Death

In Which I Receive Advice From a Hungry Tailor-Vampire

It was a whirlwind.

None of this had really hit me yet. I didn't really know I was getting married, and, let's face it, I probably wouldn't realize it until I died and it actually happened.

Even so, I had been rooked into an agreement with, literally, the devil, that stated that I would marry him after my death. And the price for that was winning a war that had been raging for centuries, probably millennia if I understood the time down here. When I realized that none of this was really that great for me, I had already agreed and I was being measured for new armor. Apparently, having a demi-human at the front of the army was good luck.

I was still having suspicions that Pluto wanted to kill me quickly so that he could marry me sooner, but that didn't really matter. I couldn't get out of this. If there was one person you couldn't double-cross, that person was the King of Hell.

Yeah, dumbass. You should've just agreed right away, and then you wouldn't have to win their damn war.

"You look lovely!" the red-eyed tailor girl squealed at me, snapping her tape measure and hopping back. I glanced down to see that she was not, in fact, looking at the armor I was wearing, but at my neck. And she had two little fangs poking out of her mouth.

"Good enough to eat?" I asked, and then wished that I was dead. These jokes were just pushing it. What the hell was my problem? Did I have some sort of suicide mission, going along and angering all of these ridiculously powerful, apparently hungry-for-living-human-blood demons?

She stared at me for a second and then burst into laughter. "Yes, yes, good enough to eat! Well, for anybody that actually wanted to swallow you, instead of just draining your blood entirely out of your body, the armor would make it difficult. So it serves its purpose!" she exclaimed.

I smiled hesitantly. That sounded like an advertisement and a thinly veiled threat all at once, but she was still grinning brightly at me. Looking somewhat hungry, in fact.

With that, I decided that my appointment with the tailor was over. Time to go.

A little late, that, but I'll take it. You're being smarter than usual.

"Well, this has been great, but I should be heading to the War Council now," I said. The tailor looked at me, wrinkled her nose, and sighed.

"Are you sure? You want to meet the Seven Deadly Sins, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Solomon's Seventy-Two Demons, listed in the Ars Goetia, and the Titans? Sounds dangerous to me," she said, raising an eyebrow.

Suddenly, staying with the hungry tailor didn't seem like such a bad thing.

But I had to go.

"Um, before I leave, can you tell me a bit about the other generals?" I asked. It couldn't hurt.

She looked me up and down, and then nodded. "Fine. But only because you're funny. Where should I start?"

I shrugged. "I'll leave that up to you. Just assume that I don't know anything about the generals."

"Okay. That won't be hard. I guess the Sins are a good place to start. There are seven of them, and they each represent one of the pitfalls of humanity. They are the darkness in human hearts, the evil in their souls, and the result of original sin. Pride, Wrath, Sloth, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust. There are others, like Vanity, but it's only those seven that get to be generals."

I frowned. "Okay. Hang on. All seven of them are generals? And the seventy-two demons of Solomon? Isn't that kind of a ridiculous number?"

She shrugged. "Not really. I mean, technically, it's only the wielder of the Ars Goetia that is the general, but it's usually some idiotic human that's being controlled by the demons inside. They keep asking to be released, but we can't have them wreaking havoc. The demons in there were contained for a reason. So. Any more questions, my lady?"

I shivered. "Just don't call me that. My name is Mort."

"Lady Mort, then. How fitting for the Queen of Hell. You'd best be going. Just beware of the Ars Goetia wielder. She's more in control than the others, but she's three times as insane."

I took a deep breath, thanked the tailor, and strode down the hallway, clad in my wonderful new armor. Hopefully dissuading any hungry demon from trying to swallow me whole.

The War Council wasn't far, so I made it in about a minute. I'd thought I was late, but there was only one girl sitting there, at the end of the long table, a book on her lap. She looked familiar from the doorway, and as I drew closer, her features came together. I stopped in my tracks.

"Ness?"