Deadly Sin (Cassandra Farbanks) (11 page)

I got slowly to my feet. My legs were a little unsteady and I staggered over to the bed to see what the time was. It was nearly twelve o’clock. I swore loudly and hurried to shower and get dressed. Truth was going to think me lazy and ungrateful at this rate. I pulled on black jeans and a red sweater, brushed my damp hair into a quick ponytail and headed out. I walked at a fast clip through town. I had to get to an appointment that I was very, very late for. Most people who saw me coming just got out of my way, except for one guy who stood in the middle of the street reading a newspaper. I collided with him, but neither of us went down. I was going to apologize profusely, when I saw what was on the front page. I grabbed it and tried seeing the picture better, but the guy, thinking some crazy woman got hold of his paper, pushed me off.

“Get your own,” he said gruffly and folded it up under his arm. He marched further down the street to just stand, reopen it, and get in someone else’s way. I gave him a certain hand gesture. I choose not to describe here and headed for the nearest newspaper dispenser. It was the local paper and I could get one at one of those newspaper vending machines rather than find a newsstand. There was one outside the Guild Hall. I could grab a copy and still be at Truth’s before one.

Chapter Seven

“I turned into a frickin bird last night!”

On the whole, not the best thing to shout upon entering a shop and looking out of breath with wild, wet hair dripping down your neck. I looked a little crazy and scared all two customers in Grimoires at the time, causing them to promptly scurry and leave. Truth stood on the mezzanine with her private collection of books, tsking as the only energy she now found in her shop was mine.

“Cassandra, you sure do know how to clear the room.” I looked at her puzzled.

“Sure, you yell fire?” I asked questioningly, then shook my head and held up the paper. “I’m in the paper, look. Well you can’t look, but it’s right there.”

Truth walked down the steps towards me. Despite being blind since birth, her steps never faltered. I lay the paper out flat on the counter. The headline read Mysterious Rare Bird Flocks to Fair City. It was accompanied by a blurry shot of some kind of large bird sitting on a lamppost. The picture was sort of shaky, obviously taken by an amateur on a camera phone. Truth touched the paper, turning it around to face her as she joined me.

“Let me have it. As it seems I have no customers at the moment.” This was the moment I realized my poor choice of words and everyone’s hasty departure.

“Truth I’m sorry I…” She put her hand up to shush me as she muttered magic and ran her other hand over the words. This process always fascinated me because it allowed her to read something that wasn’t Braille.

“Hmm indeed, you and this sighted creature seem to have certainly the same taste in accessories.” In the picture, you could just make out around the bird’s neck was my silver locket. I groaned and put my head against the counter. She patted my head and recoiled.

“Your hair is wet?”

“Yes. I just woke up, on my bedroom floor, naked. I had to shower, dress and hurry because I should have been here hours ago.” I rolled my eyes up to see if she was annoyed with me, but she was smiling.

“I think we shall call these, mitigating circumstances. How about a nice cup of tea?”

“That’s your answer for everything,” I whined, pulling my head up slowly and scanning the store. “Where’s Trinket?” I asked, coming out of my funk momentarily.

“She arrived for her shift a little worried. She tried calling you in the night, but you hadn’t answered. I sent her off on some errands for an hour or so to take her mind off it. I will be glad to tell her when she returns that you are safe and sound. Come sit down and we can talk in a much calmer and reasonable manner.” She led the way like some majestic queen while I followed, feeling like a half drowned street urchin. She led me up to her perch, a high back Victorian reading chair with a small table next to it and another chair across, I assumed for me. Two cups were already set out and the tea pot radiated warmth.

“I just made a pot,” she said smiling, pouring first my cup and then hers. A golden green liquid flowed out. One she’d brewed for me before and was happy to admit didn’t taste so bad. Truth took her seat and sipped her tea, waiting until my breathing got back to normal.

“So was last night your first shape shift?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t remember shifting and there was no moon.”

“Shape shifting with the moon is a characteristic of genetic lycanthropy and you are not a lycanthrope.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Well, from what little you’ve told me and the rumors circulating…”

“More rumors?” I groaned. The supernatural community really loved their gossip. Like old women in their curlers under driers at the beauty salon, they talked nonstop, about everybody else’s business.

“There is something more than magic about you. It cannot really be explained, but there are creatures, even some very powerful witches that can change their shape. No moon required.”

“But I didn’t mean to do it. I just woke up and saw the paper and put two and two together.” Truth considered this for a minute and put her cup down on the table. She turned her startling pearl drop eyes on me.

“What did you dream of last night?”

“Flying. I’ve had the same dream several nights before. About flying over the city.”

“And what feelings did you have before that?”

I thought about it. What had I been feeling last night? Scared and perhaps more than a little trapped.

“Trapped, I’ve been feeling trapped.”

“So your unconscious self found a way to set you free if only for a couple of hours a night.” She looked at me and then at my tea. I picked it up and took a long sip just to please my host. I did, however, feel remarkably better for the tea. I wondered if she put a little something extra in it.

“Beings of great power must be aware of both their conscious and unconscious desires, or else the magic will act for them. It is your responsibility to monitor yourself.” I grumbled.

“Thanks for the ‘great powers, great responsibility’ speech Uncle Ben. And if you know your unconscious desires, doesn’t that kind of automatically make them conscious desires.” She grabbed her cane from next to her chair and whacked me in the leg with it. I nearly dropped the cup.

“Ouch! What the hell?”

“Do not be flippant with me because you do not like that you must add another skill to your pantheon that you don’t understand how to use yet. There are people who would kill for some of the power you take for granted.”

