"Wake up. Wake up, Asmodeus! Witch, open your eyes!"
It was probably a bad sign that I recognized Mammon's voice the instant I heard it from even the lowest depths of groggy exhaustion — or maybe recognized his aura even before that. I had been dreaming as I slept, a feverish vision that made no sense. Something had chased me madly through a forest while I dragged my syrup-swimming body in slow motion between the dense trees. The thing chasing me had been animal, primal, ancient, too dangerous to even look back at.
The tiny speck of lucid consciousness that had remained intact as I sprinted barefoot for my life had wondered if it might be an all-too-familiar wolf pursuing me, but Mammon's voice had slipped into my awareness and infiltrated it from somewhere ahead. His black-tattooed body rose up, crimson eyes glowing with rims of feral yellow spinning around them, and he had reached for me. To... help?
Then what was the thing chasing me? Couldn't be Lust, either. This wasn't his energy at all. It was too ragged and bloody and gleeful, an altogether different kind of mania even compared to when Lust was at his most frenzied. Besides, there was Lust too, fading into existence next to Mammon as they both ran toward me, urging me to run faster, faster—
"Witch! You can sleep later. You need to be awake to fight a siren's song!"
Oh! I'd almost drifted back into sleep, but at Mammon's insistence, I blearily opened my eyes and let the waking world pull me back out of the simultaneously terrifying yet sluggish nightmare. Ugh. I felt sick. How long had I been out? I felt no more rested than before, sorer actually, and even the light jostling between Lust's arms as he picked me up made every muscle ache and throb. God, did I get hit by a truck when I wasn't looking? Even my fingertips hurt. I was no doctor, but even if Lust and Mammon had put me through the wringer, I doubted it was supposed to hurt everywhere like this.
"I'm awake, I'm awake." I opened my eyes despite the pointlessness if only to prove I wasn't still on the brink of passing back out. Which I was, but... "What do you mean, fight? We have to fight the sirens? It's really them?"
"I caught their scent on a downdraft. The storm winds are exposing them."
"It's storming now, too?"
"Not yet, soon. It's thick in the air. A strong one, too strong for you to be caught in it."
He was right. Now that the last stubborn traces of sleep faded away, it was clear that the rains hadn't yet begun in earnest. A slight sprinkling had dampened my hair earlier before Lust found shelter, but no doubt that was only the beginning of what was to come. I didn't have to be a wolf to taste the mounting humidity all around us. But the sirens?
"Will the sirens attack in the storm?" Lust asked the question before I could. "If it'll be so severe, they'll need to shelter as well. They're no safer than humans would be in those conditions."
Right. The so-called proto-sirens were birds, after all, if what they had explained to me earlier was accurate. Birds didn't go hunting in heavy rains. I should be safe until the weather cleared, which meant I really should be sleeping... And honestly, maybe it was the fatigue clouding my mind, but could bird-people really pose that much of a threat? I didn't feel like I was going crazy yet, or whatever their singing was supposed to accomplish. I mean, I was resisting an incubus. Pretty sure that ranked a lot higher in the list of difficult things to overpower with sheer will than some enchanting music spouted by people with feathers. Just saying.
Or maybe the confidence was part of the spell. I had to watch myself. I clenched my hands into fists and steeled my resolve before tugging on Lust's arm. He had me in the air, I was sure, but I couldn't tell how far I was from the ground with my feet dangling over nothing. All I could tell was that he had seated me on his forearm as if I were some one-ounce sparrow and squeezed me to his chest to make me lean against his chest and shoulder.
"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.
Think. Think. Lust and Mammon couldn't fly, and neither could I, so what were our choices if the sirens surrounded us and just sang their throats out? I could hear them even now from this distance, so far that Lust and Mammon had yet to be able to lay eyes on them, so if they came close and gathered in huge numbers, if the strength of their cursing magic swelled and overwhelmed me...
"The whip!" I exclaimed. "The Indra's Net, the thing Sarina had. She gave it to me, but I lost it when we teleported off the mountain. Is it still in the water? Can we retrieve it? That thing's reach was ridiculous. It can definitely hit something in the air!"
