The Seven Sins - Joslinne Morgan (unputdownable books txt) 📗

pits.
Pike watched her fall with horrified eyes. Little red creatures with pointed faces and red hats known most commonly as Fieries that seemed to resemble the fire itself reached out with their hands and grabbed onto her clothes. Whatever they touched was immediately burned. There were thousands of them, as if the entirety of their mass made up the pit itself, and they swarmed over her, dragging her under. She went as if pulled down by quicksand, the smell of charred flesh burning in the air.
Phantom wiped the blood from his cheek.
“Ony one Sin left,” he said quietly.

“You must not fail me, my pretty one,” Lord Valadik croaked. Lust smiled prettily and put a slender finger to his lips. “Shh,” she said. “You musn’t talk. Just rest, I shall take care of them. I’ll bring back the Mirror for you, and then we can spend a little time alone while I tell you how I did it.”
Despite the enormous pain he was in, Lord Valadik managed an evil smile.
“I always knew there was a reason I liked doing business with you,” he said.


7
Lust

“How are we supposed to find the last Sin?” Pike asked.
“I have no idea,” Phantom answered.
“And how will we know it?” Pike wasn’t about to give up. Phantom waved his hand vaguely.
“Believe me,” he said. “You’ll know it.”
Pike was worried. His friend had hardly raised his voice above a gentle whisper since the ordeal with Wrath. It was as if all this killing and adventuring were finally taking their toll. The man deserved a holiday. Pike vowed that as soon as this was all over he would make sure that he got one.
“I have another question,” Pike said. “How do you plan to deal with this Sin once we find her?”
Phantom smiled slightly.
“I have an idea,” he said.

Phantom was resting. Pike had determined that he would find the Seventh Sin on his own, if need be, rather than disturb his friend. Phantom hadn’t slept in who-knows-how-many-days. Time seemed almost irrevelant in the Realm of Spirits.
Pike had been walking for about an hour when he finally realized that he was going in circles. He checked the map again only to find he had been holding it upside down.
“Confound it!” he shouted, twisting the map of the cave this way and that, trying to find somewhere, anywhere, to go to. All the caves had been either marked “closed off” or “unexplored”. Which of course, was zip help.
“Demmed useless piece of rotting crap,” he growled, wadding the map up and tossing it against the wall. He couldn’t even go back the way he had come! Now he would have to find his way home by merely using his instincts. I’m gonna die.
He took a turn, actually he took several. One of them had to lead somewhere, he figured. So he just picked a random direction and followed it, praying that it was the right one.
Oddly enough, he lucked out and it was.
The scent of cinnamon filled Pike’s nostrils. The scent surprised him at first, but then he breathed it in again, more slowly. It was cinnamon, yes, but there was something warm and welcoming about it, something rather…enticing. It was seductive and sensual and comforting all at the same time. Pike grinned. He had found Lust.
He ducked to avoid hitting his head on the low entrance of the cave but he was clunked in the forehead anyway. After muttering a few profound curses and rubbing his skull he turned to face the scene before him.
The cave had been fashioned to appear extremely comfortable. Divans and couches were spread all over the place. Low-burning candles that burned slowly and dimly were in every corner, lighting up the room with a sensual glow. A stick of incense on the dresser was burning as well, and that was were the scent was coming from. Everything was colored in a warm, cinnamon brown.
At the far corner of the room, Pike immediately noticed Lust. She was sitting on the only bed, which had a sheer veil canopy as the only thing that separated her and her quarry. Her hair was that same warm, cinnamon brown, and her movements were fluid and graceful, as if she were floating rather than walking. She placed one hand on the dangerous curve of her waist and pulled her low v-cut neckline down over her full breasts, exposing a rather interesting cleavage that Pike was suddenly seized with the desire to see more of. He fought the instinct somehow and forced himself to remain neutral, but it was hard.
“Welcome,” she purred, her voice throaty and desirable. “May I help you?” she tugged the neckline down a bit further.
Pike took a step forward without knowing it.
“Yes,” he said, watching fascinatingly as her hands moved down the front of her chest and began unlacing her bodice. She smiled coyly.
“I’ll be glad to serve you,” she cooed. “In any way I can.” The bodice was unlaced, and breasts which had been pushed up now fell back into their natural position. The bodice was tossed aside, and her skirt soon shimmied itself down to gather around her ankles. Next would come the chemise, which she was already working on untying.
I actually think I like this one.
“Please, have a seat,” she gestured seductively to a chair very nearby the bed. Pike accepted the offer, and was glad to sink deeply into the plush, overstuffed cushions and give his poor weary muscles a rest. He glanced around the room, drinking in everything. The inscence, the smoke from the candles, the entire atmosphere was beginning to soak into his head and cloud his reasoning. When he looked back at her, he saw that she had been bold enough to remove all her clothes and was waiting for him at the edge of the bed, her hair loose from its bindings and falling in rich, warm waves around her shoulders. Her ankles hovered in the air over her thighs as she waited, a coy smile still hovering about her lips.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get a bit more…comfortable.” She rolled over, and Pike found himself moving to the edge of the bed that she had occupied just moments before. She smiled and shifted to her knees next to him and molded her form against his, her body heat sending shivers of pleasure through his limbs and he realized that he was still shirtless. He blushed.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, and he could feel her soft lips just ever-so-gently brush his cheek. “You’re here to relax, remember?” she pressed a hand against his generous belly and pushed him backwards, and his head sank into the soft pillow. She removed his spectacles from his nose, and then kissed his forehead, her hair brushing against his cheek.
“Well,” Pike said thoughtfully. “I suppose…” her kiss silenced him, and he closed his eyes.

