Page 13 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)

Frank

I t was a mistake to drink so much, should have put a bullet in my head and just been done with it.

Now Louise may pay for my cowardice—for my pride.

I lead her down the hallway from the main interrogation chamber to the rooms that the Windmill has set aside for prestige interrogations—for the most luxuriant of tortures.

If I can break through to her during this session, if I can somehow manage to get her to exchange bites—then she’ll be able to see it all; everything I can’t say, all the truths I could tell her that could possibly set her free…

There’s a possibility of escape from the east wing of headquarters, unlike the cold white tiled rooms of the west wing—an impenetrable fortress of fear and pain.

Michael is hot on my heels as we make our way through the heavy metal doorway that separates the rabbit warren of west wing corridors from the central halls and more luxurious east wing.

“Why are you taking her to his room?” he spits angrily as Louise stumbles blindly forward down the hallway.

I give him a look but stay silent—Louise can still hear me after all.

“You know Rook has lots of fond memories of that place—it’s like you’re trying to call him out!

” Michael snaps, flailing his arms wildly as if it will change my mind or redirect my course.

I look away from him—watching Louise as my stomach turns over, sour and full of booze. Michael is probably right, but I don’t know what else to do. I can feel my grip on reality slipping—Rook pushing his way to the fore.

Louise’s fingers reach gingerly for the wall at her side to guide her.

“Take another right, keep going—hands off the wall,” I bark, and Louise jumps slightly, her biology forcing her to comply.

“If we take the hood off of her—if we tell her everything we can as fast as possible; it could be the best chance we have to get her to bite us, to make her see!” Michael pleads, one hand braced in the closed door frame just ahead of Louise and I—just short of blocking our entrance.

“Stop!” I snap—at Michael just as much as Louise. He falls silent, and she falls still.

For a split second I contemplate taking Michael’s advice—but I’ve already begun to lose control; my hands moving on their own as I produce a key from the large brass ring hanging from my belt and unlock the door.

Things start kicking off sideways—time slowing and warping, everything appearing as if through a thick pane of petrified amber sap.

I start seeing myself in viewfinder photo tableaus—removing the hood from Louise’s head, repeating the same threats I’ve repeated for months, hating myself, wondering why I couldn’t have just slipped beneath the surface of my bathwater and blissfully out of existence.

For the briefest of moments—I return to myself; Louise’s body braced against mine, my face buried in her hair.

“They’ll give you to me.” The words are out of my mouth before I can take them back.

I feel her breath hitch.

“All you need to do is say that you’ll be mine,” I have to hold back my tears as my lips press to her earlobe just above Sébastien’s bonding bite—his sweet neroli, ginger, and oud scent spreading over my tongue as I nibble her flesh gently.

Louise shudders beneath my touch, her own perfume mingling with the ghost of Sébastien’s scent as her body responds to mine—fated mates.

If I can get her to lower her defenses—to glance at the bond like she did that day in the hot tub at the cabin—I might just be able to allow a bite.

The cameras and microphones are still on us though, and I can’t stray from my script or we’ll be locked down—scores of Windmill agents on us in an instant. So, I do what I can, playing my part.

“They’ll put you under for the trip to the estate Lowry mentioned, and by the time you wake, all of this could be like a bad dream you’ve left behind,” I whisper against Louise’s ear, tears streaming down her face.

She turns her face to me, those cinnamon eyes fluttering open through her silent sobs.

“What did they do to you to make you like this?” Her words are like hot oil—my slipping sanity, a struck match hovering above; ready to set the blaze.

Again I am caught in the rapid cycling of viewfinder scenery; watching the black glossy wood of Michael’s casket lowering into the damp earth from a pair of binoculars—I’m holding Mike’s lifeless, blood-soaked body in my arms, sobbing.

No, no, no. I can’t see this. I don’t want to see any of this. Close the door, lock everything behind it. Never open it again.

“I can’t do this.” I hear the words escape me just before the loud ringing in my ears begins to eclipse any other sound; my hands clamp the sides of my head in desperation—as if I could shut everything out if I just tried hard enough.

“Frank, Francis—hold on, you have to hold on, for Louise’s sake!” Michael’s voice calls dully, struggling against the deafening dial tone of my boiling brain.

Eyes watering against the searing pain, I open them—my vision swimming as I try to force Michael into focus.

“You need to do something!” I beseech him, Michael’s bonding bite throbbing with pain as I press my palms together.

