Page 66 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

He hadn’t been able to stop himself from binding Joe’s cut arm with a clean handkerchief. He’d made some stupid comment to the creature that he was just getting started, but in truth, he couldn’t stand to see the fresh wound there, seeping and clotting.

He thought about the upcoming weeks of bones knitting, the sting and stink of disinfectant, feeding Joe soup through a straw into a wired-up jaw.

And Joe hating him all the while, wishing they’d never met.

‘Take my head or something…’

Not an option. No option but to torture Joe until he got the thing out of him. Then he would deal with the fallout, just like he always did.

The creature spoke. “Do you know, right now, you make him think of his father?”

A well-aimed stab at the gut that hit its mark. “You have no right to tell me that.”

“He would sit right in front of Joe’s bedroom door, blocking it, just like you?—”

“Shut up.”

“And he’d watch Joe. Watch him trying to pretend he wasn’t frightened. Watch him crying. For hours, he’d sit there drinking, watching, all day in that little room?—”

“Shut up or I’ll gag you.”

Joe’s lips laughed out a warm, cruel chuckle. “Do you think that’s why he stays with you? Because he’s searching for the approval he never got? Trying to win the love of someone incapable of caring for him, always locked in the same old trauma, in that same mud-floored bedroom?”

That jab twisted, turned, and redirected itself sharply into Percy’s heart. He held steady, fingers tightening on the chair, refusing to take part in the vicious entertainment, but pulled so taut on the inside he was ready to snap.

The creature watched for the effect of its words, and seeing nothing, it probed a little deeper. “Or is it just that he doesn’t know any better?”

Percy dropped his foot to the floor, leaning forward. “He’s with me because he knows I’d cut his father’s throat as soon as look at him.”

The amused eyes sparkled a shade brighter, the brilliant glimmer of white teeth grew a little wider, and he said, “Too bad Joe already did that.”

White-hot fury fought with horror, and a nerve moved a flash of ready violence down Percy’s arm, restrained only by the memory of kissing those cheekbones so lovingly twenty-four hours earlier.

The door opened behind Percy and a coffee was shoved in his face. A paper bag, translucent with grease, was dropped in his lap. The morale-shattering clank of instruments of torture rattled his insides as Leo dumped everything out onto the bed.

“I got your pliers,” Leo commenced, adding with a double-raised eyebrow, “needle nosed.” He shook a little box. “Razor blades. I had to go to a different shop for those, but it’s fine. Here’s your copper wire, hammers—I got a big one and a little one because I wasn’t sure how much you wanted to—” he glanced at Joe “—well, you choose. Tweezers, cheese grater, vegetable peeler, and of course…” He lifted the star item. “Your blowtorch.”

Percy flinched at the hiss as Leo clicked the flame to life.

“That’ll do,” Percy said weakly. “And what did you learn?”

Leo raised his chin. “Al?”

Althea, eyes glued the implements on the bed, stepped forward until her knees hit the mattress, where she unzipped her parka. “Leviathans, banshees, wendigo, hyenas?—”

“What?” Percy asked.

“Uh…” She glanced at Leo, who gave her an encouraging nod. “Some people believe hyenas can possess people.

“Let’s keep it to Scotland, shall we?”

Althea let loose the papers from beneath her shirt, nervous fingers trying to arrange them into some order as Leo added his pages to the mess. She rattled out, “Djinns, Dybbuks, ghosts of course, and then demons.”

“It’s not a demon. I’ve tested it.”

“I know, but…” Althea sucked in a small but fortifying breath of air. “This really all felt very, um… Well, in Indonesia, we mighttry different things to anything I found here. Like salt-fish. Nails under his pillow. Or cats, for example. Some spirits are scared of cats, you know? And there’s one next door, so it wouldn’t be hard to… um…” Percy’s dead-eyed gaze quietened her. “Just some ideas… I had…”

He stood with a queasy lurch and shoved the greasy sandwich bag at Leo, who accepted it with a fallen face that Percy failed to notice. He grabbed his bag, turned it up, spilled its contents onto the papers and torture devices, then made his way to the head of the bed, where he smuggled Molly Tulloch’s skull into the bag before throwing it over his shoulder. “Out.”

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