Page 79 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

Percy picked up a broken half of a brick and hurled it at the building next door. It cracked in two with a puff of weak concrete, smashed down onto an old tin can, and sent the thing rolling, rolling, until it came to a halt right in front of Percy’s shoe.

A movement inside caught his eye. He focused on the jarring twang of a silken strand. The twang of one long pincer plucking, pulling, righting.

Percy leaned a little closer.

Plucking, twanging, long and black… and deeply repulsive.

There she was. Shiny, black, leathery, and bulbous: a black widow spider.

The sight sent a shudder down Percy’s back, but the reaction it would have drawn from Joe… He was utterly disgusted by the things. Terrified of them.

Even in the midst of dejection there was a heavier beat in Percy’s chest with the memory of Joe, last time he had been Joe, so anxious to keep Percy’s hand out of that hollow in Cleo’s tree. But there were no black widow spiders in the Shetland Isles, as far as Percy knew. Not like London, which was riddled with the loathsome black beasts, according to Joe.

Percy turned the tin upside down, and with three hard taps, he knocked the spider to the ground. He watched the thing flip itself over, then it paused on its dagger-like legs, waiting to strike as soon as its assailant should make itself known.

Percy’s hand reached a thin piece of wire towards the spider. It took a few steps back, but he pushed, and it grasped at the metal. Percy lifted it, entranced, watching it slip and curl and grasp, until it was upside down again, two small, sharp fangs, shiny and clear as day.

He wondered at the creature. The thought of those fangs piercing his skin. Of the drops of blood that would burst free at the injection site. The feeling of it.‘Like holding a burning match to your skin for twenty straight minutes.’Those tiny fangs and the delivery of such strong venom that it could kill a man.

It could kill Percy if he didn’t get help in time.

It could kill Joe…

Percy’s left hand searched frantically in his trousers pocket, pulling his golden cigarette case free. He clicked it open and half a dozen too-expensive cigarettes fluttered to the ground. He balanced the spider over the gleaming container, lowered itgently down, and clasped the lid closed. In a frenzy, he tore the ruins apart, searched under every cup and can and piece of old iron in the place, in every crack and crevice, turning the lot inside out until he’d collected every deadly black arachnid in that small slice of London.

Percy was halfway up the stairs before he knew what he was doing, two thoughts alone swirling around his nauseated head.

The thing felt Joe’s pain.

The thing felt Joe’s fear.

He rounded the top of the stairs, he thrust open the door, “You’re back!” came the faux-delighted lilt of Joe’s voice… But the words died on his lips.

Percy no longer looked scared, lost, or desperate.

He looked insane.

Utterly mad.

Far madder than usual, and he walked straight to Joe, took his dagger to his shirt, and ripped a slit in the cotton to halfway up his arm. “Handsome,” he said, “this is going to hurt.”

He clicked open the golden case and shook the spiders down onto Joe’s skin. Joe’s entire being reeled back on sight, as though the creature was just as horrified as Joe would have been, but before it could get a handle on what was happening, Percy’s index finger pressed down hard on the leathery curve of a spider’s back, and it slid two fangs deep into Joe’s flesh.

A cry of pain shot from Joe’s mouth, his hand squeezed into a fist, and all Percy thought about was how fast the blood would flow due to his panic, speeding the venom through every inch of his body, assailing the creature with the same sickness he’d felt since he walked in the door. He provoked another and another, a sea of black crawling over his beloved’s skin. Tears of agony streamed down Joe’s cheeks and he drew great breaths deep into his lungs.

Finding a semblance of control, the creature flung the spiders across the room where they landed with a tik-tak against the wall, only for Percy’s shoe to crush the life out of them, one after another, seeing by the pools of blood on Joe’s arm that they’d fulfilled his evil purpose.

The door burst open. “Percy!” came Leo’s shout. “Percy, you’ll be so impressed this time. I got your smack!”

Percy’s wild eyes eviscerated him with one glare. “The fuck do I want smack for? It’s antivenom I need!”

Althea’s eyes went to the growing red welts on Joe’s arm, and her voice barely made it to Percy’s ears, weak as it was. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Black widows,” he shouted, with an unnerving twitch of his bleeding eyebrow. “Maybe ten. Maybe fifteen. Who knows?”

“No…” The word slipped from Joe’s beautiful lips, with an accompanying flash of regret at the utterance.

Percy laughed, dropping to his knees between Joe’s legs. “I’m going to die? Then we’ll die here together. Today. I told him from the start that I’d drag him down with me. Then here we go. You might outlast me, but you’re not walking him out of here without me.”

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