Page 4 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)
Dennis
I have been getting to the office earlier and earlier—my duty piece never leaving its place in the holster against my ribs.
Every time I catch a shadow out of the corner of my eye, I wonder, Is this it? Is this where I get jumped by the Windmill, or my own fucking co-workers? Erased from the equation with hardly the blink of an eye. So far, though—I’ve emerged unscathed.
I nearly jump out of my skin when Gertz filters in behind me at the coffee station, one of his big meaty hands clapping over my shoulder as he greets me warmly.
“Hey McBride! How are those legs doing after running twenty-six goddamn miles?” Gertz chuffs, elbowing me out of the way to pull a tiny plastic pod of dark roast from the rack—setting a faded “#1 Dad” coffee mug on the counter.
“Twenty-six point two,” I correct him coolly, even though my pulse is racing.
“You really are a son of a bitch, McBride—have I told you that lately?” He shakes his head with a laugh. “I don’t run anywhere except to the fridge for a beer during commercials on game day.”
“That’s what you’ve got a wife for, isn’t it?” Compton pipes in from behind us—strolling into the office with his expensive Italian leather briefcase, the tang of Cuban cigar smoke wafting up from the lapels of his wool car coat as he weaves past us to his office.
It takes every ounce of my self-control not to reach for his collar—to start pummeling his face without mercy until he begs for life; taking me directly to wherever he and the Windmill are keeping Louise. Instead, I simply laugh at his shitty joke and watch him disappear into his office.
It’s been months of this, pretending that everything is fine while I’m on the knife’s edge of losing control.
Unsurprisingly, Compton took me off any follow-up on the Zeitnot and the preliminary reports of possible foul play coming out of halfway houses, methadone clinics, and rehabs around the country.
No doubt he doesn’t want me remotely near the truth.
While I’m certainly still expendable, I’m more difficult to get rid of now than I was before the other recent losses in our department.
To explain another unexpected death after losing Tenant and, ostensibly, Louise—would be more than even the Windmill could handle without inter-agency issues.
Instead, I’ve been tasked with investigating a series of homicides that more-likely-than-not are not the work of a single serial-murderer, but rather a task spun up to keep me busy on a case that could be turned into something high-profile and newsworthy.
My real work has been going on outside of office hours.
I have been collaborating with the vigilante group known as the ‘Saints’ in the hopes of helming a rescue mission to retrieve Louise from an undisclosed location.
One of my tasks has been to help Cazimer Rybecki, the crew’s ‘hacker,’ gain access to Compton’s work machine as well as his personal smartphone.
While I’m hardly incompetent when it comes to computers and personal electronic devices, computer security is hardly my strong suit.
I explained to Caz that while I had pretty much unprecedented access to the man himself—along with his office—I seriously doubted my own abilities when it came to any kind of device or security penetration or hacking in general.
Cazimer had simply laughed and explained I had nothing to worry about.
“This is perfect! You don’t need to have any kind of ‘hacking’ skills to get us everything we need!”
“How do you figure?” I’d challenged, not seeing a solution.
“Now-a-days, there’s O.MG cables and shit. If you can change out a charging cable—or get the man to do it himself—we’re good as gold.”
“An O.MG Cable?” I had echoed, completely baffled.
“You know the little wire you use to plug your laptop or your cellphone in to charge?” Caz asked patiently.”
“Like a USB C or something?” I blinked.
“Exactly like one of those—with a little implant hidden inside.”
It had seemed so ridiculously simple—like the “magic hacker USB key” trick you saw on TV and in movies.
Now it was just a matter of my nailing down the perfect opportunity to introduce the malicious cables I’d gotten from Caz during our rendezvous after the marathon.
While it isn’t exactly a surprise that some of the members of the Saints were less than friendly upon our first meeting that evening in Boston—considering most of us met on opposing sides under fire in Liberty City—I’ve found some of the guys more difficult to get along with than others.
At first, I was taken aback by the sight of the bonding bites, so readily visible and well-healed.
