Between the Heaves of Storm

by V. J. Chambers

  Eve helped me sit up, reaching over me to pull aside the blanket, exposing my chest and stomach.

  When I looked, my skin was unbroken and perfect. Like there had never been a gunshot at all. I touched the place where I’d been shot, amazed.

  “It worked,” said Eve. She raised her voice. “Gratitude and praise to you, Oh Lord of Chaos!”

  Eve helped me to my feet. I pulled the blanket close around me. I wasn’t wearing anything under it. Eve led me to the edge of the circle, where we took our place beside the others in robes. They began intoning some other chant in the weird language. I felt amazing, like liquid energy was coursing through my body. One of the men in robes brought each of us a silver chalice, filled with dark liquid. Behind him, another brought a loaf of bread. Each person in the circle tore off a piece. When they came to me, Eve nudged me, and I did the same. I vaguely remembered something like this from Azazel’s memories, but right now, I felt so euphoric and strong, I couldn’t quite connect to them. In the memories, Zaza had been frightened and disgusted. I felt wonderful.

  I watched as the robed people left the room in pairs, each holding their glasses and bread. Eventually, no one was left but Eve and me.

  She clinked her glass against mine and drank. I followed suit. It was some kind of cheap red wine, nothing to write home about. Right now, however, it tasted pretty good. Everything seemed great. Eve ate her piece of bread. I did too.

  She lowered her hood so that I could see her face. Her blonde curls were in her eyes. I reached over and brushed them away. She smiled up at me. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “I’m glad it worked. That you’re okay.”

  “I am way better than okay,” I told her, feeling buoyant. “I’m fantastic.” I really felt like I could do anything right now. I could smash concrete blocks with my bare hands or leap buildings in a single bound.

  She looked away from me, shyly hiding behind her eyelashes. She was so beautiful. “The last part of the ritual is... well, it isn’t necessary, really. I think it’s more tradition than anything else.”

  Wait. I was remembering something about that too, from Zaza. The thought should have made me embarrassed, but instead it excited me. I reached over and caressed Eve’s jaw line. Her skin was like silk. “I think it might be necessary,” I said, surprised at my boldness. But I felt invincible right now. I was sure I knew that Eve wanted it as badly as I did. I was sure she wouldn’t say no.

  I traced my fingers lower, following the curve of her neck and dipping inside her robe to brush the edge of her collarbone.

  She let out a tiny gasp and looked up, gazing into my eyes. Her lips parted slowly.

  I put my lips on hers, and everything felt ten times more fantastic than it had before. The air was buzzing. She felt warm and alive. My fingers went to the top of her robe, where it buttoned up. With one hand, I undid the first button.

  Eve tangled her hands in my hair, kissing me harder. I freed my other hand from the blanket so that I could get at the rest of the buttons on her robe. Why in the hell were there so many?

  Of course, when I did that, my blanket fell completely off.

  Eve giggled, breaking our kiss for a moment. She dragged one hand down my chest, let her fingers linger below my belly button, and then wrapped her hand around me.

  I groaned, fumbling at the last button on her robe.

  She reached up to help me, then shrugged it off her shoulders and let it fall on the ground. I gazed at her, my jaw going slack. She was perfect. I crushed her soft body against mine, my hands running over the satiny curves of her.

  This was perfect.

  * * *

  ~kieran~

  Eve and I were spooning in my bedroom with only a thin sheet covering us, because it was hot inside the house. My arm was slung over her waist. I was barely awake. There was a tapping on the door. Eve stirred next to me, throwing off the sheet. I opened my eyes and made a questioning noise that sounded something like, “Mmph?”

  “Stay asleep,” Eve said, slipping on one of my shirts, which happened to be lying on the floor. I’m messy sometimes.

  I rolled over and went back to sleep. It felt like I’d no sooner closed my eyes than Eve was nudging me awake. However, when I opened my eyes, it was much lighter outside than it had been, so I must have slept for a while. I yawned, stretching.

