Breathless (28 page)

"No," said Jason. "No, she focuses me. She gives me something to focus on."

Really? That was sweet. I loved Jason.

Hallam sighed. "I didn't know if you'd come."

"Your email got me curious," said Jason. "What do you need to show me?"

"Oh, we'll get to that," said Hallam. "We will. First, I think, we need breakfast. Wake up the girl."

"I should let her sleep," said Jason. "We haven't done a lot of sleeping lately."

"Really, Jason, I'd rather not hear details about that kind of thing," said Hallam.

"Because of danger," snapped Jason. "Not because of . . ." He cleared his throat.

"Oh, so then you haven't been intimate with her? The Sons will approve."

"No," said Jason. "We have." Why was he telling Hallam this? "But then, I didn't think you wanted to know about that."

"Wake her up," Hallam growled.

Jason opened the passenger side door. I had to pretend to wake up when he shook me.

I think I might have overdone the stretching, but Jason didn't seem to notice. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, pretending to notice Hallam for the first time. "Hello, Hallam," I said.

He glared at me. I didn't think Hallam liked me very much.

We ate breakfast with Father Gerald, the parish priest, in his rectory, which was attached to the church. Father Gerald, Hallam explained, had knowledge of the Sons of the Rising Sun. Their paths had crossed in the past. At least that was how Hallam put it. He didn't elaborate. At any rate, Father Gerald had been kind enough to allow Hallam to stay there. Jason could apparently stay too, but I was a woman, so that meant it was improper for me to stay in the same place with the other three men.

Jason promptly announced that we would get a hotel room. I was now totally convinced that Hallam hated me.

Father Gerald seemed nice enough. He didn't say much during breakfast, however. No one did. We ate quickly, and then Hallam took us back to the room he was staying in.

It was apparently a room for visiting priests, and it was quite sparse, containing just a bed and a desk. However, Hallam did have a computer. He sat down in front of it at the desk. Jason and I sat down on the bed.

"So," Hallam said, "I know you're wondering what it was that I wanted to show you, Jason."

Jason nodded. "We came all the way from Pennsylvania."

"And you probably want to know why I'm in Shiloh," said Hallam.

"Yeah," said Jason.

"I'm guessing it's got something to do with Jason's birth," I said.

Hallam glared at me. "Well, obviously," he said.

Why was he such an ass? Maybe he just hated women. Maybe that was why he'd had no problem killing all of those sorority girls.

"So, spill," said Jason. "Why are we here?"

"Well," said Hallam, "it started right after you ran away. I got transferred back to England to a desk job at the Council. They transferred everyone who lived at our old Society house after Anton died and you ran away. I think they were afraid. They wanted to know if Anton had gotten to anyone."

"Gotten to anyone?" Jason asked.

"That's what this is about," said Hallam. "Why they killed Anton. What Anton knew."

"Really?" said Jason leaning forward, interested now. Huh. He didn't care about his birth, but he cared about Anton. "So what did he know?"

"I don't know," said Hallam.

Jason threw up his hands.

"Yet," said Hallam. "I don't know yet. I'm getting there. I could use your help actually."

"All right, all right. So what do you know?" asked Jason.

"I was getting to that," said Hallam. "So . . . where was I? Right, I got transferred back to England. And I didn't like that one bit. If they'd left me where I was, I maybe wouldn't have gotten suspicious. But because they shipped me off, I began to wonder if there was something to Anton's death and your disappearance, so I started digging into records, which I now had easy access to.

"I was working in payroll, believe it or not, so, on a whim one day, I looked at the payroll records from the year you were born. And I found that the Sons had paid out a significant amount of money to a woman named Marianne Wodden. That, of course, is your last name, Jason. So, I set about trying to find this woman."

"She's dead," said Jason.

"Dead?" said Hallam. "I don't know if she ever existed."

"What do you mean?" I said. "The Sheriff in my town found death records for her.

She was murdered by her husband."

"Oh, I found those death records," said Hallam. "But I couldn't find any death records for the supposed husband, what was his name . . ."

"Ted," supplied Jason.

He remembered that, huh? Maybe he cared more than he let on.

