The apartment was cool, the lights left unlit as the Sin of Lust braced her arms upon the rail of her balcony and watched the sun kiss the waters blanketing the western horizon. She smoked a cigarette as the sun dipped lower and lower, painting the seaboard in rich hues of vermillion and gamboge. Just before it disappeared, a flash of green spilled over the skyline. Amoroth knew the crowds on the beaches were probably thrilled by such a spectacle.

The beauty of the scene was lost upon her. She flicked her cigarette's ash into the wind, then snubbed the spent butt in the ashtray. As the Sin returned inside, she entered her bedroom and quickly changed from her ivory suit to her nightgown. Amoroth paused from dressing to observe the pale bandages wound about her wrist and forearm. She peeled aside a corner to reveal shallow, but poorly healed, scratches.

"Bloody shadeborn..." the Sin grumbled as she flattened the bandages once again.

She felt the air pressure shift ever so slightly as someone entered the hall outside her bedroom. Amoroth gritted her teeth as she secured her nightgown and stormed out the door. "I'm not in the mood for one of your gifts, Da—."

Amoroth stopped speaking. It was not Darius lingering in the hall. The Sin of Envy leaned upon the opposing wall as he waited for Amoroth to finish dressing. He had a coy smile upon his lips as he ran his fingers through his hair to arrange the part. He caught a strand between his thumb and forefinger and laid it on his forehead.

"Hello, fifth-born."

Amoroth reeled. "Balthier," she breathed. For a moment, she had forgotten the danger hunting her streets, snatching parts of her territory street by street, alley by alley. It had just been for a moment—a careless, tired moment—and yet the Sin had appeared within that moment as if he had known of its existence. "What...what do you want?"

"Oh, many things." The Sin of Envy straightened as he unfastened the first button of his sports coat, then the second. "Your CFO asked me the same before handing over some forged records." He exhaled, dropping his blazer to the floor. The Sin appeared larger without it, more muscled and menacing. "I will give you the same answer I gave him: what could you possibly understand about what I want?"

He lunged. Amoroth tried to flee through the Realm but he anticipated her actions. His fist phased through the dimension, colliding with Amoroth's jaw, and the blow flung her out of the Realm before she had a chance to fully enter it. The Sin of Lust collided with the glass door separating her bedroom from the balcony, cracking the tinted pane.

Balthier's follow-up attack to her middle broke the door completely and threw Amoroth onto the balcony. Wheezing, she lay prone in the thick chunks of tempered glass as her smashed ribs knitted together once more.

I was too late. Cuxiel, I was too late—!

Balthier stepped through the door. The gloaming hour kept the sunless sky bright—but the elder Sin radiated light like a cruel, colorless star fallen from the darkness of space. Shards of glass rained from his fingertips as he bent over Amoroth and laid his hand upon her chest, just above her heart.

The Sin of Lust stopped breathing. Sins could survive almost anything. Balthier could throw her from the railing, and though the damage would be inconceivable, Amoroth would live. She could be reduced to a fizzle of irradiated ash in an atomic blast, and she would regenerate.

But if Balthier, another Sin, put his hand through her chest, Amoroth would die. Any mortal injury dealt by a Sin to another Sin did not heal. It killed.

"W-wait," Amoroth said. She licked her dry lips, very aware of Balthier's bare fingertips scalding her skin. He could kill her in instant. She had seen him do so to others before. "I-I have information for you."

Balthier's brow quirked. "Information? I did not ask for information. If you don't understand the situation, allow me to clarify: you're about to die. That is all I want from you."

"It's about your contract! About your host!"

Envy's nails dug into her flesh and Amoroth winced. The delighted spark in his eyes died, as did his wide smirk. He considered Amoroth, thinking her words a desperate lie, but he could taste the truth of her words. Pausing mid-kill irritated him. "You have seconds to explain."

"Allow me to live. Give your word, Balthier."

"You'd trust my word?" He snorted.

"You've always been true to it in the past. For good or for worse."

Balthier's nails sharpened, lengthening, cutting the skin above Amoroth's sternum. "Your time is up." He began to press down.

"The Exordium!" Amoroth shouted as she placed her hands upon Balthier's shoulders in a vain attempt to push the Sin off. "Eoul—IMOR!" The pressure lessened. Amoroth took a breath, desperate to continue. "Haven't you noticed anything odd about your hosts? That they've been disappearing and you haven't...felt them go?"

Balthier lifted his hand. He had noticed the peculiarity of it. Several members of the cult had turned up dead, probably to some kind of human feud. Balthier didn't care—but he had found it curious his hosts were disappearing without him feeling the tell-tale itch in the back of his mind. "Explain. Explain quickly," he said, his voice a deep, ominous baritone. "Or I will end you for the aggravation."

Amoroth hesitated. If she told him, she knew what would happen. She knew telling Balthier the truth would throw Gaspard and Darius under the proverbial bus—but Gaspard should have died weeks ago and Darius was always courting danger when it came to the Sin of Envy. What else was she to do?

