Sinners' Kingdom #1: The Book of Lust (Complete)

56

"Sirens? You mean — mermaids? What?"

"Not quite, love." Now both of Lust's hands were on my shoulders, and he massaged them gently as he spoke. "They're closely related, but Mammon is speaking of the proto-sirens, the original creatures of antiquity. The younger siren species adapted to the water instead of the air, but that came much later."

"Proto?" Mammon repeated roughly, downright angry. "They're not proto anything. They're not extinct anymore. They are the sirens, end of story."

"Hm, I'll apologize for him, my Sable. Mammon is far older than I am and was around before the decline of the proto-sirens, so he's yet to catch up with the times. The curse of an elder. Though, it is true that news of their extinction turned out to have been greatly exaggerated, and the proto-sirens have resurrected from the grave. Still, it's too late for most of the shorter-lived world. I know for a fact that witches and humans are mostly only familiar with the sirens of the water now. Isn't that right, Sable?"

"They're sirens! The original sirens. Whose idea was it to give their name to fish women!"

"Mysteries abound, dear brother..."

I didn't want to get in the middle of whatever their newest argument was. Seriously, how many fights could two demons get into in one day? Mammon's throat was probably still healing from that tail strike that nearly beheaded him, too. And now they wanted to argue about sirens and so-called proto-sirens and whatever.

To be fair, I vaguely remembered hearing about the latter at some point. What Lust said sounded correct, going by instinct alone, but I had never even finished reading an elementary witches' compendium of magical beasts and peoples. There was no way to confirm what he said. The extent of my knowledge of even the magical creatures of my own home realm was equivalent to about... I don't know, being able to sing a few stanzas of Old McDonald's basic farm menagerie.

"Okay, okay," I cut in before Mammon and Lust could really get into it. "Just tell me about the 'proto-sirens'. What's the difference? What's their weakness? How do I deal with them?"

"Ah... Mammon will be a better resource than I concerning this. Unfortunately, they were extinct before my time, and they only recently resurfaced."

"I'm a better resource than you concerning everything."

"If you say so."

The sound of Mammon grinding his teeth made me look left and right in sightless apprehension, but thankfully, he calmed down enough to get down to business again. "They're birds," he said shortly. "They're hard to get to in the air unless you have wings yourself. Asmodeus could change his shape if he were strong enough, but he seems pathetically weaker than usual."

"Only until I've gathered my Shards, dear Mammon. And you seem no better than I. Being trapped in that prison for so long and having my Shard absorb so much of your latent power has brought you so low..."

"Shut up, Asmodeus." Mammon growled when his demand was met with a drawling chuckling, but let it go soon enough. Thank God. "They attack a human's hearing, forcing them to go insane by overwhelming them over time. They aren't especially strong since their bones are too thin and light to keep them in the air. They don't have as much innate magical power to grant them flight, so their physical ability suffers for it. But their singing makes it so that they don't need to fight their prey anyway. Listen to it long enough, and you will run around and make yourself an easy target for their talons. They wear down their prey then eat them alive."

I neatly avoided envisioning such a scene. "Seems simple to me," I said, calm. "I'll just have to find a way to block my ears or something. Even if I can't completely deafen myself, that should lower the risk. It buys me time, right?"