Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy (18 page)

* * *

"We weren't really going to shoot him, were
we?" I asked Jason as we strode out of the monastery.
Jason handed me the slip of paper Brother Mancini had given us with Cornelius
Agricola's address on it. "Maybe in the leg," said Jason, "if he
really wouldn't have given us the address."
I nodded. That sounded reasonable. "It was kind of cool, wasn't it?"
I said. "I mean, standing over him with our guns like that. It felt, I
don't know, kind of powerful." I looked at Jason. "Do you think
that's bad?"
He shrugged. "We didn't hurt him.
Don't worry about it."
 
Okay. I wouldn't.

Chapter Ten

August 17, 1990
It
does hurt. We only did it twice so far. Once was
at the Colosseum. We did it at midnight, while intoning a chant in Latin that
Ted taught me. It hurt. Afterwards, I told Ted that I loved him. He told me I
shouldn't say things like that. That we were doing this for a specific purpose,
not for personal pleasure. I should have said, "Good," because there
wasn't much pleasure for me anyway.
Brother Mancini of the Order of Reddimus
directed us to Cornelius Agricola yesterday. Last night, we went to see him.
Ted was very excited, because Cornelius apparently has access to some kind of
power that he could imbue into the child. I didn't get to find out much about
what it was, because they talked without me.
 
It was strange and weird. I had to drink
from several really disgusting tasting drinks. Then they smeared my body with
something that smelled horrible. Ted and I did it again, in dark, with just
these candles. And Cornelius Agricola watched. I don't like him.
 
Today, I feel tired. We only have two
more days in my window of fertility. Ted hasn't told me where we're going next.
 
Brother Mancini had made Cornelius Agricola sound pretty dangerous. The entry
in Michaela's diary hadn't. She'd said she didn't like him, but nothing more
than that. I hadn't had the chance to read beyond her entry on Cornelius
Agricola, though. Maybe she talked about him more
later
.
I wished the diary was like Google, and it had a search function. It didn't
though.
Jason and I decided the best course of action was to be cautious. I had to
admit that I didn't like the fact that Brother Mancini had seemed so frightened
of Agricola. I was curious about why, but if it were really, really bad, maybe
it was better that we didn't know. We approached Agricola's house with our guns
drawn. It was a tall house, connected to the other houses on the street. Most
of
Rome
was
like that. All of the houses looked like a wall. The street and sidewalk met
the edge of the foundation. There weren't any trees or yards. The city was
completely covered in stone. It was as if the original builders of the city had
wanted to eradicate nature or something.
The entrance to Agricola's house was a tall, metal gate, made of twisting
wrought iron. It wasn't locked. Jason swung it open, and I followed. That was
when we both took out our guns. Inside the gate was a courtyard. There was a
fountain in the center. When we looked up, we saw a balcony. Dozens of hanging
plants dangled in our faces. Jungle-like and dark, the courtyard gave me a
touch of the creeps.
 
Jason went first. We tiptoed across the courtyard to a door across from the
gate. It had an old, iron knocker on it. Jason raised it and dropped it. The
sound was a resounding boom. We both jumped a little.
Nothing happened. We waited.
 
"You think he's not home?" I whispered, tightening my grip on my gun.
 
Jason took a look around and then raised the knocker again. It hit the door and
made another loud booming sound.
 
Still nothing.
"Should we come back?" I wondered.
Then there was the sound of shuffling feet from behind the door. It opened. A
short, wizened woman stood on the other side of the door. She had stringy white
hair, olive colored skin, and she was quite rotund. "
Buongiorno
?" she said.
"Uh," said Jason, keeping me behind him. "We're looking for
Cornelius Agricola."
The woman looked confused. She let out a string of Italian words.
 
Jesus. This was stupid. Why were Jason and I trying to get around in a city
where we didn't speak the language?
"Um," I said, "
Inglese
?"
(
Which was essentially the extent of my Italian.
It
meant English.)
"Ah," said the woman, looking saddened. "
No Italiano?
"
"No," I said.
"Cornelius Agricola," said Jason. "Does he live here?" He
pointed at the ground, as if that was supposed to somehow mime
"live."
 