“What can I do, Frank?” Michael sputters—beginning to fade from my vision like dissipating smoke.

“I don’t know! Anything—I can’t handle it, and if I can’t handle it—he’s gonna show up,” I wail, trying to reach him before he disappears entirely.

“Frank, I’m not here!” Michael barks, but still I stumble toward him.

“We can’t let Rook get to her—I’m worried that if he gets ahold of her?—”

“Only you can stop him, Frank.”

I feel all the air suddenly sucked from my lungs.

Frank.

Francis.

Francis Stone.

No, not Stone—that was a name I took once I had to pretend to be a good little boy scout. Francis Stone, the G-Man, the Fed, the soldier, the would-be politician—neat and clean.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?

I’m no longer in the east wing of the Windmill’s remote headquarters; I’m in Winter Hill with my old man, with my old man; Patrick Castle.

Only a few months before my thirteenth birthday, but I’m old enough to know that my father and our ‘family business’ are different from those of my classmates.

Usually, Pops would leave me at home when he went out on ‘business,’ but between the death of my mother the year before and my proximity to teenagerdom; the old man started bringing me along for some of his more mundane visits.

In the memory, we pull up to the popular bar and restaurant Emmaline’s, my father in an expensive gray suit—no tie, his pale blue dress shirt roguishly rumpled beneath the sharp, stark lines of his jacket.

We walk through the front doors. A few girls in their early twenties, in black slacks and blouses, sit at the bar rolling flatware into napkins, fastening the bundles closed with adhesive paper strips.

“We don’t open ‘till six,” the bartender drones without looking up from the stemware he’s polishing.

“Oh, that’s alright,” my father beams genially, raking a hand through his coal-black hair. “We’re not here to eat. Tommy’s expecting me.”

The bartender looks up—his eyes widening with understanding and fear as he takes in the sight of my father.

“Kelly, go get the boss,” the bartender snips out, almost dropping his glass before his eyes catch on me, his panic abating slightly as he sees that I’m a kid.

“Mind if we take a seat?” My father places his hands on my shoulders and nods to a pair of open stools at the end of the bar.

The bartender swallows hard and bobs a few anxious nods.

“Sure, ladies, why don’t you bring the setup stuff out back so I can get these fine gentlemen something to drink.” He smiles nervously, hazarding a glance over his shoulder at the door to the back room before he wipes down the bar.

The other waitstaff clear out as the bartender asks my father and I what we’d like to drink.

“I’ll have a Jack and ginger.” Dad sits easily on a barstool; I still have to clamber up onto mine.

“I’ll have a Sprite.” I do my best to sound cool, like Dad.

The bartender’s hands shake slightly as he scoops ice into two high ball glasses; I’m not sure if it’s because he’s scared of my pops, or if it’s because he drinks too much—like my pops— and hasn’t had a drink yet today.

My old man reaches for one of the heavy glass ash trays stacked just on the other side of the bar in front of the bartender as the barkeep’s tremulous hands pour a few fingers of amber liquor over the crags of ice in my father’s glass.

“Been busy lately?” he asks casually, producing a pack of cigarettes from the satin-lined pocket of his jacket.

“H-haven’t had a moment to take a breath or drop a shit—” he stammers, looking at me. “Pardon my French, kid,” he excuses himself, but my dad waves him off.

“Kid’s heard a lot worse than that, believe me.” My father gives the bartender a conspiratorial wink.

He’s not wrong. By age 10, as the son of Patrick Castle of ‘Castle Security’—I had heard more than my fair share of far more questionable things.

“Ey, Paddy!” A voice calls from the back of the restaurant as the doors to the kitchen and back room swing open to reveal a ruddy-faced man with brassy curls and beady blue eyes. “What a surprise! I was gonna come around to see you tomorrow night!”

I had heard my dad call Tommy ‘fresh off the boat’ to some of his other friends—Tommy’s accent still the gentle lilt of County Claire rather than my father’s own eastie accent—pure Boston.

“Yeah, sure you were, Tommy,” my dad scoffs, taking a drag on his cigarette as the bartender passes us our drinks.

“My word, is that wee Frankie over there?” Tommy blusters as if he hadn’t seen me at my mother’s funeral just before last Easter. “Next time I see you, you'll be taller than me and your da.”

As Tommy fawns over me, the bartender takes his opportunity to make a speedy exit—making for the back rooms as soon as he can.