REAL ESTATE HAD been Frank’s idea. After being released from prison, Sebastian had moved in with Frank, who already had his real estate license. Frank took him under his wing, and after Sebastian got his license they began working together, selling homes in shitty neighborhoods and pooling their proceeds to save up for a place where they could house their own carriers and then begin making real money in the blood world.
When a mortuary in Northeast LA that specialized in low-cost cremation services came on the market, Frank wanted to jump on it. “Mortuaries and funeral homes—they’re always around us and people don’t like to pay attention to them; they pretend they don’t exist until they’re forced into it,” Frank had told him while eating shitty Chinese food in their even shittier apartment. “We can house a handful of carriers there, use it as our preliminary blood farm. It’s a good starting point, Sebastian—plus, it’ll come in handy down the road. It’s a hell of a lot easier and more convenient to cremate our enemies than it is to bury them.”
It was less risky overall, too, in terms of leaving behind evidence. Fire destroyed nearly everything.
Sebastian had lost count of the number of enemies they had killed and reduced to ash in the crematorium—people who had, effectively, vanished from the planet without a trace. And now he had to do the same with Frank.
The mortuary was no longer open to the public, and it didn’t advertise its services. Frank had been the only one who had keys to the place. Now Sebastian had those keys in his possession. He entered through the door in the private garage that had once housed a hearse.
The crematorium area would have looked like an old high school locker room from the turn of the twentieth century—gray industrial tiled floor and walls, the white ceiling yellowed from time and covered in decades of soot and grime—if it weren’t for the three ovens set up in the center of the room and, to the far right, a wall-sized refrigeration unit that could store up to nine corpses.
There was only one body in there now. Frank’s corpse had been resting in it for the past three days, and Sebastian had finally screwed up the necessary courage to take the next and final step.
After Sebastian fired up an oven, he sat on the floor, the machine rumbling against his back, coming to life. In all their years together, he had never imagined either himself or Frank going out this way. He didn’t know how they would die, but it wouldn’t have been like this. Not like this.
This was the second time death had stolen an important person from his life, and what struck Sebastian was how quiet his mind still was. Like the smooth surface of a pond. In prison, when he’d been told his mother had died, he had experienced a piercing loss, but he didn’t cry—couldn’t, even if he wanted to, because showing any weakness in that hellhole would single you out, make you a target. He bottled it up, which turned out to be an easy thing to do since his grief had quickly been replaced by rage at the injustice of being denied his God-given right to attend his mother’s funeral. He tucked away the rage, too, focused his time and energy on staying vigilant, on finding a way to get out of here and then properly deal with his enemies.
With Frank’s death, the only thing he felt was alone. Marooned. Alien. Sebastian also had the additional burden of dealing with the practical matters of the death of a man who, arguably, was as close to him as a brother. He had already told the people at the real estate office that Frank had decided to take a vacation, but that would work for only so long. At some point he’d have to come up with a legitimate reason why Frank hadn’t returned. Thank God Frank didn’t have a family or any close friends who would be coming around, asking questions.
“You deserve a proper send-off,” Sebastian said to the empty room. “I wish I could give you one. I wish I could do a lot of things differently.”
Sebastian rubbed at his face, not knowing what to say but knowing he should say something. He wished Ava were sitting next to him right now. Ava had known Frank. If she were here, she would know what to say, tell him how he should handle this moment.
But she wasn’t here. No one was. He was alone—weren’t we all, in the end?—and he had to handle it himself and he didn’t have the faintest idea what he should say, because, really, what could he say? Frank was dead. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, and there was nothing he could do to change it. How did that prayer go, again? Grant me the serenity, God, to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things I can, and give me the wisdom to know the difference. A lot of truth in those words, sure, but that’s all they were: just words. And words were meaningless.
I’m sorry, he thought. Start with that.
“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, what I’ve put you through. Reason you’re dead is probably because of me. No, not probably. I caused it.” It was true. Frank had wanted to take a subtler, more cautious approach to dealing with Anton’s disloyalty—possibly to use Anton to lure in Paul. Sebastian didn’t want any part of it. He was sick of waiting, and his anger had, once again, blinded him.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said again. “I wish I could give you something more. But that’s all I’ve got. That’s all any of us get in this life.”
Sebastian got to his feet and pushed the gurney to the refrigerator, holding back the tears that wanted to come. He would grieve properly later, after this matter with Paul was put to bed. First, business. Frank, he knew, would understand—would be proud of him for forging ahead.