* * *
Late that night, I awoke to find someone in my room with me, on my bed, tying my hands to the bedpost. My legs were tied too. At first, I was too disoriented to completely understand what was going on, but as I woke up, I recognized my attacker.
I screamed. I screamed and screamed.
And Toby balled up the sheets on the bed and thrust them in my mouth. His face was bruised and purple. His nose was twice the size that it usually was. But I would have screamed anyway, even if he’d looked like the cherub he used to resemble. I had hoped never to see Toby again.
“Listen,” he whispered. “It didn’t work. The Invocation didn’t work because you didn’t join the Circle. We have to complete the ritual.”
How had he gotten in here? Where had he come from? And what the hell did he think he was going to do to me? I spit the bed sheets out of my mouth.
“Toby, you are not going to complete any kind of ritual with me, okay?” I said.
He looked apologetic. “I don’t really want to do this either, Azazel. I don’t want you to be all struggling and screaming and... It makes me feel really bad. But we have to do this. It’s important.”
“How did you find me?” I demanded.
“Your aunt called your mom to gloat,” said Toby.
What?! Aunt Stephanie had betrayed us? She clearly didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation.
“We drove all night. All of us,” said Toby.
“All?” I said.
“Yeah. Me, your mom, your dad, my dad, my mom, some other people.”
“And you’re all here? In this house?”
“Yes.”
“And Jason?”
“Will be waiting for you to complete the ritual as soon as we’re done here,” said Toby.
Oh my God. This was awful. Going to Aunt Stephanie’s house had not been a great idea. It was not a beautiful dream. It was just another chapter in the nightmare that had become my life.
And now Toby was going to... I felt sick just thinking about it.
“Look, Azazel, I know you don’t want to do this with me anymore,” said Toby, “but if you lay still and don’t... well, I think it’ll be better. Just don’t fight me.”
Don’t fight him? How could I? My arms and legs were tied down. Couldn’t fight physically. And they already had Jason. There was no one to hear me scream. What was I going to do? I could beg Toby not to, but I didn’t think that would work. I could... God what could I do?
Toby began pushing my nightgown up, over my legs.
I could tell Toby I had AIDS. Except he’d know that was a lie, because he knew I was a... Wait.
I had an idea. “Toby?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“For the ritual to work, didn’t I have to be a virgin?”
He looked at me. “Yeah, you did, but why would that matter?” He made a face. “Why did you say ‘did?’ Past tense?”
“I’m not a virgin anymore,” I said.
“What?” he said. “Of course you are.”
“Not,” I said. “I totally did it with Jason last night.”
“No way.”
“Yes way,” I said. “Twice, even.”
“You’re lying,” he said. “You’re just trying to keep me from doing this.”
God. He could see through me so easily. I told myself to stay strong. “I’m not lying,” I said. “Ask Jason.”
“Well, he’s not in here, and if I leave you, you’ll figure out some way to get untied, and you’ll run off,” he said. “I’m just gonna have to do it anyway.”
No! “What if I’m right though?” I blurted out. “You already said you didn’t want to do it. Think how much effort and discomfort you’ll have to go through for nothing.”
He considered. He started to untie me. “Fine,” he said. “We’re gonna go downstairs and talk to your dad about this. And when he finds out that you had sex with that... thing, he’ll probably kill Jason himself and save you the trouble.”
Oh please God, no. Maybe this had been a bad idea.
Everyone was in Aunt Stephanie’s massive dining room. They sat at the long, long polished wooden table, still decorated with a bouquet of white roses. Behind them, a huge picture window looked out onto Aunt Stephanie’s elaborate gardens. Aunt Stephanie, Jason, her cook Lydia, and Marci were all tied to chairs and gagged. My mother, father, Sheriff Damon, his wife, and several other members of the community were all seated in chairs around the table.
“That was fast,” said Sheriff Damon when Toby and I appeared.
“I didn’t do it,” said Toby. “She says she had sex with Jason. And the ritual won’t work if she’s not a virgin. I didn’t know what to do.”
As Toby predicted, my dad was angry. He got up and ripped the gag out of Jason’s mouth.
“Is that true?” he demanded of Jason.
Jason was trying hard not to laugh. “Yes,” he said. “That is true.” He winked at me. “Twice.”
I grinned at him. It was like we could read each other’s minds! He was never allowed to leave me. I wouldn’t let him.
My dad backhanded Jason.
“She might be lying,” said Toby.
“Might be,” said Sheriff Damon, “but how do we know?”
My mother spoke up. “Zaza, baby, just be truthful with us. Tell what really happened.”
“Why should I tell you anything?” I said to her. “You turned to Satanism so you could get pregnant with me.”
“Oh sweetheart, did Stephanie tell you that?” my mother asked.
I nodded.
“I wanted you so badly,” she said. “And the coven needed a vessel. And it was the only way.”
This just got worse and worse. “So you had me specifically to be a vessel for a demon which you then named me after?”
“Satanism is about the individual,” she said. “I already believed that. Your father and I both already believed that. You were born with a specific purpose. We raised you to end the suffering that Jason will cause. Why can’t you see what he is?”
“I do see what he is,” I said. I gazed at Jason. “He’s amazing.”
Jason smiled at me.
