Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to Sairoise Driscoll, who did the right thing, even though it hurt.

o(21)o

It was a place that meant something different to every person that passed through its wrought-iron gates.

Some found comfort and some came for the pain. Some prayed and some wept. Some poured out their hearts and souls to ears that had been forever deafened and some sat in silence, their thoughts emotions a mystery.

For all that it was designed for the dead; Woodlawn Cemetery was a living, breathing entity, nourished by a surfeit of grief, remembrance, and rumination.

Connor offered it none of those things.

Oh, he had spent countless hours there, as motionless as the marble monolith in front of him, memorizing every facet and flaw. But unlike the others who visited this place, he had no actual business being there. He never had.

But today was different.

The wooden handle was as foreign under his palm as it was familiar, bringing to mind a similar implement used years ago in East Galway. He and Murphy had whiled away two teenaged summers doing construction, helping their Ma make ends meet, developing calluses that had never really gone away, and building a physique that had sent the girls a-tittering when class had started back up in the fall.

Dissimilar to the one he had used in his youth, however, this one was pristine, its handle marred only by the price sticker under his thumb. Purchasing it had been the first stop on his undertaking.

And the easiest by far.

Now the sun was dipping below the horizon and he was alone; it was time to get to work.

He hefted, hesitated, and swung. The blow created a spider web of cracks through carefully chiseled letters and he staggered backwards, a hot bubble of panic rising in his chest. What had he just done?

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck."

No.

She was back at Danae's, sleeping soundly. Safe.

He had held her close, savoring each breath and heartbeat. He'd held on long after his arm had fallen asleep, stubbornly ignoring his grumbling stomach and the ache in his bladder. He'd held her when Murphy had woken and gone out for a smoke, only to return back to sleep on the couch and he'd held her when old injuries had woken and protested being still for such a long time. He would have held her for the rest of his life if only he could have.

But for all that he had ignored, there was no neglecting the pull beneath his ribcage and the meaning behind it.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he bent down down, retrieving his makeshift bludgeon, clenching the handle so tightly his knuckles whitened.

Another blow obliterated two beveled dates.

She didn't need this fucking gravestone.

The chilly evening was fading into a freezing night, but sweat beaded on his upper lip and dampened his hairline as he lifted and swung, again and again, until the muscles in his back and shoulders screamed for a reprieve.

She wasn't in this place.

Finally, he stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. What had once been a meticulously hewn memorial was now nothing more than a pile of rubble. No single name, date or word remained intact. It would be impossible to glean any sort of information about the person it had once been dedicated to.

She'd never been in this place.

Satisfied, he knelt before the ruined monument and selected a piece of rubble. Rough all around except for a single glassy plane and notched with what had once been the letter 'M', it was exactly what he wanted.

Rising to his feet and slipping the prize into his jacket pocket, Connor abandoned the sledgehammer to lie amid the destruction and reached for a cigarette, surprised that his body wasn't bawling for one already. He flicked his lighter to life and the smoke curled into his lungs, but instead of the soothing rush of nicotine, he doubled over coughing.

Eyes watering, nose running, it was a full twenty seconds before he could straighten up.

"Fuckin' hell!"

Connor frowned at the cigarette, still chuffing quietly. There had to be something wrong with it, he had been smoking since he was fourteen, and even with his very first puff, he had never reacted in such a way.

But the smoke was just a smoke.

He brought his hand up for a second try, with the same results. Grimacing, he threw the cigarette down, scrubbing the cherry away with his boot and continued on his way.

The route was so familiar that his feet seemed to guide him to his destination automatically, allowing his mind to wander to what lay ahead. Cracked concrete and flickering neon slipped by, mostly unnoticed.

The night air turned his sweaty clothing into a freezing mantle and his heart slowed to heavy, hard thumps that seemed to reverberate through every cell in his body. His previous satisfaction had begun to temper down into grim determination and (although he would never admit it) fear.

One more stop to make.

Then, heavy wooden doors stood in front of him, just as daunting as the headstone he had destroyed.

Maire had absolved him without a second thought. Murphy too. Somehow, he doubted the Lord would be quite so understanding.

Inside, the church looked much the same as any of the others he had attended over the years. The smell of incense mingled with the stronger odor of lemon-scented wood polish. Stained glass windows, depicting various bible scenes shone dimly, backlit by outside streetlamps. Carven saints watched over the flesh-and-blood parishioners who gave them worship. It was a quiet place, a sanctuary for his thoughts.

Sliding into the furthest pew, Connor crossed himself and bowed his head, speaking the first prayer that came to his mind. He came here often, both with his brother and alone. Sometimes he recited the rosary, sometimes he read the passages from the bible, on rare occasion he would light a candle. He went through the motions as diligently as he ever had, as any good Catholic should.

But he hadn't spoken to God in almost a year.

In the front of the church, a small group of three women sat, huddled together, their whispered entreaty permeating the silence. The words were familiar, and Connor recognized one of the prayers Ma had belabored when his Aunt Myrna had first been diagnosed with cancer.

He took a moment to finish the prayer with them and then reached between his knees, grappling in the space under the pew. At first his fingers encountered only emptiness, then brushed something solid. Stifling a curse that would have no doubt landed a divine lightning bolt in his ass, Connor stretched until he could gain purchase on the object, grabbing it and tugging it from its hiding place.

A thick coat of dust had turned the black canvas a frothy gray, and the handles were mashed into wads, but the duffel was still intact, untouched after all this time. Connor felt his mouth twist ruefully. Despite everything that had happened last spring, his twin had still stuck with their long-standing plan.