"Agricola," repeated the woman, still looking confused.
There was a thud behind us.
Jason and I whirled, raising our guns. I didn't have a chance to see what had
fallen behind us, however.
 
Before I could think, someone or something kicked both my gun out of my hands
and my feet out from under me. I fell back, my head cracking on the stone of
the courtyard. And everything went dark.

* * *

I woke up in a darkened room, my back to Jason. We
were sitting on the floor, and we were chained up. The chains looked like
chains from some medieval dungeon. They were heavy, and they attached to large
metal shackles that encircled our ankles and wrists. The room itself was dark
and stone, with no furnishings except some whips and chains hanging on a far
wall. The only light came from a grate high in the ceiling, where a shaft of
light fell down directly on Jason and me. I gulped. What had we gotten
ourselves into, exactly?
I nudged Jason. "You awake?" I whispered.
"He's awake," said a voice. Not Jason's. The voice was deeper and
older than his, with a heavy Italian accent.
 
I didn't say anything else. My gun was gone. I'd had it in my hand when I'd
been knocked out. I noticed now that both our guns were hanging underneath the
whips. Whoever had us was taunting us, putting our weapons in sight but out of
reach. This sucked. It didn't seem likely that this guy, if he actually was
Cornelius Agricola (the lady at the gate hadn't seemed to recognize the name),
was going to be real helpful. He probably wasn't going to tell us anything.
"I've been waiting for him," continued the voice. The man who was
speaking strode around the circle and into my vision. Apparently, he'd been
standing in front of Jason. He was a tall man with broad shoulders. His head
was shaved, and he had a goatee. The way he glared at me from under his
eyebrows projected something sinister. I didn't like it. "You,
though," he continued. "I didn't think there would be a girl."
He smiled. "But that will make things even more interesting."
Interesting? What was this guy planning to do to us?
 
"Sit tight, lovelies," he said and left the room, shutting and
locking a heavy door behind him.
 
We were quiet for several minutes after he left. I was expecting something to
drop in through the ceiling or crawl out through some grates in the floor that
I couldn't see.
Something like poisonous snakes or some
deadly gas.
But nothing happened.
 
"He said he'd been waiting for you," I said. "Do you think he
knows who you are? Do you think he's Cornelius Agricola?"
Jason was rattling his chains, examining them. Trust Jason to be practical,
only concerned with trying to get us out of the situation and not with the
motives of our captor. "These are old shackles," he said. "I
don't think they were made for women. You might be able to slide out of
them."
I tested one of them, trying to pull my hand out of it. It seemed pretty tight
to me. Plus it was hard to move my limbs since they were connected to such
heavy chains. "I don't think so," I said.
"Try," said Jason.
I dragged the chains closer so that my hands were close enough to touch. I held
onto one of the shackles and tried to slide my hand out of it. It slid up over
my hand, but caught on the knuckle of my thumb. I tried to push it farther. It
wouldn't go. I folded my thumb against my hand, making that part of me as small
as possible. It slid a little further up. Then it caught and wouldn't slide any
further. "No," I said. "I can't."
Jason twisted, flinching as he did so. He was straining against his chains. He
checked my progress. "You've almost got it," he said. "Keep
trying."
"It hurts," I said.
"Keep trying," he insisted. He moved his hand forward to help me, but
his chain didn't reach far enough.
 
I grasped the shackle again and tried to force it over my hand. It scraped my
knuckles, drawing blood. "Ouch," I said. But it had moved forward
more, so I kept struggling with it.
More scraping.
More bleeding.
And then—success! My hand was free!
Awesome.
"It worked," I told Jason. "I have a free hand!"
"Good," said Jason. "Keep going."
The second hand was easier to free, but I scraped it up even worse, probably
because I knew it could be done and wasn't as careful of myself. With both
hands free, I started on my feet. I shrugged out of my shoes and socks and
started to try to get the ankle shackles off. At first it seemed hopeless. I
pushed the shackle down as far as I could get it. It slid down over my heel,
but bit into the skin of the top of my foot, drawing more blood.
 
