Page 15 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)
“Francis Castle—Rooky boy.” My father reaches up and clasps my face with a bloody hand. “You call Rosie—you tell her she’s got to get you out of here. She’ll know what to do.”
I nod numbly, dimly aware that my father is currently dying in my arms.
“I’m sorry, son,” he bites out with a sob. “I told your mother I’d wait until you were a man until I saw her again, but it seems the Lord had other plans,” he chokes on a chain of wet coughs, red seeping up and over his lips.
“Dad—” I whimper, fear choking out my voice.
“We’ll be waiting for you, Frankie,” my father gasps out before he falls silent forever.
I don’t even have time to weep over his body—the door to the condo bursts open, a group of men in dark clothing and one woman in a sharply cut suit with a blond updo and oversized sunglasses are filling the space in a flurry of fluid movement.
I flinch as the men in dark clothes fan out with their guns trained on me and my father’s body.
Thinking of my father as only a body for the first time breaks something loose in me, and suddenly I cry out, tears streaming from my face as I throw my body—between child and man—over my fathers corpse as if to protect him from these men and the icy cold woman who looks down at me.
“Leave the kid to me,” she croons softly, pulling a white handkerchief from her pocket—offering it to me along with an outstretched hand.
Susan Lowry.
Like a baby bird, I imprinted onto her—like some twisted fairy godmother—in that moment.
“Shhh, it’s alright—everything’s going to be alright,” she whispers into my ear as the memory fades into nothingness.
Francis Castle was too soft, too young, too weak to save his father—to protect anyone. Without Patrick himself, Castle Security crumbled into dust.
Susan knew this all too well, so she helped lay the foundation—to build up the walls of the tower—to construct Rook, brick by brick.
She fed me poisoned tales of scientists who had found the key to the next stage of human evolution; super soldiers and functional immortality; increased intelligence, superhuman charisma—demigods amongst men.
Susan spoke of fated mates and mysterious chemical weapons that targeted the rarer designations; of the opportunities and wealth that had been stolen from me when the Feds murdered my father in broad daylight.
How they got away with it by framing my father’s criminal clientele, finally turning on him.
No matter what horrors she spoke of—it didn’t change the fact that Francis didn’t like hurting people, didn’t like breaking bones or drawing blood to make people talk, to force their cooperation. Later on, Frank could do it when he had to—for the job, when duty demanded it.
Rook savored other’s pain like wine. A true sadist, who took pleasure in the ruination of others. The Windmill, the organization Susan Lowry worked for—that Patrick Castle had died trying to uncover just a few of secrets from…
I can’t tell where I am anymore.
Who I am.
Francis wouldn’t have survived in the Windmill, so I split myself the first time—putting up the first of the warped funhouse mirrors to obfuscate the horrors of my own mind from myself.
I became Rook, the brutal closed fist of the Windmill; violence wrapped in timeless elegance and exquisite hatred.
Then I met Michael, undercover for the Windmill with the FBI.
From the first moment I met him, smelled that scent–balsam, plum brandy, and black pepper–it was all over.
I knew right away I’d seen him before—in my dreams, on those cards that day at Rosie Oleary’s—the man with dark brown hair beside the woman with long red hair on The Lover's tarot card, the man in blue plummeting to his death from the crumbling black stone tower.
Fated mates.
I knew Michael would never accept Rook, and Francis could never hack the duplicity—the manipulations, the lies, the cruelty required of the undercover job.
So, I split myself a second time— the labyrinth winding deeper, further away from reality.
Frank rose up to take the helm—rough and tumble, a killing machine for Uncle Sam—an ‘unyielding patriot.’
There were times that he pierced the veil, that he got Francis instead of Frank or Rook. We were fated mates. Should I be surprised?
I had run so long on my own hatred, on my own belief that the Windmill had been the best way for me to burn the world for what I had lost—for what had been taken from me; that I had been blind to their sights on Michael.
The highest level of leadership within the Windmill swore to the existence of a super serum developed by the government at the turn of the Second World War. According to legend—this serum had been developed and locked away by the government due to its potential to fall into the wrong hands.
Of course, no records of this super serum exist. Though there had been rumors that Margot and Landon Penny were involved in the development of just such a serum, they could never be substantiated.
I was undercover, doing my best to find anything I could about the Penny’s research—when Michael and I started getting too close to the truth in our investigations.
Infections showed the Zeitnot virus cropping up in user populations in large cities and within the ranks of various illegal drug trafficking operations where tainted products had begun making the rounds.
Immediately, Michael began to smell the corruption—the rats lurking in the shadows.
I did everything I could to keep him safe, to redirect him from discovering the truth.
It wasn’t enough.
Lowry had warned me I was getting too close—that I could compromise the mission by being as sloppy as I was.
Back then I didn’t know about the Penny’s research. I didn’t know about the Zeitnot virus—about Louise—the key to the cure.
Even if I had, I don’t know if it could have turned the tide—if it could have stopped the axe from falling.
Michael figured it out, of course.
While he and I were meant to be undercover for a DEA operation, I had a meetup with Susan to discuss the Windmill’s plans. Michael confronted us—gave us the opportunity to turn ourselves in.
Susan refused, warning Michael that if he didn’t cooperate with us, she’d have to eliminate him.
We had bonded accidentally—just the night before. Though Michael and I hadn’t yet been fully opened to one another’s thoughts; I could feel him down the mating bond—as he reached for me and his gun.
I knew he wasn’t really going to shoot me as he held me at gunpoint—a bargaining chip to use against Susan.
Screaming and shouting down the mystical red thread—I howled and bayed for Michael to play along with her, or to cut me loose and run.
Typical Michael, he was certain that if anyone could find a way through this unfolding mess—it was him.
Susan Lowry shot him right between the eyes while we argued telepathically down the bond; his blood spattering across my face as the connection suddenly went cold.
Down, Down, I spiraled into the black abyss.
Everything goes dark for a long while after that. Rook took the wheel. I let him, and I have never looked back.
Just like now—the sensation of falling as I drop into the inky void as Rook once again takes the helm while I am doomed to wander the mirrored halls of my labyrinthine mind—until I can forget enough to soothe the pain.