Page 71 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

“He’s nice,” the thing responded.

“Of course he’s fucking nice,” Percy yelled. “That’s why I’m marrying him! Get the fuck out of him now. Right now, or I blow this fucker’s brains out! And this is the only body I’m bringing you!” Taking one fist full of the greasy, wiry hair, Percy glued the watchman’s head to the muzzle of his gun and directed, “Tell him you let him in.”

“What?” The watchman’s legs shook as he descended into panic, eyes closed tight and wet with tears. “I don’t even know what you want. What the fuck is going on?”

Percy wrenched his head back by the hair, yelling, “Look him in the eyes and tell him he can have your body. Do it now!”

“I don’t?—”

“Three…”

“Stop, dude. Please. I?—”

“Two…”

“Please—I—you…” Terrified eyes searched for Joe’s, and he yelled, “You can have me!”

“Your body,” Percy shouted. “Tell him you let him in.”

“Okay! Okay!” He raised shaking hands in the air, begging Joe with desperate eyes. “I let you in. You can have my body. Okay?”

Percy stared into Joe’s face for a reaction that never came.

“One…”

Joe said, “Do it.”

A deafening shot shook the ceiling. Blood and brains painted the bed, the aquamarine carpet, the blue walls, the browning ivy, the shards of glass clinging to the window panes, as the deafening sound echoed around the courtyard. The ringing stayed in his ears and the sickness escalated, the panic and the hopelessness and the anger, and Percy wrenched the bedroom door open, took five fast steps across the landing to a broken-down bathroom, and vomited in the sink. He retched out his nausea, his bile, the three sips he’d taken of the coffee Leo brought him, and it felt good. The pain in his lurching insides, the constriction in his chest and neck, the tears that were only physical, hot on his eyes and his cheeks as he purged it all, gripping the cracked and blackened porcelain until he was even emptier than he had been. He staggered back against the wall, gasping in shaky air, then kicked off the tiles, crashing into Leo’s arms. “I think you need to sit down.”

“I need to kill him,” Percy said.

“What the fuck?” Althea shouted, stealing her eyes away from the splattered remains all over the bedroom. “No. I won’t let you.” She fronted up to Percy, despite the hot gun swingingon his index finger, despite the sweaty slick of hair and the deranged, bloodshot eyes.

“I’ll do it for you,” said Leo. He reached for the firearm, which Percy pulled back sharply.

“You won’t touch him.” Percy’s mind was slower now, ticking through a thick fog of disparate ideas, crushing illness, the need for sleep, a nightmare that seemed to be rising up out of his darkest thoughts and all around him. “I need toalmostkill him,” he corrected. “I need to make him uninhabitable. A friend of mine did that once, and it worked.”

“Not Anna again,” Leo whined, long and wearied.

“That was a demon,” Percy continued, “but it’s the same principle, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Leo conceded. “That sounds right.”

“Leo!” Althea snapped. “We’re not killing Joe.”

“He said,almost, Al.”

Percy glared towards the bedroom door. “It’s not giving that body up. And I can’t… Fuck, Leo, I can’t even torture him.”

“What?” Leo stared back at Percy, for the first time in his life, as though Percy was actually mad. “I’ll torture him then. Easy.”

“No one touches Joe except me,” Percy said. “I want something that leaves no trace, something with an antidote. Now think, the pair of you. Think poisons.”

“This is ridiculous,” Althea blustered. “Do you think you’re James Bond or something?”

“Ian Fleming’s a hack. Think Agatha Christie. Poisons. Quickly.”

Althea threw a panicked look at Leo, but he was already deep in thought.

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