16 Lust | Sloth

<b>Lust</b>

"Really, Sloth, a church?" Lust asked, pushing open the doors to the abandoned cathedral. He adjusted his tie, feeling a million times better than he had yesterday and the four days before that. It had taken her absence for him to realize he loved Clare. He had planned to tell her with this grand gesture when she forgave him, but, once the feeling hit him that she needed him, he had no choice but to tell her once he saw her. He couldn't wait another second and not let her know. 'I love you' was his promise—to keep her alive, to keep her safe, to be there until the last very second of his life.

To sacrifice himself for her if it came to that.

Sloth turned around, looking worse for wear with bags under his eyes. He was cleaning his sword with a black cloth, his face a mask of nonchalance, but Lust recognized the tension very well; it was the feeling of being at the end of your rope, desperately clinging for strands to pull yourself up. Something had gone wrong. "I used to frequent this place at least twice a week before you murdered my family," he replied, putting the sword back into its sheath and tossing the cloth onto the ground.

Lust rolled his eyes. He had done it for the good of his brother, but Sloth would never see it this way. "This church? I was sure you were born and raised in London, England, brother," he said calmly, sitting down in the first pew.

Sloth stood behind the pulpit. "You know what I mean, asshole."

Greed took a deep breath. "A few months ago, I would've suggested that you two kill each other, but, somehow, you've convinced two women to love you. Lust has mind control, so that makes sense, but how Sloth has gotten Athena to love him is beyond my realm of comprehension."

Lust ignored Greed's dig.

"Love?" Lust arched an eyebrow. His stoic, unfeeling brother allowed himself to feel? "So you've finally admitted you love her then."

Sloth sighed. "She's my best friend. Nothing more."

Greed looked disgusted. "Do you two get off to denial? Is that your version of foreplay because—"

Lust laughed as Sloth cut Greed off. "Don't talk about sex in the church."

Greed sighed. "Brother, we're literally demons. Personified sins. I think God would be more upset we stepped foot into His House of Holiness than me asking about your sex life." He paused. "Why did you choose a church anyway?"

Sloth lifted a shoulder. "It makes Lust itch. The less time I spend with him, the better."

Lust resisted the urge to strangle his brother. Sloth was right, though, Lust did hate churches. However, what he also hated was how much Sloth seemed to hate him.

Yes, he had murdered his family, but it was either kill them or lose a brother. They had tried to exorcise the demon out of him, chained him to walls when he used his powers, whether it was incidental or not. They had hated every single fiber of his being. When the Sins, finally, tracked down their brother, they had been met in a church with a dozen or so priests wielding torches and weapons, and his family standing in front of him. Sloth had been beaten black and blue, a haunted look in his eyes. He didn't know what he was, that he could defend himself. He knew he had a family, and they were all he knew, and he thought he loved him because they "wanted what was best for him."

His family didn't want to let him go, though. They called him an abomination, the devil's work, evil. They said he was horrible, disgusting, and they wouldn't stop until every demon was gone from his body. It had infuriated Lust and his siblings. How could they do that to one of their siblings? They could kill each other, but nobody else could touch them.

They could've just grabbed Sloth, which was what they planned on doing, despite the anger that spilled over at his mistreatment. But then, Sloth's stupid older sister ruined things but taking her knife and sliding it across Sloth's throat. Now, that wouldn't kill him, but it still made Lust mad. Without thinking about it, he slaughtered the family in seconds. Broke his brother's neck in half, used her knife on his parents Sloth had been born to, and took the cross hanging on the pew, and stabbed his sister in the neck with it. Sloth watched all this with horror.

His siblings took care of the priests (not one of their brightest moments, but they were still children), and Lust gathered his brother, who was alive and healing.

Days later, and Sloth still refused to talk or eat. Physically, he had healed, but mentally he hadn't. He refused to use his powers, thanks to the torture and trauma. While everyone else pondered on what to do, and their teacher tried to use human psychology, Lust handled the problem.

He went in, took away the memories of torture and pain, replaced them with a family who loved him, and bought him gifts, let him use his powers to his heart's desire. As for thr recuse, Lust changed the details completely—he made Sloth think that it was only Lust who came into their house on a Friday morning and killed his family in his sleep. His siblings didn't approve of the memory changes—not at first—but Sloth came out of his room, angry and sullen, but using his powers to try and destroy Lust. Their relationship was never quite the same after that, but Lust was fine with that. It was better than the alternative.

Two weeks. Lust mulled that over in his head. They had two weeks, and probably less than that. The future was ever-changing, and any little thing they did could bring them closer to the world ending.

Greed cleared his throat. "<i>Both sides consist of seven, if love shall fail, then so shall Heaven.</i>"

Lust took a deep breath. "So, seven people? And they're supposed to help us defeat Mother?"

