That Last Onset Read online

  She stroked my face. “You were always human, Jason.”

  “Was I?” I touched her face too. I ran tentative fingers over her brow, settling on her scar. “What happened?”

  She put her fingers on the scar too. “Fistfight with one of Kieran’s guards. Years ago. I hate it.”

  I kissed it. “It makes you look strong and invincible.” Now that my lips had made contact with her skin, I felt a wash of warmth running all through me. She was waking me up, making me human all over again. I kissed her again. Her temple. Her cheekbone. Her jaw.

  “Jason,” she breathed.

  And I covered her lips with mine.

  It wasn’t quite like the kiss the day before, frenzied and fervent. Instead, it was softer and slower. But deeper too, somehow. As if I wasn’t kissing her out of pent-up desire and a flood of confusing, conflicting emotions. This time, our kiss was deliberate. It was painfully sweet. It dragged my soul out along with the warmth she’d ignited in me. It was fire, but the heart of it was something deeper and truer. More poignant. More real.

  I wrapped both of my arms around her, tugging her against me.

  She ran her fingers over my rib cage, sending shivers through me.

  I kissed her again. I didn’t think I ever wanted to stop kissing her. Maybe I’d kissed other women after I kissed her, but there was something about kissing Azazel. She was the first woman I’d ever kissed, and she was like the measuring stick for kisses or something. Nothing on earth was like kissing Azazel. It was like the sky shattering. It was like a chorus of angels singing ethereal songs. It was like the world ending and beginning over and over again. But when I tried to convey that to her, all that came out was, “You feel amazing.”

  She sucked her breath in hard, as if those little words still affected her. Her hands were cold against the skin of my back. She had them inside my shirt, letting her fingers dance over my bare skin.

  My breath quickened too. I slid backwards on the step until my back was against the wall of the house where in cinematic history, Father What’s-His-Face had tumbled out of a window to kill a demon. And I pulled my girl, the girl with the name of a demon, with me. I pulled her over me, so that our bodies were tangled up and so that I could put my lips on her neck, so that I could trace the outline of her collarbone with my tongue, so that I could feel the tickle of her sighs against my skin.

  Her hands were in my hair. Her mouth was on my forehead. My mouth was at her earlobe. She loved that, I remembered. I was listening to the way she moaned, and my hands were inside her shirt, exploring her soft skin, brushing the edge of her bra.

  I pulled back for one second. “We skipping too many steps again?”

  “Screw the steps,” she said, her hand at the button of my jeans.

  * * *

  The sun was staining the sky bright crimson. We sprawled on the steps, limbs entwined. Azazel’s arms were wrapped around me, and my head lay against her chest. She was stroking my hair absently with one hand. I felt completely relaxed, completely happy. I hadn’t felt this good in years. Everything seemed okay for once, here in the circle of Azazel’s arms, breathing in the scent of her.

  “I always forget what it’s like with you,” she murmured into my hair. “That it’s always like melding into you. Like...”

  “We become part of each other?” I lifted my head to look at her face.

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling at me.

  She was so beautiful, my Azazel. “I love you.”

  She kissed my forehead. “I love you, too.” She giggled. “Even though you’ve just exhausted the heck out of me. I think I lost count of how many times...”

  I felt embarrassed and exalted at the same time. “What can I say? You make me feel sixteen again.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t look sixteen anymore.”

  I ran my hand over the curve of her hip and up beyond her waist. “I like it. I liked girly you, but I think I like womanly you better.” I burrowed my head into the softness of her breasts again. Could we stay like this? In the dawn, close to each other?

  “You mean fatter me.”

  I groaned. “Please, do not ruin this with some sort of ridiculous insecurity thing.”

  She laughed. “It’s not fair. Seriously. You’re not fatter. Men don’t gain weight the way women do as they get older. It’s messed up.”

  I didn’t say anything. There was really nothing to say to things like that. Maybe if I didn’t engage her on the topic, she’d drop it. It was just like a girl to get fixated on her body when the world was falling apart, anyway.

  She traced little circles on my shoulders with the tips of her fingers. “Jason? Where did all these scars come from?”

  I’d forgotten about the scars I had from cutting myself. So maybe I wasn’t the poster child for self-esteem myself. “It seemed as if it made things easier sometimes.” I didn’t lift my face from her chest. “The physical hurt was easier to take than the inside hurt. I know that doesn’t make sense.”

  “You did it to yourself?” There was a tinge of horror in her voice.

  “I haven’t done it in years.” Reluctantly, I pulled away from her. I didn’t want to talk about this, and I needed to distract her. “We should get back. Everyone else will be waking up soon.”

  She reached for me, but then dropped her arms. She nodded. She started to get up, but then she stopped. “Did this mean anything? I mean, are we...? Has anything changed between us?”

  I pulled her close and kissed her again. “I won’t leave again. I want us to be together.”

  “Good,” she said. “Me too.”

  * * *

  When we got back to the Resistance Headquarters arm in arm, Hallam didn’t look particularly pleased to see us. He was making coffee over an open fire. He glanced at us, snorted, and went back to his coffee pot. “Should I even ask where you two have been?”

