“You know what, love, I honestly think you are certifiable,” Frank said as we sat facing each other across Jesse's kitchen table.

It had to have been one of the most awkward social interactions in history. Frank had suggested we sit and talk about my plan over tea, or something stronger, which felt oddly sedate and civilised – especially when compared to all of our previous conversations. Though his comment, once he'd actually heard what I was planning gave me the feeling we were about to tumble down that so familiar spiral.

“What? It's as good a plan as any, and you can't tell me you're not tempted by the idea.”

He was probably right, it was a pretty insane idea, but when you're running out of options even the insane plans start to feel appealing, and I was pretty certain I could talk Frank into it. Like me, he seemed a little different from the others of his breed – at least the others I'd ever encountered – though rather than having human blood running through his veins and influencing his life as I did, Frank appeared to crave some freedom. A little relief from the restraints that the powers in Hell place on us all. What he really wanted was a chance to break through all of that red tape, and I was handing the scissors to him on a platter. Well, almost. I wasn't really going to let him get everything that he wanted, but he didn't need to know that.

“Oh, I'm tempted, I won't deny that. What I don't trust is your motive for doing this.”

“I already told you, I don't have much choice now, do I? Without Jesse around I'm just going to be stuck up here alone, waiting for someone to drag me back down to Hell so I can face the consequences of my actions – whatever they are. At least this way I won't be here alone, and I'll finally find out what the big secret is that you know about me.”

“You're not alone, love. Ole Frank is here to keep you company.”

“Yes and what great company you are.” I grinned as the sarcasm dripped from my lips, but let it slip before I continued on. “I just keep on waiting for the moment when you're going to pounce and take me back there. You want the glory and you know you do.”

Frank didn't reply he just smiled at me. I think he was still hopeful I was going to slip up and directly acknowledge the demon that was living inside of the human skin sat across from me. But even through the strange easiness our conversation had taken on, I was still cautious with my words, I wouldn't slip up and let him go early. If I freed him before he'd spilled the beans it would all be for nothing. In the end he tried a different angle.

“You realise your human lover boy is probably safest exactly where he is don't you? Locked up with all those humans guarding him twenty-four hours a day.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not especially thinking about him and his well being right now. He's put us in a very dangerous position and I need him out of there. You have what I want, and this is the only way you're going to get what you want.”

“Soo, a win win situation then. Except that you and the meatbag will still end up down there, facing the eternal music you've composed for yourselves. You don't think I've forgotten about that part of the deal now, have you?” He smirked at me and I had to wonder if he knew exactly what I had been planning all along. It wouldn't surprise me, I wasn't even sure it was a particularly original plan.

“I've not forgotten.”

“Then why don't you just run hmm? Try to save your own sorry skin, instead of dragging that poor guy through yet more shit. Don't you feel bad enough already?”

There, he'd gone and asked the million pound question. Why didn't I run? It just wasn't what I did. I never ran away from things and I wasn't about to start now. In truth, everything that was happening made me even less keen to run for it.

“I just need to know the truth.”

“Ahhh. That insatiable curiosity. You know what they all say about that now, don't you?”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I really didn't know what kind of game Frank was trying to play with me, but it was getting old. He wanted in on the plan, I knew he did, so why was he still trying to talk me out of it? Always with the games, the tricky words. It was like he could never fully commit to something, never give a straight answer. A part of it was his nature as a Whisperer, but a lot of it was just purely him, and it drove me crazy.

“For fuck's sake, Frank. Just stop it, okay. Now, I've told you my plan, you don't need to know all of my motives, or plumb the inner depths of my feelings about all of this. There isn't the time and to be honest I'm sick of even thinking about it all.” I ranted as he stared at me, slightly wide eyed and shocked, though still wearing that characteristic smirk of his.

I took a deep breath and calmed myself. “I've reached an acceptance about my fate,” I said, and it wasn't entirely a lie. I wasn't so sure my whole plan would actually work out as I wanted and a part of me was okay with that – it had to be. I would fight like hell for things not to go down that way, but there was a pretty good chance that, even if we got away from Frank, we would still be caught. “I can't die without knowing why it's happening. So, are you in, or not?”

Frank chewed his lower lip for a moment in mock consideration of my words even though I knew he'd already made up his mind quite some time ago.

“Fine, I'll do it. Sounds like it might be fun.” He eventually answered me.

“Then you had better start talking. And your information had better be worth the price.”

“Oh it'll be worth it. I just don't think you're going to like it much.”

* * *

“No!” I slammed my fist down on the table with my exclamation, making the cups rattle. It was the second time that Frank had run through the information I had been so desperately seeking and I hadn't managed to gain anything more from his words than I had the first time.

“No, you're lying. There has to be something more than that, something you're holding back.”

“There is nothing, that is all the information I was privy to, and I think it pretty much sums up everything you wanted to know – in a sense.” Frank picked up the whiskey bottle and poured himself another glass; we hadn't been long into our conversation before he had raided the drinks cabinet.

“Ugh, no I get that but, it's just that can't be all there is to this. They've got to have a better reason than that to want me dead.” I couldn't believe their reasoning that could be quite so basic, so simple and so ridiculously stupid.

“Well, in all fairness, love, they didn't want to see you dead. At least not to start with. They were just setting you up to fail so they could take you out of the game. It's just how things have progressed since then that have changed their minds on the matter.” Frank shrugged and tipped the contents of his glass down his throat.

“So why don't you just kill me?”

“You're not the only one who craves a little fun, a little freedom from time to time. I figure with your little idea I can get the best of both worlds.” He grinned at me, showing a broad row of yellow stained teeth.

I got up and started to pace the room, a nervous energy coursed through my body and I just couldn't sit still. Plus Frank's smug face was starting to bug me and I had to keep myself distracted else I'd probably smack him over the head with a frying pan or something.