Then I had a vague memory from when I was a very little girl. I couldn't have
been more than three. My mother was in her bedroom, putting on a pair of very
tight jeans. She couldn't get the end of the jeans over her heel. I remembered
the way she'd pointed her toes, like a ballet dancer. Then she'd yanked the
jeans up. They were tight on her ankle, like a second skin.
This shackle was bigger than those jeans. Of course, it was also not made of
fabric. Still, I tried it, elongating my foot and pointing my toes. The shackle
slid right off.
"Got a foot!"
I told Jason.
The second one came off just as easily. I was free!
I stood up, going around
to face
Jason.
"Good," he said. "Good job." He smiled at me.
 
"How do we get you out?" I asked.
"We don't," he said. "My hands and feet are too big. I've
tried." He held up his hands, which were just as scraped as mine, but
still encased in their shackles. "Instead, you've got to get the guns and
wait behind the door. When he comes back, you shoot him. Then hopefully he's
got keys on him, and you can get me out."
It wasn't an awful plan. "But," I said, "
if
he's Cornelius Agricola, we still want him to tell us about what he did with
Michaela and Edgar Weem."
"Well, don't kill him," said Jason. "Just disable him."
"So, where do I shoot him?" This guy looked pretty big. I wasn't sure
if he'd go down with a shot in the leg. If it came to fighting hand to hand,
I'd never be able to match him.
"Go get the gun," said Jason. "Let me think about it."
It turned out to be a moot point. I couldn’t reach the guns. They were too high
on the wall, out of my reach. I tried jumping. I couldn’t even get my
fingertips to brush them. Jason was taller than me. If we could get him free,
he could probably reach them.
 
But Jason assured me that he couldn't get out of his shackles. I told him to
keep trying. I surveyed the door. It opened into the room, so it was possible
that I could hide behind it when it opened, like Jason had said. "Maybe I
could trip him," I said. "When he comes in?"
"And then what?" said Jason.
"Well," I said, "if he falls down flat on his face— How far can
your chains reach?"
Jason crawled forward. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe I could reach
him. I could get a chain around his neck or something. But you'd have to help.
If you ran up and kicked his head from behind, that would hurt him. Keep him
down. It might work."
We didn't have a better plan, so we decided to try it. I positioned myself
behind the door and waited for the man to come back. He didn't come back. I got
sick of standing and sat down behind the door.
 
It felt like hours passed. But we didn't have any way to measure the time. The
light from the grate over us seemed to be dimming.
Moving.
Was it early evening?
Late afternoon?
We didn't know.
 
"You know what's been bothering me?" I finally said. "Two people
at the school said that they started thinking about us on Friday."
"What?" said
Jason.
"Faruza or maybe it was Fairie.
And the head.
When I asked them when they started to think we were special or whatever, they
both said they did on Friday. And that was the day that I found you with
Jude."
"So?"
"Well, every other time something weird has happened to us, it's been
right after we kissed," I said. "And we did kiss on Friday. Do you
remember?"
"We kiss every day, Azazel. Weird things don't happen every time we
kiss."
"Yeah, but do you remember that kiss? It was a pretty intense kiss."
Jason didn't answer for a second. "Yeah," he said. "I do
remember. And right before we were kissing, I was wishing like hell that I
could just be normal and enjoy high school."
"Were you? Because I was wishing that we had someone who supported
us," I said.
"Huh," said Jason.
"We got our wishes, didn't we?"
"Do you think that's how it works?" he asked me. "Because before
the Sons went nuts in
Shiloh
, I was totally
wishing that we could get out of that situation."
"And when I thought you were dead, I could hardly accept the fact that you
were. I wanted you back."
"Huh," said Jason again. "Maybe we should ditch this whole
tripping him plan and just wish really hard that he'd come let us go. And then
make out heavily."
I laughed. "You think so?"
"It wouldn't hurt anything would it?" Jason asked. "Plus, the
whole thing doesn't sound unpleasant."
I laughed again.
"Come over here," Jason said.
 
I went to him. I sat down next to him. I touched his face and his chest.
 
"Now wish," he whispered.
I shut my eyes. I wished as hard as I could. With my eyes still closed, I felt
Jason's lips press against mine. They were sweet and soft and familiar, and
they still made me feel like the entire world was splitting apart and falling
away. I clung to him, our kiss deepening, our mouths opening, our tongues
entwining. When we broke away, I sighed.
 