  I felt instantly guilty. All the convictions I’d had before that I was bad for her flooded through my brain again.

  But Azazel just laughed. “Come on, Hallam. This little song and dance of yours was tired when we were in high school.” She grinned at me. “You remember how he’d always be like, ‘You’re not conceiving your firstborn under my watch.’”

  I had to smile too. That sounded like something Hallam would have said when we were living with him in Bradenton, Florida, trying to be normal kids. That whole being normal idea had never worked out very well for us.

  “We’re twenty-eight years old,” Azazel told Hallam. “You’ve got to let go at some point.”

  He glared at us. “You know it’s not about that. I don’t like watching the two of you screw each other up.”

  I studied my shoes. Was that what I was going to do? Was I going to screw up Azazel?

  “We’re already screwed up, if you haven’t noticed,” Azazel said. “Too late, Hallam.” Pointedly, she threw her arms around me and kissed me hard on the mouth. With tongue. In front of everyone.

  When we pulled away from each other, the first face I saw belonged to Graham. His jaw was set. His face was grim. He and I locked eyes.

  “Good morning,” he said, his voice hard.

  I looked back at my shoes. We were screwed up.

  “Nice,” Hallam said to Azazel.

  She bit her lip. “Maybe I should go talk to him.”

  But before I had a chance to decide if I wanted her to go talk to the guy she’d been screwing before I showed up or not, we were interrupted by the rattle of gunfire and the screams of the two guards at the entrance to the cavern.

  I whipped around to see what had happened. Armed men, dressed in police uniforms, poured through the earthen door, opening fire as they advanced. The smell of gunfire pricked my nostrils. They were shooting everyone. Within a matter of seconds, everyone in the huts near the entrance was down. Children who’d been playing before breakfast lay in the dirt, their eyes glassy, blood trickling from their noses. Women who’d been cooking breakfast fell backwards into th
eir cook fires, their shrieks rending the air. Men who struggled to get their guns were dead before they could free them from their holsters.

  I gaped at the massacre, uncomprehending.

  Azazel yanked me to the ground, shoving a gun at me.

  The air was smoky from extinguished fires and the discharge of firearms. Through the haze, I watched as Azazel crawled forward, taking aim and picking off the police. Hallam was right behind her, on his belly as well.

  But I was frozen. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot the men, even though I could see that they were killing everyone in sight. It was a matter of survival, I knew. I had to shoot or be shot. But I lay on the ground, gripping my gun so hard that my palms started to sweat, and I didn’t do anything.

  Instead, I watched. I watched more Resistance men get their guns. Shots were being exchanged now. Police were going down too. But more of us were getting shot than them. I watched Graham squeezing off rounds from behind a hut. He took down three or four of the police. But they shot him too, eventually. One shot between the eyes. Blood ran down the bridge of his nose as his body flopped forward, lifeless.

  I wanted to scream. Not this. There had been too much of this in my life. I couldn’t handle seeing anymore slaughter. I wanted to stop this. If I had my powers right now, I’d reach out to all these minds. I’d calm them. I’d rally them, get them to throw down their guns. I’d end it forever.

  A familiar yell.

  My head snapped in the direction of the sound.

  Azazel. She was lying on the ground beneath one of the police. He was standing on the hand that held her gun. He had his own gun to her forehead.

  I leveled my gun at the man. I had a perfect shot. I could take him down right now. I couldn’t let him shoot Azazel, could I?

  So why was I hesitating? Why wasn’t I blowing him away?

  Inside my head, a chorus of voices screamed at me, begging for their lives. Faces swam in my memory, all bloody, all near death. I remembered the way it felt to snuff them out, take life from them without giving it a second thought. The heady power was right within my reach. If I shot this man now, I’d get it back. I’d be the crazed psycho I’d always been, pumping bodies full of bullets and grinning while I did it. I toyed with the trigger.

  Do it. Shoot him, I urged myself.

  I wanted it back, didn’t I? Didn’t I yearn for that rush?

  A black boot slammed down in front of my face. I’d been so caught up in watching Azazel, I’d neglected to see the rest of my surroundings. I looked up at the policeman over me. He sneered down at me. Then he swung the butt of his gun down against my head. I felt a bright blast of pain and then...

  Darkness. I’d been knocked out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I came to groggily, unable to open my eyes right away. I was aware of the fact that I was tied up. My arms were bound behind my back. My feet were bound together. I was lying on my side. My head hurt. I moaned softly.

  “Jason?”

  I struggled to open my eyes. I recognized that voice. “Azazel?”

  Her face loomed large as my lids fluttered open. She was right next to me. Her face was bruised. “What...?” I muttered. My head really hurt.

  “They didn’t kill us,” she said. “I think they might have killed everyone else.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, trying to wake up. “Hallam and Marlena?”

  “I don’t know. I lost track of them.” She was close to tears. “If Kieran killed them, I swear to God—”

  “We’re here,” said Hallam’s voice, somewhere behind me. “I think they had orders to round up the ringleaders and kill everyone else.”

