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

57

"Let me down. If we have to deal with sirens, then I'm ready. What should I do?"

Lust chuckled. More notably, he refused to release me. "Nothing. Mammon, you're too wound up. She's entirely intact, see? All we have to do is make sure they don't touch her. Sable can overcome their magic easily enough, so that will be the only threat."

"Don't underestimate them. You've never seen them at their prime. They're weak by themselves, but in numbers, their song can bring down even demons."

My eyes widened. What? "Demons?" I demanded, heart sinking like a boulder. "You're kidding me. I thought demons were resistant to everything under the sun, and you're the Princes, aren't you supposed to be—"

"Not us," Mammon amended, sounding utterly dismissive as if talking about swatting flies. "The little ones. Weaklings. Of course, they're no threat to Asmodeus and me."

"So, just... weaklings?" I repeated, uncertain. "You mean imps, right? Then I should be okay..."

"Ah, my sweet, Mammon doesn't consider 'imps' as demons of any worth," said Lust. "From your perspective, he's speaking of any demon powerful enough to, say, kill a coven or two."

"To kill a coven or two?"

"Only moderate-sized ones, of course! Including covens that are only a few dozen strong, for instance. Dear Mammon's standards are much more reasonable now than he used to be, much more understanding."

Huh? Only a few dozen strong? So, basically any coven not in a teeming city?

"For many centuries after we Seven forged our covenant bonds, Mammon was quite infamous for going around and saying only we, the other six, were worth killing, and that all others brazen enough to call themselves demons should fall on their claws and die."

"Oh... okay."

"Don't be alarmed, my love. Mammon is quite tame compared to how he used to be."

"Don't call me tame."

"It was a compliment. You were frightening my poor Sable. But not to worry, my love." Lust pressed me against him harder and brushed my cheek with his other hand. "If he frightens you too much, I'll gladly finish what I began and take off his head."

"I'd fucking love to see you try it, incubus."

"But we were speaking of the sirens, weren't we. You said they're a sizable threat, Mammon?"

"... There are a lot of them here. And there are more gathering. The more sirens, the more powerful their song. Even if we were at full strength, there's nowhere we can take the witch to keep her from hearing them. Our only choice is to slaughter them so they can't sing at all."

"Oh? Tricky. They'll stay in the air where it would be more difficult to reach them."

"Exactly. The storm will slow them, but I don't know how much time that leaves us. It'll be better to leave the island than to waste time and fight them. If they injure the witch's mind, we have no cure for it. And like I said, with enough numbers, they can bring even demons to their knees. How long will she last?"

Oh, great. This just got better and better. If I extrapolated from what Lust said about Mammon's stupidly high standards for his own kind, and if I believed Mammon's claim that these proto-sirens could bring down powerful demons strong enough to wipe out entire witch covens, that meant the threat was far greater than I had anticipated. I possessed zero advantage over any ordinary human other than foreknowledge, which was a powerful edge but not enough to stop anything in its tracks.