"Right. This Ted Wodden. No death certificate. And he supposedly committed suicide after shooting his wife. So, I looked for a birth certificate for Ted Wodden. Nothing.

Chagrined, I looked for a birth certificate for Marianne Wodden. Nothing."

"She doesn’t have a birth certificate?" asked Jason.

"That's right," said Hallam. "Death certificate, no birth certificate."

"What does that mean?" asked Jason.

"Well, I always thought that name was just a little too perfect," said Hallam. "I mean almost cutesy in its rightness for the mother of the Rising Sun."

"Rightness?" I said.

Hallam shot me a withering look as if I couldn't possibly understand. "Marianne," he said. "Mary the Mother of God."

Oh. Duh.

"And Wodden. It's so close to Woden, isn't it?"

That I understood. Determined to show Hallam up, I said, "Like the day after tomorrow."

Jason and Hallam both furrowed their brows at me.

"It's Wednesday," I said. "Woden's day. Woden is the British name for Odin, from Norse mythology."

Hallam looked grudgingly impressed. "Right," he said. "And Odin is a dying god who's resurrected, which is what the sons believe the Rising Sun is, essentially."

"So, you don't think that she was real," said Jason. "Like I have no mother?"

"Well, I'm not sure," said Hallam. "The death certificate seemed real enough. I figured in a town this size, someone would remember something like that. A battered woman being shot to death? So I came here. I asked around. No one remembered anything like that."

"But, Jason and I saw a memorial on a website," I said. "Someone said she was a sister and an aunt."

"Right," said Hallam. "And they'd listed a maiden name of Aird. I looked into an Aird family. That turned out to be a dead end. Aird is a typical Muscogee surname, apparently, and, until about the late 1700s, this land belonged to the Muscogee."

"Muscogee?" Jason asked.

"The Creek Indians," said Hallam. "Most of them were sent away during several treaties, which eventually relegated them all to Oklahoma, but some had intermarried, and their families stayed in the area. The point is, there were too many Airds.

Furthermore, there was no one in the area who had even heard of Marianne Wodden, let alone been related to her."

"And you think Anton knew this?" Jason asked.

"I think Anton knew something about your birth," said Hallam. "He said to me, before he died, that he'd found out something about your origins. He wouldn't say more. He wanted to tell you first. Then, of course, they killed him."

"What does it mean?" I asked.

"It doesn't mean anything yet," said Hallam. "But I tried one more lead. I emailed the person who runs the memorial website. Apparently, she takes information from people who email it to her, and she puts it on the website. I said that I was an old friend of Marianne's who had recently learned of her demise, and that I wanted to get in touch with her surviving family to pay my respects. I asked for the contact information of the person that posted Marianne's memorial information.

"The woman who runs the memorial website just got back to me this morning. All she gave me was an email: [email protected]." Hallam looked at me pointedly. "Isn't that your name?"

"Yeah," I said. "Weird coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences," said Hallam.

"Jason does," I said, thinking about the vision the Satanist woman had had about me killing him.

Jason didn’t respond to me. Instead, he said to Hallam, "We've got to go to that website, then."

"Of course," said Hallam, turning to his computer.

Jason and I both got off the bed and crowded behind Hallam. Hallam typed

"thegreatgodazazel.com" into his address bar on the internet. He hit enter.

A black background filled the screen. In red letters, the website proclaimed "The Great God Azazel Network." Underneath, in smaller letters, there were links: Satanism, Philosophy, Azazel in Other Cultures, Blog, and Contact Me.

"Click on the contact link," said Jason.

Hallam did. It just brought up an email message addressed to [email protected].

"Um, click on the blog," I said.

Hallam did. The last entry was dated October 31st. It was entitled, "Samhain."

"Should I read it?" Hallam asked.

"Okay," said Jason.

"On this very ancient and powerful day," Hallam read, "it is important for Satanists of all walks and beliefs to take stock of their lives. This is a day to celebrate—" Hallam broke off reading aloud and began skimming to himself. He scrolled down the page.

Then he hit the back button. "Nothing there," he muttered.