Without having to ask, I could tell that the dainty silver-lavender slivers of scar tissue on Sébastien’s ear lobe had been made by Louise’s pearly whites—the half moons of shining pale pink on the inside of Quentin’s bicep, the ring of opalescent scar tissue around Caz’s thumb…
Each bite only stoked my rage at first, my burning jealousy like a sea of emerald flames lurking just beneath my cool surface. I’d started blurting out questions, intent on running our meeting as if I were in control; as if it were my interrogation room.
Then Caz flung himself into my arms—tears in his eyes, his body trembling with desperation.
It was like looking into a mirror that stripped away all the anger, all the furious armor that I wrap myself in each day to stave off the fear and crushing desperation Caz was suffering in that moment; his love and need for Louise laid bare.
I knew in that moment I could trust him. Not only him, but the other men Louise had chosen to bite into her pack. I would do anything I could to help the cause: Freeing Louise—bringing her back to those of us who love her. Bringing her home.
Of the Saints, Caz, who possibly has an IQ one and a half times my own, has surprisingly become a fast friend.
The youngest of the group, he’s also the least experienced when it comes to dealings with the criminal underworld.
Though his record is hardly what I’d call sparkling clean, he’s spent the majority of his life on the right side of the law.
Both of us seem particularly out of our depth for life in the criminal underworld—perhaps that counts for something.
Quentin, who appears to be acting as the temporary pack lead in Louise’s absence—has been decidedly cooler and aloof, but not outright unfriendly.
He reminds me of my last ex’s prize-winning Devon Rex.
Cold, removed, calculating, and appraising—with impressive bone structure and graceful, dancer-like posture.
The only member of the Saints that I had met before our rendezvous in Boston, Quentin Beckett, had been employed by British secret intelligence and, somewhat obviously, romantically entangled with Frank and Michael the last time I saw him.
God, how I had idolized them then—the trio of them like golden gods straight from the pages of some spy novel. I wanted to be them even more desperately than I wanted to be with them.
I remember the first time I properly caught Quentin’s scent, felt him flex his omega aura.
The four of us had wrapped up one of my very first jobs—a little ‘square grouper,’ intercepted between Havana and Miami.
Our little quartet ended up on a stopover in Key West for the night, the boys taking me out to the bar to celebrate one of the early successes in my short time with the DEA.
Goaded on by Mike and Frank, Quentin had simply put his hand on my knee after we had all downed another shot of Tequila. His sweet scotch, sandalwood, and rose petal scent along with that low thrumming aura resonated down to my bones, drew a surprised moan—my cock almost instantly hard.
The three of them had laughed at my expense. Back then, I had barely admitted to myself the sorts of things I’d done with Frank under the excuse of ‘alpha animal urges’. I was mortified and confused—but also desperate for their approval.
The last time I’d seen him before the firefight in Liberty City had been at Frank’s supposed funeral.
It had been the first and last time I’d seen him as anything other than the portrait of beautiful, stoic control; Quentin’s typically immaculate dress and carriage run ragged.
His red, puffy eyes barely covered by a small pair of dark sunglasses, his hair a disheveled mess, the reek of cheap liquor on his breath.
He had waited for me after the burial, told me that he thought my eulogy was really nice—that he was sorry I lost both Mike and Frank in the same horrible accident.
We stood in silence for a long time—neither of us willing to show weakness to the other, to extend a helping hand or a warm embrace.
For a split second I thought about offering to take him back to my place where we could both drink and cry and talk about stupid Francis Stone, Michael Duboze, and fuck the pain away—at least for a little while.
Instead, we just gave one another a cold nod and turned our backs on each other—going our own separate ways until Liberty City just weeks ago.
I can certainly understand, if not mostly forgive Quentin’s cold remove considering our overlap in painful romantic history, but I can’t quite figure out exactly why Sébastien Bouaziz, the Saint’s chemist and demo man, seems to have such a distaste for me.
Looking into Bouaziz showed he’s got a hell of a record, which likely means he’s got no love for law enforcement in general—but Sébastien’s disgust and distrust of me seems to extend just beyond the possibility that he sees me as the world’s most shitty asshole cop.
Maybe if I play my cards right and he’ll start to see that he can trust and depend on me, and soften up accordingly.
If not, I'd better hope that I start to learn more of the ins and outs of his gourmand tastes. They say the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach or possibly his arteries—I’m not above food and drink as bribery.