Falter Read online

  It tore her up inside.

  What I did hurt us all, you see.

  And Yeshu became wild to win her. He had always been a daredevil. He took delight in doing reckless things. So, when he found out that he was accused of being a sorcerer, he thought it would be great fun to turn himself in.

  Up until that point, we had done our best to evade the authorities. We hadn’t wanted to call attention to ourselves. We had followers who would warn us if they were after us, or if we were in danger of being taken.

  Of course, the authorities misunderstood what Yeshu was all about. They thought he must get his power from evil, because they didn’t understand it. That is a true evil in humanity, the demonization of that which it doesn’t understand. It was the way they behaved toward Yeshu. He would have given them his own blood and allowed them to live forever, but they chose to hate him and seek to cause him harm.

  At any rate, Yeshu wanted to impress Mary, and so he hatched a plan. We would all turn ourselves in and be executed. When we came back to life, they would change their minds about us, seeing that Yeshu wasn’t evil and that he was capable of giving them eternal life as well.

  It was my job to handle turning ourselves in. I told the authorities where Yeshu and the others were.

  But it was at the command of Yeshu. I did not betray him, no matter what they say about me. I was loyal to him. I wanted Mary, of course I did. But I would never have hurt him, no matter what. If she had chosen him, I would have stepped aside. I am not a traitor.

  I’m glad they have the wrong name for me. If they had named me truly, I would have been unable to bear it. It’s bad enough that people the world over hear the story all wrong in their churches and Sunday schools. They condemn me for things I didn’t do. That hurts badly enough. But if the name Imri were as synonymous with betrayal as the name Judas has become, it might destroy me.

  Perhaps we shouldn’t have turned ourselves in. Perhaps it would have been better all around if we hadn’t. It seemed to cause too much of a stir. Everyone heard what happened.

  They hung us all.

  That’s right. There was no crucifixion. No Pontius Pilate washing his hands of anyone’s blood. It was simple enough. They hung us.

  And they thought we were dead, so they took our bodies down. When they came to take the bodies to be disposed of, we’d awoken and were gone. They put out a story that our bodies had been stolen, but we went around showing ourselves to everyone we could.

  The story spread.

  That was when Fleming showed up. Of course, he wasn’t Gaston Fleming then. He went by the name Flavius, and he was a proper Roman soldier. He was disgusted that Mary hadn’t done her job, that she’d joined forces with Yeshu.

  Flavius tried to explain to Yeshu that exposing himself the way he had only meant that people would hurt him. He said Yeshu would be captured and drained of blood over and over again. Flavius had seen it happen more than once in his very long life. He told Yeshu that he had to stop. He had to go into hiding. His followers had to tell the world that he actually was dead, that the hanging had killed him.

  Yeshu refused, of course. There was no way he would stop.

  And when Flavius realized that Yeshu wouldn’t cooperate, he cut off his head.

  That was how Yeshu died. Not at the hands of a mob or a group of angry soldiers. He died because one of the old ones didn’t like the way he was misbehaving.

  It was so wrong. We had grown used to the idea that there was no death. For Yeshu to be dead, actually dead, when we’d considered him invincible, that was a pain almost too intense to bear. We were devastated.

  Flavius took Mary with him, and he left us to pick up the pieces. Literally. And figuratively.

  Everyone scattered.

  I went after Flavius. I tried to kill him, but I wasn’t successful. I only managed to get Mary away from him. Together, she and I ran away. We grieved together, and we comforted each other in our grief, and from that bittersweet closeness grew our first child. We haven’t left each other’s side since.

  But we have done our best to continue the work of Yeshu. But because I hold Mary far too dear, I refuse to do it nearly as openly as Yeshu did. We do not give the blood out publicly. Instead, we are secretive. We only share what we know with a select few. We keep things quiet, and we have survived.

  * * *

  ~jason~

  My brain was reeling. Could what Imri was saying really be true? He seemed to believe it. And, in all honesty, it seemed to make more sense than the official story of Jesus. I could see how it had its roots in this story. I could see how time and the story being passed down could have warped it. One thing I did know was that the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which some people considered eye-witness accounts, were actually written down thirty to a hundred years after Jesus’ death. They were recordings of word-of-mouth stories. It was possible that everything he said was true.

  But it almost didn’t matter if Imri was correct or not. He clearly believed in giving blood to as many people as he could.

  “If everyone lived forever,” I said to him, “then the world would get overpopulated really quickly.”

  Imri smiled. “If that day should ever come, Jason, it will be far in the future. Perhaps we’ll be able to expand to space.”

  Seriously? “It would never work. Flavius—Fleming—whatever—he was right. If people find out about us, they capture us and use us for profit. I’ve lived through it.”

  “You will not dissuade me from following the way of Yeshu,” said Imri. “I have followed it for two thousand years. A discussion with you is not going to change my mind.”

  He was probably right, I supposed. I shut my mouth. I tried to think about being alive for two thousand years. Imri had said that he and Mary had their first child after the death of Yeshu. So that must mean that they’d been having children all along. The three in the farmhouse were only the latest. How many children did they have? A thousand? More? No wonder he’d been so calm when I shot his daughter. Children couldn’t mean much to him if he’d had so many.

