Page 51 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
“I don’t wonder at it,” Joe replied, completely entranced by the story.
“And that’s not the strangest part.”
“It isn’t?”
“Not remotely.”
Joe worked hard at trying the stones in front of him, determined to haul himself forward to be right by Percy’s side as he revealed, “From the time I was a small child, I had always a strange necklace. It was a crescent moon, worn on its side…”
An image of such a necklace flashed vaguely into Joe’s mind.
“And Zia, she had one just like it, only it was a smaller, perfectly round sun.”
Joe’s lips quivered with an indulgent smile. “Percy…”
“Imagine our surprise when we discovered one day, the two fit perfectly together, like two pieces of a puzzle?—”
Joe slapped his arm. “Goddamnit, Percy, that’s The Mysterious Cities of Gold!”
Percy laughed and jumped to his feet, having reached the end of the room. “I knew you would have watched it too.”
Joe allowed himself to be pulled up by Percy’s side. “Are you kidding me? I totally believed you! Every word!”
“More fool you, handsome.” That stupid, perfect, wonderful wink. Then his hands were on the bolt of the final door. He offered a raised eyebrow, which Joe could only nod exhaustedly to, and Percy wrenched the thing back, took up his heroic stance, then dropped his arms and yelled, “Fuck!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
POSSIBLY DEMONIC MONKS
“They’re all dead. Look at them! They’re all fucking dead!”
There looked to be about six of them, but they were mostly in several pieces, so it was difficult to tell. There was a blackish substance that seemed to serve for blood all over the floor and in lashings along the walls, and a deep, desolate silence over the lot.
“We can hardly torture them now,” Percy continued furiously. “What the hell are we going to do?”
Joe, a little taken aback by his reaction, suggested, “Can’t we just keep on as we have been?”
“Well, yes, maybe,” Percy blustered, relenting a little. “But you’d think they would save the best for last, wouldn’t you?”
“It might have been just demonic monks in here. No traps.”
“Mmm. I suppose that’s a kind of showstopper. If they weren’t dead already.” Percy was down on the floor again, searching for razor wire. His handsome mouth twitched. “It’s fine. The sheath is the thing. If the sheath is even here, which itmay not be, because clearly someone else has been here recently.”
Joe tried to ignore the small tingling that ticked down his spine. He knew Percy was right. There should have been more somehow. He shone his own torchlight all about the room, and just like in every other chamber, he didn’t see a thing that might have been out of the ordinary, except for the piles of dead on the floor, and still Percy. He set about testing the stones with his boot. “The sheath should be there.” He nodded towards a stone slab on a large stone podium as he worked. “It’s hollow. That’s where we put it last time.”
Percy grunted an acknowledgement, his own mind working overtime trying to solve the puzzle, or trying to remain relatively calm with the probable loss of the sheath, or whatever it was he was trying to do.
Slowly, painstakingly, they made their way across the room without finding even one oubliette. There was no razor wire. There were no hidden holes (at least none that either of them could see) that might allow a poison dart to escape and pierce their necks should they accidentally stand on a trigger camouflaged as a stone. There didn’t even appear to be any levers one might lean against unwittingly and thereby cause the room to fill with water, or worse still, lava.
They had all but decided that was it, when a low, deeply unsettling moan reverberated throughout the chamber.
Percy and Joe froze in place.
Their eyes searched one another first, then, frantically, the mess on the floor. There was no way the sound could have come from a dying monk. There were too many pieces and not one full body. They were all definitely dead.
Another low moan.
Percy walked directly to the stone slab. Joe watched between him and the corpses in pensive silence until it was clear from his tightened lips and averted eyes that the sheathwas not there. He didn’t say a word, only turned to make his way back out of the chamber.
