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

72

Sable, my love. I'm coming to you. Wait for me.

Lust!

My lips formed his name. It was soundless, even breathless, the vast emptiness swallowing all hint of noise and motion, but even so it was enough to strengthen the flame to a roaring furnace. Infernal power spread through me. It thawed the ice faster now in great melting sheets, swift and sure, licking away the last of the frigid claws that had captured me in their deathly grip. More plumes of steam hissed, loud as screams, and finally filled the deathly silence with the resurrection of sound, of touch, of every sense and sensation.

Lust!

I'm coming to you. Keep calling to me and I will be there, wherever you need me.

I wasn't imagining it. This might be a nightmare yet, or I might have gone crazy, but this much was real. The burn on the underside of my wrist proved it. It was only a smear of heat like a flash in the pan, short-lived and flickering, but there was no mistaking the foreign power that rushed into my veins through the supernatural mark.

Call my name, my love. Call to me.

But... his presence was weaker than before. Though dazed and maybe even dying, I could still tell. What happened? And why was the contract mark so much fainter than when it first etched itself in my skin? I could hear Lust's voice in my head, or maybe feel it in my bones, but it was like a narrow funnel overflowing with an excess of rushing water, only a trickle falling through and the rest escaping elsewhere in a wild cascade. Would he hear me? Could my voice possibly make it to him, squeezing in through the narrow slip of space a drop at a time?

I had to try.

Asmodeus!

A break in the void. A flash of light sliced with a jagged tear across the blackness, color indiscernible as it tore in an arching, forked line across the expanse. Lightning? A storm? But it was silent, no thunder. It couldn't be, even if the way the darkness swiftly swallowed up the light once more, chasing it down like a predator to prey, made it seem exactly like lightning indeed. It was too slow, too thick, more like a sea rushing in to fill an empty cavity than a brilliant arc of light illuminating a sky.

A real tear, I realized belatedly. It was truly a tearing of the darkness, ripping it open and trying to force its way inside. It wasn't lightning at all. It was escape. But the void rushed in to reverse it every time something tried to wrench it open, doubling the darkness, tripling the vastness. It was a war between the outside and the inside, two opposing forces clashing over and over as those jagged lines of light flashed across the universe and speared my eyes with their brilliance.

Asmodeus!

I'm here. I will always find you. Don't be afraid, love. Think only of me. Nothing else.

I couldn't see him. But I didn't need to. Even when I had been blind, he was always there, never far enough to lose me. It was nonsense to trust him when it had barely been three days since I first encountered him in the flesh — even if I ignored that he was a demon! — but what choice did I have? It was the only hand reaching out for me, the only voice searching for me in the abyss. If I let go of him now, there would be no one else.

And in the end, right when I needed him, he was here. Wasn't that reason enough?

The next jagged streak of light across the darkness was wider than all the ones before, opening up enough to flash real colors now: the dark grays of thick, stormy clouds, the fleeting wisps of green and brown that looked like flying twigs and leaves whipped by fierce winds beyond the divide. This time, the scar didn't close. It remained open as something bright orange and red, enveloped in an aura the color of ferocious, starving flames, leaped inside.

But all of a sudden, it shrank into the distance, as if my body had been ripped backwards a hundred miles away. It was too abrupt to plunge me into terror or despair. All I could do was stare uncomprehending when my sole chance of escape, of rescue, became nothing more than a glowing pinprick ember in the distance—

"Sabrael. Wait. You need this."

I turned. My body was no longer a formless, powerless clump of presence. It was my real body again, complete with Lust's long robe wrapped around me. And... blind again. It took me too off-guard for me to be devastated at losing my sight again, or to wonder why I was blind once more. Or why had I ever regained sight in the first place?

It didn't matter. What mattered was that I knew this voice far better than I should, the echoes of lost memories giggling deep in the dark as they teased and teased. This voice — was his. The boy with the feathers, the man... the Prince in disguise.

There could be no mistake. This was him. These were his hands taking mine, enfolding them in a tender, cool grasp between long fingers that wrapped around my knuckles in a gentle squeeze. Then they uncurled my fingers, prying my fists open with a soft touch. What was he doing, I wondered faintly, until something cool and sharp-edged appeared in my palm. It wasn't keen enough to cut, even when he manipulated my hand to form a tight fist again, the object grasped tight within.

"This is what you need," he murmured. "I can't help you more than he can, especially if he has this. Now he can do it. I see him out there... them. I remember now. I remember everything, all of it..."

What was he saying? He was close, voice sweet and soft and his warm breath ghosting across my lips, but I didn't have the sense to even breathe, much less move.

"Asmodeus will take you away from here, far away," he said. "And you have to promise not to come back. Do that for me, Sabrael. Please. Never come back here."

"You..."

"Shh. It's okay. Everything will be okay. I just need to know you're safe." His arms came around me, embracing me with a heartbreaking tenderness that — frightened me. Terrified me. I had no idea who he was other than a single stray memory unearthed from the deeps. So why was I so afraid of losing him?

His embrace tightened. My closed fist pressed between us against my chest, throbbing from the pulsing waves of energy radiating from the sharp-edged object curled inside my fingers. "This is how he's been controlling me. He harnessed this. With it gone, you can be free from this place, and he can't do anything to me anymore. He can't make me do anything anymore. Run, Sabrael. Far away. Don't look back."

My senses finally returned. "Wait!" I blurted. "If you remember everything, who are you! Tell me!"

"It doesn't matter anymore. Forget me, Sabrael. It's better this way."

"You're a Prince, aren't you. I know. I've felt it with Lust and Greed, now you. But how! Why did we ever meet! How could it be coincidence, and how could we end up meeting here, and—"

"It's all right. Trust me, Sabrael."

"Don't leave m—"

"I'll always find you. Even if you forget me. Even if it takes ten thousand years to find myself again. I'll always find you, in the end."

Then with a mighty shove, he hurled me out of the abyss.