Page 69 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
When he next spoke, Percy controlled his voice remarkably well, all things considered. “Are you all right, Joe?”
“I’m fine.”
“Show me.” Percy reached back, twisting Joe’s chin carefully under the sulphur lights as he examined the cut on his cheek.
“I’ve had worse.” The angry edge to Joe’s voice implied Percy may have overreacted a little. It was an edge Percy did not appreciate.
“Althea?” Percy asked.
“Also fine,” she forced out.
Percy hauled the smashed and bloody car out onto the main road, silently congratulating himself for choosing red after all, what with the blood spatter, but wisely giving Joe a few moments to adjust to the latest development before mentioning the car again, as it was arguably a little more conspicuous with the window smashed in. And being so expensive. And so red. Instead, he threw out jovially, “They’re going to have some difficulty driving after us now.”
“Yeah.” Joe swallowed. “They would need legs for that.”
“Precisely.” Percy laughed. “Now, can someone get the book thing and read it for me?”
“The book thing?” asked Joe.
“Yeah. The book with the—the—the information in it.”
“The Necronomicon?” Joe asked.
“No, with lines and the things.”
“The Bible?”
“Not, the… You know, to get out of town.”
“A map?” said Althea.
“Yes!”
“You don’t know where we’re going?” Joe shouted.
“I’ve been very busy!” Percy yelled.
“Where’s a map?” Althea blustered.
“I don’t know!” Percy shouted back. “In the car, probably.”
Joe rolled his eyes dramatically, while Althea leaned into the front and pulled open the glove box, searched every pocket, and eventually found it hidden under the front seat. She had to pull it quite hard, snagged on something as it seemed to be, but she got it eventually.
“Seatbelt,” Percy chided.
“Tunis?” she asked, ignoring his tone.
“Find a way to Al-Zawiya first. Seatbelt.”
She pulled the map into the back, clicked herself into the messy, glassy seat, and set about finding their whereabouts.
Percy already liked Althea, not only because very few people stole dangerous magical objects and delivered them to his door, but also because she was not currently a simpering mess, which would have been a perfectly rational reaction to the evening’s events. She had shown herself to be clever by extricating herself from a presumably difficult, probably dangerous situation with Cleo, and now she found their position on the map easily enough without asking questions, and from there gave him three streets’ notice whenever he needed to make a turn. She chose back streets, often one way, and she didn’t steer them wrong once, no mean feat, as the streets of Tripoli are anything but a grid.
As they finally turned onto the third best road to Al-Zawiya, much calmer now and apparently free and unencumbered, Percy asked her, “What’s that accent?”
She eyed him carefully, with a flash of suspicion.
“South London?”
