Of all the times for them to reappear—how could this get any worse? We were in the middle of actual deserted wilderness, not a sign of civilization about so our only reflective exit was the currently disturbed lake surface. While being pinned here by a rampaging monster that only seemed to grow bigger every time I fearfully looked back at it, the sirens had to become a literal headache once more with exactly zero invitation. Shouldn't they be afraid of being torn to bits by the snake monster! Shouldn't they still be hiding and keeping well away from us! Hadn't they all fled earlier because of it or something? God—everything was still so scrambled and chaotic in my mind, but none of it mattered anyway, did it. We were so close to the winged serpent titan that if it really wanted to, in two seconds flat it could ignore Mammon, slither right over, and crush me to a pulp with no argument. I didn't even really understand why it hadn't done so yet. Mammon was dangerous, powerful, and he could tear apart any man in the blink of an eye, but surely that enormous monster could just throw him off if it really wanted to?
My life hung on a thread, on the whim of monsters. It really, really didn't need sirens join in in fucking it up even more. Again.
That Lust forgot to lay the usual empty words of comfort on me as soon as we both noticed the sirens was telling. His crimson eyes that flashed and narrowed as he stared up at the gray mass lapping back and forth across the sky could spare no glance for me—and for good reason. Before, he and Mammon had been so cocky, never doubting for a second that they could handle the inferior sirens because they were powerful Princes, far incomparable. Now? He was in tatters, and so was Mammon.
Things would only get worse. The monsters of Hollywood and their computer generated destruction were all glamorous fantasy, never showing the true, grisly consequences of defenseless victims crushed underfoot. Or swallowed whole. Again. Dead, just like that, with my guts likely on the outside of my body as I took to the grave the last hope of the Solaria line.
And all its triumphs and secrets.
... Yeah, right. Me, bullied by some shitty giant birds and an abomination of nature snake? Not without a fucking fight. Not before I got all the answers to my questions. Every single one.
There was only one thing to do.
Become the biggest pain in the ass I could ever humanly be.
"Let me down," I ordered. "Give me the whip."
I didn't know where the strength to claw up the Command came from. No, I did know, but I wished I didn't, because the roiling, winding, smooth-scaled sensation sliding about in the very center of my being felt oddly and terrifyingly familiar as I glanced back again at the serpent that visibly froze on the bank. It ignored Mammon ripping into another of its dragging white wings and turned its grotesque-beautiful head this way and that, as if searching for a scent in the air. The white-filmed eyes, I realized ever so belatedly. That was why its eyes were so eerily pale and colorless. The monster was blind all along. It must have followed Lust and me this far on scent alone, or whatever other senses it relied on, and now that Lust had taken me into the water, the scent must be compromised.
"Didn't you hear me? I said, let me down." I forced my gaze to return to Lust and glared at him. My aggressive confidence swelled, growing into its new skin. Call it fake, call it forced, but if faking it was what it took to finally take my control back, then I would fake it to the end. I squirmed in Lust's arms and dug my fingertips between my thigh and his hand where the whip's handle had been trapped. "Give it to me! Now!"
It wasn't my imagination after all. Before, when I tried to Command Lust, it had been like trying to pour water out of an empty vessel, tipping it over and shaking it wildly only to get the rattling of pebbles back as an answer. Now, even though the braided strands of power twisting out of me were still wispy and delicate, barely more substantial than a breath, they were worlds stronger, pulsing with life hard-earned.
I had enough juice to Command Lust again, for now. I could see again, albeit only out of one eye. And I had an Indra's Net that a Grandmaster gave me at the top of a blizzarding mountain, because she said it might be my one hope of making it out of this alive.
That was all I needed.
"Sable," Lust growled between clenched teeth, voice forced. "Don't do this."