What could a Sin do when survival was all she had?

"The woman. The woman the Exordium gave up in recompense for your contract—."

"Your point, fifth-born. I grow weary of this."

"She's alive."

Balthier stiffened as he sat up, hands on his thighs. His fingernails had reverted to their typical, if not natural, appearance. "I don't know how you know of my hosts or my contract, but I can assure you, the woman is dead."

"And I can assure you, she's very much alive." Amoroth used the Realm to stand and put space between herself and the kneeling demon, but she didn't attempt to run. She would never reach safety before the Sin of Envy ripped her heart out.

Balthier's eyes narrowed as his thoughts began to cast themselves back to that night some weeks ago. He recalled the tug of the summons dragging him from the bomb strewn deserts of the Middle East, the echo of his name spiraling through the abstraction of time and space as the cultists used their gathered mediums to fling it into the unknown. It had been years since Balthier had been summoned and he had been intrigued.

He answered.

The smell of fresh blood had been overwhelming as it lapped at the soles of his shoes. Fear and fury had clung to the very air, sweat and excitement creating the predictable stink of anticipation. Balthier had sneered at the gathered men and women in their kitschy robes. His gaze had landed upon the slender, blue-eyed girl trembling with fury and fear as she was held by the vampire.

She had grimaced at his touch. "Go to Hell."

Balthier had found her irony grating. He was in Hell. Everyday.

He had leaned closer with the dagger in his hand, preparing to end her life, and as he had inhaled, the Sin had smelled—

Orchids.

Amoroth watched with mounting dread as the Sin of Envy's hands balled into white-knuckled fists, all cynicism gone from his derisive mask. It made sense now. It made sense why the Exordium was disappearing, and he hadn't known. They weren't his host. "How." It was not a question but a demand, a demand Amoroth knew she must answer if she didn't wish to lose her head.

"Darius."

Ice crawled over the balcony's length. It stole what warmth lingered in the hours of the dying day. Balthier rose and faced the horizon. When he spoke, he did so quietly and with absolute certainty—each word a hammer blow tempering the blade of his conviction. Amoroth shut her eyes and wondered if survival was worth the guilt.

"Pride dies for this. Pride will die for stealing my host."

He disappeared.

* * *

In a manor within a marsh sat a man upon a couch of black velvet. Upon his shoulder perched a raven, and at his knee purred a cat. The cat was black in color with bright amber, and when the raven clicked its beak, the cat answered with a series of soft meows.

The man hushed them both as he watched the television bracketed to the wall. The monitor was an odd contrast of modern elegance amongst the bizarre and macabre decorations inhabiting the man's office. In the shadows beneath a balcony lurked a bipedal beast with slavering jaws and braids within his matted fur. The iron chandelier supported a mobile of revolving swords and daggers.

One wall was entirely dedicated to a display of a thousand human skulls.

The man chased his fingers along the cat's spine as his golden eyes watched the images on the television.

A reporter stood before the burnt shell of a high-rise. The caption scrolled and read, "Business dealings at IMOR Advances come under scrutiny as employees disappear and their headquarters burns."

The man flipped the channel.

Another reporter waited outside a hospital. "IMOR Advances' CEO jumps from downtown building in an apparent suicide."

Again, the man flipped the channel.

He leaned his elbows on his knees as a particularly lovely chestnut-haired woman was urged to speak to a gaggle of gathered news cameras. She tried to brush them aside but had been caught outside the doors of her dark tower. "We at Klau Incorporated International do not have a comment on Mr. Eoul's death, as I have said many times already—."

"But, Ms. Amoroth! Sources are claiming Klau has a hand in the disappearance of IMOR employees! Do you have nothing to say to such claims?"

"I have plenty to say. I'd love to chat with your sources, as well." She smiled, but her eyes were as black as coal and she refused to speak another word to the cameras.

The man chuckled. "Oh, I bet you would," he muttered as he eased himself into the couch again. He stroked the cat's head. "Amoroth and Darius get themselves into quite the predicaments, don't they?"

The cat meowed and the raven cawed.

The man hummed as he tapped his fingers upon his lips and his golden eyes brightened. "It won't be long until they visit...will it?"

He grinned. His teeth were as sharp as the daggers above his head. He began to laugh, and the deep peals of his amusement echoed in the space, reverberating within the empty bones of the watching skulls. The laughter left the office and poured into the twisting stairwell, then through the branching corridors.

A lissome man with a curtain of hair as dark as a raven's plumage heard the laughter and sneered.

A woman with blank eyes heard the sound and simpered as she touched the pointed edge of her ear.

All of Crow's End heard the Sin of Sloth's laughter and wondered what it could possibly mean, and what it entailed for the residents of the manor.

They wondered what was to come.

- - -

END

To be continued in BEREFT: DEMISE

- - -