Bereft: Foretold

33 | A Wolf's Revenge

The night sky hovering above the American southwest was a mirage of long dead stars and forgotten worlds.

The Sin of Lust slunk through the dark, unfurnished halls of the modern home built atop one of the desert's many ridges. Her bare feet moved with soundless grace over the tiled floors, and when her toes encountered the jagged points of broken glass, she refused the urge to flinch and continued forward.

Red footprints traced her path through the silent mansion. 

She shouldn't be there. She should have been oceans away, scouring the old continents for a Gate to take her into the Pit—but Amoroth was here, listening to the hushed drone of the air conditioning unit and the tick of a clock buried somewhere in the residence's expansive rooms. Hoarfrost marked her passage as she moved from hallway to hallway, her eyes blazing as if lit by an inner light. 

This was not her house.

That fact was relevant in the choice of decor: expensive but cheaply made, the gaudy furniture spoke of wealth but not of class. Much of it was broken, too, as if someone had come through the halls and had thrown their fists into the pictures and davenports in a furious fit.

She stepped around crushed beer cans and empty cigarette boxes, and as she walked the mess became thicker, darker. There were empty bottles of harder liquors and the paraphernalia of harsher, more addictive drugs. As the Sin approached the living room, the garbage gave way to a host of empty plastic mana vials, the sides crimped by impatient, preternaturally strong fingers.

Amoroth was familiar with this scene. The world was an overwhelming place for many of the second-borns Sins. In the same instant, it could be too loud and too quiet, the roar of it like never-ending alarm bells in their ears, while the silence ate at their minds. The humans who became Sins weren't prepared to kill to survive, and to remember every detail in perfect clarity was its own form of living Hell. Many of them would do anything for a moment of quiet—or a moment of sound. Anything to forget, if only for a moment. 

She had been spared addiction by Cuxiel's patient handling. He'd taught her how to cope, how to understand the change, how to survive the crushing loss of morality that left her raw and shaking. 

Amoroth understood the urge but held no sympathy for its victim. 

The Sin of Greed sat slumped upon the living room floor, back to the couch's side, his breathing labored and uneven. His short hair was flecked with blood and his arms were a gallery of burns and cuts, each healing at the same sedentary pace. The coffee table was overturned and the television smashed to bits, ripped from the wall. 

Danyel only lifted his chin when Amoroth grabbed an empty vodka bottle and hurled it at the wall next to his head.

"Filth," she sneered in Gehen, hating how she sounded like Balthazar when she derided Greed that way. "Stand up." 

Danyel did stand, wobbling on unsteady legs, clothed only in tight jeans torn at the knees and along his slender thighs. The Sin of Green held a revolver in his hand, and Amoroth took in the splattered mosaic of crimson streaks thrown across the leather sofa, the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.

It wasn't so easy to kill oneself when you were immortal. 

"If it isn't the wicked witch herself," he mocked, mouthing the unfamiliar syllables with unrefined talent. "I thought you would have fled the continent by now, but here you are." The unrestrained starlight coming through the open window glittered on the wet, blood-soaked circles peppering the front of his bare chest. "How did you find me?"

"You're not the only Sin with money, Danyel. Just the only Sin who doesn't know how to use it." More shards of glass cut her bare feet as Amoroth stepped forward from the hall's shadows. She tossed a ruined bundle of twigs and witch magic at the younger Sin and he caught it, wincing as he touched his own essence. "I paid more than you're worth, if it's any consolation."