Sloth nodded. "Seven. We don't have any idea who they are, what that means, or how to find them in two weeks' time. We have Athena on it, but she's drawing a blank."

"'Both sides consist of seven,'" Lust repeated, nodding to himself. "Fourteen people, seven on the side of good, seven on the side of bad."

Greed sighed. "I can assure you Mother has more than seven people on her side." He paused. "Perhaps the good seven are the Nephilim, the reformed do-gooders."

Lust snorted. Even the 'reformed' Nephilim were useless. They could barely hold their own against lower-level demons, as out of practice as they were. He had gone head-to-head with the strongest one known to the world a few months ago and hadn't lost an eyelash.

Sloth gave him a sharp look. "Do you have any ideas? Or do you prefer to sit there on your ass and—"

"If I can't talk about sex in the church, you definitely can't say 'ass,'" Greed interrupted before a fight could start.

Lust knew why Sloth hated him, knew he was responsible for the hatred, and knew he should cut his brother some slack—but, oh, did Sloth irritate him more than anybody else in the world. He itched for a fight with him, just to see how in shape his brother was.

Lust sighed. "Obviously angels. They have walked the Earth for millennia. Although, they made a promise to intercede only if it were dire."

"Is this not dire, brother?"

True. The angels had made a promise, though. Promised something that was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite remember. A distant memory, vague and said over lessons that were quickly forgotten in favor of using his powers. What he did remember was that angels no longer walked Earth to help humans. That didn't sound right, though. Angels were still around; he had seen them before, skirted past their positive energy many times (that also made him itch) as they saved stupid, careless humans from accidentally running into traffic or blowing themselves up. He shook the thought off. It'd come to him later.

Greed groaned, frustrated. "Either way, there are seven people we have to find in two weeks, and we have no leads, nothing but a prophecy, two girls hurdling toward their deaths, and a lot of questions."

Lust stood, pacing. "We have some leads, actually. I had a visitor last week, another demon. He didn't give me his name, just these slips of paper." He reached into his back pocket, pulling out the aged papers. "This is the section about Mother that has been cut out of my journal."

The thing was, he couldn't read it. It wasn't written in any of the languages he spoke, which was all of them. No, this language was written in the First Language, the one spoken by angels and God long before Satan was cast out of Heaven. Lust had questioned the demon, but the demon had only grunted at him, told him to do his best by saving the world because he had a warlock at home (a child that was half demon, half human), and he loved her more than anything.

Greed took the papers from him. "Is this the First Language?"

Sloth took a deep breath. "So, again, we have no leads. The only people who know how to read this are: God, the angels, Satan, and Mother. God doesn't make personal calls, last time I checked. The angels are disgusted by us. Dear old Dad likes havoc, and we very well can't ask Mother to decipher something that could help us put her back into the ground."

Lust shrugged. "Hillary sent the demon my way for a reason."

Greed sighed. "Now, can she send us someone that can read First Language?"

Sloth looked toward the sky. "Divine Intervention would be great right now," he muttered.

Lust felt every bit of his frustration. For the time being, Clare was safe, but Mother could change her mind at any moment. She could decide to kill both of them for fun. What would the world look like if she rose? A demon could kill her for fun. A possessed human could do it. The world wouldn't be a safe place for her to live.

They had to do something. Soon.

Greed laughed, but it was without humor. "We'll do better fighting Mother in hand-to-hand combat than waiting for help from Him. In case you forgot, God doesn't really help our kind."

Lust paused. "'For God shows no partiality.' Romans 2:11."

"I thought you hated church." A ghost of a grin crossed Sloth's face.

"I do, but the Bible has some interesting stories in it." He had read it multiple times, looking for answers to questions he had. He never found his answers. Humans were idiots. "It's like fairy tales for demons."

Sloth smiled. Lust felt a little something in him turn—the part of him that had buried having a good relationship with his younger brother. "How about this one, Greed—'Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him.' Isaiah 30:18."

Greed sighed. "You two are trying to convince me, someone who only goes into church to find souls that are easily corrupted, that God will send us a sign by quoting bible verses to me?" He laughed—loudly. His whole body trembled with his laugh. It was a crazy laugh, a laugh that said he found nothing funny, but it was a better action than what he wanted to do. Which, knowing Greed, Lust assumed he wanted to go out and destroy some things, then have sex with some women.

His brother was more lustful than him.

Sloth and Lust made eye contact. What do we do? Sloth asked, and it wasn't about Greed because their brother could handle themselves. It was about Clare and Athena. Greed might like them, want to protect them, but he didn't feel the same way they did about him. He couldn't.

Lust had no idea. Until they could translate these papers, they were at a loss. Find someone who can read the First Language.