“I don’t take it for granted. And don’t you go whacking me anymore, or the cane gets it.”

“Then suck it up princess.”

I openly gaped at Truth who had not said such a unladylike sentence in her whole life. Her body started to tremble. It took me a minute to realize that she was laughing, laughing at me, at herself, at everything around her. When she calmed down, still tittering slightly, I recognized her straight to business face emerging.

“This is not why you came to see me.”

“No ma’am,” I said and she brightened at my politeness. “I need to know what you can tell me about the seven deadly sins.”

“Vanity, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, Wrath and Envy?” I nodded. Those were the ones. She tapped her chin. “Whereas I am not a bible scholar, I could tell you what each sin is and how you could supposedly be punished for it. But I think if you hadn’t already covered the basics like that on your own, you wouldn’t be coming to me.”

“And you’d be right.”

“Naturally. Sit tight a moment. I will need a book from the safe.”

Truth had never needed to get a book from her safe before or even referred to having a safe at all. As old fashioned as she was, I thought she stuffed her daily takings into her mattress at night. She stood and fished around on the large loop of keys she kept in her pocket. I loved Truth’s clothes. They were always tailored to her body and personality. I wonder if that was part of the reason she liked Trinket so much. They both had an unusual sense of style. Today she had on a white blouse with a ruffled neck accentuated by a scarlet ribbon knotted in a bow around the collar. A whale bone corset a gleaming shade of bronze pushed her breasts into prominence. Her skirt, which ran full to the ground, was the same scarlet as the ribbon at her throat and swished around the Victorian button up boots with the lace tops that she wore often, if not always. She went down the stairs and did something curious. She locked the front door and flipped the CLOSED sign to the front. She then disappeared under the mezzanine to the back of the store. I got the feeling that I was about to see something rare that no one knew she had, or was supposed to have.

When she came back, the book she held between her palms looked older than dirt. It was dark, rich brown leather, the binding so frayed that some of the white gauze of the spine showed through. The top corner of the front of the book looked like something had taken a bite out of it. The gold filigree of the pages side seemed charred, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a distinct hand print in something that could only be dried blood on the back cover. She turned it so that I could see the front held a downcast pentacle and the head of the beast.

“Truth,” I said in shock and awe, “what is that?” She resumed her seat before answering me, stroking her fingers over the old worn cover.

“A true Encyclopedia Demonica. One of the only copies left after the inquisition burned them. It took me years to procure this copy.”

“Isn’t that considered black magic?”

Truth looked around as if she expected someone to be in the room listening to us. Of course, with her special talent to see the truth of things, hence her given name, no one could have been in this space and escaped her notice.

“Technically there is no law against owning one, just about practicing any of the rights or incantations within.” I mouthed ‘wow’ as I stared at the horned creature on the front.

“So what is it? A record of every demon ever?”

“No, no, not everyone. Just those that have ventured onto the mortal plane. In the old days when they were summoned, they used to give these big, long speeches. ‘My name is…’ and rattle off their lists of qualifications and were surprised when someone started writing it all down. You can summon a demon much faster when you know its name.”

“Have you ever summoned anything?”

“An incubus or two,” she said as she blushed, her cheeks almost matching the color of her skirt. “When I was younger of course, and far more reckless.” I tried to imagine a younger Truth. For the life of me I couldn’t, simply because she didn’t look that old now. I would have put her in her late thirties at most, but I knew she had to be way older than that. I’d never had the balls to ask her how old she really was or how she stayed looking so young.

“Let’s get back on topic,” I suggested. “How does this connect?”

“Well, each deadly sin had a connection to one of the seven princes of hell – though they don’t call it hell. They refer to their realm by another name.”

“Los Angeles?” She gave me a stern look.

“No. Balmoria. From descriptions I’ve heard, it’s an arid dry place where nothing grows and the princes have to fight to keep control over what little they do have. If they are stuck there, which they can be for centuries at a time, they get bored so they wage war on their nearest neighbor. But a few are in the mortal realm almost permanently.”

“How do they manage that? I only met one demon in my time and she burned through bodies like I do ice cream tubs.”

“I’m afraid that Lillith isn’t one of the smart ones, or as powerful as she likes to think herself.”

“How’d you know who I was talking about?”

“Same way I know you kicked her burning hide back to Balmoria. Stories circulate. Once you become someone of interest in this town, stories about what you do and to whom are repeated over and over. They spread like wildfire.” I rubbed my temples.

“Do you know anything about a dark wizard who’s particularly keen on info about me?” Truth studied me up and down for a few seconds, laying the book gently in her lap.

“Your stalker has returned hasn’t he?” I nodded. “I do not know any more about it, although I have been listening for you, my friend. Whoever is pursuing you is being careful enough to stay off the community’s radar.”

“Except for possibly killing two people, he’s been quiet as a church mouse.”

“Back to topic,” she said, clearly able to judge that this was one topic that I really didn’t want to talk about. Then again, no one likes talking about their stalker. I nodded and she opened the book, carefully turning each page like it might crumble to dust.

“Each sin is connected to one of the princes: vanity to Lucifer, avarice to Mammon, lust to Asmodeus, wrath to Satan, gluttony to Beelzebub, envy to Leviathan, and sloth to Belphegor.”

“And to think I used to think they were all the same guy.”

“Oh no,” said Truth chuckling, “you should never think them all interchangeable. Not only would it not help you in a fight, but they’d find it vaguely insulting I think.”

“Do they use their power over a deadly sin to kill? And are there several of them running around up here to account for two different ones being used in the last couple of days?”