Everything inside was just as he remembered. Gloves, frayed mask, length of -rope, stray ammunition, a bundle of fifty-dollar bills, and a single gun, its mate having been plucked from a flooded bathroom and disposed of a lifetime ago.

Connor skimmed a finger along the metal barrel, a minute thrill sparking through him. The fear and nausea that he had become so accustomed to around weaponry was absent, and in its place was a more familiar ease and aplomb, an overwhelming sensation of right.

Hand still resting on the gun, Connor bowed his head. The words came easily to him, much more easily than he had anticipated, the Latin as natural on his tongue as any of the languages he had mastered throughout his life.

"Guide me, oh Lord—"

"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

The interruption rang out clear and feminine, spoken by a single figure in the front of the church. Votive flames shone off dark hair streaked with blue and were reflected in the large silver buckles that graced her boots. There was something familiar about her, but Connor couldn't place where their paths had crossed before.

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."

She turned, striking a match and he caught a glimpse of a pierced eyebrow as another votive flared to life.

An image sparked in his brain: her, behind a bar, wiping down glasses as he and his brother drank and joked. Later, she had tossed them out on their arses in favor of microwave lasagna.

He'd been to that bar many times, but had never bothered to learn her name.

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."

The puzzle of where Connor knew her from evaporated from his mind in lieu of the shiver her voice provoked, gooseflesh prickling over his skin. They were alone in the church now, and it seemed as though her words were meant for him alone.

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and do good— good that will last."

"Amen," he murmured. "A-fuckin'-men."

Turning away from the candles, she made her way down the nave. Petite, slim, dressed in tight leather pants, heavy black boots and a bustier that left little to the imagination. Her eyes were heavily lined and her nose, eyebrow and ears were pierced. As she passed by, she gave him a broad wink and a surprisingly pretty smile.

"Guess you'd better get to it, huh?"

He stared, flummoxed. Her grin widened. "The Lord works in mysterious ways hon, you of all people know that."

Then, without giving him the chance to respond, she pushed the heavy wooden doors open and stepped out into the night.

Gathering his duffel and his wits, Connor followed suit. It was getting late and more than anything he wanted to be home with Maire and his twin.

The walk back to the apartment complex was quick, his footsteps diverging from the smaller boot prints in the light dusting of snow almost immediately. Hopefully the blue-haired girl was on her way home too.

Sliding open the patio door, Connor walked in on what was almost certainly World War III. He ducked as a bundle of socks went whizzing by with enough force to shatter concrete.

Danae had come home.

o()o

The floor of the elevator was unsettlingly shiny.

Nathaniel stared down at his reflection, flanked by his feet, without really seeing it. His hands were jammed deep in the pockets of his coat, the left curled around the pocketknife he had chosen for the night's outing. It was an older blade, one of his first and favorites, stolen from the man who had created him.

After Nathaniel had yanked it from his cooling corpse.

He had completed the distasteful tasks he had been paid for and had the added pleasure of slipping a knife in between the Saint's ribs. But now he had grown bored and it was time for this game to come to a close.

Slick would not be pleased and he doubted the lawyer would give up the other half of his payment readily.

Nathaniel didn't really care. There were ways around that.

Most of them fun.

The doors slid open with a pleasant-sounding ding and he stepped out onto even more unsettlingly polished tiles. He rounded the corner that led to Slick's office and froze.

The lawyer was not alone.

A sharp spike pierced his chest, an unfamiliar, unwelcome, bolt of feeling.

Jesus Christ on a fucking cantaloupe.

The other man was leaning over Slick's desk, palms pressed against the reflective glass top (why did everything in this fucking place have to be so damn shiny?) and even though his face was partially obscured, Nathaniel could his that his features were hawkish with sharp cheekbones and s razor thin mouth. His eyes were the color of slate and Nathaniel knew that, when warranted, they could slice right through you and yank the truth out, raw and bleeding.

His hair was a little longer, showing the first hints of gray, and he had put on a few pounds since the last time they'd encountered each other but there was no mistaking that demeanor. Or that voice.

Paul.

The blade of the pocket knife dug into the flesh of his thumb and he felt his face twist into something that may have been a grin, but felt more like a grimace.

Tucking himself away in a shadowy corner, never doubting his ability blend in with the darkness, Nathaniel was furious to discover that he was shaking.

Memories tried to surface like rotten corpses despite his efforts to submerge them. How long had it been since he'd seen the other man? Years? Decades? He didn't know. He didn't want to know. Remembering was never the answer. Agony was the answer.

Turning the blade within his pocket, he plunged it through his coat and directly into his thigh. The pain should have been the perfect distraction, but this time it only served to enrage him more. Red began to tinge the edges of his vision.

The door swung open and Paul walked out, walked right by him without a second glance, and to the elevator. Nathaniel hissed out a breath, giving the knife a wrenching twist in his thigh and blood began to pool around his boots.

Watching the numbers mark Paul's descent, Nathaniel waited until the LED read 'L' before stalking from his hiding spot and shoving Slick's door open, leaving a large bloody smear across the polished glass.

The lawyer looked up from his stack of paperwork. "What the hell are you doing here?"

The reply was hard to shove by the molten ball of rage in his chest, but Nathaniel managed to grit it out as he jerked the knife from his flesh, freeing it for a much more important purpose.

"Bad move, Slick," he said closing in. "You don't fuck with family."