Hallam clicked on the "Azazel in other Cultures" link. There was a list. It read,

"Prometheus, Pan, Loki, Dionysus, Rabbit (Creek, Southern North America), Coyote (Western North America) . . ." The list went on, below the screen.

"Didn't you say something about the Creek Indians?" I asked.

"Yes," said Hallam, already clicking on the link.

"A Promethean and Azazelean figure, Rabbit steals fire to bring back to the people,"

read Hallam. "Interesting stuff, I guess. I didn't know Native Americans had myths so similar to Europeans." Hallam turned around. "This site is a dead end, though. There's nothing here."

"Except for the fact that the same person who put up a memorial website for my mother is also running a Satanist website," said Jason. "And Azazel's parents were Satanists. That's weird. There's some kind of connection, don't you think?"

"Maybe," said Hallam. "I don't think we're going to find it on this site, though."

"Just try to find a name," I said. "Who's the webmaster? Who puts up the page?"

Hallam hit the back button again. He scrolled to the bottom of the main page. "Here's a copyright," he said. "Michaela Weem," he said. He looked at Jason. "Now we know that last name, don't we?"

"Yeah," said Jason. "But that can't be connected. Right?"

"Someone clue me in here," I said.

"One of the High Council members has the last name Weem," said Jason.

"Edgar Weem," said Hallam.

"That's my middle name," said Jason. "Edgar."

"The initials match," I said. "Marianne Wodden. Michaela Weem."

"They do," said Hallam thoughtfully.

"Maybe there's a connection," I said.

We were all quiet for several minutes.

Finally, Hallam sighed. "No," he said. "I've got nothing."

"Me either," said Jason. "I mean, it doesn't add up to anything."

"I think it does," said Hallam. "We just don't what it is it adds up to."

Jason sat back down on Hallam's bed. "It doesn't matter anyway," he said. "Even if we could figure it out, it wouldn't change anything. The Sons are still tracking me across the U.S. I have to keep running. I guess I have to keep running forever."

"No, no, Jason," said Hallam. "That's where you're wrong. I wouldn't have asked you here if I thought it was as hopeless as all that. Listen, whatever the secret was that Anton knew, it was so powerful that the Council had him killed. They didn't want anyone to know. If we can figure it out, we'll have a weapon against the Sons."

From: Alfred Norwich

Subject: Go with God

Joseph,

After the tragic loss of Richard Durham, it is even more imperative that you and your team are successful in recovering Jason. He is stronger and more capable than we have realized, and this dalliance of his has gone on quite long enough. Richard seemed to believe that there was evidence indicating Jason was heading south. We feel this is the best course for you to take in your search for him.

Yours in the pursuit of the Purpose,

Alfred

Jason and I checked into a hotel room a few miles outside of Shiloh, in another small town (which was still bigger than Shiloh), where we would spend the next several days. For the first time in days, we had a stretch of time in which we were not bothered, not threatened, and felt relatively safe. Jason and Hallam kept puzzling over the strange set of connections that we'd uncovered, but neither of them came up with many ideas.

Jason and I spent time with Hallam, but we also had ample time alone. We ate in restaurants. We went for walks in the woods. It was much warmer in Georgia than it had been up north, even though the residents of Shiloh seemed to think it was very cold. At night, we slept in the same bed and tried to work on perfecting our lovemaking technique. The second time, it was much less awkward, and much nicer.

Still. There was something about it that was . . . disappointing. It wasn't that having sex with Jason was bad. It was very nice. I really liked being close to him. And it felt .

. . Well, that was the problem, really. It felt good, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it felt way better for Jason than it did for me. Of course, we didn't really talk about it.

I didn't know how to bring it up.

Overall, it was the most pleasant time that Jason and I had been able to spend together. I felt happy. I even felt content. If it weren't for the fact we were holding our breaths, waiting for the Sons to show up at any minute, it might have been idyllic.

Might have been. But there were other things. Jason and I had baggage. Sometimes, out of nowhere, it hit me that my parents were dead. I remembered them the way they had been, before Friday night. I had thoughts sometimes, like when I saw a book in a bookstore that my father might have liked. I thought that I should pick it up for his birthday in December. Then I remembered that he was dead. I started to cry. I couldn't believe it. It just seemed so unreal.