Mammon made a doubtful noise. "Cords from Indra's Net are rare. If that woman gave it to you so freely, it must be counterfeit."
"Yet even as a counterfeit, it was strong enough to take Sable from me," Lust mused. "If only we were more well-versed in artifacts to know, but that was never our forte... It would be good if Bel were here to verify it. He's likely eaten one or two and would recognize the taste."
Uh... okay, no idea what he was saying at the end there, but I was sure of one thing. "Sarina said it would be strong enough to help me against—against, uh, strong enemies, so whether it's genuine or counterfeit, it'll help us now. And the sirens will seek shelter in the storm, so it's the best time to get it. We're in the clear until the storm stops, right?" Hopefully, they didn't catch on that I'd been about to say the whip could help me against the Princes themselves. Thank God I stopped myself in time. I couldn't imagine they'd be excited to let it land back in my possession if I revealed Sarina's true claim.
"Let's just go," I insisted. "It's such a waste otherwise. And aren't you two always going on about how I'm so defenseless?"
"My love, of course you're not defenseless, you have me—"
"I need the whip! Help me! I just need you two to be my eyes for me because I can't find it on my own like this. Please, come on."
"You can't even see," Mammon growled. "The Indra's Net would only be any good in your hands. Demons can't wield true cords of the Net at all, but even counterfeits are disobedient in our hands. They're protected by witch magic and defy us."
"I need it!" I said stubbornly, more determined than ever. The more Mammon resisted, the more I realized how urgent it was that I get that whip back. It might be my sole defense if — well, if things between me and these Princes went badly a lot sooner than I was ready for. God. Why had I let myself get so comfortable? All that self-flagellating over giving in to these demons so easily, but clearly my resistance had been purely superficial if I couldn't even register the importance of having actual protection. What was the use of being on my guard if I wasn't taking any real action?
Yes!
I!
Needed!
That!
Whip!
And you know what? Fuck shame and dignity. I had neither of those left after both demons rode me like I was the village bicycle anyway. If I had to throw a fit to get my way, then so fucking be it, because I. Didn't. Give. A. Damn.
"Find it for me!" I insisted, raising my voice until it echoed in the cave. "Find it or I'll go by myself! I don't care about anything else! I want it and I'm going to go get it! Right now! Let me down!"
Not that I was unprepared for it, but Mammon met me pound for pound, arguing right back. "It's useless to you! And by now it's lost in the water. The currents have probably taken it out to sea and it would take days to find it even if it's been beached! You don't need the Net, you need us! I mean, me! So forget the whip!"
"No! Go to hell! That's mine and I want it back!"
"If I could go to Hell now, I would, and you would be coming with me, with or without that Net!"
"I'm not going anywhere with you! Eat my whole ass!"
"Keep tempting me and I might, witch!"
... Mammon was practically howling in fury now, but if my internal arm bells were on point, somehow the conversation felt like it had taken a distinctly horny turn. Surprisingly, Lust had had enough of it, or maybe he was pissed for another reason. The rich, low, almost slinking quality of his voice was dangerous enough to kill.
"Don't shout at her, Mammon," he said. "Or your throat could very well see far more blood than it already has." His arm tightened under me, hitching me closer. Strange... there was that manic energy surging again, rippling into my skin and almost crackling like static. Only now did I recall suddenly that I'd felt the sensation right before falling asleep earlier. What was going on with him? "I'll be taking her back to the shore as she wishes," Lust continued. "Do try to stop me. Though I have to say, it's not very efficient for us to fight here and now, is it. It might even attract the sirens to attack sooner. Endangering our poor Sable so, how could you."
"You... fucking..."
"Or alternatively, you can follow along to better ensure her safety, yes?" Lust ran his fingers down my arm, making me shiver. "Though I'm more than enough to do so alone, of course."
Movement. He had already begun walking, so we must be leaving the cave now. My heart stuttered when Lust shifted to press a kiss to my chest through the robe.
"As I always will be, of course."