  “Good morning,” said Eve. She was already dressed.

  “Morning,” I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. “Is Chance—”

  “Fed and dressed,” she said. “I thought I’d let you sleep. I made breakfast.”

  “You’re like the perfect woman,” I said.

  She kissed me. “Well, you’re not so bad yourself.” She paused. “Not at being a woman, of course.”

  I chuckled. I wished she wasn’t dressed. I wished we could burrow in bed for longer, staying close. Last night had been awesome. Eve was awesome. Everything was amazing.

  “I have something I have to tell you,” she said. “Come to the kitchen.”

  I sat up straight. “That sounds bad.”

  She picked at the sheet.

  “Is it bad?”

  She shrugged.

  “Is it because of what happened?” I said, feeling suddenly self-conscious about the fact that I wasn’t wearing anything under the sheet. “What we did last night? Because I thought that you were into it.”

  She laughed. “I was into it, Kieran.” She gave me a mischievous look. “I was into it quite a few times in fact.”

  Yeah, okay, that was probably the sexiest thing a girl had ever said to me. I had the strong urge to grab her, throw her down on the bed, and make breakfast and whatever she wanted to tell me wait.

  But she kissed me on the forehead and then got up off the bed. “See you downstairs.”

  It sounded ominous, so I got dressed as quickly as I could. When I got to the kitchen, Chance was playing with blocks on the floor. When he saw me, he broke into a big grin and lifted his arms to be picked up. I obliged. How could I resist that anyway? “Hey big man,” I said. “You seem chipper this morning.”

  Eve beamed from the table where she was setting down plates. “I did okay? With getting him up and going and everything?”

  I surveyed Chance, who was gurgling and happy. “You did great.”

  She smiled. “Good. Sit down.”

  I sat at the table in front of one of the plates. “You want any help with anything?” Eve had been cooking since I’d been here, but she’d hardly been waiting on me like this. I’d been pulling my weight. Was she going to turn into a Stepford wife just because we’d had sex?

  Wait. Was there a bad side to Stepford wives? I mean, from the husband’s perspective, anyway?

  Eve set down a bowl with scrambled eggs on the table. I was glad she hadn’t heard that last thought. She probably would have killed me. A plate with sausage followed.

  “This looks amazing,” I said.

  “The sausage is from the Sanders’ farm,” she said. “They slaughtered a pig, and they sent some over. It’s fresh.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  She sat down across from me.

  “So, what do you need to tell me?”

  “You don’t want to eat a little first?”

  “I’m dying of curiosity here,” I told her, but I did dip some eggs onto my plate.

  She handed me the platter of sausage. “Well, I got a message from Cameron.”

  I took some sausage. “Cameron, huh? He’s sending messages? He escaped the OF?”

  She took the sausage platter back and put some onto her own plate. “Well, it turns out that he was able to use his power to manipulate them into letting him, I don’t know, do whatever he wants. He’s not a prisoner. He’s using their resources. He’s fine.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “You were so worried.”

  “I probably shouldn’t have been. Cameron’s good at stuff like that.”

  I took a bite of my eggs, chewed, and
swallowed. They were good. “So, um, what? Does he want you back as his beard or something? Am I going to have to share you or pretend we’re not together?”

  She gave me a funny look and then looked back at her plate. “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Well, something bad happened, didn’t it? What’s bad about Cameron being okay?”

  Eve took a bite of her food and chewed slowly. She set her fork down on the table and stared at it. “Well, he knows where Azazel is.”

  I suddenly found my own silverware kind of interesting. “Where is she?”

  “She’s with Jason.”

  I snorted. “That figures.” I ate some more scrambled eggs.

  “Without her powers, she would have been sucked into his energy. He sends out like this beacon, calling people to him. She couldn’t have resisted.”

  I absorbed this. “So you’re saying that it’s not her fault, then. That she didn’t choose to be with him.”

