off into the darkness like a chastised dog with its tail between its legs. Jason swung into the RV, and I got in after him. Inside, the RV was lit by several kerosene lamps. I could see that it was relatively clean. Its kitchen, with its sink and stove, had clearly never been used. No electricity, after all. Jason walked past the kitchen, barely giving it a look, and into the back of the RV. Behind him, there was a bed, its covers crumpled. He sat down on a couch and motioned for me to sit opposite him on a chair. Beside us, a table jutted out of the wall.

“I don’t have Hallam and Marlena,” he said. “But I know who does.” He gestured to the table. A digital camera was sitting on it. I hadn’t seen one in a while. It was hard to find batteries these days. “Go ahead. Pick it up.”

I did.

“Turn it on,” Jason said. “That was sitting outside my RV a few days ago. I don’t know how exactly it got here. Whoever left it got past my guard, and they aren’t easy to get past.”

I turned on the camera. The screen filled with a digital image of the RV. I could snap a picture if I wanted. Jesus. I hadn’t realized how much I missed technology like this.

Jason reached for the camera, and I gave it to him. He hit a few buttons and handed it back to me. Now the camera was playing a video, which must have been stored inside it.

The video took place inside a basement of some kind, where there was—Oh dear God—electric light. I could see exposed light bulbs attached to the ceiling. And I could see Marlena and Hallam. They were tied up and gagged in a corner. They both looked pretty beat up, with multiple wounds on their faces and arms. That made sense. It would take a lot to take them down. They were tough as nails. Crap.

“Hello, Jason,” said a voice on the video. “I thought we could trade.”

Chapter Seventeen

The view of the video switched, careening around the basement until it faced the owner of the voice. Sutherland.

“What the hell?!” I said.

Sutherland was smiling. “We’ve had some mutually satisfying transactions in the past, and I thought that you and Azazel might want to do business with me again.”

I’d dreamed about Sutherland, and now he’d appeared in my life. Did this mean it was going to start raining honey?

On the video, Sutherland kept talking. “I know your people have been doing surveillance on me.

I’ve noticed your spies. I’ve left them alone thus far, because I wasn’t ready. This side of the United States has been a little bit unruly. Too many loners out west, you know. If the power had gone down on this side, I would have had the east coast in half the time. But, at any rate, I’ve got everyone under control now. And now I find out about you and your little girlfriend playing games with magic in Kentucky. So, let me put this as succinctly as I can, okay? Here’s the deal.

You don’t cause problems for me and my men, and I don’t hurt your friends. Deal?”

Sutherland smiled.

Jason snatched the camera back from me.

“What the hell is Sutherland doing with Hallam and Marlena?” I said.

“This is why I didn’t want you to go west,” said Jason. “Sutherland’s in the west. He’s freaking taken over the whole other side of the country, and he’s calling himself the emperor of America or something.”

“The dictator?” I said in understanding. “The fascist government? That was true?”

“Absolutely.”

I was quiet for a few moments, trying to put this together. There actually was a dictator in the west. That was why no one had come to help us. And this dictator was Sutherland? That made no sense. I shook my head. “How did Sutherland become the emperor of America?”

“I don’t know exactly,” said Jason. “I didn’t find out until after I was actively trying to stop the OF from getting west.”

“So, it really isn’t all just about trying to keep us away from Sutherland, is it?” I said. “You don’t want the OF to bring back any kind of order.”

Jason glowered at me. “I haven’t lied to you about that, Azazel. I want to save everyone from the tyranny of government. Using my powers, I can bring everyone together. You see what I’ve done here, what this encampment is like. I’ve got them all around a campfire singing together. Instead of destroying everything, I can—”

“You’re forcing people to come here,” I said. “Twisting their minds. And maybe you’re even building an army.”

“For Sutherland!” said Jason. “Well, for the OF too, unfortunately, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’d join me, we wouldn’t need armies. The two of us together, with our power, we could do amazing things.”

I wasn’t in the mood to hear Jason’s psychotic ramblings. “How did you find out about Sutherland?”

