Falter

by V. J. Chambers

  We peeled out of the parking lot.

  * * *

  ~jason~

  Maybe shooting that guy who was yelling after us had been excessive.

  Maybe I didn’t fucking care.

  I drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the window down, cool morning air in my face. I felt like I was just waking up, like there were little sparks coming to life all over me. I hadn’t realized just how much I missed this.

  Fighting. Shooting. Running.

  A guy could get used to it.

  I looked sidelong at Azazel, who was sitting next to me, her head thrown back, the wind blowing her hair back from her face.

  Damn, she was beautiful.

  I caught her eye.

  She winked at me.

  I reached over to grab her thigh, but my fingers touched something hot and sticky. Blood? “Did you get hit?”

  “Oh, it’s healing up already,” she said.

  It was? “Really? I haven’t given you blood in…” It had been a while, and the blood wore off after a month. Why was she healing so quickly?

  She rolled up her window. She didn’t look at me.

  It was like a spell had been broken. Suddenly, the air felt chilly, and I didn’t feel alive anymore. I only felt old and tired and ashamed of myself. Jude had wanted to know how many people I’d killed today?

  I felt sick. I hadn’t even noticed. I’d just been happily pumping bullets into people, not caring one way or another about them. I was becoming a monster again.

  Jude poked his head up between our seats. “Where are we going?”

  I rolled up my window too.

  Azazel tapped her ear. She was still in touch with Boone. “Boone says there’s a house for rent that we can crash in tonight. It’s unoccupied, it’s isolated, and it’s about three miles from here.”

  * * *

  The apartment was as abandoned and out of the way as Boone had said. The water was on, and so was the electricity, but we decided to keep the lights off to lower our profile. So it was dark inside. The only light came through the windows. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but it was only a matter of time. Until then, everything was gray and shadowy.

  Jude and I agreed that Azazel should have the first shower, considering she’d been shot and was all bloody. Under other circumstances, I would have joined her, but I didn’t even bring it up.

  For one thing, it was still tense between us. I was pretty sure that things were getting better, but I also wanted to clear the air about our little mishap in bed. It still loomed between us, an awkward, shameful elephant in the room.

  For another thing, I was feeling guilty about all the killing I’d done. It had washed over me, like a bath of concrete, and now I felt heavy with the knowledge of what I’d done—weighed down.

  So I sprawled out on the carpet in the living room of the rental home. It wasn’t furnished, so there was nothing but empty rooms. It made all the rooms seem huge, even though I was pretty sure they’d look small if they were actually filled with furniture.

  Jude was in the doorway—half in the room, half out of it.

  I decided to ignore him. If he couldn’t decide where he wanted to be, then screw him. Azazel and I didn’t really need him along for the ride. He was just getting in the way. Maybe I could send him back to Boone somehow.

  I stared up at the ceiling. I wondered how long it would take Azazel to finish her shower. I wondered if she thought I was a terrible person, if deep down she was judging me for shooting all those people. I wondered if she was afraid of me.

  I couldn’t handle it if she was.

  I didn’t want Azazel to be like Patience, sobbing and begging and bleeding.

  My Azazel was strong. She was my equal. The two of us…

  But wasn’t that always where I went wrong? It always started to seem like we were the only two people on earth who mattered. Like everything else was expendable.

  There’s Chance, I reminded myself. You love Chance. He matters.

  Was it enough? I sighed.

  “You ever wonder what it would be like if things were different?” said Jude, his voice a whisper.

  I sat up. “Different?”

  He walked into the room, and he looked at me. Really looked at me, in a way that he hadn’t since this whole mission to save Grace had started. “Like if we’d been rescued from Michaela by some nice foster family or something, and they’d raised us together.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Didn’t they take me away from her when I was born? I mean, she tried to kill me, didn’t she?”

  We were talking about our mother. She hadn’t been a very nice person. She hadn’t been mentally stable either.

  “Yeah, but if things had been different,” said Jude. “If we’d been normal.”

  “Like no Sons of the Rising Sun? No training to be the messiah? No abomination? No you trying to kill me for her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’d still be Nephilim.”

  “Maybe that wouldn’t matter.”

  “We’d both have been captured by Bartholomew and his vampires,” I said. “And we wouldn’t have been able to get out. I wouldn’t have had any training. I would have been useless.”

  He sighed. “Useless? Like I was, you mean.”

  “I didn’t say that.” I was going to try being nice to him. Maybe it would work.

  “No, it’s okay.” He headed for the doorway. “I am.”

  “Jude, you’re not useless,” I said. Admittedly, I didn’t know what his use was, but he had to have one.

  “Sure.” He was bitter.

  “Azazel doesn’t think so anyway,” I said. “You’re important to her. I know that.”

  “I don’t want to talk about her.”

  There that was again. Some hint that Jude and Azazel were not as close as they usually were. I kept noticing that something was off. “What happened with you guys? You’re arguing or something.”

  “No, we aren’t.” He disappeared, through the doorway, and he was swallowed up in the shadows of the hallway.

