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(1)
It’s like a countdown starts ticking in Grace’s head, from the moment the cop goes down in the hospital. Even as she runs around pulling a reeling Faith after her, even as the guy’s head explodes, even as the smoke bomb drops her out of consciousness, in the back of her mind the question insists upon itself. Are they- is he-
She wakes up gagged and strapped to a chair, a sensory flashback to the events of that morning that manages to obfuscate even her sister’s presence for a moment. That realisation is jarring enough that she thinks she might flatline again, while the middle-aged guy nearest to them cracks wise about their names.
“Grace and Faith MacCaullay? Fucking Irish Catholics.”
As soon as the fog starts lifting, though, the little hobbit-looking motherfucker in a suit amiably explaining the rules of some bullshit new game to her, a carousel of rich fucks ogling and leering in her direction, the refrain starts back up. Are they - is he-
When a hush falls, before she even sees them she knows by the way her head fills with static that her question has been answered.
“Of course,” the lawyer says, with his polite smile, “As the losers of last night’s game, the Le Domases have been condemned to eternal torture and have no opportunity to play for the High Seat. However-"
Grace squeezes her eyes shut so hard she sees stars. By her side, Faith gasps, muffled through the gag. The lawyer continues unruffled. “It is their obligation to bear witness to the proceedings, by way of ultimate humiliation. Hail Satan.”
The room choruses the phrase. Grace opens her eyes. They’re stood there, by the podium, all of them, staring at her. Alex is right there in the middle of them. A movement towards the back of the pack reveals a head of dark hair facing away from it all.
FUUUUCK, Grace thinks. When the lawyer guy has the help remove her ball-gag she takes a steadying breath.
“Can I have a cigarette?”
(2)
It’s all so fucking terrible from there, Grace barely has the bandwith to think about the Le Domases being there, the look on Alex’s face. They get swung at with an axe, shot at by a sniper; a gas tank explodes their hiding spot and impales half of her arm with glass, and amidst it all Faith is there- her little sister, a head taller than her now, hard resentment in her features, bragging about her perfect life in the same try-hard way she’d once tried to pretend she had an online boyfriend named Lucas, and handcuffed to her like a physical reminder of her failures.
They manage to pick the shards out of her arm while Grace sobs and downs a shot of vodka. She’s too out of it to hear the footsteps until Faith yells and tries to jump around the table, making Grace fall out of her chair. “Oh, fuck! Get the fuck away!”
“I’m not playing,” says a familiar voice, and Grace feels her arms erupt in goosebumps even as she stumbles back to her feet and spins around. From atop the balcony, Daniel Le Domas gives her a sardonic little wave.
“Yeah, I fucking bet,” Faith is still shouting, and tugging insistently on Grace’s arm via handcuff. “Grace, what are you doing, get down-“
“Hey,” Grace says, hoarsely, very warily. Faith shuts up. Daniel nods, slowly.
“Hey.”
“You’re not playing,” Grace repeats, slowly. Daniel shakes his head.
“You heard the little guy. Them’s the rules.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Grace asks, but even as she does she remembers their encounter in the library, and feels herself taking cautious steps in his direction, Faith following mutely in spite of the incredulity she can practically feel radiating off her.
“Oh, you know. Seemed like a waste of the open bar.”
“And your family?”
“Back in the lodge. None of them are going to be coming after you, if that’s what you’re worried about. We can’t physically interact with anybody in this realm anymore, so it’d be pointless. And they’re all trying for best behavior around the lawyer.”
“If you’re such a nothing ghost, how come you can pick up that bottle just fine?” Faith demands, while Grace scrutinises his face. Midway up the stairs, she can see more of his expression. Daniel quirks a brow.
“We can only touch stuff in relation to ourselves. Watch.”
He throws the contents of his glass at them. Grace flinches, but it passes through her somehow, the carpet wet beneath her feet.
“And the same applies to your psycho brother pulling a gun on us?”
“You’re very untrusting,” Daniel informs Faith, in a faintly hurt tone. “I’m trying not to take it personally.”
“Thank you,” Grace says, abruptly, interrupting their back and forth. Daniel’s dark eyes lose their affected levity. “For helping me. Last night. I didn’t think I’d get the chance to say it.”
There is what feels like an interminable pause. Beneath his inscrutable affect she thinks he looks disquieted. She imagines him blowing up in a rage, her even mentioning his betrayal, when it's put him and his family six feet under and she’s probably dead anyway.
“No sweat,” Daniel says, eventually, evenly. The corner of Grace’s mouth twitches like a spasm.
“O-kay,” Faith draws out, loudly. “So glad you had that talk. Hey, since you’re so helpful, maybe you could help us get the hell out of here, dude?”