“I was curious,” he said, “as to why no one had sent help from the west, so I decided to do some checking. It turned out to be harder than I imagined. All the bridges across the Mississippi had been blown up, from the looks of it, on the western side. But I was able to get a scouting party together, and we got a boat, and we made it over there. It didn’t take long to figure it out.

Sutherland’s face was plastered all over banners and billboards. He was on the TVs inside store windows. ‘Emperor of America,’ was written underneath his face. The few people we talked to made it clear that Sutherland was ruling the country and that he had no intention of coming east.”

“Until now,” I said.

Jason nodded. “I guess the western half of the country wasn’t good enough for him. Now he wants the whole thing.”

“But I don’t get it,” I said. “How did he do this? Sutherland never struck me as the kind of person with political leanings. And he was always more subtle, working to manipulate people, not to outright control them.”

“I don’t know,” said Jason. “Maybe this is what he always wanted, though. This much control.”

Maybe. Sutherland had always been one step ahead of everyone. Maybe it should have been obvious he was capable of this. “Why didn’t you tell me about Sutherland?” If Jason had explained all of this better, maybe I wouldn’t have thought he was just being a total dick head.

“You didn’t need to know,” said Jason. “I liked things the way they were. I thought maybe Sutherland would stay on that side of the river. I thought I could stay here. I liked it like that. If it weren’t for the pesky Order of the Fly, then it would have been
perfect
here.”

“If you’d explained yourself, certain people might not be dead,” I said.

“Right,” said Jason. “Because the OF would have just believed me. They wouldn’t have kept trying to send their little groups across the river to ask for help.”

He was right, I guess. “You captured people and cut off their fingers.”

“Yeah. Well, if they’d gotten across the river, Sutherland would have killed them. He’s killed every other group that has.”

The group to the north that we’d lost contact with. Sutherland had killed them. But… “You cut off their fingers to save their lives?”

“To save Hallam and Marlena,” said Jason. “When I knew it was them, I couldn’t let them get across the river. I had to stop them. I wish I’d known they’d gone off on their own, but recently, I’ve been a little busy with all the people who’ve been showing up here.”

“Right,” I said. “Your army.”

“I’ve got to stop Sutherland,” said Jason. “Even if he brings back electricity, he’s not really going to make things better. He’s going to take over and rule everything like… well, you know what kind of guy Sutherland is.”

I did. This kind of made sense. Kind of. I rubbed my face. “So this army is to fight Sutherland, not to obliterate the OF?”

Jason smiled grimly. “I can’t obliterate much with you countering my powers, can I? Let’s stick to Sutherland for a minute, shall we? Sutherland knows what I can do. How I can focus large groups of people and make them all work together like one being. He knows what you can do too. That you can create destruction and confusion. Sutherland assumes we’re working together.

He knows that together, we stand a chance of annihilating his army, even though he outnumbers us. He’s trying to make us back down by capturing Marlena and Hallam.”

I let out a disgusted sigh. “Sutherland likes his trades, doesn’t he?”

“The video goes on to outline his deal. He’ll give us back Marlena and Hallam when we let him across the river.”

“Well, we’re not making a deal with Sutherland,” I said. “There’s got to be another way.”

“We go in together,” said Jason. “Just you and me, like old times. I think we can find where Sutherland is hiding Hallam and Marlena. We get them out and we kill Sutherland. Case closed.”

I considered. It might work. If Jason and I combined our powers, there was very little anyone could do to stop us. We would absolutely destroy any obstacle. But then what? “What happens to the other side of the U.S. then?” I asked. “Will you stand aside and let the OF go in to restore order and reestablish the government?”

Jason sighed. “You know I can’t do that.”

“So we stop Sutherland and then it’s you against the OF again? You won’t let us west, will you?”

“Jesus, Azazel, is that important right now?”

“I think it is.”

Jason stood up. “I thought you cared about Hallam and Marlena.”

I stood up too. “I do.”

“Well, then, how can you let Sutherland kill them? We have to rescue them.”

