Instead, we were in a room, and I was staring at a version of myself, except I was old. There was an old Jason too. He was across the room, pointing a gun at Old Me.
Old Me had been shot. Her teeth were bloodstained. She struggled to get off a couch. “I knew it when you killed Hallam. I knew I never should have let you live!” She raised her gun.
Lilith tugged me along. “Ignore this shit.”
I couldn’t. I let her drag me with her, but I stared back at the tableau in horror. I’d seen that before. Where had I seen that?
Lilith opened another door.
And then we were outside, on a grassy hill. But the whole sky was a projection, like a big-screen movie. In the projection, I was lying on a hospital bed, and some woman was sticking me with a needle.
Lilith pointed at the sky. “You did that.”
“What?” I said.
“You were going to die,” she told me, “and you didn’t want to, and Jason didn’t want you to die, and the two of you were basically like gods at that point. You were pretty powerful. So, you made it so you could live.”
“What?” I said. I was so confused.
Lilith crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, Azazel, didn’t you ever think it was weird that suddenly you woke up and there were angels and Nephilim and crap? It was like one of those books you used to read, with the fallen angels who get it bad for mortal girls.”
I chewed on my lips. “I’m into MMA fighters and guys in motorcycle clubs now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Did you think that stuff was really real?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I looked around. “Oh, God, Lilith. Have I been dreaming this whole time? Am I still stuck in the…” And then the word came to me. “Spiritus Mundi?”
“No,” she said. “You’re dreaming now, but you really did wake up.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh.”
She paced in front of me. “You wanted things. You wanted to live. You wanted to have babies. Real babies, not pretend spirit ones. You wanted to wake up. So, you made it happen. You remade the world, Azazel. You and Jason. You rewrote history. That Nephilim stuff came from you. The stuff about Jesus, and everything else? That came from Jason. He studied that stuff with the Sons. He knew all these theories about who the historical Jesus was, and he tacked this theory about Jesus son of Pandera onto your weird Nephilim stuff, and then there we go.”
I swallowed.
“The Gospel of John is completely metaphorical,” said Lilith. “He doesn’t mean literal eternal life, and he doesn’t literally mean Jesus’ blood.”
I rubbed my temples. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” she said. “You guys controlled the powers of Chaos and Order. You got to remake the world however you wanted. So, whatever you did, we can’t change it. Now Judas is a vampire and Jesus is a Nephilim. Way to be creative.”
“You’re saying the vampire and immortal stuff isn’t real?”
“No, it’s real, Zaza. But it wasn’t real until you made it real.”
I shook my head, still confused.
“Look, forget about that,” she said. “I need you to listen really closely to this other part, though. When you woke up, you both gave up your power over Chaos and Order.”
“Well, I know we didn’t have any powers anymore.”
“That was the price,” she said. “You came out of the coma, and the powers were loose again.”
“To go back into people, right? We kept them balanced, but then when we woke up, they weren’t balanced anymore. And then they just went back into everybody.” I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but I remembered now. All this time, I hadn’t been able to remember what we did when we were in the coma, but now I knew.
“Not quite,” said Lilith. “They did a little bit, sure. There’s more violence and chaos now that you guys are back. And there’s more oppressive order. While you were asleep, there was none of that. The powers had converged. Now, they’re split again. You guys kept them together in your coma. Now, they’re fighting.”
Well, that didn’t sound good.
She pointed at me. “And the power of Chaos? It’s growing in your womb.”
I put my hands on my swollen stomach again. “What?”
She nodded. “Yeah. That’s the only reason I can come and talk to you. The baby’s big enough and strong enough now that his powers are starting to manifest. You had dreams when you had the power of Chaos. Now that baby has that power, you can visit the Spiritus Mundi again. That’s what the dreams always were, you know. Little trips here. Little messages.”
I rubbed my belly. “I am having an evil baby.”
“He’s no more evil than you were,” she said. “You know it’s not that simple, Azazel. But Chaos always wants to destroy Order. And the power inside your baby will want to do that too, just as part of you tried to destroy Jason and the power of Order.”
“But I didn’t,” I said. “I thought the Dark and the Light were attracted to each other.”
“Chaos isn’t evil, Azazel, but it is Dark. It is dangerous. And people will use him. People will want to hurt him. Someday, your baby will come to a place of power and confront the power of Order and Light, and then—”
* * *
“Azazel, you awake?” said Jason.
Sunlight streamed into the room. I sat straight up in bed.
“You were talking in your sleep,” he said.
My heart was pounding. “I was dreaming.”
“Yeah, I figured,” he said. “Nightmares.”
I nodded. “Not just nightmares, Jason. Those kind of nightmares.”
“What?”
“The kind of nightmares I used to have back when I had powers. The prophetic ones.”
“Like the stuff that turned you into a crazy drunk back at the Sol Solis school?” Jason asked. “Hey, you’re not going to start drinking again, are you? You can’t drink.”
