Page 10 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

“Then the problem’s solved,” said Percy. “But there will be more of them soon, and I don’t want to die tonight, so better him than us. Let’s go.”

Joe, eyes still on the water, began unbuttoning his vest. “He could be anyone. He’s not a henchman, you know, he’s in uniform. He’s just a hired guard. What if he’s got kids? A partner? What will his parents say?”

Percy placed a firm hand on Joe’s shoulder. “You are not going in there.”

Joe shoved him off. “Yes, I am.” He threw down the vest and mounted the window.

“Joe!” Percy’s strong arm threw him back to the floor just as gently as Percy could manage, which was understandably still quite rough. “Behave yourself! We came to do a job.”

“Exactly!” Joe bounded up irritatingly fast.

“Look, I’ll…” And with a remembrance of his nice corset, Percy stopped abruptly before volunteering to go in. He did, nevertheless, have the wherewithal to take up Joe’s whip and search for the man. “Look. Over there. Flailing.” He indicated towards some splashing close by. “He’s fine.”

Joe put a hand on Percy’s biceps to look past his handsome frame. “I don’t think flailing is ‘fine’ in a lake.”

“It’s just a moat,” Percy argued. “It’s probably not even very deep.”

“The literal purpose of a moat is to be inaccessible,” Joe said, all too sensibly.

“Then we’re living proof this moat is bullshit.” Percy arrested another of Joe’s attempts to jump into the water before groaning loudly. “Fine. I’ll save him. But if that painting kills more peoplebecause I’m busy doing this, every one of those deaths is on your head.”

Joe watched open-mouthed as Percy aimed the whip. “Percy, that’s an awful thing to say!”

“Sorry. It was, a bit.” He flung the whip out to the man. “It will, in fact, be his fault for not having the decency to just drown.”

After a few attempts, the rudely un-drowned man caught hold of the whip, and Percy pulled him back to the relative safety of the château with a great deal of huffing and grumbling, and quiet, steadily rising adoration from Joe.

Once the guard was helped back through the window, Percy ascertained that he did indeed understand English, and explained that he could choose to remain silent in a locked bedroom for the period of one hour, or he could have his throat slit there on the floor by Percy’s hand.

The man, wet and wounded as he was, chose the former, and was soon escorted up the turret to the first floor room where Joe had kicked the window in and stashed the fake painting, along with their bag of burglar’s goods. Percy suggested they tie the man up and shove him in the wardrobe, but Joe only gave the man the quilt from the bed to keep warm and asked him politely to please stay quiet.

It made Percy’s job a little harder, but he determined to use the situation as a learning experience.

He took the opportunity to disable the bedroom door as they left, but they had only just reached their destination, third floor murder room, when the shout went out from the window below that the offenders were in the turret.

Joe quietly suffered through one of Percy’s more withering looks for all of ten seconds, before he blurted out, “I’m sorry, okay?”

All too smugly, Percy leaned his shoulder against the heavy door. “Never mind. If Dubois knows we’re in here, and if he has any sense at all, he’ll simply leave us to our gruesome deaths.”

“And if he doesn’t?” asked Joe.

Percy only offered an unhelpful, “We’ll worry about that later. First, let’s try not to die by ghost.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

PERCY AND JOE TRY NOT TO DIE BY GHOST

Percy dropped to his knees and pulled a lock pick from his pocket.

Joe tried the door.

It was locked.

Percy frowned at him, then passed the pick into the keyhole. “Now, when we get inside,” he said, working slowly and carefully, as though they weren’t about to be caught by a eurotrash killer, “you need to keep your eyes on the painting. I’ll take it off the wall and loosen it from the frame, but you need to watch both mother and child carefully and constantly and let me know if either one moves.”

“Do you think…” Joe felt faintly ridiculous asking the question, but it was what it was, so he pushed on. “Do you think she crawls out of it like a living person? Or do you think the spirit just escapes? Are you sure it will be visible?”

“I’m not remotely sure,” Percy said, pushing a second lock pick in. “And to tell you the truth, if she’s invisible, we’re completely fucked.”

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