Tortued
Part One
Battle not with monsters lest you become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Chapter One
April 17, 1990
Professor Weem commented on my paper to the entire class today. He said it was the best discussion of ancient religions he'd seen in all his years as a teacher. All of the girls in class hate me even more than they did before. Everyone has a crush on Professor Weem. Even though I'm learning more here than I ever imagined, sometimes I just want to go home.
Above me, stained glass windows loomed in the darkness, fractured pictures, casting multi-colored bits of light over the wooden pews. Back when the SolSolisSchool was first built, and it was a monastery, and this building was the church. Now we used it for assemblies and performances. I was lying back on one of the pews. My boyfriend Jason was kissing me.
I tried to pay attention to the softness of his lips, to the hard curves of his muscular chest against my body. But I couldn't help but stare up at the stained glass.
It was late at night. Jason and I had snuck out of our dormitories to meet each other here. Jason could pick locks and get us into pretty much any building on campus. Except the library, of course. Jason could have picked the lock without any problem. But the library was always guarded. It was frustrating, because the whole reason we'd come to the SolSolisSchool was to get into that library.
Jason brushed a stray hair out of my face. He looked deep into my eyes. "Azazel?" he whispered.
"What?" I said, shifting uncomfortably on the wooden pew.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I nodded. "Fine," I said, attempting to smile.
He kissed me again, closing his eyes. I tried to close mine, but they fluttered open again. I looked back up at the stained glass above me. We were making out in a church. A church. And we'd planned to come here to do more than make out. I eyed the stained glass suspiciously, feeling ill at ease.
As if in response to my thought, Jason eased his hand under my shirt, his fingers cold against my skin. I jumped.
Jason pulled away. He sat up. "You aren't into this, are you?" he asked.
I sat up too. "I'm into it," I said. And I was. Hadn't I been wanting to be with Jason for months?
"So, then how come you're so tense?" he asked.
"I'm not tense," I said.
Jason sighed. "Hey," he said, "I thought we promised to be honest with each other."
Jason had been brutally honest with me. He'd shared with me his darkest secret, something he'd never admitted to anyone. Something he'd barely admitted to himself. His mentor, Anton, had come to him one night, telling him that he'd found out things about Jason. That Jason wasn't the Rising Sun, or the messiah of the world, but actually a thing of evil. Anton had tried to kill Jason but Jason had killed him first. Jason had told himself over and over that it wasn't really his fault. That it was the fault of the Sons themselves, who'd made Anton believe in things like the Rising Sun or things of great evil power. But Jason had finally told me about it. He'd been honest. I owed it to him to be honest too. Still, this hardly compared. This wasn't some dark secret that I had. This was just something I was too uncomfortable to talk about.
Jason folded his arms over his chest.
I shot one more look up at the stained glass windows. "Well," I said, "we are in a church."
"It's not a church anymore," said Jason. "Besides, what are you afraid of? The wrath of God raining down on us or something?"
"No. Not exactly. But, you know, weird things do happen to us, Jason. Especially when we kiss."
Like driving a group of men absolutely insane. Or Jason coming back from the dead.
Jason laughed. "Yeah, okay, point," he said. "But I think we're okay here. No one comes in here at night. And it's been so long." He reached for me again.
I ducked out of his grasp, chewing on my lip.
"What?" he said. "What is it?"
I shook my head. "Nothing," I said.
Jason sighed. "Don't do that, Azazel. It's something. It's something or you wouldn't be trying to get away from me when I want to touch you."
"I'm not trying to get away from you!" I said. Honestly, I didn't know what was wrong with me. I wanted Jason. I did. I loved him more than life itself. And we hadn't been able to do more than hold hands since escaping from Shiloh two months ago. We'd been living with a group of monks in Rome most recently. Now we were attending the SolSolisSchool, the same boarding school my younger brother Chance attended.
It was just that in the past couple months, everything had gotten so serious between Jason and me. Everything had been so focused on what we were trying to figure out. I'd almost forgotten about this part of our relationship. "Shouldn't we be focusing on how to get into that library?" I asked Jason.
"The library?" he said. "We are. We're trying to figure something out. But we've only been at school here for two weeks."
"I know that," I said. "But it's why we're here, isn't it?" Jason and I were trying to find some ancient documents on the history of the Rising Sun. We wanted to know why we'd been able to do the weird things we'd done when we were kissing. We wanted to know if we had supernatural powers.