Suddenly, Greed stopped laughing. "This is stupid," he growled. "Clare and Athena will die, if not when Mother rises, then when they inevitably get murdered by the world ending. We're sitting in a church quoting bible verses and figuring this out, but the thing is there is no solution." With that, he slammed his fist on the table next to him. Something clattered to the ground.

All three of them looked. Greed bent down and picked it up. It was a saber, matching the one Sloth had found all those years ago, complete with the opal stone in it. When Greed touched it, his mouth dropped. "What is this?" he asked, showing them. It was dusty, but there was a small light flickering in it like it was desperately holding on to its life.

"That," Sloth grinned, "is Divine Intervention."

<b>Sloth</b>

Sloth closed the door behind him. Silence filled his ears, and the smell of chicken and sausage gumbo filled his nostrils. The smell was hours old, meaning the food had been cooked and put away. He walked past the kitchen, looking inside of it. A bowl was on the table with a plastic top over it. "Athena?" he called. No answer.

The past five days without his best friend had been, to sum it up in one word, long. Of course, he could add torturous. Strenuous. Infuriating. But 'long' worked just fine.

The lead ended up being a trap. Sloth had easily fought them off before going to the Underworld to find the demon who had set him up. There, he had spoken with some demons, who wanted to pledge their loyalties to him. Demons who had children and wanted them safe in this new world. Instead of killing the demon—which he felt like doing a day or two later on a whim just because he could—he amassed a small army who wanted to protect Athena and Clare. They were willing to die to protect their kids. Sloth wondered what that was like; he would die to protect Athena, but to love someone more than that? It felt damn near impossible.

Sloth paused in the hallway, listening. No music, no television, not even the sound of something coming from her headphones. The training room. He teleported to the top of the stairs, unable to wait. He knocked once before opened the door. "Athena?"

She slept on the bean bag chair, a blanket thrown over her carelessly, two books on either side of her: the Bible, and the other a green faded journal. She slept soundlessly, both books laying closed at her feet. On the opposite side of her, a TV show was paused on her tablet.

Sloth walked over to her, kneeling down to lift her up and bring her to bed. He would talk to her tomorrow when she woke up, see what had been happening with her the past few days. If she had learned anything new while he was gone. Before he could touch her, though, her eyes flickered open. She blinked, her lips pulled down into a frown as she looked around. "Bash?" Her voice was quiet, still entangled in sleep. Then she grinned, eyes still low. "You're back."

He chuckled, brushing her wild hair down. "Yeah, I'm back."

Her smile dropped suddenly, replaced by a frown. "You were only supposed to be gone for two days. It's been a week."

"Five days." He pulled the blanket back, nudging her over and sitting on the bean bag next to her.

"Was your trip worth it at least?" She snuggled against him, head on his shoulder. If—when—they survived this, he would never take another touch of hers for granted.

His trip was worth it to some degree. He had more people to defend her and watch out for her, even to protect her on the eventual battlefield. However, he was no closer to information than he had been before. "The lead was a dead end." He didn't want to worry her and tell her about how he was set up; it didn't matter anyway because she was safe now. "I did visit the Underworld for the first time in a few years, talked to some people."

She leaned her head on him, burrowing further under the blanket. Athena was warm and comfortable, familiar. "Was it fun?" she questioned.

"Fun? It's the Underworld." He put his arm around her shoulder, tucking her in closer. ��I made some important connections for the future."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out if she would question him further. He really had nothing to tell except shaking hands and threatening demons, his usual. Nothing interesting. Apparently, she thought so, too, because she changed the subject. "Well, I have to live here permanently," she announced.

He didn't mind that at all. In fact, he rather liked it. "Why?"

"I went to my room after class to take a nap Wednesday, and midway through, the door opens. It's Hillary. Or it's supposed to be." She rolled her eyes as if this was the biggest inconvenience of her life. His stomach turned; he wouldn't like the ending to this story. "It was a demon, though, one of the copy cat demons. I caught on rather early, and we had a teeny fight, but I hacked its head off."

She sounded proud of herself, he heard the reluctance in her tone, too. He'd be angry—and he was—and she knew it, and she didn't want to tell him.

Although he was proud of her—it was a far cry from getting beat up a week and some change ago—for going from almost dying to actually taking down a demon, he hated that she had been in that situation, to begin with. "How did you do it?" he asked her. As soon as her eyes closed again, he would pay Greed a visit. Just to talk.

"My saber. I lured him closer by throwing the knife Griffin gave me at him, and then boom!" She tossed her hands into the air, demonstrating the explosion. "I sliced his neck. Not before he cut me, though. I didn't notice at first, but now I have a scar." She pulled her shirt down to show him the four-inch scar right there.