I glared at him. “I was stupid to drink to drown out those dreams. They mean things. Look, it’s about the baby.”
He groaned. “I knew it. It’s evil, isn’t it?”
“It’s not evil, it’s Chaos.”
He arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“You remember,” I said. “When my family tried to kill you, it was because you were an agent of Order, and I was an agent of Chaos, and the Satanists served Chaos.”
“If you say so.”
I got out of bed. “You woke me up before I got to the end, but the long and short of it is that the baby has my powers. When we woke up out of the coma, we gave them up and now they’ve converged in the baby.”
“Well, where are my powers, then?” said Jason, tossing aside the covers.
“I don’t know. Lilith didn’t say.”
“Lilith? You were dreaming about Lilith?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it wasn’t really Lilith, it was Spiritus Mundi Lilith.”
Jason furrowed his brow. “That word. Why do I know that word?”
I headed for the door. “I need to talk to Hallam. Your dad, Edgar Weem, was trained in magic by the Sons. That’s how we knew about the leaves that stop magic. So, Hallam might have been trained too. He can help us figure this out.”
“Wait, can you hold on a second?” he said. “What’s the Spiritus Mundi?”
“I don’t exactly know. I remember… some things about when we were in the coma, but not all of it.”
“Isn’t that from that Yeats’ poem? The one about the rocking cradle and the pitiless gaze and the weird birds and the apocalypse?”
“Jason, when we were asleep, we were in the Spiritus Mundi, and we used our powers to keep balance between Chaos and Order. But when we woke up, we gave up our powers, and now there is no balance. And so the forces of Order are coming for my baby.” I pulled the door open. I needed to find Hallam.
My cell phone rang.
It was lying on the dresser in the bedroom.
<
br /> I hesitated.
And then I went back and answered it. “Hello?”
“Ms. Jones, this is Dr. Keir from the clinic. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to come in a little earlier than we had talked about last time. Imri wants to run some more tests. Nothing to be worried about, you understand, but—”
“Um, no,” I said. “I-I’m really busy right now. I’m sorry.” I hung up, fear searing through me. Those tests they were doing must be telling Imri something about the baby. He knew what it was, and I didn’t trust Imri. Not at all.
* * *
Hallam was watching the news in the living room. His daughter Kenya was playing with blocks on the floor. She was building some kind of tall tower.
“Hi Zaza,” she said when I walked in.
The adorable thing about Kenya was that both of her parents were British, so she had a British accent even though she’d lived her whole life here in the states. I thought little kids with British accents were pretty much the cutest thing ever.
But I didn’t have time to talk to Kenya.
“Hallam,” I said.
He turned away from the television. “Hmm?”
There were pictures of three redheaded girls on the screen. In the background, I could hear the newscaster. “….latest in the string of girls who claim to have been kidnapped by a masked man, who tortured them for hours. Since none of the girls actually show signs of harm, it’s believed that this man is using some kind of psychotropic drug to conduct his—”
Jason was standing next to the TV. He snapped it off. “Tell Hallam what you told me.”
I shook myself. Right.
Hallam gave Jason a concerned look.
“Um, it’s about the baby,” I said. “I had a dream.”
Hallam turned to me. “What kind of dream?”
“I think the baby has power,” I said. “Big power. Dangerous, maybe. Or at least that other people are going to be dangerous to him.”
“Him?” said Jason.
I turned to him. “I’m pretty sure it’s a boy.”
He smiled. “Well, that’s cool.”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning back.
“Power?” said Hallam.
I turned back to Hallam. “I wondered if there was anything in your training with the Sons that you might be able to use to help us figure it out.”
Hallam made a tent with his fingers and rested them against his chin. “Well… maybe. I’d need to do some preparation and gather some supplies. And I’d need you to tell me more about this dream.”
* * *
“I’m only saying that the situation with Imri is getting worse,” said Boone.
We were back in the main meeting room in headquarters, only this time we were all sitting at one end of the table, close. Jason was holding my hand, and Jude sat across from us.
Boone kept going. “All those bugs that I found before, all the hacks into our system that I plugged up? They’re back. In a matter of days. He has more resources than we do. The guy is thousands of years old. He has more money than god. He wants to control us. And I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”
I turned to Jason. “You’ve been working with him a lot lately. What has he been having you do?”
Jason pulled his hand away from me and looked down at the table. “Uh, you know, stuff I don’t really understand, mostly. I go and pick things up or drop them off. Sometimes I spy on people.”
“Well, I don’t think you should do it anymore,” I said.
Jason shrugged. “Sure. I’ll stop.”
“You think that’ll make him angry?” said Boone.
“I don’t think he’ll even notice,” said Jason. “He has so many people working for him.”
“Look,” said Jude, “I don’t know what you think we can do about this guy.”
“Well,” said Boone, “we went after him before. You three went into his house and grabbed his kids and got him to give Grace back.”
“After which he promptly kidnapped Chance,” said Jason. “And I doubt we’d be able to get in that way again.”
