Page 72 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
“Five points or six?” Percy probed, to a scowl from Joe.
“Five,” replied Althea.
“Right side up or upside down?”
“I guess that depends how you lay down on it.”
“Lay down on it?” Joe cried.
She nodded dramatically. “Yes. She had straps and everything. She had me tied down, and the pentagram, it was carved into the floor.”
“Sounds somewhat satanic,” Percy conceded gruffly.
“Shut up!” yelled Joe.
“And then she cut me. And the blood, it ran into the pentagram, and the pattern channelled it. I don’t know where, but it would run along this line and under a wall. I have no idea where it went. But look.” Althea pushed up her sleeves and exposed the underside of her arms to Joe. There, over and over, side by side, were hundreds of the newly healed remains of a hideous ordeal.
He took her arm gently, turning it over, studying the innumerable scars. “Your legs too?”
Althea nodded. “And my neck.” She pulled aside the collar of her shirt for Joe to see.
Joe was a mixture of sick and angry as his dark eyes sought Percy’s, whose own jaw set hard in the shadowy light.
Althea’s fingers slipped around Joe’s in the first sign of vulnerability either of them had seen. “I was so glad I found you in the church. It was the first time I got to speak to anyone with no one watching over me. If you hadn’t distracted her,”she said to Percy, then looked back at Joe, “if you hadn’t understood so quickly, I don’t think I would have ever gotten out of there.”
Joe squeezed her hand. “You were always watched like that?”
“Always. There was this one security guard since we arrived in Libya. I was thinking of taking a chance on him. But he’s employed by her, you know? I didn’t like the odds. He seemed… approachable, though.”
Percy laughed. “Do you mean good looking?”
In mock shock, “I didn’t say that.”
With a grin, “Tareq?”
She bit her lip. “How did you know?”
“Just a guess,” said Percy. “He does seem ‘approachable’.”
Joe watched the two exchange an amused acknowledgement of their private joke. “Who’s Tareq?”
“Are there still people there in her mansion?” Percy redirected.
“No,” Althea hurriedly went on, taking the cue. “She packed everything up. Before we left, she boarded every window, threw sheets over the furniture, the lot. I’m sure there was no one left besides me. I guess…” She pulled her hands away from Joe, clutching them tight together in her lap. She looked out the window, hiding her face, and said, “I guess that means she already killed them all.”
“That settles it, then,” Percy resolved. “No more evenings with Cleo.”
“For god’s sake, Percy!” Joe yelled.
“Not that kind of— Joe, calm down, darling.”
He did not calm down. “How do you sleep with a woman like this?”
“I didn’t know she was into bloodletting! Not that sort, anyway.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
