Page 52 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

They were tired.

Exhausted. Stressed. It had been a horrible day, and Percy had yet to ditch Joe and go back to burn the Hall down. So he would shower. He would eat. He would rest. He would burn the Hall early the following morning, and he would run back home with Joe. Away from everything, and all better, and together, like they should be.

Forcing himself to believe everything was perfectly okay, or soon would be, Percy dressed and returned to the room to find Joe, gorgeous and smiling, lit by the fire and one slim candle, utterly resplendent, with two glasses of wine poured, waiting for him.

Percy took his place opposite, and Joe raised his glass. “Thank you for putting up with me. If you’ll keep being my fiancé, I promise I’ll never do anything that stupid ever again.”

A genuine smile broke across Percy’s face, and he felt ridiculous. That glow that had been in his heart since the first night he’d spent with Joe grew and grew, and the tink of glasses and the taste of wine somehow set everything right.

Joe cut into the steak, both rare and tough somehow. “You’re right. I did something dangerous because I panicked, and I’ll never do anything like that again. I promise.”

“Forget about it. I’m just glad it wasn’t anything more serious than a ghost.” Percy meditated on some too skinny and greasy chips. “Did you get any insight? About where the body was, or what the thing wanted?”

“She just wanted out,” said Joe. He looked at the fish heads, but hesitated. Undecided whether to take one, perhaps. Percy watched him carefully. Joe gave that shy smile Percy loved, and moved for the pie instead.

With hearty relief, Percy also took some pie, thick, claggy, and over seasoned. “I meant what I said about leaving tomorrow. I don’t want you anywhere near that place.”

Joe’s hand fell on Percy’s with a little squeeze, like he always gave. “I know I scared you.”

Percy pressed shaky lips into a hard line until he could speak steadily. “Never again.” Then the heartbreak that was right on the verge of escaping, the pent-up grief and anxiety from the lake, all of it about to spill over, transformed into sheer horror.

Joe took his fork and sank it deep into the gill of a fish head. He lifted the broiled pink thing, dripping and steaming, and rested it on his plate.

Percy watched on, aghast, and whispered, “This has gone far enough. Don’t.”

“What has?”

As though he didn’t know.

Maybe he really didn’t know.

He didn’t know, because, almost in slow motion, Percy watched the sickening event unfold.

Joe lifted the fish head, the whole thing, the round and protruding mouth of the meal dropping open as it moved towards Joe’s, the wobbling eyes staring dully at nothing as they approached the beautiful lips. The whole thing, eyes and mouth and the gelatinous insides, shoved in and filling Joe’s incomparable lips to the brim with an accompanying, nauseating crunch.

Percy’s chair slammed to the floor as he leapt up. He snatched the exorbitantly priced, flaked sea salt from the table, smashed the glass bottle down hard, broke the top clean off, and showered Joe in a snowy baptism of fresh salt. His face, his hands, all through his hair, all over the krappin, which was already ruined anyway by dint of existing.

But he didn’t burn.

Joe, finally pushed over the edge by the unrelenting series of assaults, was up and shouting, while Percy stared only at Joe’s skin, searching for a wisp of smoke, a whiff of sulphur—anythingat all. But still nothing, except a very angry fiancé who, after yelling at him with a great many curses, disappeared, slamming the bathroom door behind him.

Salt did nothing. Nor holy water. Nor the Bible. That was undeniable. There was nothing left to try. Joe was in the clear. He had to be.

Percy grasped the krappin, flung the window open, and hurled the full dish outside to a bleating of frightened sheep below. He swept the salt from the table and onto the floor, righted his fallen chair, sat back down, and smiled sweetly at Joe upon his eventual return. “You’re never to kiss me again.”

“Percy—”

“I threw the fish out the window.”

Joe eyed him in total silence, until Percy smiled a little wider, to which Joe smiled a little, to which Percy laughed, and so Joe laughed too.

It was, for Percy, finally, relief. Proof that Joe was Joe, because he understood the absurdity of the mess with the humour Percy had come to expect and love from him.

Joe sat, and they ate badly cooked steak and mutton pie and drank the wine and let the talk meander over everything but the Hall and the awful events of the day. It suited Percy perfectly, because he wasn’t about to tell Joe he was going to sneak out and burn the house without him, but then he’d also promised he wouldn’t lie anymore. It’s so much easier to sneak around if people just don’t specifically ask you about things. And so it went well. He was surprised the topic of Molly’s theft never came up, but Joe was likely not in the mood for ghost stories any more than he was.

The wine and the warmth and the food heavied their eyelids before long, and so they crawled into the gigantic bed. They lay facing one another, and Joe placed a gentle kiss on Percy’s lips. Then another. Then another. Then his hand slid down, andPercy caught it. He brought it to his lips. “I’m exhausted.” Joe’s lovely eyes dulled, so he added, “Truly.”

“But that’s what we always do.”

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