Owen Minor was very afraid.
That tattoo he’d stolen from Monk Addison had shaken him all the way down to his marrow. It punched a hole in what had been a thrilling few days, and polluted his enjoyment of the Tuyet memories.
Owen was also pissed off that he could not get all of Patty’s memories of Tuyet. She’d done something to prevent it.
“Fucking witch whore,” he said aloud every time his rage surged up past the fear. No one was ever able to stop him before.
He debated sending a fly to her, to take control of the witch and make her do something really bad to herself. Maybe stab herself with her own tattoo needles.
The thought drifted around in his thoughts, taking shape, feeling right.
It would also eliminate a possible threat. Not Patty herself, but her friend. That big oaf Monk. Owen’s victims always forgot his name and face. That was part of how it all worked, and it’d kept Owen safe all these years. Now, though, the process had fractured. With Tuyet’s tattoo still partly on Patty’s hand, could he ever be sure she’d forgotten his face and name?
No. He couldn’t be sure of that at all.
“Witch,” he spat.
And what about Dianna. She was a goddamn psychic, after all. He had hoped feeding on her memories would give him some kind of doorway into her clients’ memories. A cascade of goodies. But that had been a big freaking mistake. What at first had seemed like a great opportunity now felt both foolish and a stupid risk.
She was another witch. Maybe she’d gotten way too much insight into him.
“Whores,” he snarled, but there was fear in his voice and he could hear it. So could the flies. They flew erratically and too fast, their flight paths warped by agitation.
And as for Monk … the face Owen had stolen was similar to all of the others inked on Monk’s ugly hide. Were they the same kind of thing? The faces of ghosts? The faces of murder victims? How was that even possible? The fact that Owen stole tattoos and fed on memories was totally natural to him now, but whatever Monk Addison did was unnatural.
What did that make the man? A male witch? Or was it a warlock? Owen wasn’t sure. He racked his brain for something that would explain Monk and surprised himself by remembering a reference in one of Jonatha Corbiel-Newton’s books. Something called a varð-lokkur, a word that was either Old Norse or Old English—he couldn’t remember which—that meant “caller of spirits.” Was that what Monk Addison was? Some kind of medium?
He wasn’t sure, but thought it might be close to the mark.
All of these thoughts raced through his head while he stood in the bathroom of his old house. The buzzing of the flies was constant, and that, at least, soothed him.
Witches and spirit callers, he mused, then he met his own eyes in the mirror. Flies crawled over his eyelids and nose and lips. The temptation to send the flies out, despite his trepidation, was very powerful. But the risk was too great.
On the other hand, he thought, the flies don’t have to land on them. No. No, sir, they did not. There were other ways to use the flies. Other people they could land on, people who would do whatever Owen wanted. He’d done it many times before, starting with the Cyke-Lone biker Slider—though never exactly like this.
Not like this.
In his mind he could hear the roar and thunder of a whole army of motorcycles.
Would it work?
Owen chewed on that.
He noticed his reflection beginning to smile.