  Imri turned the car onto a narrow driveway. “Listen, Jason, I meant what I said. I would like to work with you again. I believe that we could be quite helpful to each other.”

  “Helpful?” I said. “How could you help us?”

  “I’d already mentioned giving you staff to hunt down the blood sellers.”

  Maybe if Azazel were here, she’d jump on that, but I wasn’t sure that it meant very much to me. “I don’t care about that.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Perhaps because you have certain urges that are better served by killing blood sellers than by other means.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”

  He smiled. “I’m sure if I have patience, then you’ll agree to my proposition.”

  He knew about Patience. How did he know about what I’d done? No one had followed me. I’d been very careful to make sure that no one knew where I was. I reached into my pocket slowly, so he wouldn’t know what I was doing. I turned off the device that was transmitting our conversation back to everyone else. I didn’t want them to hear the rest of this. “How…?”

  “I have eyes and ears. Perhaps we’ll leave it at that. From what I gather, though, that’s something you’d rather not share with Azazel.”

  I dragged a hand over my face. “Are you blackmailing me, Imri?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “You could say that I’m only making certain assurances that we will remain allies, you and me. If I should need assistance from you or your people, I want to know that you’ll be on my side.”

  Okay. He was blackmailing me. “It’s not very Christian of you, is it?”

  “I’ve already explained to you that Christ is a name that has no meaning to me. Haven’t I?”

  “Why tell me that story?” I asked him. “What’s the point?”

  “I want you
understand what we’re trying to accomplish. How important it is. And I’d hoped to inspire you.”

  I snorted. “Inspire me? Didn’t I tell you how I felt about religion?”

  He grasped my arm. “Yeshu is not a religion.”

  I shook him off. “Yes, it is. You’re doing stupid things because some guy made you think it would be a great idea.” I pointed at myself. “I had a cult once. I had people worshiping me. Trust me, putting your faith in someone else is always a bad idea.”

  “It can’t always be a bad idea,” he said. “If it is, why have humans sought out something bigger than themselves throughout all of history?”

  “People are weak and stupid,” I said. “That’s all.”

  Imri pulled the car to a stop in front of a tiny wood cabin. “Even so, if I were to need your assistance in the future, I could count on you, couldn’t I?”

  “Is this where Chance is?” I opened the door to the car, unbuckling my seatbelt.

  “Answer the question.”

  I got out of the car. “Is he inside?”

  He got out after me. He caught up to me, grabbing my shoulder. “You’d assist me. Wouldn’t you?”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “I guess I wouldn’t have much choice, would I? You seem to be good at that, Imri.”

  He chuckled softly. “One doesn’t leave a lot to chance when he’s been alive as long as I have.” He reached into his pocket and handed me a folded up piece of paper. “Here. As a gesture of good faith. So that you can see what an alliance with older, wiser beings can do for your people.”

  I unfolded it. It was a typed document, titled, “How to increase your age.”

  “For Grace,” said Imri. He walked up to the cabin, and rapped on the door.

  I went after him. “How did you know about this?” We’d talked about it over the earpieces when were at Fleming’s house. He couldn’t have known.

  “Eyes and ears, Jason,” said Imri.

  The door to the cabin opened up. Chance barreled out of the door. “Daddy! Rebecca said you were coming to get me today.”

  I scooped him up into my arms. My heart was thudding in my chest. Tears sprang to my eyes. “You’re okay?”

  Chance nodded. “I’m better than okay. I got to play with these cool wooden men that were all carved. They had beards and wooden guns and hats and boots. They were hunters. There were little wooden deer for them to shoot.” He beamed.

  “Who’s Rebecca?” I asked Imri.

  “One of my daughters,” Imri said. “I assure you, he’s been quite safe. We wouldn’t harm a child. Unlike you.”

  I felt ashamed. I pulled Chance closer, wiping at my face. “You’re okay,” I murmured. “You’re okay.”

  “Ow,” said Chance. “You’re holding me too tight. Put me down. Put me down, now.”

  I set Chance down. I leveled my gaze at Imri. “If he wasn’t here, I’d kill you, you know.”

  Imri’s lips curled into a smile. “You’d try.”

  Chance reached for my hand. “Are we going home, Daddy?”

  “Yeah,” I said to him.

  “Take the car,” said Imri. “I’ll spend some time with Rebecca.” He tossed me the car keys. “Give Grace the instructions. Enjoy your son. I’ll be in touch.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ~azazel~

  We all ate dinner together that night. Everyone. Me, Jason, Jude, Boone, Grace, Chance, Hallam, Marlena, Mina, and baby Kenya. We ordered ten or twelve pizzas, and we ate in the living room, so that we could all talk to each other. We related our adventures, and we were all back together again.

  I loved it, feeling so close to them all. It reminded me of my family when I was a little girl. My family had betrayed me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love them. When I was small, there were so many of us. I had three adopted brothers, and there would always be three or four foster kids at home as well. All our meals were boisterous affairs—so many voices, so much love.

  I missed that feeling. It was nice to have it here.