I crossed my arms. “Look, it’s news to me that you care about them so much.”

“I’m not a monster, Azazel.”

I laughed. “Sure. You’re a fluffy bunny who can make people care about things they didn’t care about before. Who’s indestructible, I might add.”

“And you? You make people kill themselves or each other.”

“Maybe we’re both monsters,” I said. “But unless I can count on the fact that you’ll stop with this crazy power trip you’re on, I can’t work with you.”

Jason sat down heavily. “I might not be able to get Hallam and Marlena out without you. I won’t risk that. I’ll have to use my army. I’ll have to wait for Sutherland to attack. He may kill them both before I get to them.”

He was right. I might very well be throwing their lives away. I felt a lump grow in my throat for the only people who had been anything like parents to me since my own parents died. “If rescuing Hallam and Marlena means unleashing you on the world, then I can’t risk that.”

Jason covered his face with his hands. “What do you think I’m going to do, exactly? Why am I so horrible?”

I gaped at him. “You torture people, Jason. You cut off pieces of their bodies. You manipulate people to coming to you so you can force them to fight against Sutherland. And this is only your behavior in the past couple of weeks. This isn’t saying anything about everything you’ve done your entire life. Even without magical powers you were dangerous.”

“You aren’t any better than me.”

“That doesn’t change who you are.”

Jason picked up a pillow off the couch and hurled it across the room. “Dammit, Azazel.”

I went for the door of the RV. “I’m sorry. But I can’t work with you, Jason. I spent too many years of my life lying to myself that there was some wonderful piece of good inside you.

Eventually, though, I just had to wake up and smell the psycho.”

“I’m not a psycho,” he said.

“Psychos never think they’re psycho,” I replied, opening the door.

He came after me and wedged himself between me and the door. “I’m not,” he said. “In England, you said that I wasn’t evil. You told me you believed in me.”

“I was wrong,” I said.

“Fuck you,” he said. “Don’t say that.” He looked desperate. His eyes were wide, and I remembered that I used to feel like I could get lost in them. I remembered how much, how goddamned much, I’d loved this boy.

“Jason, I can’t do this for you anymore,” I said. “We dated in high school. We lost our virginity to each other. Big deal. That’s it. I can’t be whatever it is you want me to be for you anymore. I just can’t. So if you don’t want to feel like an evil psychotic fuckhead, then stop acting like one.”

He sagged against the door, and it swung open. Jason tumbled backwards out the door, swearing.

I stepped over him. Looking down at him, I said, “You might want to start with Polly. She loves you, you know. Stop being an asshole to her.”

* * *

Jason’s guards didn’t bother me on my walk back to the church, which was a good thing, because I didn’t feel like dealing with anyone right now. I was angry. At Hallam and Marlena for getting themselves captured. At Jason for not telling me about Sutherland until now. At Sutherland for even existing. At myself for not being sure what to do, and for not being able to save everyone. People were going to get hurt no matter what I did. Either Sutherland would hurt them or Jason would hurt them or I would hurt them. Possibly, all three of us were going to hurt people. Sometimes, I really wished that this was not my life.

I was almost back to the church when a dark figure stepped into my path. I called out, but the person didn’t answer. It looked like a woman, and she didn’t appear armed, so I got closer. As I did, the light of the moon lit up her face. It was Nancy, but she didn’t look quite like herself.

She was staring out at me with unblinking eyes. Her body was stiff. She was expressionless.

“Nancy?” I said.

“Not Nancy,” said Nancy in a voice that wasn’t hers. She had an accent. It was European. “I’m using Nancy as a conduit to talk to you. It’s important.”

“Who are you?” I said.

“Agnes.”

Agnes was a woman who I’d met in a dream in Italy. She was powerful, with the ability to see the future, and wise, with the ability to calm me down about everything. For months after I’d met her the first time, I’d called her long distance in Italy, looking for advice on how to use my magic. After Jenna had died, I hadn’t wanted to talk to her anymore. Now Agnes had taken over Nancy’s body to give me a message. I guess I had to listen to her.