  I managed to lift my head a little and look around. We were in a dark room. It had one small window toward the top of the wall. The window had bars on it. The room appeared empty except for the four of us. The walls were made of cinder block, the floors of concrete. It seemed to me as if we were in a basement somewhere. “You sure it was Kieran?” I asked.

  “They were police,” said Azazel. “Who else could it have been?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but everyone should still have been hyped up on the leaves we tossed in the water supply. How did Kieran organize them?”

  “And why didn’t he kill us?” asked Marlena. She was lying behind Azazel and me as well, propped up against one of the walls, her hands tied in front of her large belly.

  “I told him not to,” said another voice.

  I squinted, straining to see in the darkness. A figure moved on the other side of the room. It stood up and shuffled over to us. As the figure got closer, I could make out features. It was Nancy. The witch who’d channeled Agnes and freaked me out earlier. Her arms were bound in front of her as well, but her feet weren’t tied.

  “Well, Agnes told him, anyway,” said Nancy. “When she takes over, I don’t have much control. I can only watch. And that’s a recent development. It used to be that whenever she took over my body, I was completely out of it.” She turned to Azazel. “You encouraged this. You told me to let that thing consume me. And whatever it is, it’s betrayed us.”

  “Agnes helped me,” said Azazel.

  Nancy shook her head. “I pointed out to you that the last time you’d seen her, through me, she’d tried to kill you. But you didn’t listen to me. You said I should open the channel. Let her in. And now I’m hearing you say that everyone is dead.” Her face twisted. “Even Guy? Did you see Guy?”

  Azazel turned away. “They shot the children. I didn’t see Guy particularly, but—”

  “And Carol?”

  Azazel didn’t say anything.

  No one said anything for several minutes. Nancy broke into loud sobs. They echoed off the walls. She collapsed onto her knees, doubled over, letting the crying take over her body.

  I didn’t remember precisely, but I was thinking that Carol must have been Nancy’s girlfriend and Guy her son. I didn’t want to interrupt her grief, so I waited while she sobbed. She cried for a long time. Finally, as gently as I could, I said, “Why did Agnes tell Kieran not to kill us?”

  She turned her tearstained face to me. “Because Hallam knows where Chance is. And Hallam cares about the three of you. So you would be useful in making him talk. My family, on the other hand, wasn’t useful at all. And now they’re dead.” She fixed her gaze on Azazel. “Because of what you made me do, my family is dead.”

  Azazel grimaced.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s not her fault. She had reasons to trust Agnes.”

  Nancy let out a hollow laugh. “Oh, you’re defending her, are you, Jason? In Columbus, you were trying to kill her. But even after all that, she still wanted you back. She still made me find out where you were so that she could be with you. I hope you’re very happy together. I’m alone, because she wanted you.”

  “Azazel didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said quietly. “Kieran did it, not her.”

  Nancy got up. On unsteady feet, she made her way back to the other side of the room. The darkness swallowed her up. The only sign of her was her aching sobs, ringing against the walls of our cell.

  “I’m sorry, Nancy,” Azazel said.

  I shook my head at her. “Let her be alone.”

  “I know what it’s like to lose people,” Azazel said. “I’ve—”

  I cut her off. I couldn’t afford to focus on guilt right now, and Azazel couldn’t either. “Hallam,” I said, “he’s going to force you to tell him where Chance is.”

  Hallam smiled sardonically. “It won’t even be an issue, Jason. We don’t have the protection of the witches anymore. The only reason we aren’t Kieran’s mind slaves right now is probably the lingering effects of their spell. Once it wears off, Kieran will know what I know.”

  “No,” snarled Nancy from across the room. “I’ve got you covered still. I may be angry, but I don’t want Kieran to get his hands on that little boy.”

  Well, that was something. My eyes swept the room. “We’ve gotten out of situations wors
e than this before,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of this one.”

  “We had our powers,” said Azazel.

  “Before that,” I said. “Do you remember Cornelius Agricola? We were chained up there, and I—”

  “There were weapons hanging on the walls there,” said Azazel. “And he was one man. Kieran will come in with bodyguards. He won’t underestimate us. He knows me, Jason. He practically was me when he had my memories. He knows what we’re capable of, and he’ll be prepared.”

  “I can’t let him have Chance,” I said.

  “No one wants to let him have Chance,” said Hallam. “I’ll never tell him where your son is.”

  I wanted to believe him.

  * * *

  Kieran and Eve showed up in our cell within an hour. As much as I’d tried, I hadn’t come up with any solutions. The best we’d been able to do was get untied by sitting back to back and loosening the knots that held us. That had been a group effort. We’d needed each other to talk us through it and coach each other on where to put our fingers and what progress we were making. But once we were out and able to walk around, there was nothing else we could do. The heavy door was secure. The window was out of our reach and barred. There was nothing in the room to use. We were screwed.

  Kieran and Eve swept into the room with about thirty armed men. Azazel was right. They didn’t underestimate us. It was actually kind of flattering in a perverse way, I guess. I couldn’t help but take a little pleasure in the fact that Kieran thought it would take thirty guys to stop me, even though he and Eve had our powers. The men immediately strode into the room and grabbed each of us. I had about seven guys on me, four of them actually holding me in place.