  It was the spirit of my parents, as well. The good spirit, not the spirit that wanted to arrange for my rape so that I could be the vessel for a demon and kill Jason. Not that craziness, that cruelty. Instead, it was the spirit of acceptance. My parents were very accepting people. They’d bring home foster kids and welcome them into our home. No questions asked. It didn’t matter where you came from. Once you were in the Jones’ house, you were family.

  And that was the way things were for us, here, now. We all came from different places, but fate had brought us together, and we were a family. All of us. No matter how crazy or abnormal or insane we were. We meant something to each other.

  Mina couldn’t let Chance out of her sight. She’d been so worried about him. I could see the relief and the joy in Jason as well. And I was pleased to have him back too. We all were. If anything had happened to that little boy, it would destroy us. He meant so much to all of us.

  He didn’t seem to be the least bit upset about having been kidnapped, however.

  We asked him about the picture that Jason had seen of him being tied up.

  “Chance,” Jason said, “did the men who took you tie you up?”

  Chance was eating pizza. His fingers and face were covered in tomato sauce. Apparently, he was getting the pizza everywhere except his mouth. He nodded. “Yeah, they did.”

  “Were you scared?” I said, leaning forward with a napkin and trying to clean off his face.

  He shied away from my hand. “No, because they told me it was only for a little bit, and that it was like a costume.”

  “They did?” said Jason.

  “Yeah,” said Chance. “They said it was a costume, and I had to pretend to be afraid. And then after they took the picture, they untied me.”

  Jason sighed.

  I tried to wipe Chance’s face again.

  “Don’t!” he said, pushing me away. He picked up his paper plate full of pizza and retreated to the other side of the room.

  Jason watched him. “I don’t know if it’s good that he wasn’t afraid, or terrifying because he doesn’t have the capability of distrusting people.”

  “He’s never been hurt, Jason. Not really,” I said. “It’s a good thing. He’s a normal kid.”

  “What if he does get hurt?”

  I grabbed his hand. “We won’t let that happen.”

  “Imri has some kind of plan for us,” Jason muttered. “He knows all about us, and he’ll do whatever he has to in order to make us work for him. We have to keep Chance away from him from now on.”

  “We will.” We’d all heard Imri’s long story about Jesus and Yeshu and all that, because of the device Jason’d had on him that transmitted their voices to us. We’d listened in on everything. (Of course, the device had shorted out towards the end. Boone couldn’t figure out what might have gone wrong with it, however.) Jason had asked me if I thought the story sounded similar to the story of Jesus. And I hadn’t been able to help him. I was raised by Satanists, and I really didn’t know much about Jesus.

  I knew that Jason had told Boone to make sure that our security hadn’t been compromised. He was convinced that Imri had some way of spying on us. He did seem to know things.

  In fact, to illustrate that point, Jason had given me the aging instructions to give to Grace. He’d said, “I think it would be too awkward coming from me. You’re a girl. You give it to her.”

  So, that was what I did after dinner.

  I found Grace and Boone in one of the dens upstairs. They were cuddling together on a couch, watching television. I stood in the doorway and knocked on the open door to get their attention.

  At the sound of the knock, they both sat up in a hurry, moving to opposite sides of the couch.

  I laughed. “It’s okay. We all know about you guys. You don’t have to try to hide anything.”

  They laughed too, only a little more nervously. I guessed it must be weird for them to have us as the only thing close to parental
figures. Jason and I had Hallam and later Marlena. Hallam had been strict at first, but he’d later mellowed. Admittedly, by that point, Jason and I had been eighteen and technically adults.

  I considered Grace and Boone. Would they be better off if they had someone forbidding them to touch each other?

  I kind of doubted it. What was the point of that? Parents probably forbade it because it made them uncomfortable to think of their own children having sex.

  Honestly, it made be uncomfortable to think of Grace and Boone having sex, too. But I guess it would probably be worse if it were my own kids.

  I had a horrible thought. Chance. In ten years, Chance was going to be sixteen. I shuddered. What would that be like?

  “Did you just come in here to stare at us?” said Grace.

  “Or maybe gloat because we’re together, just like you wanted?” said Boone.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I wanted to talk to Grace for a minute.”

  Grace got up. “Okay.”

  “It’s nothing bad,” I said. “I think it’s good, actually.”

  She walked to the doorway to meet me. I walked down the hall with her, until we were out of Boone’s earshot. “Um…” I handed her the piece of paper. “This is for you. I think it might make things a little bit more… comfortable for the two of you.”

  She furrowed her brow. She unfolded the paper. When she saw the title, her eyes widened. “Boone told you?”

  “No,” I said. “He told Jason. Jason told me. Don’t be mad at Boone.”

  “Well, it’s kind of embarrassing.”

  “Oh, trust me,” I said. “Boone now knows more about the time that I lost my virginity than I’m comfortable with. We’re all embarrassed here.”

  She smiled a little, biting her lip. Then, she started crying.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Did I say something…?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s just… It was so horrible. I thought it was going to happen every time I had sex for the rest of my life.” She scanned the piece of paper. “You think this will work?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Jason thinks so.”

  “Where did he get it?”