Page 12 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
“Skeletons.”
Joe’s eyes darted frantically between the cheese platter andPercy. “Alive? Still-living skeletons? Right now? In your basement?”
Like a schoolboy explaining why he’d deliberately clogged all the toilets with paper, “I’m not sure they’re ‘living’ as such, what with them being skeletons?—”
“How do you have ‘reanimated’ skeletons in your basement right now?” Joe just about shouted.
“I think a spell must have gone slightly awry?—”
“It was a rhetorical question!”
“Was it?”
“Kind of, but— What, you’re just going to sleep here every night with that beneath your floorboards?”
Percy shifted the plate off the rumbling trapdoor and re-stacked his grapes. “It’s only been two nights since they reanimated. I’ll get around to it, eventually.”
“You can’t just leave them down there,” Joe insisted. “They’ll dig their way out and kill you!”
“It’s reinforced.”
“I’ve seen your basement. It’s just dirt!”
Percy drew back with an open mouth. “Not just dirt. How dare you? It’s artfully packed.”
“Yes, okay?—”
“I had a fireplace put in and everything.”
“It looks very nice?—”
“Candelabras, an exorcism chair. It’s beautifully finished. It’s deliberately rustic! And it goes a long way down. Well beneath the graveyard.”
“Not far enough beneath the graveyard, evidently.”
“It may have been a small oversight, I’ll admit. But when you mess around with necromancy, it’s not an uncommon side effect?—”
“Percy!” Joe’s lovely hand curled into one long finger, pointing right between Percy’s eyes. “You’re getting rid of those skeletons first thing tomorrow.”
With a twitch of his head, Percy cast an encroaching lock of hair back. “Tomorrow I have work to do.”
“Then do it now.”
“No. Look, I’ve made this nice platter. And we’re having a nice evening, and…” Percy let out a tired sigh, so deep and weary that his breath seemed to drag the tension out of the air with it. He reached for some apricot and walnut bread to pair with the Roquefort. “It’s been a very long week.”
Joe accepted the small parcel of food thoughtfully, softening like good French cheese.
Percy watched and waited, because he could never date a man who didn’t enjoy strong cheese.
Joe held onto it, more concerned about Percy than the offering that might seal his potential-boyfriend fate. Then he said the fatal words. “How are you holding up?”
Joe could virtually see the shutters close, steel, reinforced on the inside. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Are you going to eat that?”
Joe’s face fell, and Percy was furious at the skeletons in his basement. Everything had been perfect, then reality had happened, just like it always did. And now this unpleasantness.