Jason had been brought up to believe he was the Rising Sun, a savior of sorts for the human race. It was prophesied that he would unite the world under a global government and usher in an era of peace and prosperity. My Satanist family had groomed me as the Vessel of Azazel (a Jewish demon). My purpose had been to destroy Jason and stop him from uniting the world. Jason and I had fallen in love. I hadn't killed him. Ever since then, all kinds of very strange things had happened to us. We'd been chased by one organization or another across the United States. Finally, we'd taken refuge here in Italy. But we had questions, and it seemed that no one had any answers. We were hoping that the answers were here.
"It's not why we're here tonight," Jason said, gesturing at the walls of the old church. "We're here tonight to—"
"I know," I said, cutting him off. I took a deep breath and leaned in to kiss him.
His arms went around me, pulling me tight against him. His lips parted mine with his tongue. His fingers lightly stroked my back, the nape of my neck.
I pulled away again. "What if we tried to distract the guys who are guarding the library?" I said.
"You're really fixated on this library thing," said Jason.
"I'm not fixated," I said. "I'm determined. We're here for a reason, and I think we should do our best to try and make sure we follow it through."
"How do you propose we distract them?" Jason asked. "Treat them like dogs and throw them a big juicy steak?"
"No," I said. "One of us could pretend to be hurt. Or we could say that someone had been hurt."
"They'd just radio someone else to take care of it," said Jason. "You know all of the guards carry around walkie-talkies."
The SolSolisSchool had pretty heavy security, and not just because children of the most wealthy and influential people in the world attended it. The SolSolisSchool was an institution sponsored by the Sons of the Rising Sun, a secret society. They housed their secrets in that library. They didn't want to let anyone in. Especially not Jason or me, if they knew who we were.
"I could flash them," I said.
"Great," said Jason. "You're offering to show your breasts to complete strangers, but you won't even let me hold you."
I looked away.
Jason touched my arm. "What's going on?" He sounded concerned. "Is everything okay? Are you mad at me?"
"No," I
said. What was going on? Why was I being like this? "We haven't been together like that since Bradenton."
"That's true," said Jason.
"Since before Lilith," I said. Immediately, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my chest. That was it! That was why I was upset.
"Lilith?" Jason reached for my chin and turned my face so that I was facing him. "Is this about Lilith?"
I nodded.
"You don't still think that something happened between me and Lilith, do you?"
I shook my head.
"Are you sure? Because I told you nothing happened. She tried to get me to do something, but I didn't. You know that, right?"
"It's not about that."
"So then what is it about?"
I looked down at the wooden pew between us. At the whirls in the wood grain. "She said things," I said.
"Like what?" Jason wanted to know.
Now that I'd started to talk about it, I really didn't want to. "Never mind."
"Not never mind. Tell me what you're talking about."
How could I even put this? "She said things about being . . . pleased."
Jason looked confused. "Pleased? When?"
"I overheard that conversation you were having. You remember. When she tried to seduce you."
Jason furrowed his brow in confusion. "I don't remember anything about . . ." He paused for a second, a different expression taking over his face. "Oh," he said.
I inspected my fingernails, feeling my face heat up. I was glad it was dark, and Jason couldn't see that I was blushing.
"I didn't believe anything she had to say," said Jason. "I know that we're . . . that you're . . . she was just trying to make me think that you were cheating on me with Jude."
"Right," I said. "That's all she was doing. So it doesn't matter what she said."
"Well, it wasn't true anyway," said Jason. He looked at me. "Was it?"
I hesitated. I didn't know how to talk about this. I'd never known how to talk about this. "Look, let's just forget it," I said. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."
"Oh," said Jason. "So it is true?"
Flustered, I stood up, folding my arms and shrugging. "What's true?"
Jason floundered. "Well, she said that you weren't . . . satisfied."
I shook my head quickly. "No," I said. "I am. I'm totally satisfied. I love you, and everything we do is amazing. I'm very, very satisfied."
"Yeah," said Jason, "but I don't think that's what she meant."
"Let's just drop it," I said.
"You brought it up."
"I don't know why I did."
Jason stood up too. He touched my shoulder. "I told you before," he said softly, "I don't know what I'm doing."
"Yes you do," I said. "You're wonderful. Besides, it's not your fault, anyway. It's like she said, she had to show . . ." I couldn't continue. My face was on fire. "This is just too embarrassing."
"Hey," Jason said, "you don't have to be embarrassed. It's me. Besides, we said no more secrets. If you're thinking about this, I want to know."
"I just worry that what she said is true. That if I can't do that, then you'll think that I don't appreciate you. And I don't want you to think—"
"No," he said, "this isn't about me. This is about you."