“Wish I could,” Daniel says, back to complacent, with half a look at Grace. “No, seriously. But I am, you know, dead and shackled by my eternal doom, and all that. I can’t touch the others. And I don’t know shit about the Danforth’s estate. I hated their hotels.”
“There’s nothing you can do?” Grace asks, quieter than her sister. “Nothing you know?”
Daniel looks at her unblinkingly, glances at her sister. Something shifts in his face. “Shit, I don’t know.”
“Anything at all. You must know them. Any strengths, weaknesses?”
“I don’t…. They’re all assholes. Well, Titus Danforth is a psychopath, and him and his sister have always pretty much hated each other. Madhu Rajan is a total pussy. Out of all of them, the dark horse is Chen Xing. She’s always been into the fine print, trying to catch the Organisation up with the times, that kind of thing. If she says something to you upfront you can probably-“
The door to the reception room slams open; Grace ducks for cover so fast she suspects maybe her legs just gave out under her, Faith hitting the floor next to her with a groan. Daniel remains standing, drink in hand.
“Le Domas!” someone growls, from the door. “What are you doing here?”
Daniel lets the silence drag, then pointedly raises his glass, the ice clinking inside.
“You should be in the lodge watching with the rest of your disgraced family. Have you seen her?”
“Why would I tell you if I had?” Daniel snorts, cocking his head sideways. At his feet, Grace makes urgent shushing motions to Faith, begins crawling as silently as possible around the side of the railing to get out of the room. “What we had going on in college wasn’t that great.”
“It was one time,” the man exclaims, sounding seriously irritated. While they argue, and Grace mentally adjusts the idea she had of Daniel Le Domas in her head somewhat, she and Faith manage to squeeze out through a side door as unobstructively as possible.
As they race down the hallway, her heart pounding, Faith makes a sort of scoffing noise.
“You know, Derek is way hotter than that guy.”
“What?” Grace says, stunned temporarily out of terror, and then loses several minutes dealing with her sister’s complete lack of priorities.
(3)
It’s right after the announcement blares out about them having Faith- right after her sister’s slurred voice tells her to just go, like she hadn’t lost her own chance to run because she was too damn stubborn and stupid and undyingly loyal for her own good- that he shows up again, while Grace stands swaying in defeated rage.
“We really need to stop meeting in the woods like this. People will talk.”
“Shut up,” Grace whispers, exhausted. Daniel sighs.
“You’re not gonna leave her, are you?”
“Of course I’m not going to leave her,” Grace grits out, eyes burning. Thinking of Faith, fifteen and irrational and screaming at her not to go.
“Yeah, okay,” Daniel says, tiredly. She thinks of him and Alex, meets his eyes again, feels an unspoken understanding pass between them. Absurdly, it makes her feel a little better.
“Fuck. Fuck this, so hard. Goddamnit. Okay. I need to… I need something.”
“Well,” Daniel says, after a beat. “Speaking from rich asshole experience, the security hut probably has CCTV of the whole estate, so.”
“Daniel Le Domas,” Grace mutters, pointing at him in feverish appreciation. Then she breaks the glass.
While she scopes out the security footage and loads the gun, taking Daniel’s placid pointers, she glances up at him.
“Isn’t you helping me against the rules, or something?”
“To be honest, I don’t think the rules made much provision for anyone in my position trying to help you,” Daniel says, after a second’s thought. It lingers there sort of heavily before he smiles. “Anyway, what’s the worst they can do to me? Eternal torture?”
Grace stares up at him, feeling so sorry for him it manages to cut through the adrenaline-induced focus for a beat. Then movement on the monitor draws her eye, and she swears.
“Oh, goddamnit, how is that bitch still alive?”
Daniel lets out a drawn-out groan, taking a swig of his whiskey. “Ugh. Francesca. Her and Alex dating was a crime against humanity. And I have some experience with those.”
“How long were they even together?”
“No idea, I was really working on not paying attention. It felt like seven thousand years, though.”
“Yeah. Faith has terrible taste in boys too. Although I guess I can’t say shit to her about that ever again.”
“You never mentioned the sister, huh. Not even to Alex.”
She swallows, hard. “Yeah, well. Guess we both had some family secrets.”
Daniel lets that lie there for a minute before he shifts. “You know, one fucked up older sibling to another- you can’t always save them.”
A sharp pain laces through her; she shakes her head mutely, can’t look at him.
“That’s different. Your brother is-” Stumble, heartache. “An asshole.”
Daniel doesn’t pick her up on the lapse. “Yeah? Your sister seems like an asshole too.”
“Hey, fuck you, you’re not allowed to say that,” Grace says, but she’s laughing a little when she glares at him, in spite of the tears in her eyes. “Ah, what the fuck.”