“Stop trying to reason with her, Jodi,” said my dad. He turned to Toby. “Toby,” he said. “Didn’t you have gym class with Jason?”
“We all had gym together,” said Toby.
“Ever see him in the shower?” asked my dad.
Oh God. Where was this going?
“Azazel,” said my dad, “is Jason circumcised?”
Damn it! And how disgusting was it for my dad to ask me something like that? My parents were horrible, horrible people. Well, I had no idea.
I looked at Jason. He looked at me. I tried to find some clue in his eyes. I sifted through everything I knew about him. The Sons of the Rising Sun were religious and religious people got circumcised, so, “Yes.”
Jason winced. He shook his head.
Damn it. So much for reading each other’s minds.
“No,” said Toby. “He’s not. I knew she was lying.”
I felt my heart sink. What were we going to do? I could see that Jason was struggling against the ropes that held him to his chair, but he wasn’t having any luck. There wasn’t any hope for it then. What I’d thought I’d escaped in Bramford had come for me in Alpine, New Jersey. And here in this lush house, I wasn’t going to be able to stop Toby from doing what he came to do.
Toby grasped my arm and turned my body around. I stiffened. I wasn’t going to walk with him. If he was going to try to do this, I was going to struggle every step of the way. There was no way I was making it easy for him.
I looked at his face, those blue eyes I used to think were so beautiful. Now there was only a twisted expression on his face, something hovering between disgust and hatred. Toby had become a monster.
Unexpectedly, the picture window behind everyone shattered. Pieces of glass rained down, clattering against the marble floor. A loud n
oise, and Aunt Stephanie’s throat blossomed with blood. She gargled through her gag, her eyes wide. Then her head slumped down.
I was stunned and scared. What?
I heard them then. Gun shots. They were swift. Efficient. There was no time to think. No time to evaluate. Just the images, one after another, burned into my brain. My mother—blood trickling between her eyebrows. My father—his left ear exploding in gore. Toby—his face going blank, blood seeping out of his mouth—dropping to the ground next to me. All of them—Sheriff Damon, his wife, my aunt’s servants, the rest of the coven.
All dead. In a matter of seconds.
And then they were swarming in through the window. Five men dressed in black, carrying guns. They stepped over the bodies like they were old pieces of furniture. One knelt behind Jason to untie his bonds.
“What about the girl?” asked one of the men, who had a British accent.
And then I understood. The Sons of the Rising Sun. They were here.
The man came for me, his gun raised, waving it in my face. Maybe I should have run. I was frozen.
Jason was free from his ropes. He moved so fast, he looked blurred. He elbowed the man who had freed him in the face. Kneed him in the groin. Wrested the gun from the man’s hands. And pointed it at the man who had pointed a gun at me.
During all this, another man was answering the first man’s question about me. “Waste her,” he said.
And Jason shot the man who was pointing his gun at me.
His shot was eerily similar to the shots the Sons had inflicted on my family. The man’s temple erupted, blood pouring out. He crumpled to the ground.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to be horrified. But... maybe it had just been too much. Maybe there was nothing left inside me to horrify. Or maybe I was in shock.
“Get his gun, Azazel,” said Jason.
And it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to reach down over the body of a dead man and take the gun out of his hand.
I held it up, staring at it. I didn’t know how to use one.
The other four men were on guard now, shifting their guns back and forth between Jason and me. My brain was still working somehow. I didn’t know how. It should have turned off a long time ago, but it hadn’t. I was thinking that I was in more danger than Jason because they wouldn’t seriously hurt the Rising Sun. They needed him. I was, however, expendable. It was important that I figure out how to use the gun.
Jason was still shooting. I wasn’t paying attention. I was looking at the gun.
Since the man had been shooting before I’d taken it from him, that must mean the safety wasn’t on, so I shouldn’t have to worry about that. It should be as easy as pointing and shooting.
I held it in both hands. It was a little heavy. I leveled it at the man in front of me. I rubbed the trigger with my forefinger.
And Jason shot him.
Jason had shot all of them.
Jason had killed all of them.
I surveyed the dining room, now littered with bodies. Jason came over to me. “You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I felt very, very calm oddly.
Jason also seemed calm. “Good,” he said. “Go back to our rooms and pack us some clothes. I’m going to find some cash and the keys to a car.”
I guess it wasn’t really stealing since my aunt was dead.
“Meet back here in five minutes?” I asked.
“Seven,” he said.
We parted. I changed out of my nightgown. I didn’t think about how sad I was to be leaving this huge closet full of clothes. I definitely didn’t think about how Aunt Stephanie couldn’t ever get any more clothes. Or how I’d never even talk to Aunt Stephanie again. I didn’t think at all. I just pulled clothes out of my closet and then out of Jason’s. I couldn’t find anything to put them in, so I shoved them in an empty garbage bag that I found in a trashcan.
Jason was waited for me when I returned. We didn’t look at the bodies. Instead, we went directly to the garage and slid into the Beamer we’d come into the house in earlier that day. Jason pulled out, and we drove. I watched the huge, million dollar houses go by our windows. Alpine was a beautiful place. The homes were absolutely gorgeous.
When we were finally out of Alpine, I stared straight ahead. Neither Jason nor I spoke.