“Plus,” said Grace, “he knows about the leaves now. We shared that with him. That means he—and all of his people—have a weapon that can kill us. So, it’s the five of us against his entire town.”
“Four of us,” said Jude, looking at me. “I don’t think Azazel should be part of this.”
“You kidding?” I said. “After Jason, I’m the second-best shot here. You guys need me.”
“Yeah, but you’re pregnant,” said Jason. “You should really sit this out, don’t you think?”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine. It’s the second trimester. I’m like superwoman now.”
“It’s not just that town,” said Boone. “He’s got a network of people all over the country and in Europe and the Middle East. He’s expansive, you know? So, if we wanted to do anything, we couldn’t take on his whole force. We’d have to do what we did before and go for the kids.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Jason. “He’s old. He and Mary Magdalene or whatever have been making babies since the death of Yeshu, and even if they only had one kid every five years, that’s four hundred children. I’m not sure he gets really upset about losing one or two.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “They’re his kids. Of course he would.”
“You remember how he acted when we had the guns on his wife and kids?” Jason said. “Was he really freaked out?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think. What do you think, Jude?”
“I don’t know,” said Jude. “He was calm.
“Mary was pretty freaked, anyway,” I said.
Jason shut his eyes. “No, I don’t want to go there again. Because if we threaten killing kids, then we have to be ready to go through with it.”
“You were ready to go through with it before,” said Jude.
“I know,” said Jason. “And if we have a clear objective, like we did before—you know, getting Grace back—then it might make sense. But this? What would we use the kids for? What are we trying to do, anyway? Kill Imri?”
Boone leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know. If we kill him, then all his people come after us. If we tell him we don’t want to work with him, maybe that means his people come after us. We’re no match for all of them. This is shit. We’re in deep.”
No one said anything.
Boone looked at Jason. “Aren’t you going to say, ‘I told you so?’ You didn’t want to work with him in the first place.”
“I think by the time we knew he was watching us, it was probably too late,” said Jason.
“So, what do we do?” said Grace.
“I think we keep vigilant on the surveillance,” said Jason. “We cut off any and every path he might have to spy on us. And we start thinking about creative ways to get rid of this guy.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
~azazel~
I sat in one of the dens in the house. It was lit only by candles, which were set up on every available surface, giving the room a warm, flickering light.
Hallam knelt in front of me and spread some kind of herb paste stuff on my bare stomach.
He whispered words in another language that I didn’t recognize, and his voice sounded different. It echoed through the room, rich and deep and powerful. It seemed to bounce against the flickering candlelight.
The room felt like it was expanding, growing larger in all directions.
The longer Hallam spoke, the louder his voice got.
I could hear it behind my head. Even though he was in front of me, it sounded like he was at my back, muttering the strange words into my ear.
Jason and Jude were both in the room as well. They sat behind Hallam, both staring at him.
They didn’t meet my eyes.
I didn’t meet theirs.
The floor began to feel as if it was tilting, going slightly to the left.
And the candles not only flickered but seemed to flit across the r
oom, jumping from one wick to the next like fairies or fireflies. At first it was only a few of them, but then it was a swarm, candlelight zooming around the room in a fast circle.
The floor rattled under my feet.
I felt dizzy.
Hallam threw his head back, his voice booming and majestic. The strange words spilled from his mouth.
And the movement stopped.
The candles went out.
It was silent. It was still. And it was dark.
Then I felt Hallam’s—or someone’s—hands on my stomach.
The fingertips were ice cold.
A voice emanated from the darkness. “I am the oracle. Why have you summoned me from my slumber?”
The voice sounded like an old woman’s voice. Was it coming from Hallam?
Was I supposed to ask it questions? Hallam hadn’t said anything about an oracle.
But then I heard Jason’s voice. “We come to you in supplication as your servants, grateful for your wisdom.”
Wow, it sounded like he’d memorized that, like it was the “proper” response or something. What the hell had they taught him when he’d been with the Sons? He almost never talked about that stuff.
“The oracle welcomes you,” said the odd woman’s voice. “You rouse me from my slumber because of the child, do you not?”
“You sense the child?” said Jason.
“He is powerful. His power is the absence of magic. His power is to render all power impotent.”
What the hell did that mean?
“The power of Chaos seeks to undo all that has come before,” continued the oracle. “It will unwind the threads of power. It wants to swallow the magic. Swallow Order. Swallow Light in a gaping maw of Darkness.”
Okay, that sounded really bad.
“If the sword of Chaos pierces the very center of Order, the struggle will end,” continued the oracle. “That is all I see. All I can tell you. I return to my slumber now.”
With a whoosh, all the candles burst back to life. Light returned to the room.
Hallam gasped, his hands sliding away from my stomach. He fell to a heap in the center of the room.
* * *
Jason paced. “So, you’re saying that all the stuff with the immortals didn’t exist before we woke up from that coma. That somehow we were powerful enough to rewrite history.”
Gasp Page 7