Phantom stamped angrily as he marched down the passage. He couldn’t believe Pike had been enough of an idiot to go and get himself lost, with the Seventh Sin of Lust running amock!
Well, actually, I can.
He turned, knowing exactly where he was going to end up and what he was going to do when he got there. The fate of the world rested in his hands right now…which he could only hope would prove to be capable ones when they were needed the most.

Phantom found himself in a grand hall. He rubbed the back of his skull, trying to remember exactly when he had passed out, and then twisted his neck to see if he could find out where he was.
The hall was magnifacent to say the very least. In an odd, sort of macabre kind of way. The floor was made of glass, with tendrils of red running through each tile like veins. The walls and domed ceiling were painted with scenes of all nine layers of Hell. The only furniture, a massive obsidian throne that dripped rubies like blood and that was covered in a mesh of sticky silver cobwebs. An sitting on top of it was the most grotesque, horrible creature Phantom had ever seen.
“Who the heck are you?” he asked, without thinking.
Lord Valadik rose to greet his guest.
He was in terrible condition. During the fall of his sins he had lost an eye, acquired a broken nose and broken wrist, acquired knife wounds in many more areas than one, and had had the entire left side of his face burned away to practically nothing, the flesh completely melted away and leaving nothing but bone with patches of muscle still stubbornly clinging. Phantom could not help but flinch as he stood.
Lord Valadik opened his mouth to reply to the question, but Phantom held out a hand.
“Wait, let me guess,” he said. “I have seen all the sins. And sins are only part of Evil, and you must be Lord Valadik, who has control of the sins. Which, I’m guessing, makes you Evil?”
Lord Valadik bowed. Phantom snapped his fingers and grinned in self-satisfaction.
“Dang it, I am good,” he said, folding his arms.
“You have killed all my sins,” Valadik said woefully. “Or six of them, as far as I know, Lust is not yet dead.”
“No,” Phantom said. “But she will be.”
Valadik sighed.
Phantom felt to adjust the mirror on his neck, but just as he was doing so, the chain, sensing its master was present, snapped in two. Phantom reached down to pick it up but his foot shifted and knocked it across the floor. It came to rest at the worn toe of Valadik’s leather boot.
“The Mirror of Disillusion,” he said with some satisfaction. “You must admit there is no equal. I know you’ve used it once, on Vanity…” he looked up. “But have you ever thought to use it on yourself?” he turned the Mirror and thrust it towards Phantom’s face.
The face of the Mirror shifted and changed as it had when Phantom had turned it on Vanity, but only this time, the face turned inky black and then remained completely still. Phantom waited a moment and then a look of irritance flashed across his face.
“Yes,” he said. “Good luck even finding my soul.” He knocked the Mirror from Lord Valadik’s hand, catching it just before it hit the ground. “Valadik, you fool, I am the Mirror’s master now!” the chain to the Mirror instantly reconnected, and he placed it around his neck once more.
Valadik howled in rage.
“No!” he screamed. “You can’t do that!”
“I’m afraid I can,” Phantom shrugged. “Ah well. Sorry old chap, better luck next time.”
Valadik gritted his teeth.
“For you, there is no next time!” he exclaimed furiously. He stepped back, spreading his arms. “Foolish boy! You can’t kill me! Evil cannot be destroyed!”
“How true,” Phantom replied nonchalantly. “However, with one exception. I can’t kill Evil, but I