  A horrible thought occurred to me. What if Jude had given Azazel his blood? That would explain why she’d healed so quickly. But why had he given her blood? Why would she let him do that?

  I shuddered.

  That couldn’t have happened. There was no way. She wouldn’t…

  I got up and went after him. “Jude? Did she drink from you? Did you—”

  He appeared in front of me, melting out of the darkness, and my voice died in my throat.

  I was quiet. His jaw twitched.

  “Why does she want you so much?” he said. “I can’t figure it out. You’re bloodthirsty and cruel and vicious. You strangled her.”

  I drew back. “She told you that?” Why would she talk about it? With anyone?

  He clenched his teeth. “I see the look in your eyes when you’re killing, Jason. You loved every second of killing those police officers today. As far as you were concerned, it was like Christmas.”

  He was right. I felt ashamed.

  “Did you ever think that maybe you’re not very good for her?” said Jude. “Did you ever think that maybe you’re very bad for her?”

  “All the time,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “But she’s mine, Jude,” I said. “She’ll never be yours.”

  * * *

  ~azazel~

  Jason was waiting for me when I emerged from the shower, his hands in fists, his expression grim.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “You told him.”

  “What?”

  “You told Jude what happened between us. You told him our private business.”

  “Jason—”

  “How could you do that?” he rasped.

  I touched his cheek.

  He shook me off. “No. Explain to me how you thought it would be a good idea to confide in him, when you know he hates me, and when you won’t talk to me about it.”

  Lookin
g back on it, I should have realized that my loose tongue was the first sign that the aphrodisiac was beginning to work. Under normal circumstances, I would never have blabbed that to Jude. However, I couldn’t tell Jason that without telling him everything.

  I looked into his eyes—pools of earnest darkness—and I thought about doing just that. Maybe he’d understand.

  It hadn’t been Jude’s or my fault, after all. I’d been forced to do it by the drug.

  But even if he could understand, now wasn’t the time to explain. It would jeopardize our mission for Grace.

  And I thought about how it would make me feel to know that Jason had been with another woman, even against his will.

  My stomach clenched in revulsion just imagining it.

  No, it would only needlessly hurt Jason. I couldn’t tell him.

  “Azazel?” he prompted. “Why did you tell him?”

  “It… it slipped out in conversation, I guess.”

  “In conversation?” He was incredulous. “How do you have a conversation where something like that comes up?”

  Jude appeared at the end of the hallway. His mouth was twisted into something like a smile. “She’s not allowed to talk about the way you abuse her, huh?”

  “Jude,” I said. “It’s not like that.”

  “What are you going to do to her because she talked?” asked Jude. “Maybe if you slap her around a little bit, she’ll learn to keep her big mouth shut.”

  Jason sank back into the wall behind him.

  “Stop it,” I said to Jude.

  “Maybe,” said Jude, “you should go on and take the next shower, Jason. You could probably stand to cool off a little bit.”

  Jason touched my face. “I swear to god. I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t know how…”

  “Jason, it’s okay,” I said. “I’m not—”

  He flung himself into the bathroom. He shut the door in my face.

  I rounded on Jude. “You fucking asshole. What the hell was that?”

  Jude turned away. He slunk back down the hall.

  I went after him. I grabbed him by the shoulder. My voice was an infuriated whisper. “Answer me. Why did you do that? Do you want him to find out or something?”

  “Maybe I do,” he said.

  “What?” I couldn’t believe it. “We both agreed that if he found out, it would destroy him. We agreed that he’d be angry with you. You said he would kill you.”

  “He’d try,” said Jude. “He’s tried before. I’m still alive.”

  “Why would you want him to know?”

  Jude broke away from me. He rushed down the hall.

  I ran after him.

  He went to the front door. He ran outside. In the east, the sun was stealing over the horizon. The sky was crimson carnage. It was purple. It was slashed with color.

  He stopped on the front steps, looking up at me. “Because I don’t want you to be with him, Azazel. Are you fucking blind?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I tried, but I only made this funny half-strangled noise. What was Jude saying?

  “I wanted you… always. From the…” He was having trouble forming words. His whole body was shaking, and he thrust his hands into his hair. “From the first time I saw you. I think I fell in love with you, then. And I know I’m not whatever he is. And I’ve known… I’ve known for a long time that he’s all you’ll ever want. And that I’m…”

  “Jude, you don’t have to say this stuff.” I wanted to save us both the embarrassment. Some things were better left unsaid.

  “No,” he said. “Maybe I could have kept my mouth shut if things had gone on the way they had been. But then… it happened. We made love, and—”

  “We did not.” I shook my head. “What happened between us was not love. It wasn’t even close.”

  “I never wanted it like that.” He closed his eyes. “I never thought it would ever happen. But it did. And no matter how it happened, it changes things.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  I backed away from him. “I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t ever want to talk about this. You understand me?”

  But I didn’t wait for him to answer before I fled from him. I found one of the bedrooms, and I shut myself inside, and I locked the door.

