Page 46 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)

Louise

W e are the first to arrive at the meetup point: a clearing in a dense patch of forest pinned between the Cold River and Tannery Falls.

After making a modest camp, I'm left to my own thoughts, my gun a welcome weight in my palm as I sit waiting for my uncle to arrive.

I try to think back as far as I can remember, looking for some sort of tell that Martin might be the kind of monster who would kill his own brother.

My heart breaks itself into tinier and tinier pieces as I turn over the first few hours after I found my parents' bodies at the murder scene.

In my mind, the horrific short film keeps rewinding and replaying as I search for a clue.

It had all been so terrible. So much blood in a space that held so many beautiful family memories; Thanksgiving dinners, birthday parties, graduation luncheons, and countless meals shared between me and my loving parents for as far back as I could remember.

Every last memory marred beyond repair in an instant by such a profound, singular act of violence.

I had sat in the back of the ambulance wrapped in a mylar blanket, staring at my hands, my parents' blood still lingering under my fingernails as the sirens flashed blue and red against the shining white automotive paint and chrome surrounding me.

Uncle Martin’s car had come screeching down the street—barely managing to pull up behind the police cars and the coroner's van.

He had left the driver's side door open as he ran to me, shock, dismay and confusion on his face—so much like my own father's.

He was too far away for me to hear the conversation between him and the lead officer on duty. They exchanged tense words, and my Uncle Martin had flashed his badge before the detective pointed to me and made his grim explanation.

I’d watched as the color drained from Martin’s face and he doubled over, then snapped back up, his gaze fixed on me with pain but also relief.

We had just held each other then—both of us began sobbing uncontrollably. I don't know for how long.

Hazily, I remember talking to a few more officials, Uncle Martin helping me into the passenger seat of his sedan and waking up the next morning on the pull-out sofa bed in the parlor of his Commonwealth Avenue apartment—completely rudderless and heartbroken.

I had thought the two of us were the same; that we had shared this pain, if nothing else in this world.

Now I know better, but I still couldn't see the signs I had missed.

No matter how many times I look back, no matter how many times I try to come at it from another angle.

Quentin, who had channeled his own nervous energy by stalking into the woods in an attempt to get a stealthy first look at old Uncle Marty as he made his way toward our camp, now emerged back into the clearing—a charged look on his face.

“He's almost here,” Quentin warns breathlessly, and I find myself staggering to my feet—gun still clutched in my hand.

I hear him before I see him; his footfalls soft, but not silent in the leaf litter and dry twigs.

Even though I've spent the last several hours contemplating his betrayal, my body still involuntarily lurches toward him, longing for a comforting embrace when I see him push through the trees in a dark green fleece and a pair of khaki shorts—navy-blue ball cap pulled down over his thinning, graying red hair.

It's almost like an echo or a reflection—maybe even a ripple of that day; him standing on my parents lawn with his eyes fixed on me—that expression of purest relief and deepest sorrow as he reaches for me, his pinched brows and watery eyes shifting as he registers that I’ve raised my gun to aim at his face with the safety off.

“Louise! Oh Thank God you're alive!” His voice dies on his lips, his hands rising—open palms out to show he is unarmed.

“Why did you do it?” I manage to croak out, tears blurring my vision, sadness threatening to squeeze my throat closed.

His expression turns from one of surprise, to one of shame, but he doesn't dispute me—only lets his hands fall from the air to hang limply at his sides.

“Louise,” he pleads, his voice barely above a whisper.

I do my best to swallow my tears, my gun still at the level of his eyes.

“Why did you do it?” I repeat.

“Have you seen the tapes?” he asks quietly, his blue eyes sinking to his toes.

I feel my head begin to spin—stars dazzling at the corner of my vision like I might pass out. I'm not sure I can keep taking all these surprise blows—but I breathe in deeply through my nose and out through my mouth closing my eyes to regain composure before I respond.

“About the virus? Or are there more horrible family secrets left for me to uncover?”

“About the Zeitnot, about the cure,” he answers, careful with his words in front of my Saints .

“Yes, I've seen it. We've all seen it,” I bite out coldly before Quentin pipes in.

“Some of us lived them.”

This catches Martin off balance, eyes wide, mouth hanging slightly ajar.

“Why so surprised, Uncle Marty?” I laugh mercilessly. “Sounds like you've seen them too. You knew about the fated mates, didn’t you? You knew about everything.”

“Louise, please, I don't expect you to understand, and I certainly don't expect you to forgive me. God knows I’ll never forgive myself, but you saw what they did—what they created? What they subjected you—their own daughter—to!”

I force my eyes to stay open even though all I can see are my blurry tears.

“What would have happened, Louise—if you hadn't been the cure? You would have died. All of those children would have died, and for what?” Martin presses his palms together, as if in prayer.

