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

80

I couldn't gauge the distance to anything at all with only one eye, or maybe that was the numb, paralyzing post-panic setting in and slowing my brain to a molasses crawl. Well, too bad. I didn't have time for panic or post-panic. I had a whip in my hand, sirens in the sky, a giant snake crashing deeper into the lake right at me, and a Shard burning my other palm raw with its mounting heat. God, was this thing always so sharp, or was I just incapable of controlling how hard I held onto anything now? The edges carved into my skin, biting deep. If I didn't unclench my fist, I was sure to see blood soon, but a compulsive spasm had my fingers squeezing the Shard even more tightly.

Take charge.

My life was mine.

It was up to me to unfuck it, and no one else. Pain didn't matter. So shallow. Unimportant.

"Sable—"

"If you're about to talk me down, I don't want to hear it," I snapped in a rush. I wrenched myself out of his grip—tried, failed, but the point was made—and gestured up at the sky with the Shard in hand. "They're diving! Literally right now! How long do you think you can hold them all off! It's got to be hundreds of them. You have any better ideas!"

"They're meant to prey on you, love. You're too drained to fight back, I can feel how weak you are. Stay with me, I'll—"

"Like you aren't even more messed up than I am! I can see! Literally see you right now!" I omitted the fact that it was only half my vision. Irrelevant, considering that I was about to lose all over again what little I had somehow clawed back if I didn't save myself in about five seconds. Shit! The monster still hadn't managed to catch my scent, its massive head swinging this way and that as it slithered deeper into the water, but in no time—"Just tell me how to use the fucking whip!" I hissed. "It's a relic! Magic! Swinging it around won't be enough. How do I actually use the thing!"

Surprise flashed across his face. What, did he think I was stupid? Lack of with education didn't mean lack of brains. Relics were never so simple, and a Grandmaster didn't personally own one just to swing it around like Indiana Jones. I could never draw out its true power without magic or training, but a relic like this must brim with so much power that even an ounce of it could be enough to turn the tide. Please, let it be. For God's sake, let logic be on my side.

"Lust!" I screamed, too panic-furious to take my eyes off of his even though the sounds of death came ever closer. "Tell me!"

"You have Lilith in your blood. Command it with your soul and it will answer!"

He didn't bother with stupid endearments like "love" or "queen" this time. That must mean he was serious. I had to believe that, at least, as I unquestioningly shot my hand toward the sky. Lust grabbed my waist to keep me afloat, not that it was needed. Scarcely before I'd even fully outstretched my arm toward the spearhead array of sirens stabbing down at us, power flooded out of the whip's handle and rushed across my whole body. It enveloped me in a warm sheen of light, the sheer smoothness of it physically painful. It buoyed me up half out of the water until I was only hip-deep, and it would have taken me higher if Lust weren't holding me down with both hands on my hips.

"Sable!"

A sea of small red welts blossomed all over him like a thousand paper cuts, but I couldn't stop to gawk. Whatever was happening must go on, at all costs, by any fucking means—keep going! keep going! I turned my gaze back to the sky and held the whip on high, mind empty except for only one thing:

Stop them!

The buoyant force was still pulling on me, trying to haul me out of the water. But that was only the relic's residual strength, barely the fringes of the true power that crashed out of the whip and cascaded in all directions in a fierce waterfall, a crashing sea of golden light surrounded by spiraling red sparks fountaining everywhere. So warm—but secure, like impenetrable armor. It swallowed me up like a cocoon and whipped around me before splitting into a hundred spiked tendrils pointing outwards.

Then, with no warning, they lanced upwards, a hundred spears spreading in a perfect, deadly array. They met the wall of sirens diving towards me with talons outstretched, head-on.

The sirens were so close that I saw their every harsh feature in the splash of golden brilliance that flooded the entire wave. Gray-bodied, white-bodied, or black-bodied, with bird-like feathers covering their strange torsos that were a blend of avian and human. Mouths cruelly turned down at the corners with slightly protruding lips reminded me of birds' beaks, predatory eagles and falcons. Their legs bent at an odd angle, too, backwards, and ended in great taloned feet that would rip me apart with a touch. Their great wings were all folded back as they dove, but spindly arms reached out to me, greedily anticipating.

This was my first time taking in their appearance now that I could see. Sirens. Proto-sirens. Bird monsters that seemed neither male nor female but something in between, with only one thing on their minds as the horde descended: to consume me.

But for all their numbers, for all their killing intent, they stood no chance. The great waterfall of golden light devoured them in a great wave, spreading through the whole flock in a blinding sunburst so strong I could taste the light itself spilling down my throat. Yet somehow it couldn't blind me. I stared wide-eyed as the first siren, barely an arm's length away, melted and dissolved into a shimmering cloud of soft sparks. In quick succession, the sirens to the left and right of it, then the one directly behind, all dissipated like nothing more than a puff of dandelion seeds. Another breath—and the rest followed one after the other, turning into a growing ocean of countless golden dust motes that sparkled in the light.

The swell of energy blew through the flock in one great surge. A hundred—a thousand, then more, all vanished as if they had been nothing more than glimmers of a dream.

Be released.

What was that? A voice like the wind in my head, gone in an instant. Did I imagine it? Or was it Lust who'd spoken and my scrambled ears were simply confusing my brain? After all, it was a voice I knew somehow, even if it felt so faraway like a dusty memory in the distance.

Be reborn.

Not Lust! Something else in my head! Could it be—? But all dawning comprehension dimmed again as the liberating light that had filled the sky and my entire consciousness melted away. With it went all my strength. A suctioning force pull the air straight out of my lungs so violently I thought I was going to hurl, but I didn't have the power to do even that. As the sky regained its normal hue and the last of the golden motes flickered to nothing, the ethereal grip pulling me upwards also faded. I would have plunged underwater if a familiar grasp didn't catch me in time, the prick of claws grazing me through my robe. With one bleary eye—was I losing my sight again already!—I focused my wavering awareness on Lust, willing myself to stay awake for just one more moment, one more second...

Deep, angry swathes of red covered almost every inch of him that I could see above the water's surface. Burns! But they looked strange, more like a searing and hardening of the flesh than injury caused by fire.

"You did well," he purred, crimson eyes shining as if he didn't have a care in the world. He kept me lifted, one hand still grasping my arm and the other snaked behind me to hold onto my hip. "But of course, I always knew my queen is unsurpassed."

His face was so scorched that most of his mouth was unable to move, one corner stretched stiff and trapped in an eerie half-crescent of a smile. His every word slurred. Yet that wasn't the reason I could barely understand him. The fog in my head blossomed, blocking all sense and strangling my wits. Even when Lust looked over his shoulder, the seared skin of his bare neck, shoulders, and chest stretching and cracking painfully as he turned, I didn't comprehend what he was looking at until he spoke once more.

"The beast is subdued, too, for now. I imagine Mammon is in no position to resist, either, but its bulk must have shielded him somewhat. I'm sure he'll join us shortly."

"Shielded...?" I mumbled, rendered brainless.

"You unleashed a sleeping relic of the stars. I would be cinders if not for our contract bond shielding me."

"Contr..."

"Don't strain yourself, love. You're in dangerous straits. Soon, we'll be away from here and you can rest."