Grief is a monster. It wins so often and so easily.
It’s sly and cruel and persistent. Like most scavengers it is opportunistic.
Monk and Patty held on to each other as the black waves of it rose and fell. Alone they might have perished and been swept away into darkness.
But Patty held Monk with every ounce of who she was, and that was a substantial anchor. Monk was her rock in turn. They trembled and shuddered as the waves fell, but they were still there. Battered, nearly broken, but there.
Slowly, slowly, the dark seas of grief subsided and something equally powerful began to rise. First in her. In her mother’s heart, which had been looted but was not empty. She pushed Monk back and looked into his eyes. No, she glared. With heat so intense it was nearly palpable.
“I know his name,” she snarled. “I know the motherfucker’s name.”
Monk gasped and sat back hard on his ass. “You what?”
“That lady in the Fire Zone made me say it. She forced me to say it out loud.”
“For Christ’s sake, Patty, tell me.”
Patty hesitated, though, her fires hot but her confidence flickering.
“It’s … it’s not really a name, though. It’s the name he calls himself. It’s how he thinks of himself.”
“Tell me anyway,” said Monk, bracing for disappointment.
She licked her lips. “He’s the Lord of the Flies.”
“Flies…” echoed Monk.
“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
Monk shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”
“Do you know what it means? Flies … flies … there’s something about that. It’s buzzing in my head but I can’t…” She growled in frustration as tiny fragments of thought, of memory, flitted away. “Shit.”
Monk wiped his eyes with his fingers and stood up, then gently pulled Patty to her feet.
“We’re in the middle of something really out there. Out there even for us.”
“Yes.”
“Look, we don’t have enough to go on except the tattoo thing. You did your tattoo and mine, but Duncan’s was inked by a guy in Doylestown who has a place off of Main Street.”
“Spider?” asked Patty, brightening.
“You know him?”
“Yeah, I see him at conventions a lot. He’s good. A little intense. Got some PTSD and maybe some other shit going on. Decent guy, though. Knows his game.”
“You have his number?”
Patty got her phone, located the number, and sent the contact details to Monk’s cell. He called, but there was no answer.
“It’s early,” said Patty. “Maybe he’s not open yet.”
Monk nodded, chewing his lip for a moment. “Yeah, yeah. Let me think for a sec.” He began pacing around the shop while Patty sat in her chair and watched. “This whole thing is Freaksville and we’re reacting like victims. Fair enough, we are. But fuck if that’s the agenda. I need to grab whatever this is by the balls.”
“How you going to do that?”
“Well … my skill set is pretty focused. I’m a hunter, right? So I’m going to hunt.”
“How? Talking to Spider?”
He shook his head. “That’s step two because he’s not answering his phone. No, I think I’ll make a call to our friend the professor.”
“Jonatha?”
“Sure. Who better to ask about something like this?”
Patty nodded. Jonatha Corbiel-Newton was a professor of folklore at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of more than forty nonfiction books, most of which dealt with myths, legends, cultural beliefs, and religious accounts of the supernatural. She was a frequent talking head on the History Channel and Nat Geographic for shows dealing with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, fairies, and other creatures belonging to what she called the “Larger World.”
“Let’s hope she can help,” she said, though the doubt in her voice was evident.
“And then I’ll maybe head to Doylestown and see this Spider.”
“Looking for what?”
“Fuck if I know. But I got to start somewhere. I mean, do you want to let this stand unanswered?”
That volcanic heat was still there in her eyes. “I need you to find this person. This Lord of the Flies cocksucker. I want you to—”
“Kill him? Oh, you can count on that.”
“No,” she snapped, “I want you to bring him here. To me.”
They stared at each other with all the meaning in her words filling the room, crowding it, forcing mercy out the door.
Neither spoke for a long time, and then Patty’s eyes softened. When she spoke her voice seemed far away. “I always loved going to the Fire Zone in my dreams. She was always there, you know. Always. I could always find her there.”
She. Not Tuyet. It stabbed Monk through the heart that Patty was slipping back to where she was yesterday.
“She wasn’t there. That’s how I found the Fire Zone in the first place. She took me there in a dream. I remember that much. That part. But not … I mean, I can’t really remember…”
Patty pressed the bandage to her mouth. It was all she could manage for a long time. The rain strengthened, turned, blew almost horizontally past the window. There were pops of white seeded in with the gray drops. Hailstones, big as pearl onions. They popped and pinged against the cars. The flashers from Monk’s car painted every other one red.
“I can’t see her face,” said Patty, her voice nearly buried beneath the weight of pain.
“Say her name,” urged Monk gently. “Say it aloud. Keep saying it all day.”
Patty braced herself and forced the two syllables out.
“Tuyet…”
She touched her lips as she repeated the name, feeling the shame of it. Frowning, frightened. But also hopeful.
“It’ll come back,” promised Monk. “She’ll come back. Tuyet isn’t gone.”
“You lost her, too,” said Patty.
“And we’ll both get her back.”
“What if we don’t?”
Monk had to bite back the answer to that. There was one thing he hadn’t told Patty about Tuyet. About their shared understanding of the little girl. He wanted to tell her but was afraid to, because if he was wrong, then maybe she was lost for good.
So he kept his secret for now.
He went over to her, took her hurt hand, kissed the tips of each finger without touching the bandage itself. “We’ll get her back. Believe that. Hold on to it. And we’ll find whoever did this to us.”
Patty Cakes studied him, searching his eyes, then slowly nodded.
“Good,” he said and released her hand with a final kiss. He stepped back. “Look, can I trust that you won’t do something crazy while I’m out?”
She nodded.
“Kind of need to hear you say it, Pats.”
“I’ll be okay,” she said with exaggerated exasperation.
“No beer? No mad dash to the liquor store?”
“I promise.”
“If I order food from Door Dash, can you at least try to eat something?”
“I’m not hungry,” said Patty.
“Not what I asked,” said Monk firmly. “Will you eat something?”
She sighed. “I’ll try.”
He gave her a look.
“Jeez, you’re a bully,” Patty said. “Okay, okay, I’ll eat something. Hand to God.”
“That’s a start,” said Monk warily. “No drinking, either.” He loaded the food delivery app on his cell, searched for an Italian place, and ordered salads, sandwiches, a pasta bowl, eggplant parm, and garlic bread. He ordered enough for ten meals, looking her in the eyes while he did it. He topped the order off with ten bottles of water and a bunch of sports drinks. The ones with the salt and electrolytes. Then he paid by credit card and added a tip, upping it to 25 percent because of the rain. That way all Patty had to do was open the door for the delivery guy.
“Whatever you don’t eat goes in the fridge,” he said. “No sneaking it into the Dumpster and then lying to say you binged.”
“You’re a bastard,” she said bitterly, then softened and offered a weak smile. “But I love you anyway.”
He kissed her forehead, caressed her cheek, and then went out.