Page 8 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)
Frank
I sit in the bathtub in the shitty motel my bosses have me holed up in, the window open, little moths fluttering against the musty screen—their papery wings beating furiously as they try to press inside, toward the warm, damp air.
“You’re dropping ash everywhere,” Michael tuts from his place on the toilet seat, a worn Yale t-shirt stretched over his muscular chest and shoulders—one of his bare feet propped at the edge of the tub.
Doing my best to ignore him, I take another swig from the bottle of whiskey in my left hand, tapping my cigarette on the edge of an empty beer can balanced in the windowsill—my hands dripping sudsy bathwater into the open sill.
Maybe if I can get stinking-blind drunk, Lowry and the higher-ups won’t be able to tap me for the interrogation after Susan ‘softens’ Louise up.
“Keep that up and she’s bound to end up with him,” Michael warns me sternly, sitting upright, hands on his knees as if he might actually get up and start shaking me.
He’s right, of course—but Michael’s also dead, and I don’t wanna hear his lip right now, so I take another oblivion-seeking-slug of liquor and close my eyes tight, hoping Mike will be gone when I open them.
“C’mon, man, this isn’t working—we should be thinking of a plan to get us out of here, you, me and Louise,” he snaps, losing patience with me.
“‘We’? Yeah, okay. Sure.”
I scoff as I toss the butt of my cigarette into the empty beer can and place the bottle of Jack on the tile floor beside the bathtub. I slip beneath the water—the bubble bath wrapping me in warm, wet silence for as long as I can stand holding my breath.
When I surface and blink away the water running in rivulets down my face, Mike is still there. He sits on top of the sink—pouring the Jack Daniels down the drain.
“Go ahead and pour that one out. I’ve got more in the kitchen,” I grumble at him, lifting my body—slow and heavy with intoxication—from the steaming water and pulling a rumpled towel from a nearby metal peg.
“Not anymore you don’t.” Michael glares at me—muscular arms crossed over his chest.
I scowl at him for a moment, wrapping the towel around my waist.
“Think I’m bluffing? Go see for yourself,” he growls, that balsam, plum brandy, and black pepper scent spreading in the close, damp air of the bathroom as he challenges me.
Before I know it, my feet are carrying me down the hall to the galley kitchen I’ve kept stocked with alcohol and little else since I returned to my quarters at the Windmill’s holding facilities.
Sure enough, the bottles of liquor and cans of beer I’d procured for my extended use have been drained—empty receptacles neatly arranged in trash and recycling bins.
I spin around, Michael leaning casually against the fridge behind me—arms still crossed over his chest.
“For a dead guy, you’re still causing me a shit-load of problems,” I snipe accusingly. Michael just laughs.
“Bad news, Frank—I’m not even a real dead guy. I’m just your brain’s approximation of a dead guy.”
I cover my face with my hands, pushing the heels of my palms into my closed eyes until colors bloom in the darkness of my unseeing.
“A dead guy I loved very much,” I gasp, allowing one hand to creep up toward my hairline, touching the tiny silver-lavender slivers of bite mark scars on the cartilage of my left ear as tears stream down my face.
The bond, once warm and thrumming with life—with love—long gone, silent and cold.
“You can’t lose another one of us, Frank,” Michael croons softly, pushing off from the refrigerator, moving casually into my personal space. “You can’t afford to lose her.”
Leaving Michael in the kitchen, I take off at a brisk pace down the short hallway to my bedroom—stepping into the clothes I’d laid out earlier, the room gently listing this way and that through the haze of my sizable buzz.
I’ve managed to get both legs into my dark blue suit slacks—carefully hooking the metal closure together atop my zipped fly before Michael is in my ear again—stretched out on the far side of the bed, his incredible muscular body half obscured by the wrinkly flat sheet; a veritable treasure hidden beneath luxurious high thread count Egyptian cotton.
“Susan’s been working on her all morning, trying to get her to take the deal. You and I both know Louise Penny isn’t going to take it.” He laces his fingers behind his head, leaning against the headboard as I shimmy into my button-down and tie.
“Yeah, and what do you think I’m going to be able to do about it?” I growl, wrestling my tie into a sloppy half Windsor before dragging a palmful of pomade and a comb through my hair to get it to behave.
“You can’t really go full-on guns blazing yet, not until we get some kind of escape plan together,” Michael admits ruefully. “But you can do your best to stay in control, to make sure you conduct the interrogation—not him,” Mike warns gravely.
