Page 44 of All Saints Day
My heart nearly skips a beat when I see the panel van burst through a well-trimmed hedge—tires squealing as it speeds for the line of floor to ceiling windows.
Q drops Frank onto the empty dining table like a sack of potatoes before pumping a spray of bullets into the glass—the whole wall of windows turning to a momentary spiderweb of cracks before falling to the ground like a sheet of glassy rain.
Q hefts Frank up and over his shoulder once more—and wedash for the van, Sébastien swinging the sliding door open to receive us.
I can see the look of dark hatred on his face as he sees who Q is carrying—but he doesn’t argue, just yanks both Q and I along with our quarry, Frank and Louise, into the safety of its confines just in time to close the sliding door on a hail of gunfire.
“Everyone’s in—go go go!” Seb screams to Caz, who handily begins maneuvering the panel van over cobbles and berms of carefully curated flowers until we burst through a low wall of waxy-leaved topiary sculptures and on to freedom.
Chapter 15
Sébastien
Iwould have asked what Frank’s sorry unconscious hide was was doing in the damn van, but as soon as I locked eyes with Q’s chartreuse glare—I saw it in an instant; Frank busting in on the rescue, him blurting out something unintelligible to Dennis before sloppily shooting petit-Denny in the shoulder.
Not one of us could mistake Frank’s intentional missed shot. If Frank had wanted to shoot any of the infiltrators—he would have been able to put a bullet between every set of eyes that he took aim at.
For this reason alone, Q spared him and spirited him away with us.
Even if it had been a momentary lapse of reason—and Frank or Rook or whoever the fuck he really was, is totally lost to the Windmill, it’s more dangerous to leave him behind than to bring him along as a potential conduit for information or a bargaining chip.
Caz keeps his focus on getting us away from the so-called Country Estate while Q rushes to bind the unconscious Frank—cuffing his wrists behind his back, then binding them to another set of cuffs at his ankles so he’s hog-tied, his whole body bowed, a duct tape gag across his lips with a quick blindfold fashioned from a torn scrap of canvas. As soon as Tin-tin finishes with Frank, he makes his way to Denny to help him stop the bleeding from his gunshot wound.
For my part, I lift Louise’s frail form into my lap as soon as we scoop her and the others into the van and begin to sob. My lips press against her forehead in a silent prayer of thanks for her life, for her return to us.
“Sébastien,” she croaks weakly, her lips feathered and split with dehydration, before she passes out in my arms.
Our escape had been narrow, but just enough for us to burn rubber between the estate’s access road and the drop point where we stashed an off-road vehicle to traverse a particularly tricky bit of back country between us and a lesser known system of rural and fire roads that would take us back toward Goosewing Lake. From there, a boat would carry us surreptitiously across the northern border into Canada—where we would depend on more of Q’s professional contacts to help us place more distance between us, the Windmill, and the Feds.
Once we are settled out of the country—we will re-connect with Doctor Perla in hiding.
Upon boarding the boat, we shared a tearful reunion—Louise barely able to hold on to consciousness in her state.
Dennis is lying on the far end of the massive bed, his breathing slow and even—a clean bandage fixed over his wounded shoulder. Luckily, the bullet passed through with minimal damage—a near mirror image of Frank’s wound that we had tended in the cabin on the very lake we cross now by moonlight.
He is still bound and gagged—locked in the tiny head attached to the crew quarters. He’d briefly woken—fighting furiously against his bonds, so I dosed him with more of Caz’s night-night juice—allowing him to be blissfully out of sight and out of mind for the time being, no matter how briefly.
“You’re safe with us now,” I purr, low and soothing asQuentin and I help to pour broth between Louise’s parted lips, Caz seated behind her—Louise propped with her back against Caz to help keep her weak body upright, his calming theta scent helping her to get the steaming broth down.
She is too weak to speak, crying happy tears through her staggered sips and gulps, drifting off almost as soon as we manage to get her to swallow down a few cups of the nutritious broth and some bottled water mixed with powdered electrolytes.
For now, Louise lies sleeping—eyes moving slowly beneath her closed lids as Quentin, Caz, and I keep vigil at her side.
“I can’t believe she’s actually back with us,” Caz breathes reverently, his body curved beside hers in the blankets—her hands clamped over his wrists in a death grip even as she sleeps—as if she were worried he wouldn’t be there when she woke.
“It does seem almost surreal,” Quentin sighs dreamily from the other side of Louise, his own eyes drifting closed as he burrows his face into her hair on their shared pillow. His whole body eases as he breathes in her scent—iris, green apple, and the barest whisper of pink pepper.
I’m about to add my disbelief to the collection, but there’s a low metallic thump from deep in the ship, and I know immediately that the sound is of Frank’s making.
I sit up from my place curled against Caz, carefully unwinding my fingers from the toss of Louise’s hair as I struggle to my feet.
“I’ve got it.” I hold up my hands—picking up my gun and my pack of 27s from the nightstand—Caz and Q shooting me worried looks.
“Are you sure?” Even though Q’s exhausted, he’s already half sitting up—ready to provide backup.
“Please, you and Caz take rest with Louise right now, eh?” I wave them off, tucking my piece into the holster at my lower back beneath my black t-shirt before pulling an overstretched hair tie off my wrist to tie my hair back. “I can handle Frank Stone—or whoever the fuck he is nowadays.”
I open the door to the tiny bathroom we’ve stashed Frank in; about the size of two phone booths squished together and tiled from floor to ceiling; a toilet, a shoebox-sized sink basin, and an adjustable wand showerhead. Not much for someone bound at the wrists and ankles around the toilet to get into trouble with—but Frank has still managed.