  Fuck them both.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So you two are getting married?” asked the bubbly woman at the desk at the travel agency. The place was pretty rinky-dink. There were faded posters of palm trees on the wall, and there was only one person manning the store. Bubbly lady. She had frizzy brown hair and buck teeth. This place even looked like a front for illegal business. They had to be our blood ring.

  “That’s right,” said Jason. We were pretending to book a honeymoon trip.

  “Really?” she said. “Because I could swear you haven’t touched each other once. Usually, when we get happy couples in here, they can’t keep their hands to themselves.”

  Jason and I both looked at each other. I’d stayed locked in that bedroom for quite some time. When I’d spoken to either him or Jude again, it was only to talk about how we were going to organize our investigation of the travel agency. Jason and I weren’t exactly in a touchy-feely mood.

  His hand snaked over and found mine. “This one’s not so crazy about the public displays of affection.”

  Our fingers interlaced. His hand was sweaty. I wanted to pull away, but I didn’t want Frizzy Hair to get suspicious. Instead I patted his arm with my free hand. “It’s only that I think that some things are private, you know?” I pasted a big smile on my face.

  Frizzy Hair smiled back. “Where were you thinking about going?”

  Her smile looked so fake, I wondered about the genuineness of my own. I stopped smiling.

  “We were working with someone the last time we were here.” Jason looked at me. “What was his name, sweetie?”

  “Todd, I think,” I said. “Todd McKay.” I looked around the empty office. “I guess he’s not here.”

  Frizzy Hair looked flustered. “Wow.”

  “Wow?” said Jason.

  “It’s only that, well, there’s a reason why no one’s here today besides me,” said Frizzy Hair. “Todd was killed yesterday. He was shot.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How horrible.”

  She nodded.

  “Was he… on the job?” I asked. “He told us that he sometimes did side work for the agency. He had a backpack he said he used for it.”

  Frizzy Hair’s eyes narrowed. “He said that?”

  “Oh, he said a lot of things,” said Jason. “So, why don’t you make this easy for everyone, and just tell us where you get the blood.”

  “The blood.” Her voice was flat.

  “We know about that,” I said.

  “It’s you,” she said. “They said there would be three of you, but I guess you ditched one of the others, huh?”

  “Who said?” I asked.

  Frizzy Hair reached for the phone.

  Jason pulled out his gun. “Hold up. I don’t think you want to do that.”

  She put her hands in the air shakily. “Don’t shoot me.”

  “You tell us where you get the blood, and we’ll be out of your hair real quick,” I said.

  “I can’t do that,” said Frizzy Hair. “You don’t understand what they’ve done for this town. What they’ve done for all of us.”

  Jason and I exchanged a glance. That was an unexpected thing for her to say.

  “Then I guess I’m going to have to shoot you,” said Jason.

  Frizzy Hair cringed. “Please, I don’t see why I have to be involved in this.”

  “You’re involved because you’re working for a travel agency that’s a front for selling Nephilim blood,” I said.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “The agency doesn’t sell it. You’ve got that wrong.”

  “Please, lady,” said Jason, “there’s no way a travel agency in the middle of bumfuck makes enough money to stay in business.”


  “None of the businesses make enough money in Peyton,” said Frizzy Hair. “But none of that matters, because Imri takes care of all of us. He and Mary came here, and they saved our little town. Revitalized it. Gave us the blood of life. Now there’s money, there’s life, and there’s hope. And if you gotta shoot me, then I guess you gotta do it. Because I won’t let anything happen to them. We all owe them so much.”

  She was determined. I could see that.

  Jason sighed. He lowered the gun. “Okay, okay.”

  I stood up. “Just shoot her. She’s not going to help.”

  “I don’t have to kill her,” said Jason.

  “She’s seen us,” I said. “You think we can walk away? She’ll call the police as soon as we leave.”

  “We could tie her up,” said Jason.

  “We could, but wouldn’t it be easier to just shoot her?”

  “Is that what you think of me?” said Jason. “You think I’ll just shoot anyone without giving it a second thought? Because I don’t always have to—”

  I took out my gun and pulled the trigger.

  Frizzy Hair made a little yelping noise and then fell face down on her desk.

  Jason drew back.

  “Baby,” I said. “If we have to shoot people, we have to shoot people. I don’t care anymore. Okay?”

  He furrowed his brow. “You don’t think I’m being too reckless or violent?”

  “I like you reckless and violent,” I said. “Reckless and violent turns me on.”

  “It does.” He raised his eyebrows. “Huh.” He stood up.

  And the door to the agency was thrown open. “Police! Hands up.”

  I raised my gun to shoot, but they were too quick.

  Pain in my head. I’d been shot. The world swam in front of my eyes. Damn it all to hell. A fucking kill shot?

  I tried to reach for Jason as I was falling. I’d be healed in a few moments. Hopefully, he could handle things while I was out.

  But as my vision closed in on me, I could see that Jason was hit too. He was struggling to get his balance.

  No.

  * * *

  ~jason~

  I awoke on cool concrete. I sat up, looking around to get my bearings. I seemed to be in a basement someplace. It was dark and dank. There was a dirty window high up on the wall, a set up steps in the corner, a few pillars holding up the ceiling.