Bad Influence (Seven Deadly Sins #2) ✅ Completed

Chapter Three: I'm Glad You Came

I'm Glad You Came

 

     

I stared at the ceiling feeling sorry for myself for exactly thirty-seven minutes. Deciding that was plenty of time for that business, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and tried to get up for the second time that day.

After a few seconds when I didn’t fall on my face, I figured the day was finally turning around. Ok, so maybe I was a gateway to hell with a tattoo the size of a Fiat on my back but that didn’t mean there weren’t things to do. I had people to save, demons to thwart, a semi-possibly-ok-now boyfriend to check on, and about a dozen meals to eat.

But first and foremost a long hot shower was in order.

I took it slow as I crossed the carpet once again impressed with the coolness of my room. Dante really had done a great job. My room was beautiful: modern yet a little classy decorated in white and yellow. Maybe if Aunt Celeste hadn’t been such an evil witch I would have felt bad for living in her old apartment, but she was so  I didn’t. Right after my shower I was going to get Dante to help me get rid of all her crap from the other rooms and tote anything that might contain trapped souls to a safer place. A safer place that wasn’t in the same room with me, that was. I was all about helping the victims Aunt Celeste had cursed but I didn’t want to see them popping out of old toasters or anything.  

I walked over to my dresser and found my iPod set into a new docking station. I turned it on and hit play. The Wanted’s Glad You Came filtered out of the small speakers. I closed my eyes feeling instantly better as the familiar beat made my head bop a little. I couldn’t move too much because I didn’t want to faceplant again, but it was nice to forget everything for the three minutes and eighteen seconds the song played.

It was nice to forget about the peoples whose lives and immortal souls depended on my ability to succeed at the bargain I’d struck with Asher.  He’d agreed to let one damned soul out of their vessel for thirty days. In that month's time, I had to figure out a way to get the person to commit a virtuous act to balance out the sin they’d purchased from my great aunt.

Get a person who willingly bought a mortal sin in order to get what they most desired without a care about who got hurt in the process, and then have them willingly reverse it by a supreme act of selfless goodness.

Sure.

Piece of cake.

The first one up was Andy Andersen, who’d been Aunt Celeste’s last real client if you didn’t count Chase, and I didn't since Aunt Celeste had given Chase Lust with my help (though I hadn't known it at the time), not actually sold it to him. Andy had willingly bought Wrath from my aunt because she hated Caroline Hayes. I don't mean the flip-her-the-bird-as-she-sped-out-of-the-parking-space kind of hate, or even the normal backstabbing, nasty-on-line-public-hate-campaign sort of hate. She hated Caroline like other people hated Income Tax or terrorists. She blamed Caroline for stealing her boyfriend Pete and pretty much ruining her perfect plan of leaving Blackwater High as a certifiable legend.

How did I know this?

I wasn’t sure but I was betting it had a lot to do with me carrying Asher’s mark now. I knew Aunt Celeste’s last client list the same way I knew random movie trivia – it was just part of my general knowledge (and why I ruled at board games). I knew why these people had bought their sins, what had led them into Aunt Celeste's store, and what they wanted most in the dark recesses of their heart but not much else.