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

the heck am I.”
“The library,” the man said very matter-o-factly, obviously pleased with himself for being so useful. Phantom shook his head and sighed.
“I noticed that. Whose library?”
“My library.”
Phantom’s patience was reaching its end point.
“Look,” he said, trying to keep murder out of his voice. “Are you telling me you live here?”
“I do,”
“Then how come when I opened the door all I got was the guest room?”
“Where you looking for the guest room? If you were, then that’s why you got it.”
“I fail to understand.”
“It is a magic door,” the man explained, straightening his spectacles. “It opens to whatever room one wishes to find. Very useful. Saves money on house extensions.”
“That woman downstairs,” Phantom began guardedly. “Is she your wife?”
The man blinked, and then burst out laughing, rolling around on the floor and kicking his heels.
“Haha! Oh yes, that was a funny thing to say indeed! My wife! Hehe!” he howled.
“Well if she isn’t your wife, who is she?” Phantom asked, irritated.
“I don’t know,” the man admitted, wiping tears from his eyes. “She showed up yesterday, and I haven’t been able to get her to leave. I want to force her to leave, but she might do something horrible like sit on me. And with someone of that gargantuan size, it’s no small beer.”
A headache was forming, right above Phantom’s left ear. He could feel it pounding.
“I better go back,” he said. “She’ll be wanting me soon, that is if she’s managed to get back inside yet.”
“Jolly good, I’ll accompany you,” the man said jovially. “By the by, my name just so happens to be Pike.”
“I’m Phantom,”
Pike beat Phantom to the door, and he had just opened it when a figure appeared, looming ominously above them.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” Phantom’s hostess and Pike’s most unwanted guest said in soothing, gentle tones as she extended one meaty hand. “I’ll take the mirror, now, and you can be on your way.”


“Mirror?” Pike looked confused. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Do you, Phantom?”
“No,” Phantom said, lying through his teeth. “I don’t.”
“Oh,” purred the woman. “I have a feeling you do know…very well.” She extended her hand, which was big enough to cover Phantom’s entire face, and reached out towards his chest, where he kept the mirror and chain hidden beneath his leather tunic and robe. He jumped agilely out of her way, and she gritted her teeth, lowered her head, and charged.
Phantom avoided her – very narrowly – and rammed into Pike, sending the fellow skidding across the floor. He jumped up and scrambled to a nearby corner where he could watch without getting squashed. The enormous woman drew herself to her full height, howling awfully and being altogether rather terrifying. For Phantom she brought to mind the image of a captured and enraged bull, huge and powerful and angry. She swung her arm at him, a blow that would have sent his head spinning had he not ducked, and then it was his turn. He punched her in the stomach, losing for a moment his hand in the midst of her flesh. He was never good at physical combat, preferring to use skill and wit rather than brute strength. Or, if the situation called for it, magic. But he barely had time to breathe, much less to think out the correct spell and cast. He recalled Pike’s phobia of being sat upon and figured that the man’s fears weren’t so irrational after all.
Pike was in the corner, waving his arms and yelling encouragement. Phantom had hoped that all the noise might distract the huge woman, but she would not be distracted. She had her eyes fixed on only one goal; the Mirror.
And after all the trouble Phantom had gone through to get the Mirror, he wasn’t ready to turn it over so easily.
Phantom gritted his teeth and his fists clenched and unclenched, reaching down for the small dagger he kept concealed in his boot.
“I took great pains to achieve this mirror. I suffered physical, bodily harm to my person and I betrayed my best friend. I am not about to give it up!” and with that, he drove his dagger through her eye.
The monstrous woman howled in pain and swiped her hand once more, but it was half-hearted, one made out of desperation and therefore holding no real merit. And then she went down, blood pouring all over her bloated face.
Pike emerged from the corner, regarding the corpse with a sort of shock. Phantom went to retrieve his blade.
“That was magnificent!” the man exclaimed. “Marvelous performance! Jolly well done!”
Phantom looked at him.
“What is it you want?” he asked.
“Let me go with you!” Pike begged.
“No,” the answer was cold and simple.
“Please! Don’t leave me here with this … this THING on my rug!”
“I’m sorry. But no.”
“Please…” Phantom raised his bloodied dagger threateningly, and Pike backed down, accepting his defeat.
“Sir? May I ask a question?” he squeaked. Phantom sighed.
“If you must,” he said.
“What was it she was after?”
Phantom’s teeth clenched. Pike swallowed, but waited for his question to be answered. At last, Phantom reached down his shirt and pulled out the chain and mirror that hung around his neck. “This,” he answered simply. Pike stared and traced the gilded edge of the mirror with his index finger.
“Why do you have the face turned away?” he asked. “It sort of ruins the point of a mirror, don’t you think?”
“Because this is the Mirror of Disillusioning. Surely you’ve heard of it.”
“I’ve heard stories…”
“All of them true,” Phantom assured him. “And each one more outrageous and unlikely to be true as the rest. It took me half a lifetime to achieve this treasure. I am not about to lose it, for anyone or anything. I will have to be dead before they take it from me, they’ll have to slip it off my either broken or severed neck.”
“I think that was the idea,” Pike thought aloud, looking down once again at the corpse and an almost sick look crossing his face.
“Do you have any food?” Phantom asked, wiping his blade on the pink silk.
“I did,”
“Might there still be enough to get us through tomorrow?”
“Perhaps…”
“Good. Then I’ll stay the night here, and in the morning, I shall take my leave.” He turned towards the door, sliding the dagger back into its sheathe, and looked over his shoulder at Pike. “You coming?” he asked.
Pike took one more look at the dead woman’s corpse, nodded weakly, and followed.