My confidence swelled yet again. At this rate, it would burst. Go ahead. Burst, then! I was fucking tired of being terrified, of fighting being terrified. But the strength of my Command was already waning. Frustration boiled as I wrestled with the last droplets of power clinging to my soul. Already! Of course it had been weak, and of course I realized maybe it was only even working because Lust himself was so weakened, too, but couldn't I at least put up a decent fight! Already exhausted again—
But it wasn't all for nothing. Lust struggled, the tendons of his neck straining as he fought the compulsion of my order. He refused to break the stare, but the light of his crimson eyes flickered as if a fierce candle flame had been lit behind them. The longer I stared back, the harder I pushed and pushed, the faster and stronger the glow blazed, in and out, in and out.
My God. It was working. But I hadn't even had room enough to doubt, so I didn't stop to marvel at it. This was as it should be. This was as it must be.
"Down," I ordered once more, and I didn't even have to use up the last speck of my strength to do it. Like a house of cards, Lust's resolve toppled. I slid down from his arms into the water as his twitching arms obeyed my will, and I righted myself with a kick of my feet to keep from dipping under the surface. His only remaining resistance was to anchor me with both of his hands on my hips, the tips of his claws gently scraping me through the fabric of the robes. Just as well. He was tall enough to stand on the sloping lake bottom, but we were far enough from the shallows that my head would have gone under if he weren't holding me upright.
"Sable, my love—"
"Don't. I'm not going to die useless."
"Nothing will ever touch you again."
"That's my plan," I agreed firmly, but it might have been lost in the great crashing noise that erupted from the bank where the snake monster bashed his tail into the ground, cratering it yet again as Mammon went flying into the water, finally thrown off. Oh, shit. And not a second too soon. "The sirens!"
Like a great cloud of smoke, the creatures swirling together in the sky tipped earthward on its side, the rightmost edge diving towards us in slow motion. No. Not slow motion. From that distance, it might look slow, but that was only an illusion. When they dropped on me, it would be like a falcon bashing into a field mouse, breaking its neck with the sheer force of the dive.
"Yes, we don't have long, we need to leave. Sable!"
I pushed his face away, too impatient to tear my stare away from the mass in the sky dropping towards us. He caught my wrist with his own hand that he pulled from around my waist, fingers grasping me tight. He pulled me closer in the same motion, anchoring me to himself inescapably with his other hand still on my hip. That was when I noticed it. I paused, glancing at the grip he had on my arm with an abrupt frown.
"What is that? What's on your hand?" My pulse rocketed, red-hot intuition sending warning adrenaline rushing through me. "Something... What is that!"
"Nothing—please listen, love, I—"
Wait. I looked to where I had unconsciously pressed my hand to his shoulder for leverage, the handle of the Indra's net trapped between my palm and his skin. Hot? Really hot, and heating up still. Why—? I slapped my opposite hand onto his arm to steady myself before lifting the whip away... to find a fierce, thick red welt visibly rising where it had been pressed a second before. The angry swelling of the mark glowed, scattered with specks like flaring cinders as I stared.
"Sable! Look at me."
I couldn't. Intuition struck again, connecting the dots with lightning speed in my frazzled mind. My gaze flicked to his hand now, the one wrapped around my arm. The strange, striated sensation pressing into my skin... those were welts, too, even thicker and hotter. And... blood? Tiny crimson rivulets seeped out and dribbled away, mixing with the water droplets clinging to our skin as they split and trailed down both his arm and mine.
"It hurts you," I said dumbly. "The whip."
"It's a protective Holy relic. It sees me as the enemy. You've somehow claimed it already. It serves you."
"Claimed?"
"Sable, there's no time to explain! The beast is coming into the water now. I'll draw it and the sirens away. Hold onto the Shard until I return—"
The Shard. Right. It was in my other hand, the one awkwardly twisted and hanging from his shoulder. I was holding on to two powerful relics, one Holy, one Infernal. A confused human who had no business with either.
But I was here, wasn't I? I would make the best of it.
"If this thing is 'serving' me and protecting me," I said calmly, and I pulled my captured hand out of his grip with surprising ease. "And if it's a weapon, it can do something about the sirens and that snake. So tell me how to use it. I'm fixing this shit right now, and you're going to help me do it."