"I know," I said. "There's got to be something wrong with me, right? I mean, shouldn't it have happened already?"
"Well," said Jason, "and keep in mind that I haven't spent a large part of my life listening to locker room talk or having many friends that were my own age. From what I understand, though, it's, like, harder for girls to . . ." He laughed. "Okay, well, I'm embarrassed too."
I giggled nervously.
"There's nothing wrong with you," said Jason, "but I think I must be doing something wrong."
"No," I said, "no, I don't think so. I mean, everything's working okay for you."
"But it's not working for you."
"It's fine."
"So, then why are we talking about this?"
"I just wanted to make sure that you knew I appreciated you, that's all. And I wanted to tell you that I was . . . I don't know . . . that something was wrong with me, and I didn't know if you—"
"Stop it, Azazel. There's nothing wrong with you."
I plopped back down on the pew.
Jason sat down next to me. "Look," he said, "if you told me what to do, you know I would do anything you wanted. I want you to be happy. I want—"
"I don't know what you should do!" I interrupted him. "I don't know how to do it. And that's what Lilith said. She said she had to show guys what to do. And I don't know what to do."
Jason absorbed this for a few seconds. "Okay," he said finally. "So, we'll figure it out then. We'll just try stuff."
I bit my lip. "You think that will work?"
He grinned. "It's sex, Azazel. Cavemen could do it. It can't be that hard to figure out."
I tried to smile.
Jason kissed me again. I tried to just let myself melt into him, to concentrate on nothing but his lips. Eventually, however, I pulled away. "I'm just not really in the mood," I muttered.
Jason didn't say anything for a while. Finally, he said, "Okay."
"You're mad."
"I'm not mad," said Jason. He kissed my forehead. "We've got time," he whispered. "We've got our whole lives."
* * *
My roommate Palomino was crying in the bathroom when I got back to my dorm. Palomino was the daughter of an American senator. She was also my brother Chance's girlfriend. As was the plight of the children of the incredibly rich, she'd been stuck with a totally weird first name. She was cool, though, despite the fact that she was actually dating my dork of a baby brother. Chance was fifteen and so was Palomino. They'd met when Chance lived with my grandmother in New Jersey. Chance and Palomino had claimed they were "just friends" for months before finally admitting they were girlfriend and boyfriend.
When Jason and I had first realized that the information we were looking for about the Sons and the Rising Sun prophecies were all housed in the SolSolisSchool, we didn't have any idea how we were going to get in. The monks we were staying with—the Order of Reddimus—didn't have any connection with the Sons. The Sons themselves had broken off from the Order of Reddimus back in the Renaissance, but that was hundreds of years ago. The organizations no longer had any ties.
Chance and Palomino had really helped us out. Since they both attended the school, they knew the ins and outs of it. They told us which of the people who worked in admissions were total space cadets and would let two seniors into the school two months before graduation. They told us how to make sure we got assigned to room with them. Chance and Jason shared a dorm across campus. I roomed with Palomino.
The only thing the Order of Reddimus really had been helpful with was money. The Catholic Church was willing to throw tons of money at us, considering we were working to overthrow the Sons. The Church hated the Sons. They were their biggest enemy on earth.
Our tuition was paid for, and we didn't have to live with strangers. Plus, this was a good school. I was ridiculously behind on my studies, considering this was the third high school I'd attended during my senior year. Jason was a freaking genius, so he wasn't having any trouble. Palomino and Jason were both helping me study, so I was glad of the assistance.
I knocked tentatively on the door of the bathroom, which was a heavy, old door, made of dark oak, and engraved with ornate decorations. "Palomino," I called. "Are you okay?"
Only the muffled sound of sobs came through the door. I looked around at our dorm room. For a high school dorm, it was a pretty nice room. Quite big. Unlike most dorm rooms, rooms in our building—Bianchi Hall—didn't have rooms that looked like cookie cutter images of each other. Each room had a little bit of character. Our room had two large windows on the far wall and a small sort of L-shaped alcove where our closet was. Like all dorms in Bianchi, our bathroom was off our dorm room.
Some students' parents paid
enough for private rooms, but Palomino's apparently wanted her to learn what it was like to live with another person. They said it was a social skill. As for me—the Catholic Church was being generous, but not that generous.
I tried the door handle. It was unlocked. "Can I come in?" I asked.
Palomino didn't answer.
When I entered the bathroom, I saw her sitting on the green tile floor, her head between her knees. Her shoulders were shaking from the force of her sobs.
I knelt down next to her, concerned. "What's wrong?" I asked.
Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy Page 1