“Sorry,” Daniel says, with a crooked smile. “I’m sure she’s really great when she’s not in this exact scenario.”
“No, she is an asshole,” Grace laughs, wetly, groans. “And now I have to go rescue her.”
“Well, I tried,” Daniel says, philosophically, and downs the rest of his glass. Grace snorts, shakes her head. Remembers the look of him, bleeding to death on the floor in front of her.
“Hey,” she says, clearing her throat. “Walk with me?”
The flash of surprise fades into something quieter. “My pleasure.”
(4)
It’s hard to say, really, which is the worst of her two weddings. Certainly the Satanist cabal doesn’t have the same vibe as her perfect Pinterest wedding, but there’s a comforting numbness the second time around that lacks the potential to have her heart curb-stomped and several of her organs stabbed by way of fun twist. And, of course, there’s the small matter of the impending double-cross she is about to attempt in front of, she guesses, the literal Devil’s Advocate.
The Le Domases are in attendance at both weddings, which is a fun detail. It takes a lot of willpower for her not to look at Alex during the walk down the aisle. Having Faith there in an ugly robe helps.
Throughout the whole thing, she’s deathly afraid she’s forgotten some detail, that when she makes her move Titus or the lawyer or Le Bail himself will give her a patronising laugh and reveal they’re ten steps ahead, that she was an idiot to think there was any way out for her, even after everything, even with so much at stake.
Turns out she hasn’t, and they don’t. When she stabs Titus repeatedly with the pen- when Faith dropkicks him into the pit like Gerard Butler in 300- when the stunned crowd watch her slide the ring on with barely shaking fingers- no one stops her, and nothing jumps out from behind a wall to laugh at her naivety. She just gets it right.
In the heartbeat of dead silence after she slides the ring on, a rush of blood-rousing power going through her, she really feels it, that she could do anything.
The Le Domases are the first to start yelling- in outrage, in plain old rage, and in some cases trying to plead some familial loophole, the latter of which the lawyer puts an end to with a tut, cheerily reminding them that they’re Satanists, not Mormons, and the Church doesn’t support bigamy. Amidst it all- the noise, the Spanish kid barking at people to get on their knees, the flood of potential, Faith smiling at her, Grace swallows, braces to make her ask.
The click of a lighter near her ear makes her eyes snap open again. When she turns her head, Daniel Le Domas is stood off to the side, extending a cigarette with the hint of a wry smile on his lips.
“Thought I’d get ahead of you.”
Grace snatches it from him, with the bizarre feeling of it becoming unreal then real because she guesses she willed it so, takes the world’s longest and most satisfying drag from it as the room falls warily silent. Then she exhales, slowly.
“Okay,” she says, to herself, looks at Faith. Then she looks at the lawyer. “This means I can do whatever I want, right?”
“That is correct.”
“I could lead this operation. I could change the world,” Grace says, and feels it. Takes another drag from her cigarette, nods. “This is my first act. As the head of your High Council, I hereby order Daniel Le Domas’ soul released from eternal damnation.”
“What?” Alex chokes out, from somewhere next to her, as Grace powers on right over him, with a rising sense of fuck-it hysteria.
“As my second act, I remove myself from the council and this entire fucking organization.”
“What the fuck?” Becky Le Domas screams. Then it all descends into chaos.
(5)
She leaves the Danforth estate with her sister by her side, goat in tow, feeling her body slowly readjust to each of her injuries, the pain returning stronger with every step away from the grounds. Her mouth is tacky with blood, but the cigarette tastes like heaven.
By her other side, a shell-shocked Daniel Le Domas is walking with a look on his face like he’s not sure where he is or what’s happening. Grace glances at him, then glances at her sister, who gives her a heavy, meaningful look.
She doesn’t have the mental energy to deal with his whole deal, and her and Faith have already had their heart-to-heart. She looks away shamelessly, ignoring Faith’s outraged scoff.
Of course, in a classic younger sibling move, Faith refuses to cut her even momentary slack, and instead clears her throat loudly enough that Daniel snaps out of his daze to look over at her.
“You know, two weddings in two days, that’s got to be a record.”
“Too soon,” Grace mutters, mostly bracing for a punchline, because despite the slightly glazed air of a concussion in her sister’s eyes there’s a spark of mischief alive there too.
“I’m just saying, three in two days definitely would be.”
“Oh my god,” Grace groans. “Shut up.”
“Irish Catholic names don’t bother you, do they?” Faith asks, ignoring her entirely to fix Daniel with a joking-but-not-really kind of grin. Grace shuts her eyes.
“My ex-wife’s name was Charity,” Daniel says, after a beat. “I think we’re good on that front.”