The man was older than Monk but he was fast as the deeply insane are fast. A sudden rush propelled with a mad fury that tightened the entire body into a fist. The impact slammed Monk backward against the arm of one of the chairs with crushing force, driving air from his lungs and exploding pain in his lower back.
Monk was starting to turn, to try and slough off the force of the rush when Spider hit, and it was enough to keep those teeth from his throat. They banged together an inch from Monk’s windpipe. Hot spit spattered his throat and chin and lip. Spider was bizarrely strong and Monk felt himself being bent further backward over the arm of the chair and onto the lap of a skinless dead man. Flies erupted from the corpse and spiraled in the air like vultures. There was a strange sound mingled with Spider’s animal growl—a harsh, high-pitched buzzing. With a swift and terrible insight Monk realized that the tattoo gun the madman held was turned on. A powerful battery-operated device dripping with red ink.
No. Not ink.
Monk’s injured left hand shot out and caught Spider’s wrist, stopping the needle as Spider tried to stab him in the eye. The act of grabbing hurt like hell, but it made Monk grab even harder. Desperation takes weird turns.
“Stop it, you crazy fuck,” he roared, but the man was beyond understanding. The lights that burned in Spider’s eyes were kindled in some other world than this.
Monk tried to hit him with the leather sap, but the angle was bad and the weapon bounced off the bunched meat of Spider’s deltoid. Spider head-butted him, catching mostly cheekbone but bashing enough of Monk’s nose to detonate white-hot pain.
“Fucking hell,” cried Monk and brought his knee up between Spider’s thighs. It was an awkward angle but the man was naked. He crumpled, uttering a high whistling shriek. Monk twisted and tumbled sideways off the chair, falling to hands and knees but immediately hurling himself forward into a sloppy roll. Had he not done that the tattoo needle would have stabbed him between the shoulder blades. The groin kick had slowed the maniac, but did not stop him. Spider charged at him, aiming a kick at Monk’s chin.
This time Monk was set and he whipped the blackjack sideways, using all the muscle of his shoulder, arm, and wrist, and putting a heavy snap at the end of the move. The leather-clad lead disk struck Spider’s ankle and exploded the bones. Spider shrieked, but there was more fury than agony in the sound. He collapsed forward onto Monk, driving him down onto the floor, his head darting in like a jackal’s to bite into the meat of Monk’s chest. In Monk’s mind a ghost screamed so loud it threatened to break the world. Monk could feel the teeth breaking through his skin, tearing the face on his chest.
“No, no, nooooo,” roared Monk as he whaled on the side of the man’s head with the sap. The buzzing sound of the needle changed with every blow, becoming higher and thinner.
The blows should have knocked Spider out, but all they did was break the grip of teeth on flesh. The man canted sideways, his mouth smeared with fresh blood. Monk saw something on his throat and realized that, impossibly, it was a fly crawling slowly from collarbone to ear as if there were no savage battle under way.
Except that it wasn’t really a fly.
It was a tattoo of a fly. Realistic, full-color. Ink and art. But it was moving. Crawling inside Spider’s skin. Above and around them other flies swarmed. These were real, but the moment no longer was.
Lord of the Flies.
Monk pivoted on his hip and kicked out with both feet, catching Spider in the gut, lifting him, propelling him backward against the chair. Spider hit hard and dropped to his knees, and Monk was after him, grabbing a fistful of hair and jerking the man’s head sideways as he brought the blackjack down with savage force. The edge of it caught the fly as it crawled over Spider’s chin. There was a burst of colored light so bright it stabbed Monk’s eyes and then Spider fell, battered to unconsciousness, his jaw crushed.
He crumpled to the floor and lay in a boneless sprawl, eyes rolled high.
On the side of his face was the crushed fly. The other flies swirled away, backward and up and then gone into other rooms or under cabinets. Hiding.
Hiding from Monk.
Hiding from what had just happened.
Monk, gasping and wheezing, bent over Spider, staring at the splash of tattoo ink in the shape of a smashed fly on the broken jaw of the madman.
He reached out with a trembling finger and touched the ink. It was dry. As if it were a real tattoo. Like it had always been there.
Monk staggered back until he thumped against the wall by the door.