We waited. The guy didn't come back. The wound on my arm itched. I scratched at
it. Jason scolded me about messing up my bandage. We waited some more.
"I guess that didn't work," I said finally.
"Maybe," said Jason, "we didn't do it right. Maybe we should try
again."
 
"You just want to kiss me again."
"I'm that transparent, huh?" he grinned. "Wish again," he
said and kissed me. We kissed for a long time. Jason couldn't really touch me
because of the fact his hands were in shackles, but he kept whispering to me to
get closer. Eventually, I ended up straddling him, our bodies pressed tight
against each other. I was running my hands over the stubble on his head, which
actually felt really cool. I was getting more and more used to it.
Of course, that was when the door opened.
 
And I wasn't nearly close enough to trip him. The sound startled me, and I
remembered that was what I was supposed to do. So I leapt to my feet and lunged
for the guy. Not only didn't he trip, he caught me and drove me up against the
wall, kicking the door closed behind him. He pinned me, his hand around my
neck.
 
"Yes," he said. "You're definitely making things interesting."
The man was strong. He lifted me off the ground, pushing me up the wall. My
hands went to my throat instinctively, prying at his fingers, trying to keep
him from choking me. The man just laughed.
I couldn't breathe! I couldn't count the amount of times people had tried to
strangle me in the past year.
Really.
Couldn't this
guy come up with something original? And considering he was trying to strangle
me, I was pretty sure that meant our little kissing-wishing maneuver hadn't
worked.
I tried kicking at the man. That only made him laugh more. I looked around the
room frantically. Jason was making frantic gestures to look to my right. It was
hard to move my head, considering I was being strangled, but I managed to twist
it a little.
The guns!
The man had lifted me up higher. I should be able to reach the guns, which were
hanging below the whips and chains to my right. I reached out, my hand
scrabbling against the wall. I knocked one of the guns off the wall, and it
clattered against the floor.
Damn it!
The world was going white around the edges, and the man was grabbing at me,
trying to move my arm down. I groped for a hold on something—anything—over
there.
 
My fingers closed around a chain of some kind. I yanked at it with all my
strength, and it came free. It was heavy, and I had very little control over it
as I swung it back toward the man.
 
As it swung around, I was able to see what it was I'd grabbed. It was a ball
and chain, with a very heavy iron ball at its end. The ball swung wide and
clobbered the man in the back. He buckled from the force of it, letting out a
growl, and dropped me.
I hit the ground hard, and the ball had bounced against the man and was
swinging back around. I dropped it, rolling out of the way, and crawled to the
dropped gun. The metal ball clattered against the floor. Gun in hands, I rolled
over onto my back, aiming in the general direction of the man and flipping off
the safety.
My arms weren't steady as I pointed the gun at him. He was lumbering forward,
the expression on his face one of pure rage. I was still trying to get oxygen
back into my lungs, but I managed to say, "Keys," to him.
He was coming for me.
"Stop," I gasped.
He grabbed at the gun, like he was going to wrench it out of my hand. So I
pulled the trigger. He was already putting pressure on the barrel of the gun,
so the shot went wide, but it caught him in the opposite shoulder. He let go of
the gun and cried out.
I got to my feet, still breathing hard. "Give me the keys, so I can get
Jason out," I said.
I was waving the gun in his face, and he was clutching his bleeding shoulder,
but he still hesitated. Finally, he dug a set of old keys on an iron ring out
of his pocket and flung them on the floor. I bent down to pick them up, keeping
my eyes and the gun trained on him.
 
Holding the keys, I stood up. "Stay where you are," I said to him,
backing away. When I reached Jason, I handed him the keys. I didn't watch him,
just listened to the sounds of metal scraping metal. Instead, I watched the
man, who
 
was
 
staying
put, still clutching his bleeding shoulder and looking royally pissed.
"Azazel," said Jason. "I can't get the right one off my
hand."
I only looked down for a minute. Jason had freed his legs and his left hand,
but his right hand was still shackled. I was about to hand Jason the gun, so
that he could cover the man while I unlocked his shackle, but in that short
period of time, the man had made his move.