I struggle to keep my breathing even as I buckle my watch onto my right wrist and heed Michael’s words.
For the last three months, I’ve managed to keep him in line.
As bad as my sessions with Louise have gotten in the interest of keeping the Windmill from catching wise to our—no— my plans to steal her away; I’ve stayed strong.
He hasn’t gotten his hands on her. Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
That’s what made me race to the bottom of Jack. I don’t want to be there when he takes his turn with Louise. I’m not sure I could come back from watching that…
I’m about to beg Michael for his help when there’s a knock at my door.
Michael shoots me a worried glance as I hazard a call to the front door.
“Hold on, I’m getting decent! Who’s there?” I bellow from the bedroom, stepping cautiously into the hall as Susan Lowry’s voice carries through the closed door.
“It’s Lowry, open up,” she sniffles. I can tell from the tears dripping from her voice that she’s been crying.
I open the door and Lowry throws herself into my arms, tears crawling in inky black rivers down her elegant face.
“It’s no use,” she whimpers. “She’s been brainwashed by those stupid parents of hers, by those idiots you used to run with—she’s made the mating bond with them and refuses to accept any scenario where she remains parted from them.”
“What about the higher-ups?” I press. “Have they reversed their stance on the release of the upgraded virus?”
Susan shakes her head grimly.
“They’ve totally lost their minds—doddering, senile old men that they are,” she seethes, pushing away from me, pacing into the center of my postage-stamp-sized parlor.
“They seem to think that it’s fine if they just start releasing the new virus without any kind of cure or vaccine already waiting in the wings—it’s like they’ve entirely forgotten just how long and how carefully I have been laying these building blocks, executing the plan,” she fumes, pacing back and forth.
“And Louise won’t hear of any alternatives?” I press, trying to keep my eyes on the pacing Lowry while Michael glowers at her from his place on the tattered loveseat.
“Like I said—she won’t consider it. I gave her the White Knight on a silver platter—promised her she could take his own life if she wanted!” Lowry exclaims in disbelief, tossing her hands into the air.
My eyes search Lowry’s face. Does she cry for Louise? For the girl she might have loved as a daughter?
“Hypothetically—would the Windmill be open to making her an offer involving her mates?” I tread carefully here. I don’t want Lowry to think that I’m worried about the wellbeing of my Saints.
Well, Louise’s Saints—they aren’t mine anymore.
“Absolutely not,” Lowry snorts a dismissive laugh, fixing me with a disappointed glare.
She doesn’t know about the fated mates markers shared by Louise, the Saints, the dearly departed Michael Duboze, and myself.
She doesn’t know that Sébastien Bouaziz has had access to the Penny’s detailed research, to their formulation of the cure and the vaccine.
None of the Windmill knows the price the cure requires one to pay—the change of your designation.
I’ve done my best to keep him from squeezing the information out of me, passing it on to Lowry and the wretched higher-ups who are itching to turn out their augmented Zeitnot virus on the public before they’ve formulated a cure or a prophylactic.
“If we don’t get her to cooperate soon, the higher-ups are going to lose their patience,” Susan reiterates, her fingernails lifting anxiously to her mouth as she frets.
“I’ll do my very best to soften her up,” I assure Lowry as Michael stares me down with his disapproving glare.
“Just remember—if you fail, it’s not just your ass on the line,” Susan snips, clacking on her high heels back toward my front door.
I give her a solemn nod, but Susan leans in—close enough to whisper.
“Don’t be an ungrateful brat. Remember where you were when I found you? What your life might have been like if I hadn’t stepped in.” Her words are soft, sweet—as if her threats were comforts.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to touch the door to those thoughts right now. Not when I’m trying to stay strong, to keep my shit together so that Louise only has to deal with me in that interrogation room, not him—not Rook.
“I remember.” I bow my head. “She’ll break soon—I can feel it. I just need time.”
My gaze lifts, and I pin Susan with my stormy glare in the best show of defiance I can muster.
“You think you know Louise Penny, but I have known her in a way that few others will understand.” The cruel grin curls the corners of my mouth as I step slowly toward her.
All false bravado, but it’s my best course of action to play for time until I can figure out how to get her safely the fuck out of here.
With or without me.
At my words, something like disgust, or maybe jealousy, flickers across Susan’s face—her eyes widening ever so slightly, her lips pressing tighter together, her throat bobbing as she makes a bid to swallow.
“You better. Or we’re all going to be fucked,” Susan bites out—slamming the door behind her as she makes her dramatic exit from my quarters.