3
Sloth

Lord Valadik howled in pain and clutched his head when he felt Gluttony fall. He sounded like a wounded animal, the force of the mental blow driving him to his knees. It would take time to recover from the loss, and meanwhile the rafters echoed with his cries of pain on his daughter’s behalf, throwing the sound back at him like an endless taunt. The pain was shooting through his skull as it to come flying out the back and split it in two. A wave of red blocked the vision in one eye, and when he lifted up his hand to feel, it came back covered in blood. He gritted his teeth, understanding now how his first sin had fallen. The bloody bastard had stabbed her in the eye!
The Lord of Shadows stood and spun on his heel to face his six remaining Sins. Avarice looked to him expectantly, only to gasp at the ugly, gaping wound that was all remaining of his gouged out eye. Vanity shuddered, her hands reaching up towards her own face as if to reassure her that her own eyes were still in tact.
“Gluttony failed, needless to say.” Lord Valadik snarled. “You,” he jabbed a finger in Sloth’s direction. “I am sending you out next. Do not fail me!”
A slow, lazy smile spread across Sloth’s drowsy but all the same pretty features.
“Yes, master,” she said, and slowly faded from their view.

“No harm, he said,” Vanity said, her voice uncertain with fear. “He said no harm would come to us! Look what happened to poor darling Gluttony, what will happen to rest of us?” she checked her face in the mirror to calm herself down. Ooh, how lovely she looked when she was worried.
Lust scoffed and tossed her mane of cinnamon brown hair. Envy watched as it fell back over her shoulders like a wave of fire against her pale skin and then touched her own dark hair as if wistful that it could be just like her more beautiful sister’s.
“Gluttony was stupid,” Lust said, reveling in her envious sister’s attentions. “That lumbering ox is better off dead, if you ask me. Besides, if she had succeeded in attaining the mirror, then this whole wondrous adventure would be over and I wouldn’t get to meet that most handsome young man.”
“And what is Sloth fails?” Avarice asked skeptically. Lust smiled nastily, showing all her teeth.
“All the less competition for our adorable adversary’s attentions.”

Pike stumbled out of bed earlier than usual, remembering that he had a guest who would want to be fed when he woke up. The stout man pulled on a shirt, plain brown leather slacks, and a pair of soft brown ankle boots before heading downstairs to his kitchen, making a mental note to fix the stairs as soon as possible.
“At last, you’re up,” Phantom’s voice nearly gave Pike a heart attack as he turned around suddenly to see his guest was already sitting at the table, leaning back leisurely with his boots resting on the surface. From the corner of his eye, Pike could see the living room clock said it was only eight thirty in the morning.
“I’ve been up since five,” Phantom said as if reading the pudgy man’s thoughts. Pike shook his head in disbelief. What sort of inhuman crackhead got up before dawn, and what sort of demon was he housing now?
“Terribly sorry if I disturbed you. I’m just accustomed to early mornings, and I was hoping to be on my way well before the afternoon.”
Pike just nodded drowsily in response. On a normal morning he couldn’t even go to the bathroom before he had a cup of coffee and a plate of something warm, but that would have to wait. He had a guest. With a resigning sigh, he grabbed a spray bottle and a small knife from the counter and went outside to check his traps.
“Bastard,” he muttered grumpily, slamming the front door shut. The outside smelled foully of swamp water and carrion. The nearest trap was just a few yards away near the very