  Eve toyed with her fork. “You’ve wanted to find her this whole time. I want you to know that just because we got a little carried away last night doesn’t mean that I think anything’s changed.”

  Oh. I got it. She was worried that I wanted Zaza back. I didn’t. I was sure of that now. “Of course things have changed, Eve. Things have changed a lot.”

  She raised her gaze to meet my own. “Things don’t have to have changed.”

  I felt a little uncomfortable. “You don’t feel it?”

  “I...” She looked back at her plate. “I feel something. I definitely feel something. But it’s...”

  “Don’t worry about Azazel. Things between us have been screwed up for a very long time.”

  “Are you sure? Because Cameron wants all the Satanists to meet him at Jasontown, and if we go there, we’ll probably see her.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’d like to give her back her memories. If the coven can heal me of a gunshot wound, do you think they could do something like that too?”

  “I’ll work on it.” She moved her food around on her plate. “I really do like you, Kieran.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because I think I’m smitten.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ~joan~

  We buried Garth and Tessa’s bodies, and I really broke down and cried. I found myself wishing for someone to comfort me, someone whose arms could encircle me and give me his strength. I found myself wishing for Jason, which was a little bit messed up, considering that I half-blamed him for their deaths. Still. I felt very alone, especially since I’d had to spend the last night alone in the attic room that Tessa and I had shared.

  As near as I could piece together, my relationship with Jason had been one of intensity and fierce passion. I’d loved him, and then I’d hated him. I’d fought to save him, and then I’d tried to kill him. Considering the way I felt about him now, I completely understood why this had happened. I knew I should be angry with Jason. I was angry with him. But I also felt crushed by the fact that he’d rejected me. He got to decide that we wouldn’t be in a relationship for my own good? Why didn’t I get to decide this for myself?

  It was good that Jason was taking responsibility for his actions and trying to right his wrongs. He’d let all the prisoners under the guards’ quarters go. Many of them left Jasontown. Jason had been encouraging everyone else to leave as well, but the strange thing was that not many of them were leaving. They noticed that they felt different now, that the world was not a shiny bliss bubble anymore. But when they talked about leaving, they said that they were still happier close to Jason than they had been in their entire life, and that Jasontown, despite its problems, was their home. I thought Jason should understand that everything he’d done hadn’t been all bad. He’d made mistakes, but he’d also inspired people. I wanted him to realize that. I didn’t want him to drown in guilt. He couldn’t move forward if all he did was blame himself.

  I also wanted to tell him that it wasn’t fair for him to end things between us. I should have a say in it too, since the only reason he was doing it was for my benefit. I knew he still loved me. It felt like there was an aching gap in my heart, where Jason should have been. Everything seemed unfinished.

  So that evening, I decided I’d go to Jason’s house, find him, and tell him what I thought. I needed to get it out.

  His door was unlocked, as usual, so I let myself in. Inside, his house seemed quiet and empty. Jason had to be there, though, because I hadn’t seen him anywhere else that day. Standing inside the doorway, I wasn’t sure where to look first. Should I go upstairs to the bedroom or search the rest of the bottom floor? I could already see that he wasn’t in his living room.

  Then I heard the low rumble of voices, coming from the den adjacent to the living room. Someone was with him? Was it one of his guards? Maybe I should come back.

  But I wanted to talk to him, and maybe if he saw me, he’d stop his conversation with the guards. I crept closer to the den until the voices got louder, and I could understand what they were saying.

  “...glad you let me speak to you,” said a low male voice in a British accent. Edgar Weem! Jason was talking to Edgar Weem.

  I didn’t want to interrupt what might be a heart-to-heart between father and son, so I flattened myself against the wall outside the doorway and listened. Maybe I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but I was curious as to what they were saying. I was very, very curious about Jason’s past.

