Page 111 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

“She’s mad,” said Joe. “Completely mad. She wanted me here alone. She set this trap. It’s some kind of, well, I guess you’d call it religious trauma, but of a pretty significant magnitude.”

“She’s got a good motive,” Percy conceded, meaning it more as a discussion of what they were up against than any sort of forgiveness.

Even so, Percy could feel the searing heat in Joe’s eyes, which he refused to meet when Joe snapped, “They were Protestants!”

“Totally different, I know. Nothing like the Catholics burning witches on the continent.” Joe took a breath to interrupt. Percy didn’t let him finish. “For the record, I don’t think it’s okay that she tried to burn you.”

“Thank you!” Joe replied, about as sarcastically as he’d ever said anything.

“But now we know what we’re dealing with. Somewhat. Someone who has a very good and very strong reason for wanting to see you dead.”

“I didn’t do anything to her!” Joe vomited out.

“I’m not saying you did.Idon’t want you dead.”

“Well, thank you very much, Percy, that makes me feel so much better.”

“I’m just saying I understand whyshewould want to kill you.”

“For fucks’s sake.” But as always, it was said with all the warmth and humour Percy’s ridiculous outbursts always brought about in Joe.

“And now we’re getting somewhere. So she has a vendetta against you, the Church?—”

“And humanity, in general, by the sounds of it,” Joe hurriedly explained, checking over his shoulder to see if any skeletonshad managed to dig themselves fully out of their graves to give chase. “She has some plan, that if she can get the sheath and the spear together, she’ll destroy everything. Tear society apart and rebuild it, which is obviously a bit outlandish.”

“Not at all. Not if the mythology around those artefacts holds true, the power she would wield is beyond anything we could imagine.”

“That’s worrying.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“And she remembers everything. She remembers dying, she remembers being trapped in that skull, but more than that, she remembers everything Cleo remembers. And I know you said she’d had a hard time. And that seems to be what Molly’s zeroed in on. Had she taken someone else, someone with no problems and an easy life, someone who thought the best of people and the world?—”

“The type of person who would never have been drawn to Barmiston Hall the way Cleo was.” A very matter-of-fact statement that carried an air of melancholy, and Joe knew what Percy was thinking. And just then, he loved him even more for it. Joe squeezed his hand. “We were just friends,” Percy added, as though he were a doll and Joe had just pushed the voice activation button.

“I know.” Joe’s smile was hidden in the dark as they trudged on, silent and moss-covered graves almost black around them. “But that explains why she didn’t kill you. I really believe she never thought you’d do it. She thought she was some kind of safe with you.”

“Well, she’ll be pissed off now.”

“Big time.”

“She did try to have me killed, though. In a roundabout way.”

“What happened? Where were you?”

“She stuck me in a coffin with a zombie.”

Joe stopped, spun Percy around, examining him all over. “You didn't get bitten, did you?”

“No, I took his teeth out.” Joe wondered at the averted gaze, the almost guilty look that came over him when he said it. “And he was very dried out. No saliva. I’m guessing that’s how it spreads.”

“I never thought about that. Does it have to be a fresh zombie? Can they even turn us?”

“I don’t know.”

“But where were you? How’d you get out?”

Percy’s face softened with a sheepish grin. “It was Moxie. She used her powers to let me out. I don’t know where she is now. I heard you call, and I ran as fast as I could to get to you. I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.” He recommenced their walk, saying, “I’m just glad I didn’t let you get rid of her.”

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