"The craziest part," she finished, "was that Hillary came in, like, a minute or two after I killed the demon. I almost got her, too, thinking she was a demon, but she convinced she was actually Hillary."

Sloth stared back at her, slightly amused. "How did she do that?"

"She knew about the jellyfish nipple situation."

He blinked at her, a grin tugging the corners of his mouth. "The jellyfish nipple situation?"

"I'm never speaking of that."

He laughed, a little bit of the anger ebbing. He'd get the story one day, he was sure of it. After all of this was said and done, he'd get the story from her. "Anything else happened?" he asked.

"Well, she knew about Griffin, too."

Athena stared at him, slightly peeved, waiting for an answer. Of course, she knew about Griffin—Hillary had been the family psychic for years now, thanks to Patrick and an unfortunate incident involving a clock, an assassin, a pair of green boots, and a Labrador Retriever. "Yes, but I couldn't tell you."

He had wanted to, he truly had. What Hillary told Athena, though, was up to Hillary—not him. Also, Hillary had kept his secret until he was ready to tell it.

"That's what Hillary said, too," Athena grumbled.

"Just like you didn't tell Hillary my secret, I didn't tell you hers." He yawned. He hadn't slept more than three or four hours in a few days. "Where was Greed during this attack?"

"He said he had some other business to attend to." She shrugged.

"Ah."

Athena arched an eyebrow, a smile flitting across her lips. "Are you angry with him? Please don't be, I all but begged him to leave me alone."

Sloth smiled at her. He had gone for nonchalance but apparently had failed. "You could've been killed."

She shrugged. "But I wasn't. Just go easy on Griffin, he's been really nice to me this week. I know you have a tendency to be mean."

Mean. He almost laughed. That would be an understatement. Greed would be taken care of so well, he would never leave Athena alone again. Or anyone else for that matter. Sloth had years of torture under his belt. "I won't make any promises." He couldn't; he was quite furious. The only thing preventing him from punching Greed in the face at the moment was the utter excitement at seeing his friend after a week.

Athena pursed her lips, but she didn't push the issue. "Anything else important happen?"

"We found another saber like the one you have. An exact replica, except this one, had an opal stone instead of sapphire. It's one of the First Blades," he explained. "The First Blades are the first weapons forged for humans by the angels. So angel weapons, but the first ones. There's seven of them."

Angel weapons were forged by the angels who walked the Earth. They put a drop of their blood in the steel, and it made them unbreakable. The only weapons that could crack an angel weapon were the weapons forged from the sword Satan fought with. When he was cast from Heaven, he fell to the ground, and his sword splintered into seven pieces. Those seven pieces had gone into making weapons for the Sins thousands of years later.

The First Blades were indestructible. They had been forged for humans in Heaven.

Sloth could see her mind working, but he talked on. Greed had told him that he had talked to Athena about the angel weapons. It was one less thing he had to cover, and he had a lot of things to teach her in the coming days.

"Each of the First Blades belong to a family, but these two were lost hundreds of years ago, so no one knows who the family they belong to is. Apparently, if you belong to the original family, and you wield one, you can hear your ancestors speaking to you," he finished.

Athena's eyes widened. "Interesting."

Sloth knew that voice very well. Athena had figured something out, or at least she was in the process of doing so. "Are you on to something?"

He was not Lust's favorite person, nor was Lust his, but they had come to a small truce. They both loved Clare and Athena with a love they had never felt before. Sloth couldn't picture not having Athena around. He knew Lust felt the same with Clare. They didn't get many things in life that were pure and good; they needed them. So Sloth would do his best to save Clare too, but if it came down to it, he would always defend Athena first.

"Maybe," she murmured, yawning. "Tomorrow, though. I'll return to these books after Hillary comes over."

He looked at the green book. "What is that anyway?"

"A lineage book, I think. I only made it through the first six pages before I fell asleep." She yawned again.

Sloth stood, tossing the blanket off of them. "You need to get some sleep. You look exhausted."

Athena turned her head away from him. "I haven't slept lately. It's hard because I keep thinking I might be dead in a few weeks' time, y'know? I want to enjoy every second I have left."

Her words hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut. Athena couldn't die. He had lost everybody he loved. It would destroy him. He squatted, getting eye level with her. "You'll have plenty of seconds left," he promised, voice low. Sloth put his forehead on hers, hands on either of her shoulders. "There is a future that Hillary told me about—a future where we both have gray hair and diabetic socks and each other.

"Every time it seems like we hit a dead end, or something goes wrong, I think about that future. That's the only one that exists to me." He squeezed her. "Now get some sleep, Tee."

She smiled at him. "Teleport me to the bedroom?"

He rolled his eyes, wrapping his arm around her. "Anything you want."

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