“So that those dogs in the military like you and your Department of Reproduction could have the serum the Pennys were trying to create,” Sébastien snarls, advancing on Martin.

“I swear to you, Louise, before my promotion I knew nothing about your parents' work.

If I had known about the suppression melters, the false scent markers, the Zeitnot, or the super serum, I would have done everything in my power to stop it, but I didn't know.

I didn't find out until I was promoted, until I was given top security access. By then it was too late. They had already gone too far.”

“So what? You decided to take matters into your own hands to spill your brother's blood!?” I scream, taking another several steps forward—my gun rattling in my hands.

“I tried to go through the proper channels, but you already know the corruption of the Windmill runs deep, and nobody was interested in hearing what I had to say. They were all too fixated on finding their miracle drug—on creating omegas and alphas who would lead a new, brighter future.”

“You didn't even try talking to them? Your own fucking brother and sister-in-law?” I howl.

“Of course, I tried talking to them, Louise! Your mother was close to hearing reason. After they had so nearly lost you, she was unwilling to gamble with your life again. It had been a long overdue wake-up call that she and my brother had been playing god.”

“And so then you decided that it was your turn? That you would play god, judge, jury and executioner, all on your own?” I accuse him with fiery hatred.

“Don't you understand, Louise? My brother, your father—he had become obsessed with the idea of a new, more perfect designation. It’s not a coincidence that a side effect of the cure ended up switching designations.”

I feel bile rising in my throat.

“Even though your mother didn't share that part of your father’s vision, she loved him too much to deny him.”

Another slash of the knife, a cold emptiness in my chest where my heart should be.

“I begged him to stop. I told both of them that I would help them get away—that I could shield them at least from the DPR—that we could find solutions to help keep them safe from the Windmill too. By then, you were already tangled up with Susan Lowry—she had taken a shine to you. While it was hardly optimal, I knew that you were safe, even if only for the moment.”

“You knew about Susan being part of the Windmill!?” I hiccup, my body shaking with my sobs.

He nods, his eyes closing with the pain of the admission.

“Since she was grooming you to take her place, I made the plea to your parents to let me help them—for them to trust me to keep an eye on you, to keep you safe.”

“Well, Uncle Marty,” I choke out a bitter laugh. “Sounds like you went and fucked everything up.”

At this, he finally caves in on himself, face in his hands as he sobs, falling to his knees in the pine needles and dead leaves. He looks up at me with a tired smile on his face.

“You're right, and now you can get what you wanted. You can take your revenge on me and go out into the world with your revenge exacted—no need to look back. You just keep running, Louie. If you run fast enough and far enough, the Windmill will never catch you.”

“Who says that's all I want?” I growl, my limbs becoming more solid as I stride toward Martin, the muzzle of my gun dropping so that when I come into contact with him, the barrel presses against his forehead—just below his receding hairline.

“I don't know what else I can give you,” he sobs—hands palm up on his knees.

“Revenge isn't all I want. The Windmill still has one of my fated mates.”

Uncle Martin just shakes his head.

“There's also the matter of the Zeitnot virus. While my parents may have developed a cure and even a vaccine for the original strain that they released in the control group containing myself and Quentin as children, the Windmill has been hard at work on their own strain—one that we do not yet have a developed cure for.”

Martin's eyes widen with horror as understanding dawns on him.

“They know that you're the key,” he gasps.

I nod ruefully.

“And they're running out of patience. It won't be long before they unleash the virus on the public. They’ll use the deaths of innocents to smoke me out of hiding,” I explain flatly.

Martin goes white as a sheet but says nothing.

“You can't go back; next time they'll be ready. They'll be using your mate as bait.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be a going back ,” Sébastien scoffs from beside me, big beefy arms crossed over his chest. “We left a good portion of their so-called ‘Country Estate’ in ruin on our last visit, and I can’t imagine they haven’t scrambled to do some damage control after they realized Compton’s devices had been compromised. ”

“This is where you come in.” I lower my gun and re-engage the safety—looming over Martin as he kneels before me on the forest floor.

“You have access to the members of the Windmill who occupy positions at the Feds—including Compton, who still hasn’t been made as a corrupt stooge for the Windmill,” I continue carefully, looking down my nose at him.

“With your co-operation, we can get information about where Frank is being held, if they’ve moved the labs and testing facilities that make the altered Zeitnot virus. ”

My uncle looks up at me, that pleading look in his eyes.

“Helping you walk into your death? Into the gates of hell? Is that really what you want?” He shakes his head softly, as if that might change my mind.

“You will do this for me—it is what I ask of you,” I command coldly, Martin shying away from me with his eyes squeezed closed as if I were a ball of flame passing too close to his face—bright and hot, before falling prostrate in a chorus of swearing himself to me and begging my forgiveness.