  Jason was talking. “This doesn’t mean we’re going to have some kind of wonderful relationship now. I don’t know if we could ever have anything like that. I’m only hearing you out because I’ve made some pretty big mistakes too. And I thought it was only fair to give you a chance to talk to me.”

  “I am sorry,” said Edgar. “I know how difficult I’ve made things for you. If there was some way that I could change it, I would.”

  “But you can’t.” Jason didn’t sound accusatory. He was just stating a fact. Something that he’d had to come to terms with as well.

  “No,” said Edgar. “And I don’t know if I can make it right either.”

  “I know how you feel,” Jason said. “I feel that way too.”

  “I came here because I wanted to convince you to really use your power to unite the world,” said Edgar. “There are people all over Europe who are craving you. I thought that you could step up and be the Rising Sun.”

  “You must realize now that I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Jason. “I don’t think I can trust myself with that much responsibility.”

  “But you have the power,” said Edgar. “You must assume the responsibility. The world needs you.”

  “No,” Jason said. “I don’t think they do.” He was different now. He wasn’t confident anymore. He knew his limitations. Somehow, I liked it better.

  “Perhaps if Azazel were working with you?” said Edgar. “Perhaps you’d feel more in control then?”

  “No, that’s the worst idea ever,” said Jason. “I’m worse around her. She makes me insane. I care too much about her.” That hurt me, for some reason. I didn’t want to do that to Jason. I wanted us to be together, like Edgar had said.

  “I don’t know if you can care too much for someone,” said Edgar. “Maybe the truth is that you have never cared for her unselfishly. Maybe you’ve always been close to her so that she could help you, not so that you could help each other.”

  Jason laughed darkly. “That might be true. But what do you know about relationships, anyway? Should I look to the shining example of you and my mother?”

  There was silence for a few moments. Then Edgar finally said, “I was worried about my reputation at the Sons. So I abandoned her. She wasn’t completely sane when I left her, but she really did get much worse when I was gone. I think that whatever happens with you and Azazel, you are both stronger together than apart.”

  “I don’t want to be strong,” said Jason. “Not anymore. I only want to stop hurting people. Anyway, it would be the height of selfishness to stay with Azazel
when she doesn’t ever have her memories. I’m taking advantage of her. If she remembered everything, she’d hate me again.”

  “She has amnesia, Jason, not damage to her brain.”

  “I know that. But she needs her memories back. When you arrived here, you said you knew your way around magic. I wondered if there was any way that you could restore her powers and her memories. Do you know of a way?”

  Weem sighed. “It’s possible that I could do it. But there are things I’d have to determine first. We know that her powers were stripped from her magically, but we don’t know what happened to her memories. Did she simply block them out in the trauma of the event or were they extracted from her as well?”

  “You could figure that out?”

  “I think so. Of course, if they are gone because of trauma, I’ll be of no use. Sometimes, in cases of amnesia, as I’m sure you’re aware, such things are simply lost. Sometimes they come back of their own accord. But if they were taken from her and transferred the way her power was, then I might be able to restore them.”

  Did I want Edgar to restore my memories and my powers? Did I want to know all the horrible things I’d done? Did I want to have the power to force people to kill again? I guessed that I wanted to be whole, even if it meant facing the darkness of my past. But the thought frightened me. And I was a little bit annoyed that Jason was doing all of this without my consent too. I wondered if I should show myself.

  I didn’t. I didn’t want to argue with Jason about it yet.

  “So, what do you need to do?” Jason asked.

  “I’ll need to create a small potion, I think,” said Edgar.

  “A potion? Like a Harry Potter thing?”

  Edgar chuckled. “Oh, Jason, I seem to always forget that you were exposed to such a narrow aspect of the Sons. Only the crude manner of the Brothers, with their fighting and guns. I had planned, when you were older, to make sure you were instructed in magic, but—”

  “But I ran away,” said Jason.

  “Precisely,” said Edgar. “At any rate, it’s nothing so complicated as all that. I only need a few herbs in my bag and some blessed oil.”