Paul S. Kemp’s Azazel tease

Over at his blog, Paul S. Kemp recently put up a teaser tidbit of a novel he’s been working called Azazel. We talked briefly about the novel in an interview I conducted for Tor.com in June. In the interview he said of it, “Azazel grew out of my desire to write a story that plays on the tension between a Platonic view of Good and Evil (note the caps) and a Niestzschean view of good and evil (note the lack of same). To do that, it looks through the lens of one, and maybe two, madmen, as opposing views of reality clash.” I asked Mr. Kemp if we could repost the sample here at BSC, and he agreed.

The smell reminded John of the inside of a slaughterhouse, the heavy stink of old blood and old fear, the faint sweetness of distant decay.

     
Tape bound his eyelids closed. He sat on his ass on a concrete floor, the cold of it oozing through his jeans and causing his jaw to tremble from cold. A thick strip of tape covered his mouth, stretched almost from ear to ear. He breathed through his nose, fear pulling air in and out of him so fast he sounded as if he had just finished a sprint.

     
He tried to move, found his wrists and ankles bound by something thin and unyielding.

     
Zip ties, he realized. Soldiers and police used them instead of handcuffs. Realization beat back denial and panic seized him in cold fingers. He struggled against the ties on his wrist until they knifed into his skin. He grunted with pain and warm blood turned his hands sticky.

     
“Do not struggle,” said a soft, fatherly voice, a voice that led a congregation, that led them in eating the flesh and blood of their Savior.

     
Dominick Cook’s voice.

     
The Blood Priest.

     
John’s mouth turned arid. He tried to swallow but could generate no saliva. Terror turned on the faucet of his pores and in moments sweat soaked him. He shook with cold, with fear.

     
He knew where he was — in the basement of the rectory, in the makeshift confessional built by Cook to murder his victims.

     
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” he tried to say, to placate Cook, but the tape turned the words to inarticulate grunts.

     
A sound froze him, turned him dizzy.

     
The schk, schk of a blade against a strap.

     
“All of the Lord’s instruments need to be hard,” Cook said while he worked his blade across the leather. “Hard and sharp.”

     
Screaming behind the tape, John struggled anew against the zip-ties, rolled onto his side in his panic, bumped against a wall. Agony from his bloody wrists nearly caused him to pass out. The acrid stink of his fear-born sweat mingled with the coppery smell of his own blood.

     
The sound of the sharpening blade stopped, gave way to approaching footsteps, the rustle of vestments.

     
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Cook said.

     
John shook his head, the movement rapid, animal, unconscious. He imagined Cook looming over him, looking down on him with the dead eyes of a shark, the shiny, curved meat knife in his hand.

     
“No! No! No!” he grunted behind the tape, but Cook did not hear him and would not care if he had. Neither did God.

     
Paul S. Kemp is author of the Erevis Cale trilogy, the Twilight War trilogy, and the NY Times Bestselling Resurrection. He is currently working on Star Wars: Crosscurrent (check out our talk about Star Wars here at BSC!) where hopefully Tomio makes a guest appearance as a random Imperial loyalist.