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

62

My body moved like I was still dreaming, slow and dragging like an anchor sunk deep in mud. My mind was far, far away, too distant to wrench back into place no matter how hard I shook my head or how deeply I dug my nails into my numb thighs. Even the breaths I took refused to quicken.

Inside me, the fear roiled like a storm, but no one would know it if they looked at me. I must be the picture of serenity, staring at the ground in dull content while the rest of the world exploded around me, the pelting rain and flashing lightning and booming thunderclaps shaking the ground. Too much. Too loud. Too intense. Against my will, my mind erected a foggy barrier around my senses, blocking everything out until it was only a dull thudding in the background, practically nothing. Fading, fading... peaceful.

It was clearly an illusion. I knew it even if I couldn't do anything about it. For a certainty, this was the effect of magic wreaking havoc on me, but that I was aware of it meant that not all was lost. If I kept resisting, I might break free if it was a weaker curse. I'd done it before. If I could resist an incubus — in the beginning, anyway, and at least in dreams — then this must be within the realm of possibility. I couldn't give up. No matter how sucking the sensation of the void under my feet, no matter how distant and hypnotic and lulling its call, I had to force my way back to the surface.

Okay. Head in the game. Where was I? What was happening? And what could I do now? Those were the questions I had to focus on. Not the panic, but the answers. First: I was no longer in the cave. My sight had yet to return, but there was a tiny enough splotch of smeared color in the shadows of my vision that I could tell there was greenery around us, a lot of it. It had been dark but dry in the cave, safe from threats. Why had we left it? There was Lust right behind me — he must have been forced to put me down on the ground so he could fight — and if I listened carefully, the snarling, ripping sounds ahead must be coming from Mammon. What could possibly have put them in this position? Had they been chased out of the cave? Was that why we were out in the open? But Mammon had been so confident that the sirens were no threat to them, and despite Lust's overprotective streak, he had plainly been dismissive of them, too. Could they have turned the tables on the Princes after all? Were the sirens far more dangerous than either of them had thought?

Yes, the sirens. They must be the source of the constant, violent wall of rustling noises all around me. Feathers, right? I should have noticed that first. The flapping of wings beating heavily in the air along with fierce, piercing calls sharp enough to break through the choking haze and stab into my ears, and — was I imagining it, or could I understand those noises, those calls? But they weren't words. Not English, anyway. Yet there was graspable meaning in them, the sounds leaking into the inner layers of my consciousness and righting themselves until they were comprehensible, little figurines unfurling until they were finally recognizable.

Come this way, they said. Come this way, to us.

The more I paid attention, the more I listened, the more my head hurt. The pressure behind my eyes swelled until even the subtle smears of color staining my sight vanished, pressed to nothing by the heavy, aching blackness squeezing in on my skull. I gasped, too overwhelmed to breathe properly, but choked halfway through the shallow inhale.

Wait. No. Think. I wasn't supposed to listen to it. Dangerous. Focus on the other things, anything but that. I hunched my shoulders and hugged my knees, hiding my face against them as the chaos rolled on. That was right. Sirens, or proto-sirens, whatever, their calls were dangerous to human ears. But it was still storming. Weren't the sirens supposed to be hiding from it? Just like us when we'd taken shelter from the hard rains, but now we were out in the open. Something must have happened. They must have attacked, or why else would we no longer be in the cave? The sirens were smarter than Lust or Mammon gave them credit for. Better remember that. But now I had to make myself useful—