“Right. So you get everything. And I was always going to lose, right from the start.”

“Well, to be honest I don't think you helped yourself out very much. The big wigs with the scary eyes foresaw you caving to that feeble human blood in your veins, exposing secrets to those who were never meant to know such things. So they set out to stop you, create a reason to pull you off the job before such an opportunity arose. Hardly my fault that their half-arsed plan failed so miserably.”

“Ha! You can't exactly deny the part you played in its failure either. Weren't you the first one sent to help me screw up? You could have just told me what was going on and I'd have just gone back to Hell...”

“Where they would have been obliged to send you back out to work. Strictly speaking they couldn't hold you or punish you for crimes you hadn't actually committed yet. Those demons, all so fond of their rules and regulations find it comes around to bite them on the backsides. Whose surprised?”

The whole thing really was so infuriatingly stupid. A great tangle of red tape that had ended up messing so severely with peoples lives. Frank was right, they'd been tripped up by their own rigid restrictions and rules, and I'd been caught up, unwittingly, in the middle of it all. The trouble was, now I knew the reasons why, I had even less of an idea how to get myself out of the mess. There wasn't a window to rectify things and there never had been. I felt hopeless, nowhere left to turn, and realising that I had no choice but to go through with my plan to free Frank and get Jesse out of that prison. Then we were really going to have to run.

“Jesse?” The name was suddenly on my lips as I wondered what part he had really played in all of this. “Why him? I mean why send me here to him if they foresaw me telling him the truth. Wasn't that a pretty stupid decision.”

“That was mostly my choice,” Frank replied with a slight note of excitement in his voice as he was finally able to talk about his part in the big plan.

“Your choice? What do you mean it was your choice?”

“I was contacted to help in this plan and they asked me to suggest someone to target for a phoney corruption. It sounded intriguing and your lover-boy was the first unfortunate I bumped into in the pub that night.”

“Nothing is that much of a coincidence, Frank.”

“Don't you get it, love? They didn't foresee who you were going to spill all the beans to, just that you would eventually degenerate into doing so.”

It was then that the pieces finally all started to click into place. He'd been revealing to me a puzzle of facts and information, all more frustrating than the last, but then this final, sweet little snippet was like the glue that held the whole stupid charade together. The set up for my failure, the very reason why I had 'degenerated' to telling Jesse the whole truth, they were all one and the same.

“So...you're telling me that in trying to stop me doing what was foreseen, they actually pushed me into doing just that.” Frank nodded at me and I sank back down into the kitchen chair. “I only told him those things because I figured out I was being set up, because they were out to get me. I never would have said a thing otherwise.”

“And I believe that is what they call sod's law!”

“But, this wasn't my fault, none of this. They have to see that, don't they?”

“We're talking about the demons here, love. All they care about is their precious secrets, keeping the cosmic balance in line. All they're thinking about now is the fact that you screwed up.” He pointed at me with his little finger as he clutched yet another refill of whiskey with the others. “How you got there, or why, doesn't make a damn bit of difference. First and foremost we protect our existence and our purposes, that is the way of things. And no scatty, slip of a girl having a crisis of conscience, or battling personalities, or whatever the hell your problems are, is going to jeopardise that for them. The big wigs want you gone, and they want him gone. Erase the pair of you and it'll be like none of this ever happened.”

I knew what they wanted of me, and had come to accept the fact that I was probably going to die – or end up a prisoner for eternity somewhere in the pits of Hell – but to have the facts all laid out in front of me, at least all of the facts that Frank had been privileged to hear, was highly depressing.

Stupid, dumb luck was what it was, or the major flaw in seeing bits of the future and relying on that to mess with peoples lives. Were all the soothsayers visions this potentially problematic? It made sense that they would be. The demons preached about the rules, and the free will of the humans we messed with. How we must stick to the guidelines and allow them to make their own choices with just a little coercion on our parts. Who were we kidding? That wasn't free will, it was just a way to earn a larger quota of souls.

If they'd all been left to their own devices would all those souls that had been sacrificed really have tipped the balance? What was so wrong with picking them up once they'd crossed that line on their own? What right did we have to effectively push them over it? And all the good ones, what about them? All those innocent souls I had corrupted over the years. Would the world really have been so bad if the weight of the good overpowered the evil? Was the potential chaos a lie? Or was I simply wishing these things were true so my righteous embitterment had grounds to grow on.

It was like I was really seeing things clearly for the first time. Seeing the truth of everything that was buried so deep in red tape and regulations. Hidden by rules and a lifestyle so ingrained on us right from the start of our lives we just never even thought to question it. But I was questioning it now.

My whole existence had been for a purpose, what I could now see for the corrupt purpose it was. Demons were greedy and power hungry by nature, and Lucifer was one of the worst of them. He had been the creator of our hybrid species, the mastermind behind our existence and had put us to purpose for 'the greater good'. Though I was thinking now that this greater good was his own, a way to strengthen and empower his own damnable empire. It all suddenly seemed so clear, but what good was just knowing about it, and what could I possibly do alone to change anything? If I was even right about any of it.

“Come on, love. Cheer up.” Frank said as he took in my solemn expression and the extended stretch of silence as the thoughts rioted in my head. “It could be worse...well, okay, maybe not worse. But hey, just think of the fun we're going to have first.”

He had a point and my expression brightened a little at the thought. My whole purpose in life might be a sham, and I might have been damned by some stupid dumb luck, but I was going to spend my last few free hours on Earth enjoying myself, causing some chaos and sticking it to Lucifer's well-oiled machine. I was going to go out with a bang.

“You're right. We should get things organised, Frank. Tomorrow there's going to be a jailbreak.”